“III. The title to the exercise of the ministerial office is, in ordinary circumstances,
conferred by Christ through the call of the Church.
There is a distinction, and a most important one
in the argument, to be drawn between the title to the possession of the ministerial office, and the title to the exercise of the ministerial office. The
former, or the right to the office, is the gift immediately of Christ; His
call, directly addressed to the individual, gives him this first right. The
latter, or the right to the exercise of the office, is also the gift of Christ;
not, however, immediately or directly bestowed, but conferred through the
regular and outward appointment of the Church.
The first, or a right to the ministerial office,
is one involved in the call of the Saviour Himself, addressed and announced to
the individual by the bestowment upon him of those special gifts and graces of
a spiritual kind which alone can qualify him for the office. The second, or a
right to the exercise of the office, is involved in the call of the Church,
when, by ordination and regular investiture, he is outwardly set apart to the
discharge of the duties connected with the office. The warrant both to possess
and exercise the office is complete only then when he has received both the
direct call of Christ and the outward call of the Church. The one of these, or
the inward call addressed to him from His Lord in heaven, gives a warrant and
title to the possession of the ministerial office; and that title is made good
to the effect of conferring the right—not to the possession, but over and above
that—to the exercise of the ministerial office, when it is recognized by the
Church as coming from its Divine Head, and when the Church, in deference to His
choice thus intimated, proceeds to give the outward call, and by ordination
solemnly to set apart the individual so chosen to the office of the ministry.
The distinction of the old divines, formerly adopted in regard to the residence
of Church power, is the very distinction to be adopted in the case before us of
a right to the ministerial office. That right may be regarded as existing ‘in esse,’
and it may be regarded as existing ‘in
operari;’ and in all ordinary cases
the one of these must supplement the other before a man is entitled to assume
the power of discharging the duties of the ministry. The right ‘in esse’
is conferred immediately by the call of Christ, expressed to the individual
through the bestowment on him of the special gifts and graces suitable for
office. The right ‘in operari’ is
conferred by Christ too, but in ordinary circumstances only through the call of
the Church to the same individual, recognizing in him the choice of Christ, and
proceeding, by the solemn act of ordination, to set him apart to the office of
the ministry. Until this formal and outward call of the Church is superadded to
the inward call of Christ, the individual’s title to the ministerial office,
both for the possession of it and for the exercise of it, is not, in ordinary
circumstances, complete.
I do not stop at present, because I shall refer
to it afterwards, to inquire what extraordinary
circumstances may justify or demand. But on all ordinary occasions, the
right to the ministerial office ‘in esse’
and the right to it ‘in operari’ must
be conjoined; and the call of Christ and the call of the Church must unite
before a man is justified in entering upon the work of the ministry. The
outward investiture by ecclesiastical ordination is needful for the work of the
ministry besides the call, inward and sovereign, of Christ to the office of the
ministry. The one ought to be added to the other before a man may regularly
enter upon ecclesiastical duties in the Church.
That in ordinary circumstances a minister ought
to be ordained to his office by those who have been in office before, is an
assertion which is justified both by Scripture injunction and Scripture example.
The practice of ordination, through which an individual is admitted to the
exercise of the ministry, is one very distinctly sanctioned and required by
apostolic authority. The imposition of hands by the office-bearers of the
Church was not a mere empty and unmeaning ceremony, but the last and crowning
act by which the previous call of Christ to the individual was recognized and
given practical effect to , and he was set apart to the work of the ministry.”
-From Church of Christ—Volume I, by James
Bannerman (Students Reformed Theological Library; Banner of Truth
Trust—Edinburgh) First Published 1869 Pages 430-431.
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