[Form of Gov., chap. x., sec. vii.—Digest of 1873, pp. 139–144, 205, 551.]
IN answer to a question proposed in Overture No. 20, the committee reported the following resolution:
Resolved, That any three ministers of a presbytery, being regularly convened, are a quorum competent to the transaction of all business, agreeably to the provision contained in the Form of Government, ch. x. 7. This resolution was adopted, yeas 83, nays 35.
We have seen no report of the debate on this motion, but from the protest presented by Messrs. Breckinridge and Junkin, for themselves and twenty other members, we gather that the leading objections to the ground taken by the Assembly were substantially as follows: 1. It was said to be in opposition to the letter and spirit of the constitution, which declares a presbytery to consist of all the ministers and one ruling elder, from each congregation within a certain district. As a presbytery is said to consist of ministers and elders, these form its constituent elements; and the body cannot be formed of only one of its constituent elements. The section which says that three members regularly convened, and as many elders as may be present, constitute a quorum of presbytery, shows that at least one elder is indispensable in order to the regular organization of a presbytery.
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In sec. 10 of ch. x. which provides for the calling of extra meetings of presbytery, it is required that at least two elders should join in the call for such a meeting, and that due notice should be given to the session of every vacant congregation. This was supposed to prove that the elders are an essential part of the presbytery, and that the constitution designed to guard against any assumption of power by the ministry, to the neglect or exclusion of the eldership.
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The decision of the Assembly was declared to be opposed to principles essential to the nature and existence of Presbyterianism. It was represented as an essential element of Presbyterianism that God’s people govern themselves, and manage their ecclesiastical affairs, in accordance with his word and by their own chosen and ordained representatives. The elders are declared to be the representatives of the people, to exercise discipline and government in connection with the ministers. If this principle be destroyed the whole system is destroyed. Admit the principle that the ministry may, without the presence of any representatives of God’s people, transact the business of the people, and you lay our glorious system of representative republicanism in ruins; and over those ruins you may easily pave a highway to prelacy and popery. As every act which a presbytery may perform, affects the interests of the members of Christ’s body, they are entitled to be represented; and it was wise in the framers of our constitution to provide that the people’s business should never be done, unless the people had at least one representative to see to their interests, and to watch those encroachments of the ministerial order, which had resulted in one papacy and might lead to another.
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The decision of the Assembly was uncalled for and tends to weaken the importance of the eldership, by representing that their presence in our presbyteries is not necessary and might be undesirable.
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The impatience of the house prevented a full and fair discussion of the question; and the chief reasons urged in favour of the decision were drawn from extreme cases, not likely to occur, and which were injurious to the eldership as supposing they would be so negligent of their vows as with any frequency to absent themselves from our church courts.
Rev. Messrs. Breckinridge and J. Montgomery subjoined for themselves to this protest an expression of their opinion that the above decision appropriately, and of necessity flowed from the decision previously made, that the constitution does not authorize ruling elders to unite, by the imposition of hands, in the ordination of ministers. Against both of these decisions they desired to protest, striking, as they believed them to do, at the fundamental principles of the constitution.
To these protests the Assembly recorded an answer, with the help of which we construct the following brief reply. The protest seems to proceed on an erroneous idea of the nature of a presbytery; as though it were a creature of our constitution. A presbytery is a number of presbyters regularly convened. Their powers belong to their office; and they are clothed with that office by their ordination. A number of ministers episcopally ordained, might associate themselves together and form a presbytery, and would, according to the doctrine of Presbyterianism, have the right to ordain and to exercise all the powers of discipline and government over their own members, and over the congregations submitting to their watch and care, that belong to any presbytery in the world. It is, therefore, not necessary to the existence of a presbytery that ruling elders should constitute a portion of its members.