God has always used His ministers, for the gathering or erecting of a church to Himself, and for the governing and preservation of the same; and still He does and always will use them, so long as the church remains on the earth. Therefore, the first beginning, institution, and office of the ministers, is a most ancient ordinance of God Himself, not a new device appointed by men. It is true that God can by His power, without any means, take unto Himself a church from among men, but He had rather deal with men by the ministry of men. Therefore, ministers are to be considered not as ministers by themselves alone, but as the ministers of God, even such as by whose means God works the salvation of mankind.
For which cause we give counsel to beware that we do not so attribute the things that appertain to our conversion and instruction unto the secret virtue of the Holy Ghost, that we frustrate the ecclesiastical ministry. For it behooves us always to have in mind the words of the apostle, "How shall they believe in Him, of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Therefore, faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:14, 17). And that also which the Lord says in the gospel, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth those that I shall send receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him who sent Me" (John 13:20). Likewise what a man of Macedonia, appearing in a vision to Paul, being then in Asia, said unto him: "Come into Macedonia, and help us" (Acts 16:9). And in another place the same apostle says, "We together are God's laborers; and ye are His husbandry, and His building" (1 Cor. 3:9).
Yet, on the other side, we must take heed that we do not attribute too much to the ministers and ministry, herein remembering also the words of our Lord in the gospel, "No man cometh to Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him" (John 6:44); and the words of the apostle, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos; but the ministers by whom ye believed; and as the Lord gave unto every one? Therefore, neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase" (1 Cor. 3:5, 7). Therefore, let us believe that God teaches us by His Word outwardly through His ministers, and inwardly moves and persuades the hearts of His elect unto belief by His Holy Spirit: and that, therefore, we ought to render all the glory of this whole benefit unto God. But we have spoken of this matter in the first chapter of our declaration.
God has used for His ministers even from the beginning of the world, the best and most eminent men in the world (for divers of them were but simple for worldly wisdom or philosophy; yet surely in true divinity they were most excellent), namely, the patriarchs, to whom He spoke very often by His angels. For the patriarchs were the prophets or teachers of their age whom God for this purpose would have to live many years, that they might be as it were fathers and lights of the world. After them followed Moses, together with the prophets, that were most famous throughout the whole world. Then, after all these, our heavenly Father sent His only-begotten Son, the most absolute and perfect teacher of the world; in whom is hidden the wisdom of God, and from Him derived unto us by that most holy, perfect, and pure of all doctrine. For He chose unto Himself disciples whom He made apostles, and they going out into the whole world gathered together churches in all places by the preaching of the gospel. And afterward they ordained pastors and teachers in all churches by the commandment of Christ, who by such as succeeded them have taught and governed the church unto this day. Therefore, as God gave unto His ancient people the patriarchs, together with Moses and the prophets, so also to His people under the new covenant He has sent His only-begotten Son, and, with Him, the apostles and teachers of the church.
Furthermore, the ministers of the new covenant are termed by divers names; for they are called apostles, prophets, evangelists, bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11). The apostles remained in no certain place, but gathered together divers churches throughout the whole world: which churches when they were once established, there ceased to be any more apostles, and in their places were particular pastors appointed in every church. The prophets in old time did foresee and foretell things to come; and besides did interpret the Scriptures: and such are found some among us at this day. They were called evangelists, which were the authors of the history of the gospel, and were also preachers of the gospel of Christ; as the apostle Paul gives in charge unto Timothy "to fulfill the work of an evangelist" (2 Tim. 4:5). Bishops are the overseers and the watchmen of the church, which distribute food and other necessities to the church. The elders are the ancients, and as it were the senators and fathers of the church, governing it with wholesome counsel. The pastors both keep the Lord's flock and also provide things necessary for it. The teachers do instruct, and teach the true faith and godliness.
Therefore, the church ministers that now are may be called bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers. But in process of time there were many more names of ministers brought into the church. For some were created patriarchs, others archbishops, others suffragans: also metropolitans, archdeacons, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, choristers, porters, and I know not what a rabble besides; cardinals, provosts, and priors; abbots, greater and lesser; orders, higher and lower. But touching all these, we little heed what they have been in time past, or what they are now; it is sufficient for us that, so much as concerns ministers, we have the doctrine of the apostles.
