A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

4. But when a man is made a minister in general before, he needeth no proper ordination to fix him in a particular charge; but only an approbation, recommendation, particular investiture, and reception. For else a man must be oft ordained, even as oft as he removeth. But yet imposition of hands may fitly be used in this particular investiture, though it be no proper ordination, that is, no collation of the office of a minister in general, but the fixing of one that was a minister before.

Quest. XXI. May a man be oft or twice ordained?

It is supposed, that we play not with an ambiguous word, that we remember what ordination is. And then you will see cause to distinguish, 1. Between entire, true ordination, and the external act, or words, or ceremony only. 2. Between one that was truly ordained before, and one that was not. And so I answer,

1. He that seemed ordained, and indeed was not, is not re-ordained when he is after-ordained.

2. It is needful therefore to know the essentials of ordination, from the integrals and accidentals.

3. He that was truly ordained before, may in some cases receive again the repetition of the bare words and outward ceremonies of ordination (as imposition of hands). Where I will, I. Tell you in what cases. II. Why.

I. 1. In case there wanted sufficient witnesses of his ordination; and so the church hath not sufficient means of notice or satisfaction, that ever he was ordained indeed: or if the witnesses die before the notification. Whether the church should take his word or not, in such a case, is none of my question, but, Whether he should submit to the repetition if they will not.

2. Especially in a time and place (which I have known) when written and sealed orders are often counterfeited, and so the church called to extraordinary care.

3. Or if the church or magistrate be guilty of some causeless, culpable incredulity, and will not believe it was done till they see it done again.

4. Or in case that some real or supposed integral (though not essential) part was omitted, or is by the church or magistrate supposed to be omitted; and they will not permit or receive the minister to exercise his office, unless he repeat the whole action again, and make up that defect.

5. Or if the person himself do think that his ordination was insufficient, and cannot exercise his ministry to the satisfaction of his own conscience, till the defect be repaired.

In these cases (and perhaps such others) the outward action may be repeated.

II. The reasons are, 1. Because this is not a being twice ordained. For the word ordination, signifieth a moral action, and not a physical only; as the word marriage doth, &c. And it essentially includeth the new dedication and designation to the sacred office, by a kind of covenant between the dedicated person and Christ to whom he is consecrated and devoted. And the external words are but a part, and a part only as significant of the action of the mind. Now the oft expressing of the same mental dedication doth not make it to be as many distinct dedications. For, 1. If the liturgy or the person's words were tautological, or at the ordination should say the same thing often over and over, or for confirmation should say often that which else might be said but once, this doth not make it an often or multiplied ordination: it was but one love which Peter expressed, when Christ made him say thrice, that he loved him; nor was it a threefold ordination which Christ used, when he said thrice to him, "Feed my lambs and sheep."

2. And if thrice saying it that hour make it not three ordinations, neither will thrice saying it at more hours, days, or months, or years distance, in some cases; for the time maketh not the ordinations to be many; it is but one moral action. But the common error ariseth from the custom of calling the outward action alone by the name of the whole moral action (which is ordinarily done to the like deceit in the case of the baptismal covenant, and the Lord's supper).

3. The common judgment and custom of the world confirmeth what I say. If persons that are married should for want of witness or due solemnity be forced to say and do the outward action all over again, it is by no wise man taken in the proper, moral, full sense, for a second marriage, but for one marriage twice uttered.

And if you should in witness-bearing be put to your oath, and the magistrate that was absent should say, Reach him the book again, I did not hear him swear, the doing it twice is not morally two witnessings or oaths, but one only twice physically uttered.

If you bind your son apprentice, or if you make any indentures or contract, and the writings being lost or faulty, you write, and sign, and seal them all again, this is not morally another contract, but the same done better, or again recorded. And so it is plainly in this case.

4. But re-ordination morally and properly so called, is unlawful: for, (1.) It is (or implieth) a lie, viz. that we were not truly dedicated and separated to this office before.

