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Patronage is the practice of civil patrons interfering with ecclesiastical elections, which historically had been a significant, lagging grievance in the Church of Scotland.
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Order of Contents
Articles 4+
Books 6
Quotes 2
History 2
Romanism 1
After-Consent makes Valid 1
Tolerable 5
Solution 1
Exceptions 1
Latin 3
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Articles
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – Section 2, ‘Certain Propositions Tending to Reformation… the Author [a congregationalist] condemns Laic-Patronages’ in Ch. 7, section 1, ‘Of the Way of Reformation of the Congregations of England’ in The Due Right of Presbyteries… (London, 1644), pt. 2, pp. 457-68
Gillespie, George – ch. 2, ‘Of the Election of Pastors with the Congregation’s Consent’ in Treatise of Miscellany Questions (n.d.), pp. 4-14
Baxter, Richard – The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II & King James II Truly Stated & Argued (1683; London: Parkhurst, 1689), pp. 163-73
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1800’s
M’Crie, Thomas (the elder) – ‘What Ought the General Assembly do at the Present Crisis?’ (1833) in Miscellaneous Writings, Chiefly Historical (Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1841), pp. 642-67
M’Crie’s answer, in 1833, was to abolish patronage immediately. The General Assembly did not take his advice. The 10 year conflict over patronage and State intrusion ensued culminating in the Disruption.
Cunningham, William
Discussions on Church Principles (1863)
ch. 11, ‘The Rights of the Christian People’, pp. 290-469
Cunningham (1805–1861) was a minister and professor in the Free Church of Scotland. He covers the whole gamut of Church history on the question.
ch. 12, ‘The Principle of Non-Intrusion’, pp. 470-549
ch. 13, ‘Patronage & Popular Election’, pp. 550-65
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Books
1800’s
Bridges, James – Patronage in the Church of Scotland Considered (Edinburgh: 1840) 60 pp. ToC
Bridges was a lawyer.
Laing, Benjamin – A Catechism on the History of the Church of Scotland from the Beginning of the Reformation to the Restoration of Patronage in 1712 (1842) 132 pp. ToC including important acts of Parliament and Assembly connected with Patronage from the Reformation till 1842.
Laing was a minister in the Original Secession Church. This Catechism is very faithful. See the review by the Scottish Presbyterian. Laing, though would later, in another work, advocate for the union of the numerous conservative presbyterian churches in late-1800’s Scotland on a fairly broad platform.
Select Anti-Patronage Library: Consisting Chiefly of Reprints of Scarce Pamphlets (1842) 280 pp. no ToC including important acts of Parliament and Assembly connected with Patronage from the Reformation till 1842.
This was published in Scotland right before the Disruption of 1843, which was largely over patronage.
Anon. – Modern Erastianism Unvailed: or a Further Survey of the Right of Patronage (n.d.) 238 pp. ToC
Cunningham, William – Strictures on the Rev. James Robertson’s Observations upon the Veto Act, pt. 1: Legal & Scriptural branches of the Argument (1840) 134 pp. no ToC
Evangelicals in the Church of Scotland were able to pass the Veto Act in the Church in 1834, which upheld the Biblical principle that ministers could not be forced onto a congregation by the civil government. The Veto Act was overturned in the civil courts in 1838, leading to a battle between Church and State which culminated in the Disruption of 1843. Robertson was a moderate minister in the Church of Scotland whose Observations upon the Veto Act, 1839, criticized it and sought for its removal in the Church. Cunningham here defends the Veto Act, contrary to the civil government. May such courage be given to us today when the church often blindly follows the will of Caesar instead of the will of God.
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Quotes
1600’s
William Ames
A Second Manuduction for Mr. [John] Robinson. Or a confirmation of the former in an answer to his manumission (Amsterdam, 1615), pp. 12-13
“…his [John Robinson’s] answer is that no parish assemblies [under patrons and bishops] have power of right to choose their ministers. Whereas on the contrary it is most evident that every congregation of Christians has right unto this thing from Christ Himself so inseparably annexed unto it that no external oppression by others or abuse of their own can possibly deprive them of this right, so long as they remain a Christian assembly or congregation. Suppose they be in external bondage, and that in some sense spiritual, yet no matter of fact can take away right, while they abide such as Christ has given that right unto.
The whole case may be cleared in this example: two single persons agree on mariage betwixt themselves, with allowance of parents, and have by virtue of that contract mutual right one in other; yet the laws of the place where they live, having ordered that none shall be held for married persons without certain forms which they appoint, they have not external legal power or liberty one in the other before such rites be performed.
