If you have a physical copy, open up the Westminster Standards to the former Presbyterial Church Government. It's on page 583 in a teal version that we typically use. If you don't have it, you can get it at a Puritan's Mine by going to the Westminster Standards there and pulling up the Presbyterial Former Church Government. I'm sure you can find it easily if you just Google it on your phone quickly, something like that. On the version that we have, that we typically use, the printed one, one of the things that's neat is that it has the original front page about it as well, which is the title, The Form of Presbyterial Church Government and an Ordination of Ministers, agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from the Church of Scotland, as a part of the Covenant of Uniformity. Oh, there's that phrase. See, I didn't make it up. as a part of the covenant of uniformity in religion, betwixt the churches of Christ in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland, with an act of the General Assembly, Anno 1645, approving the same. Now, there's a text of scripture that's put there at the bottom, Ezekiel 43, verse 11, which is a beautiful verse, and let me read that to you. And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, Show them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof, and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. In the context, that verse from Ezekiel is talking about the construction of the great temple that is described in the book of Ezekiel. That temple was built after the destruction of the first, right? The first temple, the Solomonic temple, was destroyed in 586 BC. And the destruction of the temple by Babylon resulted, as you know, in the later rebuilding of the temple. And that first rebuilding of the temple with Ezra is something that we have read about, but there's more that we need to get back to in Ezra, the last couple chapters there. But the other thing is that there's this idea that the initial building of the temple was much smaller than what was described in the book of Ezekiel. And the temple described in the book of Ezekiel that was rebuilt ultimately gets its final glorious kind of condition just in time for Christ to get there when Herod, called Herod the Great, not particularly great, not a great guy, but Herod, called the Great, is the one who kind of finishes off this glimmering white huge temple as is described in Ezekiel. and it gets destroyed in 70 AD. Why would our fathers in the faith begin this booklet about the government of the church with a verse about the temple? The reason is because they understood that the temple was a type that pointed to the church. And so what they're doing is they're taking this statement about a physical temple and its administration and applying it typologically to Christ and his body, the church. And so here is what this is. So let's think about this. If you're ashamed of the things that you do in the church, Remember, look to the scriptures. Show the church the form of the house. Show the world the form of the house. What is the form that the Lord of the church has given for the church? And the fashion of it. What manner of working is done there? And the goings out thereof and the comings in, the activity of the church. And all the forms of that activity. And all the laws of the church. and write it in their sight, make it public, that they may keep the whole form thereof and all the ordinances of the church and do all the ordinances of the church. So these are the ordinances from scripture about what the church is supposed to do. That's the idea. So that's what's begun here. So now they're saying we've written out an effort to talk about what the church is supposed to do. Now, there's a preface that I would really encourage you to read. It talks a little bit about the history. It talks about the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant and the Westminster Assembly. And it talks about their desire to deal with offices, including what they call a doctor or teacher and a pastor and presbyteries and the role of people in calling of ministers and all of that. So those things are laid out as emphases in that preface. But past that, they then go on to this idea of the form of the church. I want to read you the preface here, because it sets the whole tone of the rest. Jesus Christ, upon whose shoulders the government is, whose name is called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end, who sits upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and justice from henceforth even forever. Having all power given unto him in heaven and in earth by the Father, who raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand, far above all principalities and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, also in that which is to come, and put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all, colon. Look in vain for periods before then. He, being ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things, received gifts for his church and gave officers necessary for the edification of his church and perfecting of his sense. you will find that those are almost all sort of illusions or quotes of scripture. The supremacy of Christ in the church as its king. Go to the next section of the church. there is one general church visible held forth in the New Testament. So, in other words, there's one church, one visible church, not just, Protestants are very quick to emphasize the oneness of the invisible church. Praise the Lord, absolutely. There's one invisible church, all of the elect, but there's also one visible church, there's a unity a visible unity in the visible church. Now that visible unity can be more or less mature. The mature form of it is having organizational unity where you have forms that are shared. A confession of faith, a constitution for government, a form of worship. And that unity, that visible unity in the church causes the witness of the church to be more powerful. Christ prays for it in John 