Warrantableness of the Preaching of Unordained Persons, Religious tract · Response to chapter 7
CHAP. VII.
THe first Argument is put into our hands by the Apostle, and it is Rom. 10. 15. How shall they preach except they be sent? i. e. How can they do it lawfully?
The summe of our Brethrens Answer lies in this, That the mission here spoken of, is not Ministeriall, whereby they are constituted in their office; but providentiall, whereby they are sent into any place: and that this mission is indeed necessary to preaching, i. e. naturally, not morally; As it is true, How can a man preach except he have health, strength, &c. And besides, it may be morally necessary, and yet not constitutive of a Minister: For it is morally necessary to a Ministers preaching, i. e. lawfully, that he have all the Gospel qualifications required to a Preacher, and yet though he want some of these, he may be constituted a Minister.
To which I Reply, 1. To the last clause, there is an apparent fallacy, which will plainly appear by this one distinction, That a mans preaching may be unlawfull two waies; 1. Circumstantially, when there is a defect in the principles, or in the manner of acting, &c. 2. Substantially, when there is a defect in the substance of the act, both as to the matter and manner of it: When a Minister wants some necessary qualification, &c. he preacheth lawfully for the substance of the act, though he sins in the manner of acting; but when one that preacheth wanteth mission, the very substantial act of preaching is unlawfull. As when a Magistrate acts vaingloriously, he sins in the manner of his acting, but his act is lawfull in it self; but when a man usurps the power of a Magistrate, there he sins in the substance of the act, because he wants authority, &c. Or as it is in the case of the Lords Supper, it is wholly unlawful for a scandalous sinner to receive it, but it is lawfull for a regenerate man (though weak in grace) to receive it, though he sins in the receiving of it. In a word, the act is lawfull, quoad specificationem actus, for the kind of it, and per se; though it is sinfull, quoad exercitium actus, in the exercise of it, and per accidens.
2. It must be granted that the word sending is vocabulum foreign, taken variously in diyers places: Sometimes it is taken for the mission of a person already authorized to any place or people, but sometimes also it is taken for the authorization of a person to a work or office, yea, so it is frequently taken as Ioh. 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me, so send I you, i. e. As the Father authorized and sealed me to the Office of a Mediator, so do I authorize you to be Apostles, &c. 1 Cor. 1. 17. Christ sent (i. e. commissionated me) not to baptize, but to preach. John 1. 6. A man sent of God. Thus Christ often said, that he was sent, in Answer to that Question of his enemies, By what authority doest thou these things?
3. This providential mission, and Ministerial mission need not to be opposed to one another, but may well consist together: A providential sending of a Minister to any place (such as that of Paul, Acts 16. to Macedonia) doth not at all exclude, but rather presuppose a Ministerial' mission, that Paul was an Apostle before hand. Nay indeed upon further search these will be found to be much coincident: How can they preach unless they be sent? Sent, by whom? They say, by God: Well then, we must enquire in the Scripture how God sends Preachers: Thus much is apparent, that God sends them by some call (distinct from the gifting of them.) Whether this call be by people, or by Officers, that is another dispute, which now I shall not meddle with; this is sufficient to our purpose, A call authorizing men to preach, is that whereby God sends men to the work of preaching: If they were extraordinary Officers, then God sent them oft-times immediatly; if ordinary, then God sent them by the ministry and mediation of men: And all those that were providentially sent by God to any place, were called either one way or the other; And this calling or designation of them to their office and work, is that which is commonly known by the name of Sending. This authorization of Isaiah, is called the sending of him, Isa 6. So it is called sending by Moses, Exod. 4. And this sending is that which is denied to the false Prophets, Ier. 23. 21. I have not sent them; were this meant of a providential sending, this were not true, for so God did send them; and therefore the meaning is, I did not authorize them. In this sense also Christ bids us pray the Lord, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest: How send them? for that, let Christ's example interpret Christ's words, He sent forth the twelve, Matth. 10. i. e. by giving them Command and Commission: So Luke 10. 1. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them—And conformable to this, was the example of the Apostles, who used to send men into the Ministry, by fasting and prayer, and laying on of hands; and this way of Sending is granted on all hands, our Brethren cannot deny it: But for another way of sending that remains yet to be proved. Hitherto we have had no example of it, as hath been seen.
