A Great Grievance. Laurence A.B. Whitley

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СКАЧАТЬ above, Chapter Two] of King Charles in his legislation of 1633. Charles had tried to “liberate” the vassals of the Lords of Erection by stripping the latter of their superiority and vesting it in the Crown. To the frustration of the former, this had not happened. Now, this Act attempted to make good the deficiency and the lords were obliged “to accept the same sums from the vassals themselves whilk they are liable and bound to accept from His Majesty for redemption thereof.” Another example was the legislation of 29 June, which sought to enhance the status of others beside the aristocracy in the shires and burghs, by encouraging the revival of the office of Justice of the Peace.42

By such means, Parliament attempted to free the lesser landowners from the dominance of the magnates and allow them greater freedom to contribute to the life of their localities. Accordingly, when the Act abolishing patronage appears, it is as a part of this context. As a motivation, there was indeed the principle that it was a burden under which the Church “groaned,” but there was also the underlying reality that the great man with the block of patronages was no longer to have the same sway in parochial matters. This realization was undoubtedly in the mind of those like the Earl of Buccleuch (who had seven churches in his gift) when, in protest, he and others walked out of the chamber during the debate. The contemporary writer, Sir James Balfour, describes the scene: “The Parliament past a most strange [i.e., foreign, alien] Acte this monthe, abolishing the patronages of kirkes, which pertained to laymen since ever Christianity was planted in Scotland. Francis, Earl of Buccleuch, and some others, protested against this acte as vrangous [wrongous] and all togider derogatory to the just rights of the nobility and gentrey of the kingdom of Scotland, and so departed the Parl: House.”43

The objectors had Balfour’s sympathy, especially as two other facets to the debate caused him annoyance. The first stemmed from his conviction that the leading role played by Argyll, the Lord Chancellor (John Campbell, first Earl of Loudoun) and Johnston of Wariston in favor of the Act, was entirely driven by their fear of losing the Kirk’s favor. The second was that the phraseology of the Act gave the implication that the people were about to be given the liberty to choose their own ministers. He considered this to be hypocrisy, since such an outcome was never likely. Whereas there was probably truth in his first point, Balfour’s claim that the people had been duped in their expectations was exaggerated, since it is clear that the wording, “suit and calling of the congregation,” is open to a variety of interpretations. Indeed, the framers recognized as much in the Act itself.44

      Balfour was, however, correct about the disunity and confusion which surfaced at the Assembly four months later over what selection system should replace patronage. On the other hand, some clash of opinion should not have been unexpected. For reasons of tact and expediency, the Kirk had perennially shied away from plenary debates about patronage, so there had never been a regular opportunity for differing opinions to be aired and agreement reached on an alternative system. Differing opinions were to be expected: what did take observers, like Baillie, by surprise was the intensity with which they were expressed.

      The directory for the election of ministers [see Appendix III]

The 1649 Act remitted it to the July meeting of the Assembly to draw up a directory which would determine in what way the congregation’s interest could be fittingly expressed when a vacancy is filled, and to form that into a standing rule. When the debate began, the starting point for most members’ thinking was the views previously expressed by George Gillespie. Despite his death on the 17 December the previous year, he had been held in the highest regard,45 and so when, shortly after, Gillespie’s brother Patrick published a series of articles by him, including one on congregational consent in vacancies, it was given widespread attention.

Although the work was concerned with proving, from scripture and the practice of the early Church, that the approval of the people is essential for a valid ministry, it was equally emphatic in rejecting any separatist notion of giving the people a juridical power, that is to say, one in which their judgement was legally binding. That would be to place “the whole essentality of a calling in election, accounting ordination to be no more but the solemnization of the calling.”46 In Gillespie’s view, the most sensible course was for the eldership of a vacant church, with the advice of the “ablest and wisest men of the congregation, especially . . . magistrates,” to elect a candidate, and then seek the congregation’s consent for their choice. This consent was not, in Gillespie’s eyes, to be considered a suffrage. The eldership had already decided the issue: their secondary task was to strive to carry with them at least the majority of the congregation.

The problem with Gillespie’s plan was that it contained too much room for uncertainty, especially over the issues of advice and dissent—a difficulty remarked upon by one contemporary commentator, who felt he would “not contend to understand all the particulaires mentioned.”47 For men like Rutherford and Wood, however, there was no need for such confusion. Whereas Gillespie’s concern was not to promote the franchise of the untutored many over the privileged few, but rather to keep what he saw as a spiritual act (vacancy–filling) in the hands of the church’s spiritually–commissioned officers, in Rutherford and Wood’s eyes, the issue was otherwise. The question for them was straightforward: the power of election resided “in the body of the people, contradistinct from their eldership.”48 It was a premise they promoted with some passion.

      The most bitter resistance to Gillespie’s views, however, came from David Calderwood. His revulsion against congregationalism, expressed at the time of the Westminster Assembly (see above), led him to feel that any arrangement which did not make presbytery unequivocally the electors (although the people could dissent), was a betrayal of presbyterianism. Baillie records that the sharpness of his protestations were such that he was fortunate to escape censure, although the court did afford him the honor of commissioning a written response to his objections.

The paper reveals how the main constituent of Calderwood’s argument was that the Assembly’s inclinations were a departure from the Second Book of Discipline, which had stated: “Election is the choosing out of a person or persons, most able for the office that vaikes, by the judgement of the eldership [i.e., presbytery] and consent of the congregation.”49 In reply to this, it was argued that church and society had moved on since that era. Since the Book did not “determine every particular belonging to the practice of election,” and that nothing in the new version was contrary to God’s word, men were surely free to alter the doctrines of men. Then, moving their reasoning onto less certain ground, the authors claim that the Book did not give the power of choosing to the presbytery only “as if the consent of the people were not an essential ingredient and part of election,” but to both jointly. Accordingly, the kirk session is not given “complete and free” election, but only a nomination by vote, which the people must acquiesce with.50

      The respondents’ answers underline the difficulties encountered by the Church when it sought to make the second Book its guide on the planting of parishes. Baillie watched the interpretations ebb and flow and considered Calderwood had the better of the argument, nevertheless his own inclinations remained with the majority who favored a version of Gillespie’s ideas. The general sticking-point for the Assembly, however, remained the matter of how the candidate(s) for nomination were to be brought to the attention of the session—was presbytery to be the sole source? In the event, a compromise was reached whereby the presbytery would send candidates to be heard, but if the session petitioned them to allow, in addition, a hearing of someone else, then they would endeavor to facilitate it.

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