Room in which Mr. Owen, who professes to be an infidel, delivers his lectures ;-and that, in this place, on Sunday the 6th of May, at two o'clock in the afternoon, did Mr. Irving administer the ordinance to three elders and two deacons, together with the precentor, beadle, and almost the whole of his church, containing, probably, little short of eight hundred communicants, who had been previously admitted.

Upon every principle, no place in Europe could have been less desirable than that which it was alone possible to obtain. God, indeed, has taught us by it to feel that "He dwells not in houses made with hands;" and that "the hour now is when neither in Jerusalem, nor in any mountain, shall we worship the Father; for that he is a Spirit, and is seeking those only to worship him who will worship him in spirit and in truth." This refuge is of course only temporary: the Lord's dealings are wonderful: it is a place necessarily repugnant to the feelings of every Christian; but God may have designed it to point out the strictness of the confederacy of the hypocritical churches against the hearing of His own voice in the midst of them, and to shew that He would not suffer any such association to break up a church that reverences the ministry of the word and the ministry of the Spirit.

The wheels of God's providence move round the fate of nations; and the dews from heaven fertilize and the sun of heaven ripens, or the windows of heaven are closed and the heat of heaven scorches, according as He wills to bless or to chasten a people. The wheels of nations move round the church; and these rise or fall according as the institutions of religion are honoured or neglected. The wheels of the church move round the unseen prayers of the elect; and the secularity of the priests in the desecration of their offices draws not down, though it provokes, the righteous vengeance of Omnipotence, for the sake of the true salt which is diffused through the mass. The wheels of the elect move round the Spirit of God within them: the living creatures go by the wheel in the middle of a wheel; and whithersoever the Spirit goes, the living creatures go.

The fall of England, the cholera and the sword, has come on account of the wickedness of the people: the wickedness of the people has grown out of the apostasy of the church: the church has cast out the Spirit of the living God, and rejected His voice with unprecedented unanimity: and on the very first day that the Parliament met after this event, the government was overthrown, and a universal cry of a refusal to pay tribute was raised among the people. Let no one sneer, as if, in selfrighteous arrogance, we claimed for Mr. Irving, or for the members of his church, greater holiness than others possess. No; it is of the Sovereign Grace of God that his Spirit has been put into that church. But there it is, and the pastor has honoured

it, and the people have reverenced it, and all have welcomed it ; and a spiritual ministry is there established, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Our readers may be glad to know likewise a few of the legal points of the case, which we will give as briefly as we can.-The building in Regent Square, though called the National Scotch Church, took that name from the accidental circumstance of Mr. Irving's being of the Church of Scotland. It was built by subscriptions, chiefly from personal friends of Mr. Irving, a large proportion of them being Englishmen. Some of the trustees were such, and one of them we know to be of the Church of England; and we have heard him declare, that he should never enter that building if Mr. Irving were removed. Many of the subscribers were positively told that the church was erected solely for Mr. Irving, and that provision had been made against the possibility of removing him. One of them writes thus: "When I was urged repeatedly to subscribe, and also to contribute to various collections, with all of which I subsequently complied, I was assured that no power whatever could displace Mr. Irving on which assurance alone I consented; not being a member of the Church of Scotland, and having a strong objection to contribute to a church in connection with it."

Mr. Irving, however, has been removed and we now propose to consider the question, between the trustees on the one part and Mr. Irving on the other, in its legal bearings and for this purpose will first discuss the state of the cause (to use a technical expression) as it was brought before the London presbytery; and, secondly, the jurisdiction which the presbytery possessed in the matter, and the way in which they exercised it, from the commencement to its final decision. In doing so we shall abstain as much as possible from comment: the bare relation of what passed is more fatal than any comment which could be made on the presumptuous ignorance and the pre-resolved injustice which marked every part of the judicial conduct of that tribunal, to which alone we now restrict ourselves. It is well for the moral interests of mankind, that, if injustice be perpetrated, it should be perpetrated in an unrighteous manner; and that the veil which it is attempted to throw over the ACT should be so slight as inadequately to conceal the real nature of the PRINCIPLES and MOTIVES.

I. 1. We repeat, that the church was avowedly built for Mr. Irving-built on the credit of his name-and, without that, it never would nor could have been built; and therefore it was never contemplated but that Mr. Irving should hold it for life. Yet, as Mr. Irving was not to be the only person who should hold the situation of minister, and the trust was to be perpetual, it was necessary, in framing the deed, to make proper provisions

for the election and removal of the minister in case of misconduct. Not to have included Mr. Irving in these provisions, so far as they could be applicable to him, would, indeed, have been to raise him above all rules, which none have contended for; and therefore the fact of their being made, applicable to him, is no proof for the statements, attempted to be urged by the acting trustee on the trial, that the clause for removal was expressly made applicable to him, with a direct reference to the possibility of such a case as has occurred. To those who know any thing of the facts, this is too absurd to require an answer; but as the statement was made, we have deemed it right to say so much in observation on it..

