Philip Schaff · 58 of 85

The Second Helvetic Confession in English. · Part 5

Furthermore, the ministers of the new covenant are termed by divers names; for they are called apostles, prophets, evangelists, bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers (1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. vi. 11). The apostles remained in no certain place, but gathered together divers churches throughout the whole world: which churches, when they were once established, there ceased to be any more apostles, and in their places were particular pastors appointed in every Church. The prophets, in old time, did foresee and foretell things to come; and, besides, did interpret the Scriptures; and such are found some among us at this day. They were called evangelists, who were the penmen of the history of the Gospel, and were also preachers of the Gospel of Christ; as the Apostle Paul gives in charge unto Timothy, 'to fulfill the work of an Evangelist' (2 Tim. iv. 5). Bishops are the overseers and watchmen of the Church, who distribute food and other necessities to the Church. The elders are the ancients and, as it were, the senators and fathers of the Church, governing it with wholesome counsel. The pastors both keep the Lord's flock, and also provide things necessary for it. The teachers do instruct, and teach the true faith and godliness. Therefore the Church ministers that now are may be called bishops, elders, pastors, and teachers.

But in process of time there were many more names of ministers brought into the Church. For some were created patriarchs, others archbishops, others suffragans; also, metropolitans, archdeacons, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, choristers, porters, and I know not what others, as cardinals, provosts, and priors; abbots, greater and lesser; orders, higher and lower. But touching all these, we little heed what they have been in times past, or what they are now; it is sufficient for us that, so much as concerns ministers, we have the doctrine of the apostles.

We, therefore, knowing certainly that monks, and the orders or sects of them, are instituted neither by Christ nor by his apostles, we teach that they are so far from being profitable that they are pernicious and hurtful unto the Church of God. For, although in former times they were tolerable (when they lived solitarily, getting their livings with their own hands, and were burdensome to none, but did in all places obey their pastors, even as laymen), yet what kind of men they be now all the world sees and perceives. They pretend I know not what vows; but they lead a life altogether disagreeing from their vows: so that the very best of them may justly be numbered among those of whom the apostle speaks: 'We hear that there are some among you which walk inordinately, working not at all, but are busybodies,' etc. (2 Thess. iii. 11). Therefore, we have no such in our churches; and, besides, we teach that they should not be suffered to rout in the churches of Christ.

Furthermore, no man ought to usurp the honor of the ecclesiastical ministry; that is to say, greedily to pluck it to himself by bribes, or any evil shifts, or of his own accord. But let the ministers of the Church be called and chosen by a lawful and ecclesiastical election and vocation; that is to say, let them be chosen religiously by the Church, and that in due order, without any tumult, seditions, or contention. But we must have an eye to this, that not every one that will should be elected, but such men as are fit and have sufficient learning, especially in the Scriptures, and godly eloquence, and wise simplicity; to conclude, such men as are of good report for moderation and honesty of life, according to that apostolic rule which St. Paul gives in the 1st Epistle to Timothy iii. 2–7, and to Titus i. 7–9. And those who are chosen let them be ordained by the elders with public prayer, and laying on of hands. We do here, therefore, condemn all those who run of their own accord, being neither chosen, sent, nor ordained. We do also utterly disallow unfit ministers, and such as are not furnished with gifts requisite for a pastor.

In the mean time we are not ignorant that the innocent simplicity of certain pastors in the primitive Church did sometimes more profit the Church than the manifold, exquisite, and nice learning of some others that were over-lofty and high-minded. And for this cause we also, at this day, do not reject the honest simplicity of certain men, who yet are not destitute of all knowledge and learning.

