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294 THE PRESBYTERIA
The
;; *By Keb. Thos. Ca
8
[The following paper which was read before the Presbyterian
Ministers' Association of Richmond by Dr. T. C. Johnson, was
prepared by him upon the request of the Association. The
chairman of the Assembly's ad interim committee on co-ordinating
the work of the several executive committees, had requested
the Association to express its views on that subject and the
result was this paper which has the approval of the greater
number of the members of the Association and is now published
by request.]
What should the Church do about the proposal to
merge all the executive agencies of the General Assembly
into one, or to put over them all another Executive
Committee?
Any tolerable answer to this question must preserve
unqualified regard for the simple principles of church
organization laid down in the Word of God; that is to
say, it must yield an agency or agencies thoroughly
Presbyterian and of the jure divino character. Any
tolerable answer also should give promise of an agency,
or agencies, the least cumbrous and the least costly in
proportion to efficiency. What we seek is an instrumentality,
or instrumentalities, thoroughly Biblical in
character, of -the highest efficiency, and of the greatest
simplicity and the least running expense compatible
with that efficiency and that Biblical character.
In endeavoring to answer this question I shall lay
down and briefly maintain certain theses:
I. The General Assembly should call such an instru
mentality as that through which it conducts its Foreign
Mission work, an Executive Commission. It should call
it a Commission because it must exercise some of the
functioiis proper to a court. It should call it an Executive
Commission because it should bear in its very name
a notification that it has been designed chiefly for executive
functions and should not attempt other work
unless the good of the cause imperatively demand it.
II. The General Assembly should not put over its
existing committees a steering committee, or steering
commission. To do so would make cumbrous machinery
still more cumbrous, would be to make costly machinery
still more costly, would be probably to put a
committee of non-experts over committees of experts;
........1,1 ?* ,1- -
wuu.u uc i<j pui ?np in me steering committee a body
without power to steer, would be to put an agency between
itself and its executive committees.
III. The General Assembly should conduct all its
causes through one executive commission. Our General
Assembly now has six so-called Executive Committees,
and two additional Boards of Trustees through which it
carries on its work between its successive sessions. It
should do all their work through one Executive Commission,
i e., through a body, qualified to perform some
of the functions of a Church court, some of the functions
of the Assembly itself, but bearing also in its name a
constant reminder of its servant and executive character.
The members of this Commission should compose
the Board of Trustees of the Assembly.
Several considerations may be advanced in support
of this thesis: \
\
A
N OF THE SOUTH. March 9, 1910.
i\xecutibe Agencies.
\ry Johnson, D.D.
First. It may be said that such a commission, of elders
of two classes for the conduct of the Assembly's
work, would be not only compatible with Presbyterianism,
but with thorough-going Presbyterianism. That
the old General Synod of Philadelphia was a high(
hlirrll Pr#*cKxrtnriQti 1u /licitntrwl Ixxr nr\nn
here, I suppose. That Synod at its meeting in 1720
adopted the following overture: ^
"That a Commission of the Synod be appointed to act A
in the name, and with the whole authority of the Synod,
in all affairs that shall come before them, and particularly
that the whole affair of the fund be left to their
conduct, and that they be accountable." See Records,
p. 62
Such a Commission seems to have been appointed
annually from 1720 to 1788. This Commission was competent
to do any thing that the Synod could do. It was
intended to execute work planned by the Synod and in
cases of emergency to use all the nower<; nf the murt
(the General Synod) to further the interests of the kingdom.
Its records were regularly presented to the
Synod, which body could correct anything which it
judged had been done amiss.
This feature of the life of the General Synod of Philadelphia
has been dwelt upon to prove its thorough-going
Presbyterian character by many historians; as by
Dr. Charles 1 lodge in his History of the Presbyterian
Church, Vol. I pages 132, 133. Through the use of
such a commission, the Synod magnified the represen
tative feature by practically reducing the size of its
highest court to the dimensions of a small commission.
It is worth while noting, too, that tljis feature of the
large use of the commission was borrowed from the
Scotch Presbyterian Church, the child of John Knox
and the grandchild of John Calvin.
It can hardly be necessary to consume more time in
the effort to show that a single commission of elders
of two classes to conduct the Assembly's work while
that court is not in session is compatible with Fresbyterianism.
It is an expression of thorough-going"
Presbyterianism. and has the historical sanction
through long use of the bluest of Presbyterian churches.
Second. Such a Commission could be conducted with
the least measure of expense. It may be said indeed
that the item of expense in the conduct of most of our
causes, e. g., in that of Foreign Missions is neglible;
since that expense is small now as compared with the
expense of running secidar business of similar financial
magnitude. In reply it should be pointed out that the
analogy between the conduct of the Foreign Mission
cause of half a million, and of a business plant of half
a million is not close. The Mission Committee is
.1.: -fl- *
cnieny concerned in collection and distribution, so far
as expense is concerned, whereas in the manufacturing
plant not only must the purchase of the raw materials
and the distribution through sales of the finished product,
but the whole manufacturing process must occa