the Act of Security not only do not oblige us to reject this bill, but
do oblige us to pass this bill, or some bill nearly resembling this.

This proposition seems to be regarded by the Ministers as paradoxical:
but I undertake to prove it by the plainest and fairest argument. I
shall resort to no chicanery. If I did think that the safety of the
commonwealth required that we should violate the Treaty of Union,
I would violate it openly, and defend my conduct on the ground of
necessity. It may, in an extreme case, be our duty to break our
compacts. It never can be our duty to quibble them away. What I say
is that the Treaty of Union, construed, not with the subtlety of a
pettifogger, but according to the spirit, binds us to pass this bill or
some similar bill.

By the Treaty of Union it was covenanted that no person should be a
teacher or office-bearer in the Scotch Universities who should not
declare that he conformed to the worship and polity of the Established
Church of Scotland. What Church was meant by the two contracting
parties? What Church was meant, more especially, by the party to the
side of which we ought always to lean, I mean the weaker party? Surely
the Church established in 1707, when the Union took place. Is then,
the Church of Scotland at the present moment constituted, on all points
which the members of that Church think essential, exactly as it was
constituted in 1707? Most assuredly not.

Every person who knows anything of the ecclesiastical history of
Scotland knows that, ever since the Reformation, the great body of the
Presbyterians of that country have held that congregations ought to have
a share in the appointment of their ministers. This principle is laid
down most distinctly in the First Book of Discipline, drawn up by John
Knox. It is laid down, though not quite so strongly, in the Second Book
of Discipline, drawn up by Andrew Melville. And I beg gentlemen, English
gentlemen, to observe that in Scotland this is not regarded as a matter
of mere expediency. All staunch Presbyterians think that the flock is
entitled, jure divino, to a voice in the appointment of the pastor, and
that to force a pastor on a parish to which he is unacceptable is a sin
as much forbidden by the Word of God as idolatry or perjury. I am quite
sure that I do not exaggerate when I say that the highest of our
high churchmen at Oxford cannot attach more importance to episcopal
government and episcopal ordination than