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The Doctrine of the Ministry in Reformed Theology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John T. McNeill
John T. McNeill
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

In Reformed theology the doctrine of the ministry is an essential part of the doctrine of the church. The ministry is never a matter of indifference to theology. Its character, authority, forms and functions are prescribed and described in doctrinal statements of the churches, and the subject has been doctrinally and historically expounded by many theologians. While these writers differ in detail in their teaching on the ministry, they agree in main outline and together present a body of doctrine that is both consistent and explicit.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 1943 , pp. 77 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1943

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References

2 A brief discussion of this subject will be included in a forthcoming article in the Journal of Religion, to be entitled “The Church in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology.”Google Scholar An earlier study, “The Church in Sixteenth Century Reformed Theology,” appeared in the Journal of Religion, XXII (1942), 251–69.Google Scholar

3 Institutes IV, iii, 4, 5, 8.Google Scholar

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11 Institutes IV, iv, 12Google Scholar. Leo I, Epistolae, 10Google Scholar, Migne, P. L. LIV, 632Google Scholar. Calvin devotes chapters v–xi of Book IV of the Institutes to an exposure of “the papal tyranny.”

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20 Ibid., 32.

21 Ibid., 44.

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