We, therefore, knowing certainly that monks and the orders or sects of them are instituted neither of Christ nor of His apostles, teach that they are so far from being profitable, that they are pernicious and hurtful unto the church of God. For although in former times they were somewhat tolerable (when they lived solitarily, getting their livings with their own hands, and were burdensome to none, but did in all places obey their pastors, even as laymen), yet what kind of men they are now, all the world sees and perceives. They pretend I know not what vows; but they lead a life altogether disagreeing with their vows: so that the very best of them may justly be numbered among those of whom the apostle speaks; "We hear say that there be some among you which walk inordinately, and work not at all, but are busy bodies" (2 Thess. 3:11). Therefore, we have no such in our churches: and besides we teach that they should not be allowed in the churches of Christ.
Furthermore, no man ought to usurp the honor of the ecclesiastical ministry; that is to say, greedily to pluck it to himself by bribes or any evil shifts or of his own accord. But let the ministers of the church be called and chosen by a lawful and ecclesiastical election and vocation: that is to say, let them be chosen religiously of the church, or of those which are appointed thereunto by the church, and that in due order, without any tumult, seditions, or contention. But we must have an eye to this, that not every one that will should be elected, but such men as are fit and have sufficient learning, especially in the Scriptures, and godly eloquence and wise simplicity; to conclude, such men as are of good report for a moderation and honesty of life, according to that apostolic rule, which St. Paul gives in the first epistle to Timothy (3:2–7) and to Titus (1:7–9).
And those which are chosen, let them be ordained of the elders with public prayer and laying on of hands. We here, therefore, condemn all those which run of their own accord, being neither chosen, sent, nor ordained. We do also utterly disallow unfit ministers, and such as are not furnished with gifts requisite for a pastor. In the meantime, we are not ignorant that the innocent simplicity of certain pastors in the primitive church did sometimes more profit the church, than the manifold, exquisite, and nice learning of some others that were over-lofty and high minded. And for this cause we also at this day do not reject the honest simplicity of certain men who yet are not destitute of all knowledge and learning.
The apostles of Christ do term all those which believe in Christ priests, but not in regard of their ministry, but because all the faithful, being made kings and priests, may through Christ, offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6). The ministry, then, and the priesthood are things far different one from the other. For the priesthood, as we said even now, is common to all Christians; so is not the ministry. And we have not taken away the ministry of the church because we have thrust the popish priesthood out of the church of Christ. For surely in the new covenant of Christ, there is no longer any such priesthood, as was in the ancient church of the Jews; which had an external anointing, holy garments, and very many ceremonies which were figures and types of Christ: who by His coming fulfilled and abolished them (Heb. 9:10–11). And He Himself remains the only priest forever: and we do not communicate the name of priest to any of the ministers, lest we should detract any thing from Christ. For the Lord Himself has not appointed in the church any priests of the New Testament who, having received authority from the suffragan, may offer up the host every day, that is, the very flesh and the very blood of our Savior, for the quick and the dead; but ministers, which may teach and administer the sacraments.
Paul declares plainly and shortly what we are to think of the ministers of the New Testament, or of the church of Christ, and what we must attribute unto them; "Let a man," says he, "thus account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and dispensers of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). So that the apostle's mind is that we should esteem ministers, as ministers. Now the apostle calls them υπηρετας, as it were, "under-rowers," which have an eye only to their pilot; that is to say, men that live not unto themselves, nor according to their own will, but for others; to wit, their masters, at whose beck and commandment they ought to be. For the minister of the church is commanded wholly, and in all parts of his duty not to please himself, but to execute that only which he has received in commandment from his Lord. And in this same place, it is expressly declared who is our master, even Christ; to whom the ministers are in subjection in all the functions of their ministry.
