Church order

“ Article 46 Thus being rightly gathered, established, and still proceeding in Christian communion, and obedience of the Gospel of Christ, none ought to separate for faults and corruptions, which may, and as long as the church consists of men subject to failings, will fall out and arise amongst them, even in true constituted churches, until they have in due order sought redress thereof. ”

“ From this final and decisive authority, and the correlative obligation of obedience, we derive another and most cogent proof, that wherever sovereignty in the order of ideas or doctrinal supremacy resides in the church, it must be there that the active infallibility of the church is principally seated. ”

“ That with respect to the commands and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ, where the Scriptures are silent as to the express time or manner of performance, if any such there be, no human authority has power to interfere, in order to supply deficiency by making laws for the Church ”

“ Without reference to the causes which occasioned the distinction between the clergy and the laity, this is worthy of notice as another important change in the constitution of the Church, which gradually arose in connection with the rise of episcopal power. In opposition to the idea of universal priesthood, the people now became a distinct and inferior order. They and the clergy begin to feel the force of conflicting interests and claims, the distinction widens fast, and influence, authority and power centralize in the bishop, the head of the clerical order. ”

“ II. Moreover, in order to repress the arrogant and self-sufficient, the council decrees, that no one, relying on his own wisdom, shall presume to pervert and interpret Holy Scripture to his own sense, in matters of faith and manners, pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, contrary to the sense which hath been and is maintained by the holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, or contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, even if such interpretations should never be made public. ”

“ Hence the sacraments ought to be received with faith in the promises which are exhibited and proposed by them.
They therefore condemn the opinion of those who maintain, that the sacraments produce justification in their recipients as a matter of course, [Note 3] who do not teach that faith is necessary, in the reception of the sacraments, to the remission of sins.
ARTICLE XIV. - OF CHURCH ORDERS, (OR THE MINISTRY.) Concerning church orders they teach, that no person ought publicly to teach "or preach," [Note 4] in the church, or to administer the sacraments, without a regular call. ”

“ But all formal power of church government is at least part of the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven is clear. If we take church government largely, as containing both doctrine, worship, and discipline, it is the whole power of the keys; if strictly, as restrained only to discipline, it is at least part of the power. For, 1st, Not only the power of order, but also the power of jurisdiction, is contained under the word keys ”

“ The Lord having given unto us this divine law and revealed certain principles unto us, he expects us to govern ourselves accordingly; that every ordinance in connection with the Priesthood may be administered properly and in accordance with his law. ”

“ I am willing and ready to do so; and I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.
The Ordinand then signs the above Declaration in the sight of all present.
All stand. The Bishop says to the people
Dear friends in Christ, you know the importance of this ministry, and the weight of your responsibility in presenting N.N. for ordination to the sacred order of deacons. ”

“ Church members ought to encourage one another by their example, to attend regularly on the public ordinances of God's worship in his church. Whenever the church meets for the celebration of the worship of God, all her members are bound to meet together at the appointed time, except in extraordinary cases; otherwise good order cannot be kept, and the public duties performed, for the glory of God, and the edification of the church. ”

“ Our National Church, in common with the various bodies of Nonconformists, recognises, as a matter of ecclesiastical order, that under ordinary circumstances, an officiating clergyman should be present. But his presence in no way affects the validity of the sacrament, being merely a wise precaution against the admission of unworthy communicants. The laity surrender into the hands of the clergyman, or the minister aided by elders or deacons, their power of admitting or rejecting worthy or unworthy persons. ”

“ He must speak by the power of God or he does not magnify his calling. The theory of our religion will not answer the purpose of saving us. I can call upon the people, but will they organize themselves? Some inquire, "Is this exactly the order that the Lord requires? It is just exactly what the Lord requires.
I will say to you with regard to the kingdom of God on the earth—Here is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, organized with its rules, regulations and degrees, with the quorums of the holy Priesthood, from the First Presidency to the teachers and deacons ”

“ VI. Excommunicated persons shall not be obliged to make oath, or give security to continue upon the place where they live, but only to abide by the judgment of the Church, in order to their absolution. ”

“ No family as a family is either a church or any part of a church, (in the notion that church is here spoken of;) and though masters of families be governors in their own houses, yet their power is not ecclesiastical but economical or domestical, common to heathens as well as Christians. Not the political magistrate,54 for the reasons hinted, (Part 1, chap. I.; see also Part 2, chap. IX.,) and for divers other arguments that might be propounded. 4. Not the prelatical bishops, pretending to be an order above preaching presbyters, and to have the reins of all church government in their hands only ”

“ The Apostle only commanded that each action and ceremony of God's worship be decently and orderly performed, but gives us no leave to excogitate or devise new ceremonies, which have not been instituted before. He hath spoken in that chapter of assembling in the church, prophesying and preaching, praying and praising there.
Now let all these things, and every other action of God's worship, ceremonies and all, be done decently and in order. ”

