Theological Essays and Other Papers, vol 2 | Page 5

a blank privation
strongly before the public eye. 'The "call" did not take place last week;'
well, perhaps it will take place next week. Or again, if it should never
take place, perhaps it may be religious carelessness on the part of the
parish. Many parishes notoriously feel no interest in their pastor, except
as a quiet member of their community. Consequently, in two of three
cases that might occur, there was nothing to excite the public; the
parish had either agreed with the patron, or had not noticeably
dissented. But in the third case of positive 'objections,' which (in order
to justify themselves as not frivolous and vexatious) were urged with

peculiar emphasis, the attention of all men was arrested. Newspapers
reverberated the fact: sympathetic groans arose: the patron was an
oppressor: the parish was under persecution: and the poor clergyman,
whose case was the most to be pitied, as being in a measure endowed
with a lasting fund of dislike, had the mortification to find, over and
above this resistance from within, that he bore the name of 'intruder'
from without. He was supposed by the fiction of the case to be in
league with his patron for the persecution of a godly parish; whilst in
reality the godly parish was persecuting him, and hallooing the world
ab extra to join in the hunt.
In such cases of pretended objections to men who have not been tried,
we need scarcely tell the reader, that usually they are mere cabals and
worldly intrigues. It is next to impossible that any parish or
congregation should sincerely agree in their opinion of a clergyman.
What one man likes in such cases, another man detests. Mr. A., with an
ardent nature, and something of a histrionic turn, doats upon a fine
rhetorical display. Mr. B., with more simplicity of taste, pronounces
this little better than theatrical ostenostentation. Mr. C. requires a good
deal of critical scholarship, Mr. D quarrels with this as unsuitable to a
rustic congregation. Mrs. X., who is 'under concern' for sin, demands a
searching and (as she expresses it) a 'faithful' style of dealing with
consciences. Mrs. Y., an aristocratic lady, who cannot bear to be mixed
up in any common charge together with low people, abominates such
words as 'sin,' and wills that the parson should confine his
'observations' to the 'shocking demoralization of the lower orders.'
Now, having stated the practice of Scottish induction as it was formerly
sustained in its first stage by law, in its second stage by usage, let us
finish that part of the subject by reporting the existing practice as
regulated in all its stages by law. What law? The law as laid down in
Lord Aberdeen's late Act of Parliament. This statement should,
historically speaking, have found itself under our third head, as being
one amongst the consequences immediately following the final rupture.
But it is better placed at this point; because it closes the whole review
of that topic; and because it reflects light upon the former practice--the
practice which led to the whole mutinous tumult: every alteration
forcing more keenly upon the reader's attention what had been the
previous custom, and in what respect it was held by any man to be a

grievance.
This act, then, of Lord Aberdeen's removes all legal effect from the
'call.' Common sense required that. For what was to be done with
patronage? Was it to be sustained, or was it not? If not, then why
quarrel with the Non-intrusionists? Why suffer a schism to take place
in the church? Give legal effect to the 'call,' and the original cause of
quarrel is gone. For, with respect to the opponents of the
Non-intrusionists, they would bow to the law. On the other hand, if
patronage is to be sustained, then why allow of any lingering or
doubtful force to what must often operate as a conflicting claim? 'A
call,' which carries with it any legal force, annihilates patronage.
Patronage would thus be exercised only on sufferance. Do we mean
then, that a 'call' should sink into a pure fiction of ceremony, like the
English _conge-d'elire_ addressed to a dean and chapter, calling on
them to elect a bishop, when all the world knows that already the see
has been filled by a nomination from the crown? Not at all; a moral
weight will still attach to the 'call,' though no legal coercion: and what
is chiefly important, all those doubts will be removed by express
legislation, which could not but arise between a practice pointing
sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in another, between legal
decisions again upholding one view, whilst something very like legal
prescription was occasionally pleaded for the other. Behold the evil of
written laws not rigorously in harmony with that