The Disruption of the Scottish Church-Establishment, by an Elder of the Free Church

Author(s): Craufurd, Lord James

THE
DISRUPTION
OF THE
SCOTTISH CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT.
BY
AN ELDER OF THE FREE CHURCH.
"God alone is Lord of the conscience."
"It is better to suffer than to sin."
EDINBURGH:
JOHN JOHNSTONE, HUNTER SQUARE.
MDCCCXLIII.
Price 4d.]
Printed by JOHN JOHNSTONE, High Street, Edinburgh.
THE DISRUPTION &c.
This is an earnest and a stirring age, which tests the
strength of conventional relations, and tries the foundations
of ancient institutions. The most efficient and
the least oppressive of National Churches has been riven
in twain, not by sudden wrench or hasty passion, but
by the calm and resolute movement of a religious and
reflecting people. The cause of Church Establishments
has been shaken to its centre; and another proof has
been given, that not on antiquity, but on truth, — not on
authority, but on utility, British institutions must henceforward
rest. To explain briefly and simply the causes
and the principles which have led to the disruption of
the Established Church of Scotland, is the object of
this little pamphlet.
The right of patronage, or presentation to livings in
Scotland, is unquestionably a civil right. It rests on
the foundation of civil statute; it passes from hand to
hand by gift, sale, or succession; it is a marketable property,
and may be bought with money and attached for
debt; it requires no religious qualification for its exercise,
but may be validly vested in, and effectually enforced
by, a Jew, a Socinian, a Deist, or an Atheist, if
he purchases or succeeds to it. This civil right does,
however, in its exercise, deeply and directly affect the
spiritual interests of the people adhering to the Church
of Scotland, of whom it has ever been, since the Reformation,
the distinguishing peculiarity, that they prize
highly their religious privileges, that they view with
reverence and affection the pastoral relation, and have
the strongest repugnance to violent and unacceptable
settlements. The history of Scotland, from the first
dawn of the Reformation to the present day, is crowded
with illustrations of this peculiar feature of the Scottish
character; and it is not surprising to any one at all
acquainted with the annals of the last two centuries, that
the subject of Church patronage, as affecting the rights
of congregations, should have been, to the Scottish people,
one of the most intense and exciting interest. The right
to present or nominate a minister to a parish might be
bought and held by any one, whether a Christian or not;
on the exercise of this right depended the dearest
interests of Christian congregations; and, hence, it became
a question of urgent and paramount importance to
every Presbyterian, whether the law of patronage could
be so modified and regulated as to be tolerated, or
whether it was so inconsistent with the principles of religious
liberty, and the vitality and efficiency of the
Church, that it ought to be swept away altogether. At
no period of the history of Scotland was absolute patronage,
or the right of compelling the settlement of a
minister in spite of the congregation, tacitly acquiesced
in, except when Presbyterianism was prostrated by arbitrary
power. It was well and truly said by Luther,
that the doctrine of justification by free grace is the test
of a standing or a falling Church; and it may be truly
said, that hostility to absolute patronage has been, in
Scotland, the test of a standing or falling Presbyterianism.
The enemies of Presbyterianism have always been the
friends of absolute patronage. The mere summary of
the dates of the leading statutes on the subject, brings
this clearly out. Compare the state of the Presbyterian
Church at the periods of 1560, 1592, 1649, 1690,
and 1834, when patronage was denounced, resisted, or
controlled, with the state of the same Church in 1606,
1660, 1669, 1711, 1736, and 1798, when patronage was
acknowledged, acquiesced in, and approved of, and let
any candid man say whether the statement which we
have made is not correct. In every period distinguished
by the revival of vital religion, patronage has been protested
against on principle, and restrained in exercise; and
at every returning era of a dominant and high-handed
patronage, liberty and evangelical religion have declined
together. Many good men have thought it possible so to
restrain the exercise of the civil right of patronage as to
preserve the religious rights of congregations; but among
the names of the worthies whose piety, and fervour, and
zeal will be kept in the undying recollection of Scotsmen,
there will not be found one who was the advocate or the
apologist of absolute patronage. The principle that
"no minister shall be intruded into a parish contrary to
the will of the people," called in modern times the principle
of "Non-intrusion," has subsisted in the Church of
Scotland from her infancy; it is embodied in her Standards,
declared by her highest authorities, incorporated
in her constitution, graven in the hearts of her people.
