e kingdoms, would
lecture his congregation upon the duty of paying no taxes. This he would
denominate passive resistance; and resistance to bad government would
become, in his language, the most sacred of duties. In any argument with
such a man, he would be found immediately falling back upon the principle
of the Free church: he would insist upon it as a spiritual right, as a
case entirely between his conscience and God, whether he should press to
an extremity any and every doctrine, though tending to the instant
disorganization of society. To lecture against war, and against taxes as
directly supporting war, would wear a most colourable air of truth amongst
all weak-minded persons. And these would soon appear to have been but the
first elements of confusion under the improved views of spiritual rights.
The doctrines of the _Levellers_ in Cromwell's time, of the _Anabaptists_
in Luther's time, would exalt themselves upon the ruins of society, if
governments were weak enough to recognise these spiritual claims in the
feeblest of their initial advances. If it were possible to suppose such
chimeras prevailing, the natural redress would soon be seen to lie through
secret tribunals, like those of the dreadful _Fehmgericht_ in the middle
ages. It would be absurd, however, seriously to pursue these anti-social
chimeras through their consequences. Stern remedies would summarily crush
so monstrous an evil. Our purpose is answered, when the necessity of such
insupportable consequences is shown to link itself with that distinction
upon which the Free church has laid the foundations of its own
establishment. Once for all, there is no act or function belonging to an
officer of a church, which is faces. And every examination of the case
convinces us more and more that the Seceders took up the old papal
distinction, as to acts spiritual or not spiritual, not under any delusion
less or more, but under a simple necessity of finding some evasion or
other which should meet and embody the whole rancour of the moment.

But beyond any other evil consequence prepared by the Free Church, is the
appalling spirit of Jacobinism which accompanies their whole conduct, and
which latterly has avowed itself in their words. The case began
Jacobinically, for it began in attacks upon the rights of property. But
since the defeat of this faction by the law courts, language seems to fail
them, for the expression of their hatred and affected scorn towards the