Even so stands the matter betwixt minister and people in England, they agreeing or contracting betwixt themselves have right one in other: but external legal power or liberty they must receive from others.
Another example also I would have considered: the emperor sometime was so subiect unto the pope that he had not liberty of emperial rule until he received his crown from Rome: yet was the emperor then no proper part of the papacy, nor did he take his right from the pope, neither did those that submitted unto him therein communicate with the pope’s authority. So is this in hand.”
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Richard Baxter
The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), sect. 6, pp. 111-12
“…let it be noted:
1. That even under the Jewish Law, magistrates were not the choosers of the priests, but God chose them by settling the priesthood on one line.
2. That Christ has by his Spirit in the apostles altered the priesthood, and the way of their calling and entrance under the Gospel.
3. That the Church near a thousand years was in possession of that way, and many hundred of those years the possession was universal in all the Churches.
4. That the choosing of bishops or priests by magistrates or lay-patrons was none of that way which Christ appointed.
Therefore seeing it is not the choosing or making, but the governing [circa sacra] of bishops or priests that is committed to princes, and Christ‘s Law is the first by which they must govern, it seems to us that they cannot oblige the subjects to take up with wicked pastors when better are prohibited and are to be had.”
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The History of Patronage
Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – ‘The History of the Right of Patronage’ in Ecclesiastical Politics tr. by AI (Amsterdam: Joannes à Waesberge, 1663–1676), vol. 3, ch. 1, pp. 580-95
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Scotland: After the Reformation
Article
Kirk, James – ch. 10, ‘The Survival of Ecclesiastical Patronage after the Reformation’ in Patterns of Reform Buy (T&T Clark, 1989), pp. 368-425
Kirk is a leading, contemporary, presbyterian, Scottish Church historian.
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Book
Whitley, Laurence A.B. – A Great Grievance: Ecclesiastical Lay Patronage in Scotland until 1750 Buy (Wipf & Stock, 2013) See this review.
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In Romanism
Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), p. 19
“That the people’s approbation of a king is not necessary, is the saying of Beilarmine and the papists, and that the people choose their ministers in the apostolic church, not by a necessity of a divine commandment, but to conciliate love betwixt pastor and people.”
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A People’s After-Consent makes the Pastoral Relation Valid
Quote
1500’s
Thomas Cartwright
eds. Peel & Carlson, Cartwrightiana (London: Halley Stewart, 1951), ‘Letter to Mrs. Stubbes his sister-in-law to persuade her from Brownism’, p. 68
“…an after-acceptance and liking of the minister whom they did at first so unwillingly admit is a manifest confirmation of their minister. For as Jacob, by accepting of Leah the second night, which was thrust upon him the first night, thereby made her his lawful wife that he could not after reject her.
So likwise the lawful acceptance of a lawful and able minister makes his ministry lawful, as if his election full which was not so at the first.”
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Patronage is Tolerable under Necessity
See also ‘On Compliance with, or a Tolerable Submission to Practices of Erastianism where Possible or under Necessity’, ‘On Serving, or Holding Office under, Prevalent Usurpers’ and ‘On Implicit, Concurrent & ex post facto (After the Fact) Consent’.
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Quotes
Order of
Puritans
Henderson
Westminster Era
Baxter
Fentiman
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1600’s
Partially Conforming, English Puritan Ministers
A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), “We have a True Ministry in England”, Answer 2, pp. 256-57
“And seeing the right that [civil] patrons now have was given them at first by the people’s free consent (though ignorantly and unlawfully as we are persuaded), we see not why the choice that the patron makes may not be accounted the choice of the people, as well as the acts done by the knights and burgesses of the Parliament are deemed the acts of the whole commons, by whom they were deputed;
It is evident that by the law mentioned, Num. 30:8, that the silence of the husband or parent that testified not his dislike to the vow which he understood was made by his wife or child, made the said vow of as much force as if his consent had been requited and given: so it is judged in this case of the people’s silence in accepting of their ministers.”
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Alexander Henderson
The Government & Order of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Bryson, 1641), II. Of their Calling
“This liberty of election is in part prejudged and hindered by patronages and presentations which are still in use there [in Scotland], not by the rules of their discipline, but by toleration of that which they cannot amend, in the mean time procuring, that in the case of presentations by patrons, the examination and trial by the Presbytery, is still the same. The congregation, where he who is presented is to serve, is called, if they have ought to object against his doctrine or life, after they have heard him, or that their consent may be had. And if he be found Reus ambitus, or to have gone about to procure a presentation, he is repelled and declared incapable of that place.