17. The disunity of doctrine, the disunity of government, the disunity of worship causes people to mock at the church of God. It is something that we ought to be zealous for, to seek unity. In seeking unity, you will find there are many offenses that come along the way. There are many slaps to the cheek, and that's why you have two. There are many times when people will spit upon you or mock you or do all sorts of things to seek to undermine the ability to build out the visible church. And it is our duty to be willing to suffer wrongs in seeking to come to unity. And we must be willing to see the unity of the body of Christ as something that's worth suffering private wrongs for, and even sometimes public wrongs. There is one general church visible held forth in the New Testament. The proof text for that in 1st Corinthians 12 is, for as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we are, we are, by one spirit are we all baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. And God has set some in the church, first apostles, second prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Okay, so notice the connection in the church to these offices. Are all officers elect? Was Judas elect? Was he a true apostle? He was a true apostle. He was not elect. You can be a true officer in the true visible church and not be elect. You can have real gifts of the Holy Spirit. I didn't say you could be saved. Saving faith is not one of those gifts that you can lose. You can have other gifts besides saving faith and you cannot be elect. If you believe the gospel, if you believe that Jesus Christ has paid for your sins and that his righteousness covers you, if you believe that There's nothing else that you have to do because Jesus has done it and saved you. If you believe that, you are a part of the invisible church. You're elect. You're saved. If you believe his word is true, though you don't understand it all, you might say, I believe a little, but not a lot. There are many things I don't know and not sure are true. then you should pray, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. But the visible church, the visible church is those who profess the true religion and those who are under them in the household. And so we have a unity of the visible church and officers are to be acknowledged, whether they're elect or not, we don't know. You deal with them according to the externals. There's one general church visible held forth in the New Testament. The ministry oracles and ordinances of the New Testament are given by Jesus Christ to the general church visible for the gathering and perfecting of it in this life until his second coming. Particular visible churches, members of the general church, are also held forth in the New Testament. So there's this idea that individual persons are part of the general church visible, and also regional churches and particular local churches are. So you think about this universal visible church. It's all those who profess the true religion and their households. And you think about there are churches, national churches, regional churches, local particular churches, that are all a part of that visible church. And you start to see the form and order and beauty of the Church of Christ throughout the world and its fragmentedness. And the fact that there are small units and large units that are scattered about and not coordinating, not functioning together. And you start to think, if this were an army, And you were commanding some unit. Wouldn't you start to go, in order for us to really get combat effectiveness, we need to start linking up and concentrating units and figuring out how to get that group to work together so we can coordinate and communicate and advance together. You go, there's a lot of units here. We need to see that. You see how much more powerful a fighting force is when it's unified and coordinated as opposed to fragmented. One of the great principles of warfare when you're trying to defeat an enemy is to divide and conquer, to defeat in detail, piece by piece, rather than having to face a foe all at once. Part of the work of Christ is to seek to unify by unifying in doctrine and leading into the unifying of forms. So as you argue about doctrine, arguing about doctrine is an effort to seek to bring about visible unity. Sometimes people want to unify by a process of seeking a lowest common denominator and throwing away the advances the church has made in history, throwing away precious truths. The church exists for the truth. The truth does not exist for the church. We have no right to throw away the truth in order to seek greater visible unity. It is our duty to care about the truth, and in caring about the truth, seeking to increase the witness of the truth by seeking greater unity. It is easy to throw away our fellow saints and to say, this is too hard, this is too much trouble, this is not worth it. That is not the case. Particular visible churches, members of the general church, were also held forth in the New Testament. Particular churches in the primitive times were made up of visible saints, of such as, being of age, professed faith in Christ and obedience unto him, according to the rules of faith and life taught by Christ and his apostles, and of their children. I don't have time to deal with the membership of the Church, including children at this time, but it was so in the Old Covenant. And in the New Covenant, we are taught in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, that the children of saints are clean. They're holy. The word holy, used in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, is often translated saint. They're holy. They're saints. They're visible saints. We don't know if they're elect or not, but they are visibly a part of the church. Now, the officers of the church is on the next page, 590, of the officers of the church. The officers which Christ has appointed for the edification of this church and the perfecting of the saints are some extraordinary as