[Form of Gov., chap. xv., sec. xv.—Comp. Digest of 1873, pp. 146, 413–415.]
The committee appointed on this subject [Hasty Ordination and Unauthorized Demission of the Ministry,] by the last Assembly made a report, which gave rise to a considerable discussion, but was finally as amended unanimously adopted.
The principal points embraced in the discussion were the following: First, when may a candidate for the ministry be properly ordained sine titulo? On the one hand it was contended that such ordinations should never be allowed, unless the candidate intended to make the preaching of the gospel his main work, and to go as an evangelist to frontier or destitute places. But on the other hand, it was said that this principle did not embrace certain cases in which presbyteries had the right and ought to exercise the power to ordain. If the candidate had, in the judgment of the presbytery, a clear call of God to the ministry, and a proper field to exercise its functions, then he had a right to ordination, and it was the presbytery’s duty to grant it.
Ordination confers the right and imposes the duty of preaching the gospel and of administering the sacraments; but it does not necessarily imply that the discharge of these duties should constitute the main business of the minister. There are many of our missionaries whose time and attention are mainly devoted to the superintendence of schools, or the translation of the Scriptures. Such men were Carey, Morrison, Martyn. While thus employed, however, they had abundant opportunities of preaching the Word. Was this right to be denied them, to satisfy the whim of adhering to rule? Our constitution declares that “the pastoral office is the first in the Church, both for dignity and usefulness.” This we have no disposition to dispute; but the Church may see fit to assign some of her probationers to the more humble office of teaching her candidates the a b c of the sacred languages, of superintending their general or professional education; and while this is their main, official business, they may have abundant opportunities to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. Is there any reason why they should be deprived of this privilege, or shut out of this field of usefulness? We know professors in our colleges who preach every Sabbath, who attend Bible classes among the students, who have religious meetings every day in the week, often for months together. We know on the other hand, pastors, who, from necessity or choice, are six days in the week engaged in their schools, upon their plantations, or in some other secular or semi-secular employment, and who preach on the Sabbath one or two discourses. Is there any ground for regarding these latter as more in the way of their duty than the former? Has the one class any right to say to the other, Stand by, I am holier than thou?
We know no class of men worthier of more respect than pastors whose congregations are unable or unwilling to give them an adequate support, and who, therefore, after the example of Paul, labour with their own hands night and day, that they may be able to preach the gospel of the grace of God. But it cannot be denied that what is at first undertaken as a means of support, is often prosecuted as a means of wealth, and that the richest ministers are often those who get the smallest salaries. All we wish is that justice should be done; that some of the best and most devoted men in the Church, whom the providence of God and the wishes of their brethren have placed in the position of hewers of wood and drawers of water, who are engaged in our colleges in preparing the children of the Church for the sacred ministry, should not be regarded as themselves intruders into that office, while, in point of fact, their time and strength are devoted to the service of the Church.
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