Five disputations of church-government and worship

Sect. 23. But the principal thing that I would desire you to observe, in order to the decision of our controversy, hence, is that the Ministry is first considerable as a Work and Service, and that the Power is but a Power to be a servant to all, and to do the work. And therefore that the first Question is, Whether the great burden and labour of Ministerial service may be laid on any man without Ordination by such as our English Prelates? Or whether all men are discharged from this labour and service on whom such Prelates do not Impose it? If Magistrates, Presbyters and People conspire to call an able man to the work and service of the Lord, whether he be justified for refusing it, what ever the Church suffer by it, merely because the Prelates called him not?

Sect. 23. But the principal thing that I would desire you to observe, in order to the decision of our controversie, hence, is that the Ministry is first considerable as a Work and Service, and that the Power is but a Power to be a servant to all, and to do the work. And therefore that the first Question is, Whether the great burden and labour of Ministerial service may be laid on any man without Ordination by such as our English Prelates? Or whether all men are discharged from this labour and service on whom such Prelates do not Impose it? If Magistrates, Presbyters and People conspire to call an able man to the work and service of the Lord, whether he be justified for refusing it, what ever the Church suffer by it, meerly because the Prelates called him not?

Sect. 24. Though the forementioned works do all belong to the Office of the Ministry, yet there must be Opportunity and a particular Call to the exercise of them, before a man is actually obliged to perform the several acts. And therefore it was not without sense and reason that in Ordination the Bishop said to the Ordained [Take thou authority to Read or to preach the word of God, when thou shalt be thereunto lawfully called] Not that another call of Authority is necessary to state them in the office, or to oblige them to the Duty in General: But we must in the invitation of people, or their consent to hear us, or other such advantageous accidents, prudently discern when and where we have a Call to speak and exercise any act of our Ministry. Even as a Licensed Physician must have a particular Call by his Patients before he exercise his skill. This call to a particular act, is nothing else but an intimation or signification of the will of God, that hic & nunc we should perform such a work: which is done by Providence causing a concurrence of such inviting Circumstances that may persuade a prudent man that it is seasonable.