“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

Jer. 3:15

“And He gave some… pastors…”

Eph. 4:11

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Subsections

Preparation for Ministry
Church Ministry
Extraordinary Calling
Reformed vs. Aquinas
Should a Silenced Minister Preach?

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Order of Contents

Articles  10+
Books  4
Quotes  2
Latin  4

Office’s Essence

Qualifications: 1 Tim. 3
Female Pastors
Called “Priests”?
For Life

Pastoral Functions & Duties

Advice for Pastors
How Preachers Bind with Keys
Not All Truths must be Preached in All Circumstances
Pastor’s Duty for Evangelism
Pastors Guiding Elders  2
Pastors should be Willing to be Defrocked for Refusing any Sin
Should be Paid  2
Change of Call

On Lay-Persons

How Far Pastors are to be Believed
Lay-Persons may Preach Privately

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Articles

1300’s

Wyclif, John – On the Truth of Holy Scripture  tr. Ian C. Levy  in TEAMS Commentary Series  (1377-1378; Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pt. 4

ch. 22, ‘Scripture’s Instruction to Pastors’, pp. 292-95
ch. 23, ‘Scripture’s Censure of Negligent Clerics’, pp. 295-300

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1500’s

Calvin, John

30. ‘The Pastors of the Church & their Power’  in Instruction in Faith (1537)  tr. Paul T. Fuhrman  (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1949), pp. 72-74

‘On [2] Excommunication, [3-4]Separation, the Lord’s Supper & [5] Pastors’  in A Short Instruction for to Arm All Good Christian People against the Pestiferous Errors of the Common Sect of Anabaptists  (London: Daye, 1549), no page numbers

Bullinger, Henry

The Decades  ed. Thomas Harding  (1549; Cambridge: Parker Society, 1850), vol. 4, 5^th Decade

3^rd Sermon, ‘Of the Ministry, & the Ministers of God’s Word; wherefore and for what end they are instituted of God; that the orders given by Christ unto the Church in times past were equal; whence and how the prerogative of ministers sprang and of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome’  93-128

4^th Sermon, ‘Of Calling unto the Ministry of the Word of God; what manner of men and after what fashion ministers of the Word must be ordained in the Church; of the keys of the Church; what the office of them is that be ordained; of the manner of teaching the Church, and of the holy life of the pastors’  128-63

14. ‘Of the Authority of Priests’  in Questions of Religion Cast Abroad in Helvetia [Switzerland] by the Adversaries of the Same, & Answered…  tr. John Coxe  (London, 1572), pp. 116-20

Musculus, Wolfgang – Common Places of the Christian Religion  (1560; London, 1563)

‘Of the Ministers of the Word of God’  163.b
‘Duties of the Ministers of the Word’  164.b
‘Power of the Ministers’  170.a
‘Blameless Life & Honesty of the Ministers’  175.b

‘Of the Reformation of Ministers of the Word’  193.a

Vermigli, Peter Martyr – The Common Places…  (d. 1562; London: Henrie Denham et al., 1583), pt. 4

ch. 1, ‘Of the catholic Church’

‘Of Sundry Ministers of the Church’  3
‘Of Calling, & Especially unto the Ministry’  9
‘Of the Authority or Contempt of Ministers’  15
‘Of the Office of Pastors’  16
‘Of the Efficacy of the Ministry’  21
‘Of the Mighty Simpleness of the Ministry’  25

Appended Orations

’An Oration or Sermon out of the 2nd Chapter of Malachi [vv. 4-9], of the profit and worthiness of the holy Ministry’  27-32

Beza, Theodore

A Brief & Pithy Sum of the Christian Faith made in Form of a Confession  (London, 1565), ch. 5

25. Of the Office of Pastors & Doctors
26.  The Difference between Pastors & Doctors
27. The Pastors & Doctors be but Instruments by the which God conducts the Ministry of his Word
28. The Marks & Tokens of False Doctors & Pastors
29. Of Degrees which ought to be among Ministers of the Word, according as they be Dissevered by Companies

Ch. 7, 14. Of the abuse which is committed in the order of priesthood and in the government of their spiritual jurisdiction

Viret, Pierre – A Christian Instruction…  (d. 1571; London: Veale, 1573), A Familiar Exposition of the Principal Points of the Catechism, 13^th Dialogue

How the Lord takes the ministers of his Church of his very people, and not of a strange people

Ursinus, Zachary – 5. What are the Duties & Functions of Ministers  in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered…  in his Lectures upon the Catechism…  tr. Henrie Parrie  (Oxford, 1587), Of the Ministry

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1600’s

Ames, William – ch. 35, ‘Ordinary Ministers & their Office in Preaching’  in The Marrow of Theology  tr. John D. Eusden  (1623; Baker, 1997), bk. 1, pp. 190-96

Ames (1576-1633) was an English, puritan, congregationalist, minister, philosopher and controversialist.  He spent much time in the Netherlands, and is noted for his involvement in the controversy between the reformed and the Arminians.  Voet highly commended Ames’s Marrow for learning theology.

Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 16, ‘On the Ministers of the Word’  in Examination of Arminianism  (1639-1642; Monergism, 2024), pp. 627-37  This was translated by AI.

Tombes, John – Anthropolatria; or the Sin of Glorying in Men, especially in Eminent Ministers of the Gospel…  with which the church of Christ is still infected…  a Discourse…  (London: 1645)  19 pp.

Tombes (c. 1603–1676) was a student of William Pemble and an Anglican clergyman, who came to develop baptist views.  In church government he is said to have been presbyterian.  Towards the end of his life he was a communicating Anglican layman.

Bowles, Oliver – A Tract on the Evangelical Pastor, tr. Jonathan B. Rockey & Philip G. Ryken  (London, 1649)  in eds. Lane G. Tipton & Jeffrey C. Waddington, Resurrection & Eschatology: Theology in Service of the Church: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.  (P&R, 2008), pt. 3, Studies in Pastoral Theology, pp. 500-12  This was originally written in Latin.

bk. 1

ch. 5, ‘Certain Particular Duties, in which He ought to be an Example to the Flock’

ch. 12, ‘On Expertise in the Scriptures, & Other Things Required in a Pastor’

bk. 2

ch. 1, ‘On the Public Preaching of the Word’

Bowles (c. 1577 – 1646) was an English presbyterian minister and the oldest member of the Westminster assembly.

Church of Scotland – A Humble Acknowledgment of the Sins of the Ministry of Scotland  (1651)

Pastors and Elders, let us grieve and break our hearts over our sins in Christ’s ministry.  May this cause us to look to Christ for all of our righteousness, and may it spur us on to walk more humbly and closely with Him as we work in His Vineyard.  Use this in secret prayer throughout the year.

Church members, bring reformation to our land and humbly encourage your elders with this article.

Leigh, Edward – ch. 2. Of Pastors  in A System or Body of Divinity…  (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 6, pp. 454-66

Baxter, Richard

‘The Office of Christ’s Ministers more Largely Opened’  in The Christian Religion Expressed...  (London: 1660), pp. 25-80

Baxter’s view of Church government shares from episcopalianism, presbyterianism and congregationalism.

pt. 2, ‘Directions to pastors how to deal with those weak Christians who are inclined to divisions’  ToC  in The Cure of Church Divisions…  (London, 1670), pp. 314-430

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1800’s

Alexander, Archibald

Introduction to Pastoral Reminiscences  (1849)  5 pp.

On the heart of a pastor.

“Weep with them that Weep”,  a Discourse Occasioned by the Burning of the Theater in the City of Richmond, Virginia on Dec. 26th, 1811  (1812)  21 pp.

Dabney, Robert – ‘The Public Preaching of Women’  (1879)  from the The Southern Presbyterian Review for October

The argument against women preaching

Girardeau, John

An Address on Behalf of the Society for the Relief of Superannuated Ministers and the Indigent Families of Deceased Ministers of the Synod of South Carolina  (1858)  24 pp.

The Suffering Seaboard of South Carolina  (1876)  29 pp.

A chronicle of the sufferings of Charleston, SC, “our Southern Zion”, after its occupation by the Northern army during the War between the States.  Peer here into the sufferings of a part of Christ’s church, and the labors of her faithful pastors.

Hodge, Charles

“He Preached Christ”, Acts 9:20, Sermon Preached… at the Memorial Services… [for] James Waddel Alexander, D.D.  (1859)  17 pp.

The Teaching Office of the Church  (1882)  16 pp.

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2000’s

Macleod, William – ‘The Ideal Minister’  (2005)  11 paragraphs, a public address

What should Christians look for when they call a man to be their minister? What should they pray for God to do in their own minister? What should ministers and divinity students strive to be?  Here are 10 characteristics.

Henegar, Walter – ‘Your Pastor Needs Pastor Friends’  (2022)  25 paragraphs

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Books

1500’s

Bucer, Martin – Concerning The True Care of Souls  Buy  (Banner of Truth, 2009)  218 pp.

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1600’s

Bernard, Richard

The Faithful Shepherd… with the Shepherd’s Practice  (1621)  355 pp.

The Shepherd’s Practice: or, the Manner of his Feeding the Flock  (1621)  56 pp.

