# John Edwards on the office of ruling elder



## Reformed Covenanter (Feb 7, 2020)

The below post is a good source to share if you are trying to persuade those from Anglican backgrounds to reconsider the issue of ruling elders. I actually came across it in the American Presbyterian, Samuel Miller's book on _The Ruling Elder_, who probably cited it to appeal to those that lived outside his denominational echo-chamber. (He also quotes a lot of 17th and 18th century Congregationalists in support of ruling elders.) Would that modern polemicists would learn to do likewise and make arguments that appeal to the prejudices of those whom they are addressing.

John Edwards was a minister in the Church of England in the late 17th- and early 18th centuries. He was no cage-stage cyber-Covenanter. And yet he had the objectivity to recognise that the office of ruling elder was both agreeable to scripture and was "not invented by Calvin, as some have thought and writ." Edwards even claimed that ruling elders "seem to have been allowed of by our Reformers, as is evident from the Injunctions which were given by King Edward the VIth. to those Persons who were to take care of Reforming and Settling Ecclesiastical Affairs in his Reign."

For more, see John Edwards on the office of ruling elder.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 2


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## Reformed Covenanter (Feb 7, 2020)

One part of the original source that I omitted (via ellipsis) was a quotation, purported from Ambrose of Milan, to the effect that the office of ruling elder fell out of use owing to clerical pride. I omitted this quote because the footnotes to my F. L. Battles edition of John Calvin's _Institutes_ says that this quotation really belongs to the early commentator, Ambroasiaster. For some reason, various authors mistakenly cite Ambrose as the author of this statement.


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