The judgment of several eminent divines of the Congregational way. Concerning a pastors power.…

If therefore a Member may do an Act and Work of a Member in the absence of the Church, whereto he belongs; why may not the Minister also do an Act and Work of his Office, as a Minister in the absence of that Church, whereto he most peculiarly is a Minister? I do not yet perceive how the presence of the Ministers Church is requisite in the one case, any more than the presence of the Church in the other.

2. I want a good Reason for this, that this Act of the Minister to Members of another Church should be lawful in his own Churches presence, and unlawful in their absence. If consent be requisite, that may be had, though they be not corporally present at all. But if the thing be unlawful in his Churches absence it is not (for ought I know) his Churches presence that will warrant or excuse him therein; no though his Church were all present, and though the Act he now doth to others, ⟨p. 10⟩be to no more but only to one Member of another Church. Thus Mr. Mather in his Letter to Mr. Hooker.

Mr. Norton who was many Years an Eminent Teacher of the Church in Ipswich, and after that at Boston, his Answer to Apollonius is by Hornbeck and Others, Esteemed the most Learned Book that has been Published in defence of Congregational Principles. Now in that Book (Pag. 80.81, 82.) he affirms, that tho' a Pastor cannot Authoritatively perform the Ministerial Acts of his Office in another Church, as he may in his own, nevertheless that Charitatively he may do it, Provided that the Exercise thereof be duly qualified, that is to say, that the Church where he does Minister shall request him to perform Ministerial Acts among them, and that the Church be necessitated to that request which is the case (saith he) of an Inorganic Church with respect to the Administering of Sacraments The exercise of Ministerial Power thus qualified is no way repugnant to the Liberty or Summity of a particular Church.