Bernard (bap.1568-1642) was an English, puritan clergyman.

Baxter, Richard – The Reformed Pastor  565 pp.

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Quotes

Order of

English Puritans
Baxter

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1600’s

English Puritans

A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), pt. 2, p. 243

“…God’s ministers have lawfully taught when they have not only lacked the promise that their labor should do that people good whom they did teach, but received assurance of the contrary. (Eze. 3:1–7)”

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Richard Baxter

Christian Concord, or the Agreement of the Associated Pastors & Churches of Worcestershire, with Richard Baxter’s Explication & Defence of it, & his Exhortation to Unity  (London: A.M., 1653), ‘Objections Answered’

p. 76

“If they say that men of such erroneous principles, if they cannot be rectified, are bound to give up the ministry to others of better judgments.

I answer: 1. Show me but where those men are, in so full a number as may supply the churches necessities, but so far as that I and such as I may conscionably cease without the church’s loss, and I here promise that I will joyfully give up my office whenever any such fitter man shall be called to my place. And I think the rest of my brethren will do the like. But we live in the open world, where we have opportunity to know men, as well as others: and we cannot see any such plentiful choice of able, pious men to supply all our places if we should give them up.”

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p. 86

“The last objection…  Many of our people [ministers] will not join with us [in Baxter’s Church-Association] except they may have all administrations as formerly, according to the [Anglican] Common Prayer-Book…  To these I answer:

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3. It is contrary to the office of pastors and duties of people.  For they are to choose a pastor to guide them, and not to be guided by them.

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The Christian Religion expressed: I, briefly in the Ancient Creeds, the Ten Commandments & the Lord’s Prayer, and, II, more largely in a Profession taken out of the Holy Scriptures, containing 1, the articles of the Christian Belief, 2, our consent to the Gospel Covenant, 3, the Sum of Christian Duty according to the primitive simplicity, purity, and practice, fitted to the right instruction of the ignorant, the promoting of holiness, and the charitable concord of all true believers…  (London: 1660), The Order & Discipline of this Church, agreeable to the Word of God

“I. We are willing to teach all in our parish, the doctrine of life, that are willing to learn: and desire them all to hear the Word publicly preached and to come to us to be catechized or instructed.”

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Latin

1600’s

Alsted, Johann H. – ch. 20, ‘On the Ministers of the Church’  in Theological Common Places Illustrated by Perpetual Similitudes  (Frankfurt, 1630), pp. 120-25

Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 16, ‘On Ministers of the Word’  in The Examination of Arminianism  ed. Matthew Nethenus  (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), pp. 681-92

Voet, Gisbert

Appendix: Of the Parts & Members of the Visible Church, even of Ecclesiastical Ministers, Government, Censures, etc.  in Syllabus of Theological Problems  (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 4   Abbr.

‘On the mutual duties of ministers & the faithful in the ecclesiastical body’  in Select Theological Disputations, vol. 4  (Utrecht, 1667), 50. ‘A Syllabus of Questions on the Decalogue’, ‘On the 5th Commandment’, p. 796

Ecclesiastical Politics  (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663)

vol. 3, pt. 2

bk. 2, ‘Of Ministers & the Ecclesiastical Ministry’,

Tract 1, ‘Of the Necessity, Difficulty, etc. of a Minister’

1. Of the Necessity of a Minister 213

2. Objections Against the Necessity of a Minister are Responded to 223

3. Of the Difficulty of an Ecclesiastical Minister 232

4. Of the Authority or Power of a Minister 247

5. Objections Against the Divinely Collated Authority of Ministers are Orderly Responded to 253

6. Some Questions about the Authority of a Minister are Explained, of which Some Concern the Nature and Properties of Power and Authority in Itself; Others, the Exercise of Them. 263

7. Of the Dignity of a Minister 283

8. Various Pretexts for the Scorn of the Ministry and Ministers are Shaken Off 293

9. How the Dignity of a Minister Ought to be Constituted and Conserved 304

10. Of the Efficacy and Power of a Minister 336

Tract 3, ‘Of the Ordinary Ministers of the Old and New Testament’

2. Of the Ordinary Ministers of the New Testament, and of Pastors, or Preachers 401

3. Of the Functions of Pastors Negatively, or of Neglect, that is, of non-Attention to Himself and to the Church 405

 bk.4, tract 2, Of Ecclesiastical Attendants

1. Of Pastors [Parochis] and Priests [Sacerdotibus] 879

vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 4, Of Ecclesiastical Discipline, tract 1, Of Ecclesiastical Power

10. Of the Sacredness or Sanctity of Ministers under the New Testament  801

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On the Essence of the Office

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On the Qualifications of 1 Tim. 3 & the Good Order of the Church

See also on a related topic: ‘On Qualifications of Civil Officers’.

 

Order of Contents

Intro
Quotes  10+
Articles  2
Latin  1

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Intro

There are some who consider the qualifications set forth in 1 Tim. 3 to be of the essence of the offices there described, such that if a person lacks or is deficient in any one of them, then they are, ipso facto, unqualfied to be an elder.  Rather, in consistency with much of reformed history, these positive qualifications are for the good order of the Church (which should be the regular rule).  A deficiency or absence of any one of them may not necessarily disqualify one from the office or remove their authority in the office, or be grounds for such, especially in extraordinary circumstances.

The difference in interpretation is due to (1) an unqualified, Biblicist and exclusively divine-command interpretation of the text, versus (2) recognizing natural law, positive law, the good order of the Church for its well-being and other ethical categories.

(1) is wrong as Paul in 1 Tim. 2:1-12 (just before the qualifications in 1 Tim. 3) says that women ought not to hold authority over men in the Church, and yet God extraordinarily called female prophets in Scripture to teach and exercise authority over men.  If Paul’s stipulation in 1 Tim. 3:2 that elders be male be absolute and unqualified by anything else, universally holding for all times and circumstances without any exception, then it would mean women being prophets, and hence, by definition, elders, would be sinful.  See the section below on the question of whether a woman may in any case be a valid pastor: Female Pastors?

(2) understands the apostle in 1 Tim. 3 to be setting forth wholesome positive ordinances based on natural law.  Other natural law factors may be (and often should be) taken into account, as virtually every congregation in fact (rightly) considers other natural factors beyond those in 1 Tim. 3 (especially as they are relevant in their circumstances) when considering who to elect for elders.  Such natural qualifications must also be weighed against the whole of other relevant natural and spiritual factors and principles.

As Rutherford and Gillespie argue, extraordinary circumstances often necessitate extraordinary means;¹ and what is right in extraordinary circumstances by no means warrants the same means to be used in ordinary circumstances.

¹ That natural law overrides positive Church ordinances when necessary (especially as Church government is to be ordered by the light of nature, WCF 1.6), see ‘Natural Law, in Necessity, Over-Rules Positive Law when They Conflict’ and Travis Fentiman, ‘Church Government is Positive’ in the Intro on the page ‘On Positive Laws & Ordinances’.

In contrast to the plain words of 1 Tim. 3, that elders be married to one wife, the Church of Scotland during the First and Second Reformations often allowed, on occasion, gifted men who were single to be ordained as ministers (consider Mt. 19:12 and the apostle Paul’s calling to the ministry, who was likely single at the time).

Can simply physical circumstances, of themselves, determine one’s fitness to hold the authority of an elder?  Must an elder, whose wife dies, resign the eldership?  If a man or his wife cannot have kids due to a physical condition, is he automatically debarred from the pastorate (1 Tim. 3:4-5)?  According to Titus 1:6, must an elder step down if a child, grown and out of the house, in a distant place, becomes an unbeliever or is riotous in their living?

Some would argue that such conditions and events are a communication of God’s will through providence that the elder should step down, and that he is no longer a fitting example to the flock.  But, while providence may indicate God’s will in our changes of circumstances, is this the only understanding of those providences?

There is quite a difference in how all these things inform our interpretation of Scripture:  Are the happenstances of providence always determinative of one’s calling, such that the spiritual is inevitably tied and constrained to the physical (and other people’s actions which we cannot always control), or is the spiritual, and the call of God, often more fundamental than the changing physical circumstances which God has allowed by permission to be in our lot?

While the apostle was setting down fundamental guidelines for Church governors in 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1 to be a rule of good order for the Church throughout the ages, yet even when the apostles spoke, natural and spiritual qualifications apply.

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Order of Quotes

Chrysostom
Calvin
French Reformed
Vermigli
Cartwright
Ames
Dutch Annotations
Rutherford
English Annotations
Dickson
Trapp
Baxter
McWard
Turretin
Wodrow

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Early Church

Chrysostom

Homily 10 on 1 Timothy, on 3:1-4

“A Bishop then, he says, must be blameless, the husband of one wife. This he does not lay down as a rule, as if he must not be without one, but as prohibiting his having more than one.”

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1500’s

John Calvin

Commentary on 1 Timothy, ch. 3, verse 2, “A bishop, therefore, must be blameless.”

“There will be no one found among men that is free from every vice; but it is one thing to be blemished with ordinary vices, which do not hurt the reputation, because they are found in men of the highest excellence, and another thing to have a disgraceful name, or to be stained with any baseness.