And to the end that he might the more fully declare their ministry, he adds further that the ministers of the church are "stewards, and dispensers of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). Now the mysteries of God, Paul in many places and especially in Eph. 3:4, calls "the gospel of Christ." And the sacraments of Christ are also called mysteries by the ancient writers. Therefore, for this purpose are the ministers called, namely to preach the gospel of Christ unto the faithful, and to administer the sacraments. We read also in another place in the gospel of "the faithful and wise servant" that "his Lord set him over his family, to give food unto it in due season" (Luke 12:42). Again, in another place of the gospel, a man goes into a strange country, and, leaving his house, gives unto his servants authority therein, commits to them his substance, and appoints every man his work (Matt. 25:14).
This is now a fit place to speak somewhat also of the power and office of the ministers of the church. And concerning their power some have disputed over busily, and would bring all things, even the very greatest, under their jurisdiction; and that against the commandment of God who forbade unto His disciples all dominion, and highly commended humility (Luke 22:26; Matt. 18:3). Indeed there is one kind of power, which is a mere and absolute power, called the power of right. According to this power, all things in the whole world are subject unto Christ, who is Lord of all: even as He Himself witnesses saying, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18); and again, "I am the first, and the last, and behold I live forever, and I have the keys of hell and of death" (Rev. 1:17–18); also "He hath the key of David, which openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth" (Rev. 3:7).
This power the Lord reserves to Himself and does not transfer it to any other, that He might sit idly by and look on His ministers while they wrought. For Isaiah says, "I will put the key of the house of David upon His shoulder" (Isa. 22:22); and again, "Whose government shall be upon His shoulders" (Isa. 9:6). For He does not lay the government on other men's shoulders, but still keeps and uses His own power, thereby governing all things.
Furthermore, there is another power—that of office; or ministerial power, limited by Him, who has full and absolute power and authority. And this is more like a service than a dominion. For we see that a master gives unto the steward of his house authority and power over his house, and for that cause delivers to him his keys that he may admit or exclude such as his master will have admitted or excluded. According to this power the minister does, by his office, that which the Lord has commanded him to do: and the Lord ratifies and confirms that which he does, and will have the deeds of His ministers acknowledged and esteemed as His own deeds. Unto which end are those speeches in the gospel: "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou bindest, or loosest in earth, shall be bound, or loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). Again "Whose sins soever ye remit, they shall be remitted: and whose sins soever ye retain, they shall be retained" (John 20:23). But if the minister deals not in all things as his Lord has commanded him, but passes the limits and bounds of faith, then the Lord makes void that which he does. Wherefore the ecclesiastical power of the ministers of the church is that function whereby they do indeed govern the church of God; but yet so do all things in the church, as He has prescribed in His Word: which thing being so done, the faithful esteem them as done of the Lord Himself. But touching the keys, we have spoken somewhat before.
Now the power or function that is given to the ministers of the church is the same and alike in all. Certainly, in the beginning, the bishops or elders did, with a common consent and labor, govern the church; no man lifted up himself above another, none usurped greater power or authority over his fellow bishops. For they remembered the words of the Lord, "He which will be the chiefest among you, let him be your servant" (Luke 22:26); they kept in themselves by humility, and did mutually aid one another in the government and preservation of the church.
Notwithstanding, for order's sake, some one of the ministers called the assembly together, propounded unto the assembly the matters to be consulted, gathered together the voices or sentences of the rest, and, to be brief, as much as lay in him, provided that there might arise no confusion. So did St. Peter, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (11:4–18), who yet, for all that, neither was above the rest nor had greater authority than the rest. Very true, therefore, is that saying of Cyprian the Martyr, in his book De Simplicitate Clericorum: "The same doubtless were the rest of the apostles that Peter was, having an equal fellowship with him both in honor and power: but the beginning hereof proceeds from unity, to signify unto us that there is but one church."
St. Jerome also, in his Commentary upon the Epistle of Paul to Titus, has a saying not much unlike this: "Before that, by the instinct of the devil, there arose parties in religion, the churches were governed by the common advice of the elders: but after that every one thought that those whom he had baptized were his own and not Christ's, it was decreed that one of the elders should be chosen and set over the rest, who should have the care of the whole church laid upon him, and by whose means all schisms should be removed." Yet Jerome does not avow this as an order set down of God: for straightway after he adds, "Even as the elders knew, by the continual custom of the church, that they were subject to him that is set over them: so the bishops must know that they are above the elders, rather by custom, than by the prescript rule of God's truth, and that they ought to have the government of the church in common with them." Thus far Jerome. Now, therefore, no man can forbid by any right that we may return to the old appointment of God; and rather receive that than the custom devised by men.