By men of the world it has been despised and disregarded,
but on the religious feeling and the popular mind
of Scotland, it has never lost its hold. There is very
little of what may be called doctrinal dissent in this part
of the United Kingdom. The great body of Dissenters or
Seceders were, about a century ago, driven from the Established
Church by the arbitrary exercise of patronage;
and while the value of their faithful and zealous labours
has been acknowledged by all candid men, the truth and
importance of the principles for which they contended,
and for the sake of which they seceded, has always been
attested by a party within the Church who witnessed
against patronage as a grievous and oppressive yoke.
There were thus in the Church three parties, the first
(and till lately the great majority) composed of those who
inherited and maintained the principles and policy of the
men who compelled the Secession of the Erskines, and deposed
"the godly Gillespie;" — the second, of those who,
without being strongly opposed to the law of patronage on
principle, were desirous of regulating and restraining it;
— and the third, of those who protested against patronage
altogether, as unscriptural, tyrannical, and intolerable.
About ten years ago the Evangelical section of the Church,
comprising both those who wished to restrain, and those
who wished to abolish patronage, acquired the ascendency
in the General Assembly, and obtained the power of
carrying out the principles for which they had long contended
in the minority. Accordingly, an attempt was
made to place the rights of patrons under such restrictions
as the constitution of the Church acknowledged, and the
interest of the Church required. The form of "a call"
or initiation by the flock to the pastor proposed to them
had never been lost sight of, even by those who rendered
it a mockery in practice. Of this call, as a step
in ecclesiastical procedure, it was supposed that the
Church Courts were entitled to judge, and on this supposition
the General Assembly of 1834 enacted the
"Act anent the calling of Ministers," or, as it is popularly,
but inaccurately, termed, "the Veto Law." It has
been frequently alleged that this law was intended to
overthrow patronage; but, in truth, it was intended so
to regulate it as to prevent its gross abuse, and to give
it a chance of permanence. Of all limitations on the
exercise of patronage, consistent with the principle of
Non-intrusion, that is to say, consistent with the recognition
of the right of the congregation to prevent an
unacceptable settlement, the Veto Law was the mildest;
and it was on that account recommended by many
avowed friends of patronage. Every parishioner who
did not object to the settlement, and solemnly declare
that his objection did not proceed from factious motives,
but solely from a regard to his own spiritual interests,
and those of his family and the congregation, was held
to concur in the call, and counted as in favour of the
person presented by the patron; and it was only when an
actual majority of male heads of families, being communicants,
solemnly and deliberately objected to the presentee,
that the settlement could not proceed. The declared
opponents of patronage not only considered the Veto Law
objectionable, as tending to preserve the rights of patrons
which they desired to abolish, but they also thought it
inadequate as a protection to the people against intrusion.
Experience did to some extent verify this opinion,
for the working of the law, which was on the whole
very satisfactory, proved, that, notwithstanding the privilege
of veto, settlements would occasionally take place
which were not harmonious or acceptable; and some
such cases actually occurred. Still, the Veto Law worked
well, the disputed settlements were of very rare occurrence,
the power of rejecting, vested in the congregation,
made the patrons cautious, and the Church, even on the
admission of the strongest opponents of the veto, was
steadily becoming more useful, more popular, and more
stable. This happy state of matters was first broken up
by the attempt of Lord Kinnoul to force his presentee
into the parish of Auchterarder, contrary to the deliberate
will, solemnly declared, of almost the whole of the
parishioners. The call or invitation to Mr Young, the
presentee to this parish, was signed by the factor of the
patron, and by two members of the congregation!