In order, therefore, that a bishop may not be without authority, he enjoins that there shall be made a selection of one who has a good and honorable reputation, and not chargeable with any remarkable vice.”

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French Reformed Churches

The Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France (1559), ch. 3, ‘Of Elders & Deacons’, Canon 2, p. xxviii  in ed. John Quick, Synodicon

“Henceforward, if it may be possibly avoided, none shall be chosen elders or deacons of the Church, whose wives are not of the true Religion [as opposed to Romanism], according to the apostles’ canon [1 Tim. 3].  Yet notwithstanding, that the Church may not be deprived of the labors of several worthy persons, who in the days of their ignorance espoused women of a contrary religion, they shall be tolerated, because of the present necessity: provided that they do produce good evidence of their serious endeavours for instructing of their wives in that Faith and true worship of God practised in our churches.”

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Peter Martyr Vermigli

Common Places (1583),  4th Part, ch. 1, ‘Of Calling, and Especially unto the Ministry’

“19.  But the election of Paul [who was likely unmarried at the time] and such other[s] ought not to move us but that in choosing the ministers of the Church we must follow the doctrine of the same apostle taught us in the epistle unto Timothy, where he will that those which be novices in religion should not be chosen, but they which have a good testimony. But it must be considered that the rules described unto Timothy were given unto men, from whom, seeing other men’s minds be hidden and that they be utterly ignorant what is in them, it behoves that they use the cautions described by the apostle, lest they err in their elections.

But God rightly chooses his without those rules (Ps. 7:11; Jer. 11:20; Apoc. 2:23), “For He trieth the reigns and the hearts, and changeth the wills of men at his own pleasure.” Albeit some have said, that Paul in Judaism was of very honest conversation, as he himself testifies unto the Philippians (Phil. 2:6). And in the latter epistle to Timothy he writes that he had served God from his forefathers with a pure conscience. But I hold not with these men. For I will not diminish his fault in persecuting of the Church, seeing Paul did so greatly after a sort reproach himself with the same.

Wherefore when I allow of the solution now brought, this comes to mind that the canons which the apostle delivered unto Timothy are not always kept even as touching men. For Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, when he was yet a novice, and youngling in the faith, was placed in the See of the Church. For he was sent from the emperor to execute the office of Praetor.

(Margin Note: The commandments of God so far as sometime one gives place to another)

Here the adversaries vaunt against us, that it is lawful sometimes to deal against the holy Scriptures, and that the words of God are not most steadfast. But we must note that the precepts of God sometime have not their own strength, neither in very deed be precepts. For when two precepts meet together so as they cross one another, whereof the one is more excellent than the other, and God would have that chiefly to be done than the other which is of less excellency, and as touching the will of God, inferior, gives place unto the first and has not the [obliging] authority of a commandment [in that situation]: because God would not have it to be done in that place and at that time. Even as Christ taught as touching the drawing of an ox and an ass out of a pit on the Sabboth day (Lk. 14:5). By which means He excused his disciples who had plucked off the ears of the corn on the Sabboth day (Matt 12:1) and had rubbed out the grain. And He often times testified that He would have mercy and not sacrifice. (Ibid., v. 7).

The Church of Milan therefore was greatly molested by the Arians: it had need of a bishop and specially of a teacher that should be of great authority. These things were perceived to be in Ambrose. Neither was there any other fit man presented. Whereby that Church was quit from the other precept which was of less excellency, wherein it was commanded to beware of novices, or those which were not fully instructed. And of this matter it seems to be enough to have spoken somewhat by the way.”

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Thomas Cartwright

eds. Peel & Carlson, Cartwrightiana  (London: Halley Stewart, 1951), ‘Letter to Mrs. Stubbes his sister-in-law to persuade her from Brownism’, p. 69

“And even in the matter of the appoinitment of the ministry of the apostle commanding Timothy that he should not communicate with other men’s sins (1 Tim. [5:22]) in the ordination of unfit and unable ministers, he thereby gives to understand that there might be unworthy men ordained ministers against his voice…”

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1600’s

William Ames

A Second Manuduction for Mr. [John] Robinson. Or a confirmation of the former in an answer to his manumission  (Amsterdam, 1615), p. 10

“…a man may truly take upon him that which he cannot fully and in every part perform or fullfil, desiring and endeavoring so far as his knowledge & ability extends.  Otherwise, no high preist in Israel from the time of Solomon unto the time of Hezekiah did truly take upon them the charge of a high preist: because none did celebrate the Passover, which was a principal sacrament, in such sort as was written, 2. Chron. 30:5, 26, nor keep the feast of tabernacles in a far longer time, Neh. 8:17.

Nor did any king all that time truly take upon him the charge or office of a king: because none did reform things as he ought.  If any difference be, their sin was greater, that might have done their duty and would not, than theirs that would and cannot.”

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Dutch Annotations  1619 / 1637

on 1 Tim. 3:2, “the husband of one wife”

“not that he must necessarily be married, seeing Paul himself was not married, 1 Cor. 7:7…”

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Samuel Rutherford

The Due Right of Presbyteries  (1644), pt. 1, p. 165

“Answer:  To distribute in a civil and natural way requires not a man full of the Holy Ghost, but to distribute in simplicity and with the grace of heavenly cheerfulness, Rom. 12:8, and with the qualities of a complete deacon, 1 Tim. 3:[9,] 12-14, requires the Holy Ghost [Acts 6:3-5], though they may be good deacons who are not full of the Holy Ghost; but such [persons full of the Holy Ghost] were chosen:

1.  Because this was to be a rule to all deacons to the world’s end, and the rule should be as straight and perfect as can be;

2.  Because there were choice of such men as those in the apostolic Church, and [there is] reason that God be served with the best of his own;

3.  The Holy Ghost is required for sanctification, as well as for gifts of preaching, Luke 1:15; Mt. 10:20.

4.  Stephen [a deacon] did no more (Acts ch. 7) in his apology than any witnesses of Christ convened before rulers may do who are obliged to be ready always to give an answer to every one who asks them of the hope that is in them, with meekness and fear, 1 Pet. 3:15, yea though it were a woman, who yet may not preach, 1 Cor. 14:34.”

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pt. 2, p. 228

“7.  A calling to the ministry is either such as wants the essentials, as gifts in any messenger, and the Churches’ consent, or these who occupy the room of the Church, the Church consenting, such a minister is to be reputed for no minister.  Or. 2. An entry to a calling, or a calling, where diverse of the apostles’ requisites are wanting, may be a valid calling, as if one enter as Caiphas who entered by favor and money, and contrary to the Law was High-Priest but for a year: yet was a true High-Priest, and prophesied as the High-Priest.

8.  If the Church approve by silence, or countenance the ministry of a man who opened the Church door to himself, by a silver key, having given the prelate a bud, the ordinance of God is conferred upon him and his calling ceases not to be God’s calling because of the sins of the instruments both taking and giving.”

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The Divine Right of Church Government…  (London, 1646), ch. 24, Question 20, pp. 547-48  What Rutherford says here about civil magistrates applies equally to Church elders.

“Objection 4 [by an Erastian]: When its required that the magistrates be men fearing God, hating coveteousness, etc. (Ex. 18:21; Dt. 1:16-17; 17:19-20), is not this an essential ingredient of a king as a king, that he read in the book of the Law, that he may fear God, Deut. 17?

[Rutherford’s] Answer: There is a twofold goodness here to be considered: one of the magistrate as a magistrate, another as a good and Christian magistrate.

The former is an official goodness, or a magistratical prudence, justice, and goodness; this is required of all magistrates as such, to judge the people: so the acts of a heathen magistrate done according to common natural equity, by Nebuchadnezzar, Pilate, Caesar, Felix, Festus, are to be acknowledged as acts of a lawful magistrate, valid and no less essentially magistratical, than if performed by King David; and of this goodness the Scriptures speak not as essential to a magistrate as a magistrate.

But there is another goodness required of magistrates as they are members of the Jewish Church, and as they are Christians, and of these the Scripture speaks; and so magistrates not as magistrates, but as good and Christian, are to be such as fear God, hate covetousness, respect not the face and favor of men; so its denied that the fear of God, hating of covteousness, are essential ingredients of kings as kings.

