Ladies and the Vote

While looking for something else, I came across a photocopy of some pages from the “Miscellaneous Writings” of Thomas M’Crie (Sr.) titled “On the Right of Females to Vote in the Election of Ministers and Elders”. While I find it interesting that he writes in opposition to the idea, I was taken aback by some of his arguments.

My first difficulty is that M’Crie goes outside of the tradition to make his points. M’Crie was a Presbyterian, so one might assume that he would use Presbyterian arguments. Yet, he cites the examples of Dutch writers and the 1690 Union of English Dissenters. The problem here is that both cases involve a hybrid of Presbyterian and Congregationalist principles. When the opinions of Dutch theologians were brought to the attention of the Westminster Divines, it settled little as both the Presbyterians and the Independents claimed them in support of their positions. In the “Syncretism or Agreement” of the 1690 Union, the language used for those eligible to vote is more Congregationalist than Presbyterian: “the brotherhood of that particular church” and “such men in the congregation as in the judgement of charity are meet for a communion-table”. Were there no Presbyterian writers to be cited?

My second difficulty is that M’Crie says, “It will not be pleaded, I suppose, that it was the practice for women to vote in the best times the Church of Scotland.” What were the best times? I should say that, in this context, they were the period during which the 1649 Directory was in force. That Directory put the election of a prospective minister into the hands of the Session. If the people acquiesced and consented to the candidate, then the Presbytery began its process leading to ordination and/or installation. If the call was not unanimous, then the Presbytery must decide whether to proceed with the process. Obviously, women were not on the Session, so they had no vote. The point at issue is whether they had a part in the consent. From things said by Gillespie and Rutherford, it is thought that the answer would be yes. M’Crie’s disputed plea cannot be answered accurately in the form in which it is expressed.

My third difficulty is that M’Crie says that in “choosing office-bearers, the people seem necessarily to exercise a species of power, and their call seems, in so far, to have an authority over the individuals who are its objects, and to constitute in part what goes in ordinary cases to determine the call of God”. Yet, Presbyterian writers strongly emphasise that the power of the keys is in the hands of the Presbytery and not the people. Further, he cites Voetius to the effect that women constitute the visible church only in a limited sense, not in a sense that the power of rule and jurisdiction belongs to them; and voting is an act of such power. In response, firstly, Presbyterians do not place the power of rule and jurisdiction in the hands of the “brotherhood” but in the hands of the Eldership. Secondly, the power by which the church chooses office-bearers is a popular or virtual power, not an authoritative or formal power; it is an antecedent to the Presbytery’s act of authoritative and formal power.

My fourth difficulty is that M’Crie admits that in many instances women make up the majority of the congregation, that in all instances their consent or dissent must always be supposed, and that there are many ways in which their consent or dissent may be ascertained or declared without them voting. What makes a vote an exercise of power and another method of ascertaining consent or dissent not an exercise of power? If the vote is an exercise of power, no non-office-bearers should be exercising it and the whole congregation should be using some other way.

My fifth difficulty is that when M’Crie takes up the case that in the extraordinary circumstance that an isolated congregation is bereft of office-bearers, election is sufficient to constitute a lawful calling and thus replace them, he argues it as the 17th century Independents did.

My difficulties with M’Crie do not settle the question of who should participate in elections for office-bearers. They do, however, highlight the need for the question to be settled upon Presbyterian principles.