‘After all,’ said the conjurer, with a sigh, ‘the agitated question is but of inferior moment.’––Dialogue 1st, p. 3.
‘Inferior moment!’ exclaimed the true Mr. Clark; ‘no religious question of the same magnitude and importance has come before this country since the ever-memorable Revolution in 1688. The divisions of secular partisanship sink into utter insignificance when compared with this. Let the principles once become triumphant for which the Court of Session is now contending, and the Church of Scotland is ruined.’––Sermon, pp. 7 and 59.
‘Ruined!’ shouted out the conjurer; ‘it is you who are ruining the Church, by urging on the disruption. For my own part, I promised, as all ministers do at their ordination, never, directly or indirectly, to endeavour her subversion, or to follow divisive courses, but to maintain her unity and peace against error and schism, whatsoever trouble or persecution might arise; and now, in agreement with my solemn ordination engagements, have I determined to hold by her to the last.’––Dialogue 1st, p. 9.
‘What mean you by the Church?’ asked the true Mr. Clark. ‘The Church and the establishment of it are surely very different things. Men have talked of themselves as 354 friends of the Church, because they were the friends of its civil establishment, and loudly declaim against the proceedings of the majority of its office-bearers now, as fraught with danger to this object. But what do they mean by the civil establishment of an Erastian Church! Is it possible that they mean by it the receiving of certain pecuniary endowments as a price for rendering a divided allegiance to the Son of God? If that be their meaning, it is time they and the country at large should know that the Church of Scotland was never established on such principles.’––Sermon, p. 42.
‘It is not true, however,’ said the conjurer, ‘that the majority of the faithful ministers of Scotland have resolved to abandon the Establishment, though this may be the case in some parts of the country.’––Dialogue 1st, p. 16.
‘Not true, sir!’ said the true Mr. Clark; ‘nothing can be more true. All––all will leave it except a set of recreant priests, who for a pitiful morsel of this world’s bread will submit to be the instruments of trampling on the blood-bought rights of the Scottish people.’––Sermon, p. 42.
‘What has pained me most in all this controversy,’ remarked the conjurer, ‘has been the insidious manner in which certain persons have endeavoured to sow disunion––in some cases too successfully––between ministers and their hearers.’––Dialogue 1st, p. 3.
‘Sir,’ exclaimed the true Mr. Clark, ‘Sir, every individual would do well to remember, when summoned to such a contest as this, the curse denounced against Meroz for remaining in neutrality when the battle raged in Israel. This curse was denounced by the angel of the Lord, and is written for the admonition of all ages, as a demonstration of the feelings with which God regards the standing aloof, in a great religious struggle, by whatever motives it may be sought to be justified.’––Sermon, p. 59.
‘The men who thus sow disunion,’ said the conjurer, 355 ‘never venture to deny that they, whose usefulness they endeavour to destroy, are ministers of the gospel,––urging on the acceptance of a slumbering world the message of celestial mercy, which must produce results of weal or woe destined to be eternally remembered, when the strifes of words which have agitated the Church on earth are all forgotten.’––Dialogue 1st, p. 4.
‘Hold, hold, sir,’ said the true Mr. Clark. ‘On the event of this struggle depends not merely the temporal interests of our country, but the welfare of many immortal spirits through the ceaseless ages of future being.’––Sermon, p. 60.