804 On the Present Condition of the Chnrch of Scotland. Part IT. [Dec.
ed by every minister, and the absence of any of these may naturally and reasonably render a presentee unacceptable. But if any man be inducted into a parish, who is truly disqualified, from insufficiency of talent or attainments, from heresy, or from a sinful and godless life, the Church herself is deeply responsible for this calamity; for to her is committed the duty of examination, and every minister of a parish has twice undergone trials by a Church court, first, when he was licensed to preach, and a second time previous to his induction to the benefice which he holds. The people, too, by the existing law, are privileged to oppose, and will successfully oppose, the settlement of any man against whom they can establish objections, founded on such disqualifications as those of which we now speak. This is the ordeal to which every minister in the Church is subjected; it is the duty of the presbytery both to enquire and to judge, and it is the privilege of the congregation, if they see fit, to direct and assist the enquiries of the presbytery by the statement of objections. In this state of the law two things are clear, 1st, That the presbytery are the sole judges in the matter of qualification; and, 2d, That the grounds of objection competent to the people are limited to certain classes, definite and ascertained. But the new system reverses these rules; for the Act of 1834 proceeds on the assumption, that there is a certain class of objections of which the people and not the presbytery ought to be the judges; and so far from attempting a definition or even a description of this class, it commits to the people a power of absolute rejection, on any ground which may be satisfactory to their own minds, although it is confessedly possible that their objection, if stated, might turn out to be frivolous or positively immoral.
Some of the framers and supporters of the Veto Act are exceedingly indignant when they are charged with introducing into the Church the evils of popular election; and yet it is difficult to see the distinction, in principle or in substance, between a direct right of choice, and such a negative power as controls and nullifies the patron's choice, and ultimately leads to the gratification of the people's wish, by the appointment of their favourite candidate. But we shall not dispute about words. We condemn the principle of the Veto, because it, in fact, makes the people the uncontrolled judges of the presentee's qualifications for the benefice—of his fitness to minister to their spiritual necessities; while it is universally true that those who stand in need of spiritual aid are not only the very last to seek it, but are also the most incapable of understanding what kind of instruction, and admonition, and spiritual exercise and religious culture, is the best adapted to their own minds and hearts. We deprecate all free-trade notions in religion; we deny that the demand may safely be left to regulate the supply of spiritual instruction and pastoral superintendence; we therefore support civil establishments of religion, and for the very same reason we condemn the Veto Act. This analogy is close and obvious enough; and it is surprising, it is monstrous, that men, who, in defending the utility of church establishments, have, in the most eloquent and convincing language, demonstrated the absolute incapacity of the people to understand their own spiritual wants—who have argued in vindication of church establishments on the assumption, that the wishes and the wants of the people in spiritual matters are not only not identical or commensurate, but very often directly opposed—that these men should so far forget their own principles—the grounds of their own arguments—their own deliberate written opinions, as to maintain, in the present question, that this same people are the best judges of a presentee's fitness to minister to their spiritual wants—that the preacher selected because he is the most acceptable to the people, and most completely meets and gratifies their wishes, will necessarily, or naturally, or probably, be also the most zealous and the most successful—the most peculiarly fitted to minister to their wants. If we are not mistaken, it was Dr Chalmers—now the keen partisan of the Veto Act, the author of the resolution, which, in support of that Act, and for the sake of the principle which it embodies, pledged the Church to her present unequal, unseemly, and mischievous contest with the civil power—it was he who first detected, or at least who first explained and exposed, the miser-
