CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

¹And first Consider, That there is a two-fold sending, a mediate and immediate sending; an immediate sending is when God or Christ doth in an extraordinary and peculiar manner give some a Call to this office; Thus the Prophets of the Old Testament they were immediately sent of God, and this immediate inspiration and extraordinary gifting of them was enough to authorise them, though they had no Call in an ordinary manner from men, when they said, Thus saith the Lord, then they showed their Commission, and thus the Apostles they were likewise immediately called by Christ, and they were gifted in an extraordinary manner thereunto, They had no such gifts at first, but Christ bestowed them on them; In ordinary sendings or missions, there men must first try and examine gifts, and see them before they confirm any in their office, but Christ that can make Children of Abraham out of stones, can also make Apostles out of illiterate and rude Fishermen; This immediate and extraordinary sending is now wholly ceased, even as the gifts of Miracles; and therefore though our Divines do sometimes say, Luther, Calvin, and those first Reformers had an extraordinary Call, their meaning is not as if they were put into their Church-office by an immediate call of God, only there were extraordinary qualifications of them, by stirring them up to such zeal and corroborating of them to go through such a work as they did. In the next place there is an ordinary mission or authorizing, and that is to be perpetual in the Church, according to such Rules, as Paul layeth down in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which are a directory concerning the Churches Government to the ends of the world; This ordinary sending we are now to have, though the Apostles had an extraordinary.

¹And first Consider, That there is a two-fold sending, a mediate and immediate sending; an immediate sending is when God or Christ doth in an extraordinary and peculiar manner give some a Call to this office; Thus the Prophets of the Old Testament they were immediatly sent of God, and this immediate inspiration and extraordinary gifting of them was enough to authorise them, though they had no Call in an ordinary manner from men, when they said, Thus saith the Lord, then they shewed their Commission, and thus the Apostles they were likewise immediatly called by Christ, and they were gifted in an extraordinary manner thereunto, They had no such gifts at first, but Christ bestowed them on them; In ordinary sendings or missions, there men must first try and examine gifts, and see them before they confirm any in their office, but Christ that can make Children of Abraham out of stones, can also make Apostles out of illiterate and rude Fishermen; This immediate and extraordinary sending is now wholly ceased, even as the gifts of Miracles; and therefore though our Divines do sometimes say, Luther, Calvin, and those first Reformers had an extraordinary Call, their meaning is not as if they were put into their Church-office by an immediate call of God, only there were extraordinary qualifications of them, by stirring them up to such zeal and corroborating of them to go through such a work as they did. In the next place there is an ordinary mission or authorizing, and that is to be perpetual in the Church, according to such Rules, as Paul laieth down in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which are a directory concerning the Churches Government to the ends of the world; This ordinary sending we are now to have, though the Apostles had an extraordinary.