apostles, evangelists, and prophets which are ceased Others ordinary and perpetual as pastors, teachers, and other church governors and deacons. So that idea of pastors, teachers, and other church governors, this is the principal place where you would have concern, or I would have concern, about the form of government. If pastors and teachers are the same office simply dividing up some work, I have no problem with that, except I don't want to steal the title of teacher from pastors. The title of teacher, there are four titles that you find in the scriptures as regards the office of elder. There's the office elder itself, which points to its maturity. There's teacher, which points to the prophetic work of teaching doctrine. There's pastor or shepherd, which points to the work of caring in relationship and maintaining holy boundaries and maintaining covenant. And then there's the title of bishop or overseer. Okay, so those four titles belong to every elder. Every elder is an elder who is called to teach, who is called to pastor, who is called to oversee. And so to divide those away is something I'm concerned about because I don't want to tear asunder what Christ has put together, all of those powers and duties in one office. Now, to have some people focus on one work versus another more is totally fitting. The division of labor is appropriate, and people have different giftings. And so to divide up labor and to deal with that is appropriate, but it's important to never deny that. So that's my concern here. So as we think about these things, the other thing is, what are the other church governors? And typically, the way that this is talked about is as the idea of a ruling elder, an elder that doesn't teach, who's not a pastor. So this is the principal concern for the form of Presbyterial Church government. We would want to say that those are one office, and there are other church governors. Here's the example of other church governors. In an unsettled condition, you sometimes have what are called messengers, and messengers are men who are sent to Presbyteries who are not elders, but who are filling in the role of an elder while a church is in an unsettled or immature state. That's why, for example, in Acts chapter 15, you have apostles sitting in the council, you have elders sitting in the council, and you have brothers sitting in the council. They all sign off on this decrees because they're all sitting in the council together because there were some churches that didn't yet have a plurality of elders to be able to send two or three witnesses to be able to deal with that council. That's what happened there. So the office of pastor. It's talked about here, and it says, as we consider the pastor shortly when he comes, I'd like you to think about the work of this, and we'll be looking at him and interacting with him as a fellow pastor. I believe we're thinking about him and his congregation in this role. The pastor is an ordinary and perpetual office in the church, prophesying of the time of the gospel. First, it belongs to his office. to pray for and with his flock as the mouth of the people and to God. And it gives texts out of Acts to demonstrate that and says, where preaching and prayer are joined as several parts of the same office. The office of the elder, that is the pastor, notice there they use the title of elder to refer to the pastor because it's so plain in the scriptures that the elder is a pastor and pastors are elders. is to pray for the sick, even in private, to which a blessing is especially promised. Notice they're referencing there the James text. It talks about that with the anointing of oil and praying for the sick. That's what they're referencing. Much more, therefore, ought he to perform this in the public execution of his office as a part thereof. To read the scriptures publicly for the proof of which One, that the priests and Levites in the Jewish church were trusted with the public reading of the word as proved. So there's a number of proof texts that are attached there that show that the Levites and the priests, footnote six, their duty to read the word of God. Notice how beautiful this is, that their concern in laying out how the government of the church is to function is they're trying to, most of this language is language proving the point. Arguing from Scripture. One of the beautiful things that, at the conference we were at this week, Senator Deavers, who's also a pastor in a Reformed Baptist church, he was talking about how, as a senator, his desire in the Oklahoma State Senate is to never put forward a law or bill except those things that he can prove are already legislated by God. because he doesn't believe that legislators have the right to invent laws to impose on men. The same is true in the church. Now there are some principles of order in terms of like what time do you show up or what method do you use to file or whatever. There's some things where you have to make a decision. Those are called circumstances where it's necessary to do is you have to make decisions about the function of order. But in terms of which laws, which things to hold as obligatory and what to do with them in terms of how to penalize. Those are things he's saying he has no right to invent. So that's true in the state and it's true in the church. And so all this time and effort to lay out argumentation for what's supposed to be done is a beautiful and humble act of the Westminster Assembly. So one, that the priests and Levites in the Jewish church were trusted with the public reading of the word is proved. Two, that the ministers of the gospel have as ample a charge and commission to dispense the word as well as other ordinances as the priests and Levites had under the law, proved, and then there's a reference to Isaiah and to Matthew, where our Savior entitles the officers of the New Testament whom he will send forth by the same names of the teachers of the old. That argument right there is a connection from an Old Testament office of priests and Levites and this idea that in the New Testament, the officers that exist, that there's a connection. Now, I want to show you this because this is very important for understanding the continuation. The understanding that the Levites are replaced by deacons and that priests are replaced by elders in the church is important. But we also, as Protestants, believe in the priesthood of all believers. So there's not a mediatorial priesthood that stands between the church congregants and God. We are all priests after the order of Melchizedek. But the priests held certain church government functions that still do transfer over. So we find that here. So look at footnote seven. 