(2.) It is a sacrilegious renunciation of our former dedication to God: whereas the ministerial dedication and covenant is for life, and not for a trial; which is the meaning of the indelible character, which is a perpetual relation and obligation.

(3.) It is a taking the name of God in vain; thus to do and undo, and do again; and to promise and renounce, and promise again, and to pretend to receive a power which we had before.

(4.) It tendeth to great confusions in the church; as to make the people doubt of their baptism, or all the ministerial administrations of such as are re-ordained, while they acted by the first ordination.

(5.) It hath ever been condemned in the churches of Christ, as the canons called the apostles', and the church's constant practice, testify.

5. Though the bare repetition of the outward action and words be not re-ordination, yet he that on any of the forementioned occasions is put to repeat the said words and actions, is obliged so to do it, as that it may not seem to be a re-ordination, and so be a scandal to the church. Or if it outwardly seem so by the action, he is bound to declare that it is no such thing, for the counterpoising that appearance of evil.

6. When the ordainers, or the common estimation of the church, do take the repetition of the words and action for a re-ordination, though the receiver so intend it not, yet it may become unlawful to him by this accident, because he scandalizeth and hardeneth the erroneous, by doing or receiving that which is interpretative re-ordination.

7. Especially when the ordainers shall require this repetition on notoriously wicked grounds, and so put that sense on the action by their own doctrines and demands: as for instance,

(1.) If heretics should (as the Arians) say that we are no ministers, because we are not of their heresy, or ordained by such as they.

(2.) If the pope or any proud papal usurpers shall say, You are no ministers of Christ, except we ordain you; and so do it to establish a traitorous, usurped regiment in the church; it is not lawful to serve such a usurpation. As if cardinals or archbishops should say, None are true ministers but those that we ordain; or councils or synods of bishops or presbyters should say, None are true ministers but those that we ordain; or if one presbyter or one bishop without authority would thus make himself master of the rest, or of other churches, and say, You are no ministers unless I ordain you; we may not promote such tyranny and usurpation.

(3.) If magistrates would usurp the power of the keys, in ecclesiastical ordination, and say that none but they have power to ordain, we may not encourage such pretences by repetition of the words and action.

(4.) If they would make something necessary to ordination which is not, as if it were a false oath, or false subscription or profession, or some unlawful ceremony, (as if it were anointing, wearing horns, or any the like,) and say, You are no ministers without these, and therefore you must be re-ordained to receive them.

(5.) Yea, if they declare our former ministry causelessly to be null, and say, You are no ministers till you are ordained again, and so publicly put this sense upon our action, that we take it as re-ordination; all these accidents make the repetition of the words and actions to be unlawful, unless when greater accidents notoriously preponderate.

Quest. But if such church tyrants should have so great power, as that without their repetition of ordination on those terms, the ministry might not be exercised, is it lawful so to take it in a case of such necessity?

Answ. 1. Every seeming necessity to you, is not a necessity to the church. 2. Either you may publicly declare a contrary sense in your receiving their new orders or not.

1. If you may not as publicly declare that you renounce not your former ministry and dedication to God in that office, as the ordainers declare their sense of the nullity of it, so that your open declaration may free you from the guilt of seeming consent, I conceive it is a sinful compliance with their sin. 2. Yea, if you may so declare it, yet if there be no necessity of your ministerial liberty in that place, I think you may not take it on such terms. As, (1.) If there be worthy men enough to supply the church's wants there without you. (2.) And if you may serve God successfully in a persecuted state, though to the suffering of your flesh. (3.) Or if your imprisonment for preaching be like to be as serviceable to the church and gospel as your continued preaching on those scandalous terms. (4.) Or if you may remove and preach in another country.

8. When any such case doth fall out, in which the repetition of the outward action and words is lawful, it is not lawful to mix any false and scandalous expressions: as if we were required to say falsely, I accept this ordination as confessing myself no minister of Christ till now: or any such like.

