Discourses on Divers Texts of Scripture, Discourses 1 · Sermon 5
1 COR. 4. 1.1 Cor. 4. 1.
Let a man so account of us, as of the Ministers [foreign] of Christ, and Stewards of the Mysteries of God.
A Man would think at first sight, that this Scripture did exceedingly warrant our use of the word Minister, in stead of that of Priest, and leave no plea for them who had rather speak otherwise. Howsoever I intend, at this time, to shew the contrary, (and even out of this text) that we have very much swarved herein from the Apostles language, and abuse that word to such a sense, as they never intended; nor is any where found in Scripture; I fayour neither superstition, nor superstitious men; yet truth is truth, and needfull to be known; especially when ignorance thereof breedeth errour and uncharitablenesse. My discourse therefore shall be of the use of the words Priest and Minister, wherein shall appear how truly we are all Ministers in the Apostles sense, and yet how abusively and improperly so called in the ordinary prevailing use of that word: I will begin thus.
All Ecclesiasticall persons or Clergy men may be considered in a threefold relation. First, To God. Secondly, To the People. Thirdly, One toward another. In respect of God, all are Ministers of what degree soever they be; because they do what they do by commission from him, either more or lesse immediate: for a Minister is he, qui operam suam alicui, ut superlori, aut domino praebet. In respect of the People, all are Bishops, that is, Inspectores, or Overseers; as having charge to look unto them: But lastly, compared one to another, he whom we usually call Bishop is onelyonly Overseer of the rest; Inspector totius Cleri. Deacons are onelyonly Ministers to the rest; Ministri Presbyterorum & Episcoporum, and in that respect have their name foreign Bishops are a degree of Presbyters of divine ordinance, to be as Heads, Chiefs, and Presidents of their Brethren: All other Ecclesiasticall Ministers, whether in Ecclesia, or Foro Ecclesiastico (I mean whether they attend divine Duties in the Church, or Jurisdiction in Ecclesiasticall Courts) are all a kinde of Deacons, being to the Presbyters, either single or Episcopall, as the Levites were to the Sacerdotes in the Old Testament, namely, to minister unto, or for them.
These grounds being forelaid and understood, I affirm, first, that Presbyters are by us unnaturally and improperly called Ministers, either of the Church, or of such or such a Parish: we should call them, as my text doth, Ministers of God, or Ministers of Christ, not Ministers of men.
First; Because they are onelyonly Gods Ministers who sends them, but the Peoples Magistri to teach, instruct, and oversee them: Were it not absurd to call the Shepheard, the sheeps Minister? If he be their Minister, they surely are his Masters. And so indeed the People by occasion of this misappellation, think they are ours, and use us accordingly. Indeed we are called Ministers, but never their Ministers, but as you see here, Gods Ministers, Christs Ministers, who imployeth us to dispense his Mysteries unto his Church.
There are three words in the New Testament translated Minister, foreign the first is most frequent; but not one of them is given to the Apostles, in the whole Scripture, with relation to the Church or People; you shall never finde them called foreign, or foreign, which is so frequent with us, but Ministers of God; 2 Cor. 6. 4. 1 Thess. 3. 2. Ministers of Christ, as in my text, and 2 Cor. 11. 23. Col. 1. 7. Ministers of Iesus Christ. 1 Tim. 4. 6. or Ministers of that which they minister, as Ministers of the New Testament, 2 Cor. 3. 6. Ministers of the Gospel, Eph. 3. 7. Col. 1. 23. but not Ministers of them to whose behoof they minister: Yet might this speech, Minister of the Church, if rightly construed, be admitted; namely, if it be spoken by an Ellipsis, for Minister of God, for, and over the Church; so the Apostle Coloss. 1. 17. A faithfull Minister of Christ for you: that is, Christs Minister, not theirs; yet not for Christ, but for them; But those who use this speech commonly mean otherwise.
Secondly, Angels are called ministring spirits, but not our Ministers, but Gods Ministers to us-ward, or for our behalf: So Ministers of the Gospel, not the Peoples, or Congregations Ministers, but Gods Ministers for their behoof.
Thirdly, this speech [Minister of the Church, or, of this or that Church] is so much the more incommodious, because it hath begotten (as incommodious and unapt speeches do) an erroneous conceit, not onelyonly among the vulgar, but some of better understanding; namely, that a Minister is not lawfully called, unlesse he be chosen by the People, because he is their Minister, and so to be deputed by them: And indeed if he be their Minister, in proper relation, they are his Masters, and so it is good reason they should appoint him, as Masters do those who are to serve them: But if in proper relation they are Gods Ministers, and not theirs, (though for them) then God is to appoint them, or such as he hath put in place to do it. It is an erroneous opinion, that some maintain, That the power of Sacred Order, and of the Keyes, is given by God immediately to the body of the Congregation; and that they depute him who is their Minister, to execute the power which is originally in them; That power is conferred by God immediately to those, who are Bishops and Pastors, and, by and through them, belongs to the whole body, and no otherwise: Sed tantum potuit incommodi sermonis usus.
