most improperly asserted in the minutes after the adjournment, and before those of us who had taken an interest in the first motion-that of Dr Forbes-had entered the Court. It can, therefore, not be taken into consideration, whether of more or less value, as of any account in the matter of the two motions-especially as bearing on that of Dr Buchanan, in support of which alone the dissentients are before the Assembly. To this extent, and in hoc statu, it is not a question between Mr Smith and the Presbytery, but between the Presbytery and the dissentients in support of the motion of Dr Buchanan. His speech was a speech in favour of the Presbytery, and against Mr Smith out and out. His motion was in the teeth of it, and all the world has seen it. Mr Smith has not declared in favour of the one motion more than of the other. He declines both, or if he seems (it is hardly even seems) to lean to Dr Buchanan's, it is only on conditions which Dr Buchanan's motion never contemplated, and could not contemplate, as he could know nothing about them as an honourable judge in the case. But though it had been known at the outset, it does not repudiate one of the errors or erroneous statements of the sermons. No, not one. Observe, then, that the only parties here are the Presbytery and the minority. Mr Smith is no party here. It has been attempted to show that, as he has never dissented nor complained against any sentence of the Presbytery, he has therefore acquiesced-a very easy way for parties so accused, viz., to say nothing, and let others do the work. But can it be true in regard to former judgments? Certainly not. If it were, it might be true in regard to the judgment dissented against. Is it so ? He has never said so. If he has assented and retracted, as is alleged, will any human being assert that it is not the easiest thing in the world to say so? If it be humiliation to say so, is not the self-humiliation-yea, sincere grief and sorrow-the very spirit demanded, and absolutely necessary to the ends of Christian discipline, whether in matters of false doctrine or of immoral conduct? That is the whole end and object of the discipline, if it is to be of any effect either to vindicate the faith and purity of the Church, or to promote the spiritual wellbeing of the subjects of it.

Observe, Sir, there is no debate between the Presbytery and the dissentients as to the facts of the case-no debate as to the subject-matter before us-no debate as to the heterodox nature of the statements in the sermons objected against. The minority declare against them, and save their orthodoxy, but at the expense of their consistency, and, I take leave to say, in my view, of their faithfulness, in so very grave a case. These are the circumstances in which the dissentients have dragged the Presbytery of Glasgow before the bar of the Synod, and now of the Assembly; and in these circumstance, I venture to say it would be something like -to use a favourite expression of the mover of the amendment-an "outrage" to reverse the judgment of the Presbytery of Glasgow, and thus virtually censure them for declaring that doctrines contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the Confession of Faith ought to be retracted. Until it be done, I cannot believe that such shall be the issue in this case. It appears to me that the common sense of all who hold the denial of the doctrine of the Confession of Faith and the Word of God to be heresy must revolt against it. Sir, the dissentients say that such a judgment is unnecessary and harsh. Have they no regard nor compassion for poor souls to whom a pastor is to be sent back, charged with, and declared by

the dissentients themselves to be, teaching doctrines contrary to Holy Scripture and the Confession of Faith, without obtaining from him one single expression of regret or contrition, or one single intimation that he retracts, and will not again preach the same doctrines? Is so serious a matter as that to be decided on inferences founded on laboured and nice distinctions, and most doubtful suppositions, and not on a single statement as matter of fact. Sir, instead of being harsh and unnecessary, the finding of the Presbytery, after repeated judgments such as have been unanimously given, is rather chargeable with useless delay and ill-requited tenderness. The motion long before, except for a tenderness not shown by this Presbytery, in less aggravated cases, might have been to order the framing of a libel; and if there ever was in any case just ground for a libel, it is in a case where so large a Presbytery has unanimously declared over and over again certain things to be contrary to the Confession of Faith and the Word of God, and all explanations unsatisfactory in matters so deeply affecting the rule of faith and the law of life.

