Of gifts and offices extraordinary; and first of offices.
The spiritual gifts whereof we treat respect either powers and duties in the church, or duties only. Gifts that respect powers and duties are of two sorts, or there have been, or are at any time, two sorts of such powers and duties, the first whereof was extraordinary, the latter ordinary, and consequently the gifts subservient unto them must be of two sorts also; which must farther be cleared.
Wherever power is given by Christ unto his churches, and duties are required in the execution of that power, unto the ends of his spiritual kingdom, to be performed by virtue thereof, there is an office in the church; for an ecclesiastical office is an especial power given by Christ unto any person or persons for the performance of especial duties belonging unto the edification of the church in an especial manner. And these offices have been of two sorts; — first, extraordinary; secondly, ordinary. Some seem to deny that there was ever any such thing as extraordinary power or extraordinary offices in the church, for they do provide successors unto all who are pleaded to have been of that kind; and those such as, look how far short they come of them in other things, do exceed them in power and rule. I shall not contend about words, and shall therefore only inquire what it was that constituted them to be officers of Christ in his church whom thence we call extraordinary; and then, if others can duly lay claim unto them, they may be allowed to pass for their successors.
There are four things which constitute an extraordinary officer in the church of God, and consequently are required in and do constitute an extraordinary office:— 1. An extraordinary call unto an office, such as none other has or can have, by virtue of any law, order, or constitution whatever. 2. An extraordinary power communicated unto persons so called, enabling them to act what they are so called unto, wherein the essence of any office doth consist. 3. Extraordinary gifts for the exercise and discharge of that power. 4. Extraordinary employment as to its extent and measure, requiring extraordinary labour, travail, zeal, and self-denial. All these do and must concur in that office and unto those offices which we call extraordinary.
Thus was it with the apostles, prophets, and evangelists at the first, which were all extraordinary teaching officers in the church, and all that ever were so, 1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11. Besides these, there were, at the first planting of the church, persons endued with extraordinary gifts, as of miracles, healing, and tongues, which did not of themselves constitute them officers, but do belong to the second head of gifts, which concern duties only. Howbeit these gifts were always most eminently bestowed on them who were called unto the extraordinary offices mentioned: 1 Cor. xiv. 18, “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all.” They had the same gift some of them, but the apostle had it in a more eminent degree. See Matt. x. 8. And we may treat briefly in our passage of these several sorts of extraordinary officers:—
First, [As] for the apostles, they had a double call, mission, and commission, or a twofold apostleship. Their first call was unto a subserviency unto the personal ministry of Jesus Christ; for he was a “minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers,” Rom. xv. 8. In the discharge of this his personal ministry, it was necessary that he should have peculiar servants and officers under him, to prepare his way and work, and to attend him therein. So “he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach,” Mark iii. 14. This was the substance of their first call and work, — namely, to attend the presence of Christ, and to go forth to preach as he gave them order. Hence because he was in his own person, as to his prophetical office, the “minister only of the circumcision,” being therein, according to all the promises, sent only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he confined those who were to be thus assistant unto him in that his especial work and ministry, and whilst they were so, unto the same persons and people, expressly prohibiting them to extend their line or measure any farther. “Go not,” saith he, “into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Matt. x. 5. This “rather” was absolutely exclusive of the others during his personal ministry, and afterward included only the pre-eminence of the Israelites, that they were to have the gospel offered unto them in the first place: “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you,” Acts xiii. 46.