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HANDBOOKS 
 
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 BIBLE CLASSES. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 REV. MARCUS DODS, D.D., 
 
 AND 
 
 REV. ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D. 
 
 PRESBYTER1ANISM. REV. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND CIBB, 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO, 
 
 DUBLIN, GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 NEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. 
 
PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOHN MACPHERSON, M.A , 
 
 FINDIIORN. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
CON TE N TS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 Sect. I. Various Forms of Church Polity, . 
 ,, II. Distinctive Principles of Presbyterianism, 
 ,, III. Divine Right of Presbytery, 
 ,, IV. Literature of Presbyterianism, 
 
 p,\r,H 
 
 i 
 
 PART I. 
 
 OFFICE AND OFFICE-BEARERS IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 Introd. Idea of the Church, 
 
 Chap. I. General Principles concerning Office, 
 
 ,, II. The Presbyter as Ruling Elder, . 
 
 ,, III. The Presbyter as Teacher, . 
 
 ,, IV. The Deacon, .... 
 
 20 
 37 
 65 
 9c 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CONSTITUTION AND GRADATION OF COURTS IN PRESBYTERIAN 
 CHURCH. 
 
 Introd. Idea of Church Courts, 
 
 Chap. I. Composition of Church Courts, 
 
 ,. II. Gradation of Church Courts, 
 
 ,, III. Functions of the several Church Courts, 
 
 103 
 105 
 119 
 132 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. The Various Forms of Cliurcli Polity. — All who agree in defin- 
 ing the Church as a gathering, more or less organized, of professed 
 believers in Christ, for the purposes of worship and edification, 
 must find their church position under one or other of the three 
 great divisions — Prelatical, Congregational, Presbyterian — under 
 which all possible diversities of church polity must be compre- 
 hended. Under the division Prelatical we include such churches 
 as the Romish and Anglican, which in their church constitution 
 recognize the principle of a gradation of rank and office in the 
 ministerial order, maintain a diocesan episcopate, and emphasize 
 strongly the distinction between the clergy and the laity. Under 
 the division Congregational we include all churches which refuse 
 to admit any gradation in the ministerial office, and at the same 
 time oppose the idea of gradation in church courts, insisting on 
 the independency of each congregation, giving to church members 
 the decision in all church matters without subjecting the congre- 
 gational judgment to the review of any higher judicature. Under 
 the division Presbyterian we include all churches which, in 
 opposition to the Prelatical churches, insist upon the parity of 
 ministerial rank, and maintain inconsequence a parochial and not 
 a diocesan episcopate, and in opposition to the Congregational 
 churches recognize a gradation in church courts through Session, 
 Presbytery, and Synod. The church polity of Presbyterianism thus 
 seeks consciously to avoid, on the one hand, the error of Congre- 
 gationalism, which fails in its constitution to express the unity of 
 
2 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the churchy and to avoid, on the other hand, the error of Prelacy, 
 which relegates to a clerical individual, or to a purely clerical 
 council, the exercise of that power which properly belongs to the 
 church. 
 
 There are certain Christian denominations, indeed, which 
 cannot very easily be brought under any one of these three 
 divisions, not because they introduce any new principle of church 
 polity in their constitution, but only because in certain particulars 
 they incline to one, and in certain particulars to another, of 
 the three divisions already named. Thus the Methodists are 
 closely allied in their original constitution to the Anglican mother 
 church in the rigid suppression of the voice of the laity in the 
 government of the church, which among the Wesleyans is mainly 
 in the hands of the selected clergymen who form the Conference ; 
 while the partial distinction introduced in clerical rank by the 
 appointment of Presidents of Circuits is somewhat parallel to the 
 temporary expedient of Superintendents in the Scottish Church 
 of the Reformation. The history of Methodism shows an unstable 
 equilibrium, vibrating between the original high clerical and the 
 more recent anti-clerical extremes. Under the name Methodist 
 we have in America the Episcopal Methodists, with their bishops 
 reckoning their ordination, however, only from the presbyter 
 John Wesley ; not recognized by Prelatical churches, yet clinging 
 to the forms of Prelatical church government ; the Wesleyan 
 Methodists, with their final court exclusively clerical ; the 
 Methodist New Connection, admitting an equal number of 
 clerical and lay members into their Conference, the election of the 
 lay members, however, being not altogether free and popular ; 
 and the Primitive Methodists, showing a decided anti-clerical 
 spirit by sending to their Conference two laymen to one minister. 
 In the Welsh Methodist Church, again, we find certain of the 
 peculiarities of Methodism grafted on a constitution essentially 
 Presbyterian ; the Circuits being Presbyteries, and the classes and 
 class-leaders corresponding to the catechizings and catechists, for 
 which there is quite room in the Presbyterian system. It might 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 readily be shown that in those church systems which, in regard 
 to church polity, seem not naturally to fall under any of the three 
 divisions, Prelatical, Congregational, or Presbyterian, it is only 
 necessary to develop their peculiar institutions and bring the 
 different parts of their system into a self-consistent harmony, in 
 order to secure their classification under one or other of those 
 heads. 
 
 It will be seen that the distinction to which we have been 
 referring is one which turns purely upon questions of church 
 polity. Some of these indeed may be closely associated with 
 points of doctrine, and in many cases it will be found that prin- 
 ciples of doctrine and polity easily act and react on one another 
 Yet in the threefold distribution just referred to, we shall find 
 churches under all the three, not only thoroughly agreed on 
 certain fundamental doctrinal truths, but also accepting the same 
 or similar Confessions. For example, Calvinists in doctrine may 
 be found quite consistently placing themselves under a Prelatical, 
 or a Congregational, or a Presbyterian form of church govern- 
 ment. Arminians may be met with under any of the three 
 divisions. There is no reason why those entertaining Baptist 
 views should in their church polity be Congregationalists rather 
 than Prelatists or Presbyterians, In reference purely to matters 
 of church polity are the distinctions made to which we here refer. 
 The difference between these three may in general terms be stated 
 to lie in the representation which they give respectively of the 
 parties in whom church power is vested. In Prelatical churches 
 the clergy rule, the church courts, both inferior and superior, 
 being purely clerical. In Congregational churches, the members 
 of the local church rule, there being no church courts proper as 
 distinguished from the general meeting of the congregation. In 
 Presbyterian churches, the representatives of the people rule in 
 church courts variously graduated, and having" their membership 
 drawn from both the clerical and the lay elements, ruling elders 
 sitting with ministers of the Word in the exercise of the govern- 
 ment of the church. 
 
4 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 2. The Distinctive Characteristics of Presbyterianism. — It is very 
 important that we should form a correct and clear notion of what 
 Presbyterianism is, before going on to discuss the various details 
 of the Presbyterian system. Many peculiarities are popularly 
 regarded as entitled to the special designation Presbyterian, which 
 are by no means necessary or essential parts of the system. The 
 mention of such irrelevant matters in a description of Presby- 
 terianism is evidently fitted to obscure our conception, and to 
 carry us away into side issues. We have already seen the 
 importance of distinguishing between questions of doctrine and 
 questions of church polity. If these are not discriminated, con- 
 fusion necessarily follows. Calvin was at once distinguished as a 
 theologian and as a churchman. In his capacity as a theologian 
 he formulated a system of doctrine which has been substantially 
 accepted by churches of the most diverse constitution. In his 
 capacity as a churchman he elaborated a system of church polity 
 which has been adopted by churches under the most thoroughly 
 opposed Confessions. Calvinism has been reflected in the creeds 
 of Prelatical, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches ; the 
 Genevan church constitution is essentially and in principle the 
 basis of all the Books of Order and Discipline among the churches 
 which accept the Presbyterian form of church government. Some 
 of the best-known treatises on Presbyterianism are in this respect 
 unfair, and a good deal of what they contain is irrelevant. For 
 example, Dr. Miller, of Princeton, 1 divides his work on Presby- 
 terianism into several chapters, of which one treats of the doctrine, 
 another of the government, and a third of the worship of the 
 Presbyterian Church. It is clear that, strictly speaking, only the 
 chapter on Church Government is entitled to a place in such a 
 treatise, and its contents should constitute the main and charac- 
 teristic part of the work. The chief aim surely of a book on 
 Presbyterianism should be to display and discuss the form of 
 
 1 Manual of Presbytery, comprising Presbyterianism, the truly Primitive 
 and Apostolic Constitution of the Church of Christ, etc., ed. by Dr. Lorimer, 
 Edinburgh, i8j^- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 church government indicated by that name. Dr. Miller gives, 
 indeed, an admirable statement of the characteristic principles of 
 Presbyterian church government, and admits that the name 
 primarily applies to a form of church polity ; yet, on the supposi- 
 tion that at first, and generally still, Presbyterian churches are all 
 agreed on fundamental doctrines, accepting the same general type 
 of doctrine, and approving the same forms of worship, he proceeds 
 to discourse at large (pp. 48-78) on the advantages of Calvinism, 
 and at even greater length (pp. m-161) on the inadmissibility of 
 all forms and ceremonies in worship. But this destroys at once 
 the unity and the self-consistency of his book. At one place 
 he says : — l The Reformed Churches in France, Holland, Ger- 
 many, Switzerland, Scotland, and Geneva, are all Presbyterian, 
 notwithstanding some minor varieties in the names and regulations 
 of their judicatories.' This certainly is true so long as he keeps 
 to his definition of Presbyterianism as a form of church govern- 
 ment in which ministerial parity, government by elders, and union 
 of the churches through courts of review and control, are the 
 distinguishing and characteristic principles. But it is not true, if 
 he proceeds to give these further marks as characteristically 
 Presbyterian, — Calvinistic doctrine and Puritan simplicity of wor- 
 ship. In regard to the question of worship in the Presbyterian 
 Church, we maintain that it cannot fairly be made a mark of 
 Presbyterianism any more than the doctrinal test can be legiti- 
 mately applied. In some of those churches named by Dr. Miller, 
 there is much more of a ritual than in others, and yet the form of 
 government is unaffected by this difference. In an admirable 
 paper on ' Presbyterian Liturgies,' Dr. Hodge, 1 who is thoroughly 
 at one with Dr. Miller in his admiration, and as hearty in his 
 defence of Presbytery, calls attention to the prevalence of an 
 opinion, which he pronounces quite erroneous, that the use of a 
 liturgy in public worship is a peculiarity of Prelatical churches. 
 It is to be remembered that the churches of the Reformation 
 
 1 Hodge, The Chinch and its Polity ', chap, x., ■ Presbyterian Liturgies.' 
 Edinburgh, 1879, 
 
6 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 prcpaicd and used liturgies ; and that this was so not only in the 
 Lutheran, but also in those Calvinistic churches commonly called 
 Reformed. When we think of the liturgies of Calvin, of Knox, 
 of the French Protestants, and of the German Reformed churches, 
 we shall surely be slow to regard their use as necessarily 
 implying a return to Prelatical ceremonialism. Besides, the use 
 of a liturgy as employed by the Reformers may be traced back 
 into very early antiquity, before the rise of Prelatical institutions. 
 But while it is thus quite necessary to separate between ques- 
 tions of doctrine and ritual, and the question of church govern- 
 ment, it is not to be supposed that affairs of church government 
 can be kept apart altogether from references to certain outstanding 
 principles of doctrine and worship. Any adequate discussion of 
 Presbyterian church polity must start with an exposition of the 
 doctrine of the church from the Presbyterian standpoint. We 
 might entertain such a notion of the church, that from it we 
 should be obliged to proceed to the maintaining of a hierarchical 
 view of the ministerial office, and by consequence to the other 
 details of a Prelatical church polity. It will indeed altogether 
 depend upon our conception of the original idea, the ultimate 
 aim, and essential nature of the church, whether our theory of 
 church polity is to be Prelatical, Congregational, or Presbyterian. 
 But it is further evident that our doctrine of the church will be 
 largely determined by the general type of doctrine which we 
 maintain, and that, therefore, one may fairly conclude many 
 particulars regarding our doctrinal position from the conception 
 of the church on which our theory of church polity is based. The 
 doctrine of the church out of which it will be possible to construct 
 a church constitution on Presbyterian principles, must at least be 
 evangelical. It must go directly to Scripture as the ultimate 
 authority for all its fundamental principles. The scriptural 
 authority of these two important truths must be clearly recognized, 
 — the universal priesthood of believers in opposition to all sacer- 
 dotal theories, and the apostolic statement (i Cor. xii. 28) that 
 God hath set some in the church in one office, and some in 
 
INTRODUCTION. y 
 
 another. In the combination of these two principles, which we 
 shall afterwards show to be abundantly supported by Scripture, 
 Presbyterians maintain that they have a most sufficient ground 
 for all that is characteristic of their system of church government. 
 By exclusive attention to the doctrine of office in the church, a 
 sacerdotal theory and Prelatical constitution have been reared, 
 ignoring the rights of the Christian people, and inevitably foster- 
 ing an unevangelical doctrinal development. By exclusive atten- 
 tion to the rights and seeming interests of individual believers, in 
 consequence of a reaction against a false and exaggerated cleri- 
 calism, a Congregational theory has been built up, which ignores 
 the Scripture doctrine of an office of government or rule set up 
 within the church, and by this neglect has failed in its church 
 constitution to reflect the truth of church unity. Notwithstanding 
 the declaration of a Bampton lecturer, that Presbyterianism 
 1 unites the faults and misses the advantages of both Episcopacy 
 and Congregationalism,' it is the contention of Presbyterians that 
 their system avoids the onesidedncss of both those systems 
 referred to, by finding a place in its constitution for the adequate 
 and duly proportioned representation of those two principles 
 which in Episcopacy and Congregationalism respectively are only 
 exhibited separately. 
 
 Upon the basis of these two principles, the three following 
 main propositions may be laid down as indicating the leading cha- 
 racteristics of Presbyterianism. It is, however, to be remembered 
 tli at it is not the holding of any one of these, but the acceptance 
 of them all, and the harmonizing of them, that constitutes a 
 system of church polity deserving of the name Presbyterian. 
 
 (i) The Parity of the Clergy. — The preaching of the gospel is 
 everywhere in the New Testament recognized as the function of 
 the highest church office. Where this function is discharged, 
 there we have already an office which cannot be regarded as in 
 any case subordinate. Functions of ruling and administration 
 cannot secure to any church officer a pre-eminence over the simple 
 preacher. On this broad ground, Presbyterianism insists upon 
 
8 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the equality of rank of all office-bearers of the church ordained to 
 the preaching of the gospel. 
 
 (2) The Government and Discipline of the Church conducted 
 by the Membership of the Church through Elders ordained to 7'ulc. 
 — The characteristically Presbyterian institution of the Ruling 
 Eldership does not overlook the rights of the Christian people, 
 while it gives recognition to the scriptural appointment of an 
 office of ruling and government. The elders who hold this office 
 are the representatives of the people, yet, as office-bearers dis- 
 charging the functions of an office, they are not mere delegates 
 of the people. 
 
 (3) The Unity of the Church, — The realization of this idea is 
 only conditioned by circumstances of nation, language, space, 
 and number. Apart from special occasions of division and 
 separation, there would be the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
 of England, of America, etc. In each case the church is regarded 
 as one, and the idea of oneness is maintained by means of such 
 relations as are represented in the fellowship of church courts, 
 tending ultimately in their most comprehensive forms fairly to 
 represent this unity. To the realization of this idea, the con- 
 stitution of the Presbytery is necessary absolutely, as a court 
 superior to the Congregational or Parochial Session. A plurality 
 of Presbyteries must again be brought into unity by association 
 and combination in the Synod, as a court superior to and having 
 supervision over both Session and Presbytery. 
 
 3. The Divine Right of Presbytery. — The claim made by all who 
 take a deep and thorough view of the nature of the church is, 
 that its constitution must in its main features be discoverable in 
 Scripture. This general principle as thus stated may be set forth 
 alike by Episcopal and by Presbyterian writers, and is, indeed, 
 what the more judicious advocates of either system mean when 
 they maintain a jus divinum in favour of their own particular 
 method of church government. Popular writers often misre- 
 present this claim. We often find sneers uttered against 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 Presbyterianism as if for it alone a claim had been advanced of 
 a divine right, and that thereby the intolerant exclusiveness of its 
 defenders was shown. A very moderate acquaintance with facts 
 of history is sufficient to show that the advancing of such a claim 
 cannot be regarded as characteristic of Presbyterians, or indeed 
 of any church party. Yet, though insisting upon the propriety 
 of making such a claim, it must be admitted that both by Presby- 
 terian and by Prelatical advocates, the notion of a divine right 
 has often been crudely and unwisely expressed. In some cases 
 it has been stated by churchmen with all the inconsiderateness 
 and unguardedness which characterized the assertion, on the part 
 of royal despots, of a divine right in justification of all manner 
 of arbitrary and tyrannical courses. If the jus divinum be so 
 conceived and defined as to raise that institution which lays 
 claim to it above all question or investigation, demanding and 
 securing unfaltering acceptance, and conclusively placing the 
 whole ecclesiastical system above review and criticism, then, 
 whether this claim be made by Prelate or by Presbyter, it must 
 be stoutly resisted. No intelligent and liberal-minded churchman 
 will now be found claiming for his church that it is an exact 
 detailed, and literal transcript of the New Testament Church, — 
 the church of the Apostolic Age. When he claims a. jus divinum 
 for the special polity and discipline adopted in his church, he 
 simply means to assert that in his view the fundamental principles 
 of Apostolic church government have been retained, and are 
 legitimately applied in the circumstances and under the conditions 
 which are peculiar to our own age and country. 
 
 To say that Scripture decides neither for one form nor for 
 another, — that in regard to forms of church government there 
 is no jus divinum, — is a position which cannot commend itself 
 to any one who consciously and intelligently defines the church 
 as the kingdom of God. ' To say that He hath not settled the 
 government of His own house by appointing His own officers, 
 and appointing each of them to their own work, is to say He 
 doth not act the part of a king and governor in the church, 
 
io PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 which is His kingdom. 5 2 The objections usually made to pleas 
 for a divine right are completely guarded against in such careful 
 statements as that just quoted. We do not affirm that all the 
 details of modern church government are to be found expressly 
 unfolded in Scripture. But we do maintain that the various 
 offices in the church are enumerated in Scripture, and have there 
 their functions defined. ' Scripture,' says Calvin in one of his 
 letters, ' in various statements expresses the substance of ecclesi- 
 astical discipline ; but the form in which it is to be exercised, 
 since it has not been prescribed by God, ought to be determined 
 by the ministers for edification.' We hold that the characteristic 
 principles of Presbyterianism are found in Scripture, and that 
 other forms of church polity are, as compared with Presby- 
 terianism, defective, inasmuch as they ignore certain of those 
 principles, and by consequence exaggerate in a onesided manner 
 those principles to which they give exclusive attention. This 
 claim for a full and satisfactory ground in Scripture for the 
 characteristic principles of our church system is all that we 
 mean to assert when we maintain, as against Prelacy and 
 Congregationalism, the divine right of Presbytery. 
 
 4. The Literature of Presbyterianism. — The New Testament idea of 
 the church and the organization of the Apostolic Church have been 
 admirably expounded by Bishop Lightfoot in his singularly clear 
 and comprehensive essay on the Christian Ministry appended to 
 his Commentary on Philifipians. After a careful examination of 
 the distinctive nature of the Christian ministry, in which he most 
 successfully combats the sacerdotal theory, he proceeds to treat 
 
 1 An Apologetical Narration, etc., by Brown of Wamphray, p. 131. That 
 there is no jus divinum in regard to forms of church government is maintained 
 en the Presbyterian side, among others, by Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen in 
 his Lectures on Eccles. History, and by Dr. Mitchell of Kemnay in his Presby- 
 terian Letters; and on the Episcopalian side by Stillingfleet [Irenicum), 
 Whately [Kingdom of Christ), Litton [Church of Christ), and generally by 
 those who are commonly styied moderate Anglicans. Their preference for 
 Presbytery or Episcopacy is determined by considerations of expediency. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 in order of Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops, showing that 
 originally the names Presbyter and Bishop were synonymous, and 
 tracing the gradual rise of the Episcopate in the Post-Apostolic 
 Church. This dissertation deserves the attention of every 
 student. The study of Lightfoot's essay might be very profitably 
 followed up by a careful reading of the Bampton Lecture for 
 1880. The Organization of the Early Christian Churches, by the 
 Rev. Edwin Hatch, gives in an exceedingly fresh and informing 
 manner an account of the origin of the several offices in the 
 Christian church, showing the mutual relations of Bishop and 
 Deacons, then the rise of the Presbyterate and its special 
 functions ; tracing the influences which occasioned the elevation 
 of the Bishop to a supreme rank, and indicating the tendencies 
 which resulted in a complete sundering of the clergy and the laity. 
 
 In connection with these works may be mentioned the following 
 treatises on the teaching of the New Testament regarding the 
 constitution of the church : — 1. Ecclesiastical Polity of the Neio 
 Testament, by Dr. Jacob, — an able work by a liberal Anglican, 
 of which the first four chapters — treating of the Apostles and 
 the Christian Church, the First Organization of the Church, 
 the Christian Ministry with special reference to the claim of 
 priesthood, and the Laity, with Appendix D. on Apostolic 
 Succession — are extremely valuable as an effective refutation of 
 distinctively Prelatical pretensions. 2. Ecclesiastical Polity of 
 the Nezv Testament, by Dr. Samuel Davidson, — a volume of the 
 Congregational Lectures, of which, omitting, for the present, 
 reference to its argument for the Congregational theory of church 
 polity, Lect. III. on Offices appointed in the earliest Christian 
 Churches, Lect. IV. on Election of Office-bearers in the Apostolic 
 Age, and Lect. V. on Ordination of Office-bearers in the Primitive 
 Churches, afford a clear and satisfactory presentation of New 
 Testament teaching on these points. 
 
 In regard generally to the constitution of the early church, 
 much interesting information may be got in Pressense's Life and 
 Practice of the Early Church, especially Book I. chaps, ii.-vii., 
 
I 2 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 and in S chaff's History of the Apostolic Age. On the same 
 subjects the following German works will be found specially 
 important : — i. Beyschlag, Die Christliche Gemeindeverfassung 
 im Zeit alter des Neueii Testaments, Harlem, 1874, in which we 
 have an acute and thorough investigation of the idea of the church, 
 strictly confined to an exposition of the New Testament doctrine. 
 2. Rothe, Die Anf tinge der Christliche Kirche, especially Book II. 
 chap. i. pp. 141-310, on the Origin of the Christian Churches 
 and of a Christian Church Constitution. A good summary of 
 Rothe's theory is given by Lightfoot in the essay already referred 
 to. 3. Ritschl, Die Entstehung der Altkatholischen Kirche % 
 especially Book II. chap, i., The Church Constitution before 
 Montanism, in which the author treats of the idea of office in the 
 church, the employment and significance of the titles Bishop and 
 Presbyter, and, finally, the church office of Bishop in the Gentile 
 churches. This work is particularly valuable as affording a 
 careful historical treatment at first hand of church problems b> 
 an eminent investigator ; and read with Rothe, it may serve to 
 correct many of that writer's conclusions unwarranted by the 
 historical evidence produced. 
 
 For a general statement of the Presbyterian argument consult 
 Bannerman, The Chtcrch of Christ, vol. ii. pp. 201-331, where 
 we have a satisfactory and comprehensive demonstration of the 
 divine appointment of a form of church government, and an 
 explanation and criticism of the Prelatical and Congregational 
 systems of church polity as opposed respectively to the Presby- 
 terian. Among smaller treatises on the general question may be 
 mentioned, Dr. David King's Exposition and Defence of the 
 Presbyterian Form of Church Government, which, upon the 
 whole, very fairly states the main lines of argument in favour of 
 the characteristic positions of Presbyterianism. In opposition 
 simply to Prelatical pretensions, and of a more directly|polemical 
 character, is Dr. Crawford's treatise, consisting of two short tracts, 
 Presbyterianism Defe?ided, and Presbytery or Prelacy, Edin. 
 1836. The argument is conducted with vigour and skill, and 
 
, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 Presbyterian principles in contradistinction to hierarchical claims 
 are admirably and forcibly expounded. In direct reply to 
 Independent arguments, Brown's Vindication of the Presbyterian 
 Form of Church Government should be read. It is in the form 
 of a series of letters, and contains a good clear statement of the 
 grounds upon which Presbyterians reject the Congregationalist 
 view that church authority belongs to, and should be exercised 
 directly by, the church members, and not by the church officers ; 
 and the independent view which recognizes no control over the 
 decisions of particular congregations. Letters xii.-xviii. contain 
 a good defence of courts of review. From the Independent point 
 of view, Dr. Samuel Davidson's Eccles. Polity of the New 
 Testament will be found an admirable manual. 
 
 The constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which 
 is practically that of the Reformed Churches, ought to be studied 
 at first hand in the First Book of Discipline (1560) and the Second 
 Book of Discipline (1578). The constitutional principles of these 
 books will be found stated in a convenient form in the first book 
 of Pardovan's Collections. Of the exceedingly voluminous Scottish 
 Presbyterian literature during the last half of the seventeenth 
 century and early years of the eighteenth century, we need only 
 mention a few which are specially valuable for the vindication of 
 particular institutions of Presbyterianism. The ruling eldership 
 is defended most successfully by elaborate historical arguments 
 in George Gillespie's Assertion of the Government of the Church 
 of Scotland (1641), chaps, i.-xiv. ; also by Principal Forrester of 
 St. Andrews, against contemporary objectors, in his Review and 
 Consideration of Two late Pamphlets (1706), pp. 173-178, and 
 in his Confutation of Sage^s Principles of the Cyprianic Age, 
 pp. 231-238. For modern expositions and defences of the ruling 
 eldership, we may refer to the Eldership of the Church of Scotland, 
 by Dr. Lorimer, Glasgow, 1841, and to an important section of 
 Dr. King's Defence of the Presbyterian Form of Church Govern- 
 ment, pp. 99-173. The Theory of the Ruling Eldership, by 
 Principal Campbell of Aberdeen (1866), insists that the elder is 
 
 B 
 
14 PRESBYTERIAN ISM. 
 
 a lay councillor, and not a Presbyter in the New Testament sense. 
 The Parity of the Clergy is insisted upon at great length by 
 Forrester against Bishop Sage ; and with special ability by 
 Principal Rule, of Edinburgh, The Good Old Way Defended 
 (1697), sees. 2-6. In this connection, too, reference may be 
 made to the proofs of the sameness of Bishop and Presbyter as 
 shown by Lightfoot, Ritschl, etc., in the works already named. 
 
 By far the most informing and comprehensive work, affording 
 a view of the Presbyterian Church constitution in the light of the 
 most recent decisions of church courts, is The Church and its 
 Polity, by Dr. Charles Hodge (1879). This work has been 
 compiled from articles contributed by Dr. Hodge to the Princeton 
 Review, — mainly consisting oi resume's of Assembly discussions 
 and criticisms of these discussions. There is an admirable 
 chapter on Presbyterianism, pp. 11 8-1 33. In a series of five 
 chapters, pp. 190-507, we have these characteristic elements in 
 the Presbyterian theory of church government, — the idea of 
 church membership, the duties and functions of the Kirk-session, 
 the constitution of the Presbytery and qualifications of a Presbyter, 
 the composition and authority and province of the Assembly, and, 
 finally, the mode for exercise of church discipline, — treated 
 severally in a thoroughly practical and satisfactory manner. 
 
 For the history of Presbyterianism the only complete and 
 generally satisfactory book seems to be the German work of 
 Lechler, Geschichte der Presbyterial und Synodalverfassung seit 
 der Reformation {History of the Presbyterian and Synodal Con- 
 stitution since the Reformation), Leiden, 1854 ; specially valuable 
 is his statement of Calvin's views regarding the Constitutio?i of 
 the Church, pp. 32-49, and the History of Presbyterianism in 
 Great Britain in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 174-196. 
 
PART L 
 
 OFFICE AND OFFICE-BEARERS IN THE 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Idea of the Church. — The general view of the church which is 
 presupposed in Presbyterianism is not different from that enter- 
 tained as their individual opinion by evangelical members of the 
 church under other forms of government. Yet we hold that it is 
 fitting to speak of the Presbyterian theory of the church as some- 
 thing distinctive, inasmuch as there is only one conception of the 
 church upon which the Presbyterian theory of church govern- 
 ment can rest, and only in Presbyterianism do we seem to find 
 this conception of the church consistently and thoroughly carried 
 out. When we define the church as the fellowship of believers, 
 — meaning thereby to embrace the entire company of those who 
 exercise faith in Christ and through that faith are sanctified, all 
 saints and faithful brethren in Christ Jesus, — we can only regard 
 the aim of the church as an institution to be the development of 
 the fellowship of believers with Him who is the object of their 
 faith and the source and author of their holiness, and the develop- 
 ment of their folio wship with one another in the growth of 
 brotherly love. As thus conceived, the church of God and the 
 kingdom of Christ are identical ; and of that kingdom it is said 
 that it cometh not with observation, but is within those who are 
 members of it. The church, therefore, as kingdom of God, is 
 
1 6 PRESBYTERlANlStf. 
 
 essentially spiritual. It is at the same time not an ideal, but 
 something intensely real. As Melanchthon says, — ' We do not 
 dream of a Platonic state ; we do not speak of a church which is 
 nowhere to be found, but we say and know verily that this is the 
 true church upon earth, — the children of God here and there 
 throughout the world,' or as Luther says, ' the sheep which hear 
 their shepherd's voice.' * The church means nothing else than the 
 membership of the church, and in each of its members Christ 
 dwells by His Spirit, and over each He rules as Shepherd and 
 King. Those, therefore, who seek to narrow the conception of 
 the church in order to make it simply co-extensive with the 
 adoption of a particular theory of church government and the 
 observance of certain ceremonies, are guilty of an attempt to 
 rend the body of Christ ; and those who endeavour to unchurch 
 any who, in the exercise of faith, are holding the Head, are in 
 great danger of unchurching themselves. It must, however, be 
 remembered, in accordance with what has been already said, that 
 the claim to a divine right for a particular form of church govern- 
 ment is something very different from the claim to an exclusive 
 title to be regarded as the true church. Only those who regard 
 uniformity in confession, worship, and ceremonies, as constituting 
 the essential marks of the church, can view those who scruple at 
 the ceremonies, object to certain forms of worship, and prefer 
 other systems of government, as thereby shut out from church 
 membership. It is curious to observe how that church whose 
 church theory draws its elements wholly from external considera- 
 tions, and is for this very reason easy and loose in its terms of 
 communion, becomes in practice the organ of the most thorough- 
 going despotism, and shows itself cruelly tyrannical and ex- 
 clusive in seeking to have destruction decreed against all who in 
 those external matters refuse to conform. Thus it is that Rome 
 has in her communion such a heterogeneous mass, and manifests 
 such an evident indifference in regard to the moral and spiritual 
 condition of her membership, while she has no glance of tender- 
 1 Kostlin, Das Wese?i dcr Kirchc, S. 15. 
 
IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 1 7 
 
 ness and charity, or, at least, refuses to entertain any hope in 
 reference to those, however elevated morally and spiritually they 
 may be, who are yet without her ecclesiastical pale. 
 
 All that is essential to a Christian community in order that it 
 be recognized as a true church according to the scriptural doc- 
 trine of Protestantism, is that in it there be the preaching of a 
 pure gospel and the dispensation of the sacraments. The church 
 does not save, but ministers to salvation, by administering the 
 means of grace. The essentials of the church are fully expressed, 
 as we might expect, in the apostolic commission (Matt, xxviii. 
 19, 20), in which the administration of the means of grace — the 
 word and sacraments — is regarded as the comprehensive state- 
 ment of the duty of the church. It is only among those who 
 accept this view of a gospel church, in contradistinction to those 
 who maintain the view just referred to, that any diversity of 
 opinion can prevail in regard to the constitution and government 
 of the church. Those who hold that the church is constituted 
 by the uniform practice of certain rites, must of necessity 
 maintain the universal obligation of these rites, and of their 
 regular and unvarying celebration as an indispensable condition 
 of church existence. Those, on the other hand, who place 
 supreme importance upon the fulfilment of Christ's last com- 
 mand to His disciples on earth, and so view the church simply 
 as an institution for conserving and spreading the fundamental 
 truths of the gospel, turn to the Scriptures, with no foregone 
 conclusion in their minds, to discover therefrom principles 
 for the regulation and efficient management of that institution 
 to which this all-important task has been entrusted. Forms 
 of church government, and, generally, church institutions and 
 regulations, are of value only in so far as they contribute to the 
 attainment of the end for which the church itself exists. For 
 every true Protestant, the motive to all investigations regarding 
 church administration and discipline lies in the desire to solve 
 the problem, how to secure the most efficient preaching of the 
 gospel and the most edifying dispensation of the sacraments. 
 
1 8 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 This ground Presbyterianism takes in common with all intelli- 
 gent and consistent Protestants, and other ground than this no 
 Presbyterian can take. Starting from this common ground of 
 evangelical Protestantism, the subserviency of church govern- 
 ment and organization to the end for which the church exists, 
 differences among the maintainers of this general position imme- 
 diately arise in the endeavour to determine the subjects of church 
 power and the proper method for the exercise of it. The Prelatical 
 churches are untrue to Protestantism in so far as they incline 
 to separate between the ministry and the membership of the 
 church, in such a manner as to regard the clergy as the church 
 in which the prerogative of church power is vested. Presby- 
 terians and Independents, in the true spirit of Protestantism, 
 recognize the universal priesthood of believers, and maintain that 
 to the church as a whole, comprehending the entire membership, 
 belongs the right to exercise those powers which have been 
 conferred upon the church according to her constitution. Inde- 
 pendents and Presbyterians, however, immediately separate in 
 attempting to answer the question as to how the church can 
 most effectively and beneficially express her mind. While the 
 Independents, in favouring a pure democracy, would seek the 
 voice of the church only in the utterance of a numerical majority 
 in a church meeting, Presbyterians hold that they have scriptural 
 authority for requiring every Christian community to have set 
 over it representatives as rulers, through whom the public func- 
 tions of the church may be expressed and performed. That this 
 does not militate against the fundamental view of the church as 
 the fellowship of believers should appear from this, that Presby- 
 terian rulers do not rule in consequence of any inherited or 
 externally conveyed right, but simply as the chosen represen- 
 tatives of the members for the orderly discharge of duties on 
 behalf of the community. In civil affairs we do not regard a 
 people as departing from the principles of a r pure democracy 
 because they elect magistrates in towns and districts, and repre- 
 sentatives as members of a general council. In the choice of her 
 
IDEA OF THE CHURCH. 1 9 
 
 magistrates and legislators we say that the people rule them- 
 selves. Just so when Presbyterianism, starting with a theory 
 of spiritual democracy in contrast to hierarchical theories, pro- 
 ceeds to insist upon the orderly election of certain office-bearers, 
 of whom traces are to be found in Scripture, it simply secures, 
 by the application of a true representative system, the thorough 
 carrying out of its democratic principles. A democracy in 
 Church or State, wanting the representative principle, oscillates 
 between anarchy and tyranny. Constitutionalism preserves 
 democracy from overthrow in either of these extremes. In 
 matters of church organization and government, Presbyterianism 
 is the constitutionalism which at once recognizes popular rights, 
 assigning the right of church power to the whole church, and 
 conserves these rights for the adequate accomplishment of those 
 ends far which they have been conferred. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 
 
 1. Idea of Office in the Presbyterian Chnrch. — It is impoitant to 
 distinguish between gift and office. In the Epistles of the New 
 Testament we find many references to gifts of grace enjoyed by 
 members of the church, and comparatively few references to 
 what can be regarded unquestionably as regular and recognized 
 offices in the church. The prevalence of gifts postponed the 
 recognition of official orders. So long as all God's people were 
 prophets, it would be needless to have a separate class set apart 
 to prophesy ; and while gifts for edification and communication 
 were the common possession of the church membership, the need 
 of congregational teachers would not be felt. By and by, how- 
 ever, those endowed with similar gifts would come to be thought 
 of and classed together. In every community there would be 
 individuals whose faculty and consequent right to govern would 
 be at once recognized by all, — men respected and confided in 
 for their prudence, high principle, and unswerving rectitude. 
 These men would be, without any formal enactment, elevated 
 to a practical umpireship. Gradually too, the members whose 
 experience had been most varied and rich, whose faith had been 
 most tried, whose constancy had been most nobly proved, would 
 receive special favour and have most ready audience in the 
 congregational assemblies. In this way we find the New Testa- 
 ment notion of office growing out of the recognition of special 
 
 80 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 21 
 
 gifts of grace to individuals in the several Christian communities. 
 The Apostle Paul, after saying that all members have not the 
 same office, goes on at once to enumerate, not different offices in 
 the church, but diversities of gifts (Rom. xii. 4-8); and in another 
 epistle (1 Cor. xii. 28-31), he speaks of certain officers — apostles, 
 prophets, teachers — whom God had set, that is to say, ordained 
 and formally established, in the church, and then immediately 
 refers to functions which came to be discharged afterwards by 
 recognized officers simply as varying gifts. 
 
