But the greatest thing of all other, about this duty of Christian burial, is an outward testification of the hope which we have touching the resurrection of the dead.

SECTION LXI.

OF THE NATURE OF THE MINISTRY.

I COME now unto that function which undertaketh the public ministry of holy things according to the laws of Christian religion. We must know that the object of this function is both God and men; God, in that He is publicly worshipped of His Church; and men, in that they are capable of happiness by means which Christian discipline appointeth. So that the sum of our whole labour in this kind is, to honour God, and to save men. Religion, without the help of spiritual ministry, is unable to plant itself, the fruits thereof not possible to grow of their own accord. things which are of God He hath by wonder

All

ful art and wisdom soldered as it were together with the glue of mutual assistance, appointing the lowest to receive from the nearest to themselves what the influence of the highest yieldeth. And therefore the Church being the most absolute of all His works, was in reason to be also ordered with like harmony, that what He worketh might, no less in grace than in nature, be affected by hands and instruments duly subordinated unto the power of His own Spirit. A thing both needful for the humiliation of man who would not willingly be debtor to any but to himself; and of no small effect to nourish that divine love, which now maketh each embrace other, not as men but as angels of God.

Ministerial actions tending immediately unto God's honour and man's happiness, are either as contemplation, which helpeth forward the principal work of the ministry, or else they are parts of that principal work of administration itself, which work consisteth in doing the service of God's house, and in applying unto men the sovereign medicines of

grace, & already spoken of, the more largely to the end it might thereby appear, that we owe to the guides of our souls even as much as our souls are worth, although the debt of our temporal blessings should be stricken off.

SECTION LXII.

OF ORDINATION.

THE ministry of things divine is a function, which, as God Himself did institute, so neither may men undertake the same but by authority and power given them in lawful manner. That God which is no way deficient or wanting unto man in necessaries, and hath therefore given us the light of His heavenly truth, because without that inestimable benefit we must needs have wandered in darkness to our endless perdition and woe, hath in the like abundance of mercies, ordained certain to

a Luke xii. 42. 1 Cor. iv. 1. Titus i. 7. 1 Peter iv. 10.

Ephes. iii. 2.

attend upon the due execution of requisite parts and offices therein prescribed for the good of the whole world, which men thereunto assigned do hold their authority from Him, whether they be such as Himself immediately, or as the Church in His name investeth; it being neither possible for all, nor for every man without distinction convenient, to take upon him a charge of so great importance. They are therefore ministers of God, not only by way of subordination, as princes and civil magistrates, whose execution of judgment and justice the supeme hand of divine Providence doth uphold; but ministers of God, as from whom their authority is derived, and not from men. For in that they are Christ's ambassadors and His labourers, who should give them their commission but He whose most inward affairs they manage ? Is not God alone the Father of spirits? Are not souls the purchase of Jesus Christ? What angel in heaven could have said to man as our Lord did unto St. Peter "Feed my sheep”—

66

Preach"-"Baptize"-" Do this in remem

brance of me."

are retained;"

"Whose sins ye retain, they

and their offences in heaven

pardoned, whose faults you shall on earth forgive." What think we? are these terrestrial sounds, or else are they voices uttered out of the clouds above? The power of the ministry of God translateth out of darkness into glory; it raiseth men from the earth, and bringeth God Himself down from heaven; by blessing invisible elements, it maketh them invisible grace; it giveth daily the Holy Ghost, it hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the world, and that blood which was poured out to redeem souls; when it poureth malediction upon the heads of the wicked, they perish; when it revoketh the same, they revive. O wretched blindness, if we admire not so great power; more wretched if we consider it aright, and notwithstanding imagine that any but God can bestow it!

To whom Christ hath imparted power, both over that mystical body which is the society of souls, and over that natural which is Himself, for the knitting of both in one, a work