whatsoever." Strictly speaking, no doubt, our author's opinions, as we apprehend them, differ in what many will deem essential particulars, from those which were probably maintained by both of these ancestors of his. For both, it is likely, were strenuous advocates of an exclusive jus divinum in favour of Presbytery, a tenet in which the present Duke does not participate, and which removes the question respecting forms of Church government to wholly different ground from that on which he is willing to contest it. Nevertheless, he retains all the traditional antipathy of his race to the Scottish Episcopalian-party, let us call it,-a faction quite as much as a sect; and treats it with a contemptuous severity which has provoked the bitter, nay, to our surprise, the gross and vulgar,* ire of some of its adherents; and almost moves our own, in that case, somewhat indolent compassion. For the members of the Scotch Episcopal Church we entertain the greatest respect; and though our opinions certainly differ from theirs, we should yet engage in no strife with them for simply prefering their own form of Church polity to ours, on the strength of such arguments as those of venerable prescription and alleged practical utility. In truth, we believe that the great body of our countrymen who belong to that communion, go no further than this; and that is the reason why we sometimes almost regretted that the Duke of Argyle had not expressed his censures in milder language. But when we reflect that his exposure for such it is, and a very unsparing exposure too-affects only those few, chiefly clergy, who advance, on supposed grounds of history, a most preposterous claim to the honours, de jure, of an established Church; and who maintain besides, what we must deem an utterly unprotestant claim to the virtues of the apostolical succession, by reason of which their body becomes the only Church, and their members the only Christians in Scotland; then we heartily participate in his severities, which, however scornful and keen, are never in the slightest degree coarse or vulgar. The Duke is obviously as much above these last qualities, as he is above all intentional suppression, distortion, or exaggeration of facts; and we thoroughly concur in the contempt which he expresses both for the historical pretensions of some Scotch Episcopalians, and for the quibbling, sophistical artifices by which these pretensions are supported. These writers complain most lugubriously, and also very tediously, of some cases of hardship sustained by their party after the great movement of 1638; and they begin to whine as they approach the excesses which, half a century later, followed the Revolution. Surely they are wrong, and ought to speak of these occurrences with equanimity at least, if not with pride. We regret all violence, and have reason to deplore such instances of it in particular. For, if we except their possession of Robert Leighton and the very few who were like-minded, then, so far as we can see, from the days of Tulchanism under the regency down to the settlement under William and Mary, extrusions, silencings and rabblings

See "The Scottish Magazine and Churchman's Review," for October, 1848. From our hearts we acquit Scotch Episcopalians as a body, of all sympathy or share in the scurrilities to which we refer.

were the only occurrences fitted to conciliate respect or sympathy for prelacy in Scotland. But the topic is by no means a grateful one ; and we dismiss it with the following extract from the Duke of Argyle's Essay as just in its views, as it is unquestionably eloquent.

"We cannot suffer any concealment or misrepresentation of that stubborn array of facts which stamp episcopacy in Scotland, from the day when it first appeared in the reformed Church to the revolution, as a system destitute of every element of national life-hostile to the rights, to the institutions, to the opinions, and to the prejudices of the people. A desperate and fruitless struggle is maintained by the zealous Churchmen' of Scotland to represent it otherwise. They would actually have us to believe that we entirely mistake the meaning of all those sounds of struggle, of remonstrance, of battle, and of execration, which assail us at every step as we follow the march of Scottish Prelacy. We can understand the feelings which prompted this attempt, though we are astonished at the rashness of the attempt itself. It would be very desirable, no doubt, if it were possible for them to throw some better light on the life and course of Scottish Prelacy. But we would seriously warn the Episcopal Church in Scotland from endeavouring the task. We do so for several reasons. In the first place, no religious party can associate its sympathies with such a course, without serious injury to its own character and its own reputation. By doing so, it deliberately places itself under the strongest temptation to indulge in the worst vices of religious animosity -to be violent, unjust, untruthful. In the next place, there is a better way of removing this scandal upon their name and principles. They can repudiate the connexion. They gain much, and can lose nothing, by so doing. They can retain all their distinctive, and, as we think, their vicious principles unimpaired. They may say-It is true that the reformation in Scotland did not retain episcopacy; that when its name was introduced, it appeared under circumstances of corruption, and in a false and counterfeited form; that when it became genuine, by being possessed of apostolical succession, it was associated with the irregularities of political despotism-then with violence-then with cruel persecution. It is true, therefore, that it was never fairly represented to Scotchmen, and we are not surprised at their fanaticism having being roused against it. Nevertheless, we deem it the foundation-stone of the Christian temple. We cannot recognise as a Church any communion which refuses to build on it; and we therefore consider ourselves the only representative of the Church in Scotland.' This would be a straightforward, open, intelligible, reputable statement of their views-views which, with all respect to the many excellent men who hold them, we regard as the emptiest superstition.