 Yet the idea of office is by no means wanting in the New 
 Testament. Not only are gifts enumerated, the possession of 
 which by different individuals must ultimately give rise to the 
 recognition of several distinct offices, but the actual existence 
 of an office in the strictest sense is everywhere assumed. The 
 Apostolate, constituted by Christ Himself, endowed with special 
 powers, and ennobled by certain characteristics which could 
 never be conveyed to any succeeding persons (the distinction of 
 having been with Christ in His temptations, Luke xxii. 28, and of 
 being eye-witnesses of His glory, Acts i. 21, 22), was nevertheless 
 by the terms of the apostolic commission destined for the discharge 
 of ministerial functions in the preaching of the word and dis- 
 pensation of the sacraments. To this body also had been granted 
 the power of the keys — the exercise of discipline (Matt. xvi. 19). 
 The gospel record closes without the recognition of any other 
 office than this. The earliest chapters of the Acts of the Apostles 
 simply assume the existence of this one ministerial office. He 
 who holds this office discharges officially certain functions, which 
 may indeed unofficially be discharged by others. The functions 
 which characterize so many distinct offices of doctrine, discipline, 
 and distribution, are all originally discharged by the apostle. 
 His commission and gifts are such as to render him capable of 
 performing all these duties. But just as Moses chose elders to 
 assist him by undertaking certain parts of his work, not because 
 such duties lay not within his own province, but for the work's 
 sake that it might be efficiently done ; even so the apostles 
 
2 2 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 exercised the right of securing the appointment of regular and 
 recognized labourers in special departments of work, whenever 
 circumstances made it evident that the requirements of the 
 higher work of the ministry demanded release from the pressure 
 of other important, yet subordinate functions of their comprehen- 
 sive task. Thus, for example, in Acts vi. we learn how the 
 church, in response to the apostle's appeal, appointed deacons 
 to discharge duties which still belonged, but no longer exclu- 
 sively, to the apostle as minister. 
 
 It must be evident that this apostolic office, which could have 
 its functions disintegrated and bestowed on separate individuals, 
 was essentially related to the possession of gifts of grace, just as 
 those offices afterward established. An office which, while compre- 
 hending the functions of teaching, ruling, and caring for the poor, 
 could yet recognize a ruling office in the person of one who was 
 not a teacher, and a ministry of tables on the part of one who 
 neither taught nor governed, must surely presuppose gifts of 
 teaching, ruling, and distributing as the basis and vindication of 
 its institution, — otherwise the ruler appointed because of his gifts 
 would soon as ruler overshadow the bearer of the original and 
 more comprehensive office, and the deacon whose special gifts 
 secured his appointment would practically absorb all official 
 duties relating to the sick and the poor. Yet, on the contrary, 
 it is expected that the apostle as minister, while he teaches, will 
 be a pattern to the ruler and to the deacon. This could only be, 
 if the apostolic office was directly based upon the possession of 
 pre-eminent gifts. This, too, is further seen from the readiness 
 with which apostles received, and ordained to apostolic work, 
 those of their followers who seemed specially qualified. Barnabas 
 is chosen because of his gift of consolation (Acts iv. 36, etc.) ; 
 Timothy, because of his gift of Scripture knowledge (2 Tim. 
 iii. 15); and Mark, tried by Paul, and then rejected, because the 
 gift of enduring constancy did not show itself, is received again 
 (2 Tim. iv. 11) evidently after his service with Barnabas showed 
 him to be profitable. All these cases show that the Apostles felt 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 23 
 
 that for apostolic work all that one needed was the possession of 
 the suitable and special gift. In each case choice was made 
 simply because in each the presence of the gift was perceived. 
 There is no trace of any one being chosen without the gift, and 
 having that gift afterward imparted by means of ordination or 
 any other apostolic rite. 
 
 In the age immediately following that of the apostles, while 
 still the contemporaries of the founders of the churches were 
 living, no other idea of office was entertained than that of a 
 distinction resting on the possession of eminent gifts. It was 
 not yet supposed by any that clerical rank in itself created any 
 essential distinction, but only the qualifications that entitled to 
 inclusion in this rank. Orders were recognized and respected, 
 but only as a means toward the edification of the church. 
 Clement of Rome, toward the close of the first century, in his 
 Epistle to the Corinthians (chap, xl.), speaks of the high priest, 
 priests, Levites, and lay members of the Jewish Church as having 
 respectively their places and duties assigned them, and then 
 immediately adds this exhortation to the members of the Chris- 
 tian Church addressed, — Therefore let every one of you, brethren, 
 in your own proper order, render praise to God with a good 
 conscience. This passage has been sometimes referred to as 
 though Clement intended to recognize a threefold ministerial 
 order distinct from the laity, and corresponding to the hierarchical 
 distinctions of the Old Testament. This view of the Father's 
 words is altogether erroneous. His purpose is evidently only 
 hortatory. He accordingly proceeds to remark on the strict- 
 ness and rigidness of the ceremonial observances enjoined upon 
 the Jews — sacrifices and offerings of various kinds, to be offered 
 at stated times and in one appointed place, any infringement of 
 the prescribed form and order of service rendering the offender 
 liable to death ; and from this he draws the conclusion, evidently 
 suggested by the contrast of enlightened Jew and ignorant Gentile, 
 that the more full the knowledge granted, the greater is the risk 
 incurred. The only reference that this passage can be supposed 
 
24 PRESBVTERIANISM. 
 
 to have to the institution of a ministerial order lies in the general 
 parallel hinted at between the priestly ranks and the proper order 
 among Christians. The parallel, however, is only of the most 
 general kind. As in the Old Testament Church there was a 
 ministerial order, office-bearers as distinguished from ordinary 
 members, so also in the New Testament Church. In an earlier 
 chapter of his Epistle, Clement referred to the gradation of ranks 
 in civil societies, — men in authority and men under authority, — 
 and maintained that, in order to secure the regular and orderly 
 conduct of religious worship, similar distinctions must be made 
 in the church. Throughout all his Epistle there is no trace of a 
 hierarchical tendency, or any other view of office than that of the 
 New Testament, which recognizes the possession of gifts on the 
 ground of distinctions in office, and considers the realized need 
 of the church in determining what those particular offices shall 
 be, and also in what circumstances any certain group of functions 
 may require the institution of a distinct office. This primitive 
 doctrine of church office in all its simplicity maintained its place 
 through several generations. Toward the close of the second 
 century we find Tertullian almost exactly reproducing the views 
 of those who lived and wrote a hundred years before. ' The 
 authority of the church,' he says [De Exhort. Cast. c. 7), c deter- 
 mines the difference between office-bearers and members {prdo et 
 plebs\ and rank is sanctified by the session together of the office- 
 bearers. So, wherever there is no session of ecclesiastical office- 
 bearers, thou offerest, and baptizest, and art priest thyself alone. 
 But where there are three, though they be laymen, there is a 
 church. ' In this passage we have very clearly marked the 
 distinction between those in orders and those not in orders ; yet 
 there is no rite nor part of the worship which can only be 
 performed by one in orders. 
 
 During the century that intervened between Clement and Ter- 
 tullian, a strong current had set in in favour of ecclesiastical 
 organization. It was natural that the race of teachers growing 
 up around Clement, no longer supported by the personal counsels 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 25 
 
 of the Apostles, nor having their decisions backed tip by the 
 everywhere recognized authority of the founders of the churches, 
 should perceive the necessity of an established order and fixed 
 discipline, and should feel the necessity of unity of action to 
 enforce the setting up in every place of a constituted organiza- 
 tion for the maintenance of regular and uniform worship. The 
 needs of the church demanded the appointment of office-bearers, 
 and the exact definition of their authority. Besides this, it would 
 be to view the members of the church of the second century not 
 only as forming a good religious community, but something much 
 more than human, were we to suppose that, among the more 
 talented and powerful of them, ambition did not in several cases 
 lead to an undue prominence being given to external organiza- 
 tion, or that the love of high place did not induce many to 
 exaggerate the importance of ecclesiastical distinction of ranks. 
 Already the third generation had grown up in the Christian 
 Church. The membership had been rapidly increased. Not a 
 few had grown up within the bosom of the church without 
 having passed through the profound convictions under which 
 the earliest members had been led to avow their acceptance 
 of the Christian religion. This change of circumstances carried 
 with it of necessity a very considerable relaxation in the practical 
 morality of the community. In this false laxity of practice, we 
 find an explanation of the tendency which now developed itself 
 to distinguish into separate classes office-bearers and people. 
 Much was tolerated in the one which would be universally 
 pronounced intolerable in the other. ' Professing Christians 
 adopted the current morality ; they were content to be no 
 worse than their neighbours. But the officers of all communi- 
 ties tend to be conservative, and conservatism was expected of 
 them : that which had been the ideal standard of qualifications 
 for baptism, became the ideal standard of qualifications for ordi- 
 nation, and there grew up a distinction between clerical morality 
 and lay morality which has never passed away. ; l This distinc- 
 1 Hatch, Organization of Early Christian Churches, p. 136. 
 
2 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 tion of lay and clerical arose out of a low moral tone prevalent in 
 the church, and became a means of perpetuating it. 
 
 Undue attention to church organization and an exaggerated 
 idea of the importance of ecclesiastical arrangements were accom- 
 panied by a corresponding decay of spiritual fervour. In this 
 early age two different classes of church leaders made themselves 
 prominent ; — the spiritually-minded, not originally undervaluing 
 church order, but valuing it simply as a means to secure a fair 
 field, free from interferences with the carrying on of spiritual work ; 
 and others, of a peculiarly legalistic turn of mind, in whom the 
 sense of order had assumed undue proportions, who overvalued 
 organization and treated it not as a means, but rather as the 
 end for which the church existed. The tendency with the former, 
 in presence of the latter, was, by way of reaction, to depreciate 
 church organization and overlook the essentials of church 
 constitution. This tendency reached its climax and found clear 
 expression in Montanism. 1 This spiritualistic movement ought 
 to have been guided by the leaders of the church, and not driven, 
 to its own loss and to the church's loss, into a separate existence. 
 When the church of the second century treated Montanism as 
 a heresy, it acted as the Church of England of last century did 
 toward Methodism, and as some in all our churches of to-day, 
 who will give no place to those who may be somewhat carried 
 away in the enthusiasm of a revival. Tertullian, as might have 
 been expected, avowed himself a Montanist ; but, by this change, 
 he only became somewhat more of a rigorist in discipline, an 
 enthusiast in certain religious speculations, yet all the while he 
 remained true to the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith. 
 The rejection, on the part of the church, of that spiritual move- 
 ment which might have, within the church, conserved or restored 
 much of the early freshness and warmth of Christian life and 
 
 1 To Ritschl belongs the credit of having clearly pointed out the significance 
 of Montanism as a protest against an exaggerated ecclesiasticism, and of 
 having indicated the influence which this protest had upon the development 
 of the church order and constitution, 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 27 
 
 worship, resulted in giving to the externalism against which 
 the extruded enthusiasts had vainly protested a further promi- 
 nence and a special church sanction. After the struggle against 
 Montanism had fully developed itself, and Catholic and Mon- 
 tanist were set in keen opposition to one another, it happened, 
 as in such circumstances it was almost certain to happen, that 
 Montanists became extremely Montanistic — more and more 
 morbidly and onesidedly spiritual, and Catholics became ex- 
 tremely rigid in their attachment to ecclesiastical forms and 
 distinctions — more and more inclined to put external matters 
 of detail in the place of the higher spiritual realities of worship. 
 Thus Montanism, the protest against undue and disproportionate 
 attention to ritual and church order, became indirectly the 
 occasion of the further elaboration of ecclesiastical ordinances in 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 The professing members of the Christian Church, despising 
 their birthright, and living lives manifestly inconsistent with 
 priestly sanctity, desired an order of priests who should assume 
 a responsibility and practise a morality unto which they had no 
 wish themselves to aspire. The order, to the members of which 
 were relegated the higher sanctions and obligations of the 
 Christian life, soon came to be superstitiously regarded as an 
 institution entrusted by God with supernatural grace for distri- 
 bution among the people. Thus the clergy came to be regarded 
 as special repositories of the divine favour, — their word, and 
 wish, and deed, effecting supernatural results. When such a 
 view of ministerial equipment and such an estimate of the 
 ministerial office began to prevail, a great cleft had been made 
 between the ranks of clergy and people. The name clergy was, 
 at an early period, appropriated as a class designation to dis- 
 tinguish those who had been ordained to church office. The 
 Greek word from which it is derived {cleros) simply means 
 something fixed or determined, which may according to the 
 application be either position or portion, — a determined order or 
 a determined share. Place and possession alike had been in 
 
28 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 primitive times fixed by means of the lot, to which the derivation 
 of the word clearly points. In this original sense of the term it 
 is used in Acts i. 17, 25, and there rendered 'part' in our English 
 Version. And in perfect agreement with this use of the word 
 is 1 Pet. v. 4, where Presbyters are exhorted to tend the flock, 
 1 not lording it over the portions/ — evidently the particular con- 
 gregations over which they preside. Gradually the term, which 
 originally applied to anything fixed whether in place or number, 
 was strictly applied only to determinations of place. Its regular 
 application henceforth was to rank and order. And so by early 
 church writers this word is used precisely as the word rank is 
 used by us ; we have not only ' the rank of bishops,' but also 
 1 the rank {cleros) of the martyrs,' etc. By and by the term that 
 had been originally applied alike to a special class as office- 
 bearers, and to a special division of the church presided over 
 by certain office-bearers, came to be used only as a class name 
 for the official order, yet never without some accompanying 
 term defining the nature of the office. Still later, by Clement 
 of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Cyprian (end of second 
 and beginning of third century), it is used absolutely to dis- 
 tinguish the ministerial order in contrast to the people {cleros 
 and laos, ordo and filebs). Rothe traces the influence of the 
 distinctions of official and unofficial in the civil life of the Roman 
 municipalities, from which many of the ecclesiastical terms for 
 office were borrowed. (See also Hatch, Organization of Chris- 
 tian Church, p. 38. Ordo — the Latin equivalent of cleros — 
 had been used, as appears from inscriptions, for a municipal 
 senate and for the committee of an association.) The overruling 
 sense of order among the Romans must have largely determined 
 the development of such class distinctions in the church, and 
 largely influenced the choice of particular names. It is proper 
 to notice, 1 that the original employment of the name clerical 
 does not in itself at all imply any notion of a priestly character 
 belonging to the class of persons so distinguished ; but the sharp 
 1 Compare Ritschl, Altkatholischc Kirche, S. 394. 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 29 
 
 distinction of classes, as lay and clerical, to which the general 
 use of such terms gave currency, was yet more intensified as the 
 notion of priestliness as belonging to the clergy became prevalent, 
 and the distinction once established gave feasibility to that view. 
 It is certainly convenient to retain such names as lay and clerical 
 to distinguish office-bearers and members, if we only remember 
 that the distinction implies nothing more. 
 
 2. Ordination— its Significance and Modes. — In primitive times 
 ordination meant nothing more than introduction to a particular 
 order or rank. The only words used in the early centuries to 
 designate this rite were such as precisely correspond to our 
 phrases, laying on of hands, constituting, ordaining. In later 
 centuries, when, with the decay of spiritual force in the church, 
 there arose a craving for elaboration in forms and punctilious 
 ceremonial in details, other phrases were employed to charac- 
 terize the act of initiation which implied the idea of consecration. 
 The purer and simpler view of the earliest times was in perfect 
 agreement with well-known customs in connection with entrance 
 upon civil appointments. Among the Romans, for example, 
 when one had been elected to any office in the state, this act 
 cf popular choice was followed by a recognition on the part of 
 the presiding officer, who had to satisfy himself as to the fitness 
 of the individual elected for the office before the election was 
 regarded as confirmed. In a precisely similar manner, after 
 appointment to office in the church had been made by the 
 members of the church exercising their right of election, those 
 already holding office entered upon a consideration of the qualifi- 
 cations and general suitability of the parties elected, and, in case 
 of satisfaction, gave to the elected formal recognition of his 
 entrance into that official rank which they themselves already 
 enjoyed, and this reception into the fellowship of the office- 
 bearers of the church constituted installation to office. This 
 brotherly recognition of the parties presented by the electors, on 
 the part of those holding office, was all that was intended by 
 
 c 
 
30 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 ordination or laying on of the hands of the presbytery in primi- 
 tive times. It would seem indeed, at first sight, as if the pre- 
 valence of the practice of laying on of hands was quite likely 
 to lead to the supposition that there was some mysterious con- 
 veyance of grace from those whose hands were laid on, to those 
 upon whom their hands were laid. But it ought to be carefully 
 noted that originally this act was not regarded as indispensable 
 to the rite of ordination, and that the only part of the service 
 which has been always looked upon as absolutely essential, — 
 wanting which there would no valid ordination, — is the prayer 
 which simply articulates what the laying on of hands symbolizes. 
 Evidently those who could regard ordination as valid where the 
 party ordained had only been set apart to his official work by 
 the prayer of the presiding Presbyter, had no thought of any 
 magical or mechanical transmission of grace from the persons, or 
 by the personal act and will, of those conducting the ordination 
 service. But even in regard to this symbolical action itself, a 
 careful study of the ecclesiastical practices of early times will 
 show that the laying on of hands was not by any means con- 
 fined to the rite of ordination. In the ordinance of baptism as 
 administered in the early church, and also in the formal pro- 
 nouncing of absolution, which, in an age when the exercise of 
 discipline bulked so largely in church work, was of great import- 
 ance and of frequent occurrence, the laying on of hands, as 
 a significant and symbolical act, was regularly practised. And 
 it is to be observed here, that in those days baptism and ab- 
 solution were both frequently administered by those who did not 
 belong to the clerical order. As therefore originally employed 
 in ordination, there was nothing in the mere imposition of hands 
 fitted to suggest the idea of the actual and efficient conferring 
 of grace, seeing that the practice in baptism and absolution was 
 clearly declaratory and symbolical, and was besides, among the 
 Jews and others, a common accompaniment of prayer for the 
 wellbeing and prosperity of others. If we examine the New 
 Testament passages in which allusion is made to the practice oi 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 31 
 
 the laying on of hands, we find the phrase used first of all in 
 Acts vi. 6 in reference to the appointment of the deacons ; and 
 in this instance the use of the phrase must be regarded as quite 
 general, inasmuch as it is employed to describe the institution 
 of a new official order whose functions were put in contrast to 
 those of the ministers of the word. The very same phrase is 
 used again (Acts xiii. 3) of the setting apart of Saul and Barna- 
 bas to special missionary work, men who were already in the 
 ministry. Again, a precisely similar phrase is employed in 
 Acts xiv. 23 and 2 Cor. viii. 19 (in our Authorised Version trans- 
 lated in the one place c ordained,' in the other place 'chosen/ but 
 in the Revised Version consistently rendered in both { appointed ; ), 
 and in these passages the laying on of hands seems simply to 
 indicate appointment to an office which may be permanent or 
 occasional. The only instances of a more exact or technical use 
 of the phrase are to be found in the Pastoral Epistles. In 
 reference to Timothy, there had been revelations through those 
 who enjoyed the prophetic gift, probably at the time when he 
 first came into contact with Paul, which indicated the presence 
 in him of spiritual endowments which would qualify him for high 
 and special evangelistic service. Here was Timothy's destina- 
 tion to office by means of prophecy (1 Tim. i. 18, iv. 14), which 
 constituted the ground upon which, in his case, the presbytery 
 proceeded to the laying on of hands. In comparing 1 Tim. iv. 14 
 with 2 Tim. i. 6, where, according to the one statement, the Pres- 
 bytery, and according to the other statement, the Apostle himself, 
 is said to have laid hands on Timothy, Rothe comes to the con- 
 clusion that the laying on of hands on two different occasions is 
 intended. This is more natural than the attempts of most com- 
 mentators at harmonizing the two statements on the supposition 
 that they refer to one and the same ordination. The earlier 
 reference may be to the formal installation of Timothy to the 
 ministerial office ; the later, to the special personal act of Paul 
 in deputing Timothy as his assistant or colleague in the work 
 among the churches of Asia. In all those passages in which 
 
32 PRESBYTERTANISM. 
 
 reference to ministerial ordination is made, the laying on of 
 hands is the phrase used largely to include the whole of the 
 ordination service, and means nothing more than the recognition 
 of the gift qualifying for the office, or the expression of a belief 
 that the necessary endowments of grace are present in the indi- 
 vidual presented. When we have made allowance for the loss of 
 prophetic gifts in the church, and the cessation of miraculous 
 powers of discernment which were characteristic possessions of 
 the Apostles, we shall find that the principles contained in those 
 passages express the permanent doctrine of ordination as main- 
 tained in the Presbyterian Church. As the person or persons 
 ordaining, after due examination and inquiry, are no further 
 responsible for any subsequent failure in official efficiency on the 
 part of him ordained, so they do not assume in the act any 
 supernatural penetration in discerning grace in the heart, or 
 any supernatural power in originally conferring grace. 
 
 The notion that in ordination actual grace is conferred, and the 
 narrow restriction of the right of ordination, go hand in hand. 
 When we consider the practice of the church, after the simplicity 
 of the first ages had passed away, we find that the right of laying on 
 of hands, the power to ordain, is not regarded as characteristically 
 distinguishing clergy and laity, but rather as distinguishing one 
 class or order of the clergy from the others. The Bishop, says 
 Jerome, does nothing which a Presbyter cannot do, except in the 
 matter of ordination. And from the manner in which reference 
 is made by writers of that period to this special prerogative of the 
 Bishop, it is evidently regarded by them, rather as a tribute of 
 respect to the presidents, than as an act implying the belief in any 
 mystical power or grace peculiar to the Episcopal order. When 
 the sacerdotal theory of the church gained the ascendancy, the 
 Bishop's exclusive right of ordination w r as grounded on the notion 
 that he was, in some mysterious way, a special depositary of grace, 
 which by laying on of hands he conferred on others. Ordination, 
 as thus administered, meant, what it never means in the New 
 Testament, the absolute separation of the clerical order from the 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 33 
 
 people by the impression of an indelible character and the com- 
 munication of spiritual authority. 
 
 In the earliest years of our Scottish Reformation, it was very 
 natural that expression should be given to a violent recoil from 
 such superstitious and pernicious doctrines. Accordingly, we 
 find Knox, and with him those who drew up in 1 560 the First Book 
 of Discipline, discouraging the continuance of the rite of laying 
 on of hands. l Other ceremony,' they say, ' than the public appro- 
 bation of the people and the declaration of the chief minister 
 that the person there presented is appointed to serve the church, 
 we cannot approve ; for albeit the apostles used imposition of 
 hands, yet seeing the miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony 
 we judge not necessary. 5 The corresponding paragraph in the 
 Second Book of Discipline, drawn up by Andrew Melville and 
 others in 1578, is much more guarded, as men were then in a 
 better position for distinguishing between the exaggeration and 
 abuse of forms, and the observance of a becoming and scriptural 
 ritual. ' Ordination/ says this later work, ' is the separation and 
 sanctifying of the person appointed to God and His kirk, after he 
 be weil tryit and fund qualifier. The ceremonies of ordination 
 are, fasting, earnest prayer, and imposition of hands of the elder- 
 ship.' With this later statement, the Westminster divines, who 
 prepared the Form of Church Government^ are in perfect agree- 
 ment. This, too, is the view maintained in the Presbyterian 
 churches of the present day. 
 
 3. Offices in the Presbyterian Church. — In determining the various 
 orders of ecclesiastical office in the Presbyterian Church, imme- 
 diate reference is made to the New Testament enumeration of 
 church offices. It is held that in the New Testament we have 
 not only the principle laid down that in the church of Christ there 
 must always be a ministry (of men) bearing its authority from 
 the Lord, but also the general outline of the constitution of that 
 ministry, in which the various classes of office-bearers are 
 expressly named. Of the church officers mentioned in the New 
 
34 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Testament some are extraordinary, and others ordinary. Those 
 called extraordinary are such as the exigencies and peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of primitive times required, the outcome of the 
 miraculous endowments of that age, — Apostles, Evangelists, 
 Prophets. Each of these possessed his own distinguishing 
 charism or supernatural gift ; and to each there was an official 
 calling in correspondence with the gift previously bestowed upon 
 him. So long as the distinguishing gifts were continued, the 
 offices in which such gifts could be exercised were also continued ; 
 but the withdrawal of these gifts from the church marked also the 
 extinction of these offices in the church. The ordinary offices 
 are those, the functions of which do not presuppose any special 
 or peculiar circumstances of church life, but are indispensable in 
 later as in earlier ages. It is one of the avowed and prominent 
 principles of Presbyterianism that all those ordinary offices should 
 be continued perpetually in the church, and that though change 
 of circumstances may require certain modifications in the detailed 
 enumeration of duties belonging to each, yet only these are 
 to be recognized as in the strict sense church offices. 
 
 The question then to be answered is, What are those ordinary 
 and permanent church offices as enumerated in the New Testa- 
 ment ? If we refer to such passages as Rom. xii. 7, 8, 1 Cor. 
 xii. 28, Eph. iv. 11 (this last seems only to speak of the ministry 
 of the word, — pastors and teachers), we find no difficulty in re- 
 cognizing a threefold distribution. The first and most prominent 
 is the ministry of the word, which is a most comprehensive 
 office, in which are discharged at least these three functions, 
 ministering as pastor, teaching, and exhorting. The second 
 office is one of which the function is ruling. The third office is 
 one which has a twofold function of giving and showing mercy, 
 exercising personal care, and distributing what the care of others 
 has provided. Our church has given expression in her form of 
 church government to the same interpretation of those passages. 
 In the Second Book of Discipline this threefold division of 
 church offices is reached from a consideration of the regular and 
 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING OFFICE. 35 
 
 permanent functions of the church of Christ. ' The whole policy 
 of the kirk consisteth in three things, in doctrine, discipline, and 
 distribution. With doctrine is annexed the administration of 
 sacraments ; and according to the parts of this division, ariseth 
 a sort of threefold officers in the kirk, to wit, of ministers or 
 preachers, elders or governors, and deacons or distributors, and 
 all these may be called by a general word, ministers of the kirk.' 
 Some of the older Scottish writers on both sides in the contro- 
 versy — such as Rule and Forrester on the Presbyterian side, and 
 Sage on the Episcopal side— wrangle long and laboriously on the 
 question whether church offices form a dichotomy or a trichotomy. 
 Generally this dispute was forced upon the Presbyterians by 
 unwise Prelatical controversialists ; these latter maintaining that 
 Presbyterians who insisted upon the scriptural authority of the 
 Ruling Elder departed from their distinctive position, and adopted 
 essentially the threefold distribution of Episcopalians. The 
 seeming difficulty for Presbyterians lay in this, that much stress 
 had been laid upon the twofold distribution indicated in Phil. i. 1, 
 where only Bishops and Deacons are specified as office-bearers in 
 the church at Philippi. In the First Epistle to Timothy, too, 
 mention is made of the qualifications and duties of Bishops and 
 Deacons, as if these constituted the whole recognized ministry of 
 the churches. In addition to this, we may remark that Clement of 
 Rome, writing to the Corinthians, speaks of the apostles as having, 
 in all places through which they passed, taken the first-fruits 
 of their preaching, and ordained them as Bishops and Deacons. 
 There is thus strong evidence of the prevalence of a twofold 
 distribution of church offices in apostolic and post-apostolic 
 times. Presbyterians accepting this fact are at no loss to 
 account for their three church offices, for, as Rule says, ' Dicho- 
 tomies are used where one of the divident members may be 
 subdivided.' It is now admitted on all hands that, in the New 
 Testament, Bishop and Presbyter are one. In the passages 
 referred to, we have scriptural authority for Presbyters and 
 Deacons, and this is all that Presbyterians can desire. Under 
 
36 Presbyter i axism. 
 
 Presbyters must be included ministers, teachers and exhorters, 
 and rulers ; and it is a mere wrangle over names whether we 
 shall call both simply Presbyters, or call the one a Teaching, and 
 the other a Ruling Presbyter. On the other hand, the Episcopal 
 controversialists found it difficult to account for the twofold 
 enumeration of Bishops and Deacons by Paul and Clement, so 
 as to harmonize with their threefold classification of Bishops, 
 Presbyters, and Deacons. Sage, for example, tries to account 
 for Clement's statement in this way. * Clement/ says he, ' by 
 Deacons, here understandeth all ministers of religion, whether 
 Presbyters in the modern notion, or Deacons who, by the first 
 institution, were obliged to attend upon tables. And so by Bishops 
 and Deacons we may understand Apostles, Bishops, Presbyters, 
 and Attendants upon tables.' Now this is quite absurd, for 
 clearly Clement, as well as Paul, means to indicate two special 
 classes of office-bearers ; these two evidently comprehending all 
 the regular and recognized officers in the important churches of 
 Philippi and Corinth. 
 
 In the chapters which follow, we propose to adopt the order of 
 treatment suggested by the twofold distribution just referred to, 
 subdividing the first member of the division. In treating of the 
 Presbyter, we shall find it convenient to consider first the function 
 of ruling and the office in which this function simply is discharged ; 
 and secondly, the function of teaching and the office in which 
 this function, gaining prominence over the ruling, is discharged. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 
 
 1. New Testament References to the Ruling Elder. — Whatever 
 diversity of view may prevail as to the particular officer intended, 
 there can be no doubt that repeated reference is made in the 
 New Testament more or less directly to the existence of an office 
 of rule or government in the church. Leaving out of account less 
 definite passages, there are three very express statements in 
 regard to church officers in which, it is very generally admitted, 
 reference is made to office-bearers whose functions seem identical 
 with those of the Ruling Elder. In Rom. xii. 7, 8, we have a 
 fourfold enumeration of ordinary church office-bearers, — Teacher 
 and Pastor, Deacon and Ruler. Here, however, these officers 
 are indicated rather by the predominant and characteristic 
 possession of certain gifts, than as accredited and ordained to 
 separate offices in the church. If we had only this passage 
 before us, we might regard those thus designated to be simply 
 men highly endowed with particular and distinguishing gifts. 
 In 1 Cor. xii. 28 we have, on the contrary, a distinct enumeration 
 of certain offices, — the officers filling these being distinguished 
 by appropriate names. We easily separate between the offices 
 here named, which are extraordinary and temporary,— Apostles, 
 Prophets, Miracles, Healings, Tongues, — and those which are 
 ordinary and permanent, — Teachers, Helps, Governments. Taking 
 then these two passages, the office spoken of in the former, as 
 
 87 
 
3 s PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 that of him that rulcth ; and in the latter, as that of government, 
 —is to all appearance identical with that office which we designate 
 the Ruling Eldership. At the same time, it should be observed, 
 that as yet we have no authority for calling him a Presbyter or an 
 Elder. He is a Ruler ; that is all which we can say about this 
 officer from those passages in Romans and Corinthians. The 
 third proof passage makes the Ruler an Elder. In i Tim. v. 17 
 we have a passage, the meaning of which has been most vehe- 
 mently discussed. We shall enter upon a careful exposition of it 
 in a later section ; meanwhile, we only call attention to the 
 recognition of ruling as a special function of the eldership. 
 
 2. The Elder in the Synagogue. — It must be very evident to 
 every one who gives any consideration to the subject, that such 
 notices as those which we have just cited would be altogether 
 inadequate and unsatisfactory in accounting for an office which 
 had its first origin in the Christian church. When first mention 
 is made of the deaconship, a distinctly Christian institution, of 
 which no trace is previously found, we are told the story of its 
 origin ; whereas the earliest references to an office of rule are 
 made in quite an incidental manner, which assumes thorough 
 acquaintance with the nature and rights of the office. The notion 
 is thus naturally suggested that the office of Ruling Elder was no 
 novelty, either to the Apostles or to those whom they addressed. 
 We are led, therefore, to seek further information by investigating 
 some of those arrangements for worship with which Jewish 
 Christians must have been familiar before they became members 
 of the Christian church. In general, the Christian forms of 
 worship were modelled on those of the Jewish synagogue, and so 
 where any customs in worship or office in the Christian church 
 are spoken of without explanation, we may reasonably look to the 
 arrangements of the synagogue for enlightenment. In every 
 synagogue, whether in Judea or abroad, there was an eldership, 
 yspowrtotj and the president was called yepovat&pxns — that is, Arch- 
 elder. Each individual member was an Elder, a Presbyter. Cir- 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 39 
 
 cumstances determined whether there should be many synagogues 
 in a town, or only one. In Jerusalem, in the time of our Lord, 
 there are said to have been as many as 480 — different religious 
 sects, different nationalities, different social orders, having their 
 separate meeting-houses. But in other places, such as Alexandria, 
 where the Jewish population was very large, there was but one 
 great synagogue ; while in Rome, with a comparatively small 
 Jewish population, there were several. Yet it would seem that in 
 every case there was but one eldership, one Session, in which the 
 Elders of all the synagogues met. We can discover no rule as to 
 the number or proportion of members in such elderships. In 
 a normal case there would be several, seeing that there was 
 always one bearing the name of president. On one occasion, in 
 Alexandria, with its one synagogue, we learn that Flaccus, the 
 governor, dragged as many as 38 of the Elders into the theatre 
 and scourged them. The elaborate arrangements and the mani- 
 .fold offices in the synagogues at Rome have become clearly 
 understood from inscriptions discovered in Jewish cemeteries 
 there. 1 It would appear that the elderships (yspoveiat) were 
 large, and that out of their membership a number of men were 
 chosen who were styled Archons, — rulers, — and the Arch-elder 
 (yspovaiupxYig) was the president of the Archons, as well as of the 
 general eldership. The appointment to the archonship was 
 usually for a time — some are named as twice archon ; but some 
 as a special honour were appointed for life. Thus the functions 
 of the larger eldership would be similar to those of our Deacons' 
 Court ; those of the archons would correspond to the particular 
 functions of our Session. A special officer had charge of the 
 conducting of the worship— the chief of the synagogue (Archi- 
 synagogus). The Elders had to do with the general affairs of the 
 congregation. 2 In other places, and also in Rome during the 
 
 1 Die Gemeiiideverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, by Dr. E. 
 Schiirer [The Church Constitution of the Jews in Rome during the time of 
 the Caesars], Leipzig, 1879. Compare also, Presbyteria?iism Older than 
 Christianity, by Dr. Marcus Dods. 
 
