Council of elders

“ I notified several Elders to meet me at his house. We met and held a council. I had nothing but opposition, the president saying, "Bro. Spencer, if you go to that place, I clear myself of the consequences; your blood be upon your own head."
I replied, "If my blood be shed, it will be upon the heads of those who shed it, and those who ought to have, but have not got, faith to sustain me." I then asked if any one of the Elders would volunteer to go with me. After considerable hesitating, the youngest Elder in the conference promised to meet me there. ”

“ As we marched from one petty district to another, each independent from the other, governed by its own chief and council of elders, exclusive from its own peculiar customs, habits, or passion, varying differently from the other according to the age, intelligence, and disposition of the chief, our duties and rule of conduct varied. ”

“ The solidarity of the community has been maintained with rare skill. The "Great Council of the Brethren" upon whom is laid the burden of directing all the affairs, has avoided government by mass meeting, discouraged irresponsible talk and criticism, and, as an aristocracy of elders, has shrewdly controlled the material and spiritual life of the community. ”

“ Should any person elected as Elder or Vorsteher, decline, without sufficient reason, to accept the weighty office, he shall not go free without paying a considerable donation into the treasury; and then the person who received the next highest number of votes shall be presented. If the vote for several persons be a tie, the Church Council shall decide the case.
6. In the above described manner the Church Council is constituted of Trustees, Elders and Vorsteher. ”

“ The elders were to be elected annually, and were to be men of good and honourable conduct, blameless and free from suspicion, animated by the fear of God and endowed with spiritual wisdom. They were to be chosen, two from the Smaller Council, four from the Council of Sixty, and six from the Great Council; they were to be elected at the same time as the magistrates, were to be capable of re-election, and were to take the oath of allegiance to the State and fidelity to the Church. They represented the idea that Geneva was a Church-State ”

“ The High Council has been expressly organized to administer in all her spiritual affairs; and the Bishop and his council are set over her temporal matters; so that the Elders' acts are null and void. Now, the Lord wants the wheat and tares to grow together; for Zion must be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. Every Elder that can, after providing for his family (if he has any) and paying his debts, must go forth and clear his skirts from the blood of this generation. ”

“ Each local church elects its own elders and deacons, who with the pastor constitute the church council and are the governing power, having charge of the admission of members and the general care of the church work. The churches within a given district are associated together for cooperation in general work. The pastors and other ordained ministers within a district, together with an equal number of lay members, constitute the Annual Eldership, which appoints the ministers of the various charges. ”

“ I mistrust we sha’n’t have everything peaceful even now. The priest in the pulpit is thorning the politician against us, gouging him from underneath—he’d never dare do it openly, for our Elders could crimson his face with shame—and the minions of the mob may be after us again. If they do, I can see where you will be a tower of strength in your own way.”
“It’s all of my life, Brother Brigham.”
“I believe it. I guess the time has come to make you an Elder.”
And so on a late winter afternoon in the quiet of the Council-House, Joel Rae was ordained an Elder after the order of Melchisedek ”

“ After a long discussion, it was decided from the revelations, that the order taught in the solemn assembly was correct; and that the Elders, when they arrived at Zion, were bound by the authorities set in the Church, to be submissive to the powers that be; their labors and callings being more particularly to push the people together from the ends of the earth to the places the Lord had appointed. This decision in council gave general satisfaction, and the Elders soon saw the beauty of every man standing in his place. ”

“ But when a war is national, and undertaken by the community, their deliberations are formal and slow. The elders assemble in council, to which all the head warriors and young men are admitted, where they deliver their opinions in solemn speeches, weighing with maturity the nature of the enterprize they are about to engage in, and balancing with great sagacity the advantages or inconveniences that will arise from it. ”

“ It is certain that the elders could exercise considerable authority when they chose, as already described, but the object of the council was primarily to arbitrate in disputes and to point out the recognised custom to be followed. Where an offence affected the whole community, or when an accused was regarded as an habitual and dangerous offender, public indignation might be so strong that the affair would appear as a public concern, and the elders would then use their full authority. ”

“ July 23, the Commons resolved that Ruling Elders in congregations should be chosen by the ministers and all members duly qualified by having taken the Covenant and being of full age, save that servants without families were not to have votes: no man to be a ruling elder in more than one congregation, and that in the place of his usual residence. ”

“ At an election of an elder for the first time he is required before installation to undergo an examination by a commission from the consistory of his own parish, assisted by a pastor from the nearest adjoining parish. The elder is chosen for life, unless he voluntarily resigns, or falls into a breach of church discipline, or becomes incapacitated by failing health; in the latter case, however, he retains the title of honorary elder.
The deacons must have much the same qualifications as the elders. They are elected for five years, and their special work is the care of the sick and needy. ”

“ In short, the church now invests you with all the rights and authority belonging to the eldership, you being equal with all the elders; this phrase nevertheless, in the apostolic injunction, "Ye younger, submit yourselves to the elder," still applies to you; and should you manifest an arbitrary, self-willed and domineering spirit, the church will hold you subject to her councils, and suspend you, and take from you all the authority she now gives you, and again reduce you to the laity, or even expel you from membership, if necessary. ”

“ As a first step in this direction, on, 20th December 1816, he ordained a few younger men to the office of the eldership, calling on them very earnestly to eschew the example set by many elders around them, who attended only to things temporal, and to devote themselves, by household visitation and other means, to the superintendence of the spiritual interests of their districts. ”

