Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
The great offence, which makes us look like grim persecutors in Moderate eyes, is our offer of the ministrations of the Free Church to all the inhabitants of the land. They have got our temporalities — our churches, our schools, our manses, our gardens, our glebes, and our salaries — and their sufferings consist in the circumstance that they have not yet got our people — are not likely to get them — and that the poorer classes of our countrymen are generally espousing our cause, and accepting our services.
This is the head and front of our offending. They are persecuted, because the Free Church ministers, wicked set that they are, won’t agree to be banished from the kingdom — or, at all events, won’t surrender their offices as well as their livings — or refrain from preaching the gospel wherever there are persons that are willing to hear them. They are persecuted, because, having left the old places of worship in their hands, we are trying to build new ones for ourselves, and for those who adhere to us! ...
For the reference, see Andrew Gray on the sufferings of the Free Church of Scotland.
This is the head and front of our offending. They are persecuted, because the Free Church ministers, wicked set that they are, won’t agree to be banished from the kingdom — or, at all events, won’t surrender their offices as well as their livings — or refrain from preaching the gospel wherever there are persons that are willing to hear them. They are persecuted, because, having left the old places of worship in their hands, we are trying to build new ones for ourselves, and for those who adhere to us! ...
For the reference, see Andrew Gray on the sufferings of the Free Church of Scotland.