I must now crave the indulgence of the Assembly, while I call attention, as briefly as I can consistently with doing justice to this important case, to the reasons of dissent and the answers of the Presbytery. They are to be found at p. 137-printed case. They are pretty long, but they have this advantage, that they save the necessity of very elaborate pleading. But it is my duty not to take it for granted that all the members have carefully studied them, and therefore expound them to a certain extent. Dr Gibson went on to say that the present position of the case was this that the doctrine of the sermons on the moral law is, in the deliberate judgment of the Presbytery, inconsistent with, and opposed to, the teaching of Scripture and the Confession of Faith of this Church. The report of the Presbytery consisted mainly of extracts from the sermons, and therefore could not be objected to by the dissentients; and he might add, without offence, that Dr Buchanan, having aided in drawing up the report, could not find fault with its contents. Dr Gibson proceeded to examine the reasons of dissent, quoting from the statement made by Mr Smith before the Presbytery. In answer to the first reason of the dissentients, Dr Gibson said, that it is not admitted that the points embraced in the earlier reports of the committee of the Presbytery, "cover the whole ground of doctrine involved in this case." There are other statements of a most serious nature involving great doctrines of Scripture and the interests of religion and morality, nay, the character of the Divine being Himself. As, for instance, the following passage in his first statement, p. 11 :-" Hence, also, the conclusion I have drawn, that, even in regard to those moral duties which are common to both dispensations, the form in which they are binding on us must be sought in the New Testament; for to obey them simply as the Jews did, would be in reality to break them; to obey the first commandment as they did, would be to rise no higher than Socinianism; to obey the seventh commandment as they did, would be to justify polygamy; to obey the fourth commandment as they did, would be to neglect the memorial of Christ's resurrection. So have I taught my people to think, striving to maintain the fulness that is in Christ. 1 do not think that such teaching is opposed to the Confession of Faith. I am sure it is agreeable to Scripture. But if you think otherwise, you have but to say so. I will bow to your

decision; for I am not one to force my company on those who are unwilling to receive it."

To this I answered in the court below to the following effect :

In the first place, the question here is not as to what the Jews did, but as to what their Scriptures taught, and which, if they obeyed them, they must do. If that is not the meaning, the statement is utterly irrelevant to Mr Smith's purpose.

In the second place, the word "Socinianism," I presume, is used for Deism; but in both senses the statement here is untrue. The doctrine of Three Persons in the Godhead, or a plurality of persons in the Godhead, as Father, Son, and Spirit, is clearly taught in the Old Testament; and the highest proofs of it in the New Testament are drawn from the Old. Witness the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Witness our Lord's own argument to the Jews, Matt. xxii. 41: "What think ye of Christ? whose Son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord (Jehovah) said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is He his Son? And no man was able to answer him a word." In the psalms and prophets, too, you have the great doctrine of the Holy Spirit in many passages.

It was this

Besides, in revealing the law from Mount Sinai, God made Himself known as a covenant and a Redeeming God, as well as Jehovah. And, moreover, the Redeeming God that thus spoke, was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and Christ therefore said, "Before Abraham was, I AM;" and "Abraham saw his day afar off, and was glad." Jehovah Elohim that created the world, and said, "Let us make man in our image." The Jews knew, or might perfectly have known, more than Deism or Socinianism, whether as relating to the divinity of Christ or to His atonement. Polygamy was neither taught nor sanctioned, but forbidden and condemned, in the Old Testament, as the following facts, every one of which I have proved beyond the power of reasonable question, and no one has attempted the disproof, though before the world for fourteen years-viz., 1, that by the original law, as our Lord himself tells us, it was forbidden. It was the law, therefore, at least, up to the time of Moses, as it is to us since the time of our Lord. Whoever practised polygamy, violated their own law, and the crimes and miseries resulting from it, in the very few instances in which they did violate it, were no sanction but a rebuke. Any instances which occurred during the time of the Mosaic dispensation, one in a hundred years, were no more a sanction than the case of David and Uriah were sanctions of adultery and murder, or than the providential permission, without immediate punishment, of the sins of too many good men, which, if they were recorded by the pen of inspiration, would be hideous enough, were a sanetion of their iniquities. It is demonstrable, and has been demonstrated by the use of the language in Lev. xviii. 18, in thirty-four instances out of thirtyfive, that the marginal reading "one to another," is the true one, and is a prohibition of polygamy. I cannot argue the case at length. But whatever the Jews did in this respect, they violated their own law, and were not held innocent. Both polygamy and putting away of wives are condemned in Malachi, though God "suffered" it, on account of the hard-heartedness of a ferocious husband with whom a wife could not live,

but which husband was compelled, in such a case, to make some provi

sion for her.

In relation to the last point, Mr Smith cannot be contradicted. You could not have a memorial of what had not taken place, though Paul proves the doctrine of a resurrection, as our Lord did before him, from the Old Testament, (Matt. xxii.; Acts xiii.) But though the Presbytery has reserved any judgment on these and similar dangerous statements of Mr Smith, we have said in our answers that it is not necessary either to affirm or deny the assertion, that the two points in regard to the moral law and the ancient Scriptures "cover the whole ground of the doctrine in the case," as it is altogether irrelevant, as neither the Presbytery, nor the report of which it has approved, has affirmed the

contrary.