9. In a word, a peaceable christian may do much as to the mere outward action and submission, for obedience, peace, order, or satisfaction to his own or other men's consciences. But, (1.) He may do nothing for good ends which is false and injurious to the church.264 (2.) And he may not do that which otherwise were lawful, when it is for evil ends, or tendeth to more hurt than good; as to promote heresy, or church tyranny and usurpation, whether in pope, prelates, presbyters, or people.

Quest. XXII. How many ordainers are necessary to the validity of ordination by God's institution? whether one or more?

My question is not of the ancient canons, or any human laws or customs, for those are easily known; but of divine right. Now either God hath determined the case as to the number of ordainers necessary, or not. If not, either he hath given the church some general rule to determine it by, or not. If not, then the number is not any part of the divine order or law; and then, if we suppose that he hath determined the case as to the ordaining office and not to the number, then it will follow that one may serve. The truth I think may be thus explained.

1. There is Ordo officialis primarius, and Ordo ordinis, vel exercitii, vel secundarius; an order of office primary, and an order of exercise secondary, in the church. As to the first, the order of office, God hath determined that the ordaining officers, and no others, shall ordain officers, or give orders. And having not determined whether one or more, it followeth that the ordination of one sole lawful ordainer is no nullity on that account because it is but one, unless somewhat else nullify it.

2. God hath given general rules to the ordainers for the due exercise of their office, though he have not determined of any set number. Such as are these: that all things be done in judgment, truth, love, concord, to the church's edification, unity, and peace, &c.

3. According to these general laws, sometimes the ordination of one sole ordainer, may not only be valid but regular; as when there are no other to concur, or none whose concurrence is needful to any of the aforesaid ends. And sometimes the concurrence of many is needful, (1.) To the receiver's satisfaction. (2.) To the church's or people's satisfaction. (3.) To the concord of pastors, and of neighbour churches, &c. And in such cases such consent or concourse is the regular way.

4. Where there are many neighbour pastors and churches so near, as that he that is ordained in one of them, is like oft to pass and preach, and officiate obiter in others, and so other churches must have some communion with him, it is meetest that there be a concurrence in the ordination.

5. The ordainer is certainly a superior to the person that cometh to be ordained while he is a private man; and therefore so far his ordination is (as is said) an act of jurisdiction in the large sense, that is, of government; but whether he be necessarily his superior after he is ordained, hath too long been a controversy. It is certain that the papists confess, that the pope is ordained such by no superior; and it is not necessary that a bishop be ordained by one or more of any superior order (or jurisdiction either). And though the Italian papists hold that a superior papal jurisdiction must needs be the secondary fountain of the ordaining power, though the ordainer himself be but of the same order; yet protestants hold no such thing. And all acknowledge that as imposition of hands on a layman to make him a minister of Christ or an officer, is a kind of official generation,265 so the ordained as a junior in office, is as it were a son to the ordainer, as the convert is said to be peculiarly to his converter; and that a proportionable honour is still to be given him. But whether he that ordaineth a presbyter, and not he that ordaineth or consecrateth a bishop, must needs be of a superior order or office, is a question which the reader must not expect me here to meddle with.

Quest. XXIII. What if one bishop ordain a minister, and three, or many, or all the rest protest against it, and declare him no minister, or degrade him; is he to be received as a true minister or not?

Supposing that the person want no necessary personal qualification for the office, there are two things more in question; 1. His office, whether he be a minister. 2. His regularity, whether he came regularly to it; and also his comparative relation, whether this man or another is to be preferred. I answer therefore,

1. If the person be utterly incapable, the one bishop, or the many whosoever taketh him for incapable, is for the truth sake to be believed and obeyed.

2. If the man be excellently qualified, and his ministry greatly necessary to the church, whoever would deprive the church of him, be it the one or the many, is to be disobeyed, and the ordainers preferred.

