The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order
Chapter 17 : Doctrine of Ordination
Paragraph 1 : The Objects of Ordination
17-1. Those who have been called to office in the Church are to be inducted by the ordination of a court.
DIGEST:
BACKGROUND & COMPARISON:
1. PCA 1973, 18-1, Adopted text, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, p. 137
2. Continuing Presbyterian Church 1973, 18-1, Proposed text, p. 21
3. PCUS 1933, XX, § 99
4. PCUS 1925, XX, § 99
Those who have been called to office in the Church are to be inducted by the ordination of a court.
PCUS 1879, VI-2-1
Those who have been lawfully called are to be inducted into their respective offices by the ordination of a court.
PCUS 1869 draft, VI-2-1
Officers in the organized Church, having been lawfully called, are to be invested with their respective offices by the ordination of a court.
PCUS 1867 draft, VI-2-1
All ordinary officers in the organized church are to be invested with their respective offices by the ordination of a court, according to scriptural authority and example.
COMMENTARY:
F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order (1898, p. 123-124), on VI-2-1 :
Section II.--Of the Doctrine of Ordination.
The distinction between ordination and vocation is this, that the vocation is the concurrent testimony of the Spirit of God through the man's own inner conviction, through the election by the people, and through the approval by the court, that the man should be inducted into office ; and ordination is the formal induction. The section has three paragraphs, answering the questions, who are to ordain, what is ordination, and to what ordination is.
99.--I. Those who have been lawfully called are to be inducted into their respective offices by the ordination of a court.
For even when the ordination is by a commission, even by one man called an Evangelist, or by one man called a Commissioner, he acts as the agent of the court, and the ordination is done by the court through its appointed agency. (Cf. remarks under 6 and 93.)
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