Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.—Joel 2.28
ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICERS
Currently, the Covenanted Reformed Presbyterian Church represented by this website, is without ecclesiastical officers. The present state of the church throughout the world, with the prevalence of sectarianism, has tended to leave many Bible-loving Christians, congregations, and fellowships with few or no officers.
Since the ascension of our Lord Jesus, no church has had a perfect pastor or leader in this world. We are not looking for perfect men to be leaders of our congregations, but it is our obligation to follow faithful pastors and elders, and to have respect to their lawful calling.
As Presbyterians, we expect pastors and elders to adhere to the complete body of beliefs represented in the original Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) without American or other sectarian revisions, and also to support the practices of worship and church government represented in the Directory for Public Worship and Form of Church Government adopted at the time of the Second Reformation.
As Covenanters, we expect pastors and elders to be committed to the Second Reformation covenants as defining the purpose for the above church standards, and the unity of all church members in the cause of Christ, as we resist together civil tyranny and religious apostasy, whether in the forms of Romanism, Episcopacy, Erastianism, or Sectarianism. And as our faithful Covenanter testimonies of past centuries have done, we expect leaders in our day to distinguish between those civil and religious systems which are truly the ordinance of Christ, and those which are not.
As a helpful example, though from a remote era, many readers will find it instructive to consider the old Call of the United Societies, during the time of persecution in Scotland. Many things in this which at the first appear to refer to circumstances now altered, will be found to relate to principles with similar applications in our own day. See: A CALL by a Remnant of the true Presbyterians....
In addition, the following little extract from the minutes and conclusions of the Scottish Covenanter Societies in the early 1700’s may serve as a hint at what sort of elders we would receive with gladness for our own oversight. See: Queries to be put to Elders at their Admission. (1732.)
As for the few more remarkable men of our day, who exercise the officers of pastors and elders and profess adherence to the principles above, though we may not at present be formally united with them, we wish to say nothing against them at present. Our hope is rather that those who ought to be united, may yet be united, and all stumbling-blocks removed to the glory of God.
— Revised 2024.04.11::JTK.
An excerpt from, An Informatory Vindication &c. 1687:
WE find these are not to be acknowledged as Christ’s Ambassadours, by hearing or receiving Ordinances from them, who either never had a Call to preach, or never were clothed with Christ’s Commission in his orderly appointed way, but took it up either by Usurpation beyond their Sphere, or pretend an insufficient Mission which they cannot clearly instruct, or have it only from them who have none themselves to give. For we dare hear none that run unsent, for how shall they preach except they be sent? Rom. 10.15. We dare hear none, with whom the Lord hath not promised his countenance & concurrence, but hath threatened they shall not profit us, Jer. 23.21,22. We dare hear none of the Thieves and robbers that enter not by the door, but climb up some other way; but we are ambitious to have & keep the mark of Christ's sheep, & followers that will not follow strangers, John 10.15. And upon this ground, we withdraw from all Popish priests, that have their Mission from Antichrist: From all Prelatick Curates, that have theirs from the Episcopal Hierarchy which is also Antichristian: And also from gifted brethren who preach at their own hands, or have their mission from the people.