Object. But who shall judge? Answ. The esse is before the scire; the thing is first true or false before I judge it to be so; and therefore whoever judgeth falsely in a case so notorious and weighty, as that the welfare of the church and souls is (consideratis considerandis) injured and hazarded by his error, is not to be believed nor obeyed on pretence of order; because all christians have judicium discretionis, a discerning judgment.

3. But if the case be not thus to be determined by the person's notorious qualifications, then either it is, 1. The man ordained. 2. Or the people that the case is debated by, whether they should take him for a minister. 3. Or the neighbour ministers.

1. The person himself is, cæteris paribus, more to regard the judgment of many concordant bishops, than of one singular bishop; and therefore is not to take orders from a singular bishop, when the generality of the wise and faithful are against it; unless he be sure that it is some notorious faction or error that perverteth them, and that there be notorious necessity of his labour.

2. The auditors are either infidels to be converted, (and these will take no man upon any of their authorities,) or else christians converted. These are either of the particular charge of the singular bishop who ordaineth, or not; if they be, then pro tempore for order's sake, they owe him a peculiar obedience, till some further process or discovery disoblige them, (though the most be on the other side). But yet they may be still bound in reason most to suspect the judgment of their singular bishop, while for order's sake they submit to it. But if they are not of his flock, then, I suppose the judgment and act of many is to prevail so much against the act of a single and singular person, as that both neighbour ministers and people are to disown such an ordained person as unfit for their communion under the notion of a minister (because communion of churches is maintained by the concord of pastors). But whether the ordained man's ministry be, by their contradictory declaration or degradation, made an absolute nullity, to himself and those that submit to him, neither I will determine, nor should any other strangers to the particular case; for if he be rejected or degraded without such cause and proof as may satisfy other sober persons, he hath wrong; but if he be so degraded, on proved sufficient cause, to them that it is known to, he giveth the degraders the advantage.266

And as, 1. All particular members are to be obedient to their proper pastor.

2. And all particular churches are to hold correspondency and communion according to their capacity. So must men act in this and such like cases respectively according to the laws of obedience to their pastor, and of concord of the churches.

Quest. XXIV. Hath one bishop power by divine right to ordain, degrade, or govern, or excommunicate, or absolve, in another's diocess or church, either by his consent, or against it? And doth a minister that officiateth in another's church, act as a pastor, and their pastor, or as a private man? And doth the ministerial office cease when a man removeth from his flock?

I thrust these questions all together for their affinity, and for brevity.

1. Every true minister of Christ, bishop or pastor, is related to the universal church by stronger obligations than to his particular charge; as the whole is better than the parts, and its welfare to be preferred.

2. He that is no pastor of a particular church, may be a pastor in the universal, obliged as a consecrated person to endeavour its good, by the works of his office, as he hath a particular opportunity and call.

3. Yet he that hath a particular charge is especially and nearlier related and obliged to that charge or church, than to any other part of the universal (though not than to the whole); and consequently hath a peculiar authority, where he hath a peculiar obligation and work.

4. He that is (without degrading) removed from a particular church, doth not cease to be a general minister and pastor related to the universal church; as a physician put out of an hospital charge, is a physician still. And therefore he needeth no new ordination, but only a special designation to his next particular charge.

5. No man is the bishop of a diocess as to the measure of ground, or the place, by divine right, that is, by any particular law or determination of God; but only a bishop of the church or people: for your office essentially containeth a relation to the people, but accidentally only to the place.

6. Yet natural convenience, and God's general laws of order and edification, do make it usually (but not always) best, and therefore a duty, to distinguish churches by the people's habitation: not taking a man for a member eo nomine, because he liveth on that ground; but for order's sake taking none for members that live not on that ground, and not intruding causelessly into each other's bounds.