The apostles of Christ do term all those who believe in Christ 'priests;' not in regard to their ministry, but because that all the faithful, being made kings and priests, may, through Christ, offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God (Exod. xix. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9; Rev. i. 6). The ministry, then, and the priesthood are things far different one from the other. For the priesthood, as we said even now, is common to all Christians; not so is the ministry. And we have not taken away the ministry of the Church because we have thrust the popish priesthood out of the Church of Christ. For surely in the new covenant of Christ there is no longer any such priesthood as was in the ancient Church of the Jews; which had an external anointing, holy garments, and very many ceremonies which were figures and types of Christ, who, by his corning, fulfilled and abolished them (Heb. ix. 10, 11). And he himself remains the only priest forever; and we do not communicate the name of priest to any of the ministers, lest we should detract any thing from Christ. For the Lord himself has not appointed in the Church any priests of the New Testament, who, having received authority from the suffragan, may offer up the host every day, that is, the very flesh and the very blood of our Saviour, for the quick and the dead; but ministers, who may teach and administer the sacraments. Paul declares plainly and shortly what we are to think of the ministers of the New Testament, or of the Church of Christ, and what we must attribute unto them: 'Let a man,' says he, 'so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God' (1 Cor. iv. 1). So that the apostle wants us to esteem ministers as ministers. Now the apostle calls them ὑπηρέτας, as it were under-rowers, who hav e an eye only to their pilot; that is to say, men that live not unto themselves, nor according to their own will, but for others—to wit, their masters, at whose commandment and beck they ought to be. For the minister of the Church is commanded wholly, and in all parts of his duty, not to please himself, but to execute that only which he has received in commandment from his Lord. And in this place it is expressly declared who is our Master, even Christ; to whom the ministers are in subjection in all the functions of their ministry. He adds further that the ministers of the Church are 'stewards, and dispensers of the mysteries of God' (1 Cor. iv. 1). Now the mysteries of God Paul in many places, and especially in Eph. iii. 4, does call 'the Gospel of Christ.' And the sacraments of Christ are also called mysteries by the ancient writers. Therefore for this purpose are the ministers called—namely, to preach the Gospel of Christ unto the faithful, and to administer the sacraments. We read, also, in another place in the Gospel, of 'the faithful and wise steward,' whom 'his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season ' (Luke xii. 42). Again, in another place of the Gospel, a man goes into a strange country, and, leaving his house, gives unto his servants authority therein, commits to them his substance, and appoints every man his work (Matt. xxv. 14).

This is now a fit place to speak somewhat also of the power and office of the ministers of the Church. And concerning their power some have disputed over busily, and would bring all things, even the very greatest, under their jurisdiction; and that against the commandment of God, who forbade unto his disciples all dominion, and highly commended humility (Luke xxii. 26; Matt. xviii. 3). Indeed, there is one kind of power which is mere and absolute power, called the power of right. According to this power all things in the whole world are subject unto Christ, who is Lord of all: even as he himself witnesses, saying, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth' (Matt. xxviii. 18), and again, 'I am the first and the last, and behold I live forever, and I have the keys of hell and death' (Rev. i. 17, 18); also, 'He hath the key of David, which openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth' (Rev. iii. 7).

This power the Lord reserves to himself, and does not transfer it to any other, that he might sit idly by, and look on his ministers while they wrought. For Isaiah says, 'I will put the key of the house of David upon his shoulder' (Isa. xxii. 22), and again, 'Whose government shall be upon his shoulders' (Isa. ix. 6). For he does not lay the government on other men's shoulders, but does still keep and use his own power, thereby governing all things. Furthermore, there is another power, that of office, or ministerial power, limited by him who has full and absolute power and authority. And this is more like a service than a dominion. For we see that a master does give unto the steward of his house authority and power over his house, and for that cause delivers him the keys, that he may admit or exclude such as his master will have admitted or excluded. According to this power does the minister, by his office, that which the Lord has commanded him to do; and the Lord does ratify and confirm that which he does, and will have the deeds of his ministers to be acknowledged and esteemed by his own deeds. Unto which end are those speeches in the Gospel: 'I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou bindest or loosest in earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven' (Matt. xvi. 19). Again, 'Whose sins soever ye remit, they shall be remitted; and whose sins soever ye retain, they shall be retained' (John xx. 23). But if the minister deal not in all things as the Lord has commanded him, but pass the limits and bounds of faith, then the Lord does make void that which he does. Wherefore the ecclesiastical power of the ministers of the Church is that function whereby they do indeed govern the Church of God, but yet so do all things in the Church as he has prescribed in his Word: which thing being so done, the faithful do esteem them as done of the Lord himself. But touching the keys we have spoken somewhat before.

Now the power, or function, that is given to the ministers of the Church is the same and alike in all. Certainly, in the beginning, the bishops or elders did, with a common consent and labor, govern the Church; no man lifted up himself above another, none usurped greater power or authority over his fellow-bishops. For they remembered the words of the Lord, 'He that is chief among you, let him be as he that doth serve' (Luke xxii. 26); they kept themselves by humility, and did mutually aid one another in the government and preservation of the Church. Notwithstanding, for order's sake, some one of the ministers called the assembly together, propounded unto the assembly the matters to be consulted of, gathered together the voices or sentences of the rest, and, to be brief, as much as lay in him, provided that there might arise no confusion.