No pastor may thrust himself upon a flock, nor after his entry, desert his charge, or remove himself to another congregation at his own pleasure.”
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Scottish Ministers in the Westminster Era
Travis Fentiman, “Editor’s Extended Introduction”, “Imposed Erastianism & Episcopacy” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), p. 104
“The equivalent to the Great Ejection in Scotland in 1662 required a great amount less of the ministers than on the English side. No oaths or subscribing were mandatory, but every minister who had entered the ministry after 1649 was to (1) “obtain presentation,” or sanction from the patron (a local or regional civil officer), and (2) “have collation,” or confer with the regional bishop.
About 20% of the Scottish ministry had entered before 1649, when patronage was still current, before it was abolished. Many of those Scottish ministers during the Second Reformation (1638) and Westminster era had complied with patronage.”
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Richard Baxter
The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), sect. 6
p. 50
“In England it [civilly] belongs:
1. to the patron to present;
2. to the bishop to ordain and institute, and therefore to approve and invest;
3. to the people jure divino to be free consenters;
4. and to the magistrate to protect and to judge who shall be protected or tolerated under him.
If now these four parties be for four ministers or for three, or two several men, and cannot agree in one, the culpable dissenters will be the causes of the schism.”
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pp. 80-81
“Here it must be noted that Church history has constrained all that understand it to confess (both Papists, Greeks and Protestants) that:
[1.] The ordination of bishops and presbyters was in the power of the bishops, and the election in the power of the people, not only the first 300 years under heathen emperors, but for many hundred years after under Christian emperors and princes.
2. That this was taken for their right given them by God. To cite more proofs, for this would expose us to the reader’s censure as unnecessary tediousness: Many Papists largely prove it, as does David Blondel beyond exception, De jure plebis in regimine Ecclesiastico, with more.
3. That yet we here plead not for the necessity of so much as the people’s election as it signifies the first nomination of the person, but only for the necessity of consent, either explicitly or implicitly expressed. If the senior pastors have the first nomination, or, if it be the magistrate, or patrons, as with us, we quarrel not against it if the flock do but consent.
Parents may choose husbands and wives for their children; but they are not such at all till mutual consent.”
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2000’s
Travis Fentiman
“Editor’s Extended Introduction”, “Imposed Erastianism & Episcopacy” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), p. 106
“Our English [partially conforming] authors below will make the case for, under necessity, material cooperation with bishops, taking the oath of canonical obedience and yielding to civil patrons in the presentation of ministers to congregations (or patronage).
Note that conferring with a bishop and getting the consent and recognition of a civil officer to one’s ministry¹ are not inherently sinful actions. To give further perspective to this, and what is to come, it will be proven in the next section that Church government (albeit of divine law) is not moral law, but is secondary.
¹ Note that having the recognition and approval of the civil government, though it ought to be secondary and consequential rather than primary and immediate, is involved in the Biblical doctrine of
circa sacra and of itself is a good thing. On the proper order see Fentiman, Circa Sacra, pp. 49–51.
[The book written by Scottish indulged ministers, associated with John] Bairdie poses the question: “Whether it be altogether heterogeneous and incompetent, as well as it may be inconvenient, for the ruler to make civil laws and constitutions about the circumstances, order, and exercise of matters of religion, without the previous cognizance and pre-determination of the Church thereupon, and that even in the most broken and ruined state of the Church when there is no governing-Church existent that can be owned.” Balm from Gilead, pp. 76–77. The answer, at least in the abstract, must be that such an exercise of civil power, however inconvenient and defective in some cases, is not always incompetent and invalid in itself.”
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The Solution
George Gillespie
Treatise of Miscellany Questions, ch. 2, pp. 11,13
“Neither, in this same point of elections, do we homologate [agree] with them [Independents, Anabaptists and Separatists] who give to the collective body of the church (women and children under age only excepted) the power of decisive vote and suffrage in elections, we give the vote only to the eldership or church representative, so that they carry along with them the consent of the major or better part of the congregation… out of Thomas [Aquinas] this difference betwixt consent and election, that though every choosing be a consenting, yet every consenting is not a choosing.
[1] The liberty of consent is one thing; [2] counsel or deliberation another thing; [3] the power of a decisive voice in court or judicatory a third thing. I speak of a constituted church (for where there is not yet an eldership there can be no such distinction; yet, however, be there an eldership, or be there none, the church’s consent must be had).
