If we consider these things, we shall be the less surprized at what occurs in the 8th chapter of the _Acts_: _At that time there was a great persecution against the church, and they ♦were all scattered abroad_: (i. e. all the _church_, all the believers in Jesus) _throughout the regions of_ Judea _and_ Samaria. (verse 1.) _therefore they that were scattered abroad, went every where preaching the word_, (verse 4.) Now, what shadow of reason have we to say, or think, that all these were _ordained_ before they _preached_?
♦ “where” replaced with “were”
12. * If we come to later times; was Mr. _Calvin_ ordained? Was he either priest or deacon? And were not most of those whom it pleased God to employ in promoting the _reformation_ abroad, _laymen_ also? Could that great work have been promoted at all in many places, if _laymen_ had not preached? And yet how seldom do the very _Papists_ urge this, as an objection against the _reformation_? Nay, as rigorous as they are in things of this kind, they themselves appoint, even in some of their strictest _orders_, that “if any _lay-brother_ believes himself called of God, to _preach_ as a _missionary_, the superior of the _order_, being informed thereof, shall immediately send him away.”
* In all _protestant_ churches it is still more evident, that _ordination_ is not held a necessary _prerequisite_ of preaching: for in _Sweden_, in _Germany_, in _Holland_, and, I believe, in every _reformed_ church in _Europe_, it is not only _permitted_ but _required_, that before any one is _ordained_, (before he is admitted even into _deacon_’s orders, wherever the distinction between priests and deacons is retained) he should publickly preach a year or more _ad probandum facultatem_. And for this practice, they believe they have the authority of an express command of God: _Let these first be_ proved: _then let them use the office of a_ deacon, _being found blameless_, 1 Timothy iii. 10.
23. “In _England_, however, there is nothing of this kind; no _layman_ permitted to speak in public.” No! Can you be ignorant, that in an hundred _churches_ they do it continually? In how many (particularly in the _West_ of _England_) does the _parish-clerk_ read one of the lessons? (In some he reads the whole service of the church, perhaps, every Lord’s day) and do not other _laymen_ constantly do the same thing, yea, in our very _cathedrals_? Which being under the more immediate inspection of the _bishops_, should be patterns to all other churches.
Perhaps it will be said, “But this is not _preaching_.” Yes, but it is, essentially such. For what is it to _preach_, but _præedicare verbum Dei_? To publish the word of God? And this _laymen_ do all over _England_; particularly under the eye of every bishop in the nation.
Nay, is it not done in the universities themselves? Who _ordained_ that singing-man at _Christchurch_? Who is likewise utterly unqualified for the work, murdering every lesson he reads? Not even endeavouring to read it as the word of God but rather as an old song? _Such_ a _layman_ as this, meddling at all with the word of God, I grant is a scandal to the _English_ nation.
* To go a step farther.――――Do not the fundamental constitutions of the _university_ of _Oxford_, the _statutes_, even as revised by archbishop _Laud_, require every _batchelor of arts_, nine in ten of whom are _laymen_, to read three _public lectures_ in moral philosophy, on whatever subject he chuses? My subject, I well remember, was, The LOVE of God. Now, what was this but _preaching_?
* Nay, may not a man be a _doctor of divinity_ even in _Oxford_, tho’ he never was _ordained_ at all? The instance of Dr. _Atwell_, (late) rector of _Exeter college_, is fresh in every one’s memory.
These are a few of the considerations that may readily occur to any thinking man on this head. But I do not rest the cause on these. I believe it may be defended a shorter way.
14. * It pleased God by two or three ministers of the church of _England_, to call many sinners to repentance: who, in several parts, were undeniably turned from a course of sin, to a course holiness.
The ministers of the places where this was done, ought to have received those ministers with open arms: and to have taken them who had just begun to serve God, into their peculiar care; watching over them in tender love, lest they should fall back into the snare of the devil.
Instead of this, the greater part spoke of those ministers, as if the devil, not God had sent them. Some repelled them from the Lord’s table: others stirred up the people against them, representing them even in their public discourses, as _fellows not fit to live; papists, hereticks, traitors; conspirators_ against their king and _country_.