Page:The church manual (Church of the Brethren 1916).djvu/27

26 It will be your duty to faithfully preach the Word, and to care for the wants of all the membership, being yourself an example to the church in all holiness and purity of heart, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. It will be your duty in all the affairs of the church to counsel with your official brethren and with the church; taking the oversight not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, and in no way to lord it over God's heritage. The church will not allow you to depart from the order of the general Brotherhood in faith and practice; but will hold you to the faith and practice of the Scriptures as defined by the Brethren in Annual Meeting assembled.

Now, dear brother A. B., do you willingly accept the position into which the church now proposes to put you? And do you, in good faith, without any mental reservation, accept and adopt all the order and practice of the general Brotherhood, in her plainness of dress and non-conformity to the world? And do you promise to unite your labors with all your faithful brethren, everywhere, to observe and enforce all the faith and practice of the general Brotherhood?

The laying on of hands by the elders is now attended to, followed by prayer; after which the church receives him by extending to him the right hand of fellowship and the salutation.