For kings as kings intend justice, peace, godliness, materially considered, both ex conditione operis [out of the nature of the work], and operantium [of those working].  But for justice and righteous judgment in a spiritu∣al and an evangelic way, that belongs not to the essence of a magistrate, nec ex conditione seu ex intentione operis, nec ex conditione operantis [neither out of the nature or the intention of the work, nor out of the nature of the one working]:  The Holy Ghost requires it of judges, as they would approve themselves as truly holy and religious, and would be accepted of God…”

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English Annotations  1st ed. 1645

On 1 Timothy 3, verse 2

“‘blameless’:  The word [Greek] signifies not faultless, for there are no such in the world, but such a one who hath not been, or cannot be appeached with any crime, a man of an unoffensive life, a man that is not attained with any common blemish, 1 Cor. 1:8; Lk. 1:6…

He that is to be chosen a bishop must not necessarily be a married man, but necessarily be no polygamist…”

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James Guthrie

A Treatise of Ruling Elders & Deacons…  (d. 1661; Edinburgh: Anderson, 1690), ch. 7, pp. 60-61

“Therefore, though it is to be wished and endeavored that all elders may have due qualifications for all these things and though special care is to be taken everywhere to choose the most qualified, yet in particular congregations men may be chosen elders who have not such a measure of all these qualifications, they being otherwise men of a blameless and Christian conversation and having such a measure of knowledge and prudence as is fit for governing that congregation and judging of the things that are handled in the session thereof, which for the most part are matters of scandal and trying and admitting of penitents;

but if there be any who are not of a blameless and Christian conversation and have not some measure of these qualifications required by the Word of God in a ruling elder, no congregation ought to choose any such, nor any session or presbytery to admit them to the charge…”

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David Dickson

An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles  (d. 1663), on 1 Tim. 3:2

”Of one’  2. Property:  It behoves him to be the husband of one wife: which property is not laid down by way of precept, as if it was necessary for a pastor to be married, but by way of limitation, because if he purpose to marry, he ought to content himself with one wife so long as she lives and to keep himself from polygamy, which was frequent in those times.”

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John Trapp

on 1 Timothy 3, verse 2  (d. 1669)

“‘A bishop then must be blameless’  That is, every faithful pastor must be such as against whom no just exception can be laid, no gross fault objected.  Involuntary failings and unavoidable infirmities have a pardon, of course, both with God and all good men.”

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Richard Baxter

The Cure of Church Divisions…  (London, 1670), pt. 1

Direction 12, p. 102

“Many at this day can scarce digest it, that He sent forth a Judas to preach the Gospel, when He knew that he was a thief and a hypocrite, and foreknew that he was a son of perdition and would betray Him, and that the Devil would enter into him; yea, knew that he was a devil, Jn. 6:70 & 13:2, yet that this Judas should be one of the twelve select apostles and one of the family of Christ.  Yet Christ repulsed him not; and if he did not par­take of the sacrament at his last Supper, it was not because Christ did turn him out, but because he went away himself.”

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Direction 36, pp. 202-4

“First, he that is not at all able to do the essen­tial works of the ministry, that is, to teach the people the Christian faith and a holy life, and to pray and praise God with them, and administer the sacraments, and in some measure oversee the manners of the flock, is no minister, nor to be owned: For he wants [lacks] the essential qualificati­ons: As an illiterate man can be no schoolma­ster, nor he a physician, a pilot, an architect, who is utterly ignorant of their work.

Secondly, he that preaches heresy, that is, denies any essential point of Christianity or godliness, after the first and second admonition is to be avoided.

Thirdly, he that in his application endeavors to disgrace a godly life and to dissuade the people from it on false pretenses and encou­rages them to a life of wickedness, is a traitor to Christ and not to be owned in the ministry.  In a word, any one whose ministry is such as ten­ds to destruction more than to edification and to do more harm than good.  But then remember that it is not partiality and passion that must here be judge: nor is everyone an opposer of godli­ness who opposes the errors of a party or the faults or follies of godly men.

Fourthly, that pastor or church who will not let you have communion with them unless you will say or subscribe some falsehood or commit any sin of willful choice, does drive you from their communion by their unlawful terms; and it is not you that are the Separatists, but they.”

.

Robert McWard

The Banders Disbanded (1681), p. 47  McWard was a protege of Rutherford and leader of the Scottish covenanters.

“XXV.  As every escape, error, or act of unfaithfulness (even known and continued in) whether in a minister’s entry to the ministry, or in his doctrine or deportment, does not non-minister him, nor give sufficient ground to withdraw from, or reject him as a minister of Christ: So neither does every enormity, mis-demeanure or act of tyranny, injustice, perfidy or profanity etc. in the civil magistrate, whether as to his way of entry to that office or in the execution of it, or in his private and personal behavior, denominate him a tyrant or an usurper, or give sufficient ground to divest him of his magistratical power, and reject him as the lawful magistrate.

XXVI. Though such a minister may lawfully be withdrawn from and disowned as a minister of Christ’s mission and institution, who either enters to the ministry by the window (i.e. in a way unwaranted or condemned in the Word of God) preaches erroneous and damnable doctrine, is grossly scandalous and vicious in his conversation, or is utterly insufficient for such a sacred function:”

.

Francis Turretin

Institutes  (P&R), vol. 3, 18th Topic, Question 23, p. 218

“XI.  …For as they [men] are concerned only with externals and cannot search into the inner motives of the mind, the ministry can be committed to those who are little suited to this sacred office and who can in different ways corrupt it, whether through ignorance or wickedness…

But from the time that calls began to be made by men, they could easily be corrupted; nor has God ever promised to accompany such human calls with the spirit of infallibility so that they might always continue pure and without any corruption.”

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Robert Wodrow

History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland  (d. 1734; Glasgow: Blackie, 1842), 2.210  After the second indulgence in 1672.

“Several of them [common Scottish people] were taught to believe, and urge a position, in itself of most dangerous consequences, that it is unlawful to hear a minister who was guilty of failures in his entry upon ministerial work, or mistakes in his management of it.  I wish the remains of this dangerous position may be entirely out from among us;”

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Articles

1600’s

English Puritans – A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; RBO, 2025), pt. 2

2. [Objection:] Their entrance is not by Christ’s ordinance, but is Antichristian  253

3. [Objection:] Their office’s administration is with vows of obedience to bishops  262-68

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1800’s

Fairbairn, Patrick – Appendix B, ‘On the Meaning of the Expression ‘Husband of One Wife’ in 1 Tim. 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6′  in The Pastoral Epistles: the Greek Text & Translation…  (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1874), pp. 416-32

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Latin Articles

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics  (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 3, pt. 2, bk. 3, Tract 3, Of the Conditions which ought to be Sought for and Chosen in a Minister

1. Of Real [Genuinis] Conditions or Requisites, namely: of Piety, of Orthodoxy, of Temperament, of Learning, of Eloquence, of Prudence  699

2. Of Cutting-Short[?] Requisites of the Chosen, that is, Requisites which are not Requisites, or Pseudo-Requisites  704

3. Of Some Requisites & Conditions, the Tolerance of which is Looked into  712

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Female Pastors?

See also ‘On Women Elders’.

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Order of

Intro
Quotes  2
Article  1
Contra Female Pastors Ordinarily  2

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Intro

While there were blessed women prophets in both the Old Testament (Ex. 15:20; Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chron. 34:22; Isa. 8:3; Joel 2:28) and New Testament (Lk. 2:36; Acts 2:16-18; 21:9), there is no Scriptural example of a female in any other divinely ordained Church office.

Pastors, though, are of a different office than a prophet.  Prophets were extraordinarily called of God (who is able to read the hearts, and retains his sovereignty), they prophesied by inspiration and the office was not prescribed to be regularly and successively conferred by human instrumentality on others for its perpetual continuance.  A pastor, on the contrary, is ordinarily called and ordained through the Church, and regular guidelines are given in Scripture for their qualifications and regular continuance through the Church age (e.g. 1 Tim. 3; Titus 1).  While prophets could perform and lead acts of public worship, yet the regular administration of the public worship of the Church was given to priests in the Old Testament, and pastors in the New Testament.

The requirement that pastors be male stems not only from 1 Tim. 3:2, but also from the equity of the Old Testament precedent that the regular prescribed requirement for priests was that they were male; hence the regularly ordained ministry was all male.  This is inline with the regular rule of natural law, which teaches, as Paul says regarding the Church, that women ought not to teach or usurp authority over men (1 Tim. 2:11-15; see also Isa. 3:12).

Women prophets were an exception to this, as extraordinarily and immediately called by God.  They exercised their office righteously, without sin, and were a blessing in their circumstances, though such women officers were never the norm or to form a regular rule.

There is a distinction between that which is sinful and that which is valid.  A person may sinfully enter and remain in an office, and yet still have the valid authority of the office.  Not every sin entering into, or in, the office takes away the validity of the office (see on the qualifications of 1 Tim. 3 in the section above).

While it is normally wrong for a woman to be an ordained pastor in a regular, settled and constituted Church area (exception might be made for special, necessary circumstances or an extraordinary calling in an unsettled and unconstituted Church area), due to the positive qualification Scripture holds forth (which is a rule to us in regular circumstances), yet if the woman is in a valid Church, she may yet be a valid pastor with valid pastoral authority (her baptisms being valid, etc.).  This is because the sex of the minister is not of the essence of the ministerial office.  This is seen in that there were blessed women prophets in Scripture who were valid ministers of the Word.  Those women prophets were also, by definition, elders and could sit and rule in the assembly of elders, insofar as, according to historic presbyterianism, the higher offices contain all the authority, calling and gifts of the lower offices.

The case of women pastors is similar to the case of women being civil magistrates.  While natural law and Scripture teaches that women ruling in a nation, apart from extraordinary circumstances, or even in such, is a curse (Isa. 3:12), yet Scripture also clearly upholds the validity of women civil magistrates (such as Deborah), even as magistrates are the servants and ministers of God who bear his authority.