 2 Ilausrath, in his New Testament Times, gives a good summary account 
 
4° PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Apostolic Age, the arrangements of the Jewish synagogues were 
 less complicated, and to the elderships generally belonged the 
 duty of ruling in the congregation. Here, then, we find the 
 office-bearer who, as an essential and necessary element in the 
 constitution of every synagogue, would naturally be expected, 
 without any express statement of the institution of his office, to 
 reappear in the constitution of the Christian churches. 
 
 3. Ruling and Teaching Elders distinguished. — There was thus 
 an office-bearer in the synagogue whose function it was to rule, 
 and his presence was indispensable in the synagogal arrangements 
 for the discipline and guidance of the religious community. It 
 was natural, then, that in the earliest Christian congregations, 
 which, indeed, in Palestine were for some time known as 
 Christian synagogues, this characteristic office should be con- 
 tinued ; and that when first allusions were made to such an office 
 by the Apostles, the familiarity of the people with the institution 
 should be assumed. It is necessary that we now recur to the 
 question of the New Testament references to the office of Ruling 
 Elder, in order to learn definitely what ground we have for dis- 
 tinguishing between elders as teaching and ruling. The much- 
 disputed passage, I Tim. v. 17, requires careful investigation. 
 Some hold that the emphasis is to be laid on the word labouring. 
 According to this view, all elders are supposed to teach, and 
 reference is made to the elder's qualification — apt to teach 
 (1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 9) ; while those worthy of special honour , 
 
 of the officers of the synagogue, and the parallel between these and our own 
 Presbyterian office-bearers appears very striking : ' Each of these synagogues 
 had a special president, the chief of the synagogue (archisynagogus), who 
 conducted all the affairs of the synagogue, and preserved order at the meet- 
 ings. To assist him was a body of Presbyters, who made themselves of 
 service, partly in the regular devotions of the congregation, and partly in the 
 financial affairs of the .synagogue. The other officials were the reciter of 
 the prayers, who at the same time acted as the secretary and messenger 
 (apostle) of the synagogue in its external affairs, the attendant (synagogue 
 minister), and the collectors of alms (deacons).' [See translation in Theol. 
 TransL Fund Series, vol. i. p. 86.] 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 4 1 
 
 arc those who have distinguished themselves by laborious appli- 
 cation to their duties. Rothe maintains that any one going to 
 this passage with an unprejudiced mind would certainly come to 
 this conclusion, and would fail to see a distinction hinted at 
 between teachers and rulers as two classes of Presbyters. Ellicott, 
 however, after noticing the attempt of some keen advocates of 
 Episcopacy to ignore the distinction, admits that * it seems more 
 natural to suppose the existence, in the large community at 
 Ephesus, of a clerical college of governing elders, some of whom 
 might have the xocpiay.ee (gift) of teaching more eminently than 
 others.' Here, then, we have another rendering of the passage 
 which is much more generally approved. The emphasis is not 
 now laid upon the labouring, but upon the distinction implied 
 between those who ruled only and those who also taught. We 
 have here a distinction admitted between rulers and teachers, 
 yet it is a distinction of gifts and qualifications rather than of 
 office and appointment. The older Presbyterian controversialists 
 would not have been satisfied with this. Our own great writers, 
 like Gillespie and those who followed him, maintained that in the 
 Apostolic Church there was a regularly-marked and express 
 distinction between teaching and ruling elders just as in the 
 Reformed churches. This is more than can be quite borne out 
 by any known facts. Church historians are now almost all agreed 
 in holding that no indubitable instance can be adduced to prove 
 the existence of any formal distinction of this kind in the Apostolic 
 or first Post-Apostolic Age. And the Presbyterian argument 
 requires no more than the apostolic recognition of a distinction 
 of gifts in those bearing one official name, such as will tend 
 toward a distinction of rank and office. 
 
 It may now at least be regarded as admitted on all hands, that 
 the essential character of the elder's office lay in the function of 
 ruling. Whatever else might be expected of an elder, it was 
 indispensable that he should rule. One who ruled well would be 
 regarded as fulfilling creditably the duties of his office. In order 
 to rule well, however, it would be necessary, or at least exceed* 
 
4 2 PRESBYTERIAXISM. 
 
 ingly desirable, that the elder should be apt to teach, that he 
 should be one as Paul requires (Tit. i. 9), ' holding fast the faith- 
 ful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound 
 doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.' And as 
 in the following verse the Apostle speaks of unruly members, it 
 was to be the duty of the elders to enforce rule over such, that 
 their mouths might be stopped and their subverting practices 
 counteracted. For the ruler, therefore, even should he not engage 
 in the regular public teaching of the church, simply as an admini- 
 strator of discipline, soundness in the faith, and some readiness 
 in stating the principles of saving truth, were necessary qualifica- 
 tions. The mention then of such gifts, among the equipments of 
 a good Bishop or Presbyter, does not at all imply that all elders 
 did officially engage in teaching. Elders who simply ruled, would 
 be regarded as fully discharging the official duties of the 
 eldership. 
 
 In the very earliest Christian times, when believers were few, 
 all the members of the church were called on to preach, and to 
 exercise generally what came afterwards to be regarded as strictly 
 clerical functions. The churches at first, being few in number, 
 were frequently visited by apostles, or by their delegates, the 
 evangelists. Their congregational membership being small, the 
 purposes of edification were attained by the brethren communing 
 together over the things brought before them in the preaching of 
 their occasional instructors. The very remarkable spiritual gifts 
 enjoyed by the early Christians would render such unrestricted 
 liberty of prophesying not only safe, but highly profitable. By 
 and by, however, these extraordinary gifts were withdrawn, and 
 the number of churches being increased, missionary visits became 
 less frequent ; and with the enlargement of their memberships, it 
 would soon be found necessary, for the maintenance of order and 
 the securing of profit and instruction, that there should be some 
 understanding as to the parties who should engage in public 
 teaching and exhortation. Now all along the rulers, as the only 
 regular church officers, must have had a special prominence, and 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 43 
 
 inasmuch as they had been chosen on account of their doctrinal 
 qualifications as well as for their capabilities in exercising and 
 enforcing authority, the official teachers, when needed, would be 
 sought for among them. In earlier times the distinction would 
 naturally be informal, but the ever-growing need of the church 
 for a distinctly qualified and recognized order of teachers would 
 tend to render the distinction more nearly one of office. A ruler 
 by office, a teacher by reason of pre-eminent gifts, — by and by 
 the distinction was made between the mere ruler and the ruler 
 who also laboured in word and doctrine, by the application to 
 each of a special name. Thus we find Cyprian, in the North 
 African Church, about the middle of the third century, distin- 
 guishing Presbyters and Presbyter teachers as two separate 
 classes of church office-bearers. 
 
 A fair consideration of the importance of the elder's functions 
 should lead us clearly to understand that the Apostles would 
 strive to secure for the eldership in every city men who would 
 commend themselves to the brethren there for their practical 
 gifts, as well as for those endowments usually called graces. The 
 happy prevalence of rich and attractive endowments of grace 
 would make deficiency in this particular specially noticeable in 
 an office-bearer, and peculiarly damaging to his authority and 
 general influence. Yet excellence in gifts, where many were 
 pre-eminently gifted, would not of itself render one suitable for 
 holding office in such a community. The possession of extra- 
 ordinary gifts of grace characterized at least a large proportion 
 of the membership ; it was therefore required of office-bearers, 
 that, sharing these endowments, they should be specially dis- 
 tinguished by practical wisdom, a well-regulated mind, and a 
 pre-eminent capacity for maintaining order, and generally, for 
 the efficient conducting of the affairs of the church. That very 
 abundance of grace and the absence of restriction in the use of 
 individual gifts for teaching and edification caused the need of 
 an effective and official control all the sooner to appear. In the 
 Corinthian Church, for example, wonderful and conspicuous gifts 
 
44 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 of grace were generally enjoyed. The members of that church 
 spoke with tongues and prophesied. And the Apostle testifies 
 to the great importance of both of these gifts. Yet there seems 
 to have been a greater tendency to disorder in this community 
 than in any of the other churches founded or visited by Paul. 
 Hence the need of a special office of ruling would not be less felt, 
 but would be more felt, where gifts and graces were seen most to 
 abound. In such a church as that of Corinth, where there was 
 found such an abundance of spiritual gifts, there would be no 
 difficulty in getting highly-endowed men ; and from the ranks 
 of those thus eminent, respected among their brethren for the 
 general excellence of their gifts, and at the same time trusted by 
 the Apostles for their well-balanced judgment, would the first 
 elders be chosen. It is evident that what characterized them 
 officially was not so much the brilliancy of their spiritual gifts, 
 though in such a community that must have been a presupposition 
 of their appointment, as the faculty of rule, suppressing extra- 
 vagance in themselves, and preventing disorder among the 
 spiritual, while fully sympathizing with their spirituality. 
 
 This office of ruling, which we have seen to be one that of 
 necessity must have been instituted in the very earliest days of 
 a Christian community, is designated in Scripture under several 
 characteristic names. In Eph. iv. 1 1, for example, we find Pastors 
 and Teachers closely associated together, and, immediately follow- 
 ing, the three distinct classes of church officers, Apostles, Prophets, 
 and Evangelists. From these they are distinguished as being per- 
 manent and settled in one place, and not occasional and itinerant. 
 But as to the relation which they bear to one another, it would 
 seem that Pastor and Teacher are names meant to designate 
 offices in the church which are quite separable, but which may be 
 united in one man. The resident local teacher may be, perhaps 
 always is, a pastor, but the pastor need not be a teacher. It is 
 the pastor's, the shepherd's, duty to guard and guide his flock ; 
 and in doing this, he guides them into good pasture, where, too, 
 they will not be distracted from feeding by the fear of their foes. 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 45 
 
 Thus Homer conceives the character and work of the shepherd ; 
 and so, too, the Psalmist in the 23rd Psalm. No term could more 
 accurately describe the duties of a ruling church officer, whose 
 special function it is to see that every provision is made for the 
 exercise of the gifts of the exhorter or teacher under the most 
 favourable circumstances. Evidently the officer, who does this 
 or aids in doing this, may himself engage in teaching the 
 community thus regulated, or he may be one whose gift is limited 
 to the function of ruling. In connection with the same idea of 
 caring for a flock, we have in Acts xx. 28, 1 Pet. v. 2, the name 
 overseer {k7rlox,o7rog) instead of the name pastor or shepherd, 
 which might naturally have been expected, and the duties of the 
 office are described as a taking the oversight. This, in reference 
 to a flock, includes, as Alford remarks, leading, feeding, and 
 heeding. This is the comprehensive office of pastor and teacher, 
 including, as we have seen, functions separable and assignable 
 to different individuals ; functions, therefore, tending to the 
 establishment of distinct, though always closely-allied offices. In 
 1 Thess. v. 12 (the first Epistle written by Paul) and in Rom. 
 xii. 8, we find a class of Christian workers described as being 
 over the brethren in the Lord, and as ruling — the same word 
 (KpoioTctftsyQi) being used in each place, and meaning generally 
 those who are set over others, to be interpreted here in accordance 
 with the principle laid down in 1 Pet. v. 3. The qualifying 
 adjective used in 1 Tim. v. 17 to describe and distinguish 
 Presbyters as ruling (npotorug) is also. from the same word. That 
 this term applies to an office of ruling that might be distinguished 
 from the exercise of a teaching gift, is shown by comparing 
 I Thess. v. 12 with the preceding verse which enjoins the brethren 
 — who are under those rulers — to exhort and edify themselves, 
 which the Apostle acknowledges had been their regular practice. 
 The term, too, seems borrowed from the exercise of rule in the 
 domestic circle (1 Tim. iii. 4, 5-12 ; Tit. iii. 8-14). The peculiarly 
 abstract, yet very direct and significant name, governments 
 (zv3-ppr t <Tsig), is given in 1 Cor. xii. 28 to the office of regulation 
 
46 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 and control. The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words, and their 
 English equivalent ' govern' (Gabar, Kubernao, Guberno), are 
 all from one stem. The pilot of the ship was called the governor 
 —rendered master in Acts xxvii. u ; and shipmaster, Rev. 
 xviii. 17. The fundamental idea here is strength, which is the 
 essential element in an office of control. And once again, we 
 have in Heb. xiii. 7, 17, 24, the phrase ' those who have the rule 
 over you' (yyovpevot) applied to the first preachers of the gospel 
 among those who became members of the early Jewish churches, 
 and also to those who succeeded them in these labours. And as 
 the salutation, given in the last verse referred to, distinguishes 
 in the church only two classes — leaders and saints, church officers 
 and private members, — we must regard the term used as a com- 
 prehensive name for all spiritual office-bearers in the church. 
 The characteristic function which belongs to all is that of ruling, 
 and this, as distinguished from teaching, can be performed by 
 them as members of a council. In such a council the necessity 
 of having a president would become early apparent. Without 
 such a head they could not readily convene, nor in any satisfactory 
 way deliberate. The appointment by the elders of one of their 
 number to such a rank would be a mark of distinction, and an 
 expression of confidence which would be regarded as a very 
 grateful mode of conferring double honour. Whether or not the 
 original phrase contains any reference to pecuniary remuneration, 
 elevation to the presidency of the court, when properly done, 
 would imply that the person so distinguished, besides his ruling 
 qualifications, was pre-eminent for his gift of teaching. When 
 this president came to have a distinctive name, he was the Bishop 
 presiding over the Presbyters, corresponding to the Presbyterian 
 minister, moderator of the kirk-session. 
 
 4. The New Testament Elder and the Modern Ruling Elder 
 essentially the same. — There is no doubt an appearance of dis- 
 crepancy between the functions of the ruling elder in Presbyterian 
 churches of to-day and those of the elders spoken of by the 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 47 
 
 Apostles (Acts xx. 28 ; I Pet. v. 2) who fed the flock of God over 
 which they had been appointed overseers. This appearance of 
 difference in the institutions has arisen from the prevalence of a 
 different and false conception of the functions of the office. In 
 reality, as we shall show, the office in ancient and modern times 
 is the same, and its function continues the same, modified only 
 by changes in times and circumstances. It may be proper to 
 state shortly the various theories which have been held on this 
 subject. (1) The old Presbyterian theory maintained by Calvin, 
 Gillespie, and others, rests largely upon that interpretation of 
 1 Tim. v. 17 which regards that passage as referring to a distinc- 
 tion of offices formally recognized in Apostolic times. It is 
 generally admitted that so great a conclusion cannot safely be 
 built upon a single passage, seeing that no trace can be found 
 elsewhere in the New Testament of rulers and teachers recognized 
 as distinct orders of church officers. We find no restriction 
 placed upon ruling elders. They were not appointed as rulers to 
 the exclusion of the exercise of their teaching gifts, but to the 
 exercise of them in their office if they possessed them. Many 
 objections to the Presbyterian institution of ruling elders apply 
 only to this particular theory. ■ The distinction of lay or ruling 
 elders, and ministers proper or teaching elders, was laid down by 
 Calvin, and has been adopted as the constitution of several 
 Presbyterian churches. This interpretation of Paul's language 
 is refuted by Rothe, p. 224 ; Ritschl, p. 352 ; and SchafT, Hist, of 
 Apost. Ch., chap. ii. p. 312, besides older writers such as Vitringa 
 and Mosheim.' 1 This note of Bishop Lightfoot is simply aimed 
 at the interpretation of the passage referred to ; and only to the 
 theory of the eldership built on this, do the proofs of the writers 
 quoted apply. This theory ought not to be identified with the 
 Presbyterian argument. (2) Another theory of the eldership has 
 been proposed, in which the very opposite extreme has been 
 adopted. The nature of this exposition of the office and function 
 of the elder may be understood from the tide of Principal Camp- 
 1 Lightfoot, Comme?itary on Philippians (1881), p. 195, note. 
 
48 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 bell's book devoted to its elaboration, The Theory of the Ruling 
 Eldership, or the Position of the Lay Ruler in the Reformed 
 Churches Examined. From what has been already said of the 
 distinction lay and clerical, it will be understood that we do not 
 favour the continuance of it. The use of such terms might be 
 convenient in other circumstances ; but in consequence of their 
 application in primitive and in modern times being so different, 
 their employment is calculated to lead to confusion. The elder 
 in the ancient church was in the primitive application of the 
 term not a layman ; in the church of the present the elder is a 
 layman in the modern application of the term. But these appli- 
 cations differ. In the ancient church the contrast was rather 
 between those who held office primarily as rulers, and secondarily 
 as teachers, and those who did not hold office. Presbyters and 
 Presbyter teachers were then alike distinguished from laymen. 
 In the Reformed Churches the office of teaching is usually 
 regarded as so expressly primary, that only the officer who is 
 teacher as well as ruler is formally distinguished from the lay 
 membership. Yet Reformed theologians refuse to call the ruling 
 elder a layman. Gillespie speaks of the term lay elder as a 
 nickname. The distinction lay and clerical he rejects, and 
 reminds us that Bellarmine had supposed it characteristic of 
 Romanists as distinguished from Protestants, and so it should be ; 
 but if the distinction be retained, Gillespie suggests the retention 
 of a class name for officers between clerical and lay. The 
 Romanists have regulares who assist the clergy in ecclesiastical 
 affairs, without being admitted to clerical orders. Similar is the 
 position of ruling elders. All Principal Campbell's argumentation 
 may be set aside by repudiating the distinction, and maintaining 
 that the office-bearers of the church are all essentially representa- 
 tives of the people, that all occupy the common ground of church 
 members, and that the idea of office in the church simply 
 indicates on the part of the church the belief that the individuals 
 called to office, whether in the ministry or in the eldership, possess 
 gifts and qualifications necessary for discharging the functions 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 49 
 
 of their several offices. (3) The theory of the eldership, which 
 commends itself to us, is that which views the modern ruling 
 elder as essentially the same as the New Testament elder, his 
 place in the church constitution being somewhat modified owing 
 to the development of institutions in accordance with the needs 
 of the church. The appearance of difference between the two 
 rests upon the separation, that has been effected since the Apostolic 
 times, of the preaching from the ruling Presbyters. What was 
 then a distinction only in gifts, is now a distinction in office. 
 The Presbyter teacher now, in order to meet the requirements 
 of the age, must undergo a special training for his official calling. 
 The special discipline of his gifts qualifies him for his office. 
 Circumstances demand this in order to qualify for public teaching ; 
 still the untrained, yet otherwise qualified Presbyter, should be 
 required officially to engage in private teaching for the edification 
 of the members of the church. Thus the distinction is primarily 
 one of gifts and the cultivation of gifts, as of old, only that now by 
 church arrangement, built upon mature experience, the distinction 
 of trained and untrained teachers is elevated into a distinction of 
 office. 
 
 5. Duties of the Ruling Elder.— All the official duties of the 
 elder are comprehended under the defining term ruling. The 
 ruling elder discharges all his official functions fully, when he has 
 exercised rule in the church. It is evident, however, that much 
 depends upon the interpretation given to this term. Those who 
 support the lay councillor theory (Principal Campbell and others), 
 confine the application of the phrase rule or government to the 
 management generally of the outward affairs of the church. 
 All members of the church, it is urged, ought to visit the sick and 
 afflicted, pray with the dying, and generally do good as they have 
 opportunity ; but these exercises do not belong to the elders as 
 elders, any more than to private members, who may have time at 
 their disposal, and who may be endowed with the necessary 
 gifts. The special and official duties of the eldership, it is main- 
 
50 PRESBYTERIANISH. 
 
 tained, lie in an altogether different direction — in the oversight, 
 discipline, and government of the church in its Kirk-sessions, 
 Presbyteries, and Assemblies. According to this theory, all the 
 duties of elders are performed jointly in the courts of the church, 
 and whatever religious services they may perform severally, are to 
 be regarded as the acts not of church office-bearers, but simply of 
 pious church members. On the contrary, all our authoritative 
 Presbyterian documents, as well as the decisions of prominent 
 Presbyterian churchmen, emphasize the directly spiritual aspect 
 of the elder's office. If we refer, for example, to the First Book 
 of Discipline, sanctioned in 1560, we find the following admirable 
 summary of the duties of elders (chap. x. 4) : — ' The elders being 
 elected, must be admonished of their office, which is to assist the 
 ministers in all public affairs of the kirk ; to wit, in determining 
 and judging causes, in giving admonition to the licentious liver, 
 in having respect to the manners and conversation of all men 
 within their charge. For by the gravity of the seniors, the light 
 and unbridled life of the licentious must be corrected and 
 bridled.' Here it will be observed that though no particulars 
 are gone into, it is quite understood that officially their duties are 
 to be performed, and influence exerted, outside of the courts in 
 which they sit. More in detail the same view of the duties of 
 elders is expressed in the Second Book of Discipline, chap. vi. 4-9 ; 
 in James Guthrie's Treatise on Elders and Deacons (written about 
 1640), chaps, v.-vii. ; and in the Practice of the Free Church of 
 Scotland (2nd ed., pub. 1877), Appendix I. 4, p. 136. In all these 
 important manuals there is full recognition given to certain duties 
 of the eldership that are more private in their nature, and to be 
 discharged, not by the court of elders, but by individual elders. 
 That which a private member, having the time or the gifts, is 
 expected to do, the elder is required officially to do, under the 
 direct cognizance of the church whose representative he is. He 
 must assist the pastor in exhorting and instructing those specially 
 under his care, visiting for the purpose of administering comfort 
 to the afflicted, admonition to the tempted or fallen, and generally, 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 51 
 
 counsel to those to whom it may be helpful. That elders ought 
 to engage with pre-eminent diligence in such duties, follows 
 evidently from the express qualifications required of them. 
 
 Besides these more private duties of the eldership, there are 
 the duties of a more public kind, recognized by all Presbyterians, 
 whatever their particular theory of the elder's office may be, as 
 devolving upon the ruling elders, to be performed by them jointly 
 in the Kirk-session, or as representatives in the higher courts of 
 the church. In the exercise of their official functions, elders sit 
 in all church courts, and deliberate on matters concerning the 
 faith, order, and discipline of the church. Along with the minister 
 in the session, they take the oversight of the spiritual affairs of 
 the congregation, seeing to the appointment of a sufficient number 
 of office-bearers for the carrying on of the work of the congrega- 
 tion, joining in the examination of candidates for admission to 
 sealing ordinances, especially assisting with their advice in regard 
 to the life and conversation of such applicants, taking general 
 cognizance of the morals of the people, interesting themselves in 
 the state of religion within their bounds, considering the attend- 
 ance on the public services of religious worship, and using means 
 for the improvement thereof, taking superintendence of, and giving 
 encouragement to, the religious training of the young, not only by 
 their individual exertions, but in their capacity as a Session. 
 
 The great advantage of this Presbyterian institution of the 
 ruling eldership appears very specially in the exercise of discipline 
 in regard to all matters, whether more or less serious. Those who 
 most consistently and successfully vindicate the rights of the 
 ruling eldership, supplement their scriptural argument by a very 
 powerful plea on the ground of Christian expediency. So, 
 CEcolampadius (at Basel in 1531) and Calvin (at Geneva in 1540) 
 are thoroughly agreed in recommending that a decisive share in 
 the government of the church should be given to representatives 
 of the people, in order to prevent arbitrariness, or the suspicion of 
 it, on the part of the pastors. Judging from history and from the 
 nature of things, it appears evident that if the administration of 
 
52 PRESBYTERIAXISM. 
 
 discipline in the church be committed to one man, he may not 
 be in a position to form a fair estimate of varying or conflicting 
 statements, nor may it be possible for him to make it evident 
 always, that he is acting with thorough impartiality. In this way 
 the usefulness of the pastor, if solely responsible for the discipline 
 of the congregation, might be seriously impaired, and at the same 
 time the interests of a pure and healthy church government would 
 suffer. There are thus duties to be performed in connection with 
 the affairs of a single church, or of a group of churches, such as 
 no minister, nor court composed only of ministers, can adequately 
 perform. And these duties, too, are not such as can be discharged 
 by all and sundry of the pious and earnest-minded members of 
 the church. They are distinctly church functions, and only those 
 authorized and accredited by the church can properly undertake 
 and efficiently carry them out. And so, from the existence of 
 such a class of duties, we may argue in favour of a class of church 
 office-bearers, whose official work will consist in the performance 
 of these. It has become so evident that duties of this kind cannot 
 be discharged by ministers only, that in some churches not 
 Presbyterian there has been repeatedly shown a tendency to 
 create boards and councils for co-operation with the ministers in 
 regard to such matters. It is one of the great advantages of 
 Presbyterianism, that it provides a recognized and responsible 
 class of church officers whose office is permanent, and not merely 
 created in face of special emergencies. The duties which we 
 recognize as peculiar to the ruling elder are not occasional in the 
 history of a Christian community, but, on the contrary, are con- 
 stantly pressing. Hence provision is made for their regular 
 performance, through the existence of a permanent office of ruling 
 elder in the church. 
 
 6. The Buling Elder in the History of the Christian Church.— 
 From all that has been said, it must be evident that in the very 
 earliest years of church life the ruling office was a necessity. Not 
 all at once were rulers and teachers separated as two distinct 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 53 
 
 classes of office-bearers ; but this is easily accounted fur when 
 we consider the primitive condition of the Christian community, 
 the recentness of its formation, and the simplicity of its original 
 idea. It is only an accident of time and circumstance, if we 
 find that at first one name is given to him that is ruler only, and 
 to him that is ruler and teacher as well. The Presbyter is as 
 emphatically a ruler as he could have been had teachers already 
 been officially appointed in the churches. As Stephen was not 
 less a deacon because he was also an evangelist, so the primitive 
 elder was not less a ruling elder because he was often also the 
 local teacher. 
 
 In these early times it is quite certain that the duties officially 
 discharged by the elders were performed in a council. The 
 functions of the eldership were not such as could be discharged 
 by one. The rule of the elder is authoritative in the church, as 
 it expresses the mind of the council of elders, not that of a single 
 elder. By modifications gradually introduced, 1 the function 
 of rule came to be regarded as the official prerogative and 
 destination of a particular officer, who received a different name 
 from that of Presbyter, which before meant nothing else than 
 ruler ; and those Presbyters, who formerly had jointly ruled, 
 came to exercise another set of functions, and instead of ruling 
 were required officially to labour in word and doctrine. 
 
 In the beginning of the third century, according to the Clementine 
 Homilies and other writings of the period, the Bishop and Presbyter 
 both teach — the one confining himself to doctrine, the other to 
 morals. Here still the Presbyter, as ruling elder, is restricted in 
 his official teaching to that department — the morals of the people 
 — of which he had originally the special oversight. 
 
 In the times of Justin Martyr, towards the middle of the second 
 century, the Presbyter had no place at all in the conducting of 
 public worship. It was only with the growth of the Episcopal 
 system that the custom became general to relegate the work of 
 
 1 Hatch, Organization 0/ the Early Christian Churches (Bampton Lecture, 
 1880) , pp. 76-81. 
 
54 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 public teaching to the Presbyters. As smaller congregations 
 grew up around the one parish church, the rule over these was 
 reserved by the Bishop, while the local Presbyters, who should 
 have been the rulers, were left to conduct in the several com- 
 munities the general duties of the ministry in the dispensation of 
 word and sacrament. In this way the title Bishop, which rightly 
 belonged to all the members of the bench of Presbyters, was 
 assumed by one man who exercised alone the Presbyterial 
 function of government. This is the main issue between 
 Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, — Where does the right of rule 
 reside ? — in a Bishop, or in a bench of Presbyters ? The office 
 of ruling elder ceased in the church when the Episcopal theory 
 became dominant. 
 
 From the fourth century to the era of the Reformation, from 
 the very nature of the church polity which was universally 
 accepted, there was no room for the ruling elder. Among writers 
 on Presbyterianism it has, indeed, been very usual to maintain 
 that this primitive institution of the ruling eldership had been 
 retained in the constitution of the Waldensian Church, and that 
 from this source it was introduced into the Swiss and Genevan 
 Churches. This position, however, is now found to be quite 
 unsupported by any historical evidence. The Reformers make 
 no reference to the existence of this order among the Waldenses ; 
 and in a letter written by a Waldensian to (Ecolampadius in 
 1550, 1 the church constitution is spoken of in detail, and no 
 mention is made of a ruling elder, but only of a Presbyterian 
 ministry and Synod of Presbyters. The opinion now generally 
 accepted is, that the Waldenses borrowed the institution of the 
 eldership, and introduced it after the example of the Swiss 
 Reformed Churches. 
 
 Luther insisted vigorously upon the rights of the Christian 
 
 people. He emphasized very strongly the universal priesthood 
 
 of believers, and constantly maintained that the difference 
 
 between the clergy and the laity did not imply any distinction of 
 
 1 See Lechler, Geschichfe der Preshyierial-Verfassutig, S. 4. 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 55 
 
 class and condition, but only a distinction between the regular 
 and official discharge of duties, and the discharge of such as are 
 more private and personal. Yet we do not find, with Luther, the 
 establishment and formal recognition of the ruling eldership. It 
 is in connection with the observance of the Lord's Supper and 
 admission to the holy ordinance, that any reference is made by 
 him to the need of such an institution. He acknowledges that 
 matters were not ripe for the regular and satisfactory adminis- 
 tration of discipline ; but in the ideal reformed church at which 
 he aimed, provision for the effective exercise of discipline must 
 be made. c The holy supper especially/ he says, ' must be 
 guarded from unworthy, i.e. manifest sinners ; we dare not make 
 ourselves partakers of the sins of others. But since whoever 
 may be excommunicated must, first of all, be publicly convicted 
 before the congregation, there is due also to the congregation, 
 and that the congregation of the place, a voice in the matter ; 
 for it concerns the souls belonging to the congregation, and there- 
 fore the congregation should be furnished with judges.' 1 In 
 1540, we find Luther joining with other Saxon Reformers in 
 recommending that those churches which were engaged in the 
 preparation of their constitution and form of polity, should provide 
 for the restoration of church discipline by the appointment of 
 elders in every congregation. Meanwhile, in 1526, a distinguished 
 Lutheran theologian, John Brenz, had published a church order 
 for the district of Halle, which, while of a very peculiar type, 
 gave special prominence to the eldership. The peculiarity of the 
 constitution lay in this, that it sought to make the eldership a 
 consistory in which the ecclesiastical and civil jurisdictions were 
 bound together. The elders were to be elected by the civil 
 authorities. In primitive times, he said, civil government being 
 in the hands of heathens or Jews, it was necessary to appoint 
 from out of the church some honourable and venerable men who 
 should diligently care for the church, exhort to careful living, 
 
 1 See Dorncr, History of Protestant Theology, translated by Rev. George 
 Robson, vol. i. pp. 180, i8x. 
 
56 PRESBYTERIANISM; 
 
 and, in case their exhortation were not listened to, and no 
 repentance followed, should with the Bishop proceed to excom- 
 munication. But now that the civil authorities are Christian, 
 Brenz would have these authorities, on behalf of the Pastor or 
 Presbyter, ordain some persons from among the citizens, who 
 should hold a Synod and exhort transgressors. In various parts 
 we find attempts made to affirm in some way the right and duty 
 of the Christian Church to exercise discipline by means of 
 regularly-appointed judges. Thus, Francis Lambert of Avignon 
 (1487-1530), in his constitution prepared for the Hessian Churches, 
 insists upon the principle of having elders appointed to visit the 
 sick, and exercise discipline along with the pastors ; men to be 
 chosen for the office who were most intelligent, distinguished, 
 diligent, and pious among the members of the church ; and of 
 their duties he gives a very admirable statement. This was the 
 ideal ; but all that could be realized was the institution of a board, 
 of which one-half the members were appointed by the civil autho- 
 rities, and the other half by the church. In Zurich, again, Zwingli 
 placed church government altogether in the hands of the state. 
 Even in the Lutheran Church in certain Swiss states, and also 
 in certain Genevan states, such weight was given to the civil 
 authority, that the strange anomaly presented itself of an evan- 
 gelical church only asking for a civil court instead of a congre- 
 gational eldership by which to administer church discipline. 
 (Ecolampadius, at Basel, strenuously maintained the right of the 
 church to conduct her own judgments; at the same time declaring, 
 that a purely clerical tribunal inevitably tended to become a 
 tyranny, and therefore advancing a claim on behalf of ruling 
 elders. Here the true conception is first clearly stated, but 
 circumstances did not favour it being carried out. Martin Bucer 
 secured the appointment of a court for the exercise of church 
 discipline, consisting of eight members — four chosen by the state, 
 two by the clergy, and two by the church. Last of all these 
 Lutheran Church orders comes that of Capito (Frankfort, 1535), 
 in which the elders appointed by Moses are made the model, and 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 57 
 
 the eldership is constituted of three members chosen by the state, 
 and at least six chosen by the church. It is enjoined that these 
 remain in office only three years, in order, it is shrewdly said, 
 that several may learn church duties and interest themselves in 
 church affairs. Here, through the predominance of members 
 chosen by the congregation, is the Lutheran consistory first 
 presented in a form at all worthy of being called an eldership. 
 
