Supposing that the person want no necessary personal qualification for the office, there are two things more in question; 1. His office, whether he be a minister. 2. His regularity, whether he came regularly to it; and also his comparative relation, whether this man or another is to be preferred. I answer therefore,
1. If the person be utterly incapable, the one bishop, or the many whosoever taketh him for incapable, is for the truth sake to be believed and obeyed.
2. If the man be excellently qualified, and his ministry greatly necessary to the church, whoever would deprive the church of him, be it the one or the many, is to be disobeyed, and the ordainers preferred.
Object. But who shall judge? Answ. The esse is before the scire; the thing is first true or false before I judge it to be so; and therefore whoever judgeth falsely in a case so notorious and weighty, as that the welfare of the church and souls is (consideratis considerandis) injured and hazarded by his error, is not to be believed nor obeyed on pretence of order; because all christians have judicium discretionis, a discerning judgment.
3. But if the case be not thus to be determined by the person's notorious qualifications, then either it is, 1. The man ordained. 2. Or the people that the case is debated by, whether they should take him for a minister. 3. Or the neighbour ministers.
1. The person himself is, cæteris paribus, more to regard the judgment of many concordant bishops, than of one singular bishop; and therefore is not to take orders from a singular bishop, when the generality of the wise and faithful are against it; unless he be sure that it is some notorious faction or error that perverteth them, and that there be notorious necessity of his labour.
2. The auditors are either infidels to be converted, (and these will take no man upon any of their authorities,) or else christians converted. These are either of the particular charge of the singular bishop who ordaineth, or not; if they be, then pro tempore for order's sake, they owe him a peculiar obedience, till some further process or discovery disoblige them, (though the most be on the other side). But yet they may be still bound in reason most to suspect the judgment of their singular bishop, while for order's sake they submit to it. But if they are not of his flock, then, I suppose the judgment and act of many is to prevail so much against the act of a single and singular person, as that both neighbour ministers and people are to disown such an ordained person as unfit for their communion under the notion of a minister (because communion of churches is maintained by the concord of pastors). But whether the ordained man's ministry be, by their contradictory declaration or degradation, made an absolute nullity, to himself and those that submit to him, neither I will determine, nor should any other strangers to the particular case; for if he be rejected or degraded without such cause and proof as may satisfy other sober persons, he hath wrong; but if he be so degraded, on proved sufficient cause, to them that it is known to, he giveth the degraders the advantage.[266]
And as, 1. All particular members are to be obedient to their proper pastor.
2. And all particular churches are to hold correspondency and communion according to their capacity. So must men act in this and such like cases respectively according to the laws of obedience to their pastor, and of concord of the churches.
[266] Eph. iv. 3; 1 Cor. xii; Rom. xiv. 17, 19; 1 Cor. xiv. 33; 1 Thess. v. 12, 13; Phil. ii. 1-3; Eph. iv. 15, 16; 1 Cor. i. 10.