Voted to proceed to his ordination this evening at half-past six o'clock.
Voted that the parts be performed as follows: The introductory prayer to be offered by Mr. Scranton; the sermon to be preached by Professor Fitch; the ordaining prayer to be offered by Mr. Merwin, during which Messrs. Stebbins, Fitch and Merwin to impose hands; the charge to be given by Mr. Stebbins; the right hand of fellowship by Mr. Bacon; the concluding prayer to be offered by Mr. Allen. Adjourned to meet in the Centre Meeting-house at half-past six o'clock.
Met according to adjournment. The ordination took place according to the preceding votes.
Mr. Chambers, at his request, was admitted a member of the Association.
The minutes were read and accepted.
Leonard Bacon, Scribe."
[Test]
The ordination sermon was duly preached in the evening by the Rev. Professor Eleazer T. Fitch, D.D., Livingstone Professor of Divinity in Yale College, and then Mr. Chambers was ordained by the laying on of hands of the three appointed ministers of the Association.
According to Congregational usage an Association of ministers does not ordain to the ministry, but a Council does. The Association may transform itself into a Council for the time being. In Connecticut the Consociation, or standing council, performed this function. In any event, John Chambers was properly ordained to the Gospel ministry according to due Congregational call, form, and precedent.
Furthermore, by his own request, he became a member of the Association. This did not make him a "Congregationalist", but it showed his hearty sympathy with the principles and ideas of his fellow members. For forty-eight years, his only ministerial standing and connection was in the Congregational body as an independent minister, though his church was governed according to Presbyterian form and usage. So strong and deep was his faith in the validity of non-Episcopal and non-Presbyterian ordination that he showed it all his life by his works. He ordained during the course of his ministry several young men to the work of the gospel. One of these impressive ceremonies I myself witnessed, probably about 1859. After preaching a sermon and reading the papers or certificates of the candidate, Mr. Chambers called his elders, those grand men of God, Burtis, Luther, Steinmetz, and Walton around him. Then upon the head of the kneeling young man he and they laid their hands, solemnly ordaining him to the gospel in true apostolic style.