Chad Van Dixhoorn

“Prior to the outbreak of war and the flight of the bishops from the House of Lords and their episcopal posts, a candidate for ordination in the Church of England needed to present himself to a bishop and meet some basic requirements. He needed to be twenty-three years of age to be ordained a deacon, twenty-four years of age to be ordained a priest.8 By 1604, to be eligible for ordination he needed to show proof that he was appointed, or about to be appointed, to some ministerial or academic calling, or that he had held a master of arts degree for five years and resided at one of the universities, or that the bishop himself was willing to “keep and maintain him with all things necessary” until he had an “ecclesiastical living” in which to put the man.9 The ordinand also had to establish that he had satisfactory morals, demonstrated by letters of testimonial, and an adequate education, demonstrated by the completion of a university degree or the ability to give “an account of his faith in Latin, according”
― Chad B. Van Dixhoorn, God's Ambassadors: The Westminster Assembly and the Reformation of the English Pulpit, 1643-1653