ARTICLE XXIII.

Of Ministering in the Congregation.

It is not lawful for any Man to take upon him the Dffice of public Preaching or Ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this Work by Men, who have public Authority given unto them, in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's Winepard,

WE have two particulars fixed in this Article: the first is against any that shall assume to themselves, without a lawful vocation, the authority of dispensing the things of God: the second is, the defining, in very general words, what it is that makes a lawful call. As to the first, it will bear no great difficulty: we see in the Old Dispensation, that the family, the age, and the qualifications of those that might serve in the priesthood, are very particularly set forth. In the New Testament our Lord called the twelve Apostles, and sent them out: he also sent out upon another occasion seventy Disciples: and before he left his Apostles, he told them, that as his Father Joh. xx. 21. had sent him, so he sent them: which seems to import, that as he was sent into the world with this, among other powers, that he might send others in his name; so he likewise empowered them to do the same: and when they went planting Churches, as they took some to be companions of labour with themselves, so they appointed others over the particular Churches in which they fixed them: such were Epaphras or Epaphroditus at Colosse, Timothy at Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. To them the Apostles gave authority: otherwise it was a needless thing to write so many directions to them, in order to their conduct. They had the depositum of the faith, with which 2 Tim.i. they were chiefly entrusted: concerning the succession 13. in which that was to be continued, we have these words of St. Paul: The things which thou hast heard of me, 2Tim. ii. 2. among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. To them directions are given, concerning all the different parts of

ART. XXIII.

2, 3.

1 Tim. ii. 12.

1 Tim. iii.

15.

1 Tim. v. 1,

3, 17, 19,

22.

:

their worship; supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks and also the keeping up the decency of the 1 Tim. ii. 1, worship, and the not suffering of women to teach; like the women priests among the Heathens, who were believed to be filled with a Bacchic fury. To them are directed all 1 Tim. iii. the qualifications of such as might be made either Bishops or Deacons they were to examine them according to these, and either to receive or reject them. All this was directed to Timothy, that he might know how he ought to behave himself in the house of God. He had authority given him to rebuke and intreat, to honour and to censure. He was to order what widows might be received into the number, and who should be refused. He was to receive accusations against Elders, or Presbyters, according to directed methods, and was either to censure some, or to lay hands on others, as should agree with the rules that were set him; and in conclusion, he is very solemnly charged, to keep that which was committed to his trust. He is required rightly to divide the word of truth, to preach the word, to be instant in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and to do the work of an Evangelist, and to make full proof of his ministry. Some of the same things are charged upon Titus, whom St. Paul had left in Crete, to set in order the things that were wanting, and to ordain Elders in every city: several of the characters by which he was to try them are also set down: he is charged to rebuke the people sharply, and to speak the things that became sound doctrine: he is instructed concerning the doctrines which he was to teach, and those which he was to avoid; and also how to censure an heretic: he was to Tit. iii. 10. admonish him twice; and if that did not prevail, he was to reject him, by some public censure.

1 Tim. vi. 2 Tim. ii.

20.

15.

2 Tim. iv.

2, 5.

Tit. i. 5, 9, 13.

These rules given to Timothy and Titus do plainly import, that there was to be an authority in the Church, and that no man was to assume this authority to himself; according to that maxim, that seems to be founded on the light of nature, as well as it is set down in Scripture, as a Heb, v. 4. standing rule agreed to in all times and places: 'no man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.

Rom. xii. 6, 7, 8.

St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, did reckon up the several orders and functions that God 1 Cor. xii. had set in his Church, and in his Epistle to the Ephesians Eph. iv. 11, he shews, that these were not transient but lasting consti12, 13, 16. tutions; for there, as he reckons the Apostles, Prophets,

28.

Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, as the gifts which
Christ at his ascension had given to men; so he tells the

ends for which they were given: for the perfecting the ART. saints, (by perfecting seems to be meant the initiating_XXIII. them by holy mysteries, rather than the compacting or putting them in joint; for as that is the proper signification of the word, so it being set first, the other things that come after it make that the strict sense of perfecting; that is, completing does not so well agree with the period,) for the work of the Ministry, (the whole ecclesiastical or sacred services,) for the edifying the body of Christ, (to which instructing, exhorting, comforting, and all the other parts of preaching may well be reduced;) and then the duration of these gifts is defined, Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man. This seems to import the whole state of this life.

