2. The Form of Government of the Presbyterian Ciiurch in the United States (bk. i, ch. v) contains the following: " Ruling elders are properly the represent- atives of the people, chosen b}' tliem for the purpose of exercising government and discipline, In conjunc- tion with pastors or ministers. Tiiis office has been understood, by a great i)art of the Protestant reformed churches, to be designated in the holy Scriptures by the title of governments, and of those who rule well, but do not labor in the word and doctrine" (1 Cor. xii,
28"). Chap, xiii gives the rules for the election and ordination of ruling ciders. Each congregation elects "according to the mode most approved and in use in that congregation;" and the whole procedure is very similar to that of the U. P. Church recited above. The ordination is "by prayer" and the "right hand of fellowship," not by imposition of hands. The office is perpetual. The elders, with tlie pastor, constitute the Session ; one elder from each church is a member of Presbytery and Synod; and one for every twenty- four ministers in each presbj'tery is sent to the General Assembly.
In the Reformed Church the elders are chosen for two j'ears only, by the congregation or by the Con- sistory (Constitution of the Ref Dutch Church, ch. i, art. iii). They are entitled to membership in Classis and Synod as delegates {Constitution, ch. ii, art. iii). There is a form given in the book for their ordination, with- out imposition of hands. So also in the new liturgy prepared for the German Reformed Church.
3. Riding Elders. — The distinction lietween teach- ing and ruling elders originated with Calvin, and has diffused itself veiy widely among the churches which adopt the Presbj-terian form of government ; and the authority of the N. T. is claimed for it (see above, 2) in the Presbyterian " Form of Government" (l>k. i, ch. v) ; in the Reformed Church Form of Ordination (Constit. p. 118); in the Lutheran Church Formula of Government (ch. iii, § G). The Congregationalists of New England admitted this distinction for a while (see above), but soon abandoned it.
Calvin (Institutes, bk. iv, chap, iii, § 8) seeks a scriptural basis for laj^ eldersliip as follows: "Gov- ernors (1 Cor. xii, 2) I apprehend to have been per- sons of advanced years, selected from the people to unite with the bishops in giving admonition, and ex- ercising discipline. No other interpretation can be given of ' He that ruleth, let him do it with diligence' (Rom. xii, 8). . . . Now that this was not the regula- tion of a single age expeiience itself demonstrates." This passage, however, occurs first in the 3d edition of the Institutes, 1513 ; it is not found in the editi^ons of 153G or 1539. The office of lay elders had existed before among the Unitas Fratrum, who were supposed to have borrowed it from the Waldenses ; but these lay elders were only trustees or churchwardens. Cal- vin himself organized a lay eldership in Geneva, to be elected yearly, and seems afterwards to have sought a scriptui'al warrant for it. In so doing he formed a novel theory, viz. that of a two-fold eldership. " This cardinal assumption of a dual presbyterate was contro- verted b_y Blondel, himself a Presbyterian, in 1648, and again in 1696 bj^ Vitringa, who, as Rothe says in his Anfunye, 'routed from the field this jihantom of apostolic lay elders.' Even the Westminster Assem- bly, when, in 1613, it debated the question of Church government, as it did for nearlv four weeks, was care- ful not to commit itself to Calvin's theory of lay pres- byters, refused to call them ruling elders, and in its final report in 1644 spoke of them as 'other Church governors,' 'which reformed churches commonty call elders.^ Calvin's theory has also been controverted by James P. '\\'ilson in his Primitive Government of Chris- tian Churches (1833), and by Thomas Smyth in his Name, Nature, and Functions of Ruling Elders (1845). The drift of critical opinion is now decidedly in this direction. It is beginning to bo conceded, even among Presbvterians of the staunchest sort, that Calvin was mistaken in his interpretation of 1 Tim. v, 17 ; that two orders of presbyters are not there brought to view, but only one order, the difference referred to being simply that of service, and not of rank. And if this famous passage fails to justify the dual presbyteirite, much less may we rely upon the o TrpoVirra/ifi'of, iv (TTToiici), 'he that ruleth with diligence,' of Rom. xii, 8, or the K><ii6pvt]<jfii\ ' governments,' of 1 Cor. xii. '28. In short, the^^'wre divino theory of the lay eldership ia
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steadily losing ground. A better support is sought for it in the New-Testament recognition throughout of the right and propriety of lay participation in Church government ; in the general right of the Church, as set forth by Hooker in liis Ecclesiastical Polity, to gov- ern itself Ijy whatsoever forms it pleases, provided the great end of government be answered ; and in the proved fitness and efficiency of our present I'resbj'te- rian polity, as compared either with prclacj' on the one side, or Congregationalism on the other" (Hitch- cock, in Am. Presb. Rev. 1808, p. 255). Dr. Thornwell (Southern Presb. Review, 1859 ; Sinrit of the XlXth Ci ntury, Dec. 1843 ; reprinted in Southern Presb. Rev. July, 1807) sets forth a peculiar theorj'^ of the divine right of the ruling eldership, viz. that the ruling elder is tlie presbyter of the N. T., whose only function was to rule, while the preachers were generally selected from the class of elders. This view is also maintained by Breckinridge {Knowledge of God, subjectively con- sidei-ed, p 629) ; and is refuted by Dr. Smyth, Prince- ton Review, vol. xxxiii (see also Princeton Review, xv, 313 sq.). Principal Campbell {Theory of Ruling Elder- ships, EdinI). and Lond. 1860) aims to show that "el- der" in the N. T. alwaj-s means pastor, and never means the modern "ruling elder" (see Brit, and For. Evan. Review, Jan. 18C8, p. 222). He shows that the Westminster Assembly, after a long discussion, re- fused to sanction Calvin's view; but he seeks to find lay ciders, under another name, in Eom. xii, 8 ; 1 Cor. xii, 28, etc., and also in early Church Historj'. For a criticism of his view, and a luminous statement of the whole subject of lay eldership, with a conclusive proof that there is no trace of it in the N. T., see Dr. Hitch- cock's article in the Amer. Presb. Review, April, 1868, p. 253 sq. See also an able critical and historical dis- cussion of the subject in Dexter, Congregationalism (Boston, 1805), p. 120 sq. The scriptural right of lay elders is maintained in The divine Right of Church Gov- ernment, with Dr. Owen's Argument in favor of Ruling Elders (New York, 18-14, 12mo) ; in Miller, On Ruling Eldeis (Presb. Board, 18mo). See also King, Elder- ship in the Christian Church (N. Y. 1851) ; Muhlenberg, On the Office of Ruling Elders; M'Kerrow, Office of Riding Elders (London, 1840) ; Engles, Duties of Ruling Elders (Presb. Board) ; Smyth, Name, Nature, and Functions of Ruling Elders (N. Y. 1845, 12mo) ; Bing- ham, Orig. Eccles. bk. ii, ch. xx, § 19 ; Gieseler, Church History, vol. i, § 29 ; Neander, Planting and Training, bk. i, ch. ii ; Davidson, Eccl. Polity of N. T. ; Watson, Theol. Institutes, pt. iv, ch. i ; Schaff, Apostolic Church, § 132, 133 ; Tiothe, Anfdnge d. christlichen Kirche, § 28, 29; Bilson, Peipetual Government of Christ's Church; Owen, Works (Edinb. 1851), xv, 504.