Ministries

“ The Ministers shall be charged with despatching the business of their respective Ministries, and shall deliberate and resolve on all questions of general interest that are not the responsibility of other dependencies or authorities, and shall exercise the functions pertaining to them in accordance with the Constitution and the law. ”

“ Federal-republican ministries in a people's republic direct specified branches of state administration and, in addition to matters within their own competence, deal with matters in the competence of the Federal-republican ministries of the Federal Government, on the basis of their rules, instructions, orders and decisions. ”

“ Article 98 Ministers shall head their respective ministries, shall resolve issues assigned to the competence of their ministries, and shall also discharge other functions prescribed by laws. A Minister may be temporarily substituted only by another member of the Government appointed by the Prime Minister. ”

“ All Ministers shall be accountable individually for the administration of their own Ministries and collectively for the administration of the work of the Cabinet, both to the President and to Parliament. ”

“ If the supreme council once begins to encroach upon the executive fields of government by interferings with the conduct of work in the separate Ministries, by advising as to appointments to be made under the rank of Minister of State, or in any other way taking part in the executive functions of government, it will thereby at once lessen the efficiency and increase the difficulties of every Minister. ”

“ The Premier shall appoint and may remove on his own responsibility the Ministers of State at the heads of the various Government Ministries. He shall be responsible to the King for the entire work of each Ministry. ”

“ Every measure of the crown must be countersigned by a minister; and every minister is immediately and actually responsible to Parliament for all of his official acts.
543. Composition and Status of the Ministry.—The ministry consists of a president of the council, or premier, and the heads of nine departments, as follows: Finance, National Defense, Interior, Education and Public Worship, Justice, Industry and Commerce, Agriculture, the Ministry for Croatia and Slavonia, and the Ministry near the King's Person. ”

“ On the death, removal from office or resignation, during the period intervening between the dissolution of Parliament and the conclusion of the General Election, of a Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers or any other Minister, the President may appoint any other Minister to be the Minister in charge of such Ministry or to exercise, perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of such Minister or may himself take charge of such Ministry or exercise, perform and discharge such powers, duties and functions. ”

“ A God-made Minister.—1. It is not sufficient warrant for any to meddle with the ministerial office that he hath competent gifts, except he have also ministerial power and authority conveyed to him, either immediately by God, as it was in the calling of the apostles, or mediately according to that order which God has established in His Church, as in the calling of ordinary ministers. 2. As it is required to make a man a minister that he be endued with competent abilities and gifts for that employment, so it is no less requisite that God concur with him. ”

“ It is for the Interest of the Crown Officers here who are dependent upon the Ministers to make them believe that they have by their Art & policy reconciled the people to their Measures, & if the Nation is so far misled as to believe so, the Ministry may avail themselves of it, but if the Contrary should happen to be true, as it appears to me to be, such Events may sooner than we are aware of it take place, as may afford the Nation Grounds to repent of her Credulity. ”

“ The Ministry is a legislative Ministry, and draws its life from the legislature, where strong talents always secure executive place. A long career in Parliament is at least a long contact with practical statesmanship, and at best a long schooling in the duties of the practical statesman. But with us there is no such intimate relationship between legislative and executive service. From experience in state administration to trial in the larger sphere of federal administration is the only natural order of promotion. ”

“ The same which God hath already appointed bishops or pastors to do, or at least the unfixed ministers in the universal church. 2. Or it is such as he hath appointed magistrates to do. 3. Or it is such as belongeth to private and laymen. 4. Or it is somewhat different from all these.
1. If it be of the first sort, it is a contradiction. For men that are by office appointed to do the same work which ministers are already appointed to do, are not a new office, but ministers indeed, such as Christ hath instituted: for the office is nothing but an obligation and authority to do the work. ”

“ The Ministry shall keep a record of all business transacted. It shall be the duty of every person who has a seat in the Ministry to express his opinion fearlessly, to which the King shall listen, but he may resolve according to his own judgment. ”

“ The best of our ministers find it the easiest and most compendious mode of conducting the King's affairs; and all ministers have a general interest in adhering to a system, which, of itself, is sufficient to support them in office, without any assistance from personal virtue, popularity, labour, abilities, or experience. ”

“ Practically, however, the word minister has in modern states come to be applied to the heads of the great administrative departments who as such are members of the government. On the continent there are, besides, “ministers without portfolio,” i.e. ministers who, without being in charge of any special department, are members of the government. ”

“ By the word “minister” we may understand not only a servant of the crown, but a man of influence among the commons, who regard themselves as having a share in the sovereignty over us. The “minister of the house” may, in a point respecting the colonies, be so strong, that the minister of the crown in the house, if he is a distinct person, may not choose, even where his sentiments are favorable to us, to come to a pitched battle upon our account. ”

“ Much of a Minister's comfort and success depends upon his Private Secretary. Some Ministers import for this function a young gentleman of fashion whom they know at home—a picturesque butterfly who flits gaily through the dusty air of the office, making, by the splendour of his raiment, sunshine in its shady places, and daintily passing on the work to unrecognized and unrewarded clerks. ”

“ This man, although a minister for so short a time, had already a vague, disquieting impression that the administration was the property of a great number of clients, always the same, frequenters of these corridors, guests in these antechambers, well known to the ushers, and who, whoever the minister might be, had the same access and the same influence with the ministry. ”