7 Isaiah 66 verse 21, and I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. What's happening in Isaiah 66 is he's talking about the Gentiles. This is a prophecy about the nations being brought in to the church. And so he's going to make priests and Levites out of the nations. What does that mean? Does that mean he's literally going to bring them into the Levitical tribe? and make them literally a part of the Aaronic priesthood established by Moses? No. We are taught elsewhere, which is in Hebrews, that there's a passing away of the Levitical priesthood. And the tribe of Levi, it's not that there's intermarriage into the tribe of Levi, whereby sons become Levites serving in some public way. It's not about a genealogical connection to the tribe of Levi. It is the function and duty of the Levites that will be given to men out of every nation. It is the function and duty of priests the teaching of the Word, the administration of sacraments, leading the people in prayer, that will be taken over by men out of every nation. So that's what's being referenced there. Now Matthew 23 verse 34 says, Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city. So this idea that there's a way in which there's prophecy from the Old Testament, and a way in which there's this transitioning out of the Old Testament into the New, where there's interconnectedness between the Church of the Old Covenant and the Church of the New Covenant. Back to the main thing, just after point two. Propositions prove that, therefore, the duty being of a moral nature, it follows by just consequence that the public reading of the scriptures belongs to the pastor's office to feed the flock by preaching of the word according to which he is to teach, convince, reprove, exhort, and comfort. To catechize, which is a playing laying down the first principles of the oracles of God or of the doctrine of Christ and is a part of preaching. to dispense other divine mysteries, to administer the sacraments, to bless the people from God. Quoting from numbers regarding the Levitical blessing that we end our service with normally, compared with Revelation 14.5, where the same blessings and persons from whom they come are expressly mentioned, Isaiah 66.21, were under the names of priests and Levites to be continued under the gospel are meant evangelical pastors, who therefore are by office to bless the people, to take care of the poor. And he is also a ruling power over the flock as a pastor. So notice that listing out of duties. This is a listing out of the duties of pastors. When you flip forward, you find that you have to go through about three pages of proof texts to just deal with that one page. And the proof texts are in much smaller font. Now when you get to the office of doctor, teacher, it says the scriptures do hold forth, the scripture does hold forth the name and title of teacher as well as of the pastor. who is also a minister of the word as well as the pastor and has power of administration of the sacraments. The Lord having given different gifts and diverse exercises according to these gifts in the ministry of the word. Though these different gifts may meet in and accordingly be exercised by one and the same minister, yet where be Several ministers in the same congregation, they may be designed to several employments according to the different gifts in which each of them does most excel. And he that does more excel in exposition of scripture, in teaching sound doctrine, and in convincing gainsayers, that's arguing with people who disagree and bringing them to agreement, that he does in application, that he does in application, and is accordingly employed therein may be called a teacher or doctor. The places alleged by the notation of the word do prove the proposition. Okay, so this idea here is that one of the duties of an elder is to exposit the scriptures, teach sound doctrine, and convince people who disagree. And there's this idea that some people who are elders are better at that than they are at helping people in application, the practical details of things, and perhaps you might associate that with exhorting. So in other words, there's some people who have a more prophetic set of giftings for arguing, and some people who are better at helping to apply to bring stuff about in terms of a kingly gifting, to help to lead and apply and give the details and help to exhort people on. That's plainly true. Some people are better at one than the other. And so the division of labor as to what is going to be focused on by different elders, totally appropriate. Now, at the same time, it says, nevertheless, where is but one minister in a particular congregation, he is to perform, as far as he's able, the whole work of the ministry. So sometimes you have to put up with a guy who's mediocre at one part and hopefully better than mediocre at the other. And so you have this idea of one person trying to deal with those things, but the mature condition would typically be that you have multiple elders, some that are better at application and exhortation, and some that are better at laying out systematic dealing with doctrine, some that are better in analyzing the word as it's laid out, and the idea of giving argumentation to help to convince gainsayers. So that work, Then it says, a teacher or doctor is of most excellent use in schools and universities, as