\\'q have said that the pastorate is the highest func- tion of the ministry. It is so, because it combines in their most complete, regular, and effective form all the elements of the ministerial relation. A man who has the hearts of his people, and can sway them from the pulpit, as well as touch them in the tender and intimate connections of his pastoral ministrations; who intro- duces their babes to Christ, and dispenses to them the symbols of the body and blood of their Lord, wields a power which kings might envy, and holds a place with which Gabriel's cannot vie. He is God's ambassador to a dying community, and his angel in the Church.
lY. To the foregoing ministerial functions many are disposed to add a fourth, namely, admimsti-ation. This, so far as it applies to the execution of discipline in any particular Church, is merely a part of the pastorate; and even here it is very doubtful whether the pastor have legitimately anj- power beyond that of presiding in meetings, and guiding in a general waj' the affairs of the Church. His personal influence, of course, is very great ; and if the people have confidence in his judgment, his advice will be freely sought and cheerfully followed. But the assumption of any dictatorial rights will quickly be resented and resisted as a "lording over (iod's heri- tage" equally unwarranted by Scripture or ecclesiastical law.
The extension of the clerical administration to the general Church, in distinction from the laity, is a prelat- ical usurpation characteristic only, and everywhere, of High-Churchism. It is the essence of popery, and is not the less offensive if advocated or practiced by a bishop in any Protestant Church. Even the Episcopal churches, strictly so called, do not hold this theory; the Methodist Church has lately discarded it, and the Pres- byterians admit the lay elders to a full participation in the highest legislative assemblies.
Referring once more to our Lord's constitutional be- hest (Matt, xxviii, 19, 20), we find four duties enjoined upon his disciples: 1. Preaching — that is, evangelization.
2. Discipling— that is, enrolling as followers of Jesus.
3. Baptism — that is, initiation by a public ordinance. 4. Instruction— that is, inculcation of Christian doctrine in detail. Not one of these is the essential or peculiar, much less exclusive prerogative of the ministry; al- though the minister, as such, naturally takes the lead in them, devoting himself professionally to them, espe- cially in the more public and formal relations. Of all
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the really characteristic functions of the ministrj', we have found— to recapitulate— that the true basis of au- thorization arises in the Church itself, as the final earthly judge of qualification and fidelity; and that she ex- presses her decision with respect to it through the preacher's own immediate brethren ; while she signs his credentials to the second through the ecclesiastical or- ganism which he therein- enters; and she issues her mandate respecting tlie tliird through the local commu- nity which tluis invites his care.
See, besides the works fiuoted under Minister, SchafF. Bist. Apostol. Ch. p. 495 sq. ; liearcroft, Thirteen Dis- courses on the. Ministry; lioardraan, On the Christian Ministry; Collings, Vindication of a Gospel Ministry; Crosthwaite, On the Christimi Ministry; Edmonson, On the Christian Ministry ; Fancourt, Xatiire and Expedi- ency of a Ministry ; Taylor, /iis/ifiition and Xecessi/y of the Ministry; Turner. 'I'ln C/iri.</iii/i Ministry Consid- ered; Yinet, Theory nfi}„ KnuKji]. Ministry; "Wallace, Guide to the Chrislian Ministry; W'ayland (Francis), Letters on thv ('hrislinn Ministry ; Anier, Bible lieposi- to}-y, ix, 64; Cini.tiiiii) E.i-am.y, 101; xv, 334; Chris- tian Monthly ^ptctatur, iii, 401; viii, 441; ix, 487; Christian Observer, xiv, 13 ; xix, 433 ; xx, 533, 544 ; xxii, 329, 546 ; xxviii, 137, 416 ; Christian Qu. Sped, iv, 207; vi, 542; vii, 353; viii, 411; Chtistian Rev. i, 15; iii, 254, 576; xi, 256; xiii, 501; xv, 400; £dinb. Rev. xix, 360 ; North A mer. Rev. xlix, 206 ; Kitto, Journ. of Sac: Lit. vol. xxix ; Cumberl. Presb: Qu. Oct. 1871. See also Poole, Index to Periodical Lit. s. v. ; JIalcom, 'J'heol. Index, s. v.
Min'ni (Heb. Minni', ''S^a, etymology unknown; Sept. Trap tfiov,\n\g. Menni) occurs only in Jer. li, 27 (and so in the Targ. at Psa. xlv, i>, but wrongly), as the name of an Armenian province, joined with Ararat; i.e., as Bochart w^ell observes {Phuley, i, 3, p. 19, 20), proba- bly tlie Minyas {Jslivvac) of Nicholas of Damascus in Josepluis (.1/V. i, 3, G), a tract of Armenia overhung by the mountain Haris, on which are the traces of the ark. St. Martin (Memoires sur I' A rmenie, i, 249) rightly com- pares the region of the Manavassai, in the middle of Armenia, so called from Manavas, the son of Haigus, who is said to have been the founder of Armenia (Closes Choren. i, 11). Less likely is the supposition (Bochart, ut sup.) that the Greek name Armenia itself sprung from "^i^""!!!, " mountain of Minni," since it is rather derived from Aram (see St. IMartin, ut sup. p. 259). "The name may be connected with the Minnai of the Assyrian inscriptions, whom Kawlinson {Iferod. i, 464) places about lake Uriimiyeh, and with the Minnas who appears in the list of Armenian kings in the inscription at Wan (Layard's Kin. and Bab. p. 401). At the time when Jeremiah prophesied, Armenia had been subdued by the jMedian kings (Kawlinson, Herod, i, 103, 177)" (Smith). See Ah.mknia.