The following quotes below by Rutherford and Vermigli support the viewpoint taught here.  Following that are resources against female pastors in ordinary situations.

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Quotes

Order of

Rutherford
Vermigli

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1600’s

Samuel Rutherford

Due Right of Presbyteries  1644  The context is Rutherford arguing against congregationalists, that election by the people is not always necessary, as in extraordinary circumstances.

1st Part

p. 202

“And why not (say I) electi­on [is extraordinary] also in another case, if as Peter Martyr says well (on Judges 4:5) a woman may be a preacher of the Gospel;”

[For Rutherford a ‘preacher’ was not the same as a pastor.  The word ‘preacher’ may include anyone who incidentally preaches, such as a woman (by the extraordinary motion of God, and moral necessity) proclaiming the message of Christ in a place where there is no settled Church (Jn. 4:28-29, see below).  This is far distinguished from a regular ordained pastor of a congregation.  That Rutherford is against women pastors, see Due Right of Presbyteries, 2nd Part, p. 303).]

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pp. 203-8

“4th Distinction.  A calling may be expressly and formally corrupt in respect of the particular intention of the ordainers and of the particular Church, ex intentione ordinanris & operantis [out of the intention of the ordainers and of the one working]. Thus Luther’s calling to be a monk was a corrupt calling, and eatenus, and ‘in that respect’ he could not give a calling to o­thers.  But that some calling may be implicitly and virtually good and lawful in respect of the intention of the Catholic Church and ex intentione operis & ipsius ordinationis [out of the intention of the work and the ordination itself], he was called to preach the Word of God.
…

7.  A calling to the ministry is either such [1.] as wants the es­sentials, as gifts in any messenger and the Church’s consent, or these who occupy the room of the Church, the Church consenting: such a minister is to be reputed for no minister; or 2. an entry to a calling, or a calling where diverse of the apostles’ requisites are wanting, may be a valid cal­ling, as if one enter as Caiphas, who entered by favor and mo­ney and contrary to the Law, was High-Priest but for a year: yet was a true High-Priest and prophesied as the High-priest [Jn. 11:49-51].

8. If the Church approve by silence, or countenance the mi­nistry of a man who opened the Church door to himself, by a silver key, having given the prelate a bud. The ordinance of God is conferred upon him, and his calling ceases not to be God’s cal­ling because of the sins of the instruments both taking and giving.”

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pp. 454-5

“But a woman in no case is capable of administrat­ing baptism or the Lord’s Supper, except she were extraordinarily and immediately inspired to be a prophetess…”

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p. 475

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Peter Martyr Vermigli

Common Places (1583), 4th Part, ch. 1

‘Of Diverse Ministries of the Church’

“(In Judges 4:4)

10.  But when as God chose Deborah unto the ministry of judging, being weak in sex, He straightway made her very famous and honorable through the gift of prophesying.  By which grace, and perhaps many other miracles more, she was constituted by God and confirmed by miracles as a woman chosen to so great an office.

Neither was only this woman endued with the spirit of prophesy, for in the holy Scripture we read of other women also which were in such sort instructed by the Holy Ghost.  Mary the sister of Moses, Hannah the mother of Samuel, Hulda in the time of Josiah the king were prophetesses (Ex. 15:20; 1 Sam. 2:1; 2 Kings 22:14).  And in the New Testament (to speak nothing of Mary the virgin, of Elizabeth the mother of John and of Anna the daughter of Phanuel, Lk. 1:42 & 46; 2:36) the daughters of Phillip the deacon (as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles) were prophetesses.

(Margin Note: That women prophets did openly teach the people)

Neither think I [that] it ought to be denied that some of those women, endued with the gift of prophesy did openly teach the people in declaring of those things unto them which had been showed them of God: seeing the gifts of God are not therefore given that they should lie hidden, but to the intent they should further the common edifying of the Church.

And yet hereby it follows not that what God does by some peculiar privilege, we should forthwith draw it into an example unto us: because according to the rule of the apostle we are bound unto an ordinary law,

(Margin Note: 1 Tim. 2:12; 1 Cor. 14:34; Why women were commanded to be silent in the Church)

whereby both in the epistle to Timothy and in the first epistle to the Corinthians, he commands that a woman should keep silence in the Church.  And of the silence commanded, he assigns causes, namely, for that they ought to be subject to their husbands.  But the office of a teacher does declare a certain authority over those which are taught, which must not be attributed unto a woman over men.  For she was made for man, whom to obey she ought always to have a respect; which thing is also appointed her by the judgment of God, whereby He said unto the woman after sin was committed, (Gen. 3:16) “Thy disposition shall be towards thy husband.”  Further, the apostle derived a reason from the first fault, (1 Tim. 2:14) wherein he says that Eve was seduced and not Adam.

So as if women should ordinarily be admitted to the holy ministry in the Church, men might easily suspect that the devil by his accustomed instrument would deceive the people, and for that cause they would the less esteem the ecclesiastical function if it should be committed unto women; wherefore by the ordinary right and by the apostolical rule, it ought to be appointed unto men.  Howbeit if God do otherwise sometime, yet can He not be justly accused, for so much as all laws are in his power. If then sometime He send a prophetess, and adorn her with heavenly gifts, the same woman speaking in the Church must undoubtedly be hearkened unto, but yet so as her state be not forgotten.

(Margin Note: Two places of Paul are reconciled)

Therefore, the two testimonies of Paul, which seem to be repugnant one to another, may easily be reconciled.  In the first epistle to Timothy he writes that “a woman ought to be silent in the Church,” which, toward the end of the first epistle to the Corinthians, he most manifestly confirms. Howbeit in the same epistle he commands that a man prophesying or praying should have his head uncovered, but the woman while she prophesies should have it covered (1 Cor. 11:5): whereby doubtless he teaches that it is lawful for a woman both to speak and also to prophesy in the Church.  For it would not seem that so doing she should have been commanded to cover her head if she were utterly to keep silence in the holy assembly.

(Margin Note: Why the women that prophesy are commanded to be covered on their head)

After this sort the matter must be expounded, namely, that the precept of silence is a general precept, but the other, which is for covering of the head when they pray or prophesy, pertained only to those which were prophetesses.  They verily are not forbidden to prophesy for the common edifying of the Church: but lest they, forgetting the property of their own state (by reason of the extraordinary office committed unto them), should wax proud, they are commanded to have their head covered: whereby they might understand that they have yet the power of man above them.”

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‘Of Calling and Especially unto the Ministry’

“18….  As touching the holy women and other prophets which exercised the ministry without attending till they were called, those we say had extraordinary vocations [callings], the Church either being as yet not planted, or else so fallen to decay as it might not otherwise be repaired.”

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Article

1900’s

Chaney, James M. – ‘The Woman Question’  in The Presbyterian Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 3 (Jan. 1904), pp. 390-403

This is a dialogue which delineates and contrasts views, and ultimately argues that necessity and the greater good, within natural limits, may override positive laws, such as relevant ones by the apostle in Scripture.  While one may not agree with every statement or situation posed and approved of, yet Chaney’s presentation is helpful in working through the issues.

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Contra Female Pastors in Ordinary Situations

Note that some of these resources may be against female pastors in any situation.

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Collection of Quotes

Anglican.net – ’16-18th c. Collection: Women’s Ordination’  11 historic Anglican quotes against women pastors.

Quotes by: John Hooper, Anthony Scoloker, Alexander Nowell, John Whitgift, Thomas Bilson, Hadrian Saravia, Thomas Rogers, John Tombes, Patrick Smith, Edmund Gibson, To a person joining the Quakers.

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Articles

1800’s

Dabney, Robert – ‘The Public Preaching of Women’  (1879)  from The Southern Presbyterian Review for October

Witherspoon, T.D. – I. ‘Woman in the Church’  in The Presbyterian Quarterly, no. 8 (April, 1889), pp. 161-78

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1900’s

McCartney, Clarence E. – ‘The Place of Woman in the Church’  in ed. J.R. Fleming, Proceedings of the Eleventh General Council of the Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System, held at Pittsburgh, 1921  (Edinburgh: Office of the Alliance, 1922), pp. 157-66

“To my mind the whole subject is to be decided not by the exegesis of any difficult passage in St. Paul’s letters, but by common sense, by expediency, and by a regard for the law of nature and by what the Church has found to be good in the past.

Now, you may interpret those passages as you please, but is not this the fact, that the principle there laid down has been accepted as sound by the Church in all generations?  Take even those Churches that have long admitted women to ordination on the same footing as men.  Why is it that there is no tendency to increase the number of women as ministers?  There must be some great and almost indefinable law of nature that is against the thing…”

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May Pastors be Suitably Called “Priests”?

Order of

Article  1
Quote  1

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Article

1600’s

English Puritans – pt. 2, pp. 245-47  in A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; RBO, 2025)

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Quote

1600’s

Gisbert Voet

‘On the Sacrifice of Melchizedek, on Gen. 14:18’  tr. Onku with AI  in Select Disputations  (Utrecht, 1669), vol. 4, p. 533  Latin

“VI. That phrase by which pastors and ministers of churches in the N.T. are called priests seems incorrect and abusive in some way.  Why do they not call the churches synagogues by the same right?  Why do they not revive the rest of the technologisms of Judaism (from which the apostles abstain in the N.T.)?”

