The true nature of a Gospel church and its government

2. AS to the nature of this Election, Call or Choice of a Person known, tried, and judged, meetly qualified for the Pastoral Office, it is an Act of the whole Church, that is, of the Fraternity with their Elders, if they have any. For a Pastor may be chosen unto a Church which hath other Teachers, Elders, or Officers already instated in it. In this case their concurrence in the choice intended, is necessary by way of common ⟨p. 61⟩suffrage, not of Authority or Office-Power. For Election is not an Act of Authority, but of Liberty and Power, wherein the whole Church in the Fraternity is equal. If there be no Officers stated in the Church before, as it was with the Churches in the Primitive Times, on the first Ordination of Elders among them, this Election belongs unto the Fraternity.

3. THAT therefore which we have now to prove, is this; That it is the Mind and Will of Jesus Christ, that meet Persons should be called unto the Pastoral Office (or any other Office in the Church) by the Election and Choice of the Church it self whereunto they are called, antecedently unto a sacred solemn separation unto their respective Offices: For,

1. UNDER the Old Testament there were three ways whereby Men were called unto Office in the Church. (1.) They were so extraordinarily and immediately by the nomination and designation of God himself. So Aaron was called unto the Priesthood, and others afterwards, as Samuel, to be Prophets. (2.) By a law of Carnal Generation; so all the Priests of the Posterity of Aaron succeeded into the Office of the Priesthood, without any other call. (3.) By the choice of the people, which was the call of all the ordinary Elders and Rulers of the Church,