of old in the schools of the prophets and at Jerusalem, where Gamaliel and others taught as doctors. So this form of government, one of our concerns is this idea that not only is the elder one office, and we're fine with the division of labor, but the idea that universities or schools be set up If what's meant there is merely the setting up of classes under the supervision of the church to train future officers, that's fine. If what's meant there is what we think of as the modern university separated out from the church, not under its authority, and something that's kind of ongoing with an accredited system, handing out of diplomas, and dealing with federal grants, and all that kind of stuff, then no. Now, obviously, there weren't federal grants and there weren't those sort of separated existences at the time this was written, but there were universities already that were separate from the control of the church. And so that idea of universities that are controlled by the state and are not a part of the church is something that I'm very desirous to avoid being brought in. So that's one of the things that we'd want to have clarity in if we were to adopt the Presbyterian form of government is the union of the office of elder, that it's one office And the other thing, that universities are not some distinct and independent thing set up by God that's outside of the church that, for some reason, church officers are having a special role in. So, that right there, those are the principal things as to why we have not adopted the Presbyterian form of government, but you also see there's much excellence laid out in this, much excellent work of our forefathers in the faith. And so it's our duty, when covenant of uniformity has been attained by our forefathers in the faith, to seek to acknowledge what's good and to seek to, with a scalpel of a surgeon and not with the hatchet of a lumberjack, to seek to make the correction where necessary. So sometimes that's simply by adding a footnote or an asterisk to explain how we understand something. And other times it might be a need to reform a document and to change wording. But that's the main thing. So as we come into this, and we've expressed, we've already talked to pastors shortly about those things, and he You have no problem with that and also think that it's good to work through the historical documents and to have as much as we can. And so the things to discuss with pastors shortly as we think about those things, I want to read one more section to you of Church Governors, but I want to talk to you about a little bit about the idea of the process of fraternal relations. But let's look at one more thing here. Go to the next page, page 596. about other church governors. As there were in the Jewish church elders of the people joined with the priests and Levites in the government of the church, so Christ, who has instituted government and governors ecclesiastical in the church, has furnished some in his church beside the ministers of the word with gifts for government and with circumcision. Sorry, with commission. Sorry, I was thinking Old Testament symbols. and with commission to execute the same when called thereunto, who are to join with the minister of the government of the church, which officers reform churches commonly call elders." So this idea that this is the argument here is that there are Old Testament elders, and there's Old Testament priests, and the pastor has replaced the Old Testament priest, but the office of elder simply continues forward. That's the argument. The problem is that the New Testament gives qualifications for us for the elder in church office, and it does not differentiate between the teaching office and the non-teaching office. And so that being the case, there is not a sufficient basis to try to differentiate the two, but instead to understand that the elimination of a separate priest class is what has actually happened, and the elders take on a responsibility to do the public teaching and the administration of the sacraments and prayer, and to do that, not having a distinctive priest class. That is what I would put forward to you. And so that's the places that we'd want to deal with. There's some things at the end about the qualifications of the pastorate that I'll talk to you about in just a moment. But let me pause in running through this. Let me talk to you about fraternal relations. We have a general duty as Christians to acknowledge other people who profess the Reformed faith. So you go around and you're looking for, do we have the same doctrine? Do we have the same worship? Do we have the same government? And you're looking for minimal validity. We've talked about how to acknowledge people's profession, we have the Solas, Tulip, Trinity Incarnation, the representation by Christ and Adam in the covenants. These are things that we tried to use, sort of minimal things to say we have the same gospel. To say that we agree that when God gives a commandment, it's our duty to obey it, that the law of God tells us good and evil, is how you acknowledge Christ as Lord. That right there, there are millions of people in America who would agree with those things, who have the true gospel and acknowledge Christ as Lord in that way. Many of them disagree with us about many details of worship and government. And those are things that we would pray there'd be resolution on over time. But we must acknowledge when those people have the profession of the true gospel and a profession of the authority of the law, we want to try to deal with them in a charitable manner and to deal with them in a way where we cover sins as much as we can to seek to come to unity and to deal with people as fellow visible saints. So that right there is one thing. Throughout the world, who knows how many tens of millions of saints there are that meet that description. Now, as we think about how to then deal with that in an increasingly formal way, you're dealing with not just individuals, and you're not just in a vague way