7. He that by the call or consent of a neighbour pastor and people doth officiate (by preaching, sacraments, excommunication, or absolution) in another's special charge for a day, or week, or month, or more, without a fixed relation to that flock, doth neither officiate as a layman, nor yet unlawfully or irregularly; but, 1. As a minister of Christ in the church universal. 2. And as the pastor of that church for the present time only, though not statedly; even as a physician called to help another in his hospital, or to supply his place for the time, doth perform his work, 1. As a licensed physician. 2. And as the physician of that patient or hospital for that time, though not statedly.

8. No man is to intrude into another's charge without a call; much less to claim a particular stated oversight and authority. For though he be not a usurper as to the office in general, he is a usurper as to that particular flock. It is no error in ordination to say, Take thou authority to preach the word of God, and administer the holy sacraments, when thou shalt be thereto lawfully called; that is, when thou hast a particular call to the exercise, and to a fixed charge, as thou hast now a call to the office in general.

9. Yet every bishop or pastor by his relation to the church universal, and to mankind, and the interest of Christ, is bound not only as a christian, but as a pastor, to do his best for the common good; and not to cast wholly out of his care a particular church, because another hath the oversight of it. Therefore if a heretic get in, or the church fall to heresy, or any pernicious error or sin, the neighbour pastors are bound both by the law of nature and their office, to interpose their counsel as ministers of Christ, and to prefer the substance before pretended order, and to seek to recover the people's souls, though it be against their proper pastor's will. And in such a case of necessity, they may ordain, degrade, excommunicate, and absolve in another's charge, as if it were a vacuity.

10. Moreover it is one thing to excommunicate a man out of a particular church, and another thing for many associated churches or neighbours to renounce communion with him. The special pastors of particular churches, having the government of those churches, are the special governing judges, who shall or shall not have communion as a member in their churches; but the neighbour pastors of other churches have the power of judging with whom they and their own flocks will or will not hold communion. As e. g. Athanasius may as governor of his flock declare any Arian member excommunicate, and require his flock to have no communion with him. And all the neighbour pastors (though they excommunicate not the same man as his special governors, yet) may declare to all their flocks, that if that man come among them, they will have no communion with him, and that at distance they renounce that distant communion which is proper to christians one with another, and take him for none of the church of Christ.267

Quest. XXV. Whether canons be laws? and pastors have a legislative power?

All men are not agreed what a law is, that is, what is to be taken for the proper sense of that word. Some will have the name confined to such common laws as are stated, durable rules for the subject's actions: and some will extend it also to personal, temporary, verbal precepts and mandates, such as parents and masters use daily to the children and servants of their families. And of the first sort, some will confine the name laws to those acts of sovereignty which are about the common matters of the kingdom, or which no inferior officer may make: and others will extend it to those orders which by the sovereign's charter, a corporation, or college, or school may make for the subregulation of their particular societies and affairs.

I have declared my own opinion de nomine fully elsewhere, 1. That the definition of a law in the proper, general sense, is to be a sign or signification of the reason and will of the rector as such, to his subjects as such, instituting or antecedently determining what shall be due from them, and to them; Jus efficiendo, regularly making right.

2. That these laws are many more ways diversified and distinguished, (from the efficient, sign, subjects, matter, end, &c.) than is meet for us here to enumerate. It is sufficient now to say, 1. That stated regular laws, as distinct from temporary mandates and proclamations. 2. And laws for kingdoms and other commonwealths, in regard of laws for persons, schools, families, &c. 3. And laws made by the supreme power, as distinct from those made by the derived authority of colleges, corporations, &c. called by-laws or orders (for I will here say nothing of parents and pastors, whose authority is directly or immediately from the efficiency of nature in one, and divine institution in the other, and not derived efficiently from the magistrate or any man). 4. That laws about great, substantial matters, distinct from those about little and mutable circumstances, &c. I say the first sort, as distinct from the second, are laws so called by excellency above other laws. But that the rest are univocally to be called laws, according to the best definition of the law in genere. But if any man will speak otherwise, let him remember that it is yet but lis de nomine, and that he may use his liberty, and I will use mine. Now to the question.