Gillespie on the Power of Order and Jurisdiction

It also must be mentioned that the officers are not to be confused with courts. To deny the presence of the latter is not necessarily to deny the presence of the former. 

 Gillespie in his Assertion of the Church Government of I:II says further: 

 For the better understanding whereof, we will distinguish, with the schoolmen, a twofold power, the power of order, and the power of jurisdiction, which are different in sundry respects: 

(1.) The power of order comprehendeth such things as a minister, by virtue of his ordination, may do without a commission from any presbytery or assembly of the church, as to preach the word, to minister the sacraments, to celebrate marriage, to visit the sick, to catechise, to admonish {12.b.} &c. The power of jurisdiction comprehendeth such things as a minister cannot do himself, nor by virtue of his ordination; but they are done by a session, presbytery, or synod, and sometimes by a minister or ministers, having commission and authority from the same, such as ordination and admission, suspension, deprivation and excommunication, and receiving again into the church, and making of laws and constitutions ecclesiastical, and such like, whereof we boldly maintain that there is no part of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the power of one man, but of many met together in the name of Christ. 

(2.) The power of order is the radical and fundamental power, and maketh a minister susceptive and capable of the power of jurisdiction. 

(3.) The power of order goeth no farther than the court of conscience; the power of jurisdiction is exercised in external and ecclesiastical courts. 

(4.) The power of order is sometime unlawful in the use, yet not void in itself. The power of jurisdiction, when it is unlawful in the use, it is also void in itself. If a minister do any act of jurisdiction, as to excommunicate, or absolve without his own parish, wanting also the consent of the ministry and elders of the bounds where he doth the same, such acts are void in themselves, and of no effect; but if without his own charge, and without the consent aforesaid, he baptize an infant, or do any such thing belonging to the power of order, though his act be unlawful, yet is the thing itself of force, and the sacrament remaineth a true sacrament.