The Eldership Question [pp. 231-246]

23(3 THE ELDERSHIP QUESTION. [April,
is no evidence that the English Presbyterian churches departed, in this respect, from the usages of the continent, from
which they drew their polity, and very largdy their ministry
and membership.
The earliest record I can find of a permanent tenure of
the office of Ruling Elder, is in the "Martyr ~`hurA~," as it
is sometimes called, in London, the church in which Barrowe,
Greenwood and Penry were members. This church was
driven into exile in 17)93, and was rea~ssembled in Amsterdam,
under its pastor, Francis Johnson, who had been the colicague of the martyr Greenwood. In 1598 it published "The
Confession of Faith of certain English people living in the
Low Countries, exiled:" the preface being dated two years
before tlie date of publication. On that Confession Francis
Junius made some strictures. The exiles replying to him,
and noting some of the "chief heads o~ their dissent from the
Dutch Church," (to which Junius thought they ought to have
joined themselves) mentioned, as the seventh of eleven differences, the difference between the Presbyterian Ruling
Elder and their own: "Their E0ders change yearly, and do
not continue in office according to the doctrine of the Apostles, and practice of the primitive churches." (Hanbury's
Historical Memorials, Vol. I. p. 141). This reply of the Amsterdam exiles to Junius was dated July 1, 1602.
In 1616 the Congregationalists framed themselves into a
distinct party. Toulmin (Hist. of Prot. Dissenters, p. 281)
says there was usually, besides the minister, "another person,
not a minister, but a layman, whom they called a Ruling
Elder." John Robinson, in a letter to Sir John ~Yostenholme,
Jan. 27, 1618, which was designed to be laid before the king,
says, "Touching the ecclesiastical ministry, viz., of Pastors
for teaching, and Elders for ruling, and Deacons for distributing the church's conuribuftous.... We wholly agree with
the French Reformed Churches, according to their public
Confession of Faith." With this Confession, as being that
adopted by the non.conforming churches of South Britain,
the Court was assumed to be familiar. But among the differences "in some accidental circumstances," he mentions: