Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/819

1839.] of the last century: it is at once illegal and inexpedient, because it bestows on the people a privilege for which no warrant is to be found within the four corners of the Act of 1736; in place of bringing about "harmony and unanimity in congregations," it is eminently calculated to "excite and encourage unreasonable exceptions in people against a worthy person that may be proposed to be their minister."

What then becomes of the fundamental law? What is the result of the appeal to history? The people's dissent without cause shown—the simple negative—the unreasoning rejection—the enfranchisement of the popular caprice, is an invention of the present age, unknown to the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland, unheard of in the history of any other Christian Church.

But what is new is not for that reason necessarily bad; the principle of an institution or an enactment may be defended on other grounds than its antiquity or its fundamental character. We are not such exclusive and unreasoning lovers of the time that is past, as to refuse our assent to this proposition. But our readers must not forget the argument from antiquity, or the result of our researches. The induction, no doubt, might have been made much fuller and more complete, and we are deeply conscious that greater learning and greater talent might, with advantage, have been brought to bear on the subject. But we sincerely trust that our enquiries have been as impartial as they have been diligent. We at least shall be believed when we say, that so far from being actuated by a feeling of hostility to the Church, the sole end of our endeavours is to contribute to her present welfare, and to the extension of her usefulness. In the spirit of reverence and grateful affection, which becomes us both as members of the Church and as Scotchmen, but with the independence of thought which the Reformation has secured to all men, we have spoken boldly and candidly, because we feel that, on a subject of such vital importance, to withhold the expression of opinions deliberately formed and confirmed by every day's after consideration and experience, would have been an unpardonable dereliction of duty. Again, therefore, we say, let our readers bear in mind that the first proposition in the Act of 1834, the groundwork of the whole system, is an historical untruth—that the rejection of a presentee on the ground of the people's unexplained dissent is not warranted by any previously existing law of the Church.

The expediency of the Veto Act is a separate question; but the supporters of that Act, bereft of the aid which they hoped to derive from history, must now undertake the task of showing good and sufficient cause for the fundamental change which they advocate—for the introduction of a new principle into the constitution of the Church. On all fair rules of argument the burden lies with them. It is not enough that a Reformer should defend the innovation which he proposes against the objections of his antagonist. He must show at least some reasonable prospect of benefit, present or future, otherwise he has made out no sufficient case to justify the change. But it is not the least remarkable feature in the present controversy, that, neglecting the task of furnishing materials for the direct support of their new principle—instead of showing at once the importance of the end which they seek to achieve, and the adequacy of the means employed—the advocates of the Veto principle act exclusively on the defensive—they appear to find sufficient employment for their logic and their ingenuity in endeavouring to answer the numerous and varied objections of detail to which it is exposed. They maintain, indeed, in general terms, that it is in the highest degree expedient, and almost indispensable to edification, that a minister should be acceptable to his flock. But they have provided no standard by which to measure this expediency; and they have furnished no test by the application of which we may distinguish between that acceptableness which meets the reasonable desires and spiritual wants of the people, and that which is content with satisfying their caprice, or which possibly may promise to indulge their vicious habits or to give scope to their irreligious propensities.

It is the difficulty to which we now advert, that appears to constitute the most fundamental and the most fatal objection to the principle of the Veto Act. There arc certain well-known qualifications which ought to be