out any other charges laid against them than
that they sought the protection of the civil courts in acting
according to their decision. For refusing to obey a law which the
House of Lords declared to be illegal, no minister can be lawfully
deposed from his office in this country, unless we are prepared to
adopt a principle which would ultimately subvert the entire authority
of the law. The civil courts, simply on the ground that these
ministers had been deposed for obeying the statutes of the realm,
reversed the sentence, as what was beyond the lawful powers of any
Church in this land, whether Voluntary or Established. And on the same
principle, they interfered to prevent any from treating them as
suspended or deposed.'--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 10.

'A most injurious representation of the case,' said the true Mr.
Clark. 'Seven ministers, forming the majority of the Presbytery of
Strathbogie, chose to intimate their resolution to take steps towards
the settlement of Mr. Edwards as minister of Marnoch, in defiance of
the opposition of almost all the parishioners, and in direct contempt
of the instructions given them by the superior church courts. The
civil courts in the meantime merely declared their opinion of the law,
but they issued no injunction whatever, so as to give the presbytery
the pretext of choosing between obeying the one or the other
jurisdiction; and they violated the express injunction of the supreme
church court, without being able to plead in justification that they
had been compelled by the civil authority to do so. They chose to act
ultroneously in violation of their duty to the Church. They had
solemnly promised to obey the superior church courts, and had never
come under any promise to obey in spiritual things any other
authority. In proposing to take the usual steps for conferring the
spiritual office of a pastor in the Church of Christ, in defiance of
the injunction laid upon them by the supreme court of the Church of
Scotland, they plainly violated their ordination engagements. And in
actually ordaining Mr. Edwards, the whole procedure was a solemn
mockery of holy things.'--_Sermon_, p. 26.

'After all,' said the conjurer, with a sigh, 'the agitated question is
but of inferior moment.'--_Dialogue 1st_, p. 3.

'Inferior moment!' exclaimed the true Mr. Clark; 'no religious
question of the same magnitude and importance has come before this
country since the ever-memorable Revolution in 1688. The divisi