“ The Minister has command of the opinions and views of all officers of the department he administers on matters of public policy. Good stewardship demands from Ministers of the Crown frank, fair, full statements of all opinions of trusted experienced officials to colleagues when they have direct reference to matters of high policy. ”

“ A minister should be “one that ruleth well his own house,” properly presiding over and governing his own family: “for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” ”

“ Upon the formation of a new ministry with Grenville as prime minister, and Fox as foreign secretary, the Common Council presented an address to the king, offering their sincere thanks and congratulations "on the formation of an administration, combining men of the highest consideration and talents"—the administration was known as "the ministry of all the talents" ”

“ Now ministers meet with their people, in public and private, in order to enlighten them concerning the state of their souls; to open and apply the rules of God’s word to them, in order to their searching their own hearts, and discerning the state that they are in. But now ministers have no infallible discerning of the state of the souls of their own people; and the most skilful of them are liable to mistakes, and often are mistaken in things of this nature. ”

“ A Council of Ministers has been constituted by the Emperor, Ministers being appointed for Justice, Finance, Commerce, War, Foreign Affairs, Posts and Telegraphs, Interior, and a sort of Lord Privy Seal. The most important Minister is the Minister of War. ”

“ Are they become your enemies, because they tell you the truth? You will Reply, It is because they are Ministers Ordained by Antichristian Bishops; and therefore before they have renounced their false Ministry, we cannot with a safe conscience hear them, nor expect a blessing from their Ministry. This Reply is, we confess, a great stumbling block to many godly people, in this Kingdome; for satisfaction to it, we offer these particulars:
1. Many of you that make this Reply, hold, That the Election of the people is by Gods Word sufficient to make a man a true Minister without Ordination. ”

“ In both England and France a ministry composed of the chief officers of the executive departments are constituted at once the leaders of legislation and the responsible heads of administration,—a binding link between the legislative and executive branches of the government. ”

“ At a Government meeting, the head of a ministry presents business falling within the purview of his ministry. The Prime Minister may, however, prescribe that a matter or a group of matters coming within the purview of a particular ministry shall be presented by a minister other than the head of the ministry concerned. ”

“ The Assembly "doth charge every Minister to be diligent in fulfilling his Ministry, to be holy and grave in his Conversation, to be faithful in Preaching, declaring the whole Counsel of God, and, as he hath Occasion from the Text of Scripture, to reprove the Sins and Error, and press the Duties of the Time ”

“ Next in rank are those eminent and honorable ministers of state and representatives, who place the will of God above their own, and whose administrative skill and wisdom in the conduct of their office raises the science
[Pages 21–40] of government to new heights of perfection. They shine in the learned world like lamps of knowledge; their thinking, their attitudes and their acts demonstrate their patriotism and their concern for the country’s advancement. ”

“ The palace of a chief minister is a seminary to breed up others in his own trade: the pages, lackeys, and porters, by imitating their master, become ministers of state in their several districts, and learn to excel in the three principal ingredients, of insolence, lying, and bribery. Accordingly, they have a subaltern court paid to them by persons of the best rank; and sometimes by the force of dexterity and impudence, arrive, through several gradations, to be successors to their lord. ”

“ Ministers are not only messengers of the person who at the last day will appear as Judge, but the errand they are sent upon, and the affairs they have committed to them as his ministers, do most immediately concern his honor and the interest of his kingdom. The work they are sent upon is to promote the designs of his administration and government; and therefore their business with their people has a near relation to the day of judgment ”

“ To enter on the public work of the ministry self-moved and self-appointed has no warrant in [p. 138] Scripture or in reason and is an act of assumption and disorder which can only result in evil. 3. Churches and pastors, while using a wise discretion, should carefully seek out and develop ministerial gifts. Much power doubtless remains latent which with proper care might be developed and utilized in ministerial work. Many a Christian life now left undeveloped, might be greatly enlarged by being thus placed in its true sphere of activity ”

“ Each cabinet officer, again, controls his own department pretty much as he pleases, without consultation with the President or with his coadjutors, and often in the face of determinations which have been reached by the others. ”

“ If the Government will not make over the whole of the provincial administration to a popular Ministry responsible to a popular Assembly, let them at least, entrust to them such departments, as Education, Sanitation, Local Self-government, Police, etc. ”

“ In 1812 an attempt was made to form a ministry consisting of men of opposite political principles, who were invited to accept office, not avowedly as a coalition government, but with an offer to the Whig leaders that their friends should be allowed a majority of one in the cabinet. ”

“ A Minister and a Vice Minister shall be assigned to the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, and the Minister shall be appointed in political service and the Vice Minister shall be appointed as a state public official in extraordinary civil service who belongs to the Senior Civil Service. ”

“ The conduct of a Minister who proposes to himself a great and noble object, and who pursues it steadily, may seem for a while a riddle to the world; especially in a Government like ours, where numbers of men, different in their characters and different in their interests, are at all times to be managed ”

“ Each of the houses may interpellate the ministers upon all matters within the scope of their powers, may investigate the administrative acts of the Government, demand information from the ministers concerning petitions presented to the houses, may appoint commissions, to which the ministers must give all necessary information, and may give expression to its views in the form of addresses or resolutions. ”