Nearly all the communicants were decidedly, and on
conscientious grounds, opposed to his settlement. The
Church courts, acting on their avowed principle, refused
to ordain this man as pastor over this flock; they felt
that it would be a mockery and a sin to do so, they
believed that his ministrations among that people could
not be profitable, and they resolved, at all hazards, to
resist every attempt to force his settlement. It was
then thought that by the constitution of the Establishment,
and by the conditions of the Union, the Church
had power to protect the spiritual rights of the congregation
by the exercise of her own independent jurisdiction;
and for the defence of the people, the Church
asserted and maintained her right to act independently
in the formation of the pastoral relation, as a spiritual
matter, at the sametime admitting the authority of the
civil courts in all matters civil. A long and severe
struggle ensued, during which, in several other parishes,
especially in those of Marnoch, Lethendy, Culsamond,
&c., similar attempts were made by patrons to compel
the settlement of their presentees, contrary to the deliberate
wishes of the parishioners solemnly expressed and
steadily adhered to. Into the merits of the questions of
ecclesiastical and constitutional law, raised in the course
of this struggle, it is unnecessary now to enter. They
have one and all been decided in favour of the patrons
and presentees, and against the congregations. The law
of the Establishment has now been fixed. The settlements
in Auchterarder and Marnoch must now be held
to be legal and effectual, to spiritual as well as to civil
effects; and every attempt within the Establishment to
enforce either a right of election, or call, or veto, on the
part of the congregation, is now unlawful. If the majority,
or the whole body of parishioners are deliberately
opposed to a presentee, the law of the Established Church
of Scotland now is, that their opposition must be in vain,
unless they can substantiate grave personal objections, at
least to the satisfaction of the presbytery, if not also, as
seems probable, to the satisfaction of the civil courts.
Thus stands the law, and the Government and Parliament
refused to amend it. It became, accordingly, the
duty of every man who honestly held the principle of
non-intrusion, to choose between the maintenance of
that principle, and the enjoyment of the benefits of the
Establishment. The two could not co-exist, — either the
principle must be abandoned for the sake of the Establishment,
or the Establishment must be abandoned for
the sake of the principle. No one who knew the people
of Scotland, could doubt the result. The principle involved
had at once the strength of a popular right, and
of a religious sentiment: they who struck down the
nomination burghs, could not brook the nomination
parishes; and they who thought the settlement at
Auchterarder and Marnoch sinful, could not remain
in an Establishment of which these settlements were
types and illustrations of the standing law. Several
offers of arrangement or adjustment were made by the
members or the friends of Government, but they all resolved
into the concession of power to Church courts,
and the refusal of power to congregations; they recognised
no popular choice, call, or veto, and, in so far as
they merely extended the right to state objections, they
gave no more weight to the will of the whole body of
parishioners than to the will of any one man. To the
honour of the Church these offers were rejected. She
had taken her stand on a principle of congregational,
not of clerical right; she disavowed all claim for ecclesiastical
domination; and she refused to sacrifice the
people, even though she could have obtained power for
her own Church courts.
The existing constitution of her courts, in whose
hands the interest of the congregations would, for a
season, have been safe, made these offers the more
tempting: her ministers had been recently engaged in
defending the Establishment which they were called on
to quit, and every thing combined to render this choice
a severe trial of their faith and constancy. But, strengthened
by the hand of their Divine Master, they were
enabled to stand fast; and nearly 500 ministers, with a
numerous body of elders, and a countless multitude of
people, have preferred principle to endowment, and have
quitted the Establishment.
What may be the effect of this movement, concerns
those most who have declared the Establishment to be
incompatible with the rights of congregations: they
profess to be its greatest friends, but they have now
placed it on a footing which it will be very difficult to
maintain. The Established Church is no longer the
National Church of Scotland — she is now the Church
of the minority. The Established Church is no longer
the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Scotland, — the
very soul and spirit of Evangelical Presbyterianism has
gone out of her, and a strong leaven of Arminian and
Episcopalian sentiments pervades those who remain.
Such an Establishment cannot long be secure in this
country. It is not to be expected, it is not to be desired
that it should. They who have now seceded were indeed
friendly to the principle of Establishments, but they
were so, because they thought it the duty of the civil
magistrate to promote the true religion, and because,
looking on an Established Church as a means, not as an
end, they thought that the objects of the gospel ministry
were thereby best promoted. As the Establishment is
now declared to be constituted, they feel that it tends to
the frustration, not the advancement of the great objects,
as means to promote which they had alone supported it,
and, therefore, it has become their painful duty, not
only to withdraw from their connection with the State,
but to bear their testimony and their protest against that
connection, such as it is now declared to be.
But another and a still more sacred principle was
involved in this contest. It is the clear doctrine of the
gospel, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Head of
his Church, that the true Church all over the world is
His body, and that in respect of His headship over the
Church, every true believer is a member of His body,
spiritually united to Him, and by His grace entitled to
draw strength and light and life from Him as from the
Head. This doctrine, mysterious or ridiculous as it may
seem to men of the world, is, by every enlightened Christian,
received with undoubting faith as a most precious
and momentous truth. The membership of individual
believers, is the corollary and the counterpart of the
proposition, that Christ is the sole Head of "the Church,
which is His body, the fulness of Him who filleth all
in all." This principle is not held on the narrow and
exclusive grounds of ecclesiastical distinction on which
it is sometimes supposed to rest. It is a religious principle,
not a mere ecclesiastical dogma — a doctrine of
personal faith, not a mere tenet of church government.