*

To remove a minister, to sever the connection between a pastor and his flock, is, and ever has been, esteemed in the church of Christ one of the most important and awful acts which a Christian community can be called upon to perform. In all established churches it has ever been reserved, if not in the first instance, yet at least by means of appeal, to the highest authority. As Mr. Irving and the Regent-Square Church were situated, it was necessary to constitute a tribunal, for a tribunal having intrinsic authority there was none. The most obvious, and under general circumstances the most proper, tribunal was chosen-namely, that voluntary association which existed, of the ministers and elders of the Established Church of Scotland in London. True they were in a foreign land, surrounded by persons belonging to other divisions of the Christian church, and removed from the review both of their brethren and their inferiors in their own church; and, therefore, from the controul of that general knowledge of ecclesiastical proceedings and maxims of ecclesiastical jurisprudence which would necessarily be found among their countrymen in Scotland. True they only assumed to themselves, and among themselves (by voluntary agreement), to supply the place of a court, which, so far from being the final court of jurisdiction, fulfils in Scotland, for the most part, the function merely of preparing and reporting proceedings for a higher court. Still they were the best that could be had; and in choosing them it was the more necessary to guard against improper applications, and to lodge the power of complaint in proper and sufficient hands. There were selected for this last purpose three bodies-namely, 1st, the trustees, consisting of sixteen individuals, and who, under the provisions of the deed, were never to be permitted to sink below eight in number; and when reduced to seven, were to be increased to at least thirteen 2dly, the elders and deacons : and 3dly, twenty seat-holders, being heads of families and communicants. The clause is as follows:

"That in case the trustees for the time being of the said church, or the elders and deacons for the time being of the said

church, or any twenty seat-holders for the time being, being respectively heads of families and communicants in the said church, and respectively paying for two or more seats therein, shall be of opinion that the minister for the time being is unworthy or unfit to be continued in his office of minister, the persons or person so for the time being considering the minister unworthy, &c., shall make a specific complaint to the London Presbytery." And then follow the clauses directing the form of proceeding in such complaint.

Now, to a lawyer, it is unnecessary to waste an argument, in addition to the mere statement of the words, to prove, that, in order to bring a valid complaint against the minister on which the award of the Presbytery could have any legal effect, it was necessary that all the trustees, and not merely a majority—or all the elders and deacons, and not merely a majority—or all the twenty seat-holders, being heads of families and communicants, and not merely a majority-should prefer that complaint. And to one not a lawyer, it is surely, if possible, even less necessary to explain that the words "the trustees" cannot be interpreted to mean some of the trustees.' But pass by the technical consideration of the mere words, and what-do we ask of any considerate person-what could have been the intention of the parties under whose direction the deed was constructed, and who have expressed that intention in so plain a manner? Look at the whole animus of the passage (if the Presbytery will permit us to use the expression, since they forbad it to Mr. Irving in his defence): see the care with which they provide that not even to twenty seat-holders, except they be heads of families, and communicants, is this power of complaint committed.

However, the legal effect of the clause is most clear; and, inasmuch as two of the trustees dissented from the proceeding, it follows that the whole of those proceedings, which filled with indignation all, even the most indifferent, who witnessed them; and that decision, which consigned to the open air, or to take refuge in an Infidel Lecture-room, a minister and his whole church, amounting to about eight hundred persons, on the very eve of partaking together of the most solemn rite of our religion, were in law absolutely inoperative and void.

This is so clear a case that we are warranted in asking, were not the trustees aware of this difficulty? They had legal advice, the advice of the very party under whose superintendence the deed had been drawn; and we happen to know that the point was not overlooked: we trust, for the sake of common honesty, it was not very prominently brought before their notice. What, then, are we to think of parties who could persevere in bringing the case forward, if they knew that their only hope of final success was the non-resistance of their victim? What are we to think? Not worse, surely, than of their ever consenting

to bring it before a tribunal which had already condemned their pastor as an heretic.

But it may be asked, Why did not the trustees, if aware of this defect in their case, remedy it by applying to so many seatholders and communicants as, with those of them who were communicants (for they were not all communicants), should make up the number of twenty? The answer is, Because there were not twenty communicants who would have joined in the complaint. Many of the communicants, it is to be feared, did not heartily concur in the late proceedings of Mr. Irving: but that is a very different grade from desiring the removal of their pastor, and still further from descending to any participation in the act of the trustees in making this complaint: and therefore, when, from the conduct of the presbytery, it was evident, that, whether heard or unheard, Mr. Irving's future fate had been decided upon, and when in conducting their case, the complainants had dared to press for the decision of the presbytery in their favour, as a matter of justice to the subscribers to the church, the whole body of the subscribers and of the congregation, seatholders and communicants, members and attendants on the word, came forward to memorialize the presbytery against the removal of Mr. Irving. That Memorial the presbytery in their wisdom would not even allow to be read! A point of form prevented its reception, as constituting the Memorialists parties to the suit, as they expressed it; and therefore the prayer of a whole flock, headed by their senior elder, and about to be cast out from their habitation, or separated from their pastor, was smothered before it could ascend to the ears of this high court of commission.

So much on the objection taken by Mr. Irving preliminarily to the discussion of the case, and which should have stopped these proceedings in their birth: but it was overruled. The members of the presbytery "were all reluctant to have any thing to do with the case, as they more than once declared: but they found out, that because, under the provisions of the deed, seat-holders at their general meetings were to decide matters by a majority; and because the decision of the major part of the committee of management, and of deacons, at their respective meetings, was to be binding; therefore-because the clause providing the mode of making complaint was made an exception to the rest of the deed-therefore they ruled that it was intended that it should not be an exception.

2. The objection having been overruled, and the complaint being taken to be properly brought under the notice of the presbytery, we now proceed to consider more strictly the nature of that complaint. It is, then, not on account of false doctrine preached; not for neglect of discipline; not for omitting any part of the worship of the Church of Scotland; not for changing