dealing with other bodies that are constituted as churches. You're trying to think about how can we begin to formalize interaction and acknowledge people in increasing ways. So you could just go from we're aware of you to let's come in together and have a shared court. But that seems like a rather large jump. Even before marriage, the Bible encourages engagement. So you can work through the details of things proceeding into a marriage. So the idea of interacting, you start to interact and you have a duty to acknowledge people as Christians who are Christians. But then there's this duty to think about how to start moving toward a greater visible unity. And so what's historically been used as the name for that is fraternal relations. And oftentimes fraternal relations have existed inside of a national or civil covenant. And so civil covenanting is typically the banner under which an encouragement for church unity has occurred. When you look at the history of what's occurred inside of the Reformed churches and Reformed states, the organizing and encouraging of churches to be able to unify has typically occurred with the magistrate seeking to call Christians to come together and to have a covenanted uniformity. And that brings about large-scale covenanted uniformity. Where that does not exist and where the magistrate is an enemy of the Church of God, individual ministers must do the work of seeking to call other individual ministers as representatives of their churches to start working together for that effort. And so you have some stage where you start to recognize the legitimacy of other persons before you have a covenanted uniformity. That stage What you're doing there is you're saying we have a like faith. It's similar, even though we have not worked out everything in detail. We have a like practice. It's similar, even though we have not worked through everything in detail. And that like practice includes a similarity of government and a similarity of worship. The similarities are such that you go, there's so much overlap of unity. that we should work through these details. We should commit to one another to work through the details to resolve the remaining points. So that idea, you're then recognizing when you form fraternal relations, you're recognizing that truth about another party, and you're also recognizing that they have a legitimate ordination, that they are an officer of the Church of Christ, You are recognizing their sacraments as valid, and you recognize their church discipline as valid, which doesn't mean that you're agreeing with every decision they've ever made as a government, and it doesn't mean that you're saying you'll never look into the details. You're saying that as a general function, their church government is valid at this time to your knowledge, and so you'll start to deal with them the way you would. a true court of the Lord Jesus Christ and to seek to come to greater uniformity of government. So ordination, sacraments, and discipline. Acknowledgement of the government and worship. So those things are what would be discussed in that process. In the context of having acknowledged each other, you begin to encourage things like preaching, between the ministers of each other's churches and a sharing in sacraments as a way of trying to deal with things. It doesn't mean you don't still deal with examinations and so forth. You don't just accept the other examinations necessarily in the same way that you would once you covenant. But there's this disposition of acknowledgement of each other and an honoring of each other's governments. And the goal is to come to unity. So it would be like two distinct states interacting with each other and acknowledging each other as states. And then you're considering covenanting together to have a shared government. So think about how the colonies, the 13 colonies became 13 states. The Articles of Confederation formed a covenant between them. The Constitution was a later covenant that was a binding covenant between the states. Those covenants took existing governments and caused them to have a union. And the same sort of thing, that covenanting, that federating together, is what occurs in how churches unite. And so to form together a place to begin to work and to acknowledge each other in formal ways allows for the more detailed work to occur. So that's what fraternal relations are that we'll be going through and seeking to establish. And that is something that is the work of officers as they interact, the establishment of fraternal relations. But it is also valuable, especially in a condition where we're as small as we are, to carefully involve the people and to be able to allow for a process of building of relationships as we embark on this new effort. Now, in forming a covenant, to form a covenant to have a union of churches, there would need to be an adoption of a confession and catechisms, an adoption of a form of government, an adoption of a form of worship. And so the fraternal relations allows for a place where counsel could be gathered to begin to work through establishing those things. So the work is not done, but this idea of establishing fraternal relations allows for the beginnings of those work to lead to covenant and to potentially allow us to extend invitation to others of like faith and practice to work in that or to simply establish the covenant and then encourage others to consider joining with us. So that's the types of decisions that will be made after fraternal relations are established. Now, If you go with me in the form of Presbyterial government towards the end of it, you start to have a discussion of church courts. And after this discussion of church courts, there's a section on ordination. and then there's a section for examination of people. So I want to look at you, before you, this idea of the rules of examination because you're going to be talking to a minister of the gospel and trying to consider him and his church. And so go to page 615. These are the rules for