 When from those attempts made in the Lutheran and Swiss 
 Churches to secure recognition of popular rights in the church, 
 we pass to consider the endeavours of Calvin (1 509-1 564) to lay 
 down the fundamental principles of church organization, we 
 cannot fail to be at once struck with the difference of method 
 which characterizes the Genevan Reformer's treatment of church 
 questions. While the Lutherans start from the general scriptural 
 principle of the universal priesthood of believers, and on this, base 
 the claim of the Christian people to a voice in the courts of the 
 church, Calvin proceeds directly to the New Testament for 
 express authority, in the recognition and distinction of the several 
 offices which are to be regarded as indispensable and necessary 
 to the full organization of the church. All the passages in which 
 reference is made to church office and constitution are examined 
 (Institutes, Book iv. chap. i. sees. 1-10), and it is found that the 
 ruling elder is one of the permanent church office-bearers. The 
 office of the eldership is analogous to that of the municipal 
 authorities ; but as its functions are spiritual, not civil, so it is 
 entirely separate from, and independent of, any court of the state. 
 In this theoretical presentation of the church rights, the thought 
 will not for a moment be entertained which those Lutherans 
 advanced who rested satisfied with action taken by the civil 
 power. Between state and church there should be no antagonism, 
 but just as little should there be confusion between them. ' The 
 essential idea in Calvin's view of the church and its constitution 
 is,' says Lechler, ' that he demands decidedly on behalf of church 
 discipline a government distinct from the civil authority, speci- 
 fically spiritual, yet not clerical, but administered by elders with 
 
5 3 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 pastors/ Calvin, according to his plan of church government 
 elaborated in the Institutes, has no thought of allowing the state 
 to have any hand in church discipline. The only alternatives, 
 according to this theory, are between leaving the administration 
 of discipline wholly to the clergy, or putting it in the hands of a 
 council formed of the representatives of the people, with the 
 pastors. The continuance, therefore, of the scriptural office of 
 the ruling elder, as a distinct and regular officer in every congre- 
 gation, is urged on the ground of expediency, to avoid any return 
 to the clerical despotism of the Papacy. In 1541, when Calvin 
 after his exile returned to Geneva, he found himself hampered by 
 the presence of a civil authority which had called him in, and 
 which meant to co-operate with him in carrying out his ecclesi- 
 astical arrangements. Acting at once in connection with this 
 constituted authority, Calvin did not obtain a congregational 
 eldership, but had to be satisfied with a consistory or eldership, 
 chosen for the church proportionately from the smaller and greater 
 civic councils. This eldership Calvin himself in his Epistles calls 
 by various names : — The Court of the Church, the Ecclesiastical 
 Court, the Court of Presbyters, Consistorial Judges, Consistorial 
 Elders (see Lechler, Geschkhie, S. 32-49). What he was able 
 to accomplish, however, was not by any means what he had 
 desired. Writing to Myconius, he says : — Now we have a court 
 of Presbyters, and a form of discipline of such a kind as the 
 weakness of the times allows. The special difficulty which beset 
 the establishment of a church at Geneva on true Evangelical and 
 Presbyterian principles lay in the friendliness of the state and 
 the claim which this seemed to give, and which was enforced, for 
 a direct and substantial state interference and control. There 
 was at Geneva a Christian and Protestant state, just such as 
 Brenz had desiderated, and the result was, as we have seen, in 
 this one particular of the appointment of judges in ecclesiastical 
 matters, that Calvin's ideal of church rights was set aside, and 
 what should have been a church court was dominated by the 
 civil authority. 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 59 
 
 When, however, from Geneva we turn to France, we find in the 
 church established in Paris, and spreading out from that centre, 
 a much more perfect church constitution. Beyond all question, 
 the French Church was organized on the Genevan model. The 
 circumstances, moreover, which prevented Calvin from attaining 
 to his ideal, were not present in the case of the ' Church under the 
 Cross. ' The State was not favourable, but Roman Catholic, and 
 pronouncedly hostile ; and thus, amid all the sufferings which 
 this state of matters occasioned, there was perfect freedom to 
 develop the institutions of Presbyterianism according to the pure 
 ideal of the Presbyterian theory. The constitution of the French 
 Church was settled at the Synod which met at Paris in 1559. 
 There are a few noticeable defects in this church constitution. 
 Deacons, for example, are regarded as helpers to the elders, and 
 share with them in the membership of the consistory, which 
 determines all cases of church discipline, and exercises all 
 ecclesiastical ruling functions ; and further, elders are simply 
 engaged in discipline, and have no province assigned them in 
 pastoral work. The grand and very important advances, how- 
 ever, which the French Church constitution has made upon that 
 of Geneva, deserves very special recognition. Here we first find 
 in a church order the rights of the Christian people in the 
 appointment of the members of her ecclesiastical courts clearly 
 asserted and practically affirmed, and here, too, the elders have 
 first a place secured for them side by side with the ministers in 
 the General Synod. 
 
 The organization of the Scottish Reformed Church under John 
 Knox was effected in 1560, the year immediately following the 
 meeting of the Synod of Paris. The polity of the Church of 
 Scotland is almost identical with that of the French Church, 
 because it stands related in the very same way to Calvin and the 
 Genevan Church order, and had, though with some characteristic 
 differences, to contend against an unsympathetic, and in some 
 respects directly hostile, civil authority. It is quite true that, at 
 the time when Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, tne Papal 
 
Co PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 jurisdiction had been repudiated ; yet, on the arrival of Mary 
 from the French Court and the tuition of the Guises, there was 
 immediately established in the land a strong Romish party, the 
 monarch personally, and through her favourites and followers, 
 owning herself the determined foe of the Reformed faith. The 
 nobles, too, who had been most eager in the demolition of the 
 old religious houses, greedily appropriated the revenues, and 
 were in most cases lukewarm, if not positively hostile, to the 
 establishment of religion in a purer form throughout the country. 
 With the same model, impressed on the mind of Knox from his 
 long residence in Geneva and intimate acquaintance with Calvin, 
 and under the same conditions of courtly opposition and narrow- 
 ness of temporal resources, we may not be surprised to find that 
 the First Book of Discipline of 1560, which forms the earliest 
 statement of the Scottish Church Polity, corresponds in almost 
 all particulars with the Church Order of the French Synod of the 
 previous year. In this formulary it is ordained that * men faithful 
 and most honest of conversation that can be found in the Kirk ! 
 are to be nominated, and from these the elders are to be elected ; 
 and if any know men better qualified, then these too are to be 
 nominated and put in election, ' that the Kirk may have the 
 choice. 5 Elders are to be chosen once a year, l lest of long 
 continuance of such officers men presume upon the liberty of the 
 Kirk/ and so that they may not be ' so occupied with the affairs 
 of the Kirk, but that reasonably they may attend upon their 
 domesticall business. 5 Being elected, the elders are to assist the 
 ministers in all public affairs of the Kirk, 'in determining and 
 judging causes, in giving admonition to the licentious liver, in 
 having respect to the manners and conversation of all men within 
 their charge : for by the gravity of the seniors the light and un- 
 bridled life of the licentious must be corrected and bridled.' ' Yea, 
 the seniors ought also to take heed to the life, manners, diligence, 
 and study of their ministers. 5 The deacons, too, as in the French 
 constitution, are regarded as helpers to the elders in the exercise 
 of superintendence and discipline. In this earliest Book of Policy 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 6l 
 
 for the Scottish Church, we find the democratic tendency very 
 strong, and decidedly in advance of any previous system of church 
 organization. The right of the people to elect their office- 
 bearers is here first sufficiently stated and provided for ; and 
 jealousy for the preservation of these rights led to the yearly 
 election of elders and deacons. Then, again, in advance of the 
 French constitution, the spiritual and pastoral functions of the 
 eldership are fully and clearly recognized. This book, though 
 possessed of many remarkable excellences, was hastily drawn up, 
 and owing to the unsettled state of the church, in which every- 
 thing had to be begun, there was a good deal necessarily set 
 down conditionally, — functions and offices referred to which could 
 only be regarded as temporary institutions. Hence it was found 
 necessary in 1578, six years after Knox's death, to prepare a 
 Second Book of Discipline, improved and consolidated in 
 accordance with the experience which the intervening years had 
 afforded. In this book the deacons are entirely separated from 
 the elders. The chapter on Elders and their office affirms the 
 Apostolic origin of the institution : elders are called in the New 
 Testament presidents or governors : the eldership is a spiritual 
 function, as is the ministry ; once called, elders are not to leave 
 their office : the chief are teachers, but all need not teach : 
 severally and conjunctly, they are to watch publicly and privately 
 over the flock committed to their charge : they are to assist the 
 pastor in examining for admission to the Lord's table : and, 
 specially, they are to hold assemblies with the pastors for the 
 exercise of discipline. In this statement, we have all particulars 
 regarding the elder and his office which need to be fixed by 
 church authority expressed in a perfect form. 
 
 In regard to the institution of the Ruling Elder, there seems 
 nothing special or distinctive in the constitution of the Presby- 
 terian Church in England during the Reformation period. The 
 First Book of Discipline, among the English Presbyterians, was 
 prepared by Walter Travers, who was Hooker's colleague and 
 opponent in the Temple ; and this book, published in 1574 at 
 
62 PRKSBYTERIAN1SM. 
 
 Geneva, bore the significant title, The Holy Discipline of tht 
 Church described from the Word of God. This work was origin- 
 ally in Latin, but in 1584 an English translation appeared, with 
 considerable alterations and improvements, by Thomas Cart- 
 wright, the ablest and most influential of the early English 
 Puritans. This formed the basis of the Westminster Assembly's 
 Directory of Church Government, prepared in 1644. In regard 
 to the office of the Ruling Elder, it was not acknowledged by 
 many able members of the Assembly, but many equally dis- 
 tinguished members, with all the Scotch representatives, argued 
 powerfully in its defence. The final decision accepted was 
 this : — It is agreeable to, and warranted by, the Word of God 
 that some others besides the ministers of the Word, or church 
 governors, should join with the ministers in the government of 
 the church. To this fundamental principle all assented, with 
 the exception of Lightfoot ; and it is noticeable that, with no 
 further opposition than that of Dr. Temple, it was the scriptural 
 authority for the institution (the texts Rom. xii. 7, 8 and 1 Cor. 
 Mi. 28 were added), and not the admitted expediency of it, that 
 was affirmed by the Assembly. Next, an attempt was made by 
 the Erastians Coleman, Lightfoot, and Selden, to prove that the 
 Jewish elders were civil officers, assisting Moses; while Gillespie 
 sought to show that the Seventy were associated not only with 
 Moses, but also with Aaron. The debate on this point was long, 
 and led to no conclusion. 1 It must now appear unwise, as it 
 certainly is unnecessary, to seek any minute analogies between 
 the Mosaic and the Christian eldership. For a plurality of ruling 
 elders Gillespie argued, urging the example of the Jewish Church, 
 where several elders were in the synagogue, the impossibility of one 
 undertaking efficiently the work, and the necessity of maintenance 
 for the elder, who would have laid on him an exhausting charge. 2 
 
 1 Hetherington's History of Westmi?ister Assembly, ed. by Dr. Williamson, 
 pp. 159--161 ; Gillespie's A ssertio?i of the Government of the Church of Scotland, 
 chap. iii. 
 
 2 Gillespie's Notes of Proceedings of Westminster Assembly of Divines, 
 May 3rd, 164 \. 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS RULING ELDER. 6$ 
 
 Among the Independents too, the expediency of recognizing 
 an ofiicc of ruling in the church was generally admitted ; and 
 Dr. John Owen argued ably in defence of the institution on 
 scriptural grounds, especially emphasizing the usual Presbyterian 
 interpretation of i Tim. v. 17. A manifesto of the Independents 
 was published by Wm. Bradshaw (1571-1618), in which the office 
 of ruling elder and its importance was fully recognized. 4 They 
 judge it repugnant to the Word of God that any minister should 
 be a sole ruler, and, as it were, a pope, so much as in one parish, 
 much more that he should be one over a whole diocese, province, 
 or nation ; they hold that by God's ordinance the congregation 
 should make choice of other officers as assistants unto the 
 ministers in the spiritual regiment of the congregation, who are 
 by office, jointly with the ministers of the land, to be as monitors 
 and overseers of the manners and conversation of all the 
 congregation and one of another, so that every one may be 
 more wary of their ways, and that the pastors and doctors may 
 better attend to prayer and doctrine, and by these means be 
 better acquainted with the estate of the people, when other eyes 
 besides their own shall wake and watch over them.' x No better 
 account of the advantages of the ruling eldership could have been 
 given by the most consistent Presbyterian. 
 
 In many cases where objection is made to the institution of 
 ruling elders, other officers, such as deacons, have the elders' 
 duties laid upon them. In the Church of Scotland previous to 
 1843, the state of matters was rather the converse of this. The 
 office of deacon having generally fallen into abeyance, there was 
 but one congregational church court in most parishes, by which 
 all duties relating to discipline and distribution had to be dis- 
 charged. The result, in a large measure, was the secularization 
 of the Session. Duties connected with the oversight and aid of 
 the parish poor, now relegated to Parochial Boards (deacons in 
 the Free Church attending specially to the congregational poor), 
 were performed by the Kirk-session, the eldership generally 
 
 1 Quoted by Dr. King, Presbyterian Church Government, pp. 155, 156. 
 
64 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 acting as trustees and managers for the heritors. Under the 
 reign of Moderatism, the spiritual functions of the ruling elder 
 were lost sight of, and attention to outward parochial affairs was 
 regarded as exhaustive of the duties of the Session. Now, in all 
 the sections of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the import- 
 ance of the elders as labourers together with the pastor in the 
 spiritual and evangelistic work of the congregation is heartily 
 recognized. The institution of the eldership, as thus understood 
 and developed, constitutes one of the grand elements in Presbv« 
 terianism, which have rendered our church system so successful 
 in consolidating what we have, and carrying on aggressive 
 enterprises. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 
 
 1. Special Office of Preacher gradually recognized. — In consider- 
 ing the question of church office in the earliest Christian com- 
 munities, it is important to keep in memory the peculiarities and 
 special conditions of the age. From the writings of the Apostles, 
 and especially from the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, it is 
 made very evident that the spiritual endowments of church 
 members in the Apostolic Age were not only far in advance of 
 the average attainments of church members in subsequent ages, 
 but were altogether of a different order, and qualified the 
 possessors of them for work laid to their hand by the necessities 
 of the times. Immediately after the record given in Mark xvi. 15 
 of the Apostolic commission, we have the promise given, not 
 to Apostles only, but to all that believe, of miraculous endow- 
 ments of the very highest order. These were the creation days 
 of the Christian Church, and the calling into being of any new 
 thing necessarily implies the presence and application of 
 uncommon agencies. Just as in the material creation we find 
 the miraculous element present, so that in the several kingdoms 
 of nature, that is produced by the utterance of the divine word, 
 which in all subsequent ages is carried on by the orderly operation 
 of natural laws ; so also, in the origination of the Christian Church 
 as a spiritual creation, we find miraculous gifts granted to the 
 several individual converts, settled in various centres, for the 
 
66 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 accomplishment in the beginning of that which subsequently 
 must be carried on by a regularly-constituted human instrumen- 
 tality. We have the express and oft-quoted testimony of Hilary 
 the Deacon, that in the beginning all taught and all baptized, 
 as opportunity offered. This witness, from a period when the 
 current practice was very different from that of apostolic times, is 
 of considerable importance. In the New Testament itself, how- 
 ever, we have ample proof and illustration of the unrestricted 
 liberty enjoyed by all members of the church in the exercise of 
 their gifts. Throughout the fourteenth chapter of the First 
 Epistle to the Corinthians this is made apparent, especially in 
 vv. 26-31. The gift of prophesying spoken of in this chapter 
 is characterized by Paul (vv. 1-5) as the chief charism, or gift 
 of grace most to be coveted. It is impossible to distinguish this 
 prophesying from teaching or preaching ; for, says the Apostle 
 in verse third, c He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to 
 edification, and exhortation, and comfort.' And it is of this gift, 
 so evidently that of one qualified to fill the office of preacher, that 
 Paul says, addressing the members of the Corinthian Church, 
 1 Ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all 
 may be comforted.' The right to prophesy depended upon the 
 possession of the charism, or gift of prophecy, and as a requisite 
 of the church in the first stage of its development this gift was 
 generally distributed. So long as this was so, there could be no 
 thought of the institution of a distinct and special office for the 
 function of preaching. 1 The establishment of any office in the 
 
 1 ' In the primitive age of Christianity, preaching properly so called is 
 unknown. This is the age of inspiration. Utterance is free, spontaneous, 
 fervid, and irrepressible in the assemblies of the Christians. There is the full 
 exercise of the gift of prophecy — the miraculous manifestation of the Divine 
 Spirit. When this impassioned utterance subsides, it is for a long time 
 followed only by simple testimony borne to the great facts of redemption, the 
 brief, heartfelt recital of the gospel story, which is not at this time embodied 
 in any written documents of a canonical character. Preaching only com- 
 menced when the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit had become rare, and when 
 recourse was had to the newly-written sacred books.' — Pressense\ Life and 
 Practice i?i the Early Chu?'ch, Bk. II. chap. v. § 3. 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 67 
 
 church, as we have clearly seen, is determined by the church's 
 need. We have shown how everywhere the ruling office, from 
 the very nature of the case, was immediately seen to be indis- 
 pensable, and in the smallest of the young Christian communities 
 was filled by the first-fruits of the Apostles' labours, because 
 everywhere the need of regulation, organization, and discipline 
 was recognized. Similarly, as soon as the supernatural gifts 
 which characterized the Apostolic Age, and qualified the church 
 membership of that period for carrying on the work of teaching 
 and preaching, had passed away, the presence of qualified 
 teachers was required, and these were naturally sought from 
 among the most spiritual and talented of those who already held 
 the office of ruler. Thus came about gradually that separation 
 of Presbyters into two classes — those who teach and rule, and 
 those who rule only. 
 
 It is further to be remembered that the preaching of primitive 
 times — such as ordinary members engaged in, as distinguished 
 from the breaking of new ground and the laying of foundations, 
 as was done by the Apostles and their specially equipped 
 delegates — was, in respect of its form at least, not such as called 
 for the exercise of pre-eminent gifts of intellect or eloquence. 
 What was specially desiderated was the glow of spiritual sym- 
 pathy and enthusiasm, and the fervour of a strong personal 
 conviction in the narrating of the simple facts of the gospel story. 
 When, afterwards, this story was written down, and in the pos- 
 session of the several churches, and when side by side with this 
 the rich doctrinal matter of the Apostolical Epistles came to be 
 studied generally in the church, and mastered by the members 
 of the church, just in proportion to the intellectual advancement 
 of the people would the need of a specially trained ministry 
 become evident. This, then, is really the sound plea on behalf 
 of a thoroughly educated ministry, that — inasmuch as it is the 
 duty of the ministry to interpret to mixed audiences the truths 
 contained in Scripture, which to many must be done authorita- 
 tively, requiring a well-balanced judgment, and a mind trained 
 
63 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 and exercised in such pursuits, and inasmuch as the advanced 
 standard of education demands, in order to secure the respect 
 and maintain the confidence of the people, a more than average 
 degree of culture — he, who would regularly and officially minister 
 in the word, must have a special and professional training in the 
 word. This demand for a class of men, more or less specially 
 trained, implies the recognition of an office which such alone can 
 fill. This office is that of the teaching or preaching Presbyter. 
 In the Apostolic Age there were gifts of prophesying, teaching, 
 exhorting ; so soon as the possession of such gifts ceased to be 
 common to the members, the need was felt and expressed for 
 having in the church a regular office, in which particularly 
 endowed individuals might exercise their gifts. In this office, 
 foreshadowed by the charisms of New Testament times, room is 
 given not only for the utilization of such gifts, but also for the 
 education and development of them in those in whom they 
 may be latent. One of the marked contrasts of primitive and 
 modern church institutions lies in the prominence now given to 
 the preaching office. 
 
 2. Nature of the Office — Ministerial, not Sacerdotal. — In the 
 earliest times the teaching or preaching office was conceived of in 
 a way extremely simple. As its characteristic function was the 
 unfolding of the truth before taught by Jesus and His Apostles, 
 he who occupied this office was regarded simply as a minister who 
 took the words of truth presented him, and, by means of these, 
 ministered to the people. The Presbyter of New Testament times, 
 whether in the exercise of the functions of ruling, or in the exercise 
 of the functions of teaching, was strictly enjoined (i Pet. v. 3 ; 
 2 Cor. i. 24) not to conduct himself as though he were a lord 
 over God's heritage. Christ had Himself contrasted the con- 
 ditions of earthly pre-eminence and of exaltation in His kingdom. 
 Those who would gain distinction with Him must have in them 
 a humility like His own. He who was among men as one that 
 served required, on the part of His witnesses and representa- 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 69 
 
 tives, a similar attitude in relation to their fellow-men. In this 
 spirit Paul characteristically describes himself as at once the 
 servant of Jesus Christ the Lord, and the servant of the church 
 for Jesus' sake (2 Cor. iv. 5). This attitude on the part of the 
 ministry of the church was in strict accordance with the pure 
 doctrines of grace which in those early days were maintained ; 
 and so long as those pure doctrines prevailed, this simple view 
 of the officers of the church, as servants of God for men, was 
 everywhere accepted. Gradually, however, during the third and 
 fourth centuries, the simplicity of New Testament teaching was 
 departed from, and in proportion as the doctrines of grace were 
 obscured, hierarchical views concerning the ecclesiastical office 
 began to prevail. Sacramentarianism and Sacerdotalism de- 
 veloped side by side. While in earlier and purer days men had 
 taught that salvation was to be had only through the exercise of 
 simple faith in Christ, it was now being taught, more or less 
 distinctly, that there was some mysterious, magical power in the 
 sacraments, and that the Eucharist was a sacrifice offered to 
 God, and accepted by Him on behalf of the worshipper, who thus 
 became an offerer. It was inevitable that the officer, who repre- 
 sented the people and personally performed the service for them, 
 should be regarded, since that which he performed was called a 
 sacrifice, no longer simply as a minister, but as a priest. Accord- 
 ingly we find Cyprian (toward the middle of the third century) 
 describing the Bishop as a priest presiding at the eucfcaristic 
 sacrifice ; and other writers of the same age simply carried out 
 the same tendencies, and gave expression to ideas latent in this 
 conception, when they spoke of the Bishop as a divine being, 
 and a Mediator between God and man. The circumstances of 
 the church in Cyprian's time contributed greatly to the develop- 
 ment of sacerdotal views. Schism had broken out, and had to 
 be suppressed with a firm hand. The very appearance of revolt 
 tended to create in the minds of church leaders an exaggerated 
 and onesided idea of the importance of ecclesiastical unity and 
 the need of consolidation and centralization. Cyprian's great 
 
^O PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 thought, in this contest with the Schismatics, and afterward, was 
 the unity of the church. Henceforth the church, as an institution, 
 was made to bulk much more largely than before in theological 
 controversy : the officers of the church were clothed with an 
 altogether unique authority : to oppose them was to oppose the 
 church, and to rebel against God. In the exercise of their awful 
 prerogatives, the Bishops of the Cyprianic theory not only de- 
 livered final and irreversible judgments, but were endowed with 
 power to forgive sins. In this last claim, the sacerdotal element 
 becomes specially prominent. It was, however, only through a 
 complete perversion of the Christian idea of worship that the 
 notion of a priestly service could possibly find an entrance. In 
 Jewish and in Pagan worship there were material sacrifices which 
 necessarily required the services of a sacrificing priest ; but in 
 Christian worship there were only recognized spiritual sacrifices 
 (i Pet. ii. 5), which no select band of church officers, but all 
 church members as a holy Priesthood of believers, were required 
 to offer up unto God. 
 
 When the threefold classification of church officers had come 
 to be generally adopted in the church, it was not unusual to 
 seek in the Jewish hierarchy a parallel for these distinctions by 
 way of illustration and justification, the Bishop being called the 
 Chief Priest (summits sac er do s)\ the Presbyter, the Priest (sacerdos); 
 and the Deacon, the Levite. The name priest (sacerdos), to which, 
 as applied to the Christian minister, currency was first given by 
 Tertullian (beginning of the third century), while its use was 
 confirmed and widely established by Cyprian, his younger 
 contemporary, was evidently borrowed from the hierarchical 
 terminology of the Old Testament, but the tendency of thought 
 which led to the use of the word was largely determined by the 
 influence of surrounding heathenism. It must, indeed, be quite 
 apparent that the constant observance of Pagan religious 
 practices, and association with them, more or less, must have 
 greatly tended to secure currency in Christian communities for 
 such terms as implied, or were in their application fitted to 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 7 I 
 
 introduce and foster, sacerdotal views. Though the terminology 
 is itself certainly Jewish, it is noticeable that sacerdotalism 
 prevailed earlier, and was diffused in the West more generally 
 than in the East. In the North African Church, Tertullian 
 and Cyprian advocated an advanced sacerdotalism, while in 
 Alexandria, the terms which literally suggested priestly functions 
 were regularly interpreted in a spiritual manner. Lightfoot, too, 
 points out that the earliest trace we have of the application of 
 the name priest to a Christian minister is in the writings of the 
 heathen Lucian. 
 
 In so far as the use of our own word priest is concerned, it should 
 be remembered that etymologically it is only a shorter form of 
 Presbyter. Its associations, however, are unfortunate. Whether 
 we think of its use in the Old Testament, or of its use in classical 
 writings, it has always been employed in connection with the 
 offering of sacrifice. The priest must have an altar or something 
 to offer. Hence, generally, where the name is retained for the 
 Christian ministry, the communion table is converted into an 
 altar, and the elements of the Supper into a eucharistic sacrifice. 
 Hence, both Hooker (Eccles. Pol., Bk. v. ch. 78) and Bishop 
 Lightfoot (Com. on Phil., Excursus on Chr. Min., p. 186), — as 
 representing the learned evangelical Anglicans of earlier and 
 later times, — recognize the advantage of returning to the use of 
 the old w r ord Presbyter. 
 
 In opposition to all sacerdotal conceptions of the ministerial 
 office, it is enough to point out the absence from the New 
 Testament Scriptures of all terms implying priestly power as 
 belonging to church officers, while these are freely used in 
 reference to the general body of believers ; the exhaustive enu- 
 meration of priestly orders in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where 
 we have the order of Aaron which has passed away, and the 
 order of Melchizedec in which there is only one priest, and he 
 for ever, the Lord Jesus Christ ; that among the immediate 
 followers of the Apostles there is no trace of such views dis- 
 coverable ; and finally, that any such notion is utterly incon- 
 
72 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 sistent with the New Testament doctrine of Christ's person and 
 work. 
 
 3. The Apostolic Cilice without Succession. — Those Episcopalians 
 who claim to have Scripture authority for their special form of 
 church government, maintain that the Prelatical Bishop is the 
 successor of the New Testament Apostle, and that in conse- 
 quence of this origin, Bishops have the exclusive right of ordi- 
 nation. Bilson, in his Perpetual Government of the Church 
 (ch. xiii. p. 334), summarily expresses the distinctive characteristics 
 of the Episcopate as consisting in these two particulars : singu- 
 larity in succeeding, and superiority in ordaining. The Bishops' 
 exclusive right to ordain rests on the supposition of their having 
 succeeded to the prerogatives and endowments of the Apostles. 
 By Episcopalian controversialists it is generally assumed, some- 
 times attempts are made to prove, that the Apostles ordained 
 their own successors, and that an unbroken line of descent may 
 be traced from the Apostles and their immediate successors, 
 down to the Prelates of the present day. As a mere matter of 
 historical research this can never be made out. It can be proved 
 conclusively that simple Presbyters among the ancient Culdees 
 in Scotland for several centuries ordained the Scottish clergy ; 
 and not only so, but they ordained the Bishops of the Northern 
 and Midland parts of England, who, therefore, with all those 
 who received ordination from them, owe their orders to men who 
 were not, and never claimed to be, successors of the Apostles as 
 Prelatical Bishops. It can also be proved of some English 
 Prelates that they never did receive ordination from a Bishop. 
 It is matter of history that one Archbishop of Canterbury was 
 instituted simply by the king without any ecclesiastical conse- 
 cration. Of Archbishop Tillotson, who was the son of a Baptist, 
 it cannot be shown that he was ever baptized. Consequently the 
 ordinations made by all such must be regarded as invalid, and 
 the pretended line of succession is thus cast into irretrievable 
 confusion. A singularly long and varied list of irregularities in 
 
THE TRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 73 
 
 regard to Ordinations in all periods of the church's history will 
 be found in Brown's Exclusive Claims of Puseyile Episcopacy ', 
 Letters xiv.-xviii. ; Dr. Lindsay Alexander's Anglo-Catholicism ; 
 and Whately on the Kingdom of Christ. The last-named 
 writer has admirably summed up the result of such historical 
 inquiries. ' There is not a minister in Christendom,' he says, 
 1 who is able to trace up, with any approach to certainty, his own 
 spiritual pedigree. If a Bishop has not been duly consecrated, 
 his ordinations are null ; and so are the ministrations of those 
 ordained by him, and so on, without end. The taint of infor- 
 mality, if once it creep in, will spread the infection of nullity to 
 an indefinite extent. And who can pronounce that, during the 
 dark ages, no such taint was ever introduced? Irregularities 
 could not have been wholly excluded without a perpetual miracle ; 
 and that no such miraculous interference took place, we have 
 even historical proof. We read of Bishops consecrated when 
 mere children — of men officiating who barely knew their letters— 
 of Prelates expelled and others put into their place by violence 
 — of illiterate and profligate laymen, and habitual drunkards, 
 admitted to holy orders — and, in short, of the prevalence of every 
 kind of disorder and indecency.' It is, indeed, very remarkable 
 that honest-minded students of history, who believe that only 
 those who have received ordination in a line of regular descent 
 from the Apostles can exercise a true and valid ministry, should 
 be able to regard without doubt and misgiving the existing 
 ministry of any church on earth. 
 
 The immediate followers of the Apostles did not make any 
 claim, on their own behalf, of such succession. It was not by 
 them, but for them, that this claim was first made. The earliest 
 traces which we can find of any expression that suggests the 
 appearance of the idea of Apostolic Succession are in the writings 
 of Tertullian and Irenasus, toward the end of the second century ; 
 but the connection in which these statements occur seems to 
 require us to explain them of the succession of true Apostolic 
 doctrine, and not of Apostolic rank. When we come down half 
 
74 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 a century later, we find Cyprian boldly assuming the identity of 
 the Apostolic and Episcopal offices. In speaking of the Bishop 
 in one of his Epistles, he explains the name by saying, c that is, 
 Apostle.' Thus, at least a century and a half from the death of 
 the last of the original Apostles have passed, and from the 
 records of that period no clear testimony can be got to support 
 the notion that Bishops were regarded as the successors of the 
 Apostles. During this period, however, there were Bishops ; but 
 these clearly were not of the order of Prelatical Bishops who 
 claim for themselves Apostolic Succession. In the Apostolic 
 Age, and throughout the century following, the Bishops of the 
 Church were Bishops in the New Testament sense. They were 
 simply Presbyters, or, at most, presiding Presbyters in each and 
 every particular church. Many of the older writers in defence 
 of Episcopacy regarded it as essential to their argument to 
 assume that in the New Testament we have the three orders 
 of the ministry expressly named, — Bishops, Presbyters, and 
 Deacons ; but with scarcely an exception it is now admitted that 
 the names Bishop and Presbyter, as employed in the Apostolical 
 Epistles, are intended always to designate one and the same 
 officer. Bishop Lightfoot, for instance, has shown conclusively how 
 impossible it is to deny this, and in order to prevent confusion 
 between the ancient and modern use of the name Bishop, he 
 even translates Phil. i. i, Presbyters and Deacons. The name 
 Bishop {episcopos) originated in the Gentile churches, was a term 
 commonly applied to administrative officers in municipal or civil 
 associations ; the name Elder or Presbyter, on the other hand, had 
 its origin in the Jewish-Christian communities, and was borrowed 
 from the familiar arrangements of the synagogue. When both 
 names became generally current, the name Bishop would indi- 
 cate the duties of oversight which belonged to the office, while the 
 name Presbyter or Elder would more readily indicate the dignity 
 and reverence due to those who occupied it. This distinction, 
 though certainly not always observed, may be illustrated by many 
 passages : thus in Acts xx, 28, 1 Tim. iii. 1, etc., 1 Pet. v. 2, the 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 75 
 
 term Bishop or Overseer is used with direct reference to the nature 
 of the work engaged upon ; while in Acts xv. 2, etc., and 1 Tim. 
 v. 1, 19, the term Presbyter or Elder is used with immediate refer- 
 ence to the dignity belonging to the office. It may therefore be 
 accepted as granted on all hands that the New Testament Bishop 
 is the same as the New Testament Presbyter. Such Bishops, 
 who are nothing more than Presbyters, are not the successors of 
 the Apostles of whom Episcopalians are in search. Those con- 
 troversialists, therefore, who still endeavour to find scriptural 
 ground on which to base the exclusive claims of Prelatical 
 Bishops, being thus obliged to abandon the old argument from 
 the employment of the name Bishop in the New Testament, 
 employ their utmost skill and ingenuity, in order to find out in the 
 records of Apostolic times, the mention of any individuals who 
 are to be expressly distinguished from Presbyters, by the posses- 
 sion of certain prerogatives which are distinctly and conclusively 
 Apostolic. When this attempt is made to find instances in 
 Scripture of ordinations, at the hands of the Apostles themselves, 
 to the Apostolic office, we find two cases invariably adduced. It 
 is maintained that the office of Timothy and Titus was that of 
 the Apostleship directly conferred upon them by the Apostle Paul ; 
 and it is also affirmed, that this is the official standing of those 
 who are named the Angels respectively of the seven churches of 
 Asia. 
 
 The office of Timothy and Titus seems to have engaged the 
 attention of all Episcopal writers. Many other names, such as 
 those of Diotrephes, Epaphroditus, Barnabas, etc., are often 
 mentioned ; but whatever uncertainty may attach to the nature 
 of the office held by them, it is generally maintained that, beyond 
 all question, Timothy and Titus were Bishops in the Prelatical 
 sense of the term, that they held apostolic rank, and that in con- 
 sequence of this position they made ordinations of Presbyters in 
 the churches. If we follow the historical notices regarding 
 Timothy and Titus, we shall find them always closely associated 
 with the Apostle Paul. This characteristic was laid hold of, and 
 
7 6 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 is made prominent in the writings of several leading church 
 Fathers. By Tertullian they are called Apostolic men ; by Jerome, 
 sons of the Apostles ; and by Augustine, suppares Apostolis, 
 substitutes of the Apostles, almost equal to them (comp. Brown, 
 Puseyite Episcopacy, Letter xii. p. 194). The whole tone, too, of 
 Paul's addresses to Timothy and Titus, not only does not suggest 
 the idea of equality of rank, but plainly implies subordination. He 
 issues his instructions to them, determines their duties for them 
 and urges them to the faithful performance of these. They are, 
 in short, Apostolic delegates, who simply act authoritatively so 
 long as they are engaged in executing what the Apostle had 
 appointed them expressly to do. In one place (2 Tim. iv. 5), 
 Paul exhorts Timothy to do the work of an Evangelist. This 
 ranks as one of the orders of church office-bearers mentioned in 
 Eph. iv. 11; and Timothy and Titus seem to be fairly reckoned 
 in this class. Their functions in Ephesus and Crete cannot be 
 shown to be permanent. Thus Titus was to remove from Crete, 
 and join the Apostle at Nicopolis (Tit. iii. 12). Sharers of 
 Apostolic rank they evidently were not, neither can they be 
 regarded as prototypes of resident diocesan Bishops. Of any 
 claim on their behalf to pre-eminence over the Presbyters, save in 
 the fulfilment of their temporary mission, Scripture yields no 
 trace. With reference to the office of those named the Angels of 
 the churches of Asia, it is surely extremely hazardous to build an 
 argument upon a name used in a passage of Scripture which 
 presents a highly idealized picture of various stages of church 
 life. Like the term Apostle, which may mean generally one sent 
 on any errand, or one bearing a special commission, Angel simply 
 means messenger, and may be applied to a personage compara- 
 tively humble or the most exalted. As used in the book of 
 Revelation, the term Angel seems to apply to the ministry of the 
 church collectively ; so that if the seven churches represent 
 different aspects and conditions of church life, the Angels repre- 
 sent the ministry, in distinction from the general membership. 
 But even supposing them to be individuals, we have no proof 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 77 
 
 that they were other than Presbyters, or that they pretended to 
 and exercised Apostolic prerogatives. 
 