4. Let it be considered that our Brethren observe that this is brought in as a justification of the calling of the Gentiles, and of the sending of Preachers to them by the Apostles, which the Jews grumbled at: Upon which I ground this inference, That the cannot here, How can they preach unlesse they be sent, must be understood of a moral impossibility, and not of a natural impossibility, as our Brethren would have it: For if it be taken of a natural impossibility, it is false, for though the Apostles had not sent them, they might have gone of their own accord, or some other way: But if you take it for a moral impossibility, it runs smoothly; Whereas you Jews grumble at us for sending Preachers to the Gentiles, we do no more then what is necessary; for seeing God hath promised that the Gentiles shall be saved by calling upon the Lord, and they cannot call on God without beleeving, nor beleeve without hearing, nor hear without preaching, nor preach without sending, i. e. not preach lawfully, unlesse they be sent, either by an immediate call, or else by us or others, who are authorized by God for that work, and therefore we are not to be blamed for sending of them.
Exc. But (say they) all the other interrogations are to be understood of a natural impossibility; It is naturally impossible for one to call upon him on whom he beleeves not, or to beleeve on him of whom he hears not, &c. and that this only is meant of a moral impossibility, will be hard to conclude.
But the Answer is easie, That it is a very frequent thing in Scripture, for the same word to be used in divers senses; as, Let the dead (i. e. spiritually) bury the dead (i. e. corporally.) And (to keep to the very phrase) the word cannot is thus used, Ier. 13. 23. Can the Aethiopian change his skin? &c. There is a natural impossibility, then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil, there is a moral impossibility: So in that comparison of our Saviour, A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit, there is a natural impossibility; How can ye being evil, speak good things, here is a moral impossibility.
5. If this be only a providential mission, by which these Preachers are here said to be sent, then none at all are excluded; nay the very devils themselves, if they should preach Christ (as they did sometimes in possessed persons) must necessarily be taken into the number of the Preachers here spoken of, (for even such would be providentially sent) then which what can be more absurd. And I wish our Brethren would duly consider that there is a necessity of granting one of these two things; either that the devils may be the Preachers here spoken of, or that the mission here spoken of is not providential.
I shall adde no more upon this account, only there are some Arguments which they offer to prove that this mission here spoken of is not constitutive of a Minister.
1. They say, The Apostles were Officers and yet had mission afterward, Mat. 28. 19.
Ans. 1. Officers indeed they were while Christ lived, they were constituted Preachers, Matth. 10. but they were not Apostles of the Gentiles untill Matth. 28. and therefore it is not strange that when they were inaugurated to that new and solemn work, they had a new and solemn mission.
2. This Argument is founded upon the ambiguity of the word sent, or mission, which sometimes is taken for a mans authorizing to a work, and so they had but one mission to one kind of work; sometimes for a bare disposall of them to this or that particular place or work, and in this case they might have a hundred missions: God sent Paul to Macedonia, and to Corinth, and to Rome, &c. yet surely our Brethren will not make all these to be several missions in the sense of the present dispute.
2. Mission (they say) may be repealed (so cannot a call to an Office:) Mat. 10. & 28. compared.
Ans. That is taken off already: The Apostles had in each place a distinct call to a distinct work.
3. They say, The seventy Disciples had mission to preach, who were not Officers that we find.
Ans. 1. This is a contradiction, for if they had a mission from Christ, that made them Officers, at least protempore; for what is the making of one an Officer, but a solemn designation of him for that work, by a person impowred to authorize him.
2. They might be Officers, though we do not reade of it.
4. They say, Then the instructions of none can be usefull to work faith, but of Officers only; for this hearing is necessary to beleeving.
Ans. That follows not, for though the only ordinary means of begetting faith, is the hearing of a Gospel-Minister, yet God is not bound up, he may and doth oft times use private instructions of private men to that end: And as it follows not, that it is simply impossible for a man to beleeve that heareth no Preacher, because the Apostle saith, How shall they hear without a Preacher? (seeing God may work faith by immediate inspiration) so it follows not that it is simply impossible for any man to be converted by hearing of one who is not ordained, &c. because the Apostle saith, How shall they preach unlesse they be sent? But this only follows from both, that the hearing of a Preacher sent, is the only ordinary means of working faith and salvation.
But we must not part thus, our Brethren adde that this text is not cogent, because though it did prove a necessity of a mission, yet it doth not prove a necessity of ordination (which was the thing to be proved) seeing this mission is not Ordination.