The first of these [consent] we ascribe to the whole church, without whose knowledge and consent ministers may not be intruded;
the second [counsel & deliberation] to the ablest and wisest men of the congregation, especially to magistrates, with whose special advice, privity and deliberation, the matter ought to be managed;
the third [a decisive voice in court], which is the formal and consistorial determination of the case of election, consists in the votes of the eldership.
Their way [Independents, etc.] is much different than this, who would have the matter prepared by the conference and deliberation of the eldership (as we used to do in committees),¹ but determined and decided by the votes of the whole congregation.
[¹There was a change in the Church of Scotland’s practice on this, probably due to a response to the Independents. See Thomas M’Crie (the younger), p. 232 of The Story of the Scottish Church. See especially the 2nd paragraph of the footnote. The context, from p. 228, is the discussion of patronage.]
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I conclude with a passage out of the Ecclesiastical Discipline of the Reformed Churches in France, ch. 1, ‘The silence of the people, none contradicting, shall be taken for an express consent…”
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Exceptions to Persons being Appointed their Pastor without their Consent
Quote
Richard Baxter
Catholic Communion Defended against both Extremes, and Unnecessary Division Confuted in Five Parts... (1684), Unnecessary Separating Disowned, pp. 4-5
“1. It is of absolute necessity that every man consent before another man can do the work of a pastor for his soul: And God in nature and Scripture has ordained that he who must be saved or damned according to the minister’s success, should be the chooser or refuser of that which so unspeakably concerns him and not have his salvation more in another’s power than his own, if he be at age and in his wits.
2. And yet this may be run into extremes; and these are not easily avoided:
1. Infants (that is, all short of an understanding, choosing age) and idiots and madmen, are half-brutes in act, and to be governed accordingly by force, so far as they are incapable of reason. But these are not capable of the Church-communion of the adult.
Yea, not only children, but all [civil] subjects who are not communicants, may be forced to hear and learn [Christianity] as catechumens, as is said: And they must not pretend a power to choose their teachers, to excuse them from all learning:
But if they say that they can learn better of another than the parish-minister; if they are able, they may remove to another parish: If not, they must give proof that they live as learners under some teacher who is capable to instruct them, approved or tolerated by authority, where rulers own the Truth.”
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Latin Articles
For Patronage
1600’s
Forbes, John – Ten Books of Moral Theology in which the Precepts of the Decalogue are Expounded, and various things around the Law of God and special controversial precepts of the same are dissolved, and cases of conscience are explained Detailed ToC in All the Works (d.1648; Amsterdam, 1703), vol. 1, 8. Eighth Precept, pt. 2, Simony and right of patronage
3. Right of patronage 167
1. Its origin, foundation and what way it is acquired; then what rights patrons have in churches; lastly the three parts of the rights of patronhood are explained, even presentation, defense and utility 167
2. What rights in churches patrons have 168
3. Those three parts of the right of patronage are explained in the way proposed: 169
i. Presentation 169
ii. Defense 170
iii. Utility 170
Forbes of Corse (1593–1648)
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Against Patronage
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
section 14 of 49. ‘A Disputation: Some Miscellaneous Positions’ in Select Theological Disputations (Amsterdam: Jansson, 1667), p. 758-60
Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 3, pt. 2, bk. 3
Tract 1
3. Of the Mode of an Ecclesiastical Election 543
5. Of a Five-fold Approbation: 1. by the People, 2. by the Neighboring Ministers, or Classis [Presbytery], 3. by the Magistrate, 4. by the Minister or the Ordinand, 5. by the Church from Where he is Called 560
Tract 2, Of the Opposites to Calling
1. Of the History of the Law of Patronage 580
2. The Law of Patronage is Indicted 595
3. Distinctions and Cautions are set Forward about the Standing of the State of the Controversy; Arguments Against the Law of Patronage are Adduced 597
4. Special Arguments from the Absurdity of the Consequence and to the Man [ad Hominem] 613
5. The Consensus of Antiquity on Ecclesiastical Elections 617
6. Objections and Exceptions are Responded to 621
7. Some Particular Questions about the Usurpation of the Law of Patronage are Responded to 632
8. Of the Use of a Clerical Patron of Patrons, whether of the Heterodox or the Orthodox 637
9. Those are Examined which are Against our Sentiment and Diatribe on the Law of Patronage; They are Added from Some. 644
11. An Extract on the Law of Patronage from a Certain Remonstrance 683
12. A Declaration of the Reformed Churches of France, [from] the Assemblies in the National Synod at Privas 693
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