Every man who truly entertains and believes it, clings
to it, as the foundation to his own title to be treated by
his Almighty Judge as a constituent part of the spiritual
Church, as a branch grafted into the spiritual vine, and
privileged to abide therein, as a member of the spiritual
body of which Christ is the Head. From this it follows,
that, without reference to the standards of any particular
Church, it is the duty of every individual believer,
to recognise, at all times, this principle of the Headship
of Christ, and, in accordance with it, to refuse
to acknowledge any authority in matters purely spiritual,
except that which flows from Him. Accordingly
our brethren, now our fellow-dissenters, the
Voluntaries hold this principle as an article of faith,
and, because of it, they repudiate all connection with
the State, as, in their opinion, necessarily involving a
surrender to human authority of a portion of the dominion
of Him whose kingdom is not of this world. If
such a surrender be involved in the acceptance of Establishment
by a Christian Church, then assuredly our
Voluntary friends have come to the right conclusion.
But hitherto we have believed, that by the constitution
of the Church of Scotland, her spiritual freedom from
secular authority was not only left unimpaired, but was
confirmed by the terms of her Establishment; and that
by the constitution of the British empire, this freedom
stood ratified and guaranteed by the Revolution settlement,
and the Treaty of Union. It is declared in the
Confession of Faith, and that confession was approved
by Parliament, and embodied in the statute law of this
country by the Act 1690, c. 5, that "there is no other
Head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ," and
again, that "the Lord Jesus, as King and Head of his
Church, hath therein appointed a government in the
hands of Church officers distinct from the civil magistrate."
By Act of Parliament 1567, c. 12, it is declared
"that there be no other jurisdiction ecclesiastical acknowledged
within this realm, other than that which is,
and shall be within the same Kirk, or that flows therefrom,
concerning the premises," these premises being
"the preaching of the word, correction of manners, and
administration of the holy sacraments." By the Act
1592, c. 116, it is specially declared, that the jurisdiction
of the sovereign and his courts should "be in no
ways prejudicial, nor derogate any thing from the privilege
that God has given to the spiritual office-bearers
of the Kirk concerning heads of religion, matters of
heresy, excommunication, collation, or deprivation of
ministers, or any such like essential censures, grounded
and having warrant of the Word of God." By the Act
1690, c. 5, this Act of 1592 was ratified and confirmed;
and by the Act 1693, c. 22, it was declared and enacted
that no minister should be admitted unless he owned
the Presbyterian Church government to be "the only
government of this Church." The free spiritual jurisdiction
of the Kirk thus recognised and ratified by repeated
statutes, was especially guaranteed as "a fundamental
and unalterable condition" of the Treaty of
Union.
Thus it appears, that by the constitution of the Church
of Scotland, standing on the statute law, and guaranteed
by national treaty, the establishment of the Church did
not necessarily enslave her; and her acceptance of endowment
did not necessarily involve any surrender of
her spiritual freedom, or any compromise of the doctrine
of the sole Headship of Christ. On her reading of this
constitution, on her construction of these statutes, and
of this Treaty, she felt and believed that she had retained
her spiritual independence, and that, while receiving
endowments from the State, in virtue of the
duty of the State to advance the truth, and in return for
services done to the State by the free preaching of the
Word, she nevertheless acknowledged no authority in
matters spiritual, save that of her great and only head.
Under this belief she maintained the defence of her
Establishment against the Voluntaries, and from the
principle of that defence, both in regard to the duty of
the State in granting, and the lawfulness of the Church's
acceptance of Endowments, she has made no departure.
The State has failed in her duty, by annexing to the
Endowments which she bestows, conditions which render
their acceptance by the Church no longer lawful. On
her own interpretation of the conditions of connection,
the Church accepted, retained, and defended the lawfulness
of her Establishment, and in her view of these
conditions she had the satisfaction of being supported
by six judges of the supreme civil court of Scotland,
eminently distinguished for learning, ability, and worth.
It has now, however, been otherwise decided. The
statutes and the Treaty have been otherwise read. The
terms of Establishment have been otherwise declared.
