y church at all? By the courtesies of
Europe, and according to usage, a church means a religious incorporation,
protected and privileged by the State. Those who are not so privileged are
usually content with the title of Separatists, Dissenters, or
Nonconformists. No wise man will see either good sense or dignity in
assuming titles not appropriate. The very position and aspect towards the
church (legally so called) which has been assumed by the
Non-intrusionists--viz. the position of protestors against that body, not
merely as bearing, amongst other features, a certain relation to the State,
but specifically _because_ they bear that relation, makes it incongruous,
and even absurd, for these Dissenters to denominate themselves a "church."
But there is another objection to this denomination--the "Free Church"
have no peculiar and separate Confession of Faith. Nobody knows what are
their _credenda_--what they hold indispensable for fellow-membership,
either as to faith in mysteries or in moral doctrines. Now, if they
reply--"Oh! as to that, we adopt for our faith all that ever we _did_
profess when members of the Scottish kirk"--then in effect they are hardly
so much as a dissenting body, except in some elliptic sense. There is a
grievous _hiatus_ in their own title-deeds and archives; they supply it by
referring people to the muniment chest of the kirk. Would it not be a
scandal to a Protestant church if she should say to communicants--"We have
no sacramental vessels, or even ritual; but you may borrow both from Papal
Rome." Not only, however, is the Kirk to _lend_ her Confession, &c.; but
even then a plain rustic will not be able to guess how many parts in his
Confession are or may be affected by the "reformation" of the
Non-intrusionists. Surely, he will think, if this reformation were so vast
that it drove them out of the national church, absolutely exploded them,
then it follows that it must have interveined and _indirectly_ modified
innumerable questions: a difference that was punctually limited to this
one or these two clauses, could not be such a difference as justified a
rupture. Besides, if they have altered this one or these two clauses, or
have altered their interpretation, how is any man to know (except from a
distinct Confession of Faith) that they have not even _directly_ altered
much more? Notoriety through newspapers is surely no ground to stand upon
in religion. And now it appears that the unlettered rustic