DECLARATORY ENACTMENTS.
James Dodson
All this was so far satisfactory, and in 1865 a still more important step was taken by the adoption of the following declaratory Act:—
“Assembly 1865, c. 7, entitled ‘Declaratory Act anent changes on the forms of worship and other ecclesiastical arrangements sanctioned by the laws and established usages of this Church:—
“Whereas it appears from the tenor of various overtures from Synods and Presbyteries, and otherwise, that certain ministers have introduced in their parishes changes on those forms of worship, and other ecclesiastical arrangements which
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have had the sanction of the laws and established usages of this Church, and that without consulting with, or being authorised by, their respective Presbyteries or other competent judicatories, and under a pretence of a congregational independence of their Presbyteries with respect to such matters. And whereas such proceedings are inconsistent with the principles of Presbyterian Church government, as at all times maintained by this Church, and recognised and confirmed by law under the Act of Parliament 1592, commonly known as the Charter of the Church, and various other statutes, according to which the power of regulating all such matters is vested in Presbyteries exclusively; and such proceedings may therefore not only bring the Church into collision with the civil authorities, but must, unless timeously checked, prove subversive of our Presbyterian constitution by the introduction of a practical system of congregational or sessional Independency. . . . The General Assembly, while recommending the utmost tenderness to the feelings of unanimous congregations as to matters of form, do hereby declare and enact that arrangements with regard to public worship, and all other religious services and ecclesiastical arrangements of any kind in parishes and congregations, are to be regulated by the Presbyteries of the bounds, subject always to the ordinary right of appeal, even though no express law should exist with reference to such particulars, the decisions of Presbyteries in each case being absolute and obligatory until such decisions have been finally reversed by the competent courts of review. And the General Assembly strictly prohibit all ministers and office-bearers from assuming independent jurisdiction in such matters, as inconsistent with the vows of submission pledged by them at ordination to the superior courts, under pain of the highest censure, and in the event of disobedience, the General Assembly further authorise and enjoin Presbyteries to proceed with and prosecute such censures to such conclusion as may seem essential for restoring the peace and asserting the constitution of the Church.”
Still in the following year (1866) the Assembly passed an additional Declaratory Act, entitled, “Declaratory Act anent Changes on the Forms of Worship and other Ecclesiastical Arrangements sanctioned by the Laws and Established Usages of this Church.” This Act, whilst adhering “to
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the principle” of the previous declaration, is considerably modified in tone, and has thus much emboldened the innovators, especially in connection with the practical encouragement, or at least absence of discouragement, which they have received in the subsequent administration of the Presbyteries and Assembly. Here is the new Act, Assembly 1866, c. 7.
“Whereas it appears from certain overtures from Presbyteries and otherwise that the Declaratory Act, No. VII. of the Acts of the General Assembly of 1865, anent changes in the forms of worship and other ecclesiastical arrangements, has been misunderstood in various quarters, and that a more full and explicit declaration of the law is called for and necessary, the General Assembly, while adhering to its principle, recall the said Act, and in order to carry out more effectually the purposes truly contemplated in the same, Enact and Declare that the right and duty of maintaining and enforcing the observance of the existing laws and usages of the Church in the particular congregations or kirks within their bounds, in matters connected with the performance of public worship and the administration of ordinances, belong to, and are incumbent upon, the Presbyteries of the Church, subject always to the review of the superior Church courts; and that, while needless interference with the Government of particular Kirks is always to be avoided, it is nevertheless the duty of Presbyteries, when by any legal and constitutional means, the alleged existence or proposed introduction of any innovation or novel practice in the performance of worship or administration of ordinances in any congregation come to their knowledge, to take cognisance of the same, and after such inquiry as the circumstances of the case seem to call for, or without inquiry, if none appears requisite, either to enjoin the discontinuance, or prohibit the introduction of such innovation as being, in their opinion, inconsistent with the laws and settled usages of the Church, or a cause of division in the particular congregation, or as being unfit from any cause to be used in the worship of God, either in general or in the particular Kirks, or to find that no case has been stated to them, calling for their interference, or to pronounce such other deliverance in the said matter as in
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their judgment seems warranted by the circumstances of the case and the laws and usages of the Church, it being always competent to submit such deliverance to the review of the superior Church courts in common form. And the General Assembly do again strictly enjoin all ministers and office-bearers in the Church, under pain of censure, to observe and obey the injunctions given by their Presbyteries in all such matters, so long, and in so far as the same remain unreversed or unvaried by the superior Courts.”
These two Acts contain the whole recent “legislation” of the Assembly upon the subject; so that whatever power is claimed by any to alter the existing worship under the Act of 1693 it would appear that it has not been exercised. It does not seem that either of these Acts can fairly be said to alter the Constitution or the Law of the Church in regard to the worship. As Declaratory Acts they cannot, and in point of fact do not, since Presbyteries by the Act 1866 are required to enjoin the discontinuance, or to prohibit the introduction, of such innovations as they deem inconsistent with the laws and settled usages of the Church. Thus they, of course, refer back to all standing laws and established usages, and strictly bind the Presbyteries to see that these are maintained; but still the fact is that under them, from the unsound administration in the Assembly, a system of confusion and change is being introduced altogether inconsistent with the uniformity of worship so anxiously pressed under the previous ecclesiastical and civil legislation. The practical effect of the recent toleration of change which has crept into the administration of the Church courts has been, in regard
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to instrumental music, to encourage laxness, to subvert the principle of the Confession of Faith and the previous practice of the Church in regard to worship, and to substitute disorder and a piebald congregationalism for the comely order and uniformity of the Presbyterian Church. Other Presbyterian Churches are unfortunately following the same disastrous and suicidal course.