So did St. Peter, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, xi. 4–18, who yet for all that neither was above the rest, nor had greater authority than the rest. Very true, therefore, is that saying of Cyprian the martyr, in his book De Simplicitate Clericorum: 'The same doubtless were the rest of the apostles that Peter was, having an equal fellowship with him both in honor and power: but the beginning hereof proceedeth from unity, to signify unto us that there is but one Church.' St. Jerome also, in his commentary upon the Epistle of Paul to Titus, has a saying not much unlike this: 'Before that, by the instinct of the devil, there arose parties in religion, the churches were governed by the common advice of the elders; but after that every one thought that whom he had baptized were his own, and not Christ's, it was decreed that one of the elders should be chosen, and set over the rest, who should have the care of the whole Church laid upon him, and by whose means all schisms should be removed.' Yet Jerome does not avouch this as an order set down of God; for straightway he adds, 'Even as the elders knew, by the continual custom of the Church, that they were subject to him that is set over them, so the bishops must know that they are above the elders rather by custom than by the prescript rule of God's truth, and that they ought to have the government of the Church in common with them.' Thus far Jerome. Now, therefore, no man can forbid by any right that we may return to the old appointment of God, and rather receive that than the custom devised by men.

The offices of the ministers are divers; yet, notwithstanding, most men do restrain them to two, in which all the rest are comprehended: to the teaching of the Gospel of Christ, and to the lawful administration of the sacraments. For it is the duty of the ministers to gather together a holy assembly, therein to expound the Word of God, and also to apply the general doctrine to the state and use of the Church; to the end that the doctrine which they teach may profit the hearers, and may build up the faithful. The minister's duty, I say, is to teach the unlearned, and to exhort; yea, and to urge them to go forward in the way of the Lord who do stand still, or linger and go slowly on: moreover, to comfort and to strengthen those which are faint-hearted, and to arm them against the manifold temptations of Satan; to rebuke offenders; to bring them home that go astray; to raise them that are fallen; to convince the gainsayers; to chase away the wolf from the Lord's flock; to rebuke wickedness and wicked men wisely and severely ; not to wink at nor to pass over great wickedness. And, besides, to administer the sacraments, and to commend the right use of them, and to prepare all men by wholesome doctrine to receive them; to keep together all the faithful in a holy unity; and to encounter schisms. To conclude, to catechise the ignorant, to commend the necessity of the poor to the Church, to visit and instruct those that are sick, or entangled with divers temptations, and so keep them in the way of life. Besides all this, to provide diligently that there be public prayers and supplications made in time of necessity, together with fastings, that is, a holy abstinency, and most carefully to look to those things which belong to the tranquillity, peace, and safety of the Church.

And to the end that the minister may perform all these things the better, and with more ease, it is required of him that he be one that fears God, prays diligently, gives himself much to the reading of the Scripture, and, in all things, and at all times, is watchful, and does show forth a good example unto all men of holiness of life.

And seeing that there must be discipline in the Church, and that, among the ancient Fathers, excommunication was in use, and there were ecclesiastical judgments among the people of God, wherein this discipline was exercised by godly men; it belongs also to the minister's duty, for the edifying of the Church, to moderate this discipline, according to the condition of the time and public estate, and according to necessity. Wherein this rule is always to be holden, that 'all things ought to be done to edification, decently, and in order' (1 Cor. xiv. 40), without any oppression or tumult. For the apostle witnesses, that 'power was given to him of God, to edify and not to destroy' (2 Cor. x. 8). And the Lord himself forbade the cockle to be plucked up in the Lord's field, because there would be danger lest the wheat also be plucked up with it (Matt. xiii. 29).

But as for the error of the Donatists, we do here utterly detest it; who esteem the doctrine and administration of the sacraments to be either effectual or not effectual, according to the good or evil life of the ministers. For we know that the voice of Christ is to be heard, though it be out of the mouths of evil ministers; forasmuch as the Lord himself said, 'Observe and do whatsoever they bid you observe, but do ye not after their works' (Matt. xxiii. 3). We know that the sacraments are sanctified by the institution, and through the word of Christ; and that they are effectual to the godly, although they be administered by ungodly ministers. Of which matter Augustine, that blessed servant of God, did reason diversely out of the Scriptures against the Donatists. Yet, notwithstanding there ought to be a discipline among the ministers—for there should be intelligent inquiry in the synods touching the life and doctrine of the ministers—those that offend should be rebuked of the elders, and be brought into the way, if they be not past recovery; or else be deposed, and, as wolves, be driven from the Lord's flock by the true pastors if they be incurable. For, if they be false teachers, they are in no wise to be tolerated. Neither do we disallow of general councils, if that they be taken up according to the example of the apostles, to the salvation of the Church, and not to the destruction thereof.

