A Great Grievance. Laurence A.B. Whitley
Gillepsie claimed that the Greek word which “Episcopal translators” had deliberately rendered as ordaining, was “truelie choyseing, importing the peoples suffrages in electing their officers.”9 This sparked off much debate until Henderson contrived a compromise which added the provision that the meeting was referring to the verse as a whole, and that it did not intend thereby “to prejudge any argument which in due time might be alleadged out of this place, either for popular election, or against it.”10 It was a liberty which the Kirk was glad to remember and put on record the following year, when it ratified the articles on ordination.11
Shortly after this, detailed discussion on the issue of ordination was halted until March. Meanwhile, discussion began on whether or not presbyterian church government was scriptural.12 Although little was conclusively settled, the Scots did well out of the debate which led to the validity and standing of presbyterianism being viewed in a more respectful light than previously.13 However, as the reopening of the discussions on ordination was to demonstrate, any endorsement of presbyterianism was not to be equated with a wholehearted acceptance of popular control of the Church.
On the 21 March, the Westminster Assembly turned its attention to the proposition that a congregation should accept a minister recommended to them by the superior church authority, unless they could show “just cause of exception against him.”14 The Scots had two difficulties with this. First, having already had experience of parochial intransigence, they felt obliged to press for a more detailed definition of what the qualification allowed, Gillespie asking, “But if they cannot shew just cause against him, what then is to be done?”15 There was also the matter of what Henderson called “the people’s interest, in point of election”16 He wanted to know how much preliminary consultation would there be? In seeking to resolve these scruples, the Scottish commissioners found themselves sandwiched between two opposing positions.
On the one hand, there were the moderate English Puritans, who considered that the proposed concession already bestowed a privilege upon a congregation that was more than adequate. On the other side, there were the Independents, who argued that the proposition’s approach was the wrong way round, and that any recommending should be by the people to the presbytery. In their view, what had been suggested came “not up to the privilege of the people.”17
For their part, the Scots were in the difficult position of being unable to speak with one voice, since their own church was at the time engaged in the process of internal debate upon congregational rights in vacancies. There were those, like Rutherford, who unequivocally adhered to the belief that, “The Scriptures constantly give the choice of the pastor to the people. The act of electing is in the people; and the regulating and correcting of their choice is in the presbytery.”18 Set against that, there were those like the historian and presbyterian apologist, David Calderwood (1575–1650), who wrote from Scotland censuring the Scots commissioners for allowing the power and status of kirk sessions, and thereby congregations, to be elevated to a point that, as Baillie ruefully reported, “we put ourselfe in hazard to be forced to give excommunication, and so entire government, to congregations, which is a great stepp to Independencie. Mr H[enderson] acknowledges this; and we are in a pecke of troubles with it.”19
Gillepie’s solution was to make obtrusion the central issue. If the Westminster Assembly could be persuaded specifically to outlaw settlements renitente et contradicente ecclesia [the church being in opposition], then he felt it would be a suitable compromise: “for the prelates are for obtrusion, the Separation [separatists] for a popular voting: ergo let us go in a medium.”20 When it came to the vote on the 22 March, however, the motion which finally passed still withheld an unrestricted veto: “No man shall be ordained a minister for a particular congregation, if they can shew (any) just cause of exception against him.”21 Despite the rearrangement of words, the Scots had, in the end, made little impact on the original proposition. According to Robert Paul, the reason for this was that the basic instinct of the conservative majority in the Westminster Assembly was to see the authority and status of presbyteries as being equivalent to that of the earlier bishops. Far from seeking popular empowerment, it was instead clear that for these men, “new Presbyter certainly was but ‘old Priest writ large.’”22 Nevertheless, thanks to discretionary powers which allowed the Kirk freedom to revise the details of the section on calling of ministers, the propositions on ordination were approved, despite their shortcomings, by the General Assembly on the 10 February 1645.
Before finishing with the Westminster Assembly, however, two questions remain to be asked, namely, did all the arguments surrounding election presuppose that presentations by patrons were to be repudiated and, secondly, if the Scots had been granted a free hand to regulate the admission of ministers to vacancies, what would their preference have been?
The answer to the first question is that, although patrons and presentations are very rarely mentioned in the minutes,23 or in the notes of observers like Gillespie or John Lightfoot, master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, there is no indication that all discussion was to be founded upon the principle that they were unacceptable. An example can be seen in the unexceptionable tone with which patrons are mentioned in a debate on the 21 March: “Mr Vines: The recommending by the presbytery heals all, for do either the patron or the people choose, yet is he to be recommended by the presbytery.”24 Again, all minutes appear carefully worded so that nothing obstructs the possibility of a presbytery receiving presentations. Thus, the procedure for the admission of ministers, approved on the 18 April, simply says: “He that is to be ordained must address himself to the presbytery, with a testimony . . . especially of his life: and then the presbytery to examine him: being approved, to be sent to the church where he is to be, and preach three days; and, on the last, notice to be given, that some of the congregation go to the presbytery to see him admitted or excepted.”25 Furthermore, it is recorded for the day before, that the meeting considered what legal action might befall a presbytery should “they stop a man presented, if they find him unworthy.”26 The word presented need not necessarily infer the use of a patron’s presentation, yet it is clear that the possibility is not discounted.
As for the question of Scottish preferences on election, a prevailing viewpoint is not immediately obvious. That the Kirk was itself unable to make up its mind is evidenced by the great debate which arose on the issue when the Westminster Directory came up for discussion at the 1645 General Assembly.27 Encouraged by a recent Act of the Convention of Estates, which virtually handed all crown presentations to presbyteries,28 Calderwood’s inclination was to stay with the traditional view that a presbytery’s authority was central and that the initiative in all vacancies should remain in its hands. By way of concession, however, he was prepared to allow a congregation its choice, provided the selection was from a list provided by the presbytery. On the other side of the argument, there were those, like Rutherford, who saw no