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The Ministerial Office is for Life

Quote

1600’s

Richard Baxter

An Apology for the Nonconformists’ Ministry…  (1668-1669; 1675; London: 1681), pp. 14-15

“5. That it is not an office to be taken up on trial, and for a limited time (as servants are bound to their masters by the year); but as marriage, it is for life (unless God shall disable us), and as we say for better and for worse; and not to be laid by at pleasure.  And therefore those Schoolmen that interpret the indelible character of the relation seem not to differ from us at all.”

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On Pastoral Functions & Duties

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Advice for Pastors

Article

Beeke, Joel – ‘Ten Commandments for Pastors’  (2015)  10 paragraphs

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Quote

J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, on Mt. 17:1-13

“…we have in these verses a remarkable testimony to Christ’s infinite superiority over all that are born of women…

There is a constant tendency in human nature to ‘hear man’ [contrast Mt. 17:5].  Bishops, priests, deacons, popes, cardinals, councils, presbyterian preachers, and independent ministers, are continually exalted to a place which God never intended them to fill, and made practically to usurp the honor of Christ.  Against this tendency let us all watch, and be on our guard.  Let these solemn words of the vision ever ring in our ears, ‘Hear ye Christ.’ [Mt. 17:5]  The best of men are only men at their very best.”

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How Preachers Bind with the Keys, Lk. 10:16

Quotes

George Gillespie

English Popish Ceremonies  (1637), pt. 3, ch. 8, Digression 4, pp. 188-89

“1. We must distinguish a twofold power of the keys (Trelcatius, Instittutes of Theology, bk. 2, p. 287-88; Pareus on 1 Cor. 5, Of Excommunication): the one is execute in doctrine: the other in discipline: the one concionalis [of preaching]: the other judicialis [of judgment]. 

Touching the former, we grant it is proper for pastors alone, whose office and vocation it is, by the preaching and publishing of God’s Word, to shut the Kingdom of Heaven against impenitent and disobedient men, and to open it unto penitent sinners, to bind God’s heavy wrath upon the former, and (by application of the promises of mercy) to loose the latter from the sentence and fear of condemnation.

When we ascribe the power of binding and loosing to that whole consistory, wherein governing elders are joined together with pastors, we mean only of the Keys of external discipline, which are used in ecclesiastical courts and judicatories.”

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Samuel Rutherford

A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience…  (1649), ch. 2

pp. 33-34

“…for it is a greater obligation for pastors to subject men to divine wrath, if they receive not what they preach, than for synods to bind them only to ecclesiastical censures; and yet none can say that Pastors exercise tyranny over the conscience [because what they preach is God’s Word]…”

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pp. 39-40

“…we conceive that God has given to some one single pastor, and far more to a synod of pastors and doctors a power to rebuke, teach, exhort with all authority, 2 Tim. 4:1-2, to charge, Tit. 2:15, them before the Lord, 1 Tim. 6:17, to lay on burdens and decrees, Acts 15:28; 16:4, and that all that hear them believe and receive as true what they speak in the Name of the Lord, according to that, ‘he that heareth you heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me.’ [Lk. 10:16]

He that will not hear an ambassador as an ambassador speaking from his master and prince, refuses to hear the prince that sent him; yet we say not that they are to be heard without controversy as they [Libertines] object, that is, peremptorily, absolutely as if their word were the very oracle of God, but they are to be heard, but not but after trying and searching, and not but conditionally, insofar as they carry the mind of God along with them, so that there may be an appeal to the Scripture and place left for examining and trying of their doctrine whether it be so or not.”

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Article

Rutherford, Samuel – pp. 147-51  of bk. 1, ch. 24  of A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church-Discipline…  (London, 1658)

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Not All Truths must be Preached in All Circumstances

See also ‘On Occasional & Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism’.

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Order of Contents

Articles  3
Quotes  5

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Articles

1600’s

Baxter, Richard

Direction 38, ‘Neglect not any truth of God, much less re­nounce it or deny it: for lying and con­tempt of sacred truth is always sinful: But yet do not take it for your duty to publish all which you judge to be truth, nor a sin to silence many lesser truths, when the Church’s peace and welfare does require it’  in The Cure of Church Divisions…  (London, 1670), pt. 1, pp. 208-9

“But it is the opi­nion of injudicious furious spirits that no truth is to be silenced for peace.  Truth is not to be sold for carnal prosperity, but it is to be forborne for spiritual advantage and true necessity.” – p. 209

“Thirdly, while you are preaching that opinion which your zeal is so much for, you are omitting far greater and more necessary truths.

Fourthly, mercy is to be preferred before sa­crifice: What if the present uttering some truth would cost many thousand men’s lives?  Were not that an untimely and unmerciful word?  And is it not as bad if (but accidentally) it tend to the ruin of the Church and the hurt of souls?  It were easy to instance in unseasonable and im­prudent words of truth spoken to princes, which have raised persecutions of long continuance and ruined Churches, silenced ministers and cau­sed the death of multitudes of men.
…

It is not truth but goodness which is the ulti­mate object of the soul.  And God who is infinite goodness itself, has revealed his truths to the world to do men good, and not to hurt them.  And the Devil, who is the Destroyer, so he may but do men hurt, will be content to make use even of truth to do it; though usually he only pre­tends truth to cover his lies: And this angel of Light has his ministers of light and righ­teousness, who are known by their fruits; whi­lst the pretenses of light and righteousness are used to Satan’s ends and not to Christ’s, to hurt and destroy and to hinder Christ’s Kingdom, and not to save and to do good: as the wolf is known by his bloody jaws, even in his sheep’s clothing.” – pp. 208-9

Question 79, ‘Is it lawful to forbear the preaching of some truths upon man’s prohibition that I may have liberty to preach the rest: yea, and to promise before hand to forbear them? or to do it for the Church’s peace?’  in Christian Directory  (London, 1673), pt. 3, Christian Ecclesiastics, Cases of Conscience, p. 853

.

2000’s

Fentiman, Travis – pp. 152-54  of “Editor’s Extended Introduction”, “The 3rd Indulgence & Wamphray’s Arguments”  in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists  (1604; RBO, 2025)

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Quotes

Order of

Cartwright
Perkins
Durham
Baxter
Bairdie

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1500’s

Thomas Cartwright

eds. Peel & Carlson, Cartwrightiana  (London: Halley Stewart, 1951), 3. ‘A Reproof of Certain Schismatical Persons,’ p. 227

“That to the worthy we may witness freely any truth.  To the unworthy, which seek extremity of law against us, we will witness that truth which the law will afford us, and urge it no further, but to stop their own mouths and to leave them without excuse.

Yea and no preacher has furhter message to such, when they thoroughly know them to be such, and when they know that the further truth may better be taught in another place and to more meet persons.”

.

1600’s

William Perkins

Cases of Conscience  (Cambridge. 1606), bk. 3, ch. 2, pp. 481-84

“VIII Rule.  We must give place to the sway of the times wherein we live, so far forth as may stand with keeping faith and a good conscience.  We may not be temporizers and change our religion with the times: but yet we may and must give place to times as we give place to the stream, so that it be done with keeping of true religion and good conscience.  This rule was practiced by Paul…

he was three years in Ephesus, an idolatrous place, where the great goddess Diana was worshipped; yet in all that time he contained himself and spake nothing in particular against Diana, but on∣y in general against false gods, saying that ‘they be no gods that are made with hands,’ v. 26.  Nay, Alexander could not charge him with this, that he had in all that while blasphemed their goddess Diana.  Paul therefore was feign to yield to the sway of those times that so he might do some good in Ephesus by his ministry.  Whereas, if he had spoken against Diana directly, it had not been possible for him to have done that good by preaching which otherwise he did.”

.

James Durham

Treatise on Scandal, pp. 358-359

“Neither can it be ground enough to plead for such decisions in preaching, that the thing they preach-for is truth, and the thing they condemn is error.  Because:

1.  It is not the lawfulness of the thing simply that is in question, but the necessity and expediency thereof in such a case: Now, many things are lawful that are not expedient, 1 Cor. 10:23.

2.  In these differences that were in the primitive times concerning meats, days, genealogies, etc. there was a truth or an er­ror upon one of the sides, as there is a right and a wrong in every contradiction of such a kind, yet the apostle thinks fitter, for the Church’s peace, that such be altogether refrained, rather than any way (at least in public) insisted upon or decided.

3.  Because no minister can bring forth every truth at all times, he must then make choice; And I sup­pose some ministers may die, and all do so, who have not preached every truth, even which they knew, un­to the people.  Beside, there are (no question) many truths hid to the most learned.

Neither can this be thought inconsistent with a minister’s fidelity, who is to reveal the whole counsel of God; because, that counsel is to be understood of things necessary to men’s salvation, and is not to be extended to all things whatsoever; for, we find the great apostle expound­ing this in that same sermon, Acts 20, verse 20, ‘I have keeped back nothing that was profitable unto you;’ which evidenceth that ‘the whole counsel of God,’ or the things which he showed unto them, is the whole, and all that was profitable for them, and that for no by-respect or fear whatsoever he shunned to reveal that unto them.

