[Form of Gov., chap. x., sec. viii.—Digest of 1873, pp. 150–161.]
The memorial presented to the Assembly by the members of the Pittsburg convention, in their individual capacity as ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church, was referred to Drs. Miller, Hoge, Edgar, Messrs. Elliot, Stonestreet, and Banks. This committee made a report consisting of a preamble and eleven resolutions. The first resolution asserts the right of every presbytery to be satisfied with the soundness and good character of those ministers who apply for admission into the presbytery, and, if they see cause, to examine them, although they have testimonials of good standing from some other presbytery.
This resolution was opposed on the following grounds:
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That it was inconsistent with the unity of the Presbyterian Church. The radical principle of our system is, that the several congregations of believers constitute one Church in Christ; but this resolution declares that the Church is not one, that there is no uniform system of action and government in the Presbyterian Church. To allow the presbyteries to determine the terms of membership within their own bounds, is to create separate churches; it is to make ourselves Congregationalists, or independent Presbyterians. The constitution declares what are the qualifications for the ministry; and if any Presbytery enacts a different rule, (making, for example, the knowledge of German or Sanscrit necessary,) it puts itself, quoad hoc, out of the pale of the Presbyterian Church, and declares itself a different body In like manner, if any Church session should undertake to prescribe new terms of communion, it would violate the constitution. The qualifications for the ministry and terms of communion are prescribed in the constitution, and are uniform throughout the Church, and binding alike upon all the presbyteries and all the churches. These terms cannot be altered by individual presbyteries or sessions. If they can add to them, they can subtract from them; but to allow this, would be to declare that the presbyteries were without government in this essential particular. When the Cumberland Presbyterians undertook to dispense with some of the requisites prescribed in the Form of Government, they were justly separated from the Church.
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It is inconsistent with the respect and confidence due from one presbytery to another. To subject a man, who has been declared qualified for the ministry by one presbytery, to an examination before another, is to say that we doubt the fidelity or competence of the body by which he was ordained. This is incompatible not only with proper confidence, but also with the rule that declares that the decisions of one court are to be received by another. It thus arrays the presbyteries against each other. One presbytery pronounces a man sound, another declares him to be unsound; this destroys the connection between the presbyteries; it is a complete ecclesiastical revolution, the destruction of Presbyterianism, and the establishment of independency.
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The rule established by the resolution is unjust toward the applicant. He may have the confidence of the presbytery to which he belongs and their testimonials of his good standing, and yet be rejected by a presbytery where he is not known, and without any fair and adequate trial. This could not be done without injustice and injury. It is admitted, that if the presbytery has reasonable ground to doubt of the soundness or good character of the applicant, this is a sufficient reason for not receiving him, but not for examining him. His own presbytery should be informed of these reasons—but a body to which he does not belong, and to which he is not amenable, has no right to put him on his trial. The assumption of this right is not only unjust to the individual, but it produces a clashing jurisdiction. A jurisdiction is assumed by one body, while that of a co-ordinate body still remains.
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The resolution is inconsistent with the nature of ordination in our Church. A man is not ordained as a minister within the bounds of one presbytery, but within the whole Presbyterian Church. If qualified constitutionally for the bounds of one presbytery, he is equally qualified for all presbyteries. If one presbytery is to rejudge the judgment of another presbytery, with regard to a man’s standing in the ministry, the idea of our belonging to one Presbyterian Church is all a farce.
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This resolution being directly opposed to one passed by the last General Assembly, its passage would tend to destroy the authority of the Assembly. It would be better to have no court of final appeal, if its decisions are to be thus treated.
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This question was to be decided upon by men who had prejudged the case, who stood pledged to decide in a certain way.
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This resolution goes to create an inquisitorial court; it places a man before a court to purge himself from suspicion, and gives to a foreign presbytery a power which even a man’s own presbytery does not possess.
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It was argued that the resolution was inexpedient, because it could not accomplish the design contemplated by it, viz.: to keep out heresy. It would operate the other way. If an unsound presbytery should dismiss a man to a sound one, the latter would have him in their power, and could either reform him or cut him off. Thus they might catch one heretic after another, until the Church was purified. As to Church members, the case was the same. Suppose a member dismissed from one Church to join another; he comes with good testimonials, but is refused. What is he to do? Is he to go back into the world and be refused communion with the Church? If a good man, this would be monstrous; and if a bad one, he should be disciplined. We should “receive the greatest atheist on certificate, and rejoice in the opportunity of thus detecting and exposing a false professor of religion, and removing the scandal of his bad example.”