Ordination

Ordination in a common, but limited and technical sense, is the ceremony by which an individual is set apart to an order or office of the Christian ministry; As the laying on of hands is usually a distinctive feature of that ceremony, many persons have very inadequately treated of ordination to the Christian ministry as identical with it; whereas imposition of hands (q.v.) has various other uses, and only belongs to the ceremony in question as a symbolic act indicative of the bestowment of spiritual gifts or power. In a broader, and in fact its only important sense, ordination signifies the appointment or designation of a person to a ministerial office, whether with or without attendant ceremonies. The term ordination is derived directly from the Latin ordination signifying, with reference to things or affairs, a setting in order, an establishment, an edict, and with reference to men, an appointment to office. It is used in all languages derived from the Latin, and chiefly in application to this one idea of induction to the- ministerial office. As used in the English language, the term is not fixed and invariable in its signification. In fact it has many variations of meaning, as it is made to represent the peculiar theories and practices which have prevailed in different periods and churches with reference to the character and effect of ordination; yet all these variations of meaning may be harmonized under the general idea of ministerial appointment, whether by the Savior's command, or through multiplied ceremonies of human devising.

It is but just to consider the subject of ordination one of no small intrinsic interest, since, by the consent and practice of the Christian world, it is an act, or the peculiar feature of a series of acts, by which all ministers have received their order or office, in distinction from the laity of the Church. Nevertheless much of the prominence which has been given to it in theological controversy has not arisen from its intrinsic importance, but from the accident of its being a pivotal question in reference to the dogma of a lineal apostolical succession, and the consequences supposed to flow through it as a channel of transmitted grace. It has also entered largely into the sacramentarian controversies of the past. Whoever would properly comprehend the subject of ordination as now defined should give primary attention to whatever teachings the Scriptures contain respecting it. Of necessity the Word of God, rightly interpreted, is the one source of authority in reference to a subject so closely connected with the establishment of Christ's kingdom upon the earth. Hence any theory or practice that is not sustained by inspired precept or example cannot be regarded as of religious authority, or deserving attention other than as a matter of history or curiosity.

A scriptural investigation of this subject can hardly fail to impess any ingenuous mind with the great significance The fact that neither the Lord Jesus Christ nor any of his disciples gave specific commands or declarations in reference to ordination. The facts of the institution of the ministerial office in the Church and of the ordination, in the sense of the appointment, of faithful believing men to serve in that office, stand forth prominently through out the New Testament. But the manmer in which those facts are stated suggest the inference that ministerial ordination, like the more comprehensive subject of Church organization itself, was not designed to be a matter of minute prescription or of constrained uniformity, but rather was to be left open, within the range of certain great principles, to minor variations of detail that might be appropriate to the circumstances of the future. Had any particular form of ordination been essential to the perpetuity of the Church, the validity of the sacraments, or the salvation of men, it seems but reasonable to infer that the Head of the Church himself would have appointed that special form, and have given precepts for its continuance. In the absence of any such appointment by the Lord Jesus, we have to ascertain to what extent the apostles became the instructors of the Church in reference to the subject in question; and, finding in their writings an absence of specific precepts, it is necessary to collate the several examples of ordination which they have recorded, and to draw from them impartial inferences as to their import and bearing upon the future practice of the Church. When once the canon of Scripture is closed nothing remains but to follow the course of history, and to observe how different churches, at different periods, have sought to improve upon the simplicity and godly sincerity of the apostolic practices, and with what results, inclusive of far- reaching corruptions. As the subject essentially demands historic treatment, attention is first invited to —