The faithful ministers also are worthy (as good workmen) of their reward; neither do they offend when they receive a stipend, and all things that be necessary for themselves and their family. For the apostle shows that these things are for just cause given by the Church, and received by the ministers, in Cor. ix. 14, and in 1 Tim. v 17, 18, and in other places also.

The Anabaptists likewise are confuted by this apostolical doctrine, who condemn and rail upon those ministers who live upon the ministry.

CHAPTER XIX.—OF THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.

God even from the beginning added unto the preaching of the Word his sacraments, or sacramental signs, in his Church. And to this does the holy Scripture plainly testify. Sacraments are mystical symbols, or holy rites, or sacred actions, ordained by God himself, consisting of his Word, of outward signs, and of things signified: whereby he keeps in continual memory, and recalls to mind, in his Church, his great benefits bestowed upon man; and whereby he seals up his promises, and outwardly represents, and, as it were, offers unto our sight those things which inwardly he performs unto us, and therewithal strengthens and increases our faith through the working of God's Spirit in our hearts; lastly, whereby he does separate us from all other people and religions, and consecrates and binds us wholly unto himself, and gives us to understand what he requires of us.

These sacraments are either of the Old Church or of the New. The sacraments of the Old were Circumcision, and the Paschal Lamb, which was offered up; under which name, reference is made to the sacrifices which were in use from the beginning of the world. The sacraments of the New Church are Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.

Some there are who reckon seven sacraments of the New Church. Of which number we grant that Repentance, Matrimony, and the Ordination of ministers (we mean not the popish, but the apostolical ordination) are very profitable, but no sacraments. As for confirmation and extreme unction, they are mere devices of men, which the Church may very well spare, without any damage or inconvenience at all; and, therefore, we have them not in our churches, because there are certain things in them which we can by no means allow of. As for that merchandise which the Romish prelates use in ministering their sacraments, we utterly abhor it.

The author and institutor of all sacraments is not any man, but God alone: for man can by no means ordain sacraments; because they belong to the worship of God, and it is not for man to appoint and prescribe a service of God, but to embrace and retain that which is taught unto him by the Lord. Besides, the sacramental signs have God's promises annexed to them, which necessarily require faith: now faith stays itself only upon the Word of God.; and the Word of God is resembled to writings or letters, the sacraments to seals, which the Lord alone sets to his own letters. And as the Lord is the author of the sacraments, so he continually works in that Church where they are rightly used; so that the faithful, when they receive them from the ministers, do know that the Lord works in his own ordinance, and therefore they receive them as from the hand of God; and the minister's faults (if there be any notorious in them) can not hurt them, seeing they do acknowledge the goodness of the sacraments to depend upon the ordinance of the Lord. For which cause they put a difference, in the administration of the sacraments, between the Lord himself and his minister; confessing that the substance of the sacraments is given them by the Lord, and the outward signs by the ministers of the Lord.

But the principal thing, which in all sacraments is offered by the Lord, and chiefly regarded by the godly of all ages (which some have called the substance and matter of the sacraments), is Christ our Saviour— that only sacrifice (Heb. x. 12); and that Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. xiii. 8); that rock, also, of which all our fathers drank (1 Cor. x. 4), by whom all the elect are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, through the Holy Spirit (Col. ii. 11, 12), and are washed from all their sins (Rev. i. 5), and are nourished with the very body and blood of Christ unto eternal life (John vi. 54).

Now, in respect of that which is the chief thing, and the very matter and substance of the sacraments, the sacraments of both covenants are equal. For Christ, the only Mediator and Saviour of the faithful, is the chief thing and substance in them both: one and the same God is author of them both: they were given unto both churches as signs and seals of the grace and promises of God; which should call to mind and renew the memory of God's great benefits to them, and should distinguish the faithful from all the religions in the world; lastly, which should be received spiritually by faith, and should bind the receivers unto the Church, and admonish them of their duty. In these, I say, and such like things, the sacraments of both churches are not unequal, although in the outward signs they are diverse.

