These Sections state — (1.) The different subjects which come before these church courts for decision. (2.) The grounds upon which, and the conditions under which, their decisions are to be regarded as requiring submission, and the extent to which that submission is to be carried.

1st. Negatively. Synods and councils have no right whatever to intermeddle with any affair which concerns the commonwealth, and they have no right to presume to give advice to, or to attempt to, influence the officers of the civil government in their action as civil officers, except (a) in extraordinary cases, where the interests of the Church are immediately concerned, by the way of humble petition, or (6) by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.

2d. Negatively. The powers of synods and councils

SYNODS AND COUNCILS. 51 1

are purely ministerial and declarative ; i. e., relate simply to the declaration and execution of the will of Christ. They are therefore wholly judicial and executive, and in no instance legislative.

3d. Positively. It belongs to synods and councils (a) at proper times to form creeds and confessions of faith, and to adopt a constitution for the government of the Church. (6.) To determine particular controversies of faith and cases of conscience, (c.) To prescribe regulations for the public worship of God, and for the government of the Church, (d.) To take up and issue all cases of discipline, and, in the case of the superior courts, to receive appeals and complaints in all cases of maladministration in the case of individual officers or subordinate courts, and authoritatively to determine the same.

4th. Positively. While ecclesiastical courts have no right to handle or advise upon matters which belong to the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, they, on the other hand, evidently possess an inalienable right of teaching church members their duty with respect to the civil powers, and of enforcing the performance of it as a religious obligation. " The powers that be are ordained of God. . . . Wherefore ye must need be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake." Rom. xiii. 1-7. That is, obedience to the civil authorities is a religious duty, and may be taught and enforced by Church courts upon church members.

5th. Negatively. All synods and councils since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred ; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice; but to be used as a help in both. Thit is, these synods and councils, consisting of

uninspired men, have no power to bind the conscience, and their authority cannot exclude the right, nor excuse the obligation, of private judgment. If their judgments are unwise, but not directly opposed to the will of God, the private member should submit for peace' sake. If their decisions are opposed plainly to the word of God, the private member should disregard them and take the penalty.

6th. Positively. But in every case in which the decrees of these ecclesiastical courts are consonant to the word of God, they are to be received by all subject to the jurisdiction of said court, not only because of the fact that they do agreee with the word of God, but also because of the proper authority of the court itself as a court of Jesus Christ, appointed by him, and therefore ministerially representing him in all of its legitimate actions.

The Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in the act by which they adopted the Confession, make a special reference to this section, and expressly declare that they understood it " only of kirks not settled or constituted in point of government;" and while they admit that "in such kirks a synod of ministers, and other fit persons, may be called by the magistrates' authority and nomination, without any other call, to consult and advise with about matters of religion," they assert that this " ought not to be done in kirks constituted and settled," and that it is always free to the ministers and iiiling elders " to assemble together synodically, as well pro re nata as at the ordinary times, upon delegation from the Churches, by the intrinsical power received from Christ, as often as it is necessary for the good of the Church so to assemble, in case the magistrate, to the detriment of *he Church, withhold or deny his consent." Our Reformers, it is well known, were ever jealous of the least encroachment upon the independence of the Church. Her intrinsic power to convene her own Assemblies occupied a prominent I'lace in all their contendings with the Crown. Their maxim • Stevenson on the Offices of Christ, pp. 347, 318.

was : " Take from us the freedom of Assemblies, and take from us the Evangel." At the period of the first Reformation this power was both claimed and exercised. The Church held her first Assembly, in 1560, solely in virtue of her own proper authority, under Christ her head; and for at least twenty years — during which time there were no fewer than thirty-nine or forty Assemblies — the sovereign was not present, either in person or by a representative, as afterwards became the custom. At the era of the second Reformation, the intrinsic power of the Church was nobly vindicated by the famous Assembly held in Glasgow in 1 638. Although the king's commissioner dissolved the Assembly in his master's name, and discharged their further proceedings, under the highest penalties, yet the Assembly, claiming an intrinsical power from the Lord Jesus Christ, continued their sessions and proceeded with the important business for which they had met. It must be acknowledged, however, that in the Act of 1592 — which has been considered as the Magna ChaHa of the Established Church, and which the Act of 1690 revived and confirmed — the right of the Church to appoint her own Assemblies was not sufficiently secured. This right is conceded only when neither the king nor his commissioner is present. Accordingly, immediately after the Revolution, the Assemblies of the Church were often abruptly dissolved, and repeatedly adjourned, by the royal authority.

" This point (the power of freely meeting and dissolving by the Church's own authority), that so often was contested between the Crown and the Presbyterian courts in Scotland, is of far greater importance to ecclesiastical independence and liberty than at first it may appear to be. Without this being retained and secured, a little reflection may show that the exercise of any other powers they may claim, may be rendered, by the will of a superior, not only precarious, but altogether nugatory and void. It is well known that this arbitrary exercise of prerogative, in calling and dissolving Parliaments, had rendered them powerless, and they were in danger by it of being utterly abolished ; nor did the nation reckon their civil liberties at all secure, till annual or regular meetings of Parliament were secured by law. The danger would be equal and the effect similar, if ecclesiastical assemblies were made, in this respect, wholly dependent on the Crown; of which the history of the English Convocation affords a striking evidence." *