 And now we turn to the fundamental question under this 
 section, Is the Apostolic office to be regarded as temporary or 
 permanent ? This question can be answered, only when we 
 understand what the special and distinguishing characteristics 
 of the Apostles' office were. It is declared to have been indis- 
 pensable to the vindication of one's apostleship to show that he 
 had seen the Risen Saviour, and was thus constituted a witness 
 of the Resurrection (Acts i. 22 ; 1 Cor. ix. 1), that he enjoyed a 
 special inspiration securing to him an infallible knowledge of the 
 divine will (Gal. i. u, 12 ; 1 Cor. xv. 1-3 ; 2 Pet. i. 16), and that 
 he was able, not only to work miracles, but also to confer 
 miraculous gifts upon others (2 Cor. xii. 12 ; Acts viii. 18). When 
 an addition was to be made to the number of the eleven by filling 
 up the place left vacant by the fall of Judas, the indispensable 
 condition for candidature was fellowship with Jesus during his 
 earthly life. ' Now such an office, consisting of so many extra- 
 ordinary privileges and miraculous powers, requisite for the 
 foundation of the church and diffusing of Christianity, was not 
 designed to continue by derivation ; for it contained in it divers 
 things which evidently were not communicable, and which no 
 man in after times, without gross imposture and hypocrisy, 
 could challenge to himself. Neither did the Apostles profess to 
 communicate it. They did, indeed, appoint standing pastors and 
 teachers in each church. They did assume fellow-labourers in 
 the work of preaching and governance. But they did not con- 
 stitute Apostles like themselves. Their Apostolic office expired 
 with their persons.' 1 It should be remembered that the Apostles, 
 while superior to all other church officers, exercised the functions 
 of all inferior offices. The Apostle was also Presbyter and Deacon. 
 In the discharge of these subordinate functions, Apostles were 
 patterns to those whom they ordained, and in this sense Presby- 
 ters and Deacons were successors of the Apostles, and were 
 1 Barrow's I Vorks, vol. i. p. 74. (Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy. ) 
 F 
 
78 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 spoken of by the Apostles as their fellow-labourers. The pre- 
 rogatives of the Apostles were such as only the emergency of the 
 times required. The right of ordination is a permanent need of 
 the church, and is no exclusive possession of the Apostles. 
 
 4. Parity in the Ministerial Office. — In the Epistles of the New 
 Testament, we have frequent reference to the existence of a con- 
 stituted authority in the church, to the relation subsisting between 
 two classes distinguished respectively as rulers and ruled. The 
 duties and responsibilities of the rulers are repeatedly laid down 
 and enforced, and similarly, the obligations and proper attitude 
 of those under authority are clearly expressed. It is noticeable 
 that in every case where this relation of ruler and ruled within 
 the church is referred to, the ruler is one holding a church office, 
 and the ruled is the flock or the general membership of the church. 
 There are overseers of the work, but no mention is made of over- 
 seers of those who hold the pastoral office in the several churches. 
 We have no hint of any higher jurisdiction than that rightfully 
 belonging to all who, by virtue of their office, labour in word and 
 doctrine. 
 
 It is further to be noted, that those who rule are not dis- 
 tinguished from those who are ministers of the word, as though 
 they formed of necessity a separate class, much less a superior 
 grade. If we place together the 7th and the 17th verses of the 
 thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we shall see 
 that those who watch for the souls under their care, as officially 
 accountable for the performance of this spiritual work, are 
 described as the rulers to whom obedience is due from the 
 members of the churches. 
 
 If, again, we consider the several orders of church officers 
 named in the Apostolic Epistles, whether extraordinary or 
 ordinary, we shall find no reason to suppose that there was 
 among the members of these orders any official inequality. This 
 might have been fairly expected to result from the application of 
 a broad principle laid down by Christ Himself in certain memor- 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 79 
 
 able counsels addressed by Him to His own disciples. In the 
 most express terms our Lord forbade any assumption of pre- 
 eminence on the part of any of the Apostles (Matt. xx. 20-28). 
 What was proper and might be necessary in civil governments, — 
 gradations and distinctions of authority and rank, — was to find 
 no place among them. c All majority of power, all greatness of 
 jurisdiction of one over the rest, is by our Lord forbidden to his 
 ministers,' — is the sensible remark on this passage by David 
 Dickson, the old Scottish commentator. The Apostles, as extra- 
 ordinary office-bearers, are certainly to have authority in the 
 church ; and other ordinary office-bearers must afterwards, on the 
 expression of the church's needs, have official authority and 
 presidency granted them, — but among themselves there is only 
 to be a relation of mutual service, no one is to have authority or 
 pre-eminence over another. It is evidently assumed, in the 
 Epistles of the Apostles, that this principle applies to all official 
 orders within the church. Just as all the Apostles were enjoined 
 to maintain their original parity, the same rule must apply to 
 Presbyters and to Deacons, when these orders shall have been 
 instituted. 
 
 During the Apostolic and immediately succeeding age, we find 
 the pastoral or teaching and the ruling functions discharged by 
 one officer. After the general admission that the names Bishop 
 and Presbyter, as used in the New Testament, designate the 
 same office-bearer, we shall be certainly entitled to place together 
 the several functions ascribed to such officers, whether under the 
 one name or the other. Now we find Presbyters exhorted (1 Pet. 
 v. 2), by exercising oversight (Episcopal functions), to feed the 
 flock ; and we find Presbyters also enjoined (Acts xx. 28) to have 
 a care over themselves and over the flock, in the exercise of 
 Episcopal functions, feeding the church of God. In such 
 passages, it is clearly intended to show that the duty of oversight, 
 that is to say, the Episcopal function, has reference directly to 
 the spiritual tending of the members of the church. Then again, 
 Heb. xiii. 7 brings together in one person the ruler and the 
 
So PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 teacher. In this passage it is evident that, according to the 
 Apostolic rule, the right to govern in the church belongs to those 
 who are ministers of the word — that the ministry of the word, as 
 the higher function, involves and carries with it the prerogative of 
 ruling as the lower function. Whoever, therefore, occupies the 
 official rank of teacher, is by reason of this office also thereby 
 instituted a ruler. Thus from the use of the word Bishop or 
 Overseer (cpiscopos), we reach the assertion of the truth of 
 ministerial parity, inasmuch as every episcopos, being a pastor and 
 teacher, is also ex officio a. ruler, — discharges by right of his office 
 the full circle of ministerial functions, pastoral and rectoral. The 
 same conclusion is reached from the use of the name Presbyter, 
 which, as we have seen, in its original application referred more 
 immediately to rule, so that whatever distinctions in the members 
 of the Presbyterate might afterwards take place (i Tim. v. 17), 
 whatever additional functions certain Presbyters might discharge, 
 that of government was common to all. When we take a full 
 view of what is told us concerning the functions of the Presbyter 
 Bishop {episcopos, Presbyter), we find no indication of any 
 higher office, whether for rule or for delivery of the truth, but 
 every indication of parity among ministers of the word in the 
 discharge of their twofold functions. 
 
 We therefore hold that there is Scripture ground for maintain- 
 ing the complete official equality of all Presbyter Bishops. There 
 is no function which one may legitimately discharge which any 
 other, bearing that office, may not perform. Inasmuch, too, as the 
 Apostles had no successors in their office, there is no trace found 
 of any rank superior to that of Presbyter. Episcopalians persist 
 in claiming for their Bishops the exclusive right of administering 
 the affairs of the clergy, and also of ordination. Strip them of 
 these prerogatives, and Prelatical bishops have no distinctive 
 functions. In Acts xx. 28, Presbyters not only rule over the 
 members, but exercise supervision over one another. Ordinations 
 are reported in the New Testament as made by Presbyters, they 
 evidently being conceived as endowed with the power to confer 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 8 1 
 
 on others their own rank. It is only after a long struggle, and 
 by gradual advances, as the President of the Presbytery becomes 
 transformed into a Bishop, and the functions of the Presbytery 
 are absorbed by one member, that the right of ordination, 
 originally belonging to the Presbyterian conclave, comes to be 
 regarded as the exclusive privilege of an absolute Prelate. 
 
 5. Ordination to the Ministerial Office. — From all that has yet 
 been said, it might seem as if no actual line of demarcation had 
 been drawn between the office of Ruling Elder and that of 
 Preacher, inasmuch as the name Presbyter and the ruling 
 function which that name implies have been freely attributed to 
 both. We come now to show how that distinction is brought 
 out in ordination. It has been argued by some that ordination 
 as a Presbyter being conferred upon the Ruling Elder, no further 
 ordination is proper on admission to the pastoral office. The 
 line of argument which those holding such views generally follow 
 is this : — Ministers and elders have different offices, but are of 
 the same order ; ordination admits to order, not to office ; and, 
 therefore, all that can be conferred by ordination is already 
 conferred in admission to the eldership. It is further maintained 
 that while ordination admits to order, election by the people 
 admits to office. In opposition to this, the true Presbyterian 
 theory, as maintained by the Westminster divines and in the | 
 Books of Constitution adopted in the Presbyterian Churches, 
 insists that ordination admits to office, and confers order only 
 because it confers office. By way of illustrating this position, 
 Dr. Hodge {The Church and its Polity, p. 272) refers to the 
 distinction of order and office in civil arrangements. The 
 nobility in any land is an order ; under that order are included, 
 or rather, that order is made up of, several classes, ranks, offices. 
 No one can be ennobled by being in a general way reckoned in 
 the order of nobles, but must be appointed to some particular 
 class included in that order — baron, earl, marquis, duke. So 
 cne is introduced to the clerical order only by receiving some 
 
82 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 clerical office. Dr. Bannerman {The Church of Christ \ vol. i. 
 pp. 4, 32, 470) has been at pains to show that it is the gift and 
 calling of God that confer the office, while ordination admits to 
 office. Now this distinction rather affects the parties eligible 
 for ordination than the ordinance itself. It would therefore 
 seem simpler and more accurate to say that ordination confers 
 the office, but the special grace and blessing, prayed for in ordi- 
 nation, and necessary for the discharge of the functions of the 
 office, come only to those who have this call of God. The Con- 
 stitution of our Church and its Formularies presuppose this view 
 of ordination, where it is declared that, after the ordination prayer, 
 the moderator formally receives and admits the new minister in 
 the name of the Presbytery, and by authority of the Divine Head 
 of the church, to the pastoral charge of the congregation. The 
 ordination is to office, and so, inasmuch as the eldership and the 
 ministry, though having common Presbyterial functions, are yet 
 distinct offices, there is properly a separate ordination to each. 
 
 6. The Ministerial Office in the History of the Church. — It is not 
 to the very earliest years of Christianity that we can go back fof 
 the first view of the preacher as a distinct and recognized office* 
 bearer of the church. At first all preached and all baptized. It 
 is when we pass to the later period of the Apostolic Age — perhaps 
 to the last decade of the first century — that we find unmistakeable 
 traces of the regular appointment, in the several churches, of 
 stated and regular ministers of the word. The Apostles and 
 Evangelists exercised their ministry wherever they went. The 
 elders ordained in every church, besides themselves ministering, 
 secured an edifying and orderly exercise of the gifts of unofficial 
 but spiritually - endowed members. When, in the churches 
 generally, those supernatural gifts were discontinued, the dis- 
 tinction among the Presbyters, according to the predominance 
 of preaching or ruling power, which had already shown itself in 
 the Apostles' time (1 Tim. v. 17), became more marked; the 
 preaching function gained prominence, until what had been 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. S3 
 
 simply a distinction of gift and function became a distinction of 
 offices. Thus the two ordinary church functions exercised by 
 the Apostles — the ministry of the word and the administration 
 of discipline — came to be regarded, at the time when Apostles 
 and Apostolic men were passing away, as the characteristic 
 duties of the pastoral office. Clement of Rome, writing before 
 the death of the Apostle John, speaks only of Presbyter Bishops 
 as ministers charged with the spiritual interests of the church ; 
 and Irenaeus, during the second half of the second century, 
 speaks of Presbyters as having a succession of the Episcopate 
 from the Apostles, especially emphasizing the fact of their having 
 received the sure grace of truth. The prevalent conception of 
 the Presbyter Bishop, immediately aftej: the Apostolic Age, is 
 that which represents him as the custodier and deliverer of sacred 
 and saving truth. Throughout the century and a half which 
 intervened between the Apostolic Age and the appearance of 
 Cyprian, the distinction between Bishop and Presbyter was one 
 of degree rather than of kind ; the pre-eminence of the Bishop 
 was one of order and presidency ; and the Presbyter and Bishop 
 exercised in common the twofold Presbyterial office, in the 
 administration of discipline, and in the proclamation of the truth. 
 Even during the third century, the Presbyter, though secondary 
 in rank, and always referred to as subordinate, is yet named 
 alongside of the Bishop and closely associated with him in 
 spiritual work. The qualifications of the Presbyter are practically 
 the same as the qualifications of the Bishop. And even when 
 the exclusive right of ordination had been claimed for the Bishop, 
 baptism and confirmation were still administered by Presbyters. 
 Whatever hierarchical claims may have been and were advanced 
 theoretically on behalf of the Bishop, practically he was a parish 
 minister, and, apart from special crises and emergencies, his 
 work was that of a parochial, not a diocesan, Bishop. Every 
 little town had its Bishop. In many such cases, the Christian 
 community must have formed but one congregation, and that 
 one small. His ordinary functions, therefore, would be those cf 
 
84 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the Presbyter. The Bishop had thus gradually assumed to 
 himself duties previously discharged by a bench of Presbyters. 
 The movement was monarchical. In the course of development, 
 the administration of discipline which belonged to several Pres- 
 byters was administered by one Presbyter who was called Bishop. 
 This was the only meaning of Bishop known in the third century. 
 The very memory of the New Testament Bishops, who were 
 Presbyters acting jointly, had completely passed away, till in the 
 fourth century it was recovered by Jerome and other painstaking 
 students of the divine record. For a time the one Presbyter, 
 who had arrogated to himself full Presbyterial rights, kept up 
 the form of consulting with his bench of Presbyters. By and by 
 this form, after it had become a mere form, was discontinued. 
 So far as the church service was concerned, in many places there 
 were only the Bishop and Deacons. The Presbyters associated 
 nominally with the Bishop were there probably in seats of honour, 
 but with no duties to perform. These had been assumed by the 
 Bishop, who in their discharge was assisted by the Deacons. But 
 Hist in this third century sprang up the notion of sacerdotal 
 unctions as belonging to the clergy. From being a Presbyter 
 empowered to exercise discipline, the Bishop came to be regarded 
 as an Apostle, commissioned to forgive sins ; from being a labourer 
 in word and doctrine, he came to be viewed as one inspired to 
 communicate infallible truth. The idea of the Presbyter vanished 
 in that of the Priest. With the multiplication of smaller Christian 
 communities the number of Presbyters increased. Each rural 
 and suburban charge was ministered to by Presbyters under the 
 immediate supervision of the Bishop. But the Presbyter's 
 functions had altogether changed. As the sacerdotal theory of 
 ecclesiastical office advanced, the function of preaching became 
 of less importance. The priest, in whom the old Presbyter is 
 scarcely recognizable, occupied himself in ritual performances. 
 His work lay not in the pulpit, but at the altar and in the con- 
 fessional. During the Middle Ages, preaching was quite an 
 occasional thing. Members of certain orders were commissioned 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 85 
 
 to engage upon the work from time to time, so as to lend a helping 
 hand at some point where the church seemed to be losing hold, 
 or to give a spasmodic impulse to the recognition of moral and 
 spiritual truth. The preacher, as such, had no official or 
 recognized standing in the church. 
 
 The early history of our Scottish Church is interesting in the 
 record of ecclesiastical organization, inasmuch as, for a long 
 period, its work was carried on by simple Presbyters. Its 
 ordinations were made, its sacraments were dispensed, its 
 evangelistic and missionary labours were wrought, by men who 
 could lay no claim to any Apostolic succession conveyed by the 
 hands of Bishops. Owing mainly to their isolated position, 
 the British churchmen long retained the comparatively pure 
 traditions and practices of the early church, uninfluenced by, 
 and unacquainted with, the more recent developments, ritual 
 and doctrinal, of the Church of Rome. Even when they came 
 into contact with the Romish views, and conformed their general 
 discipline to the approved pattern of the age, they had sufficient 
 independence of thought and action to defend, in many important 
 particulars, their own purer creed and simpler forms. In the 
 twelfth century, however, when the Culdees had already sadly 
 declined from the fervour and pious warmth of earlier days, King 
 David entered energetically on the work of reforming the church. 
 Many palpable abuses were corrected and irregularities checked, 
 but the whole tendency of the movement was in the direction of 
 a thoroughgoing hierarchical organization. With the purest 
 and most pious intentions, the Scottish king devoted himself to 
 the building of Abbeys and the endowment of Bishoprics. But 
 when, in two centuries or so, the ardour of those first impulses 
 had completely spent itself, abuses sprang up far more terrible 
 than those of the displaced Culdees, because fostered in an 
 ecclesiastical society more numerous, powerful, wealthy, and 
 more thoroughly organized. Before the era of the Reformation, 
 the Scottish Church was in a condition at least as deplorable as 
 that of any of the continental churches. Now it is important for 
 
S6 PRESBYTERIANISM, 
 
 our present purpose to note that the terrible degradation of the 
 Scottish Church had gained the attention of the people ; popular 
 ballads that passed from lip to lip, satirized the vicious habits, 
 and ridiculed the extreme ignorance of ecclesiastical dignitaries. 
 There had been no want of organization. Bishops and Abbots 
 maintained almost royal state, and filled the highest civil offices. 
 All that high rank, civil and ecclesiastical, could do, had been 
 done in behalf of this church. The Reformation Age, then, found 
 in Scotland a fully-equipped hierarchy, without any spiritual 
 results to show. That grave abuses might arise in a community 
 professing adherence to the simplicity of primitive times had, 
 indeed, received proof in the history of the decline of the Culdees. 
 Yet their decline had not been, and could not have been, so 
 complete. The idleness, the luxury, the vice, which displaced 
 the hierarchical church establishment of the fifteenth century 
 in Scotland, were in the same degree impossible in the simpler 
 orders of their predecessors. Reformation, therefore, began in 
 Scotland with a reasonably strong aversion to all hierarchical 
 pretensions. 
 
 In the Reformation Age, the special importance of preaching 
 was heartily recognized. Luther, Calvin, Knox — all gave to the 
 preacher a prominent place among the office-bearers of the church. 
 Pastors and Teachers were understood to be names applied to 
 the occupants of one office, but implying respectively the posses- 
 sion of varying individual gifts, which fitted for the discharge of 
 different functions, — the one, for exposition and interpretation of 
 Scripture ; the other, for practical exhortation and dispensation 
 of sacraments. Here we have no severance of functions, in such 
 a way as to separate them into distinct offices. They were 
 properly joined in one individual so far as calling was concerned ; 
 but, for the profit and advantage of the church, the special 
 attention of one holding the office might, by church authority 
 and arrangement, be given to one function or the other. The 
 ministerial office was, in the view of the Reformers, necessarily 
 the highest ecclesiastical office, because there was no function of 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 87 
 
 worship or administration which the Presbyter was not competent 
 officially to perform. The importance attached to the word of 
 God, and the necessity for teaching it to the people, determined 
 the Reformed view of the ministry in an anti-hierarchical sense. 
 The prominence given to preaching caused other ecclesiastical 
 functions, which had gained in Romanism an undue prominence, 
 to sink into comparative insignificance. For carrying out the 
 Reformation task, however, church government and scriptural 
 instruction must go hand in hand. Hence the Reformers never 
 fail to give prominence to teaching and ruling, and always repre- 
 sent these functions as combined, without preference to either, 
 in the one principal church officer. In all the Reformed Churches, 
 wherever the lines originally indicated by their founders have 
 been, in their general tendencies, preserved, Prelacy is laid aside 
 with Popery, and, with the revived recognition of the spiritual 
 priesthood of believers, the ministerial order is conceived of 
 according to the model of New Testament simplicity. 
 
 When Knox and his fellow-labourers, in 1560, drew up the 
 Scottish Confession and the First Book of Discipline, this cha- 
 racteristic position in regard to the Christian ministry was made 
 specially prominent : — Ail spiritual rights, such as preaching of 
 the word, dispensing of sacraments, ordaining of preachers, and 
 the exercise of discipline, are received only from Christ ; by Him 
 they are conferred upon the office-bearers of the church, who, 
 in the exercise of such rights, are subject only to the church 
 judicatories. It is further laid down that in the pastoral office 
 there is no gradation of ranks, and that none of the clergy exercise 
 lordship over the people, but that they use only the ministry of the 
 word and of the church of God. In connection with the strongly- 
 expressed statements regarding the parity of ministers which are 
 to be found in these authoritative documents, it is interesting and 
 important to consider the precise significance of that order of 
 superintendency, which had a place in the earliest ecclesiastical 
 arrangements of the Reformed Church of Scotland. It has been 
 very generally affirmed by Episcopalians (see particularly Bishop 
 
SS PRESBVTERIANISM. 
 
 Sage's Fundamental Charier of Presbytery Examined)^ and is 
 even repeated by some inconsiderate and ill-instructed Presby- 
 terians, that the appointment of Superintendents shows that the 
 principles of Episcopacy were not by any means distasteful to 
 our Reformers. The true representation of the circumstances 
 affords an explanation at once simple and reasonable. Just as 
 in a special emergency in the original institution of Christianity 
 there were extraordinary officers — Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists 
 — whose offices ceased with the peculiar conditions that called 
 them into being ; so in another season of displacement of the 
 old and bringing in of the new, a like need demanded like 
 expedients in the creation of emergency offices. All arrangements 
 on the part of our Reformers, in their endeavour to establish an 
 order of spiritual instructors and rulers for the people, had to take 
 into account the sad lack of fit material, and the wideness of the 
 province to be overtaken in pastoral labour. When the first 
 Assembly met, there were found to be only twelve qualified 
 ministers. How were these twelve men to perform their work of 
 the ministry for Scotland ? It was at once seen that the sudden 
 reception of ignorant men into the ministry, and their settlement 
 throughout the country, would only retard the work of Reforma- 
 tion. The ministers already ordained were distributed, — eight 
 being appointed as regular and resident pastors in the chief 
 towns, and the other four [with the addition of one layman] 
 having large districts assigned them, and the name of Super- 
 intendents. These latter were not officially distinguished from 
 their brother Presbyters. They received no new ordination, 
 and they were amenable to Presbyterial discipline like other 
 ministers. Their duties (see First Book of Discipline^ chap. vi. 
 sec. 2) consisted in planting new churches and appointing 
 ministers in needful and suitable parts of their districts, doing 
 generally the work of evangelists, preaching thrice every week 
 at the least, and examining the life, diligence, and behaviour of 
 the ministers. Now this last statement looks like a contradiction 
 to the doctrine of ministerial parity. But this seeming anomaly 
 
THE PRESBYTER AS TEACHER. 89 
 
 will be removed by considering who these ministers were. In 
 order to supply the needs of the country, many who were unfit 
 for the regular ministry, but who could distinctly read the 
 Common Prayers and the Scriptures, were appointed to the 
 temporary office of Reader. These men instructing others were 
 also instructing themselves. By and by they might show advanced 
 qualifications, and then they were admitted to a higher order of 
 Exhorters. who not only read but gave short explanations of their 
 readings, and made appeals founded thereon. They might be 
 yet further advanced to the administration of the sacraments and 
 other ministerial functions. In regard to the qualifications of 
 such men, the Superintendent who travelled and wrought among 
 them was required to judge. All the details of the Superintendent's 
 duty show him to be an extraordinary officer. Let churches 
 be planted generally throughout the parishes, let a sufficient 
 number of qualified men be raised to the ranks of the ministry, 
 and the temporary distinction between the Superintendent and 
 his brother Presbyters wholly disappears. When we reach the 
 Second Book of Discipline, which displaced the First in 1578, the 
 office of the Superintendent has passed altogether out of view. 
 The shadow of Episcopal terms which remained in the form of 
 titles, retained for considerations of policy, and which sometimes 
 injuriously affected the interests of Presbyterianism, was finally 
 swept away in 1638, when every remnant of Prelatical distinctions 
 and nomenclature was abolished. 
 
 In the Scottish Presbyterian Churches of the present day, all 
 the main features of the Reformation representation of the 
 minister as Pastor and Teacher are preserved. He holds an 
 office than which there is none higher in the church. Under the 
 authority of the church, he teaches, yet not as an oracle, but 
 simply as a minister of the word, unfolding its truths for the 
 edification of the people. He rules that the order and purity of 
 the community may be secured, yet not in the exercise of any 
 lordly dominion, but watching the spiritual interests of those of 
 whom he must give an account. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DEACON. 
 
 1. Origin of the Office. — In the Acts of the Apostles we do not 
 find the word Deacon used to distinguish the bearer of any 
 particular office. The word deaconship or diaconate is often 
 used, but it is usually translated ministry, and it is just this 
 general sense that it bears. There is a diaconate or ministry of 
 the word (Acts vi. 4), as well as a diaconate or ministry of tables 
 (Acts vi. 2). Thus the word diaconate or deaconship, as used in 
 the Acts, is a general term for ministry of any kind, and hence it 
 requires the addition of some determining epithet to indicate any 
 special church office. It is in the Epistle to the Philippians — 
 one of the later Epistles of St. Paul — that we find the name 
 Deacon first given to any one class of church office-bearers. In 
 the opening lines of that Epistle, Deacons are mentioned along 
 with Bishops, these two orders constituting, as it would seem, the 
 complete official staff of the Christian community at Philippi. 
 The next Scripture passage in which we find mention made of 
 Deacons by name is in 1st Timothy ; and there the qualifications 
 which fit one for the deaconship are stated at length. From these 
 passages we get no information regarding the origin of the office. 
 
 If, then, we are to learn from Scripture anything about the first 
 institution of the office of Deacon, the circumstances under which 
 the earliest appointments to the deaconship were made, and the 
 church needs which the new order of office-bearers was intended 
 
THE DEACON. 9 I 
 
 to satisfy, we must go back upon those earlier passages in the 
 history of the Apostolic Church, where, though the name ot 
 Deacon does not occur in its official application, traces may be 
 found of officers set apart to the discharge of functions, which were 
 the special duties required of those who, before the close of that age, 
 had the once general name of Deacon appropriated particularly 
 to themselves as their official designation. We have in Acts vi. 
 an account of the election of seven men to supply a want that 
 had been made subject of complaint. It is usual to call the men 
 there spoken of the first deacons. We should, however, remember 
 that even though we may be convinced that they were the 
 precursors of our deacons, and that their office is practically 
 identical with the diaconate, yet this name is not given them 
 in Scripture. To prevent misunderstanding, we shall give them 
 their simple scriptural designation, and speak of them as c the 
 seven.' A complaint had been made to the Apostles by that 
 portion of the membership of the church at Jerusalem which was 
 not purely Hebrew — the Greek or Hellenist section, — that the poor, 
 and widows, and orphans, belonging to the purely Hebrew member- 
 ship, were being attended to better, and were being more liberally 
 aided, than the similar classes among themselves. The Apostles 
 listened to their complaint, found apparently that there was 
 some ground for it, and suggested means for remedying the evil. 
 The work was not such as the Apostles, already fully occupied 
 with the ministry of the word, felt it their duty to undertake. 
 The members of the church, therefore, were called upon to elect 
 of their own number seven men, who would have the confidence of 
 all, for their uprightness and true Christian principle. The number 
 was in this particular instance fixed at seven, probably because 
 it was considered that the needs of the Jerusalem Church of that 
 time could best be served by such a staff. Superstition stereo- 
 typed the number of deacons in all churches at seven ; and in 
 after ages, in churches of great dimensions, where the Presby- 
 tcrate was very large, the diaconate was strictly limited to this 
 original number. The names of all the seven are given, and it is 
 
92 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 certainly striking to observe that all the names are Greek. This 
 of itself, however, is no proof that all bearing those names were 
 Greeks ; for in the Apostolate we have Andrew and Philip, most 
 undoubted Hebrews, bearing Greek names. Yet when we put 
 side by side these two facts, — the complaint coming from the 
 Greeks, and the appointment of men all bearing Greek names as 
 office-bearers to endeavour the removal of that which occasioned 
 the complaint, — the conviction becomes very strong that these 
 men, for the most part at least, not only bore Greek names, but 
 belonged to the Greek section of the church at Jerusalem. This 
 being so, it may further be concluded with good probability that 
 the seven became members of a board, as specially representing 
 that portion of the church out of which they themselves sprang, 
 and that their presence on the board secured for it the confidence 
 of the Greeks. 
 
 This will enable us to answer the question, Who were the 
 parties charged with partiality, or, at least, with the neglect 
 of a section of those of whom they had the oversight ? It has 
 commonly been assumed that the complaint was against the 
 Apostles, and that they excused themselves, on the ground that 
 their engrossing ministerial duties prevented them making the 
 personal investigations necessary for a fair distribution of alms. 
 This, however, is not said, nor does it seem to be implied in the 
 narrative. We are rather led to suppose that a class of men had 
 already charged themselves with the care of the poor and 
 helpless before this complaint arose, and that it was the conduct 
 of those dispensers of the alms of the church which occasioned 
 this murmuring and discontent. Do we, then, find in Scripture 
 any trace of the existence of such an order in the church at 
 Jerusalem ? Certainly, in the Acts of the Apostles, there is 
 no record of the institution formally of any new office prior to the 
 election and ordination of the seven. This we do require, 
 however, in order to show that, in all probability, before this 
 appointment there were men specially charged with the super- 
 vision of the poor. For a time, such men would be regarded 
 
THE DEACON. 93 
 
 simply as assistants of the Apostles, responsible to them. In the 
 simplicity of primitive ecclesiastical arrangements, the Apostolate 
 was the only recognized office ; and though Apostles might com- 
 mission those whom they regarded as faithful and competent, to 
 discharge certain duties, the church looked to the Apostles, and 
 not to their assistants, if any occasion of complaint arose. It 
 seems very reasonable to regard the i young men * spoken of in 
 Acts v. as forming an incipient guild, as constituting a not yet 
 formally and officially recognized order of assistants to the 
 Apostles, at hand to relieve the already overburdened, of any 
 portion of the work which might be assigned them. The 
 general designation here given them — young men — corresponds 
 well with that of 'helps' — the name given afterwards to the office- 
 bearers who discharged similar functions (1 Cor. xii. 28), and 
 answers well by contrast to the name ' elders/ by which the 
 office-bearers charged with more distinctively spiritual functions 
 were designated. 
 
 If, then, we recognize in the ' young men' of Acts v. the 
 precursors of the seven, if we agree that they did before, what 
 afterwards the seven were specially elected to do, we can regard 
 the record of this formal institution of a church office for the care 
 of the poor, and for the discharge generally of duties that might 
 be separated from the ministry of the word, as simply the adoption 
 by the church itself of the previous Apostolic practice. The 
 Apostles' assistants — the young men — were now recognized by the 
 congregation, and to their number were added the seven men, 
 who would carry with them into the church court the special 
 confidence of an important section of the church. What, then, 
 the Apostles meant when they said, It is not reason that we 
 should leave the word of God and serve tables, was simply 
 this : We desire that the responsibility for the discharge of those 
 duties, which these men perform, may be regularly laid upon 
 them by the church, and no longer upon us. The office of the 
 deaconship, therefore, strictly speaking, took origin in the formal 
 act which rendered those who had previously been doing 
 
 G 
 
94 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Deacons' duties personally responsible henceforth for the dis- 
 charge of these duties. 
 
 2. Duties of the Deacon. — That passage in the Acts which records 
 the institution of the office, already determines the duties de- 
 volving on those who fill that office. They are there described 
 under the general designation a diaconate, ministry, or service, of 
 tables. Undoubtedly the idea present is that of tables on which 
 food was laid, and not tables for the counting and dividing of 
 money. In the church of the early centuries alms were commonly 
 brought by the Christian people to their assemblies in the shape 
 of actual gifts in bread and wine, which were collected for 
 immediate distribution among the poor. The duties of an office 
 directly concerned in the collection of such provision for bodily 
 wants, and its subsequent distribution, might well be described as 
 a ministry of tables. If, however, aid was given in the form of 
 money, it would clearly belong to the Deacons to expend this so 
 as to meet the necessities of those under their care. At the same 
 time, both in the distribution of food and in the application of 
 money gifts, the Deacons seem from the first to have acted under 
 the guidance and according to the counsel of the spiritual office- 
 bearers of the church. According to Acts xi. 29, 30, the alms of 
 the churches were carried by the Apostles to the Elders of the 
 congregation at Jerusalem, under whom the Deacons would act 
 as distributors. 
 
 In a broad and general way, the functions of those men 
 referred to in Acts v. vi. were concerned with the outward affairs 
 of the Christian community, — which in their days happened to 
 be the diligent collection and faithful distribution of alms to the 
 poor ; our Deacons have also to do with the outward affairs of 
 the Christian community, — which, in the altered circumstances 
 of society, consist chiefly in the collection and distribution 
 of church funds for ministerial support, for missionary schemes, 
 and for the maintenance of the church fabric. The Deacon 
 in the Presbyterian Church has essentially the same class of 
 
THE DEACON. 95 
 
 duties to perform as those had who were appointed in Apostolic 
 times to serve tables. This cannot be said of the Deacon in the 
 Roman Catholic and in the Anglican Churches. There, in the 
 threefold ministerial order, the Deacon occupies the third place, 
 and ranks with ministers of the word. In the early centuries, other 
 duties were, first of all, superadded to those originally belonging 
 to the office, and by and by were allowed to supersede them. 
 In the third and fourth centuries, it was received as feasible, that 
 the Old Testament church officers — High Priest, Priests, and 
 Levites (quite arbitrarily fixed at three) — were represented in 
 the New Testament church respectively by Bishop, Presbyter, 
 and Deacon. When the hierarchical theory had been fully 
 developed, the very subordinate character of the Levite's position 
 was overlooked, and the Deacon, as a cleric, was allowed to 
 minister at the altar, to baptize, and to preach. Now, the 
 Presbyterian objection to this view of the Deacon's office and 
 duties is, that a New Testament church office is thus altogether 
 effaced, and a new office created, by the arbitrary limitation of 
 spiritual duties, in the case of a ministerial office-bearer. 
 
 Sometimes objection is taken to the statement that the office 
 of Deacon is not a spiritual office. Yet this statement is most 
 accurately correct. ' Although the Deacons' Court are called 
 to apply spiritual principles to the management of secular 
 matters, they are not authorized to exercise any kind of spiritual 
 rule.' ' It is evident that the application of spiritual principles 
 to all the affairs and business of life is the duty of all members of 
 a Christian church. It is no peculiar function of the deaconship, 
 and consequently we cannot regard the deaconship as a spiritual 
 office in any other sense than that in which we would apply the 
 term to church membership. The early Deacons (if we may give 
 that name to the seven) were men of honest report, full of the 
 Holy Ghost and wisdom. Being endued with the Holy Ghost 
 is characteristic of all true Christians ; and the special qualifica- 
 tions for office in these men seem to be the well-established 
 1 The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland, p. 26. 
 