Not one fragment of real spiritual independence is now
left to the Church; and by the law, the Government,
and the Parliament of this country, it has been now proclaimed,
that, practically, the acceptance of Establishment
does involve the surrender of spiritual freedom, and
the recognition of secular authority in matters spiritual.
The civil courts have accordingly of late years adjudged
matters which, till recently, were believed by the Church
to have been beyond the reach of civil jurisdiction. A
few of these may be briefly mentioned.
The civil courts have interdicted presbyteries from
admitting to the pastoral charge, although no civil interest
was involved. They have ordained a Church
court to take on trial and admit to the office of the holy
ministry. They have prohibited the communicants of a
congregation from intimating their dissent from a call to
a proposed pastor. They have interdicted the preaching
of the Gospel, and the administration of ordinances, under
authority of the Church throughout a whole district.
They have interdicted the execution of the spiritual sentences
of Church courts. They have suspended these
sentences when pronounced, and have annulled the deposition
of ministers for ecclesiastical offences regularly
pronounced by the highest Church courts. They have
judged of the right to sit in the General Assembly, and
interdicted members from taking their seats.
In these, and many other instances which might be
specified, the jurisdiction exercised by the civil courts
was plainly quite inconsistent with all idea of spiritual
independence. But by the law as now fixed, by the
terms of the Establishment as now declared, this jurisdiction
legally pertains to the civil courts; these interdicts
were each and all of them just and lawful, the
Church had no right to complain of them so long as
she retained her endowments, submission to them was
part of the price of her Establishment, and she can only
escape the jurisdiction of civil courts in these matters,
over which it has been already exercised, and in all
similar matters, by severing her connection with the
State. Blame has been sometimes imputed to the
judges of the civil courts; but, while occasional expressions
might have been better spared, it is now authoritatively
settled, and we are bound to acknowledge, that
in the judgments themselves, their Lordships did not
err, but faithfully administered the law of the Established
Church as it must now be received.
But how stands the controversy with the Voluntary
now? The condition of the argument is altered: the
connection between the Church and the State in this
country, can now be defended only on the assumption
of the entire ascendency of the civil power. The acceptance
of Establishments has been declared, by the
highest authority, to involve the surrender of a principle
of religious belief which we, and our Voluntary brethren,
hold in common. The result of the struggle in which
the Church has been engaged for the last ten years, is,
in one sense, a triumph to the religious Voluntary. He
has taken the view which, by law, is now declared to
be in this country practically correct. The question as
to the duty of the civil magistrate to promote the true
religion, remains where it did: the question as to the
Christian lawfulness of the Church receiving endowment
without the surrender of spiritual independence, remains
where it did: no act or law of a civil power can touch
these questions, which can be decided only on grounds
of scripture and of reason: but to every practical purpose,
the controversy as to the Scottish Establishment
is settled, and that institution can no longer be defended
except on the admission of that subordination to civil
authority in matters spiritual, which we repudiate as
heartily as our Voluntary brethren. This may be explained
by an illustration which every friend of civil
liberty will at once appreciate. Suppose that I were
engaged in a controversy with a Republican, who maintained
that there could be no security for personal freedom
under a monarchy; that I replied to him, that by
the constitution of this country personal freedom was
secured to the humblest subject; and that, at this stage
of the argument, the Government and Parliament interposed,
saying, "You may have dreamed of such a British
constitution, but the fact is otherwise; and the entire
surrender of your personal freedom is the price you pay
for the protection of the Crown." This authoritative
declaration, if I believe it, cuts away the very foundation
of my argument in defence of monarchy, and compels
me to adopt the Republican principle. The application
is obvious. The only ground on which the friends of religious
liberty can defend a Church Establishment is cut
away from them, when it is declared that, for her endowments,
the Church must pay the price of the surrender
of her own independence and the liberties of her people.
On this point, therefore, as on the point of non-intrusion,
the Church was called on to make the choice
between her spiritual independence and her temporal
establishment. She could not be both free and established;
she must acknowledge the authority of the State
in matters spiritual, or forfeit the aid of the State in
matters civil.
In this choice there was to firm and faithful men no
room for hesitation; and the secession of those who had
avowed their principles as in their view scriptural and
paramount, followed as a necessary consequence. They
are now the members of a Free, but no longer the members
of an Endowed Church; while the Establishment
remains based on the principle of intrusion, as illustrated
by the settlement of Marnoch, and the principle of subordination
to secular authority, as enforced in the interdicts
of Strathbogie.