The offices of the ministers are divers: yet notwithstanding most men restrain them to two in which all the rest are comprehended; to the teaching of the gospel of Christ, and to the lawful administration of the sacraments. For it is the duty of the ministers to gather together a holy assembly, therein to expound the Word of God and also to apply the general doctrine to the state and use of the church; to the end that the doctrine which they teach may profit the hearers and may build up the faithful. The minister's duty I say is to teach the unlearned and to exhort, yes and to urge them to go forward in the way of the Lord, who stand still or linger and go slowly on; moreover, to comfort and to strengthen those which are fainthearted and to arm them against the manifold temptations of Satan; to rebuke offenders; to bring them home that go astray; to raise them up that are fallen; to convince the gainsayer; to chase away the wolf from the Lord's flock; to rebuke wickedness and wicked men, wisely and severely; not to wink at, nor to pass over great wickedness. And besides, to administer the sacraments, and to commend the right use of them, and to prepare all men by wholesome doctrine to receive them; to keep together all the faithful in an holy unity; and to encounter schisms. To conclude, to catechize the ignorant, to commend the necessity of the poor to the church, to visit and instruct those that are sick or entangled with divers temptations, and so to keep them in the way of life. Besides all this, to provide diligently that there be public prayers and supplications made in time of necessity, together with fasting, that is, a holy abstinence; and most carefully to look to those things which belong to the tranquility, peace, and safety of the church.
And to the end that the minister may perform all these things the better, and with more ease, it is required in him that he is one that fears God, prays diligently, gives himself much to the reading of the Scripture and in all things and at all times, is watchful and shows forth a good example unto all men of holiness of life. And seeing there must necessarily be discipline in the church, and that, among the ancient fathers excommunication was in use, and there were ecclesiastical judgments among the people of God, wherein this discipline was exercised by godly men; it belongs also to the minister's duty, for the edifying of the church, to moderate this discipline, according to the condition of the time and public estate, and according to necessity. Wherein this rule is always to be held, that "all things ought to be done to edification, decently, and honestly" (1 Cor. 14:40) without any oppression or tumult. For the apostle witnesses that "power was given to him of God, to edify and not to destroy" (2 Cor. 10:8). And the Lord Himself forbad the cockle to be plucked up in the Lord's field because there would be danger lest the wheat also should be plucked up with it (Matt. 13:29).
But as for the error of the Donatists, we do here utterly detest it; who esteem the doctrine and administration of the sacraments to be either effectual or not effectual according to the good or evil life of the ministers. For we know that the voice of Christ is to be heard, though it is out of the mouths of evil ministers; forasmuch as the Lord Himself said, "Do as they command you, but according to their works do ye not" (Matt. 23:3). We know that the sacraments are sanctified by the institution and through the word of Christ; and that they are effectual to the godly, although they are administered by ungodly ministers. Of which matter Augustine, that blessed servant of God, did reason diversely out of the Scriptures against the Donatists.
Yet notwithstanding there ought to be a straight discipline among the ministers: for there should be diligent inquiry in the synods touching the life and doctrine of the ministers: those that offend should be rebuked of the elders and be brought into the way, if they are not past recovery; or else be deposed, and, as wolves, be driven from the Lord's flock by the true pastors, if they are incurable. For if they are false teachers, they are not to be tolerated. Neither do we disapprove of general councils, if they are taken up according to the example of the apostles, to the salvation of the church, and not to the destruction thereof.
The faithful ministers also are worthy (as good workmen) of their reward; neither do they offend when they receive stipends, and all things that are necessary for themselves and their family. For the apostle shows that these things are for just cause offered by the church, and received of the ministers in 1 Cor. 9:14 and in 1 Tim. 5:17–18 and in other places also. The Anabaptists likewise are confuted by this apostolic doctrine, who condemn and rail upon those ministers which live upon the ministry.