examination. One. that the party examined be dealt with in a brotherly way, with mildness of spirit, and with special respect to the gravity, modesty, and quality of everyone. This man, Pastor Schwartley, is a man who is greater than I. He is of greater age, he's been a pastorate far longer, and he was as reformed as I have managed to become since I was born. When he comes in the room, I'll stand. You should stand. We've all benefited from his ministry. He's taught us many things. Our church repented of the original, sorry, of the American, revision of the Westminster Confession and adopted the original in large part because of the excellence of his work arguing for that. So he's been used to bring me to public repentance in this body. As an instrument of the Lord, he should be dealt with with great honor because of his work, and his age, and his accomplishments, and because of his special use in the hands of God to bless us as a congregation. That doesn't mean that you give up your judgment, and it doesn't mean that the congregation should not raise concerns, and it doesn't mean that the council should rubber stamp this. Both the fact that he is owed much respect and the fact that we must carefully perform our duties are true. But we must approach him with a mildness of spirit By the way, this direction is given to presbyteries to examine men who are coming to join the presbytery. This thing goes up a notch in terms of our mildness and our respect, given the fact that he is an officer, an elder, and more aged, and greater in gifting and accomplishment, at least than me. with special respect to the gravity, modesty, and quality of everyone. He is a man who has suffered much for the truth of God's word and has been disrespected by many. We have the honor of being a congregation who can show him respect for the sufferings and losses that he has undergone in defense of the truth. Modesty and quality. Two. He shall be examined touching his skill in the original tongues and his trial to be made by the reading the Hebrew and Greek testaments and rendering some portion of some into Latin. One of the things that we believe should be amended in the Presbyterian form of government is a testing in Latin given this time. It's really useful for ministers to know Latin because it opens up a world of books that were written in a thousand year period where Latin was the academic language. However, given our condition and time, I would suggest that we amend this if we adopt an amended form to not require a testing in Latin. As regards original languages, notice this, and if he be defective in them, inquiry shall be made more strictly after his other learning and whether he has skill in, notice this, logic and philosophy. Why? because systematic thinking and the ability to deconstruct false doctrine and to be able to make argumentation for the construction of systematic philosophical presentation allows for defects in being able to read the original language to be protected against by using systematic reasoning more carefully. Many errors, like my, horrifically mediocre, maybe, not even mediocre, my bad ability to read Greek and Hebrew. My bad ability to read Greek and Hebrew are often protected for you and my teaching because of the fact that when I read a translation and I'm thinking about it, I often, by thinking about the systematic nature of the thing, can figure out that there's probably a bad translation there. And then go and research the original language and find a solution often because of that. So because of strength in logic and systematics, I am more able, as a result, to know with my defects in Greek and Hebrew that I need to go put special time in to look at the Greek or Hebrew of the text. So this is what they were aware of as well. So focusing on that. So with Pastor Schwartley, I believe that, I can't remember the degree to which he studied. He certainly uses tools and all that kind of stuff for original languages. But the idea that we think about his systematics and we think about his systematic and logical capability there is an important part of it. And that's been on display for us in the books that we've read by him. So the degree to which we need to go through everything, he's got all sorts of stuff available online and all sorts of books and all sorts of stuff. We have ample evidence through much interaction but also through much publishing of his teaching. We're also not adopting him as our own officer. We're acknowledging him from his work as a true officer elsewhere. Three, what authors in divinity he has read and is best acquainted with. The guy has read like 10 times what I have read. I asked him about commentaries, and he knows more commentaries than basically anybody I've talked to on almost any book. I asked him for best commentaries on a number of books, just kind of at random. I was like, hey, about the book everybody's saying. And he was able to list off a bunch of periods. He was like, oh, this one is this, and that one is that. I mean, the guy's awareness of learnedness is very high. So I would encourage you to ask him about that. I think you'll find it enjoyable. I'm not asking you to not ask. I'm just letting you know that it will be enjoyable if you do ask him about what he's read and what he's learned from it. So, but I make it more particular because the guy's read so much that you're going to go, he's going to go, well, I mean, what have I read or read or whatever? Ask him more particular questions that will give you an opportunity to delve into the learnedness of Pastor Schwartley. And I have this ability to defend the orthodox doctrine contained in them. Sorry. What authors and divinity he has read and is best acquainted with and trial shall be made in his knowledge of the grounds of religion. The grounds of religion is the arguments, the ability to defend the doctrines. And of his ability to defend the orthodox doctrine contained in them against all unsound and erroneous opinions, especially these of the present age. Of his skill in