What is Presbyterianism Author:Charles Hodge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: worship, and enjoin its use on the people to whom they preach. All such regulations are of force only so far as the people themselves, in conjunction with their ... more »ministers, see fit to sanction and adopt them. 3. So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively co-operate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy. 4. And finally, in the exercise of the power of the keys, in opening and shutting the door of the communion with Tribuit igitur principaliter claves ecclesise, et immediate ; sicut et ob earn causam ecclesia principaliter habet jus vocationis.—Hase, Libri Symbolici, p. 345. Ubieunque est ecclesia, ibi est jus administrandi evangelii. Quare necesse est, ecclesiam retinere jua vocandi et ordinandi ministros. Et hoc jus est do- num proprie datum ecclesise, quod nulla humana auctoritas ecclesise eripere potest.—Ibid. p. 353. the Church, the people have a decisive voice. In all cases of discipline, they are called upon to judge and to decide. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Presbyterians do carry out the principle that Church power vests in the Church itself, and that the people have a right to a substantive part in its discipline and government. In other words, we do not hold that all power vests in the clergy, and that the people have only to listen and obey. But is this a scriptural principle ? Is it a matter of concession and courtesy, or is it a matter of divine right ? Is our office of ruling elder only one of expediency, or is it an essential element of our system, arising out of the very nature of the Church as constituted by God, and, therefore, of divine authority? This, in the last resort, is, after all,only the question,...« less