The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order

Chapter 24 : Election, Ordination and Installation of Ruling Elders and Deacons

Paragraph 8 : Of Re-Installation

24-8. When a ruling elder or deacon who has been released from his official relation is again elected to his office in the same or another church, he shall be installed after the above form with the omission of ordination.

DIGEST: The substance of the current PCA text remains consistent with the earliest PCUS texts, distinguished from those earlier texts primarily by matters of capitalization and punctuation.]

BACKGROUND & COMPARISON:
PCA 1973, Adopted text, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, p. 143
and
Continuing Presbyterian Church 1973, 25-7, Proposed text, p. 35
When a Ruling Elder or Deacon who has been released from his official relation is again elected to his office in the same or another church, he shall be installed after the above form with the omission of ordination.

PCUS 1933, XXVII, §150
PCUS 1925, XXVI, §150
and
PCUS 1879, VI-4-5
When a Ruling Elder or Deacon who has been released from his official relation is again elected to his office in the same or another church, he shall be installed after the above form, with the omission of ordination.

PCUS 1869 draft, VI-4-5
When a Ruling Elder or Deacon, who has been released from his official relation, is again elected to his office in the same or another Congregation, he shall be installed after the above form, with the omission of the ceremony of ordination.

PCUS 1867 draft, VI-4-5
When an elder or deacon, who has been released from his official relation, is again elected to his office in the same or another congregation, he shall be installed after the above form, with the omission of the ceremony of ordination.

COMMENTARY:
F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order (1898, p. 141) on VI-4-5 :
115.--V. When a Ruling Elder or Deacon who has been released from his official relation is again elected to his office in the same or another church, he shall be installed after the above form, with the omission of ordination.
All the questions would be asked, and everything done as prescribed in paragraph 112, omitting the words "shall proceed to set apart. . . After which he." If a Ruling Elder thus released is afterwards elected a Deacon in the same or another church, he would be installed simply, since a Ruling Elder is ex-officio a Deacon. (See last paragraph of remarks on 112.)