96 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 reputation which they had for uprightness of character — most in- 
 dispensable where suspicions of partial dealing had been aroused 
 — and prudence in the management of every-day affairs. It is 
 further noticeable, that when we are told of Stephen, how he became 
 signally successful, not in the Deacon's office, but in that of the 
 Evangelist, the virtues which are found conspicuous in him are 
 not the business qualifications of an honest report and prudence, but 
 the directly spiritual graces of faith, and that power which comes 
 from a special unction of the Holy Spirit. The work of preaching 
 and exhorting, in which Stephen laboured so successfully, was 
 performed by him in his capacity as a gifted Christian man, and 
 not officially as a Deacon. Another consideration which goes to 
 prove that the Presbyterian view of the diaconate, and not that 
 of the Episcopalians, is correct, may be found in the traces which 
 we have in the New Testament of the existence of Deaconesses 
 as forming a recognized order of office-bearers in the church. 
 Just because in the Deacon's office the exercise of a preaching gift 
 was not required, but only the discharge of duties such as, in most 
 cases, might be quietly performed from house to house, women, 
 who were forbidden to speak in public assemblies, might to so 
 large an extent do the work of Deacons, that they were held to be 
 not unworthy of the name and rank. Indeed, in certain depart- 
 ments, such as the visitation of women sick, or in prison, or in 
 poverty, the female Deacon might prove peculiarly suitable, if 
 not altogether indispensable. The earliest mention of a female 
 Deacon is found in the Epistle to the Romans, written about 
 a.d. 58 (see chap. xvi. 1), where Phoebe is spoken of as a 
 Deaconess — for the word rendered servant is just this word 
 diakonos — at Cenchrea, near Corinth. It has been disputed 
 whether in 1 Tim. iii. 11 the Apostle means to refer to the wives 
 of Deacons, who were helpers of their husbands in their work, 
 where a woman's help would be so needful, or simply to women — 
 for this is the word used, women* which may mean wives if the 
 context requires it, but not otherwise — who filled the office of 
 Deacon. Many good commentators think that these women 
 
THE DEACON. 97 
 
 were the Deacons' wives ; but others point out that there is 
 nothing connecting the word 'women' here with the men spoken 
 of before. The 'even so' seems to introduce a new class 
 distinguished from the men Deacons before referred to, and the 
 want of the article seems to leave the word women to be taken 
 quite generally. Fairbairn thinks that there is an intentional 
 indefiniteness here, so that Deacons' wives, and other women 
 discharging Deacons' duties, should be included under the one 
 designation. Whatever view we take of the passage, there can 
 be no doubt that here it is quite recognized that women are 
 capable of discharging the duties of Deacons ; while, in speaking 
 of the Bishops, no mention is made of women, because they 
 were expressly excluded from preaching and teaching. Clearly, 
 then, if the Deacon had been a preacher, women would not have 
 been mentioned in connection with the discharge of the official 
 duties of the deaconship. Pressense' (Life and Practice in 
 the Early Church, pp. 69, 73) has shown how Christianity opened 
 up a sphere for women, and how, while all Christian women 
 might unofficially discharge the duties of love, the early church 
 emphasized its view of the beauty of such service by giving a 
 recognized place to female Deacons, and even in some cases 
 having them consecrated to their office by the laying on of 
 hands. 
 
 In our Scottish Presbyterian Church, it has been distinctly 
 recognized and authoritatively stated that the whole policy of 
 the church consists in three things, viz. in doctrine, discipline, 
 and distribution. The Deacons are the distributors. They are 
 spiritual officers, as they hold office in a spiritual community, 
 but their duties have reference simply to the distribution of 
 ecclesiastical goods. No more exact and comprehensive state- 
 ment of the duties of the Deacon on Presbyterian principles, 
 suitable for all times, has ever been given than that of the 
 Second Book of Discipline (a.d. 1578), — Their office and power 
 is to receive and to distribute the haill ecclesiasticall gudes 
 unto them to whom they ar appoyntit (chap. viii. 3). Whether 
 
98 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the church goods be appropriated to ministerial support at 
 home, the spread of religion abroad, the furtherance of any 
 church or congregational scheme, the maintenance of the 
 church buildings, or the help of the congregational poor, 
 the Deacons have officially to do with the collection and 
 distribution of them. No more than this can be given to 
 the Deacon, without invading the province of some other office- 
 bearer. 
 
 3. Rank and Rights of the Deacon. — While it is important, in 
 the interests of the deaconship, to define exactly its province, 
 and to distinguish it from the more expressly spiritual offices in 
 the church, it is equally necessary to remember that it is really 
 an ecclesiastical office. The Deacon is not a mere member of 
 a congregational committee of management. He is not to be 
 regarded as a mere trustee over church property. His office 
 is one of the permanent ecclesiastical offices, according to the 
 express statements of the New Testament, and he is therefore, in 
 the most exact technical sense of the term, an office-bearer of the 
 church. John Knox and his companions in the work of arranging 
 the terms of the policy of the Reformed Church in Scotland, 
 failed to appreciate the true rank of the Deacon. In the First 
 Book of Discipline Deacons are represented simply as managers 
 of the outward affairs of the congregation, — trustees who held 
 their appointment only for a year. Now we could not seriously 
 speak of the ordination of a man to an office to which he was 
 appointed only for a limited period. Ordination can never be given 
 with any limitation of time attached. We have, indeed, many 
 instances 'in Scripture of the ordination of men who had pre- 
 viously had possession of high spiritual gifts. Saul and Barnabas, 
 both of them spiritual men, engaged in spiritual work, were 
 ordained by the laying on of hands ere they entered on their 
 special labours as missionaries to the Gentiles. The ordination 
 was valid until the office to which it gave admission had been 
 laid down. (Note the difference between this view and the 
 
THE DEACON. 99 
 
 hierarchical doctrine of the indelibility of orders.) Now we 
 maintain that the Deacon, as one of the regular office-bearers 
 of the church, is ordained to his office by a solemn act of con- 
 secration. The ordination service is equally indispensable with 
 the election by the membership of the congregation. A man 
 elected to the deaconship is not a Deacon until he has been 
 ordained. Those seven men, whom we regard as the precursors 
 of the Deacon, were ordained when they were solemnly set apart 
 to their office by prayer and the laying on of the Apostles' 
 hands. The Deacon, therefore, like all other ordained office- 
 bearers, just because ordained, must hold his office for life. He 
 cannot cease to be a Deacon when once ordained to the office, 
 unless his resignation has been accepted by those who have 
 power to receive it, or his deposition from office has resulted 
 from his being convicted of some fault. Even if elected to a 
 higher ecclesiastical office, his deaconship, conferred upon him 
 by ordination, continues. He still remains a Deacon, and 
 besides that, an Elder and a Minister, if he has been admitted 
 to these offices by the Elder's and the Minister's ordination. 
 As an ordained office-bearer of the church, the position which 
 the Deacon occupies is as distinctly ecclesiastical as is that of 
 Elder or Minister. While, therefore, restricting the duties of the 
 Deacon to that class of duties which may fairly be designated by 
 the phrase i serving tables,' it is important to remember the 
 words of Ignatius in his Epistle to the Tralltans, before the close 
 of the first century, — Deacons are not ministers of meats and 
 drinks, but ministers of the church of God. 
 
 What will help still further to establish the true rank of the 
 Deacon, is the right interpretation of a passage that is often used 
 to show that the deaconship is only a lower grade of the mini- 
 sterial office. In 1 Tim. iii. 13, the Apostle says, — They that 
 have used the office of a Deacon well, purchase to themselves a 
 good degree. Some maintain that this means that those who 
 discharge Deacons' duties will thereby prove their capacity for 
 the office of Presbyter. This, of course, could only be if, in the 
 
I CO PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 deaconship, they had already officially had practice in those 
 duties which belong to the Presbyter, as ruler, preacher, or 
 teacher. The good degree, however, is nothing more or less 
 than a good standing, — the honourable consideration due to 
 one who has faithfully performed the work of his particular 
 office. 1 Qualification for the deaconship, when displayed in 
 the successful and regular discharge of official duties, is not 
 regarded as entitling the possessor of such qualification to be 
 transferred to another office, in which it might not be so in- 
 dispensable. It would simply secure for him who used his gifts 
 in the deaconship, an honourable position in the church. 
 
 4. The Deacon in the History of the Church. — In the Apostolic 
 Age there clearly was an office corresponding to that which is 
 called the Deaconship in the Presbyterian Church. Whatever 
 evangelistic gifts certain individual Deacons might possess, they 
 were bound as Christian men to exercise, as opportunity offered ; 
 but as Deacons they were simply concerned with the outward 
 affairs of the church, consisting at that time for the most part 
 in duties of charity, and generally in extending help to the 
 leedy. Those elected to this office, first of all in Jerusalem, 
 vere known simply as the Seven : then, as if to show that the 
 lumber of officers in the mother church was not an essential of 
 he office, they are spoken of as Deacons, in the church at 
 Philippi (Phil. i. i), and in the churches of Asia in which Timothy 
 was specially interested (i Tim. iii. 8-12) : and further, they were 
 referred to under names which call attention to the nature of their 
 official work, — he that giveth and he that showeth mercy (Rom. 
 xii. 8), and helps (1 Cor. xii. 28). Immediately after the close of 
 the Apostolic Age attempts were made to determine, with ever- 
 increasing exactness, the distinction between the clergy and the 
 laity ; and so by and by it came to be thought that if Deacons 
 were to be claimed as office-bearers in the church, they must 
 
 1 This view has Lven well expressed by Davidson, Ecclesiastical Polity of 
 the New Testament, p. 140. 
 
THE DEACON. IOI 
 
 belong to the clerical order. In the endeavour to vindicate the 
 right of Deacons to be so reckoned, spiritual duties were one by 
 one added to their official functions. Field {Of the Church, 
 vol. iii. p. 197) describes the change in these words: — 'When 
 the treasure of the church increasing was committed to certain 
 stewards, and the poor otherwise provided for, they (the 
 Deacons) were more specially used for the assisting of the 
 Bishop or Presbyters in things pertaining to God's service and 
 worship.' Justin Martyr, the Clementine Homilies, and Ter- 
 tuliian, all between the middle and the end of the second 
 century, represent the Deacon as assisting the presiding minister 
 in the administration of the Lord's Supper, aiding the Bishop 
 in maintaining order during divine service, reporting to the 
 Bishop regarding the conduct of church members, 1 and in cases 
 of necessity, as, for example, in visiting a dying person, dis- 
 pensing the sacraments which, in ordinary circumstances, could 
 only be done by a Presbyter or Bishop. When the hierarchical 
 view of the Christian ministry began to prevail,— first clearly 
 expressed by Cyprian early in the third century, — it was generally 
 maintained that a parallel existed between the ranks of the 
 Mosaic priesthood and the orders of the Christian clergy. The 
 
 1 In his very fresh and interesting work, The Organization of the Early 
 Christian Churches, Mr. Hatch has fallen into the error of supposing that the 
 mere reporting of such irregularities in the lives of church members as had 
 come under their notice, shows that the exercise of discipline was in early 
 times regarded as a part of the official duties of the Deacon. After quoting, 
 from the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, a passage describing the 
 qualifications of Deacons in language strikingly similar to 1 Tim. iii. 8-12, 
 Mr. Hatch says : ' These characteristics clearly imply disciplinary duties r the 
 Deacons are to be blameless, in order that they may be themselves, like 
 Bishops, free from the faults which they are to note in others ; they are to 
 be " not slanderers, nor double-tongued," because they stood in the relation 
 of accusers ' (p. 51, note). They are to report to the Bishops about those 
 i:i danger of sinning, that they may be warned by the Bishop. This is 
 nothing more than any true church member is expected to do in the Christian 
 exercise of brotherly care and love. And even though lighter cases might, 
 on the deputation of the Bishop, be decided by the Deacon, yet evidently the 
 Bishop was alone responsible, and the Deacon was not regarded as officially 
 charged with any disciplinary functions. 
 
102 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Bishop represented the High Priest ; the Presbyter, the Priest ; 
 and the Deacon, the Levite. The absurdity of the supposed 
 parallel could now easily be shown. Levites' duties were not in 
 relation to those of the Priests, what Deacons' were in relation 
 to those of the Presbyter ; nor could a Levite rise to priestly 
 rank, as a Deacon could to Presbyterial or Episcopal dignity. 
 The reason, however, for insisting on the parallel lay in the 
 wish to secure an appearance of scriptural ground for placing 
 Deacons in a ministerial or clerical order. From this time forth 
 in the Catholic Church the ancient office of Deacon became 
 extinct, and the lowest clerical order assumed the name. This 
 was affirmed by the Council of Trent, and the Pontifical defines 
 the Deacon's duties thus : — It pertains to the Deacon to serve at 
 the altar, to baptize, and to preach. The two great Reformers, 
 Luther and Calvin, urged the revival of the office according to 
 the Apostolic model. John Knox, in the First Book of 'Discipline 
 (a.d. 1560), and Andrew Melville, in the Secojid Book of Dis- 
 cipline (a.d. 1578), clearly defined the functions of the Deacons 
 as church officers charged with the care of the outward affairs 
 of the several congregations to which they belonged. After the 
 Reformed Church of Scotland had been thoroughly consolidated, 
 and especially since, owing to the support given by the State, or at 
 least strictly determined by the State, financial matters did not 
 call for any very particular attention, the deaconship in many 
 congregations fell into abeyance. It was, however, all along 
 recognized as a regular office in the church. Special recognition 
 was given to the deaconship in the Free Church. Deacons are 
 required to give attention to the secular affairs of the congrega- 
 tion, see to the collection for General and Congregational Schemes, 
 and attend to the poor and to the education of the children of 
 the poor. 
 
PART II. 
 
 CONSTITUTION AND GRADATION OF COURTS IN THE 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Idea of Church Courts. — By church courts Presbyterians mean 
 associations the membership and jurisdiction of which are 
 expressly laid down in the constitution of the church. The 
 functions of those courts have been described as legislative, 
 executive, and judicial. Under the legislative functions of an 
 ecclesiastical court are included the framing of all enactments 
 and laws for the control and despatch of the business of the 
 church, for securing the effective administration of discipline, 
 and generally, for the vindication and elucidation of constitu- 
 tional principles. Under the executive functions are embraced 
 all the ordinary proceedings of these courts in the organization 
 and superintendence of the various departments of church work. 
 And under the judicial functions are to be reckoned, not only 
 the infliction and removal of ecclesiastical censures, but also the 
 consideration, on the part of any of the higher courts, of matters 
 referred to them from an inferior court. Within the limits of 
 their several jurisdictions, all these functions may be discharged 
 by any of the church courts, higher or lower, whether it be Kirk- 
 session, Presbytery, Provincial Synod, or General Assembly. 
 
 Although the particular form and detailed enumeration of 
 functions belonging to the several church courts are laid down 
 
 103 
 
1 04 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 in terms of the constitution of the church, it must be remembered 
 that the authority of such courts does not primarily rest upon 
 this constitution. It is the contention of Presbyterians that there 
 is in God's word a warrant for the exercise of functions which for 
 their accomplishment demand the establishment of congrega- 
 tional elderships, classical Presbyteries, and more comprehensive 
 Synods. The constitution does not determine the existence or 
 create the right of such courts, but simply states, on the assump- 
 tion that the validity of these judicatories has been established 
 on a scriptural basis, what the principles are which those 
 agreeing to accept that particular constitution understand to 
 apply to the composition and jurisdiction of these courts. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. 
 
 1. Membership and Jurisdiction of Church Courts. — The one 
 indispensable qualification for membership in any court of the 
 Presbyterian Church is the holding of the office of Presbyter. 
 As we have already shown, Presbyters are of two orders, — 
 Presbyters who rule only, and Presbyters who both rule and 
 teach. There is no court of the Presbyterian Church which 
 does not embrace in its membership both of these orders of 
 Presbyters. The right to sit in these courts is a privilege of 
 office. Those who are not office-bearers have no right to judge 
 and direct in the administration of discipline, and in the general 
 government of the church. Against this Presbyterian doctrine 
 the Independents advance the claims of what they regard as 
 popular rights. They maintain that church power, not only as 
 to its original fountain, but also as to its regular exercise, per- 
 tains to, or inheres in, the whole body of the Christian people, 
 and that, therefore, matters of church order should be deter- 
 mined not by office-bearers in church courts, but by the church 
 membership in the general gathering of the congregation. In 
 opposition to this view, we must call attention to the whole 
 argument in behalf of the recognition of office in the church. 
 The New Testament writers often speak of rulers in the church, 
 and this of necessity implies the presence of those who do not 
 rule, but are ruled. These writers, too, make mention of par- 
 
 105 
 
106 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 ticular gifts by the possession of which certain individuals in the 
 church are qualified for ruling, — which gifts have to be developed 
 and educated by training and practice. And further, in a church 
 court, constituted as Presbyterian Church courts are, that can be 
 done in an orderly manner and so as to secure the ends of 
 justice and order, which could not be so done in a general con- 
 gregational meeting. 
 
 It is commonly objected that Christ, in describing the proper 
 mode of dealing with an offending brother, requires that the 
 church should be told, whereas upon Presbyterian principles we 
 should tell rather the eldership, Gillespie 1 has answered this 
 objection well, by showing that the representative body of the 
 church is certainly intended. During Christ's life on earth, the 
 church had not yet been constituted ; but when the constitution 
 of the church was developed, this was done, as we have seen, as 
 far as possible, according to the Jewish model. Now under the 
 Mosaic dispensation, what was done by the Elders was said to 
 have been done by the congregation (Josh. xx. 6). This form of 
 language was natural and would be continued among Christian 
 writers. In the discharge of those functions which belong to 
 their office, the office-bearers of a church must be regarded as 
 acting for and representing the church, and what they do in 
 their church courts must be regarded as the act of the church. 
 At the same time, it is very important to guard against any over- 
 statement of the jurisdiction and rights of office-bearers. It 
 must be remembered that the constitution of church courts has 
 been determined for the express purpose of conserving the rights 
 of church members, and securing the largest possible amount of 
 spiritual advantage to the Christian people. Office-bearers are 
 appointed not to override popular rights, but to give effective 
 expression to the convictions and pious consciousness of the 
 whole Christian community. Hence alongside of the authori- 
 tatively expressed decision of the Presbyters, — members of the 
 church courts, — there ought to be an explicit statement of the 
 
 1 Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland, Part II. chap, i, 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. 107 
 
 approval and consent of the people. Presbyterianism is greatly 
 misrepresented when it is supposed that it carries on its pro- 
 ceedings in church courts with a lofty disregard of the sentiments 
 of the ordinary membership. Calvin, in his most instructive and 
 sober commentary on the 15th chapter of Acts, remarks on the 
 sixth verse, that while only Apostles and Elders are named, the 
 disputation may have been carried on in the presence of the 
 people ; and on the twenty- third verse, he speaks of the modesty 
 of the common people in subscribing to the decree of the Apostles 
 and other teachers, and notes also the equity of the apostles in 
 setting down nothing concerning the common cause without 
 admitting the people. This view of the right of the people to be 
 consulted in all matters of general interest and importance was 
 heartily recognized and acted upon by the great leaders of the 
 Scottish Church in the period of the Second Reformation. 
 Henderson and Gillespie have clearly and fervently expressed 
 this opinion in their own writings, and the General Assemblies of 
 their time (that, for instance, of 1641) have given to it the most 
 unequivocal expression. This was a period of great spiritual 
 revival, accompanied by a proportionate reawakening to a sense 
 of the importance of the free exercise of spiritual rights. It 
 was in the century which followed this time of warmth and 
 enthusiasm, under the chilling reign of moderatism which buried 
 out of sight, alike the saving truths of Christianity, and the rights 
 of those whom Christ had made free, that this essential feature 
 of Presbyterianism was laid aside, and the will of the people 
 systematically ignored. It is surely more than a curious coinci- 
 dence that the period of Scottish Church history, during which 
 church courts most tamely submitted to the dictation and 
 encroachments of the civil courts, was the period during which 
 those church courts manifested a lofty disregard of that people 
 whom they professed to represent. The disregard of rightful 
 obligations is sure to be avenged by a humiliating subjection 
 under obligations that are not rightful. 
 
 It is now generally admitted among all the sections of the 
 
IoS PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Presbyterian Church, that what affects the church as a whole, 
 what is of importance to the Christian community at large, may 
 not be done without the knowledge and understood consent of 
 the people. Opposing controversialists commonly overlook such 
 a statement as this, or if they notice at all the enunciation of this 
 principle by a modern writer, they treat it as a recent develop- 
 ment and an important concession to Independency. We have 
 seen that it is, on the contrary, one of the original principles of 
 Presbyterianism. It is not a concession to Independency, but a 
 consistent element in the Presbyterian constitution. Against the 
 Independent theory there is recognized exclusive jurisdiction in 
 matters of church government as belonging to the church courts ; 
 but against all hierarchical tendencies, it is acknowledged that 
 the decision of those church courts must commend themselves to 
 the approval of the enlightened conscience of the Christian 
 people, and that office-bearers of the church ought to reflect the 
 mind of those in the church that are spiritual. It is undoubtedly 
 right to say that Presbyterians refuse i to ordinary members the 
 same distinct and definite place and influence in the ordinary 
 regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in general, as they have 
 ascribed to them in the appointment of their own office-bearers ; 
 in other words, they have never held their consent or concurrence 
 in the decisions pronounced by the office-bearers in the ordinary 
 regulation of ecclesiastical affairs to be necessary or indis- 
 pensable, so that the withholding or refusal of their consent 
 nullified or invalidated the judgment, or formed a bar in the way 
 of it taking practical effect.' x To do otherwise than this would 
 be to give to the ordinary membership a power of veto over the 
 proceedings of the office-bearers. In such a case, the common 
 people, the unofficial body, would be an upper house clothed 
 with an unlimited power of reversing all the sentences of the 
 regularly constituted courts. In appointing office-bearers, the 
 ordinary members clearly express confidence in those brethren 
 for the faithful performance of the duties belonging to the office 
 1 Principal Cunningham, Historical Theclo*y, vol. i. p. 56. 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. ICQ 
 
 with which they entrust them. The withholding of such confi- 
 dence is a wrong to those who have accepted office on the under- 
 standing that they were in possession of this confidence. So 
 soon as this is withdrawn, the moral influence necessary for, 
 maintaining official authority and securing official efficiency, is 
 lost. For it ought to be remembered that none of the charac- , 
 teristic functions of a spiritual office can be adequately performed, 
 unless the persons of the office-bearers are respected, and their 
 official decisions in consequence are borne out by the approval of 
 the people. Hence we find our older Presbyterian writers, who 
 are often spoken of as men fanatically attached to an abstract 
 theory of church order, and too regardless, even reckless, of 
 matters of individual right and freedom, — we find such men as 
 George Gillespie, for example, taking what to many might seem 
 an undue concern for the recognition of the voice of the people 
 in all matters concerning the wellbeing of the church. He 
 points out the importance in a case of discipline of having the 
 hearty approval and consent of the people in the pronunciation 
 of a censure or sentence by the church court. So far as the 
 examination and judgment are concerned, the matter is wholly 
 within the jurisdiction of the appointed judicatory. Church 
 members are deeply concerned and interested in the proceed- 
 ings, but only members of the church court have a right to 
 judge. Yet the decision must be such as to commend itself to 
 the membership generally, otherwise the end contemplated in 
 the act will not be attained. Only when those who had been the 
 fellow-members of the individuals censured and deprived, show 
 their acquiescence in the decision of the church court, will that 
 fear and shame be wrought in the excommunicated person, 
 which may work in him repentance, and warrant his restoration. 
 Unless the general membership regard him as the office-bearers 
 regard him, the end of discipline is not gained. Hence every 
 effort must be made to preserve an agreement between the senti- 
 ments of office-bearers and people. Gillespie concludes that in 
 such cases, ' though the Pastors and Elders have the power of 
 
1 10 PRLSBYTERIANISM. 
 
 jurisdiction, it is net to exercise the same.' This may be some- 
 what too strong : but certainly a strong current among the people 
 in opposition to any proposed official procedure ought to call 
 forth on the part of office-bearers a careful reconsideration of the 
 case. The rulers must rule ; the rights and jurisdiction of church 
 courts must be maintained ; yet always in the exercise of official 
 duties office-bearers should be careful to manifest toward their 
 people the spirit of him who wished not to show his dominion 
 but to make himself helpful. 
 
 2. Functions common to all Members of Church Courts. — The 
 qualifications required of all members of church courts are such 
 as are indispensable to the holding of the office of Presbyter. 
 The duties which all members alike are regarded as competent 
 to discharge are those which Presbytership in its very idea 
 involves. What then we here wish to know is what those duties 
 are which all Presbyters, just because they are Presbyters, and 
 apart from any distinctions that may exist among them, are not 
 Dnly permitted, but required, to discharge. Now we have seen 
 what the original idea of the Presbyter's office implies. Admission 
 to the order of Presbyter introduces into the governing body. 
 According to the Books of Discipline, both orders o{ Presbyters 
 — that is to say, the Ruling Presbyter jointly with the Teaching 
 Presbyter — are to watch the flock committed to their charge, 
 to examine those coming to the Lord's table, to admonish all 
 men of their duty according to the gospel, and in their assemblies 
 to seek the promotion of good order and the execution of dis- 
 cipline. The final end of all assemblies, it is further declared, 
 is first, to keep the religion and doctrine in purity, without error 
 and corruption ; and next, to keep comeliness and good order 
 in the kirk. In treating of the regular duties of church courts, 
 Mr. William Guthrie, in his Treatise on Elders and Deacons 
 (chap, vi.), observes that these may be matters of faith, matters 
 of order, matters of discipline, or matters which concern the 
 sending forth of church officers ; and that consequently members 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. Ill 
 
 of church courts have a fourfold power, which he calls respec- 
 tively, in the scholastic phraseology of his day, — Dogmatic, 
 Diatactic, Critic, and Exusiastic. * In all these powers, 5 he 
 says, ' Ruling Elders have a share, and do put forth the same 
 in exercise according to the measure that belongs to the 
 assembly whereof they are members.' In reference to all 
 legislative and judicial proceedings, that is to say, in all matters 
 that may be deliberated and voted upon in a church court, the 
 official standing and powers of all members are the same. In 
 the discussions and judgments of all church courts, the perfect 
 parity of the members is strictly and universally recognized. 
 
 The only question likely to arise under this head relates to the 
 right of Ruling Elders to take part in discussions on doctrinal 
 points. It might be supposed that there was a certain impro- 
 priety in men who had no special or technical theological 
 training sitting in judgment upon a case in which the positions 
 under investigation had been reached by critical processes, and 
 subtle and sustained speculation. Yet our church recognizes no 
 distinction between ministers and elders, as members of any 
 church court, in their judicial capacity. Ruling Elders and 
 Ministers alike are allowed to discuss and vote upon all doctrinal 
 questions which may be propounded in the court. And this 
 position is undoubtedly right. It may be that in some special 
 cases only Ministers who have had a theological training, and, 
 it may be, only a small proportion of these, are able to enter into 
 the merits of the separate propositions advanced. There may 
 be elements in the statements laid before the court, historical, 
 critical, metaphysical, mystical, which comparatively few may be 
 able to follow in detail. Are those who are incapable of doing 
 so to be therefore declared incompetent to sit as judges ? This 
 does not follow by any means. The processes may have little 
 or nothing to do with the question which engages the attention 
 of the court. What is alone of importance for members of a 
 church court to determine is whether the leading principles 
 enunciated, and specially the conclusions reached, are agreeable 
 
1 1 2 PRESEYTERIANISM. 
 
 to, or inconsistent with, the accepted standards of the church. 
 And upon such a question as this it is of the highest practical 
 importance that it should be made clearly known how the general 
 membership of the church, represented by men who reflect its 
 intelligence and spirituality, regard the bearing of any par- 
 ticular tendency of thought and teaching upon the religious 
 life of the people, and the general wellbeing of the church. In 
 the Presbyterian eldership there are certainly many thoroughly 
 qualified to discuss in detail the merits of most theological 
 questions arising in church courts ; but the right of those Elders, 
 representing the people, who have least claim to a technical 
 knowledge of theology, is to be vindicated on the ground of the 
 Christian people's right to decide upon what is, and what is not, 
 inconsistent with that form of doctrine which they have accepted. 
 To refuse or limit the Elders' right to judge in doctrinal cases, 
 would be to remove this whole department of church govern- 
 ment out of the range of popular review. To reserve such 
 questions for experts, would be to overlook the members' strong 
 personal interest in the church's creed. If a church Confession 
 be so intricate that only theological experts can understand it, 
 there is surely much reason for having it simplified. If it 
 contains elements purely critical or metaphysical, references 
 and allusions curiously erudite and technical, these should be 
 removed. But so long as any formula is accepted as the 
 standard of doctrine for the church, it must be regarded, while 
 it so remains, as understood by the membership, and their 
 representatives are charged to take measures against its sub- 
 version, and to oppose whatever threatens its integrity. The 
 principle of Presbyterian parity demands that in judging of 
 doctrinal cases no distinction be made between the two classes 
 of Presbyters as constituent members of church courts. This 
 certainly is one of the functions common to Ruling Elders and 
 Ministers, because the determining of doctrine, as well as the 
 administration of discipline, belongs to the province of church 
 government with which those who rule have officially to do. 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. II3 
 
 3. Functions Peculiar to the Clerical Members of Church Courts. — 
 Though Ruling Elders and Preaching Elders have in church 
 courts equal rank and authority, each enjoying the same voting 
 power, and the same privilege of debate, there are certain 
 functions which, not Ruling Elders, but only Preaching Elders, 
 are competent to discharge. After the court has deliberated, and 
 by vote or general assent has reached a judgment, there may be 
 required a formal and solemn deliverance of the resolution which 
 has been thus agreed upon. Those legislative and judicial 
 functions which are common to all members have been per- 
 formed, and now there remain certain executive acts which can 
 be performed only by those holding the ministerial office. And 
 so Guthrie, in the place from which we have before quoted, 
 says : — The execution of some decrees of the church assemblies, 
 such as the imposition of hands, the pronouncing the sentence 
 of excommunication, the receiving of penitents, the intimation of 
 the deposition of Ministers, and such like, do belong to Ministers 
 ?lone. 
 
 It is sometimes objected that the principle of Presbyterian 
 Parity, so much insisted upon by us, is strangly overlooked in the 
 practical arrangements of our Presbyterian Churches, inasmuch 
 as only the members of one class of Presbyters are regarded as 
 eligible for the presidency in our church courts. i If there be 
 Elders,' says Dr. Davidson, 'whose sole office is to rule, why 
 are they never allowed to preside at meetings of the church, or 
 to be Moderators of Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods ? One 
 should suppose that their experience in ruling, to which they are 
 exclusively devoted, would give them a better title to preside at 
 such assemblies than the Preaching Elders. But as far as we 
 may judge from practice, Ministers of the gospel proceed on the 
 supposition that they themselves are always superior in presiding 
 and governing, although they have other weighty duties to 
 perform, to men who have nothing to do with any other depart- 
 ment of spiritual labour.' ■ Now, in answer to this sweeping 
 1 Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament, pp. 147, 148. 
 
1 14 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 charge, the obvious rejoinder at once suggests itself, that to say 
 regarding Ruling Elders that they never are allowed to preside is 
 not absolutely correct. The famous George Buchanan was 
 chosen Moderator of the General Assembly of 1567, though he 
 was no more than a Ruling Elder, and had never entered the 
 ministerial office. This case is, indeed, singular ; yet there is 
 in it certainly nothing inconsistent with Presbyterian principles. 
 Such an appointment could never have been made if Presby- 
 terians entertained any notion of exclusive clerical powers, such 
 as are claimed by hierarchical bishops. According to the 
 principles of Presbyterianism already laid down, the Minister 
 is, indeed, of a superior order, as holding a superior office to that 
 of the Ruling Elder ; but, in the province common to both, the 
 members of the one order have no jurisdiction over those of 
 the other. In the matter of ruling there is parity among all 
 Presbyters, and no objection absolute on principle can be 
 brought against the presidency in Presbyterian Church courts 
 of one who simply occupies the ruling office. In reference to 
 the Kirk-session, the For?n of Church Government simply says, 
 It is most expedient that, in these meetings, one whose office 
 is to labour in the word and doctrine do moderate in their 
 proceedings. But in accordance with the principles of our 
 church constitution, such a non-ministerial president or mode- 
 rator would be under the necessity of vacating the chair, in 
 favour of a ministerial member, so soon as certain circumstances 
 arose demanding, on the part of the president, the exercise of 
 powers which belong only to the ministerial order. And hence, 
 as a matter of practice and convenient arrangement, it has been 
 adopted as a positive rule, and so inserted in the constitutional 
 treatises of the Presbyterian Churches, that only those members 
 should preside, who, by virtue of their office, are competent to 
 discharge all the duties and execute all the findings of the 
 particular courts in which they sit. It would be inconvenient 
 to have in the chair at a meeting of Kirk-session, for example, 
 one who could not formally deliver the decision of the eldership 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 1 5 
 
 in a case of discipline. Now this a mere Ruling Elder cannot 
 do. It belongs to the ministerial, not to the ruling, office. In 
 the Presbytery, again, all the members — Ruling Elders and 
 Ministers — may engage in the examination of candidates for the 
 ministry, and they may jointly consider whether the gifts and 
 character of those presenting themselves are such as warrant 
 their admission into the ministerial order ; but the conveying 
 of this decision must be left to one of the clerical members of the 
 court. Or again, in the case of a licentiate being presented 
 before a Presbytery, as the choice of a congregation within its 
 bounds, Ruling Elders, as well as Ministers, may judge of the 
 validity and regularity of the proceedings connected with the 
 call ; but the ordination, as admission to the ministerial order, 
 can be given only by members of that order. It is therefore a 
 perfectly reasonable arrangement to confine the occupancy of the 
 presidential chair to that class of members which is officially 
 capable of performing all the duties that can possibly be 
 included under the jurisdiction of the court. There is no slight 
 offered to the ruling eldership in reserving the formal presidency 
 for those who, besides being Ruling Elders, are also constitution- 
 ally qualified for discharging executive functions which never 
 have been, and never can be, exercised in a Presbyterian 
 Church, except by members of the ministerial order. 
 
 Besides this distinction in regard to power between Ruling 
 Elders and Ministers, there is another difference which serves 
 further to account for and justify that practice of the church to 
 which reference is here made. Ministers are the standing 
 members of all church courts. 1 Without the presence of one or 
 more Ministers, no number of Ruling Elders could constitute a 
 Session, a Presbytery, or any other regular church assembly. 
 Ruling Elders have equal rights with Ministers to be present and 
 to discharge the duties of membership ; but even should no 
 Ruling Elder appear, it might be possible to constitute and to 
 perform all the functions of any church court, inferior or superior. 
 1 Compare The Church a?id its Polity, by Dr. Hodge, pp. 301-305. 
 
