LETTER FROM THE MODERATOR OF THE PRESBYTERY

SIR,

OF GLASGOW TO MR. THOM.

A pamphlet being circulated in this city bearing as its title "Three Questions Proposed and Answered, concerning The Life Forfeited by Adam, The Resurrection of the Dead, and Eternal Punishment," to which your name is attached as author of said Pamphlet,-I am appointed by a committee specially appointed for considering the measures which ought to be adopted by the Presbytery, in relation to the tenets avowed in the answers attached to the above questions, to request you to say whether you avow yourself to be the author, as stated in the title.

I write this accordingly in their name, expecting your answer.

JOHN LOCKHART, Moderator.

Glasgow, 14th April, 1823.

To the Rev. David Thom, Liverpool.

MR. THOM'S ANSWER TO THE ABOVE LETTER.
SIR,

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, bearing date the 14th current, in which you mention, that you are appointed by a Committee of the Presbytery of Glasgow to inquire, if I avow myself to be the author of a pamphlet entitled "Three Questions Proposed and Answered, concerning the Life Forfeited by Adam, The Resurrection

of the Dead, and Eternal Punishment," to which pamphlet my name is attached as author.

Were I disposed to take my stand upon that "form of process," and those "Acts of Assembly," by which you profess to be guided in your procedure, I might at once object to and protest against the course which you have adopted in regard to me as irregular and unconstitutional. By the "form of process," chapter 7, section 5, it is provided, that no minister shall be brought to a confession until a libel, that is, an indictment, specifying the ground or grounds of accusation against him, with the requisite conclusions, shall have been drawn up and considered until a copy of it shall have been served upon him either personally or at his dwelling-house, by the officer of court-until ten free days shall have been allowed him to give in answers to the libel, and his defence and objections against witnesses-and until an interlocutor sustaining the relevancy of the libel shall, after discussion and deliberation, have been pronounced. Besides in the case of "the matters laid to the Ministers' charge" "being unsoundness and heterodoxy in doctrine," it is recommended by 8 of the same chapter that "lenitives, admonitions, instructions, and frequent conferences should be tried to reclaim without cutting off." Now need I remark, that without paying the least regard to your own ecclesiastical statutes and constitutions-without raising a libel*_informing me of the ground or grounds of accusation against me-or allowing me an opportunity of discussing the relevancy of your procedure— nay, without even trying the effect of a single admonition, instruction, or conference-you have called upon me instanter to confess or deny the commission of what has doubtlessly been already decided to be a cri

*The Scotch law term for an indictment.

minal act. What answer, under such circumstances, are you entitled to expect? Besides, what jurisdiction, even on your own principles, do you or can you possess over me? I do not reside within

your bounds, nor have I done so since the year 1820. Or if the place where a minister resided during the last six weeks of his stay in Scotland is, in the eye of the law, to constitute his domicilium, then I am amenable to the jurisdiction of the Presbytery of Dumblane, of which I have the honour to be a Licentiate. Thus is it clearly impossible that, upon the acknowledged principles of Scottish jurisprudence, I can be, in any respect whatever, subject to your authority.

But waving these matters, which I merely state as deserving your consideration in any ulterior measures which you and your brethren may see meet to adopt, I beg leave to observe, that I except to your authority and decline your jurisdiction upon much higher and far different principles.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not going to annoy you with “the thrice told tale" of independency, or to read you a lecture upon what appear to me various unscriptural modes of Church Government, ranking yours, of course, among the number. I have just to say, that I object to all and every species of Church Government (as it is called) whatever, because I regard all believers of the Gospel as standing upon a footing of perfect equality and independency, in their character of Kings and Priests unto God, and consequently to inform the Presbytery, that I view them in no other light than as an assembly of respectable and learned individuals, whom the laws of the country have invested with certain secular privileges and immunities. You will have the goodness, therefore, to excuse me if I decline answering your question, lest by so doing

I should even appear to acknowledge your authority, but as it is not by fear, contempt, or any other unworthy motive that I am actuated in this refusal, I beg leave to add, that if you or any other member of the Presbytery, shall feel inclined to address to me a letter written in your private and individual capacity, and reiterating the question contained in your official one, you may reckon upon a direct, immediate, and satisfactory answer.

Here I might stop, but as this letter is destined for publication, and must, as the basis of your ulterior proceedings, find a place among your records, I am desirous to furnish not merely you, but also such of my contemporaries and posterity as may happen to read it, with a few hints and remarks, which, by the Divine blessing, may perhaps be useful.

Before advancing further I must advert to one charge which you may cast in my teeth, viz. that of having subscribed a Confession which I do not believe. To this I answer, that I cannot conceive it possible so to trammel and fetter the human mind, and so to circumscribe its researches, as that what appears to it to be true at the present moment, shall present to it exactly and in all respects the same aspect five years hence. If members of the Presbytery of Glasgow who have attained to sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age, and who forty or fifty years since subscribed the Westminster Confession of Faith, in all sincerity no doubt, have made no advances in theological knowledge in the interim, which, if they then understood what they subscribed and adhere to it still, it is impossible they can have done, I see no reason to congratulate them or their congregations upon such an astonishing and deplorable instance of stagnation of intellect, and must add, that I could scarcely have expected

to find among a learned body so apt an illustration of the poet's remark, that "men are but children of a larger growth."

But to proceed to other matters. It strikes me that, by their recent interference with me, the Presbytery of Glasgow have rendered themselves obnoxious to the charge of egregious folly. Laying out of view for the present the character of the individual whom they have assailed, and the lesson which they might have been taught on a former occasion, can they have overlooked the fact, that by the inquiry which they have seen meet to institute, they are giving additional publicity both to the man and his cause? Gamaliel, who appears to have been a very prudent as well as a very learned man in his day, once delivered a speech which is recorded in the 5th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and which may be advantageously recommended to your perusal. Speaking of the apostles who had been dragged to the bar of the Sanhedrim, for preaching in the name of Jesus, he thus gave his advice. Refrain from these men, and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. The Sanhedrim, after the lapse of a short time, chose to neglect Gamaliel's advice, and it is unnecessary to inform you of the result. You know well the old proverbial saying, occasioned by the ill success of the persecuting attempts made by heathens, to suppress Christianity in its earlier stages, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." But the Church of Scotland needs not to look abroad for warnings, as to the folly of endeavouring either by ecclesiastical or secular censures, to check the growth and spread of obnoxious sentiments. Her own history will