And, indeed, we do yet put a greater difference between them; for ours are more firm and durable, as those which are not to be changed to the end of the world. Again, ours testify that the substance and promise is already fulfilled and performed in Christ, whereas the other did only signify that they should be fulfilled. And again, ours are more simple, and nothing so painful, nothing so sumptuous, nor so full of ceremonies. Moreover, they belong to greater people, that is dispersed through the face of the whole earth; and because they are more excellent, and do by the Spirit of God stir np in us a greater measure of faith, therefore a more plentiful measure of the spirit does follow them.

But now, since Christ the true Messiah is exhibited unto us, and the abundance of grace is poured forth upon the people of the New Testament, the sacraments of the Old Law are surely abrogated and have ceased; and in their stead the sacraments of the New Testament are placed—namely, for Circumcision, Baptism; and for the Paschal Lamb and sacrifices, the Supper of the Lord.

And as in the old Church the sacraments consisted of the word, the sign, and the thing signified; so even at this day they are composed, as it were, of the same parts. For the Word of God makes them sacraments, which before were none: for they are consecrated by the Word, and declared to be sanctified by him who first ordained them. To sanctify or consecrate a thing is to dedicate it unto God, and unto holy uses; that is, to take it from the common and ordinary use, and to appoint it to some holy use. For the signs in the sacraments are drawn from common use, things external and visible. As in Baptism, the outward sign is the element of water, and that visible washing which is done by the minister; but the thing signified is regeneration and the cleansing from sins. Likewise, in the Lord's Supper, the outward sign is bread and wine, taken from things commonly used for meat and drink; but the thing signified is the body of Christ which was given, and his blood which was shed for us, or the communion of the body and blood of the Lord. Wherefore, the water, bread, and wine, considered in their own nature, and out of this holy use and institution of the Lord, are only that which they are called, and which we find them to be. But let the Word of God be added to them, together with invocation upon his holy name, and the renewing of their first institution and sanctification, and then these, signs are consecrated, and declared to be sanctified by Christ. For Christ's first institution and consecration of the sacraments stands yet in force in the Church of God, in such sort that they who celebrate the sacraments no otherwise than the Lord himself from the beginning has appointed, have still, even to this day, the use and benefit of that first and most excellent consecration. And for this cause, in the administration of the sacraments, the very words of Christ are repeated.

And as we learn out of the Word of God that these signs were appointed unto another end and use than the common one, therefore we teach that they now, in this their holy use, do take upon them the names of things signified, and are not still called bare water, bread, or wine; but that the water is called 'regeneration, and washing of the new birth' (Tit. iii. 5), and the bread and wine 'the body of the Lord' (1 Cor. x. 16), or the pledges and sacraments of his body and blood. Not that the signs are turned into the things signified, or cease to be that which in their own nature they are (for then they could not be sacraments, which should consist only of the thing signified, and have no signs); but therefore do the signs bear the names of things, because they are mystical tokens of holy things, and because the signs and the things signified are sacramentally joined together; joined together, I say, or united by a mystical signification, and by the purpose and will of him who first instituted them. For the water, bread, and wine are not common, but holy signs. And he that instituted water in Baptism did not institute it with that mind and purpose that the faithful should only be dipped in the water of Baptism; and he which commanded the bread to be eaten and the wine to be drunk in the Supper did not mean that the faithful should only receive bread and wine without any further mystery, as they eat bread at home in their houses: but that they should spiritually be partakers of the things signified, and by faith be truly purged from their sins, and be partakers of Christ also.

And, therefore, we can not allow of them who attribute the consecration of the sacraments to I know not what syllables; to the rehearsal of certain words pronounced by him that is consecrated, and that has an intent of consecrating; or to some other accidental things, which are not left unto us either by the word, or by the example, of Christ or his apostles. We do also mislike the doctrine of those that speak no otherwise of the sacraments than of common signs, not sanctified, nor effectual. We condemn them also who, because of the invisible things, do despise the visible, and think the signs superfluous, because they do already enjoy the things themselves; such were the Messalians, as it is recorded. We do disallow their doctrine also who teach that grace and the things signified are to be so tied to and included in the signs that whosoever do outwardly receive the signs must needs inwardly participate in the grace, and in the things signified, what manner of men soever they be.