1 16 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Thus, for example, before a Kirk-session can proceed to any 
 business, there must be present, as a quorum, two members along 
 with the moderator. Now it occasionally happens that there are 
 three Ministers over a congregation. When any one of these is 
 acting as moderator, the other two sit as members of Session. 
 Should it so happen that, in answer to any intimation of meeting, 
 only these three, without any Ruling Elder, should appear, a 
 quorum would be made. Such an occurrence could only take 
 place under most exceptional circumstances, and it might be 
 unadvisable to proceed. Still it is evident that in such a case 
 a meeting of Kirk-session, composed only of Ministers, could be 
 held. Any number of Ruling Elders, members of a Session, 
 could not constitute a meeting of Session. In reference to the 
 Presbytery, the matter is yet more simple. The absence of 
 representative elders, however much it might be regretted, would 
 not hinder the clerical members present from constituting, and 
 proceeding with any business that might properly come before 
 the court. This distinction between Ministers, as the permanent 
 and essential members of a Presbytery, and Ruling Elders, as 
 members by virtue of the commission of representation which 
 they bear from their respective congregations, is an integral 
 part of our constitution. This positive difference is probably 
 grounded on the distinction, before referred to, between the 
 official capabilities of Ruling Elders and Ministers. As a 
 constitutional distinction which secures, as indispensable, the 
 presence of one or more Ministers in every Presbyterian Church 
 court, it forms a reason for confining the selection of moderator 
 to the ministerial order. 
 
 The remark of Dr. Davidson, that Ruling Elders, being only 
 rulers, should be better qualified for presiding than office-bearers 
 who exercise other functions besides that of ruling, looks at first 
 sight plausible, but is really quite superficial. In the choice of a 
 president, no society is accustomed to regard a minimum of 
 official occupation as a qualification for such a dignity. The 
 Lord Chancellor is not only a Peer, but also a member of the 
 
COMPOSITION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 1 7 
 
 bench legally qualified to judge in the court of final appeal at 
 law. The lords of the Court of Appeal are Peers, and so 
 members of the House of Lords, and besides this they are 
 qualified from their legal standing to decide upon points of law ; 
 and from those possessing, not the single, but the double, 
 qualification, the president is taken. The mistake underlying 
 the criticism quoted above, seems to be a false notion of what the 
 position of president implies. If it was only required of the 
 chairman that he should preserve order, and secure the rights of 
 debate to all members, then one with the very minimum of 
 qualification for membership would be eligible and fit for the 
 appointment. But, as we have seen, the president in Presby- 
 terian Church courts must be the mouthpiece of the court, and so 
 he must have the executive power, and be thus personally 
 qualified to do what the most highly qualified member can do. 
 Just as in the House of Lords we distinguish ordinary Peers and 
 Peers who are also legal authorities, and have the president 
 chosen from the latter ; so also in the Presbytery, we have Ruling 
 Elders and Elders who are also Ministers, and from these last 
 the moderator is chosen. 
 
 It is also wrong to say that according to Presbyterian principles 
 the Minister is regarded as superior in presiding and governing. 
 The phrase is loose and inaccurate, and misrepresents the 
 Presbyterian position. For certain good reasons, as we have 
 shown, the Minister is regarded by Presbyterians as alone 
 thoroughly qualified for the presidency of church courts. As 
 a matter of convenience and order, the constitution of our 
 church has limited the selection of president to the ministerial 
 order. The functions of the two classes of Presbyters are 
 different ; otherwise, there would not be two classes, but only 
 one. The Minister discharges the functions of Ruling Elder, and 
 certain other characteristic functions besides. And because the 
 president may be officially called to discharge ministerial 
 functions, as well as those of the eldership, he is chosen from the 
 ranks of the ministry. But we do not claim for Ministers any 
 
1 1 3 PRFSBYTERIANTSM. 
 
 superiority in governing. Whether any particular act of govern- 
 ment have reference to doctrine, or discipline, or distribution, 
 the judicial power of Ministers and Elders, as members of church 
 courts, is simply equal. As Ruling Elders are not relieved of the 
 duties of a worldly calling, it is evident that there was originally 
 no idea of placing upon them the burden of all-engrossing 
 duties. But unless the whole circle of ministerial work may be 
 fairly regarded as devolving upon the Elder, it cannot be 
 supposed that in the business of church courts he will be 
 adequate for the discharge of every manner of duty just as the 
 Minister. If the Elder claims to ordain and generally to discharge 
 executive functions, then he should preach and administer the 
 sacraments, and in that case the office of the eldership is 
 abolished, and only the ministry remains. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 
 
 1. Principle of Gradation of Church Courts. — It is a recognized 
 characteristic of Presbyterianism that there is a regular series of 
 church judicatories, beginning with a purely congregational court 
 and ending with one which is representative of all the congrega- 
 tions throughout the country associated by the acceptance of a 
 common form of government. The courts essential to a regularly 
 developed Presbyterian constitution are the Kirk-session, the 
 Presbytery, and the Synod. In certain Presbyterian Churches, 
 between the Presbytery and the Supreme Court, Provincial Synods 
 are introduced, comprising under each several Presbyteries, and 
 all, again, embraced under the General Assembly. In this 
 arrangement we have all the scriptural principles of church polity 
 fully acknowledged and developed. The rights of the Christian 
 people associated together in a single congregation are expressly 
 recognized in the constitution of the Kirk-session, which has 
 cognizance of all the affairs and interests of that one particular 
 community ; while in the local Presbytery, and in Provincial 
 Synods (where such courts exist), each congregation has a double 
 representation. And while individual and particular rights are 
 thus emphasized, the grand principle of the unity of the church 
 is not lost sight of. This doctrine is prominently exhibited in 
 the regularly graduated combination of the separate congrega- 
 tions by means of a series of courts, each representative of 
 
 119 
 
1 20 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 groups of church members and churches, increasingly compre- 
 hensive, until when the last is reached it is representative of the 
 whole. 
 
 There is here a careful avoidance, on the one hand, of the 
 extreme which exaggerates the idea of church unity so as to 
 sacrifice to it the interests and the rights of individual members 
 and particular congregations ; and, on the other hand, the 
 extreme which exaggerates the idea of congregational rights and 
 the independency of local churches, so as to lose sight of the 
 common bond by which not only members of the one local 
 church, but also members of other similar churches, are united 
 together in church, as distinguished from congregational, fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 In reference to church government, the principle involved in 
 the Presbyterian arrangement of church courts is the right of 
 supervision and review on the part of more comprehensive 
 assemblies of the proceedings of inferior and local courts. The 
 proceedings of the Session are subject to the review of the Presby- 
 tery, and from the inferior court an appeal may be taken to the 
 superior. Against this Presbyterian theory of courts of review, 
 the Independents have always protested. Some of those objectors 
 are opposed to all manner of interference with the proceedings of 
 any local church, for which they claim sole power to determine 
 and regulate all its affairs. The more thoroughgoing Indepen- 
 dents, like Dr. Davidson, demur to consultative assemblies as 
 well as to authoritative courts. It is admitted that occasional 
 Synods may be useful for advice in emergencies. ' Yet it is not 
 wise to resort to them often. They ought not to be lightly 
 summoned, or hastily appealed to. Nothing but unusual diffi- 
 culty or injustice should bring them into being.' 1 Others, again, 
 more frankly and heartily admit the advantage of frequent meet- 
 ings of church Councils, yet strictly confining the powers of such 
 Synods to the simple offering of counsel and advice. Thus most 
 of the American Congregationalists, following the practice of the 
 1 Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament, p. 269. 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 12 1 
 
 Puritan and Pilgrim Independents, have variously constituted 
 Synods, Councils, and Associations resembling closely the church 
 courts of Presbyterianism, save in the right of authoritative con- 
 trol. If the particular church whose proceedings had been under 
 review is not satisfied with the decision, then the Council has no 
 binding power to enforce its judgment. Inasmuch, however, as 
 the Association can cut off from its fellowship any refractory 
 congregation, the principle of Presbyterianism is practically 
 admitted. What is thus, without express avowal of the principle, 
 done among many Independents, is clearly avowed as a charac- 
 teristic doctrine of Presbyterianism. The Presbytery has juris- 
 diction over the Session, and the Synod has jurisdiction over 
 the Presbytery. The control is authoritative and not simply 
 advisory. 
 
 Under this explicit recognition, in the appointment of courts 
 of review, of the principle that it is the right and duty of the 
 members of the church to interest themselves in the affairs of 
 all the churches, Presbyterians simply apply to their ecclesias- 
 tical life the maxim of the Apostle, Look not every man on his 
 own things, but every man also on the things of others. That a 
 church, that is, a congregation, no more than an individual, can 
 reach the Christian aim by selfish attention to private and par- 
 ticular interests, has been admirably shown by Owen, who, though 
 an Independent, adopted many of the characteristic principles of 
 Presbyterianism. ' The church that confines its duty unto the 
 acts of its own assemblies, cuts itself off from the external com- 
 munion of the church catholic ; nor will it be safe for any man 
 
 to commit the conduct of his soul to such a church The 
 
 end of all particular churches is the edification of the church 
 catholic unto the glory of God in Christ And that particu- 
 lar church which extends not its duty beyond its own assemblies 
 and members, is fallen off from the principal end of its institution. 
 And every principle, opinion, or persuasion, that inclines any 
 church to confine its care and duty unto its own edification only, 
 yea, or of those only which agree with it in some peculiar practice, 
 
122 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 making it neglective of all due means of the edification of the 
 church catholic, is schismatical.' l 
 
 In the form of church government prepared by the Westminster 
 divines, and adopted by the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, 
 the principle of the gradation of the church courts is summarily 
 laid down :— It is lawful, and agreeable to the word of God, that 
 there be a subordination of congregational, classical, provincial, 
 and national assemblies, for the government of the church. In 
 the Westminster Assembly there were long-continued and keen 
 debates on the right of church Synods ; but these generally 
 turned on questions of interpretation, reference on all sides being 
 made to church meetings alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles, 
 and opinion diverging only in regard to the authority claimed by 
 these assemblies over the churches. We should not expect to 
 find exact models of procedure in assemblies called when the 
 church was still constitutionally unformed, yet from their example 
 many useful hints may be gathered. 
 
 2. Scripture Examples of Church Courts. — In seeking support 
 from Scripture for the principle laid down of the subordination 
 of local church assemblies to more general Synods, reference 
 is usually made to the case of the Council at Jerusalem. It 
 is maintained that we have, in the narrative of Acts xv., a 
 striking example of a court of review, — a church assembly which 
 deliberated on matters referred to it from a particular local 
 church, and issued decrees which those making the reference 
 were enjoined to keep. The question, which had occasioned diffi- 
 culty in the church at Antioch, concerned the continued obliga- 
 tion of Jewish legal ceremonies ; and, local parties being unable 
 to reach a unanimous decision on the matter, delegates were 
 appointed to state the case before a meeting of the church at 
 Jerusalem, and obtain an authoritative decision. There are two 
 points in connection with this Council which demand careful 
 
 1 Owen, On the Nature and Government of the Gospel Church, — Works, 
 vol. xvi. 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 23 
 
 investigation, in order that we may sec how far, and in what 
 particulars, it can be legitimately used as illustrative of the 
 Presbyterian principle of subordination in church courts : 1st, 
 The character and composition of the Council ; and 2nd, The 
 kind of obligation attaching to its decrees. A proper under- 
 standing of these two points is indispensable for the purposes of 
 our present discussion. 
 
 (1.) The composition of the Council is indicated by the use of 
 the terms Apostles and Elders as the designations of its members. 
 Independents are accustomed to lay much stress upon the peculiar 
 and special circumstances of the church at Jerusalem at that 
 period. The Apostles were residing there, and, as inspired men, 
 they stood to the church of that day in place of the written 
 revelation of the divine will afterwards given. A church meeting 
 at Jerusalem, in which the Apostles were convened, would be in 
 those days something very different from a meeting of any number 
 of churches elsewhere and without the Apostles' presence. In 
 according a peculiar eminence and weight of authority to the 
 Apostles, Presbyterians and Independents will be found heartily 
 agreed. Admitting the unique claims of the Apostles, no fair- 
 minded and enlightened Presbyterian will claim to find, in a 
 Council with so exceptional a membership, an example and pattern 
 in detail of an ordinary Presbytery or Synod in the modern sense 
 of the term. It is only maintained that here we have a church 
 court, — whatever its peculiar conditions and character may have 
 been, — in which the question referred to it from another church 
 court at Antioch, was taken up and discussed. Some have 
 supposed that the pattern of a subordination of one court under 
 another might be got rid of by maintaining that the church at 
 Antioch voluntarily submitted this particular question to the church 
 at Jerusalem, and that the decision was that simply of umpires 
 whose judgment was accepted in terms of this particular arrange- 
 ment. This view is quite untenable. The acceptance of it would 
 render inexplicable the application of the Council's decrees to 
 other churches (Acts xvi. 4), which had not joined in making 
 
1 24 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 the original reference. If, on the other hand, we consider the 
 account given of the composition of this court, we find the 
 Apostles made specially prominent. That they were endowed 
 with the supernatural gift of inspiration is admitted by all parties 
 in the present discussion. Whether these inspired men exercised 
 their peculiar endowment as members of this Council, is the 
 point in dispute. Milton, in seeking to relieve himself of conclu- 
 sions drawn from the proceedings of this Council, denies that 
 there is any precedent afforded here, and calls its decision 
 an oracular declaration of inspired Apostles. To a candid 
 and impartial reader it must surely appear that the record is 
 carefully framed so as to avoid such an impression. Paul, who 
 was not a whit behind the chief of the Apostles, might have given 
 his decision at once in Antioch if only an oracular apostolic 
 declaration was wanted. And even at Jerusalem, it evidently 
 will not do to say that the Apostles, as inspired men, made pro- 
 posals to the assembled Elders — for inspiration does not propose 
 but authoritatively declares : this would be to subject inspired 
 utterances to discussion, and so to deprive them of their charac- 
 teristic authority. Nor will it do to say, that the apostolic 
 declarations were simply accepted by the Elders, for this would 
 be to make these nominal, and not real, members of the Council. 
 Had the Apostles been acting under the influence of their peculiar 
 inspiration, they would not have gathered the Elders to deliberate, 
 but would have themselves authoritatively issued a decree. To 
 submit the matter to discussion in such a case would be to pre- 
 tend to reach by deliberation what had already been determined 
 by authority. There is certainly no evidence of the use, on the 
 part of the Apostles, of their peculiar prerogative of immediate 
 inspiration, but care is taken, in representing the various stages 
 of the proceedings and the varying current of opinion, to show 
 that the conclusion was reached after mature deliberation and 
 fair discussion. Besides this, we have express notice taken of 
 the active and conspicuous part which one who was a simple 
 Presbyter— an Elder, and not an Apostle — played on this occasion. 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 25 
 
 After Peter had demonstrated the privileges and liberty which 
 belonged to the new dispensation, and so inclined the minds of 
 the assembled Elders that they gave an attentive hearing to the 
 delegates from Antioch, James, the Lord's brother, and not one 
 of the Twelve, formulated the judgment of the court on the 
 matter that had engaged the attention of Apostles and Elders. 
 When James, the Elder, could thus discharge the official duties 
 of president of the Council, it is evident that the Apostles sat 
 there as Elders among their brethren. Some have supposed that 
 not only Apostles and Elders, that is to say, church office-bearers, 
 were members of this Council, but that it comprised the entire 
 membership of the church of Jerusalem. In support of this view 
 some Independent controversialists point to the mention that is 
 made of the brethren alongside of the Apostles and Elders. Now 
 we should observe that in Acts xv. 4, it is said that the delegates 
 Paul and Barnabas, reaching Jerusalem, were received by the 
 church as well as by the Apostles and Elders, and that they 
 stated the occasion of their coming to all of these ; yet at verse 6 
 the consideration of the matter is expressly confined to the 
 Apostles and Elders. The * men and brethren ' of Peter and James 
 (vv. 7, 13) may mean only the Apostles and Elders, but the multi- 
 tude (ver. 12) who listened, in all probability included non-official 
 church members who might listen and gain personal conviction 
 without assuming judicial power. And finally, when it is said 
 (ver. 22), that it pleased the Apostles and Elders, with the whole 
 church, the phraseology employed suggests a distinction between 
 Apostles and Elders as officially issuing a declaration, and the 
 church membership as heartily acquiescing. 
 
 (2.) As to the kind of obligation attaching to the decision of 
 this Council, the language used in issuing it, seems to show that 
 it was authoritative and not merely advisory. The decrees are 
 laid upon the churches, and delivered by the Apostles to church 
 members as precepts which have been ordained for them to keep. 
 The ground of this authority is undoubtedly to be sought in the 
 altogether peculiar powers, and in the universal range of juris- 
 
126 PRESBYTERIAXISM. 
 
 diction belonging to the Apostles. The decrees were laid, not 
 simply upon the church at Antioch, but also upon all the Gentile 
 churches visited by Paul and his companions, because the 
 Apostles who sat in the Council had jurisdiction over all the 
 churches. As universal pastors, the Apostles were representa- 
 tives of the whole church, and therefore the decrees of Councils 
 of which they were members, would have binding obligation 
 over all. Dr. Davidson, while denying that we have in the 
 Council anything like a precedent for church courts in the 
 Presbyterian sense, admits that there is certainly not here an 
 example of a mere consultative or advisory association, such as 
 Modern Independents would favour. Whatever view may be 
 taken of the place and nature of this meeting of Apostles and 
 Elders, there ought to be no dirference of opinion as to the 
 authoritative character of the decrees which were issued. It is 
 true that the particular injunctions had immediate reference to 
 the peculiar moral and social conditions of the age. We must 
 distinguish between the binding obligation of a decree as issued, 
 and the permanent obligation of all the details of that decree. 
 For those to whom it was originally addressed, all the injunc- 
 tions contained in it were obligatory. For those who live under 
 altered circumstances, the principle continues in force, and the 
 application of it to the changed conditions of their lives. 
 
 An interesting commentary on the record of the proceedings 
 of the Council of Jerusalem will be found in Acts xxi. 17-25. This 
 latter passage refers to a period at least eight years subsequent to 
 the meeting of the Council. Paul has again come to Jerusalem, 
 and this time with the knowledge, prophetically communicated 
 to him, that there bonds and imprisonment await him. So soon 
 as he enters the city, the brethren receive him. Not losing any 
 time, a formal meeting is arranged for the following day. James 
 and all the other Elders — Presbyters — are present. Here was 
 evidently a meeting of the Presbytery or Eldership — James 
 being a member, and evidently acting as president. The Mis- 
 sionary Apostle gives his encouraging report, and awakens 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 27 
 
 feelings of devout thankfulness in the hearts of the brethren. 
 But a similar trouble has presented itself in Jerusalem to that 
 which before had shown itself in Antioch. The local church 
 court of Jerusalem must do its duty in taking measures for the 
 peace and wellbeing of its own membership. James calls to 
 remembrance the decrees concerning the Gentiles (ver. 25). These 
 constitute a standing law, and he will not propose anything incon- 
 sistent with them. But a false construction has been put upon 
 Paul's use of these decrees. It is the duty of the Presbytery to 
 interpret its own law, and to endeavour thus to remove occasions 
 of prejudice and misunderstanding. This explaining of a law 
 so as to determine its application in a particular case, is a dis- 
 tinct and characteristic function of Presbytery. 
 
 3. Advantages of Gradation in Church Courts. — The character- 
 istic Presbyterian principle of the gradation of church courts 
 can thus be vindicated on rational and on scriptural grounds. 
 It can further be shown that this principle is also of high 
 practical value. There are at least these two great advantages 
 bound up with this Presbyterian principle of the subordination 
 of church courts, — the individual member is freed from the 
 danger of unjust decisions which might result from local pre- 
 judices, and he is also forcibly reminded that, as a member of 
 any congregation of the church, he is a member of that whole 
 church. These are advantages which belong to Presbyterianism 
 constitutionally as distinguished from Congregationalism. 
 
 (1.) To have an opportunity of appeal from a local court to 
 one representing a wider area, is clearly in the interests of justice 
 to the individual. Any case arising in a small community is 
 in great danger of being prejudged. Office-bearers regularly 
 resident in the district may almost unconsciously have become 
 partisans, or their circumstances may be such as to give this 
 impression to parties in the case. Thus the moral effect of their 
 decision is greatly weakened. The end contemplated is not 
 gained when the party dealt with is allowed to feel that he has 
 
128 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 been made the victim of local prejudices, and that his case has 
 not been tried upon its real merits. In the interests of church 
 discipline, as well as for the preservation of individual rights, it 
 is desirable that an opportunity should be given of appealing to 
 a court not amenable even to the suspicion of personal bias or 
 adverse prepossession. It may be, too, that the particulars of 
 a case may be such, that a satisfactory and convincing judgment 
 can be reached only when the membership of the court engaged 
 in the judgment is fairly representative of the culture and 
 intelligence of the church. Without in the least trenching on the 
 doctrine of Presbyterian Parity, it is evident that there are 
 individual Presbyters throughout the church, whose opinions in 
 regard to particular questions that arise in church courts carry 
 very special weight. There are individual Presbyters — Ministers 
 and Elders — scattered over the several Presbyteries and Synods 
 of our churches, and often appearing in General Assemblies, 
 who have established for themselves a reputation in one or more 
 departments of sacred and ecclesiastical learning, — in church 
 procedure, in doctrinal, critical, or historical questions. They 
 have only single votes like other Presbyters ; yet evidently it is 
 desirable, when any specially important question arises, that an 
 opportunity should be given to those immediately interested to 
 have the deliberate judgment of the greatest number possible of 
 those who have, in those departments, gained a reputation for 
 high acquirements. In the regular ascent of our church courts, 
 then, we have the moral weight of the decision increased, on the 
 one hand, by the removal of all suspicion of the narrowing 
 influence of local prejudices, and, on the other hand, by the 
 inclusion of such men as can speak among their brethren with 
 authority on the matters under review. 
 
 (2.) Scarcely less important than this emancipation from local 
 prejudice, as a result of gradation in church courts, is the impulse 
 thereby given to the fuller appreciation of the idea of the unity 
 of the church. Believers are members one of another. This 
 principle is realized in the smallest Christian fellowship meeting, 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 1 29 
 
 where two or three are gathered together in the one name. It 
 has express recognition given to it in the regularly organized 
 congregation. It is, however, acknowledged by every Christian 
 that the principle applies beyond this limit ; and it is admitted 
 to be only right, that in the very constitution of the church the 
 widest possible expression should be given to this truth. If the 
 actual condition of the church were in accordance with the 
 accepted ideal, the bond of church fellowship would simply be 
 that old apostolic symbol, — one Lord, one faith, one baptism. 
 But in order to realize this comprehensive idea of the church in 
 its unity, it would be necessary that all the churches should 
 have absolutely the same terms of communion, — that the 
 grounds of reception into, and ejection from, one congregation 
 should have the same force in every other. This, however, 
 since the confederation of churches began, has never been 
 completely realized. Wherever any individual, or group of 
 individuals, becomes strongly convinced of the truth and 
 importance of some principle not accepted by or not insisted 
 upon by others, an obligation may arise to maintain a separate 
 position. Romanists insist upon the sovereign authority of the 
 Pope ; Prelatists renounce Papal claims, but maintain the 
 apostolic succession of their own Bishops, or, at least, their 
 exclusive right to rule ; Presbyterians maintain Presbyterian 
 Parity, and the government of the church by representative 
 assemblies ; Congregationalists renounce Presbytery, as well as 
 Popery and Prelacy, and maintain the ultimate ecclesiastical 
 authority of the particular local congregation. Romanists, Pre- 
 latists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, — severally maintain as 
 fundamental certain opinions, which mutually exclude one an- 
 other. 1 Entertaining such diverse views of church government, 
 these churches must remain apart. Christian unity is wider far 
 than any denomination : but the church unity, to which a system 
 of church polity can give expression, refers to the particular body 
 bound together under the same standards. In the earliest times 
 1 Compare Hodge, The Church and its Polity, pp. 92-97. 
 
130 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 necessarily the idea of the union of churches meant the entire 
 company of the believers. Gradually the exigencies of the 
 situation called for the imposition of more definite terms of 
 communion. The idea of the church fixes the conditions of 
 membership. It has been clearly shown by Mr. Hatch, that in 
 the early church there were three successive periods in each 
 of which there appeared, in a regularly advancing form, this 
 doctrine of the unity of the church. 1 In the earliest period, the 
 condition of church fellowship was simply a changed life, — 
 church union here resulting from a common relation to the 
 same ideal and the same hope. In the second period, there 
 was required in addition, the profession of a definite creed, — 
 church unity here was one of common beliefs. In the third 
 period, acceptance of the Catholic Church order, as well as of 
 the Catholic faith and manner of life, was required, — church 
 unity here following upon agreement in regard to organization 
 and from membership in the same external confederation. 
 This last, as comprehending the other two, is that which now 
 alone prevails. It has to be guarded against the chilling 
 influence of mere externalism ; but when thus guarded, it seems 
 alone adequate to the varied and complex conditions of modern 
 church life. It is noticeable, that distinctions in church govern- 
 ment, more than differences in doctrine, have resulted in separate 
 church organizations. What we say of denominational church 
 unity concerns only such distinctions as church constitutions and 
 particular confessions introduce. We say that the Presbyterian 
 Church is one in a sense quite different from that in which we 
 affirm that all true believers — all that hold the Head — are 
 members of the one church of the living God. Practically the 
 bounds of a particular church are determined by subjection to 
 the one supreme court. ' The Presbyterians of Scotland, subject 
 to the same General Assembly, constitute one church ; those 
 subject to another Assembly constitute another.' 2 The idea of 
 
 1 Hatch, Organization of the Early Christian Churches t pp, 182-184. 
 
 2 Hodge, The Church and its Polity, p. 95. 
 
GRADATION OF CHURCH COURTS. 131 
 
 church unity entertained in Prelatical Churches leads to an 
 exaggerated centralization, either in an individual, the Pope, or 
 in a bench of Prelatical Bishops. In Congregationalism, the idea 
 is lost sight of altogether through the exaggerated prominence 
 given to particular and individual rights. The representative 
 principle in Presbyterianism maintains the doctrine of the 
 unity of the church without the surrender of those rights which 
 belong inalienably to the Christian people. The individuals 
 originally concerned in any case, when they claim the judgment 
 of superior courts of the church, are made to realize the place 
 which they occupy in the interest and sympathies of the members 
 of that church to which they belong ; and, at the same time, 
 the members of those courts, as representatives of their church, 
 are reminded of their responsibilities and duties in relation to 
 the most distant and obscure of those, whose burdens they must 
 share, as members of the one body and fellow-members of the 
 same church. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 
 
 1. The Kirk -session, or Congregational Presbytery. — For the 
 model of the Kirk-session of our Presbyterian Churches, we 
 can go back to New Testament times. Owing to the peculiar 
 circumstances of the early church and the condition of con- 
 temporary society, the Presbytery of the Apostolic Age, and of 
 the immediately following centuries, corresponded, as to the 
 functions which it discharged, to the meeting of Kirk-sessicn 
 rather than to the meeting of Presbytery in the modern sense. 
 The function of primitive Presbyters consisted primarily in the 
 exercise of discipline. As a court, the Presbytery of the early 
 Christian ages corresponded to the Jewish synedrion ; held its 
 meetings on week-days, and reviewed, and gave judgment upon, 
 the conduct of those who were members of the church. Just 
 because these were its functions, the primitive Presbytery or 
 meeting of the eldership was long the only regular and uni- 
 versally recognized church court. The exercise of discipline 
 was, among the early Christians, made far more prominent, and 
 the sessions of the court, in which discipline was administered, 
 were far more frequent, than with us. Face to face with pagan 
 corruptions, the Christian brethren were more concerned about 
 the maintaining of a pure life, than the profession of a detailed 
 and elaborate creed. Whether the membership of the court 
 was large or small, whether it embraced the office-bearers of 
 
 132 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 1 33 
 
 several smaller congregations in the one city, or consisted 
 simply in the office-bearers of a single congregation, in either 
 case, it was characteristically a court for the administration of 
 discipline. 
 
 The primitive Presbytery thus affords a singularly accurate 
 model of the Kirk-session of the present day. We may now 
 endeavour briefly to indicate some of the characteristics of this 
 court, as to membership, jurisdiction, and functions. 
 
 (1) Me?nbershifi of the Kirk-session. — The standing of Pres- 
 byter or Elder in connection with that congregation, of which 
 the particular Kirk-session is the regular representative court, 
 is the only condition of membership. The minister of the 
 congregation and all the elders elected and acting in the congre- 
 gation are members of that Kirk-session. The number varies 
 according to the size and requirements of the congregations. 
 The elders should be sufficiently numerous to allow such sub- 
 division of the duties of the office as will permit the discharge 
 of these without undue interference with the lawful worldly 
 calling of individual members. Those elders who are not 
 pastors are officially distinguished by the designation Ruling 
 Elders. This indicates the general function of the court. In 
 the exercise of this function of rule, there is perfect equality 
 among all the members of the Session. ' In all assemblies of 
 the church, Ruling Elders, being thereto rightly called, have 
 power to sit, write, debate, vote, and conclude in all matters that 
 are handled therein.' ■ The only appearance of inequality arises 
 from the confining of the moderatorship to the clerical members 
 of the court. The principle upon which this constitutional rule 
 is based has been already discussed. It need only be said here 
 that executive acts belong only to the minister, and these are pre- 
 cisely the peculiar duties of a Moderator of Session. He formally 
 declares the judgment of the eldership. As president he gains 
 no undue power ; nor is he in a position to veto any legitimate 
 business, for should he decline to convene the Session, or refuse 
 1 Treatise of Ruli?ig Elders and Deaco?is, by James Guthrie, chap. vi. 
 
134 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 to allow discussion on any matter, any member feeling aggrieved 
 may complain to the Presbytery. 
 
 (2) Jurisdiction of the Kirk-session. — The range of authority 
 belonging to an eldership is determined by the bounds of that 
 congregation by which its members have been elected, and to 
 which, as individual communicants, they belong. In primitive 
 times, it would seem that often, if not always, the congregations 
 in one city, whether few or many, had but one eldership, — as, for 
 example, at Jerusalem and Ephesus. The legitimacy of this 
 arrangement was recognized in the Scottish Church of the 
 Reformation. In the Second Book of Discipline, it is declared 
 that though elderships are in particular kirks, yet they exercise 
 the power, authority, and jurisdiction of the kirk. In those times 
 many churches, especially in country districts, could not obtain a 
 complete eldership, and so three or four churches were wont to 
 unite in forming a Session, care being taken to have each con- 
 gregation represented. 1 In any case, the power of any particular 
 eldership was confined to the Christian community from which 
 they had been chosen. The regular and sufficient planting of 
 ministers in parishes, led ultimately to the ranking of Sessions as 
 strictly parochial institutions. The Kirk-session, in respect of 
 jurisdiction, came to be precisely a parochial Presbytery. The 
 whole government of the particular congregation is within the 
 jurisdiction of the Session ; only nothing inconsistent with the 
 accepted constitution of the church can be done in Session, 
 without incurring censure, and reversal or cancelling of its 
 judgment, from a higher court. 
 
 (3) Functions of the Kirk-session. — The general supervision 
 of the congregation, so as to advance in every possible way its 
 spiritual interests, is the official duty of the elders as a body 
 meeting in the Session. The exercise of this spiritual oversight 
 requires that the Session should keep itself informed regarding 
 the membership of the church, by having prepared an accurate 
 communion roll. The duty of revising this roll belongs to the 
 
 1 See Second Book of Discipline, chap. vii. sect. 10. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 135 
 
 Session, which determines all changes upon it, in the way of 
 removals and additions. No individual member can be deprived 
 of membership except by a sessional act. The eldership con- 
 siders whether any member is worthy of censure, and also what 
 the form of that censure is to be : the moderator is then 
 empowered to declare formally the finding of the court, and 
 execute its sentence. It is not in the power of the minister, or of 
 any individual elder, to suspend a member ; but, on his personal 
 responsibility, he may advise. Admission to ordinances is also 
 determined by the eldership, — all the members having the right, 
 as well as the minister, to examine, and satisfy himself of the 
 fitness of any applicant, — enrolment and reception into church 
 fellowship being distinctly a function of the Kirk - session. 
 Although the minister is not under the jurisdiction of his Session, 
 it is yet the Session's duty to see to it that the ordinances of 
 word and sacrament are regularly and fitly dispensed ; and if 
 need be, it may call on the Presbytery to consider the matter. 
 In reference to distribution of church goods, the eldership must 
 see it done justly. 
 
 2. The Deacons' Court. — The Deacons' Court is not to be 
 regarded as a church court in the same sense as Sessions, 
 Presbyteries, and Synods are so called in the Presbyterian 
 Church. For while Presbyters or Elders are members of this 
 court, Presbytership is not the qualification of membership. 
 The Deacons' Court embraces in its membership all the office- 
 bearers of the congregation, — ministers, elders, and deacons. 
 The presence of the minister, however, is not necessary in order 
 to form a quorum. If present, he presides ; if not, any member 
 of the court may be appointed chairman. The functions of the 
 Deacons' Court are properly restricted to the temporal affairs 
 of the church and congregation. In the earliest period of the 
 history of the Reformed Church of Scotland there was no 
 special court of deacons, and in consequence there was con- 
 siderable confusion regarding the functions which deacons 
 
136 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 were supposed to discharge. In the Minutes of the Scottish 
 Assembly of 1562 we find an entry that seems indifferently to 
 require the presence of an elder or a deacon at a Synod meeting : 
 1 The kirk ordains that the superintendents appoint their Synodal 
 Conventions . . . and that they give sufficient advertisements to 
 the particular kirks, that the minister with an elder or deacon 
 may repair toward the place appointed by the superintendents, 
 at the day that shall be fixed by them, to consult upon the 
 common affairs of their diocese.' Again, in the Minutes of the 
 Assembly of 1563, we find deacons similarly joined with ministers 
 and elders. It was ordained that if any person find himself 
 hurt by any sentence given by any ministers, elders, or deacons 
 of the kirk, it shall be lesum (lawful) to the person so hurt to 
 appeal, etc. From these references it is evident that other duties 
 than those connected with the outward affairs of the church were 
 discharged by deacons in the Scottish Church under the First 
 Book of Discipline. It was in the Second Book of Discipline 
 that the duties of deacons were theoretically restricted to distri- 
 bution. This was recognized in an Act of Assembly 17 19, — 
 that deacons, as such, shall have no decisive voice, either in the 
 calling of ministers, or in the exercise of church discipline. In 
 those Presbyterian Churches of the present day where the 
 deaconship is maintained in efficiency, the functions of the 
 Deacons' Court are clearly defined so as to exclude all reference 
 to discipline. In the Practice of the Free Church of Scotland 
 this is specially emphasized. The court is not authorized to 
 exercise any kind of spiritual rule, and has no power of discipline 
 even over its own members. As a congregational court, however, 
 the Deacons' Court has a distinct jurisdiction upon which the 
 Session cannot intrude. Equally with the Session it is under 
 immediate jurisdiction of the Presbytery — this, however, being 
 ordinarily restricted to the review and annual investigation of 
 the record and accounts of the court. 
 
