The General Assembly [pp. 521-553]

G8eneral Assembly.
of Washington College, Pennsylvania; Judge Hepburn nominated
Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina. Other nominations were
made, but withdrawn at the request of the gentlemen mentioned.
Neither Dr. Clark nor Dr. Thornwell was present. When the
election took place, it appeared that Mr. Green had received
112 votes, Dr. Clark 31, Dr. Thornwell 23. Mr. Green was
thereupon declared duly elected, and Drs. Plumer and Leyburn
were appointed a committee to inform him of the fact.
The friends of the Seminary cannot fail to feel gratitude to
God for the degree of unanimity by which these important
measures were carried, and to their brethren of the Assembly
for the kind spirit with which the discussion of questions,
about which diversity of opinion could not fail to exist, was
conducted. The seventh resolution, by which the subjects
Composition and Delivery of Sermons, and Church Government,
were transferred to the Professor of Pastoral Theology, was not
designed for any temporary purpose, but to secure a more just
and philosophical distribution of the topics of instruction. The
proper arrangement of the departments in a theological faculty,
has been the subject of much consideration in every country
where such faculties exist. Bishop Marsh, in his lectures, states
that the distribution which has received the sanction of long
experience on the continent of Europe, and which he himself
recommends, is into four departments. First, the biblical;
second, the dogmatic; thirdly, the historical; fourthly, the
practical. Under the fourth is included everything which
belongs to the actual duties of the ministry; the composition
and delivery of sermons; pastoral care; the government of the
church, and administration of its discipline. This is the arrangement which has for years been contemplated, and towards which
there has been a gradual approximation in the organization of
the Seminary at Princeton, and in that of other similar institutions. When Drs. Alexander and Miller were appointed
professors, the one of theology, the other of history, they divided
between them the other departments which fell appropriately
under neither of those heads. Dr. Alexander took Hebrew,
biblical criticism, and pastoral care; Dr. Miller took the com position and delivery of sermons, which clearly has no special
connexion with ecclesiastical history, and church government.
538
[JULY