“ Have the laity no rights in the liturgy which the clergy are bound to respect? When and where did the Protestant Episcopal Church confer on its ministers a general dispensing power over the ordinances of worship which it withheld from the body of the faithful?
Heretofore it has been held that when a layman went to church he had a right to expect certain things guaranteed him by the Church's law. If all this has been changed, then formal notice ought to be served upon us by the General Convention that such is the fact. ”

“ Every clergyman who refused to conform to the Prayer Book, or opposed the placing of the communion table at the east end of the church, or declined to bow at the name of Jesus, was, if obstinate, to be brought before the king's special Court of High Commission to be tried and if convicted to be deprived of his benefice. ”

“ In matters ecclesiastical we believe, first, that civil magistrates have no power to make or constitute laws about church affairs, which the Lord Jesus hath not ordained in his word for the well-ordering of the church; for the apostle solemnly chargeth Timothy, and in him all governors of the church, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, that the commandment given by him for the ordering of the church be kept without spot, unrebukeable, to the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Tim. ”

“ But the statutes of the Reformation era relating to jurisdiction, having as statutes the assent of the laity, and accepted by the canons of the clergy, are the standard to which the Church has bound herself as a religious society to conform. ”

“ We hold ourselves obliged, not only by the common duty of our ministerial calling, but also by the special bond of our solemn covenant with God, especially in Art. 1, to bend all our best endeavors to help forward a reformation of religion according to the word of God, which can never be effected without a due establishment of the scripture-government and discipline in the Church of God. And to make known what this government is from the law and testimony, by preaching or writing, comes properly and peculiarly within the sphere of our place and vocation. ”

“ Is not this taking a latitude, in devising ways and means for accomplishing Divine and saving purposes, which the Divine law has nowhere prescribed, for which the Scriptures nowhere afford us either precept or precedent? Unless it can be shown that making human standards to determine the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church for the purpose of preserving her unity and purity, and requiring an approbation of them as a term of communion is a Scripture institution. ”

“ A mere collection of bishops, priests, and baptized persons, professing the true faith, administering and receiving the true sacraments, is not a portion of the Catholic Church, if the organic, constitutive principle of lawful mission and jurisdiction is wanting, which gives pastoral authority to the persons who possess the episcopal and sacerdotal character, and thus makes the collection of people under their rule a lawful society, under lawful pastors, and under the supreme rule of the Chief Pastor, who is the Vicar of Christ. ”

“ For indeed no one does more injury in the church than he who acts perversely and yet has the name and order of sanctity. ”

“ No person who is infirm shall be compelled by priests to make a will. (18) The sacrament shall not be withheld from any one for debt or other reason. The church or priest has a remedy in court. (19) Fines for adultery and fornication belong to the king, not to the bishop. (20) The Gospel shall hereafter be taught in every school. (21) Bishops shall consecrate no priest who is incompetent to preach the Word of God. (22) No one shall be made a prelate, canon, or prebend unless he has been recommended by the king, or his name submitted to the king. ”

“ They may not administer the seals, the sacraments, baptize, &c. under the New Testament; for who gave the people any such authority? hath not Christ conjoined preaching and dispensing of the sacraments in the same commission, that the same persons only that do the one, may do the other? Matt. xxviii. 18, 19. 3. They may not ordain officers in the church, and authoritatively send them abroad: for, ordinarily the community have not sufficient qualifications and abilities for proving and examining of men's gifts for the ministry. ”

“ III. It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set, down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of His Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word. ”

“ Where Church and State are habitually associated, it is natural that minds even of a high order should unconsciously come to regard religion as only a subtler mode of police. ”

“ Had Christ been constituted a Priest after any Order of human Beings, it would have been after the Order of Aaron, a Priest of God’s own appointment; but Christ is a Priest after his own Order. When God means to swear he swears by himself, because there is no greater—when he means to draw a similitude of himself he likens himself to himself; and when Jesus reveals himself as a Priest after an Order, it is his own Order, and his glory will he not give to another. ”

“ Ecclesiastical honors are not to be conferred on young men.
Text. In virtue of our Apostolic authority, we forbid that tithes of churches which canonical authority shows to have been given for pious purposes be possessed by laymen. Whether they have received them from bishops, kings, or other persons, unless they are returned to the Church, the possessors shall be judged guilty of sacrilege and shall incur the danger of eternal damnation. We command also that laymen who hold churches shall either return them to the bishops or incur excommunication. ”

“ To settle difficulties, then, which may arise between members on the one hand, and to enforce church discipline on the other, there exists in the church an ecclesiastical judiciary system, that is most admirably adapted to answer the purposes for which it exists. ”

“ If any bishop making use of the secular powers shall by their means obtain jurisdiction over any church, he shall be deposed, and also excommunicated, together with all who remain in communion with him. ”

“ Churches, on the other hand, whatever the varying principle on which the system is based, or the difference in its practical application, the essential conditions are that the ecclesiastical law is also the law of the land, the decisions of the church courts being enforced by the civil power. ”