We cannot think that all this belonged only to the infancy of the Church, and that it was to be laid aside by her when she was further advanced: for when we consider that in the beginnings of Christianity there was so liberal an effusion of the Holy Spirit poured out upon such great numbers, who had very extraordinary credentials, miracles, and the gift of tongues, to prove their mission; it does not seem so necessary in such a time, or rather for the sake of such a time only, to have settled those functions in the Church, and that the Apostles should have ordained Elders Acts xiv. in every Church. Those extraordinary gifts that were then, 23. without any authoritative settlement, might have served in that time to have procured to men so qualified all due regards. We have therefore much better reason to conclude, that this was settled at that time, chiefly with respect to the following ages, which as they were to fall off from that zeal and purity that did then reign among them, so they would need rule and government to maintain the unity of the Church, and the order of sacred things. And for that reason chiefly we may conclude, that the Apostles settled order and government in the Church, not so much for the age in which they themselves lived, as once to establish and give credit to constitutions, that they foresaw would be yet more necessary to the succeeding ages.

1 Pet. v.

This is confirmed by that which is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, both concerning those who had ruled over them, Heb. xiii. aud those who were then their guides. St. Peter gives di-7, 17. rections to the Elders of the Churches to whom he writ, 2, 3. how they ought both to feed and govern the flock; and his charging them not to do it out of covetousness, or with ambition, insinuates that either some were beginning to do so,

ART. or that, in a spirit of prophecy, he foresaw that some might XXIII. fall under such corruptions. This is hint enough to teach

us, that, though such things should happen, they could furnish no argument against the function. Abuses ought to be corrected, but upon that pretence the function ought not to be taken away.

If from the Scriptures we go to the first writings of Christians, we find that the main subject of St. Clemens' and St. Ignatius' Epistles, is to keep the Churches in order and union, in subjection to their Pastors, and in the due subordination of all the members of the body one to another. After the first age the thing grows too clear to need any further proof. The argument for this from the standing rules of order, of decency, of the authority in which the holy things ought to be maintained, and the care that must be taken to repress vanity and insolence, and all the extravagancies of light and ungoverned fancies, is very clear. For if every man may assume authority to preach and perform holy functions, it is certain religion must fall into disorder, and under contempt. Hot-headed men of warm fancies and voluble tongues, with very little knowledge and discretion, would be apt to thrust themselves on to the teaching and governing others, if they themselves were under no government. This would soon make the public service of God to be loathed, and break and dissolve the whole body.

A few men of livelier thoughts, that begin to set on foot such ways, might for some time maintain a little credit; yet so many others would follow in at that breach which they had once made on public order, that it could not be possible to keep the society of Christians under any method, if this were once allowed. And therefore those who in their heart hate the Christian religion, and desire to see it fall under a more general contempt, know well what they do, when they encourage all those enthusiasts that destroy order; hoping, by the credit which their outward appearances may give them, to compass that which the others know themselves to be too obnoxious to hope that they can ever have credit enough to persuade the world to. Whereas those poor deluded men do not see what properties the others make of them. The morals of infidels shew that they hate all religions equally, or with this difference, that the stricter any are, they must hate them the more; the root of their quarrel being at all religion and virtue. And it is certain, as it is that which those who drive it on see well, and therefore they drive it on, that if once the public order and national constitu

tion of a Church is dissolved, the strength and power, as ART. well as the order and beauty, of all religion will soon XXIII. go after it; for, humanly speaking, it cannot subsist with-" out it.

I come in the next place to consider the second part of this Article, which is the definition here given of those that are lawfully called and sent: this is put in very general words, far from that magisterial stiffness in which some have taken upon them to dictate in this matter. The Article does not resolve this into any particular constitution, but leaves the matter open and at large for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still happen. They who drew it had the state of the several Churches before their eyes, that had been differently reformed; and although their own had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times: necessity has no law, and is a law to itself.

This is the difference between those things that are the means of salvation, and the precepts that are only necessary, because they are commanded. Those things which are the means, such as faith, repentance, and new obedience, are indispensable; they oblige all men, and at all times alike; because they have a natural influence on us, to make us fit and capable subjects of the mercy of God: but such things as are necessary only by virtue of a command of God, and not by virtue of any real efficiency which they have to reform our natures, do indeed oblige us to seek for them, and to use all our endeavours to have them. But as they of themselves are not necessary in the same order with the first, so much less are all those methods necessary in which we may come at the regular use of them. This distinction shall be more fully enlarged on when the Sacraments are treated of. But to the matter in hand. That which is simply necessary as a mean to preserve the order and union of the body of Christians, and to maintain the reverence due to holy things, is, that no man enter upon any part of the holy ministry, without he be chosen and called to it by such as have an authority so to do; that, I say, is fixed by the Article: but men are left more at liberty as to their thoughts concerning the subject of this lawful authority.

That which we believe to be lawful authority, is that rule which the body of the Pastors, or Bishops and Clergy of a Church, shall settle, being met in a body under the due respect to the powers that God shall set over them: