Institutes 4.1.6 — OF THE TRUE CHURCH. DUTY OF CULTIVATING UNITY WITH HER, AS THE MOTHER OF ALL THE

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**OF THE TRUE CHURCH. DUTY OF CULTIVATING UNITY WITH HER, AS THE MOTHER OF ALL THE GODLY.**

Moreover, as at this time there is a great dispute as to the efficacy of the ministry, some extravagantly overrating its dignity, and others erroneously maintaining, that what is peculiar to the Spirit of God is transferred to mortal man, when we suppose that ministers and teachers penetrate to the mind and heart, so as to correct the blindness of the one, and the hardness of the other; it is necessary to place this controversy on its proper footing. The arguments on both sides will be disposed of without trouble, by distinctly attending to the passages in which God, the author of preaching, connects his Spirit with it, and then promises a beneficial result; or, on the other hand, to the passages in which God, separating himself from external means, claims for himself alone both the commencement and the whole course of faith. The office of the second Elias was, as Malachi declares, to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” ( Mal. 4:6 ). Christ declares that he sent the Apostles to produce fruit from his labours ( John 15:16 ). What this fruit is Peter briefly defines, when he says that we are begotten again of incorruptible seed ( 1 Pet. 1:23 ). Hence Paul glories, that by means of the Gospel he had begotten the Corinthians, who were the seals of his apostleship ( 1 Cor. 4:15 ); moreover, that his was not a ministry of the letter, which only sounded in the ear, but that the effectual agency of the Spirit was given to him, in order that his doctrine might not be in vain ( 1 Cor. 9:2 ; 2 Cor. 3:6 ). In this sense he elsewhere declares that his Gospel was not in word, but in power ( 1 Thess. 1:5 ). He also affirms that the Galatians received the Spirit by the hearing of faith ( Gal. 3:2 ). In short, in several passages he not only makes himself a fellow-worker with God, but attributes to himself the province of bestowing salvation ( 1 Cor. 3:9 ). All these things he certainly never uttered with the view of attributing to himself one iota apart from God, as he elsewhere briefly explains. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” ( 1 Thess. 2:13 ). Again, in another place, “He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles” ( Gal. 2:8 ). And that he allows no more to ministers is obvious from other passages. “So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” ( 1 Cor. 3:7 ). Again, “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” ( 1 Cor. 15:10 ). And it is indeed necessary to keep these sentences in view, since God, in ascribing to himself the illumination of the mind and renewal of the heart, reminds us that it is sacrilege for man to claim any part of either to himself. Still every one who listens with docility to the ministers whom God appoints, will know by the beneficial result, that for good reason God is pleased with this method of teaching, and for good reason has laid believers under this modest yoke.

Source

• source-manifest/institutes — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Beveridge 1845 (PD)
• evidence_grade: D_doctrinal_textbook