Dr Gibson then showed, by referring to pp. 90 and 124 of the record, that the Presbytery strictly confined themselves in their judgment to the statements in the two sermons, which the Presbytery had repeatedly and unanimously condemned as contrary to the Confession of Faith and the sacred Scriptures, and then said the report was held up to ridicule because it contained fourteen extracts from the sermons, as if a judge were to hold a proof back because it was supported by fourteen unexceptionable witnesses; but the case was simply this-that these extracts had been unanimously condemned by the Presbytery, and they had neither been disavowed nor retracted. Where, then, was there room for a different course-for such a motion as that proposed on the part of the dissentients? The Presbytery declared the whole of Mr Smith's explanatory statements to be unsatisfactory as to the immutability of a divine moral law. There never was any difference on that subject except in the statements in the newspapers; and he had to remark that Mr Smith's statements were given at length in all the newspapers, although the same newspapers, with one single exception-though a copy was handed to them as he knew for certain-refused to put in the extracts from the Presbytery's committee. And more; he believed it was from these statements that a cry had been raised against the Presbytery throughout the length and breadth of the land. The public have never seen the extracts, much less the sermons themselves; they were never before the Synod nor any party but the Presbytery. They were never published to the world till published in the papers of this House.

Dr Gibson here read the second reason of the dissentients, and the Presbytery's reply as found at p. 139 of the record, and expressed his astonishment at the assertion, that Mr Smith had explicitly disavowed his erroneous opinions, and assented to the opposite truths. He asked when and where? If it refer to the Confession of Faith, he (Mr Smith) has never yet assented to chap. i. sec. i., ii. of the Confession of Faith, though his attention has been repeatedly called to it. The dissentients have never yet told, how, when and where, he has admitted that the ten commandments are the perfect, exact, and perpetual rule of life. He expressly in many passages denies it. He has never admitted in any one of his explanations, "That this law (of the ten commandments) continues to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and as such was delivered by God from Mount Sinai." He expressly declares the reverse. The Presbytery say in their answer, (p. 139,) "It is true that the motion rejected

by the Presbytery makes the following groundless assertion, viz.:Understanding that he (Mr Smith) disclaims and rejects the views which the Presbytery considers these passages to convey, and that he adheres to those doctrines of Scripture and the Confession of Faith with which the Presbytery have found the passages in question to be at variance.'” This is indeed a very bold statement, I had almost used a stronger expression. A man may "understand" anything he pleases, but for this assertion there is not a particle of proof; but clear proof to the contrary. The Presbytery therefore say: But to this it is emphatically answered that there was no foundation for such an averment when said motion was first proposed to the Presbytery, which had repeatedly and unanimously affirmed the reverse. Even after the motion was proposed and tabled, the statement thereafter given in by Mr Smith, after the adjournment of the Presbytery till the evening sederunt, and then engrossed in the minutes of Presbytery, instead of homologating the averment, expressly declines to accept it in the following terms :-"It is not easy for me, without more time to weigh the matter, to say whether I can altogether accept Dr Buchanan's motion or not. It may mean much or little, according to the point of view from which it is looked at. If I view it in the light of his speech, it may imply a great deal, which would require me to explain myself at some length ere I could give any reply whatever. Again, if I view it in the light of the report now on your table, then, too, it would mean a great deal; but I should be able at once to decline adherence to it."

Here Mr Smith most distinctly declines to adhere to the view of Dr Buchanan, who concurred in the whole report, with the exception of the concluding finding, as appeared from the minutes of the committee, read in the Presbytery. Where then is the disclaimer? The "light of Dr Buchanan's speech" is the very same "light" as my own, delivered months before, only his has a deeper tinge of severity.

Further, referring to the explanatory statements of Mr Smith, which were declared by the Presbytery to be "unsatisfactory," Mr Smith adds "But if I understand that substantially, though not formally, Dr Buchanan would have me to re-affirm my replies given at the meeting in October, I can most frankly do so, and I now do so to this effect, namely -1st, That I hold most firmly the immutability of all Divine moral law, and that the Decalogue contains a divinely-appointed summary of that law, which is everlastingly binding; only that the New Testament contains a fuller and clearer statement of the same law. 2d, That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners; and, further, that their organic relation is of such a nature that the Old Testament does not derive its authority from the New, but both have the same kind of authority, and that both taken together are the complete revelation of the Divine will. I, therefore, now, as always, unhesitatingly disclaim any opinion at variance with those truths which has been ascribed to me, as supposed to be taught in my sermons."

It will be observed here that Mr Smith only repeats what the Presbytery in October unanimously declared to be unsatisfactory. Observe, further, that he asserts what is not true, obviously and without any doubt, as to the fourth commandment, that the New Testament contains a fuller statement of that law. It is not declared as a Law in the New Testa