It is scarcely necessary to notice the bill of Lord
Aberdeen, now apparently on the eve of passing into a
law. Irrespective altogether of the serious constitutional
objection to this bill, that it professes to declare the law
in the teeth of the recorded judgment and deliberate
opinions of the supreme courts, the measure is, on principle,
not only inadequate, but injurious. It places the
power of preventing the settlement of the presentee in
wrong hands; it creates what is in itself a great evil,
and what those who have left the Establishment always
deprecated and denounced — an ecclesiastical domination;
but it affords no protection to the parishioners.
It is an Erastian measure; for it rivets the fetters of the
Church, and perpetuates her subordination to the civil
courts. And it is an intrusion measure; for it excludes
altogether the expression of the congregational will as
such; and, while it does not permit the presbytery to
reject the presentee on account of the repugnance of
the congregation, it enables the presbytery to intrude
the most unacceptable minister whenever they may be
disposed to do so. It is a law subjecting the spiritual
to the civil courts, and subjecting the people to the
patrons and presbyteries; and the only effect which it
can produce on the minds of those who have seceded,
must be, to satisfy them of the propriety and necessity
of the step they have taken.
Such is a brief and simple narrative of the causes of
this secession — certainly the most striking and interesting,
and likely to prove the most important movement
in our days. The secular tie which bound men together
in a professedly religious institution has now been
broken. Our union henceforward must rest on other
grounds. The communion of the State Church was
necessarily of a mixed character. It united many who
differed, and divided many who agreed, on the highest
truths of vital Christianity. Let it now be the aim and
the prayer of all, that the faithful of every sect and
denomination of Christians may know and love each
other better, and that, without any compromise of conscientious
opinion, some plan may be devised for securing
the co-operation in their great common cause of
all gospel ministers and gospel hearers. Towards our
brethren who remain in the Establishment, let us exercise
kindness, charity, and forbearance. It would be
uncandid to deny that some good and pious men still
adhere to her. But against the principle of the Establishment,
as now constituted, we must steadily maintain
our protest; and no feeling of spurious or mistaken
charity should induce us to depart from it. Let us
accord to all others that right of entire freedom of conscience,
which, for ourselves, we have vindicated; and
let us on all subjects abide by those great principles of
civil and religious liberty, on which, in this movement,
we have acted. Let us seek peace, while we adhere to
the truth; let us be tolerant, while we are stedfast; let
us do all in a firm and faithful, but nothing in a contentious
spirit. Great prudence, charity, and temper, are
required in the present position of the Free Church;
and these qualities are in no degree inconsistent with
earnest zeal and unflinching fidelity. On the contrary,
the union of sincere charity and unfeigned faith, is the
peculiar excellence of Christian virtue. It is easy for a
bigot to be zealous, for a latitudinarian to be tolerant;
but the gospel teaches us to love much, to endure much,
to hope all things, and yet to rejoice in the truth, and
to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
saints. The Government, who have, by refusing redress,
compelled this secession, have much to answer
for. But, let it not be forgotten, that there also rests on
every one who has shared in the secession a very heavy
responsibility. It has been no trifling step, and it calls
for no trifling exertions from those who have taken it,
— exertions in the way of cheerful Christian liberality,
and of wary walking and exemplary conduct. No
greater misfortune could befall the cause of truth, than
that those, who have borne so good a testimony, should
discredit it by their lives; and all the struggle, and all
the testimony, and all the sacrifices will be vain, unless
by earnest prayer and active effort this movement be
made to work the extension of the knowledge of the
gospel and the revival of true religion.
Printed by JOHN JOHNSTONE, High Street, Edinburgh.

The Disruption of the Scottish Church-Establishment, by an Elder of the Free Church

Document Information

Document ID	104
Title	The Disruption of the Scottish Church-Establishment, by an Elder of the Free Church
Year group	1800-1850
Genre	Religious prose
Year of publication	1843
Wordcount	5276

Author information: Craufurd, Lord James

Author ID	103
Title	Lord
Forenames	James
Surname	Craufurd
AKA	Lord Ardmillan
Gender	Male
Year of birth	1805
Place of birth	Havant, Hampshire, England
Occupation	Lawyer, judge
Father's occupation	Military
Education	University
Locations where resident	Edinburgh, Perth