Home Encyclopedia Summa Fathers ... F > Free Church of Scotland A B C D ... Z Free Church of Scotland (Known since 1900 as the UNITED FREE CHURCH) An ecclesiastical organization in Scotland which includes (1908) more than 500,000 of the 1,200,000 inhabitants of that country professing adherence to Presbyterian principles. The existence of the Free Church as a separate ecclesiastical body dates from 1843, when a large number of members, both lay and clerical, of the Established Church of Scotland, severed their connection with that body as a protest against the encroachment of the civil power on the independence of the Church, especially in the matters of presentation to vacant benefices. According to the Free-Church view, the Church of Scotland, from the date of its inception in 1560, upon the overthrow of the old religion had possessed the inherent right of exercising her spiritual jurisdiction through her elected assembly, absolutely free of any interference by the civil power. Such an independence had been asserted by her first leaders, Knox and Melville, and especially laid down and claimed in both the first and second books of discipline, issued in 1560 and 1581. The restoration of "prelacy"(the episcopal form of church government) in 1606 by James I, the revival of self governing powers of the Assembly in 1649, its subsequent suspension under Cromwell in 1653 and again after the Restoration, the Revolution The well-wishers of the new United Free Church are naturally looking forward to an enlarged field of influence and a wider scope of activity, both at home and in the mission-field. What must, however, fill with anxiety every friend of Scottish | |
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