Five disputations of church-government and worship

Sect. 31. In a word, it is so horrid a conclusion, against Nature, a•d the Gospel, and Christian sense, that the honour of God, the fruits of Redemption, the being of the Church, the salvation or comfort of mens souls, must all be at the Prelates mercy, that a considerate Christian cannot (when he is himself) believe it: that it should be in the power of heretical, malicious, or idle Prelates to deny God his honour, and Christ the fruit of all his sufferings, a•d Saints their Comforts, and sinners their salvation, and this when the remedy is before us, and that it is the will of God that all these evils should be chosen before the evil of an unordained Ministry; this is an utterly incredible thing.

Sect. 31. In a word, it is so horrid a conclusion, against Nature, a•d the Gospel, and Christian sence, that the honour of God, the f•uits of Redemption, the being of the Church, the salvation or comfort of mens souls, must all be at the Prelates mercy, that a considerate Christian cannot (when he is himself) believe it: that it should be in the power of heretical, malicious, or idle Prelates to deny God his honour, and Christ the fruit of all his sufferings, a•d Saints their Comforts, and sinners their salvation, and this when the remedie is before us, and that it is the will of God that all these evils should be chosen before the evil of an unordained Ministry; this is an utterly incredible thing.

Sect. 32. Argument 2. Another Argument may be this: If there may be all things essential to the Ministry without humane Ordination, then this Ordination is not of Necessity to its Essence; But the Antecedent is true; therefore so is the consequent. That there be a people qualified to receive a Pastor, and persons qualified to be made Pastors, and that God hath already determined in his Law that Pastors there shall be, and how they shall be qualified is past all dispute: So that nothing remains to be done by man (Ordainers, Magistrates or People) but to determine who is the man that Christ describeth in his Law, and would have to be the Pastors of such a flock, or a Minister of the Gospel, and then to solemnize his entrance by an Investiture. And now I shall prove that a man may be a Minister without the Ordainers part in these.