Some perhaps object against my whole assertion, that of S. Paul, 2 Cor. 4. 5. We preach not our selves, but Christ Iesus the Lord, (to wit, esse Dominum) and our selves your servants for Iesus sake: If the Apostles were the Churches servants, why not their Ministers? I answer, the Apostle sayes not, they were the Corintbians servants, but that he had made himself so, in his Preaching to them: So he sayes expresly 1 Cor. 9. 19. For though I be free from all men, yet I have made my self a servant to all, that I might gain the more: Yet he confesses the Corinthians began to vilifie him for this condescent, 2 Cor. 11. 7. Have I committed an offence in abasing my self, that you might be exalted, because I have preached unto you the Gospel of God freely? This was that wherein he carried himself toward the Corinthians as a Servant, but to other Churches he did not so: It would be a strange assertion, to say the Apostle were the Corinthians Servant, in a proper relation; we know he sayes, Gal. 1. 10. If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ; And Rom. 6. 16. Know ye not, that to whom you yeeld your selves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey?
I come now to a second assertion, which is, that howsoever any Ecclesiasticall person may be rightly called a Minister, (so it be in a proper relation to God-ward) yet the word Minister is again most unfitly used by us, for a name of distinction of one Ecclesiasticall Order from another: As when we call those which are Presbyters, Ministers, by way of distinction from Deacons; for so we speak Ministers and Deacons, in stead of Priests and Deacons.
The reason we thus speak, is to avoid the name Priest, which we conceive to signifie Sacerdos, that is, one that sacrificeth, such as were those in the Law. But our Curates of holy things in the Gospel, are not to offer Sacrifice, and therefore ought not to be called Sacerdotes, and consequently, not Priests. This is the reason; but if it be well examined, Priest is the English of Presbyter, and not of Sacerdos; there being in our Tongue no word in use for Sacerdos: Priest, which we use for both, being improperly used for a Sacrificer, but naturally expressing a Presbyter; the name whereby the Apostles call both themselves, and those which succeed them in their charge. For who can deny that our word Priest is corrupted of Presbyter? Our Ancestors the Saxons first used Preoster, which by a farther contraction came Preste, and Priest. The high and low Dutch have Priester, the French Prestre, Italian Prete, but the Spaniard onelyonly speaks full Presbytero. But, to come more near the point, our men in using the word Minister, for a distinctive name in stead of Priest, incurre four Solecisms: I mean when we use the word Minister not at large, but for a distinction from the Order of Deacons, saying Ministers and Deacons.
First, we run into that we sought to avoid: For we would avoid to call the Presbyters of the Gospel, by the name of the Sacrificers of the Law; and yet run into it in such sort, that we style those of the Gospel by the legall name, and those of the Law by the Euangelicall name; the Hebrew cals them of the Law, Cohanim, of foreign, which properly signifies to minister, and thence comes the Greek word foreign, and foreign but we call those of the Gospel, Cohanim, when we style them Ministers. On the contrary, the Apostles style those of the Gospel, Presbyteri; but we transferre that name to those of the Law, when we call them Priests: This is counterchange;
Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdim.
Secondly, It is a confusion or tautology, to say Ministers and Deacons, that is, Ministers and Ministers: For foreign is in Greek, what Minister is in Latin; both signifying a Minister; as if one should say, Homo and foreign, or Dilavium and Cataclysmus, and think so to distinguish things of severall natures or conditions.
Thirdly, We impose upon that Order, a name of a direct cōtrary notion to what the Apostles gave them: The Apostles gave them a name of Eldership, and Superiority in calling them Presbyteri, we of inferiority, & subordination in calling them Ministri: The Jews had no name more honourable then that of Elders, foreign, for so they called their Magistrates: so we read of Elders of the people, and Elders of the Priests and Levites, meaning the chief in both sorts; This honourable name the Apostles gave, as a name of distinction to the Euangelicall Pastors, whereby they dignified them above those of the Law; whose name in the Hebrew (as I said before) is but a denomination of ministery: And we have rejected the name of Dignity, of Fathership, and Eldership, and assumed in stead thereof, a name of under-service, of subjection, of ministery, to distinguish our order by; I say to distinguish our order; For in a generall sense, and with reference to God, we are all his Ministers, and it is an honour unto us so to be, more then to be other mens Masters, as our Apostle in my text intimates.
Fourthly, in the Churches beyond the Seas, there is a worse Solecism by reason of this misapplied speech. They have a kinde of Officers, who are the Pastors assistants in Discipline, much like to our Churchwardens, these they call Elders, we style them Lay-Elders; These are but a kinde of Deacons at the most, and of a new erection too; And yet these are dignified by the name of Elders and Presbyters, who are indeed but Deacons or Ministers; and the Pastor himself is called a Minister, who in the Apostles style is the onelyonly Presbyter or Elder. For so they speak, The Minister and his Presbyters, or Elders.
To conclude, it had been to be wished, that those whom the term of Priest displeased, as that which gave occasion by the long abuse thereof, to fancy a Sacrifice, had rather restored the Apostolicall name of Presbyter in the full sound, which would have been as soon, and as easily learned and understood, as Minister; and was no way subject to that supposed inconvenience. But the mis-application of the word Presbyter in some Churches, to an Order the Apostles called not by that name, deprived those thereof, to whom it was properly due. Howsoever when they call us Ministers, let them account of us as the Ministers of Christ, and not of men: Not as deputed by the Congregation to execute a power originally in them, but as Stewards of the mysteries of God.