worship, but are not prohibited that of the Lord's Prayer. The rents of the bishops, since the abolition of episcopacy, are paid to the king, who commonly appropriates them to pious purposes. One thousand pounds a year is always sent by his Majesty for the use of the Protestant schools erected by act of parliament in North Britain and the Western Isles; and the Scotch clergy of late have planned out funds for the support of their widows and orphans. The number of parishes in Scotland are eight hundred and ninety, whereof thiry-one are collegiate churches, that is where the cure is served by more than one minister.

The highest ecclesiastical authority in Scotland is the general assembly, which may be called the ecclesiastical parliament of Scotland. It consists of commissioners, some of whom are laymen, under the title of ruling elders, from presbyteries, royal burghs, and universities. A presbytery, consisting of under twelve ministers, sends two ministers, and one ruling elder; if it contain between twelve and eighteen ministers it sends three, and one ruling elder; if it contain between eighteen and twenty-four ministers, it sends four ministers and two ruling elders: but if the presbytery has twenty-four ministers, it sends five ministers and two ruling elders. Every royal burgh sends one ruling elder, and Edinburgh two; whose election must be attested by the respective kirk sessions of their own burghs. Every university sends one commissioner, usually a minister of their own body. These commissioners are chosen yearly, six weeks before the meeting of the assembly. The ruling elders are often of the first quality of the country.

The king presides by his commissioner (who is always a nobleman) in this assembly, which meets once a year; but he has no voice in their deliberations. The order of their proceedings is regular, though the number of members often creates a confusion, which the moderator, who is chosen by them to be as it were speaker of the house, has not sufficient authority to prevent,

prevent. Appeals are brought from all the other ecclesiastical courts in Scotland to the general assembly; and no appeal lies from its determination in religious matters.

Provincial synods are next in authority to the general assembly. They are composed of a number of the adjacent presbyteries, over whom they have a power; but their acts are reversible by the general assembly.

Subordinate to the synods are the presbyteries, sixty-nine of which are in Scotland, each consisting of a number of contiguous parishes. The ministers of these parishes, with one ruling elder, chosen half yearly out of every session, compose a presbytery. These presbyteries meet in the head town of that division, but have no jurisdiction beyond their own bounds, though within these they have cognizance of all ecclesiastical causes and matters. The chief part of their business is the ordination of candidates for livings, in which they are regular and solemn. The patron of a living is bound to nominate or present in six months after a vacancy, otherwise the presbytery fills the place jure devoluto; but that privilege does not hold in royal burghs.

A kirk session is the lowest ecclesiastical judicatory in Scotland, and its authority does not extend beyond its own parish. The members consist of the ministers, elders, and deacons. The deacons are laymen, and act pretty much as churchwardens do in England, by having the superintendency of the poor, and taking care of other parochial affairs. The elder, or as he is called the ruling elder, is a place of great parochial trust, and is generally a lay-person of quality or interest in the parish. They are supposed to act in a kind of co-ordinacy with the minister, and to be assisting to him in many of his clerical duties, particularly in catechising, visiting the sick, and at the communion-table.

The office of ministers, or preaching presbyters, includes the offices of deacons and ruling elders, they alone can preach, administer the sacrament, catechise,

pronounce

pronounce church censures, ordain deacons and ruling elders, assist at the imposition of hands upon other ministers, and moderate or preside in all ecclesiastical judicatories.

It has already been observed, that the established religion of Scotland is presbyterian; that it was formerly of a rigid nature, and partook of all the austerities of Calvinism, and of too much of the intolerance of popery; but at present it is mild and gentle; and the sermons and other theological writings of many of the modern Scotch divines are equally distinguished for good sense and moderation. This moderation is however too often interrupted by the fanaticism not only of lay seceders but of regular ministers. These are industrious to fix upon the absurdities of former divines and visionaries, and ecclesiastical ordinances and discipline which were supposed to be incompati→ ble with the nature of government. A vast number of these seceding congregations are to be found in the Lowlands. They maintain their own preachers, though scarcely any two congegations agree either in principle or practice with each other. We do not, however, find that they oppose the civil power, or at least the instances are rare and inconsiderable; and perhaps many of these secessions are lawful, or to be justified, on account of the great abuses of patronage, by which many parishes have unworthy or incapable ministers imposed upon them, as is the case in many places in England."

A different set of dissenters, in Scotland, consist of the episcopalians, a few quakers, many baptists, and other sectaries, who are denominated from their preachers. Episcopacy, from the time of the restoration in the year 1660, to the revolution in 1688, was the established church of Scotland; and would probably have continued so, had not the bishops, who were in general very weak men, and creatures of the duke of York, afterwards James VII. and II. refused to recognise king William's title. The partisans of that unhappy

prince

prince retained the episcopal religion; and king William's government was rendered so unpopular in Scotland, that in queen Anne's time the episcopalians were more numerous in some parts than the presbyterians; and their meetings, which they held under the act of toleration, as well attended. A Scotch episcopalian thus becoming another name for a jacobite, they received some checks after the rebellion in the year 1715, but they recovered themselves so well, that at the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745, they became again numerous, after which the government found means to invalidate the acts of their clerical or der. Their meetings, however, still subsist, but thinly. In the mean while, the decline of the nonjurors is far from having suppressed episcopacy in Scotland: the English bishops supply them with clergy qualified according to law, whose chapels are chiefly filled by the English, and such Scotch hearers of that persuasion as have places under the government.

The defection of some great families from the cause of popery, and the extinction of others, have rendered its votaries inconsiderable in Scotland. They are chiefly confined to the northern parts, and the islands; and though a violent opposition was lately raised againt them, fearing their liberties were about to be enlarged, they appear to be as quiet and inoffensive as protestant subjects.

CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS.

Scotland is unequally divided into thirty-three counties or shires, viz. Aberdeen, Ayr, Argyle, Banff, Berwick, Bute, Caithness, Clackmannan, Cromarty, Dumbarton, Dumfries, Edinburgh, Fife, Forfar, Haddington, Inverness, Kincardine, Kinross, Kircudbright, Lanerk, Linlithgow, Murray, Nairn, Orkney with Shetland, Peebles, Perth, Renfrew, Ross, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Stirling, Sutherland, and Wigton. These counties are subdivided into sheriffdoms, stewartries, and bailiwicks.

There are four ecclesiastical courts, the kirk session,

the

the presbytery, the provincial synod, and the general assembly.

Previous to the revolution there were two archbishops, one of St. Andrew's, and another of Glasgow, and twelve bishops, viz. Edinburgh, Dunkeld, Dumblane, Brechin, Aberdeen, Caithness, Murray, Orkney, Ross, Argyle, Galloway, and the Isles.

The present division of Scotland is into fifteen synods and twenty-eight presbyteries.

I. The synod of Lothian and Tweedle, which contains the presbyteries of

Edinburgh, in which are - 22 parishes

Linlithgow

II. Svnod of Mers, or Berwick and Tiviotdale, con