"But for Scottish Churchmen' to cling to the desperate ambition of nationality at the expense of identifying themselves with the history of the most corrupt and mischievous religious party which ever has existed in any country-to quibble and misrepresent as to the episcopal character of Superintendents,' or of the prelacy of the regents, or to palliate or defend the monstrous course of Scottish Episcopacy under Charles, and James II.—, this is neither straightforward, nor rational, nor reputable. It must tend too, to cast some suspicion on their confidence in those far higher claims on which they rest the exclusive Churchism' of their Church. If those higher claims be just, they had better not be associated with other claims which are so clearly false. On all these grounds, then, the affectation of nationality had better be given up. Let them fall back on their own independent claims. Considering the position of episcopacy in Scotland, the principles of Priesthood, in their most stringent and repulsive form, are its

natural resource. It is natural that its clergy and more zealous members, placed as they are in a country where every parish Church reminds them of the final triumph of its opponent in the great struggle of the civil wars, should be deeply imbued with those doctrines in regard to their peculiar spiritual privileges, which, even under less provoking circumstances, must be so grateful to spiritual pride. But for the credit of those opinions, and for its own internal peace, let it not identify itself with the elder prelacy of Scotland. Let it confess itself a branch of the Church of England. More than once has the spiritual chain, which connects it through the dark vistas of the middle age with the twelve apostles, had its failing links welded at the forge of Lambeth. This connection had better be remembered and cherished-other less honourable connections had better be relinquished and forgotten. It is better surely for the credit of the divine right of bishops, and of apostolical succession, to be connected with a Church which, whatever be the blemishes in its history, has often acted a very honourable part, and now possesses a firm foundation on truth, and a firm hold on national opinion, than with one which, if it deserves the name of Church at all, stands out among all the parties of our history, as the great enemy of civil and religious liberty-as the unscrupulous advocate and employer of oppression-as one of the principal causes of the civil wars of Britain, and as the grievous aggravator of the miseries they occasioned." (Pp. 234-237.)

The force and vivacity of the Duke of Argyle's sketch of our ecclesiastical history, since the Reformation, at once vindicates for him an honourable place in the ranks of our best modern authorship. That his views extending over a period so lengthened, and, at least, in its earlier part, so extremely confused and turbulent, should even among the best informed, and most impartial readers, meet with more than a general acquiescence, the Duke himself can scarcely have anticipated. It is quite to be expected that exception will be taken on various, and, probably on wholly opposite grounds, to the grouping of both incidents and actors, as well as to the relative places and proportions assigned them, on the noble author's pages; for no two men will ever be found who can look at these things from precisely the same point of view, or through the same light of previous convictions. On the critical consideration of this part of the volume, we cannot now enter, for it lies beyond both our scope and our limits. But were we to do so, we should probably end with abating from the intensity of several representations-with supplying what seem to us to be omissions in some places-and with entirely controverting a few minuter details. Our general approval, however, be it worth what it may, is heartily accorded to the Duke of Argyle's historical views; and we cannot refrain from expressing our great admiration of the power, and fine airy freedom, indicating a familiar knowledge of the subject, with which this part of the work is executed. Indeed, the brilliancy of his historical sketches out-shines, and, therefore, obscures the remarkable acuteness with which he detects latent principles of action,-a merit in the "Essay" of which we became fully conscious only on a second perusal, to which we were constrained by the want of an index, and even of a table of contents. Though, in the present instance, we have no occasion to regret the merely mechanical defect thus incidentally no

ticed, it is nevertheless one which, wishing and anticipating a wide circulation for the volume, we hope to see remedied in a future edition. As our readers are entitled to an opportunity, such as we can afford them, of forming their own judgment respecting the soundness of the opinion which we have thus expressed, we submit the following extract, not. the cleverest certainly, but on several accounts the most suitable that we can find:

"We left the cathedral church of Glasgow, after the Crown had attempted to dissolve an Assembly, (1638,) which it had been compelled to call; when the day of retribution had fallen on the prelates, who so cursed their country; when the fevered, but immoveable resolution of the covenant had found satisfaction in the utter overthrow of its enemies; and when its remarkable leader had pronounced a curse on those who should attempt again to build the fallen walls of Jericho! Only six months pass on from the close of this Assembly, and we meet with the covenanting and royal armies, encamped for the first time on the field of battle. On the one side was Charles I., surrounded by estranged and reluctant followers; for, to use the words of a Covenanter, the forces of England had failed him like the summer brooks.' On the other was an army, as remarkable for its grotesque and disorderly appearance, as for the burning zeal which animated every soldier in its ranks. It was an army full of ministers of religion, accoutred with swords and pistols: an army which assembled, at beat of drum, to engage in prayer: an army which was within itself a church; of which every corps possessed a Presbytery, and whose regiments were represented in a General Assembly; an army encamped under a forcst of banners, on each of which was written in golden letters,' For Christ's Crown and Covenant.' Could such men be reconciled to such a sovereign? Let us look to a few facts, which, though in themselves but the trivial circumstances of a great struggle, are not less full of meaning than greater events.