 3. The Presbytery.— As a church court the Presbytery may b© 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 1 37 
 
 regarded as the unit in the Presbyterian system. Here the 
 representative principle which distinguishes Presbyterianism 
 from all other forms of church government, is first practically 
 applied. The constitution of the Kirk-session, indeed, involves 
 the representation of the membership of the church by means of 
 elected office-bearers ; but, unless the representative idea were 
 developed in the regular succession of superior courts, members 
 of the congregational Session would be little more than the dele- 
 gates of those electing them, and the status of representatives 
 would not be maintained. In the Presbytery the principle of 
 representation is applied, not simply to the congregational 
 membership, but also to the congregational eldership. Every 
 congregational Session is represented in the local Presbytery 
 according to an arrangement determined by the constitution. 
 The bounds of a Presbytery are fixed simply by considerations 
 of convenience. A district is marked out of such dimensions as 
 will allow Presbyters residing within it to convene as often as 
 required at one stated place. Thus, a city or a large town, like 
 Glasgow or Greenock, will be regarded as the Presbytery seat, 
 and will give its name to the Presbytery, and surrounding 
 parishes, which have most ready access to such a centre, will be 
 embraced within the bounds of that Presbytery. Hence the 
 limits of a Presbytery are quite variable. Circumstances may 
 be such as to demand or render advisable the division of one 
 Presbytery into two or more. Thus, in the Church of Scotland 
 previous to 1707, there was only one Presbytery in Orkney, but 
 in that year the Assembly divided the Orkney Presbytery into 
 two — the Presbytery of Kirkwall and the Presbytery of the 
 North Isles ; while still later, in 1725, a further subdivision was 
 made and three Presbyteries formed, called respectively the 
 Presbyteries of Kirkwall, of Cairston, and of the North Isles. 
 Again, in 1830, the Shetland Presbytery was divided into two. 
 And now in the Free Church of Scotland there is but one 
 Presbytery of Orkney, and one Presbytery of Shetland, as in the 
 earlier period. Besides such changes affecting the number of 
 
138 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Presbyteries, applications may be made for having a particular 
 charge separated from one Presbytery and annexed to another. 
 And inasmuch as physical conditions and local circumstances 
 generally determine the boundaries of Presbyteries, the area and 
 membership of these courts vary greatly even in the same church. 
 In the Free Church of Scotland, for example, we have the 
 Presbytery of I slay embracing five regular charges, and that of 
 Glasgow embracing ninety. 
 
 The membership of the Presbytery consists of all the ministers 
 of full and regular charges within the district, together with a 
 representative ruling elder for each congregational Session. The 
 evident principle which determines this arrangement is the 
 securing equal representation of the two different orders of 
 Presbyters. In ordinary circumstances there is but one minister 
 over each congregation, and when matters are in this normal 
 condition throughout a Presbytery, its membership is equally 
 divided between teaching and ruling elders. Then the moderator 
 being, for reasons which we have already stated, chosen from the 
 clerical members, a voting majority may be given to the ruling 
 elders. Thus in a Presbytery of six charges, there will be six 
 ruling elders, and five clerical members, with the moderator, who 
 has no deliberative vote. This decided advantage on the side of 
 non-clerical members ought to be noted. Where, however, any 
 minister, on account of age and infirmity, has had granted him a 
 colleague and successor, so long as both are associated in 
 ministerial work in the congregation, both have seats in the 
 Presbytery. This increases the proportion of the clerical mem- 
 bership, and when regard is had to the whole church may be 
 held as counterbalancing the excess of non-clerical membership 
 just referred to. From a comparison of the reports for several 
 years, it appears that in the Free Church of Scotland, for example, 
 the average number of colleagueships is just about equal to the 
 number of Presbyteries. Hence even the admission of all the 
 colleagues to the membership of their Presbyteries need not be 
 regarded as disturbing the equilibrium of lay and clerical repre- 
 
FUISXTIOXS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 139 
 
 scntation. In addition to this, when a theological seminary 
 belonging to the church is situated within the bounds of a 
 Presbytery, the professors, as ordained ministers, are mem- 
 bers of that Presbytery. Whatever temporary inequality the 
 presence of colleague ministers and professors of theology may 
 occasion is righted, so far as the particular Presbytery is 
 concerned, by means of the principle of equal representation 
 of ministers and elders carried out in the composition of the 
 supreme court according to the practice of most Presbyterian 
 Churches. 
 
 The mode of conducting meetings of Presbytery has varied 
 from time to time. In the earlier periods of the Scottish 
 Reformed Church, and during the reign of English Puritanism, 
 the meetings of Presbytery were largely utilized for purposes of 
 practical religion, for doctrinal discussion, and study of the 
 Scriptures. Several Acts of Assembly of the Scottish Church, 
 as, for example, those of 1598 and 1638, ordain weekly meetings 
 of Presbytery, all absentees incurring censure, and enjoin par- 
 ticularly that some ( common head of religion' (Act of 1598), or 
 1 some controverted head of doctrine ' (Act of 1638), be handled 
 in e'very Presbytery publicly, and disputed among the brethren, 
 at the first meeting of the month. It was recommended seriously 
 to all the Presbyteries within the church (Act of Assembly 1694), 
 to set up the use of the exercise and addition, that is, an exposi- 
 tion of Scripture with an extended application. This had been 
 the practice of the Scottish Church in the earliest years of the 
 Reformation. ' There was a meeting,' says Dr. M'Crie, speaking 
 of the forms of church government under Knox, ' called the 
 weekly exercise, or prophesying, held in every considerable town, 
 consisting of the ministers, exhorters, and learned men in the 
 vicinity, for expounding the Scriptures. This was afterwards 
 converted into the Presbytery, or classical assembly.' Even 
 after the Presbyteries had been constituted in regular manner, 
 this exercise, as the references just made to Acts of Assembly 
 show, continued to occupy a prominent place in their proceed- 
 
1 40 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 ings. Among the English Puritans these exercises were zealously 
 observed until forcibly stopped by Elizabeth. At present the 
 general practice is to open meetings of Presbytery with a full 
 devotional service of praise, reading of the Scriptures, and 
 prayer. In many Presbyteries it is the custom to devote the 
 first hour of meeting to such devotional exercises. 
 
 The functions of the Presbytery are most conveniently grouped 
 under a threefold division. 1 (1) There are certain functions 
 which have their original source in the action of the Presbytery. 
 These principally refer to the granting of licence and ordination. 
 It will be seen that this covers a very large field of operations. 
 The duties involved in the granting of licences to preach 
 embrace the superintendence of students and their periodical 
 examination during their preparatory course of training, inquiry 
 as to the regularity and completeness of that course, and finally, 
 the trial of their general fitness for the office of the ministry. In 
 regard to ordination, again, the functions of the Presbytery are 
 yet more extensive. The Presbytery is specially charged with 
 the oversight of vacant congregations ; appoints one of its 
 clerical members Moderator of Session during the vacancy, and, 
 in a manner varying in details according to the special circum- 
 stances of different denominations, makes arrangements so as to 
 further the orderly settlement of a regular pastor. Then so soon 
 as a probationer, one who has received Presbyterial licence, is 
 presented as under call to the vacant charge, the Presbytery, 
 having satisfied itself as to the regularity of the call, proceeds to 
 take him on trial for ordination. These trials involve the produc- 
 tion of evidence as to his previous licensure, and the undergoing 
 of any further examination which the Presbytery may regard as 
 necessary to prove his fitness for that special work to which he 
 is called. Further, all the formal acts in announcing to the con- 
 gregation interested the steps that are being taken, are Presby- 
 terial functions. In the discharge of these duties all members of 
 Presbytery share, except that the serving of edicts, as being 
 1 The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland % chap. ii. Part II. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 141 
 
 done at the regular diets of public worship, can only be executed 
 by a minister. The act of ordination, however, as solemn 
 admission to the ministerial order, belongs exclusively to the 
 clerical members of the Presbytery. And further, inasmuch as 
 the Presbytery gives licence and ordination, it is the function of 
 this court to consider when it may be necessary to deprive any 
 individual or suspend him from the exercise of the privileges 
 which it had originally granted. (2) An important department 
 of Presbyterial work is that involved in the superintendence and 
 review of courts under its jurisdiction. * All Presbyteries/ says 
 an Act of Assembly 1700, ' are required to be careful in revising 
 the registers of the judicatures under their immediate inspection.' 
 Upon any occasion the Presbytery may demand the production 
 of the records of Kirk-sessions within the bounds. It is custo- 
 mary to call for these records once a year, immediately before the 
 meeting of the Provincial Synod preceding the meeting of the 
 General Assembly. This rule of an annual inspection of Session 
 records in the Scottish Church dates from the period of the 
 second Reformation. An Act of Assembly 1639 enjoins that the 
 Session books of every parish be presented once a year to the 
 Presbyteries, that they may be tried by them. The Presbytery 
 judges whether the inferior court has kept within its province in 
 the particular business which it has undertaken, and whether its 
 decisions and course of procedure have been according to the 
 laws of the church. In connection with the procedure or 
 interests of congregational Sessions, the Presbytery has to deal 
 with references and appeals. Complaints against the action of 
 the [Moderator of a Session can only be made to the Presbytery. 
 Such complaints may come from the Session, from individual 
 elders, or from simple members of the congregation, and must be 
 made in the form of a petition. A particular Kirk-session, having 
 exhauste3Tfs~pmvers in any case, may refer that case siinpliciter 
 to the Presbytery. And in certain circumstances Kirk-sessions 
 are enjoined by the law of the church to take no action, but to 
 refer the matter at once to the superior judicatory. In the 
 
142 . PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 exercise of this function of review, one of the grand recom- 
 mendations of the Presbyterian system comes into light. The 
 Presbytery affords opportunity to all under its jurisdiction who 
 feel aggrieved by any local action or neglect, to secure satisfac- 
 tion through a patient examination of their case before a com- 
 petent judicial body. (3) The Presbytery has, further, certain 
 functions to discharge in consequence of its relations to the 
 Synod and Assembly as superior courts. Just as the Kirk- 
 sessions are required annually to submit their records to the 
 Presbytery under which they are, the Presbyteries are required 
 to submit their records to the inspection and judgment of the 
 Synod to which they belong. The powers of the Synod in regard 
 to the Presbytery books are precisely the same as those of the 
 Presbytery over the Session books. Errors in procedure, whether 
 in reference to method, or in reference to the subjects dealt 
 with, on the part of the Presbyteries, may be corrected, and the 
 parties reprimanded by the Synod, which exercises toward Pres- 
 byteries all the functions of a court of review. Consequently due 
 care must be taken by each Presbytery that an accurate copy of 
 its proceedings be regularly kept. Further also, appeals and 
 references may be made from the Presbytery to the Synod just 
 as by Kirk-sessions to the Presbytery. In the case of one 
 Presbytery feeling aggrieved by the action of another Presbytery, 
 relief can only be had by complaint lodged before the Synod 
 which has jurisdiction over the Presbytery charged with the 
 offence. The Presbytery also may make a direct proposal to 
 the General Assembly in regard to legislation, indicating the 
 importance of some modification of any law, or urging the 
 desirability of passing some new enactment. This is done by 
 transmitting the proposal as an overture to the General Assembly. 
 On the other hand, the Presbytery may be required to express an 
 opinion on some proposal originating in the Assembly, which has 
 been transmitted in the form of an overture to the Presbytery. 
 According to the Barrier Act passed in 1697, no proposal of the 
 General Assembly can be passed into a binding law of the 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 1 43 
 
 church until the consent of a majority of Presbyteries has been 
 secured in response to the overtures sent down. 
 
 The relation which the Presbytery bears to the more compre- 
 hensive courts, Synod and Assembly, is the occasion of many of 
 the express enactments of the constitution, which form practical 
 restrictions upon the exercise of Presbyterial powers. Thus a 
 single Presbytery independent of all other Presbyteries might 
 make any sort of conditions in granting licence ; might require 
 or dispense with a university curriculum ; might require a two, or 
 a three, or a four years' theological course. But the constitu- 
 tion of each denomination lays down certain conditions to be 
 observed uniformly by all the Presbyteries. Such licence forms 
 a main qualification for ordination. The licentiate admitted 
 by ordination to a seat in any Presbytery becomes thereby a 
 member of Synod, with consequent jurisdiction over the other 
 Presbyteries forming that Synod. Licensing and ordaining, 
 therefore, are matters that affect not a single Presbytery but 
 other Presbyteries ; and hence by terms of association a restric- 
 tion is put upon the inherent powers of each Presbytery. The 
 constitution is not a grant of powers to the church courts, but a 
 restriction of powers. 
 
 All Presbyterial functions which can be discharged by the joint 
 action of members of a Presbytery are performed by all the mem- 
 bers of that court, whether ministers or ruling elders, except such 
 acts as are competent only to those who hold the ministerial 
 office. We have already shown that the moderator of Presbytery 
 is properly chosen from among the clerical members, inasmuch 
 as they only have the executive power. The one main exception 
 to the full equality in the Presbytery of ruling elders and ministers 
 lies in the matter of ordination. It is most certainly the true 
 theory of Presbyterianism, that only ministerial members of 
 Presbytery take part in the act of ordaining to the office of the 
 ministry. Ordination, says the Directory, is the act of a Presby- 
 tery. The power of ordering the whole work of ordination is in 
 the whole Presbytery. This is enacted to prevent single congrega- 
 
144 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 tions taking upon them such duties. All members of Presbytery 
 engage in ordering and managing the ordination, but the act 
 itself belongs only to those members who have themselves had 
 the like ordination, and are in possession of that office to which 
 the ordination admits. ' Every minister of the word is to be 
 ordained by imposition of hands, and prayer, with fasting, by those 
 preaching Presbyters to whom it doth belong.' ' Preaching Pres- 
 byters orderly associated, either in cities or neighbouring villages, 
 are those to whom the imposition of hands doth appertain, for 
 those congregations within their bounds respectively.' When 
 elsewhere in the Directory members of Presbytery are spoken of 
 in connection with ordination, it is evident that only ministers are 
 intended. The idea that ruling elders should take part in the 
 ordination of ministers is quite inconsistent with Presbyterian 
 principles and practice. ' If ordination,' says Dr. Hodge, ' were 
 merely induction into the order of Presbyters, from which some 
 members, by a subsequent process, were selected to preach, and 
 others to rule, then the service might from its nature belong to 
 all Presbyters ; but as beyond dispute ordination is an induction 
 into a particular office, it cannot, according to our constitution, 
 belong to any who do not hold that office.' 1 If the right to 
 preach the word belongs to ministers, so also does the right to 
 ordain to the office of preacher belong only to them. The power 
 to ordain really belongs to every minister who has been ordained, 
 only, on the principle referred to in the preceding paragraph, 
 ministers as members of Presbytery under a constitution have 
 agreed not to exercise that power, except in an orderly way by 
 Presbyterial co-action. 
 
 4. The Provincial Synod. — In all essential respects, the Synods 
 of the Scottish Churches, Established and Free, maybe described 
 as larger Presbyteries. A Provincial Synod embraces a greater 
 or less number of Presbyteries, and its membership is simply 
 made up of all the members of those Presbyteries, both ministers 
 1 The Church and its Polity, p. 291. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. I45 
 
 and elders, together with a minister and elder as corresponding 
 members, from one or more neighbouring Synods, commissioned 
 to represent such court or courts. In both the Scottish Churches 
 just named there are sixteen Provincial Synods. These, like 
 the Presbyteries, vary greatly in their dimensions. In the Free 
 Church, the Synods of Glasgow and Aberdeen have each eight 
 Presbyteries included ; while some have only three ; and Orkney 
 and Shetland Presbyteries, owing to their insular positions, are 
 both invested with Synodical powers. The Synod of Glasgow 
 and Ayr embraces 244 ministerial charges : the Synod of Gallo- 
 way only 26. In the earliest period of the Scottish Reformation 
 Provincial Synods were held twice a year under the presidency 
 of the superintendent of the district. The order of Provincial 
 Synods in Scotland presently followed was originally fixed by an 
 Act of Assembly in 1638, when the number was settled at sixteen, 
 though the distribution of Presbyteries was then somewhat differ- 
 ent from the present. The intention and main use of this institu- 
 tion is to form a connecting link between Presbyteries in a large 
 church and the supreme court. In consequence of this intermedi- 
 ary position, the functions of the Synod are comparatively narrow 
 in range. It is mainly a court of review, and so is principally 
 occupied with the examination of the books of Presbyteries 
 within its jurisdiction, with the consideration of complaints, 
 appeals, or references from the Presbyteries, and the summarizing 
 of reports on Sabbath schools, on the state of religion and 
 morals, etc., from materials afforded by the inferior courts. In 
 the exercise of the same right as that possessed by Presbyteries, 
 the Synod can approach the supreme court on any subject by 
 means of an overture. Such a proposal must be formally sub- 
 mitted to the Synod, and when supported by a majority in the 
 Synod is transmitted to the Assembly. The Synod is directly 
 responsible to, and under the immediate jurisdiction of, the General 
 Assembly. The record of the Synod's proceedings must be 
 produced before the Assembly, and is dealt with just as the Pres- 
 bytery's record is dealt with by the Synod. In the exercise of 
 
146 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 discipline, besides entering upon all cases of complaint, appeal, 
 and reference from Presbyteries, the Synod may call the attention 
 of a Presbytery to any matter which it should deal with, and 
 enjoin the Presbytery to institute proceedings. 
 
 5. The General Assembly. — The General Assembly is the highest 
 court in the Presbyterian Church, and is representative of the 
 whole church whose name it bears. Whatever powers, therefore, 
 are inherent in the church must also be inherent in the Assembly 
 as the supreme court. Its proceedings, however, are regulated 
 by the accepted constitution of the church, by which the rights of 
 all inferior courts are preserved. It is concerned directly with 
 the affairs of the entire denomination, and hence it determines 
 the number, bounds, and designations of all Presbyteries and 
 Synods under its jurisdiction. Then, just as the Presbytery 
 reviews the proceedings of Kirk-sessions within its bounds, and 
 Synods review the decisions and transactions of Presbyteries 
 within their provinces, so also the General Assembly reviews the 
 proceedings and examines the records of Provincial Synods. 
 All complaints, appeals, and references from Synods come before 
 the Assembly. The functions of the supreme court of the church 
 are well stated in the Second Book of Discipline (chap. vii. § 22) : 
 1 This Assembly is instituted that all things omitted, or done 
 amiss, in the provincial assemblies, maybe redressed and handled; 
 and things generally serving for the weal of the whole body of 
 the kirk within the realm may be foreseen, intreated, and set 
 forth to God's glory.' 
 
 The General Assembly is representative of the whole church. 
 All the Presbyters of the church are not members of Assembly, 
 but all are represented there. In the Kirk-session all the elders 
 of the congregation are members ; in the Presbyteries all the 
 Kirk-sessions are represented by a minister and elder ; in the 
 Provincial Synods the Presbyteries are not represented but 
 embraced ; and in the Assembly. Presbyteries are not embraced, 
 but are all represented. The constitutions of Presbyteries and 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 147 
 
 Synods arc exactly the same, but in the constitution of the 
 General Assembly the representative principle reaches another 
 stage of development. Presbyteries and Synods represent the 
 Kirk-sessions ; the General Assembly represents the Presbyteries. 
 In the Kirk-session there is only one minister and several elders, 
 and the representation is one minister and one elder ; and in the 
 Presbytery, where both orders of Presbyters are present in equal 
 numbers, the same principle of equal proportion in representa- 
 tives for the Assembly ought to be maintained. This equality of 
 representation to both ministers and elders is not observed in all 
 Presbyterian Churches. The Established Church of Scotland, 
 for example, following the long accepted practice of the Scottish 
 Church, admits a much smaller number of elders than of ministers 
 to her supreme court. An Act of Assembly 1694 seems to deter- 
 mine the principle which in its main features has been followed 
 ever since. All Presbyteries consisting of twelve parishes or 
 under shall send two ministers and one elder; those above twelve 
 and not over eighteen shall send three ministers and one elder ; 
 those above eighteen and not over twenty-four shall send four 
 ministers and two elders ; those above twenty-four shall send five 
 ministers and two elders ; and (added by an Act of 171 2) those 
 over thirty shall send six ministers and three elders. So far as 
 Presbyterial representation is concerned, this allows considerably 
 under one-half to elders as compared with ministers. In addition, 
 sixty-seven elders are elected by Town Councils to represent the 
 Royal Burghs of Scotland, and each Scottish University may 
 send a representative. Dr. Hill gives the following abstract of 
 an actual Roll of one Assembly as a specimen of the general 
 scale of representation : Two hundred ministers representing 
 Presbyteries, eighty-nine elders representing Presbyteries, sixty- 
 seven elders representing Royal Burghs, and five ministers or elders 
 representing Universities. According to a report of statistics 
 presented to the Presbyterian Council at Philadelphia in 1880, 
 the General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland 
 then consisted of 247 ministers and 178 elders, chosen precisely 
 
1 48 PRESBYTERI ANISM, 
 
 according to the plan above indicated. Writing at the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, Steuart of Pardovan says, — ' Our 
 practice would be more easily accounted for, if delegations were 
 only from Presbyteries, and the delegates equally both of ministers 
 and elders.' In the Free Church of Scotland the true Presbyterian 
 theory of representation is consistently carried out. One-third of 
 the membership of every Presbytery constitutes the membership 
 of the General Assembly ; and this applies to ministers and 
 elders alike. In a Presbytery of six charges, for example, two 
 ministers and two elders are sent as representatives. If there be 
 seven charges or seven ministerial members in a Presbytery, then 
 every third year three ministers and three elders will be sent. 
 The election of members belongs only to Presbyteries ; and this 
 undoubtedly is the only method that accords with the ideal of 
 Presbyterian Church government. The Roll of the Free Church 
 Assembly for 1882 contained the names of 372 ministers and 372 
 elders. The presence of colleague ministers in Presbyteries does 
 not disturb this equality of ministers and elders in the Assembly. 
 If a Presbytery of six ministerial charges had three colleague- 
 ships, giving nine clerical members and only six elders ; still the 
 representation would be three ministers and three elders. Should 
 it be impossible to secure all or any of the representative elders 
 from the eldership of the local Presbytery, these may be chosen 
 from other Presbyteries of the church. The General Assembly 
 of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland is not representative, so 
 far as the clerical membership is concerned, but embraces all the 
 ordained ministers of the church. It is only distinguished from 
 the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church, and the Synod 
 of the Presbyterian Church of England, by having Provincial 
 Synods under it. In the Presbyterian Churches of America the 
 principle of equal representation of ministers and elders in their 
 supreme courts seems to be generally observed. 
 
 The thoroughly representative character of the General Assembly 
 renders it less permanent as to its membership than any of the 
 other church courts. The clerical membership of a Presbytery 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 149 
 
 may continue for years unaltered, but in the Assembly the clerical 
 as well as the lay element varies from year to year. As the 
 supreme court, its decisions cannot be appealed against, and yet 
 evidently all its decisions cannot have the impress of absolute 
 finality, nor can one Assembly be expected to endorse all the 
 views of previous Assemblies. It seems correct, however, to 
 maintain that all judicial decisions of the Assembly are irre- 
 versible. Thus, if one Assembly, taking into consideration some 
 appeal, empowers a Presbytery, if satisfied as to the advisability 
 of the procedure, to come to a certain resolution ; if that Presby- 
 tery passes that resolution, and a minority complains of this to 
 the Assembly, the former decision of Assembly empowering the 
 Presbytery to come to such a finding will finally bar the way 
 against entertaining any such appeal. If one Assembly suspends 
 any minister in the exercise of discipline, another Assembly 
 cannot rescind this decision, but may judge whether the ends of 
 discipline have been attained by the length of suspension already 
 endured. Yet one Assembly is not bound by the precedents of 
 former Assemblies. The Assembly of 1883 cannot review the 
 decisions of the Assembly of 1882, but in a case similar to one 
 of the previous year, it may reach a conclusion diametrically 
 opposite. As to the binding force of the Assembly's decisions, so 
 long as they do not contravene any principle of the constitution 
 and are not inconsistent with God's word, — that is, so long as 
 they keep within the limits of the power belonging to the church, — 
 they are to be regarded as bearing authority over all the church ; 
 but these, in so far as they are resolutions and rules, and not 
 judicial findings, may be superseded by the enactments of another 
 Assembly. If any measure is proposed which may in any way 
 affect the constitution, whether by addition, or by subtraction, or 
 by modification of any other kind, it is not within the jurisdiction 
 of the Assembly to pass it into law. The Barrier Act, as already 
 referred to, comes into operation, and the proposal can be given 
 effect to only after a favourable return from the Presbyteries has 
 been received. 
 
150 PRESBYTERIANISM. 
 
 Thus the truly liberal characteristics of Presbyterianism appear 
 in the jealous care with which the rights of the people are guarded 
 at every turn. The constitution has been so framed that no 
 arbitrary decisions can be enforced, no party proposal hastily 
 carried, before the mind of the church has been prepared for its 
 hearty and intelligent acceptance. From court to court measures 
 progress and ripen, — the opinion of the church is at once sought 
 and enlightened, — and all the advantages of a popular and con- 
 stitutional government are secured. The intelligent Protestant, 
 ardent in his love of civil and religious liberty, need not be 
 ashamed to own and acknowledge the Presbyterian form of 
 church government by Kirk- sessions, Presbyteries, Provincial 
 Synods, and General Assemblies. 
 
 In the Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain, North America, 
 and the British Colonies, the general principles illustrated in this 
 treatise are carried out in all essential respects. When we turn, 
 however, to the Continent of Europe, we find a considerable 
 number of smaller religious societies, exhibiting more or less 
 perfectly the characteristics of Presbyterian Churches. Leaving 
 out of account the Lutheran communities, which, notwithstand- 
 ing certain approximations to a Presbyterian constitution, have 
 yet certain elements in their polity altogether inconsistent with 
 the genius of Presbyterianism, we may fairly claim the Reformed 
 Continental Churches as examples of imperfectly developed Pres- 
 byterian Churches. Some of these, so far as the letter of their 
 constitution is concerned, approach very near that model of 
 ecclesiastical polity which we have endeavoured to sketch. The 
 Reformed Churches of Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary, are 
 only prevented by the restrictions of the Austrian State from 
 carrying out the principles of Presbyterianism in all their fulness. 
 Even as it is, these churches have their Kirk-sessions, Presby- 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVERAL CHURCH COURTS. 151 
 
 teries, and Synods, and the want of decisive authority in their 
 enactments is occasioned simply by the refusal of the State 
 to grant autonomy to the Reformed Church in any substantial 
 form. The Reformed Church in Germany suffers similarly from 
 the jealous interference of the State, which insists upon appoint- 
 ing the members of the consistories. In France, the Reformed 
 Church in connection with the State is in the same way hampered 
 by State control ; whereas the numerous small evangelical societies 
 separate from, the State, now brought together in the Union of 
 the Evangelical Churches of France, have adopted a Synodal- 
 Presbyterian constitution. In these different societies under the 
 Union the practice is not yet uniform ; some, however, have 
 regularly constituted Sessions, and recognize the offices of elders 
 and deacons, and expressly state that the government of the 
 church is vested in the Presbyteries and General Assembly. 
 Very imperfect in constitution is the young native Protestant 
 Church of Italy — called the Free Italian Church. It has neither 
 Presbytery nor Synod, but has an Assembly composed of deputies 
 from the various churches, and has the regular office-bearers of a 
 Presbyterian Church, — minister, elders, and deacons.- There are 
 thus the materials present for the regular constitution of Presby- 
 terian Church courts as soon as the growth of the church may 
 render their establishment necessary. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Angel of the churches, Meaning of 
 
 the term, 76. 
 Apostolic office temporary, 77. 
 Apostolic succession, No Scripture 
 
 ground for, 72. 
 Assembly, General, 146. 
 Assembly, A representative court, 146. 
 Authoritative decisions in church 
 
 courts, 125. 
 
 Barrier Act, 142, 149. 
 
 Bishops not successors of the Apostles, 
 
 72. 
 Bishops and Presbyters in the New 
 
 Testament the same, 74. 
 Bishops and Presbyters in the Early 
 
 Church, 83. 
 
 Calvin's constitution of elderships, 
 
 57- 
 Calvin's theory of the ruling eldership, 
 
 47. 
 
 Calvinism not peculiar to Presby- 
 terianism, 3. 
 
 Characteristics of Presbyterianism, 4. 
 
 Church, Presbyterian idea of, 15. 
 
 Church Courts, Idea of, 103 ; functions 
 common to all members of, no ; 
 presidency of, 113 ; Scripture ex- 
 amples of, 122 ; authoritative de- 
 cisions of, 125. 
 
 Clergy and Laity distinguished, 24. 
 
 Clerical orders, Undue stress laid 
 upon, 27. 
 
 Congregationalism as a form of churcn 
 government, 1, 3. 
 
 Consistorial system in France, 59. 
 
 Consistory an imperfect Kirk-session, 
 55- 
 
 Continental Reformed Churches, 150. 
 Council of Jerusalem, 122. 
 Courts of review, 120, 127. 
 Culdees had only Presbyter Bishops, 
 
 85. 
 Cyprian's sacerdotal view of the 
 ministry, 69. 
 
 Deacons, Duties of, 94 ; qualifica- 
 tions of, 95 ; ordination of, 98 ; in 
 the history of the church, 100. 
 
 Deacons' duties in the Early Church, 
 100. 
 
 Deacons in relation to matters of 
 discipline, 101, note. 
 
 Deacons' Court, Constitution of, 135. 
 
 Deaconship, Origin of the, 90. 
 
 Dichotomy of church offices, 35. 
 
 Distribution the function of Deacons, 
 
 97- 
 Divine Right. In what sense claimed 
 
 for Presbytery, 8. 
 Doctrinal types. How related to 
 
 forms of Church Polity, 6. 
 
 Elder. See Ruling Elder. 
 Elderships, Advantages of, 51 ; as 
 
 constituted by Calvin, 57 ; in the 
 
 Reformed Church of Scotland, 59. 
 Erastian view of eldership, 62. 
 Executive functions of church courts, 
 
 103. 
 Extraordinary offices in the church, 
 
 33- 
 
 Finality of General Assembly' 
 
 decisions, 149. 
 Forms of Church Polity, Various, 1. 
 France, Reformed Church of, 151. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 *53 
 
 Free Italian Church, 151. 
 Functions of church courts, 103. 
 
 GERMANY, Reformed Church of, 151. 
 
 Gifts and church office, 20. 
 
 Gifts, Prevalence of, in Early Church, 
 
 43- 
 
 Government, the function of Presby- 
 ters, 41. 
 
 Grace not conferred by ordination, 
 
 3 2 - 
 Gradation, Principle of, in church 
 
 courts, 119. 
 Gradation, Advantages of, 127, 150. 
 
 IMPERFECT Presbyterian Church con- 
 stitutions, 150. 
 Independents, Church Polity of, 3. 
 Italian Free Church, 151. 
 
 Jerusalem, Council of, 122. 
 Judicial functions of church courts, 
 
 103. 
 Jurisdiction of church courts, 105. 
 Jus Divinum, 8. 
 
 Kirk-session, Meeting of, 132; mem- 
 bership of, 133 ; jurisdiction of, 
 134 ; functions of, 134. 
 
 Laity and Clergy distinguished, 24. 
 Laying on of hands, 29 ; how regarded 
 
 by Knox, 33 ; by the Westminster 
 
 divines, 33. 
 Layman? Is the Ruling Elder a, 47. 
 Legislative functions of church courts, 
 
 103. 
 Literature of Presbyterianism, 10. 
 Luther on the rights of the Christian 
 
 people, 54. 
 
 Members of the church, Rights of 
 the, 107. 
 
 Methodists, Church government of 
 the, 2. 
 
 Ministerial character of the Presbyter's 
 office, 68. 
 
 Ministerial office in the history of the 
 church, 82. 
 
 Montanism as an anti-hierarchical re- 
 action, 26. 
 
 Names given to Ruling Office in the 
 New Testament, 45. 
 
 Office, Idea of, in the Presbyterian 
 Church, 20. 
 
 Offices in the Presbyterian Church, 33. 
 Order, Ideas of, in Early Church, 23. 
 Orders, Undue stress laid upon, 27. 
 Ordination, Significance of, 29 ; words 
 
 used to express, 31 ; of Deacons, 
 
 98 ; to the ministerial office, 81 ; an 
 
 act of Presbytery, 143. 
 Overtures to General Assembly, 142, 
 
 145 ; to Presbyteries, 142. 
 
 Parity of clergy, 7, 78 ; importance 
 of, in Scottish Reformed Church, 
 
 Preacher, Office of, recognized, 65. 
 
 Preacher's office, Reformers' view of, 
 86. 
 
 Prelatical Bishops not successors of 
 Apostles, 72 ; Timothy and Titus 
 not, 75. ^ 
 
 Presbyter in Early Church, 53. 
 
 Presbyters, Teaching and Ruling, dis- 
 tinguished, 40. 
 
 Presbyterianism a form of church 
 government, 4. 
 
 Presbytery, Court of the, 136 ; mem- 
 bership of the, 137 ; functions oi 
 the, 140. 
 
 Presidency of church courts, 113. 
 
 Pressense' on development of Preacher's 
 office, 66, note. 
 
 Puritans, Eldership among the, 61. 
 
 Reformed Church of Bohemia, etc., 
 150. 
 
 Reformed Church of Germany, 151 ; 
 of France, 151. 
 
 Reformers' views of the Preacher's 
 office, 86. 
 
 Representation, Principle of, in 
 General Assembly, 146. 
 
 Review, Courts of, 120, 127 ; Inde- 
 pendents' objections to, 120 ; Scrip- 
 ture examples of, 122. 
 
 Ruling Elder in Presbyterian Church, 
 8 ; Scripture proof for, 37 ; already 
 in Synagogue, 38 ; distinguished 
 from Teachers, 40 ; duties of the, 49. 
 
 Ruling Eldership, Theories of the, 47 ; 
 in the history of the church, 52. 
 
 Sacerdotal, Preacher's office not, 
 68. 
 
 Sacerdotalism, No trace of, in New 
 Testament, 71. 
 
 Scripture proof for Presbyterian office- 
 bearers, 34 ; ruling eldership, 37. 
 
 Session. See Kirk-session. 
 
154 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Succession, Apostolic, indefensible, 
 
 72 ; earliest trace in Tertullian and 
 
 Irenocus, 73. 
 Superintendents in Scottish Reformed 
 
 Church not Prelates, 88. 
 Synagogue arrangements adopted in 
 
 Apostolic Church, 38. 
 Synods, Provincial, 144. 
 
 Trichotomy of church offices, 35. 
 
 Union of Evangelical Churches of 
 France, 151, 
 
 Unity of church maintained by 
 Presbyterianism, 8 ; rendered pro- 
 minent by gradation of courts, 
 128. 
 
 Westminster Assembly on the 
 ruling eldership, 62 ; on ordina- 
 tion to office, 33. 
 
 Women discharging Deacons' duties 
 96. 
 
 ' Young men ' of Acts v., Relation of 
 to first Deacons, 93, 
 
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