“ They maintain the necessity of a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops in each church, and the necessity of the presence of two elders in every act of discipline, and at the administration of the Lord’s supper. Second marriages disqualify for the office of elder. The elders are ordained by prayer and fasting, imposition of hands, and giving the “right hand of fellowship.” In their discipline they are strict and severe, and in every transaction esteem unanimity to be absolutely necessary. ”

“ Ordinarily the election was conducted by the Consistory: sometimes by the congregation itself, a double number of candidates being proposed by the retiring members of the Consistory. Every year one-half of the elders retired from office. The deacons were elected in the same manner as the elders. Their office had special reference to the wants of the poor. The election of elders for life was entirely unknown in the Dutch and German churches. ”

“ We believe we should work towards the goals he suggests, and had indeed begun allowing old people to rejoin relatives or go to special Elders’ Homes that religious communities, Hindu and Catholic, have kindly started. ”

“ Their ordination after election, as well as that of the ruling elders and deacons, is to be by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church electing them. In default of elders, this ordination is to be by the hands of brethren whom because of their exemplary lives the church shall choose to perform the rite. ”

“ Whereas there is generally but one teaching elder in a church, upon his death or removal, it is the work and duty of the ruling elders to preserve the church in peace and unity, to take care of the continuation of its public ordinances, to prevent irregularities in any persons or parties among them, and to give all necessary aid and advice in the choice and call of some other meet person to be their pastor, in the room of the deceased or removed. ”

“ How can these men now elected be thought fit to be Ruling-elders, who were never Elders before, all or most part of them being chosen since the Indiction of the Assembly, some of them but the very day before the Election of their Commissioners ”

“ He would be at liberty to consult discreet and judicious men, but the responsibility of all measures of Government and discipline must fall finally upon himself. Another plan is to appoint a session consisting of white elders, who should have the oversight of this flock; but, then, the difficulty occurs—Who is to choose these Elders? According to our system, every Church has a right to elect its own officers; and these colored Presbyterians, if organized into a separate Church, could not constitutionally be deprived of this right. ”

“ These elders are chosen from among the heads of families, of known orthodoxy and steady adherence to the worship, discipline, and government of the Church. Being solemnly engaged to use their utmost endeavour for the suppression of vice, and the cherishing of piety and virtue, and to exercise discipline faithfully and diligently, the minister, in the presence of the congregation, sets them apart to their office by solemn prayer, and concludes with exhorting both elders and people to their respective duties. ”

“ The officers of the church are elders and deacons, the former including, as of old, pastors, teachers, and ruling elders. That the authority within the church had passed from the unrestrained democracy of the early Plymouth Separatists to a silent democracy before the command of a speaking aristocracy [n] is witnessed to by the Platform's declaration that "power of office" is proper to the elders, while "power of privilege" [o] belongs to the brethren. ”

“ The elders are Christ's delegates, appointed to administer His government in the Church. They are empowered by His will, accredited by His Spirit, directed by His Word, entrusted with His authority, and accountable at His throne. To the elders are committed, directly or indirectly, all the interests of Christ's Church. ”

“ The eldership has ever been a tower of strength in the Covenanted Church. The elders have been pilots at the helm, when the ship was driven by fiercest storms, and the ministers had altogether disappeared. They have been the homeguards, when the most desperate assaults were made upon their beloved Zion. They have been leaders, moving forward with wise, fearless, and persistent step, when Christ's cause demanded aggressive testimony for down-trodden truth, and against uprising error. ”

“ These governments and governors are said to be set in the church, not in the state; by God, not by men: they are declared to be distinct officers by themselves. Their title, government, implies, that ruling is their principal work. 3. From 1 Tim. v. 17, where the divine warrant for ruling elders shines with more peculiar brightness than anywhere in the book of God: "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor; especially they who labor in the word and doctrine." The ruling elders here mentioned necessarily pertain to the church. ”

“ We have here therefore the "rotatory" eldership, as it has been called by some in America, recognised in principle, and the reason given for it is "lest that by long continuance of such officials men presume upon the liberty of the Church." Those holding the office were eligible for re-election, but they must be appointed yearly "by common and free election." ”

“ This exhortation was given to guide the elders in their work. A fundamental and all-pervading principle of this counsel is that nothing is to be taught or practiced of the precepts of man. The elders are to guard and preserve the purity of God’s word, the faith and peace of the church and so promote the salvation of man.
Their labors were confined to the congregation in which they held their membership, and to which they were responsible for their conduct. ”

“ At this particular crisis the alteration may not have been unacceptable to the elders themselves. To those of them who were in the decline of life, there was nothing very inviting in the prospect of occupying the most prominent position in a Church threatened by persecution and torn by divisions, so that they may have been not unwilling to waive any claim to the presidency which their seniority implied; whilst the more vigorous, sanguine, and aspiring, would hail an arrangement which promised at no distant day to place one of themselves in a position of greatly increased dignity and influence. ”

“ America’s older citizens have earned the gratitude and respect of our society, as well as our recognition of their worth and dignity. In this spirit, the Federal Council on Aging has prepared the Bicentennial Charter for Older Americans expressing their rights and obligations. ”

“ The term "elder" is both a general and a specific title. That is, it may be applied to an apostle or a seventy; as, for instance, in the revelation under consideration (Doc. and Cov. sec. xx) , it is said: "An apostle is an elder," etc. We shall see also further on that it is the name of a specific office in the church; that ninety-six elders constitute a quorum; that they constitute a standing ministry in the stakes of Zion ”