"On the 11th of June 1639, six Commissioners from the Covenanters met, by appointment, in the tent of a general of the royal army. Whilst they were engaged in conference, a person entered the tent unperceived; and the Covenanters suddenly found themselves in presence of their Sovereign. Their interviews were repeated. Charles I., with his high ideas of the divine right of kings and bishops, and Alexander Henderson, who had sworn, and made all Scotland swear, to maintain the rights of Presbytery, as he would maintain the Crown of Christ,' there met face to face, under an open tent. What was the result? Did the personal intercourse of those men, when apart from the streams down which each was borne, bear any relation to the course of their respective parties; did it indicate in any way the desperate nature of their contest? By no means. Loyalty was a principal clause in the Covenant, and was then really strong in the character of those who swore it. Gentleness and amenity of disposition were prominent in the character of Charles. Once met, they were willing to meet again. And though we know that the Covenanters defended boldly, and stated, without reserve, their claims and their complaints, the conference ended in a treaty, which, in securing a free Parliament and a free Assembly, secured all the objects for which these would undoubtedly exert their power. But this was not all. So little did the personal intercourse which then took place give warning of the irreconcileable hostility of principle which urged the parties on, that it was the decided impression of the Covenanters, that Charles had given a more definite assent to all the chief points of their constitution. The fatal hostility of opposite ideas of jus

divinum were, for a moment hid under the language of reason, or the forms of courtesy. The Covenanters returned to Edinburgh, to hold their Parliament and Assembly. Charles returned to London, to consult his bishops. A few months more, and we again meet them encamped face to face, on a field of battle. Mere constitutional security for Presbytery could not satisfy the Scotch Assembly. It must needs be voted of jus divinum. Even constitutional sanction to that system could be wrung from Charles only under mental reservation and deliberate deceit. It was a system contrary to jus divinum, the jus of kings, the jus of bishops."-(Pp. 173-175.)

Our veneration for the greatest Christian writer of Scotland, phraseology by which Leighton alone can be described, had well-nigh persuaded us to quote the pages, (207-210,) dedicated to him by the Duke of Argyle. But we must forbear. The mention of his name, however, reminds us of the satisfaction with which we have observed the continual homage paid to his sanctified genius, by Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, in his "Expository Discourses on 1 Peter," a work of distinguished ability, of sterling and permanent value.

In his Preface, the Duke of Argyle tells us, that the great object of his Essay "is to give a comprehensive sketch of the principles and tendencies of the Scottish Reformation; to distinguish those which are primary and essential, from those which, being the growth of accidental circumstances, are local in their origin, and as local in their meaning and especially, to point out the value of the former in the existing controversies of the Christian Church." This aim is definite, and it is momentous. To ascertain and separate the extraneous forms or ideas, the sudden produce of convulsed and energetic periods, or the slow, silent overgrowth of outward quiescence and imperceptible change -which, like the parasitical ivy and fungi of the orchard or forest, have entangled themselves with Presbyterianism in its notional simplicity, this is a task of no merely speculative interest, but of the utmost importance also, both as regards still existing controversies, and possible improvements for the future. A right solution of the problem which such an attempt proposes, would guide us down to the life and power of our ecclesiastical system; to its bare, throbbing heart; showing us at once wherein its healthful development had been impeded or misdirected, and how it might be set free to act, unencumbered and to the best advantage, against all opposing forces. Until we know what a thing is, we cannot tell what it is good for, or what to do with it; and the attainment, on sure grounds, of the end at which the Duke of Argyle aims, would clear every one of these points. But the subject is obviously embarrassed with difficulty, and still more so with strife. For, besides the refined historical analysies which the successful treatment of it supposes, it becomes apparent when we think of it, that what the Duke undertakes to do for all Christendom, cach of the sections into which Presbyterians are divided, has endeavoured to do for itself; that is to say, each of them has striven, first, to distinguish accurately between the essentials of Presbyterianism and all contingent accessories whatever; then to embody, as it could, the pure and perfect ideal in an outward simulacrum of ecclesiastical forms, which, no doubt, will be vigorously defended against all challengers,

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