Before 1843,
there were, says the sympathetic judge, two parties in the Established
Church--the 'Moderates' and the 'Evangelicals' (also called 'The Wild
Men', 'the Highland Host' or the 'High Flyers'). The Evangelicals
became the majority and 'they carried matters with a high hand. They
passed Acts in the Assembly ... altogether beyond the competence of a
Church established by law.... The State refused to admit their claims.
The strong arm of the law restrained their extravagancies. Still they
maintained that their proceedings were justified, and required by the
doctrine of the Headship of Christ ... to which they attached peculiar
and extraordinary significance.'
Now the State, in 1838-1843, could not and would not permit these
'extravagancies' in a State-paid Church. The Evangelical party
therefore seceded, maintaining, as one of their leaders said, that 'we
are still the Church of Scotland, the only Church that deserves the
name, the only Church that can be known and recognised by the
maintaining of those principles to which the Church of our fathers was
true when she was on the mountain and on the field, when she was under
persecution, when she was an outcast from the world.
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