Justification of Separation from the Church of England, Treatise · Section 121
Your 3. Arg: for your Ministers is, that they are called & sent of III.God, & of his Ch:, & therefore are true ministers. Their calling, & sending Mr B.of God you make his preparing of them with gifts, & graces to be able to exequute in some measure the office, wherevnto he doth appoint them. But herein you are greatly mistaken: the Lords inabling menAnsw. with gifts is one thing, and his calling them to vse them in such, and such an order, is another thing: and though the Lord calls none, but he inables them, yet he inables many, he never calls. Many counsellers, judges, lawyers, and others in the land, are very able to discharge the office of ministery, but are not called therevnto of God; if they be, it is their sin not to obey the heavenly calling, and to become ministers. And as a man may be qualified with gifts for the ministery, and yet not called of God to vse them, (so being qualified accordingly) he may be a true Minister of the Church, though he be never called of God at all, as we now speak: So was Iudas, who was never inwardly called of God, that is, perswaded by the work of Gods spirit in his heart, in the zeal of Gods glory and love of the salvation of men, to take vponupon him the office of an Apostle. And what true calling of God the Ministers in the Church of England hauehave to take vponupon them their offices, & charges, as they do, appeares in their easy forsaking them vponupon a litle persecution, yea before it come near them. Of which more hereafter.
Now for the calling of the Ministers by the Church, albeit we put of the more full handling of it to the 4. Arg. yet something must be sayd for the present.
And first, though it were true you say, that the Church of England were the true Church of Christ, yet were not your Ministers called, and sent by the Church, except a Lordly Prelate be the Ch: of England, for by such a one is every Minister amongst you, called, and made. 2. I deny here, (as alwayes) your nationall Ch: to be the true visible Church of Christ: and that which in this case, you say, is largely proved, I hope is sufficiently refuted.
But here a demand you make in your answer to Mr Sm: must be satisfied, namely, why true ministers may not arise as well out of a false pag. 313.Church, as a false ministery out of a true Ch:? The latter I agree vntounto: for the Church may erre, and through errour or otherwise, chuse a man uncapable of the Ministery by the word of God. Whereupon it▪ followes, that the Minister makes not the Church (as you erroneously affirm) for then the Church should in the very instant become a false Church when she sets vp a false Minister. But your inference I deny. For first evil may arise from good, though by accident, without any externall cause comming between: as sin did from the angels in heaven, and our first parents in paradise: but so cannot good from evil. 2. the officers are 1. of, 2 by, 3. in, and 4 for the Church. 1. of it, as members of the body, and so must be members of a true Church, before they can be true officers. 2. by it, in respect of their calling, as Gal. 1. 1. and therefore except they can eyther be true officers by a false calling, or that a false Church can give a true calling, they cannot be true in it. 3. in it, as the accidēts, or adjuncts in the subject, without which being true, they can have no more true existence, then reason can have, without a reasonable soul, or subject. 4. for it, and therefore since the Lord hath appointed no ministery for a false Church, there can by the word of God be no true ministery in it: and this I wish them to consider, which still adhere to the Church of England (though they wholy dislike the constitution) for the ministery in it.
Now where you adde, that Luther and other worthy Ministers of Christ were raysed vp out of the Romish Church, you wrong him & them, and the truth in them, whilst you would gratifie Rome, and England. Luthers Ministery from Rome was his Fryardome: and is a Fryar a true minister of Christ by his office, or of Artichrist whither? Besides, look what ministery the Church of Rome gave him, it took from him: and lastly if he had been a true officer or minister of the Church of Rome, it had been sinne in him to have left his charge. Touching the baptism received in the Romish Church I have formerly spoken; and of our reteyning it, but not our Ministery, I shall speak hereafter.