The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order

Chapter 10 : Church Courts in General

Paragraph 5 : Vested in Prayer

10-5. Every meeting of the Session, Presbytery and General Assembly shall be opened and closed with prayer, and in closing the final session a psalm or hymn may be sung and the benediction pronounced.

[Note : .]

BACKGROUND & COMPARISON:
PCA 1973, 11-5, text, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, p. 132
and
Continuing Presbyterian Church 1973, 11-5, Proposed text, p. 11
Every meeting of the Presbytery and General Assembly shall be opened and closed with prayer, and in closing the final session a psalm or hymn may be sung and the benediction pronounced.

PCUS 1933, § 55
Every meeting of the Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly shall be opened and closed with prayer, and in closing the final session a psalm or hymn may be sung and the benediction pronounced.
and
PCUS 1925, § 55

PCUS 1879, V-1-6

Every meeting of the Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly shall be opened and closed with prayer, and in closing the final meeting a psalm or hymn may be sung and the benediction pronounced.

PCUS 1869 draft, chapter V
[no comparable text in this chapter]

PCUS 1867 draft, V-1-3
The courts of the church shall always be opened and closed with prayer.


COMMENTARY :
F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order
(1898, pp. 66-67), on V-1-6 :
57.--VI. Every meeting of the Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly shall be opened and closed with prayer, and in closing the final meeting a psalm or hymn may be sung and the benediction pronounced.
So much ought men engaged in ruling in the Church to seek as courts the blessing of God upon themselves and their work as rulers. If the benediction is pronounced, and a Ruling Elder is at the time Moderator, he should remit this function to a Minister. (Cf. par. 43, and pars. 24 and 35.