An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

That it is of great consequence both to the Ministers of God, and the people to be fully informed of that Divine Call, which the Officers of the Church have towards them.

That they who preach may be able to say, We come in the Name of the ⟨p. 20⟩Lord to you. It is not we that have obtruded our selves, but God that hath invested us with this Office over you. And they also who hear, may say, We esteem of you as the stewards of God; we receive you as Ambassadors from the Lord to us.

That they who preach may be able to say, We come in the Name of the ⟨p. 20⟩Lord to you. It is not we that have obtruded our selves, but God that hath invested us with this Office over you. And they also who hear, may say, We esteem of you as the stewards of God; we receive you as Embassadors from the Lord to us.

To pursue this, first, Consider that there are many large disputes both in old ¹and later writers about the Call of Church-officers. As the truth it self is subject to many difficulties: So the perverse disputes of men have made it more intricate and entangled; only this we may observe, That the several parties which are in Religion that hold any Ministry, or such an Office at all, and that by Divine Institution (for some deny such an Institution) they still monopolize and appropriate the Call to themselves; with them only is the true Church; with them only are the true Officers of the Church. And no doubt that way of Religion, which can say, with them only is the true Call, and the true Church-officers, and the right administration of Ordinances, doth infinitely excel all other ways. For Gods promise and success doth accompany only his own Officers, and his own Ordinances. As the people of God, will not hear a stranger, but flee from him; so neither will God go along with such strangers. It's only to his Apostles and their Successors, that he promiseth to be with to the end of the world. Therefore that Church who can upon just grounds say, that with us are the true Officers, with us are Christs institutions punctually observed; no doubt but with them is Christ present, and with them is the Kingdom of Heaven. This was the great advantage Abijah pleaded in his Remonstrance against Jeroboam, who had devised a new Ministry and a new worship,