N00779:150
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in…
The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard College in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]The order of the Gospel, professed and practised by the churches of Christ in New England, justified, by the Scripture, and by the writings of many learned men, both ancient and modern divines; in answer to several questions, relating to church discipline / by Increase Mather, president of Harvard Colledge in Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New England. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benjamin Eliot, 1700
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. The Essence of a Ministers Call consists in a mutual Election between him and his People. As in Marriage the Consent of both parties is Essentially requisite, but a public Solemnization of the Marriage is not so. The Coronation of a King is not Essential to his Office, nor is the Solemn Inauguration of a Public Magistrate Essential to his being a Magistrate. No more is Ordination to the being of a Minister. Learned Papists notwithstanding they are wont to place the Essence of a Ministers Call in his Ordination, says that a Cardinal has his Ecclesiastical power by virtue of his Election before his Instalment. And that a Pope when Elected has Power to rule the Church before his I•thronization. The Lawyers say that Solennia non sunt de rei Substantia. We cannot say that if a man has not received Imposition of hands that then he is no Pastor, but we may say that if he has not been Elected by some Church of Christ he is no Pastor, but his Ordination is a nullity. For which cause the Learned (u)and noble Morney approves of Chrysostom, his saying that Election by the People is so necessary that without it there is neither Altar, nor Priesthood. And a whole Council, viz. that of Calcedon has pronounced ⟨p. 92⟩all such Ordinations to be null, as we shall afterwards have occasion more fully to declare. Suppose a person qualified with Ministerial gifts should suffer Shipwreck in a remote Island where there are none but Heathen, and should by Preaching be instrumental in the Conversion of many of them, might not these his Converts-Elect him to be their Pastor, and might not he accepting of their Call, Administer all Ordinances to them without any Ordination by the Imposition of the hands of Ministers, where there are no Ministers? Mr. Herle a Learned Presbyterian does not deny it. And Dr. Whitaker (w)affirms no less in saying, that if there were not a Bishop in the World the Church could Create Bishops Ecclesiastical Story informs us, That Aedisius and Frumentus being private men by Preaching the Gospel Converted a great Nation of Indians. Might they not Administer Sacraments to these Converts being Elected by them to be their Pastors, without any Imposition of hands from other Pastors in a Country where none were. See Dr. Fulk on