Past votes may not absolutely pledge a man to a future course of action; warned in time, such a man may stand neutral in practice; but thus far they poison the fountains of wholesome unanimity--that, if a man can evade the necessity of squaring particular _actions_ to his past opinions, at least he must find himself tempted to square his opinions themselves, or his counsels, to such past opinions as he may too notoriously have placed on record by his votes.
But, if such are the continual dangers from reactions in the establishment, so long as men survive in that establishment who feel upbraided by past votes, and so long as enemies survive who will not suffer these upbraidings to slumber--dangers which much mutual forbearance and charity can alone disarm; on the other hand, how much profounder is the inconsistency to which the Free church is doomed!--They have rent the unity of that church, to which they had pledged their faith--but on what plea? On the plea, that in cases purely spiritual, they could not in conscience submit to the award of the secular magistrate. Yet how merely impracticable is this principle, as an abiding principle of action! Churches, that is, the charge of particular congregations, will be with _them_ (as with other religious communities) the means of livelihood. Grounds innumerable will arise for excluding, or attempting to exclude, each other from these official stations. No possible form regulating the business of ordination, or of induction, can anticipate the infinite objections which may arise. But no man interested in such a case, will submit to a judge appointed by insufficient authority. Daily bread for his family, is what few men will resign without a struggle. And that struggle will of necessity come for final adjudication to the law courts of the land, whose interference in any question affecting a spiritual interest, the Free church has for ever pledged herself to refuse. But in the case supposed, she will not have the power to refuse it. She will be cited before the tribunals, and can elude that citation in no way but by surrendering the point in litigation; and if she should adopt the notion, that it is better for her to do _that_, than to acknowledge a sufficient authority in the court by pleading at its bar, upon this principle once made public, she will soon be stripped of every thing, and will cease to be a church at all. She cannot continue to be a depository of any faith, or a champion of any doctrines, if she lose the means of defending her own incorporations. But how can she maintain the defenders of her rights or the dispensers of her truths, if she refuses, upon immutable principle, to call in the aid of the magistrate on behalf of rights, which, under any aspect, regard spiritual relations? Attempting to maintain these rights by private arbitration within a forum of her own, she will soon find such arbitration not binding at all upon the party who conceives himself aggrieved. The issue will be as in Mr O'Connell's courts, where the parties played at going to law; from the moment when they ceased to play, and no longer "made believe" to be disputing, the award of the judge became as entire a mockery, as any stage mimicry of such a transaction.