the sense and meaning of such places of scripture as shall be proposed unto him in cases of conscience, and in the chronology of the scripture and the ecclesiastical history. If he is not before preached in public with approbation of such as are able to judge, he shall, at a competent time assigned him, expound before the presbytery such a place of scripture as shall be given to him. So what we're going to do is we're going to, by acknowledging him in a fraternal way, we will have opportunity to hear him preach. and we will be able to work through things. This is the stuff you do before you covenant or before you ordain. He's already ordained, but covenanting with him is the stuff that comes later. These are things that are later. I want to show you how much evidence we already have. His public preaching is generally available. You can find it on YouTube. You can find it on Sermon Audio. He shall also, with a competent time, frame a discourse in Latin, another thing we will amend, upon such a commonplace or controversy in divinity as shall be assigned to him and exhibit to the presbytery such theses as express the sum thereof and maintain a dispute upon them. So we would probably do that in English as opposed to Latin, just saying when we amend this or adopt an amended version. Six, he shall preach before the people. the presbytery or some of the ministers of the word appointed by them being present. Seven, the proportion of his gifts in relation to the place under which he is called shall be considered. The man has like six families in his church. The proportion of his gifts compared to the calling that he has, it is a whale in a lake. The proportion of his gifts in relation to the place into which he is called shall be considered. Beside the trial of his gifts and preaching, he shall undergo an examination in the premises two several days, and more if the Presbyterian shall judge it necessary. Nine, and as for him that has formerly been ordained a minister and is to be removed to another charge, he shall bring a testimony of his ordination and of his abilities in conversation whereupon his fitness for that place shall be tried by his preaching there, and, if it shall be judged necessary, by a further examination of him." So, the things that you look into, like character and doctrine, and understand his life, and you want to learn about his life, and you want to learn about his doctrine, And we want to understand his gifting. And so the fraternal relations are the context in which that can be done further. But we don't want to wrongly acknowledge people. But I think you will find very quickly it is obvious that the man has lived a hardworking and honest life, has led well and done much considering the circumstances in which he's found himself. and that he has shown great fortitude across decades and is worthy of our honor and respect. There was a discussion that Mr. Nye and I had with him as we went out as well. And that discussion involved the discussion of James Chapter 2. He has some old sermons on James Chapter 2, where the language is not quite as clear as John W. Robbins or Gordon Clark would have it, or as I would have it. But we had some discussion with it. And it's obvious that he believes that good works are the evidence of faith, and that also that he is very concerned about antinomianism. And so in discussions, there is It becomes very clear that he believes assurance is based upon faith in Christ. You look to Christ for your assurance. And it's obvious that he also believes that it works with the evidence of faith, and that faith itself is a believing of the gospel. And so I think that it is appropriate to discuss that with him in this context. But I also think that it's important that we not that we not demand an exact usage of the exact wording that we would be on professional language as long as upon discussion it is made clear he agrees with us in the doctrine. And so it is my special request that if you seek to engage and understand that, that you also make sure to show him respect in that process. So I am open now to comments, questions, and objections from the voting members, and those with speaking privileges. Yeah, so I think when you read the functions of the courts, a part of them being to examine and train officers, the idea of the examination of testing. Testing is training. And so there's testing in terms of a gate where you're keeping people out, but it's also testing in the sense that you're giving them assignments to do. And you saw the list of assignments that the presbytery is to give to test a man, right? So it talks about giving requirements to teach on certain things and you're testing certain things. So yeah, so I have no problem with the assignment of teaching of officer trainees by a higher court. And I have no problem with the assigning of tasks of study or teaching to be given to people who are training. And I don't have a problem with that occurring at whatever court level. However, I do think that being able to see into the character of a man is an extremely important part. I think the design is that, generally speaking, with the training of men, it's supposed to occur at a local level, so there's regular interaction with officers. And then there's also some that would occur at sort of the 1 per 50 level, because it's still a pretty small group. And you want a decentralized training. So if you try to have a denominational seminary where everybody has to go to you know, whatever town, right? Then you're robbing churches of their young, energetic men and their ability to serve and help in that local church for a period of years. And you're removing their connection to the sheep. And you're removing the training in ordinary life of ministry. So I think it's a monstrosity. And so I do think it should remain very close to the local church, and that local churches need to not abdicate the raising up of men. And so we have made local churches geldings and commanded them to breed. And it is unfitting. So that's my answer.