1. Formally the office consisteth in, 1. An obligation to do the work of the office. 2. Authority to do it, and to oblige others to submit to it.
2. These make up an office which being denominated also from the terminus, is considered, 1. As to the nearest term, which is the work to be done. 2. The remote, which is the object of that work.
The work is, 1. Teaching: 2. Ruling: 3. Worshipping.[255] And so it is essentially An obligation and power of ministerial teaching, ruling, and worshipping God.
2. As to the object it is, 1. The world to be converted. 2. The converted to be baptized, and congregated or ordered into particular societies (so far as may be). 3. The baptized and congregate to be, (1.) Taught; (2.) Ruled; (3.) Guided in worship.[256]
From all which resulteth an office which is ministerially subordinate to Christ, 1. The Prophet or Teacher; 2. The Ruler; 3. The High Priest and Lover of his church; and it may be aptly called both a teaching ministry, a ruling ministry, (not by the sword, but by the word,) and a priesthood or priestly ministry.[257]
II. As the pastor is related to the church, he is, 1. A constitutive part of particular political churches. 2. He is Christ's minister for the church and for Christ; that is, to teach, rule, and worship with the church. He is above the church, and greater than it, as to order and power, and not the minister of the church as the efficient of the ministry: but he is less and worse than the church finally and materially; and is finally the church's minister, as the physician is the patient's physician; not made a physician by him, but chosen and used as his physician for his cure: so that to speak properly, he is not from them, but for them. He is Christ's minister for their good; as the shepherd is his master's servant, for his flock, and so finally only the servant of the sheep.[258]
The whole uncontrovertible work of the office is laid down in my small book called "Universal Concord," to which I must refer you.
[251] John xx. 21; xiii. 20; Luke x. 3; Rom. x. 15; Acts xx. 28.
[252] Phil. i. 15-17; Matt. vii. 22; Rom. xv. 14.
[253] Eph. iv. 7, 8; 2 Tim. ii. 2; i. 5, 7; Eph. vi. 19; Col. iv. 3; 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.