[4.]  Also, it is clear, that there are many truths which are not decided by any judicial act; and amongst other things, sparingness to decide truths that are not fundamental judicially has been ever thought no little mean[s] of the Church’s peace, as the contrary has been of division.”

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Richard Baxter

The True Catholic, & Catholic Church Described…  (London: A.M., 1660), p. 183

“There are too few in the world of peaceable principles: some lay all peace, as is said, on the opinions of their own parties, and some lay it on a multitude of such low opinions and such doubtful things that they might know can never be the matter of universal consent: some think they must not silence anything which they conceive to be a truth for the peace of the Church, or [for] the promoting of greater undoubted truths.

Some think they ought to reproach and disgrace all that are not of their mind, and some think they ought to destroy them or cast them out, and think this a part of their faithfulness to the truth of Christ, and that this is but to help him against his enemies.”

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John Bairdie

Balm from Gilead, or the differences about the indulgence stated and impleaded in a sober and serious letter to ministers and Christians in Scotland  (London: Cockerill, 1681), pp. 20-21

“If ye think and lay it down for a principle that everything ye conceive to be evil is to be opposed and impugned to the yondmost extremity and renting, and nothing supposed amiss is to be tolerated and forborn for the good of the Gospel, for peace and unity’s sake, ye may see that abundantly confuted by Mr. Burroughs in his Irenicum, chs. 8 & 9, but especially by your most grave, wise, tender and faithful Mr. Durham in his book of Scandal, pt. 3, ch. 8.  Confine yourselves therefore within the just bounds of holy zeal and think it no lukewarmness to be sober; and many of your extravagancies will hereby be cut off.”

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On the Pastor’s Duty for Evangelism

See also, ‘Ministers may be Sent as, and Function as, Evangelists’.

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Article

Gillespie, George – p. 48, ‘My second proposition concerning…’  in Ch. 3, ‘Of Greater Presbyteries, which some call Classes’  in Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland  (1641; Edinburgh, 1846), Pt. 2, Concerning the Assemblies of the Church of Scotland & the Authority Thereof

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Quotes

Samuel Rutherford

The Due Right of Presbyteries  (1644), pt. 2, p. 204

“Answer.  First, we hold that by a calling or ordination he is made a pastor; by election he is restricted to be ordinarily the pastor of his flock.

Secondly, a pastor is a pastor of the catholic Church, but he is not a catholic pastor of the catholic Church, as were the apostles.

Thirdly, the Reformed Churches may send pastors to the Indians, for that which Acosta says of Jesuits, we may with better reason say it of our selves: That pastors are as soldiers, and some soldiers are to keep order and remain in a certain place; others run up and down in all places; So some are affixed to a con­gregation, to feed them; others may be sent to those people who have not heard of the Gospel, which sending is ordinary and lawful in respect of pastors sending and the pastors who are sent, because in pastors, even after the apostles be dead, there remains a general pastoral care for all the Churches of Christ.  Thus sending is not ordinary, but extraordinary in respect of those to whom the pastors are sent; yet is it a pastoral sending [as opposed to this being absent in congregationalism in such a case].

…but a pastoral care for the Churches is not proper to apostles only, but only such a pastoral care by special direction from Christ immediately to preach to all,  2. Backed with the gift of tongues and of miracles; and this essentially differences the apostle from the ordinary pastor; but the former pastoral care to preach the Gospel to all nations, and to convert, is common both to the apostle and pastor.”

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Wilhelm Apollonius

A Consideration of Certain Controversies at this Time Agitated in the Kingdom of England, Concerning the Government of the Church of God  (London: G.M., 1645), ch. 5, ‘Of the Ecclesiastical Ministry, and the Exercise thereof’, pp. 67-70

“We grant in this Question:

1. That private Christians from the common duty of charity, making use of those spiritual gifts which they have received from God for men’s edification, do sometimes convert to the faith those souls which went astray; and bring those who live in the world, out of the Church, unto the body of the Church of Christ. See Jn. 4:29, etc. 1 Cor. 7:16.

2. We do not think that the office of him who preaches the Word, as sent of God and the Church, do confer any efficacy to the Word preached by him; or has any influence upon the soul of him that is converted.  For the power of God only, and the Spirit which accompanies the Word preached, does give to the Word preached a virtue and saving efficacy for the conversion and salvation of souls, 1 Cor. 12:11 and 15:10.  But we affirm that the Word preached by him who is ordained to an ecclesiastical office, and does by his ecclesiastical office authoritatively preach the Word, is the ordinary means to which God does by the efficacy of his Spirit give assistance for the conversion of those who live in sin out of Church-communion.  So that pastors, as pastors, by virtue of their pastoral office are the ordinary means of the conversion of those men who live in the world.

This assertion is proved:

1. Because faith is given and first attained by the Word preached, by those who by an ecclesiastical call are sent of God, to the pastoral Office, and by virtue of mission and function preach the Word, whereby faith is wrought in man.  See Rom. 10:14-15; 1 Cor. 3:19; Gal. 3:2.

2. Because pastors of Churches by reason of the office they bear, are fathers, who do first beget their children to Christ in the Church; and by the spiritual seed of God, do give spirit and life to those that are dead in sins:  See 1 Cor. 4:15; Gal. 4:19; 2 Cor. 2:16.

3. Pastors are enjoined, as an office peculiarly belonging to them, to preach the Word of God with all meekness, mildness, and patience, if perhaps God will give repentance to those who are held captives in the snares of the Devil, 2 Tim. 2:24-26, to open the eyes of those who sit in darkness, and to bring them to the light of the Gospel and of grace, Acts 26:18, to seek lost sheep for the Lord, Eze. 34:4-5, and to bring into captivity to the obedience of Christ those who with high minds exalt themselves against the Word of God, 2 Cor. 10:4-5.

We reject therefore the opposite positions of those:

1. Who affirm that the conversion of wicked men is not an effect intended that it should be produced by virtue of the ecclesiastical ministry as a means appointed to that end; and therefore that never any are converted by the pastors of the Church by virtue of any ecclesiastical office but by accident, as they are gifted Christians: affirming that ordinarily the conversion of such as go astray is by such Christians endued with gifts of prophesy.  But it is certain from the holy Scripture that the ecclesiastical ministry is appointed by God for this end, as the ordinary means whereby such as are strangers and enemies to God may be reconciled, 2 Cor. 5:20, and brought to Christ, 2 Cor. 11:2-4.

2. Of those who affirm that sincere conversion of men is a certain argument that those by whose preaching the Word they are converted are sent of God, according to that Rom. 10:14-15; Jer. 23:32.  But we judge that the sending which the apostle speaks of, Rom. 10:14-15, is a sending to an office in a due order, whether extraordinary or ordinary, ecclesiastically performed; and that it consists not only in conferring gifts, whereby a man is made fit for the ministery, or prophecy, but in conferring authority and conveying ministerial authority; as the Protestants prove by manifest arguments against the Socinians.  And although private Christians in the duty of charity, and by reason of gifts wherein they are subservient to God, do convert some from their sins; yet it follows not that they are thus sent, as that they have authority as the ambassadours of Christ in his Name to preach the Word of God authoritatively; because they want [lack] the authoritative mission by the Church of Christ, whereby that ministry in the Church is conferred wherein men as the ambassadors of Christ preach the Word of reconciliation, 1 Tim. 4:14; Tit. 1:5, 9-10; 2 Cor. 5:20.

Hence also our Belgic Reformed Churches acknowledge that preaching of the Word by ministers ecclesiastically called, is the ordinary means of men’s repentance and first reconciliation to God: as appears by the ecclesiastical Form of establishing pastors in the ministry of the Church through the whole Netherlands.”

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On Pastors Guiding Elders

Quotes

1500’s

John Calvin

Commentary on 1 Cor. 5, v. 4

“It is to be carefully observed, that Paul, though an apostle, does not himself, as an individual, excommunicate according to his own pleasure [in 1 Cor. 5], but consults with the Church, that the matter may be transacted by common authority.  He, it is true, takes the lead, and shows the way, but, in taking others as his associates, he intimates with sufficient plainness, that this authority does not belong to any one individual.”

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1600’s

London (Presbyterian) Provincial Assembly

A Vindication of the Presbyterial-Government & the Ministry…  (London, 1650), p. 63

“But yet here we must carefully distinguish between the act of examination [of persons to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper] and the judgment given upon the person examined.

The managing of the examination is the proper act of the teaching elder; it is he that is to pray for a blessing; it is he that is for order’s sake to ask the questions.  But as for the determining, whether the party examined be fit or no to receive, this is an act of power and government and belongs not to the minister alone, but to the eldership.”

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Ought Pastors to be Willing to be Defrocked for Refusing to Do Anything that
is Wrong?  Yes

WLC 99.5:  “That what God forbids, is at no time to be done;[w] what He commands is always our duty;[x] and yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times.[y]”

[w] Job 13:7,8. Rom. 3:8. Job 36:21. Heb. 11:25.
[x] Deut. 4:8,9.
[y] Matt. 12:7.”