Ans. I shall not contend about words, nor is it pertinent to enter into a particular dispute about Ordination. This is sufficient for our purpose, this mission is not the bare gifting of them, but it is an authorizing of them to the work, or the giving of them commission to preach: Now there are but two Scripture waies of giving men commission to preach that we know of, the one extraordinary, from God immediatly (which our Brethren have too much modesty to pretend) the other ordinary, by men setting them apart to that work (whether the Officers set them apart in the Name of Christ, or in the Name of the Church, all is one as to this question) it sufficeth us that some solemn designation or setting apart is necessary, and that gifted men may not preach meerly because they are gifted, unlesse they have some further call or mission; which although our Brethren here seem to grant, (in saying that the bare gifting of men is not the sending of them) yet indeed they are obliged to deny by vertue of their interpretation of that Text, 1 Pet. 4. 11. where the meer having of that gift is propounded as a sufficient ground to put a man upon the use of it.
But however let us hear what they have to prove that this mission is not Ordination.
1. They say, We cannot find it.
Ans. If you cannot finde it in expresse terms, yet others have found it in clear consequences.
2. Then Deacons are sent, for they were ordained, Acts 6. 6.
Ans. Very true, Deacons were sent and had mission: What advantage can our Brethren pick out thence?
3. Mission may be repeated.
Ans. That was answered before.
4. A Parochial Presbytery, if sufficient, &c. may ordain one for that Church, but they cannot send one to themselves.
Ans. 1. That Presbytery doth not send an Officer in such a case to themselves, but to the Church, and so there is a sufficient distinction between the person sending, and the person sent.
2. A locall distinction is not necessary between the person sent, and the persons to whom a man is sent. Isaiah was sent to the whole house of Israel; now put case Isaiah be in the Temple when he is sent, and with him divers Jews, I say, he is in Scripture phrase sent as well to those that are locally present, as to those that were absent.
5. They adde, That mission is propounded at the end of Ordination, Mark 3. 14. And he ordained twelve, that— he might send them forth to preach.
Ans. 1. The strength of this Argument lies in the ambiguity of the word Sent, which, as we readily grant, sometimes it signifies a locall mission to a place, so again, at other times it signifies a constitutive mission to an Office.
2. Though the words in the English make some shew for them, yet indeed if one look into the Greek, it is but a meer shew, for it is not foreign, but foreign, acquisivit, comparavit, he got, procured, took twelve into his family, bred them up under his roof, that he might fit them for, and so send them into the work of the Ministry; so that indeed the word whereby their Ordination is signified, is plainly that of sending; and the other, however it came to be rendred by our Translators, he ordained (who neither meant it in such a sense as our Brethren do, nor ever dreamed that it would be so made use of) yet indeed signifies nothing but barely the taking of them into his family, his constituting of them members of his family, and not his ordaining of them to be Officers in his Church. And thus I have dispatched all that hath any moment, which is alleadged by our Brethren, as to this place.
There are divers other things they adde, which being lesse material, I may trust the judgement of any common Reader with them; as when they say, It is not a Church, nor a Presbytery, but Christ who sends Ministers: Which if they understand thus, that Christ only doth it foreign soveraignly, authoritatively, they have not us for their adversaries; but if they so mean it (as they must, or else it is nothing to the purpose) that men cannot send foreign Ministerially, it is too gross to be beleeved by any man that reads the New Testament, and therein finds so many rules and examples of Gods sending by the Ministry of men, as Acts 6. Acts 13, &c.
So when they say, That the mission of Ministers is not by a Presbytery, but by the Word; and that Christs command to go and preach, is a mediate calling to all lawfull preachers, though no Presbyters should urge it upon them; and that a Presbytery only sends in a Doctrinal way, as a private Christian also may do, by saying, Go and Teach.
Where we have almost as many absurdities as words.
1. Two things are opposed that ought to be conjoyned, to wit, the Agent and the Rule, the Presbytery sends, but this they must do according to the Word.
2. All manner of calling, either by a Presbytery, or by a Church, is made wholly superfluous; For they here plainly assert, that Christ's saying, Go preach, is a calling and a mediate calling to all lawfull Preachers, and that gifted men are lawfull Preachers, is their great businesse to prove; and if they say a call is further necessary, here is a call reaching to all gifted men: I am much mistaken if many of their own Brethren of the Congregational way, will not reject and abhor such loose assertions as these.
3. They allow as much to a private Christian, as to a Presbytery, both of them send in a doctrinal way. But the very mention of these Paradoxes is an ample Confutation.
And thus much for the first Argument.