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Articles

Anon. – A Brief & Plain Answer to Master Sprint’s Discourse Concerning the Necessity of Conformity in the Case of Deprivation  (n.d. [at least by 1618])

This was a reply to John Sprint’s Cassander Anglicanus: showing the necessity of conformity to the prescribed Ceremonies of our Church in Case of Deprivation (London, 1616).  For background see below on Gillespie.

Sempill, James – Cassander Scotiana to Cassander Anglicanus: or, A Necessity of Non-Conformity in Hope of Exaltation  (1616)

Sempill (1566-1626) was a Scottish courtier and diplomat.  For background to this work, see below under Gillespie.

Gillespie, George – pt. 2, ch.1, ‘Against Some of our Opposites who Acknowledge the Inconveniency of the Ceremonies & yet would have us yield to them’  in A Dispute Against the English-Popish Ceremonies Obtruded upon the Church of Scotland…  (1637)

John Sprint (d. 1623), a grave and pious English clergyman with previous puritan sympathies, though being disaffected to the English ceremonies, believing them to be inconvenient, wrote, Cassander Anglicanus: showing the necessity of conformity to the prescribed Ceremonies of our Church in Case of Deprivation (London, 1616).  He argued that the ceremonies were indifferent, and were not to be refused if one was threatened to be defrocked, partly becuase being defrocked was the greater evil.

The work “had considerable effect on beneficed clergy of puritan tendencies. It provoked an anonymous reply entitled, A brief and plain Answer to Master Sprints discourse, to which Sprint made a rejoinder entitled A Reply to the answer of my first Reason. Both are printed with the 1618 edition of Cassander Anglicanus.  In his defense of conformity, Sprint argues that the rites are non-essential, and that no minister of the gospel is justified in abandoning his ministry because they are enjoined upon him. James Ussher argued in this way to Robert Blair; Blair countered with points made by James Sempill in his reply Cassander Scotiana to Cassander Anglicanus.” – Wikipedia

Gillespie answers Sprint at large in this chapter (specifically to his, A Reply to the answer of my first Reason), and argues, amongst many other things, that one ought never to do something sinful (which the ceremonies were), though one lose one’s public ministry.

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On Robert Blair

Wikipedia

“Having gone over to Ireland [from Scotland], he was called to Bangor, County Down, and ordained by Robert Echlin, the Bishop of Down, on 10 July 1623.  But he was suspended in the autumn of 1631, and deposed in 1632 for nonconformity; Echlin had turned a blind eye in the 1620s to presbyterian clergy in his diocese, but Blair (on his own account) didn’t react to hints by Theophilus Buckworth, Bishop of Dromore, and was then interviewed by James Ussher [in 1630], who tried to persuade him with arguments current from John Sprint.  By the intervention of the king, Charles I, he was restored in May 1634; but the former sentence was renewed, with excommunication, by John Bramhall, bishop of Derry, the same year.

Excommunicated and ejected, Blair, along with others, fitted out a ship, intending to go to New England in 1635. But the weather proved so bad that they were beaten back, and, returning to Scotland, he lived partly in that country and partly in England. Orders were issued in England for his apprehension in 1637, but he escaped to Scotland, and preached for some time in Ayr. He was invited to go to France as chaplain to the regiment of Colonel Patrick Hepburn of Waughton, but after embarking at Leith he was threatened by a soldier whom he had reproved for swearing, and went ashore again. He also petitioned the privy council ‘for liberty to preach the gospel,’ and received an appointment at Burntisland in April 1638 [the same year as the 2nd Reformation in Scotland]. He was nominated to St. Andrews in the same year, and was admitted there on 8 October 1639.”

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Diary: Interview with Ussher, 1630

p. 80  of The Life of Mr. Robert Blair, Minister of St. Andrews, Containing his Autobiography, from 1593-1636…  (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1848)

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Quote

1600’s

Richard Baxter

The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood…  (London, 1679), sect. 6, p, 114

“Where such sins are made the condition of ministration by men in power, as that all the whole ministry of a kingdom are bound in conscience to deny consent and conformity thereto [such as in 1662 in England], it is the duty of all the ministry in primo instante [‘in the first instance’], to forbear their ministerial office or [for] none [of them to do so]; for the reason is the same to all.  For example: If ten or twenty untrue or unrighteous forbidden things must be subscribed, declared, covenanted or sworn, or as many sins practiced, yea were it but one, no doubt but the whole ministry is bound to deny conformity to any one such thing.”

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Pastors should be Paid for their Labors if Possible

Article

1600’s

Turretin, Francis – 28. ‘Is any salary due ministers of the church?  We affirm against the Anabaptists.’  in Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr.  (1679–1685; P&R, 1994), vol. 3, 18^th Topic, pp. 269-74

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Latin Articles

1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics  (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 2, pt. 1, bk. 4, Tract 3, Of the Stipends of Ministers

1. The Right Ministers are Owed to Stipends; and that Ought to be Procured to Them Due to Equity  797

2. The Quantity and Quality of Stipends is Discussed  810

3. Who and What Kind [of Persons] are to be Appointed Stipends?  815

4. From Whom and by Whom are Stipends to be Given?  821

5. From Where are Stipends to be Given?  824

6. Of Ecclesiastical Benefits in the Papacy  838

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On the Change of a Minister’s Call

Quote

1600’s

Richard Baxter

An Apology for the Nonconformists’ Ministry…  (1668-1669; 1675; London: 1681), p. 16

“14. Nor do we take ourselves bound by Christ to one place or one time, or manner of teaching, or to speak always to a great assembly.  But all these are circumstances which we must fit to the end and success of our work, and must take that course, and with that variation which tends to the Church’s good.

Christ, that bid his apostles when they were persecuted in one city, fly to another, allows us to be where we may serve Him best.  If forbearing all preaching for some days or weeks would tend to the Church’s good (as by procuring us liberty afterward, etc.) it is lawful to forbear.  If preaching often to a few be more for the Church’s good than to preach but once or twice to many, we may then lawfully choose the smaller number.  So that in such circumstances, that may be one man’s duty which is anothers sin.”

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On Lay-Persons

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How Far Pastors are to be Believed

Richard Baxter

A Christian Directory: a Sum of Practical Theology and Cases of Conscience  Buy  (1673), pt. 3, Christian Ecclesiastics, Question 132, ‘Is it unlawful to obey in all those cases where it is unlawful to impose and command?  Or in what cases?  And how far pastors must be believed and obeyed?’, p. 889

“…Whether pastors are to be believed or obeyed any farther than they show a Word of God revealing or commanding the particular thing?  Divine faith and obedience is one thing, and human is another:

1.  If as a preacher he say, ‘This is God’s Word, believe it and obey it as such,’ you must believe with a human faith that it is likelier that he knows what he says than you do (unless 1. you see evidence, 2. or the consent of more credible persons to be against him, and then you are not to believe him at all).

Even as a child believes his teacher in order to learn the things himself, so you are so far to take his word while you are learning to know whether it be so or not.  But not to rest in it as certain, nor to take your belief of him and obedience to him, to be a believing and obeying God formally, though a duty.”

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J.C. Ryle

A Warning to the Churches, ‘The Fallibility of Ministers’

“We are all naturally inclined to lean upon man whom we can see, rather than upon God whom we cannot see. We naturally love to lean upon the ministers of the visible Church, rather than upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd and High Priest, who is invisible. We need to be continually warned and set on our guard.

I see this tendency to lean on man everywhere. I know no branch of the Protestant Church of Christ which does not require to be cautioned upon the point….

We all naturally love to have a pope of our own. We are far too ready to think, that because some great minister or some learned man says a thing, or because our own minister, whom we love, says a thing—that it must be right, without examining whether it is in Scripture or not. Most men dislike the trouble of thinking for themselves. They like following a leader. They are like sheep, when one goes over the hill all the rest follow.”

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Lay-Persons may, and ought to, Preach Privately

Quote

Francis Turretin

Institutes  (P&R), vol. 3, 18th Topic, Question 23, p. 215

“…the private preaching of the gospel, by which individual believers are bound by the common law of love to teach, to admonish and to lead their brethren and neighbors to faith and salvation; but concerning public preaching with authority, the necessity of which is laid upon those who by a special call are consecrated to the public work of the ministry.”

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“The pastor teaches sound doctrine (1 Tim. 3:1), often thrice in the week, which is in season and out of season (1 Tim. 4:2)…  The pastors, besides public preaching and praying in our church, are also to catechize the flock (Gal. 6:5; Heb. 5:12-13; 6:1-3; 1 Cor. 3:1-3), visit the flock (Cant. 7:11- 12; Eze. 34:4; Rom. 1:13; Acts 14:22-23,27; 20:17-18), are especially to exhort and pray over the sick (Jam. 5:14) and to strengthen the exercised in conscience (Job 33:23-24), and that in every house (as Acts 10:34; 5:42).”

Samuel Rutherford

Defense of the Government of the Church of Scotland (1642)

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