Nothing which has now been said is intended to call in question the reality of those blessings which GOD may and sometimes does bestow apart from His appointed means, or by some only of those means apart from the rest. But enough has surely been said to admonish men against that easy and off-hand way of getting rid of those texts which imply high apostolic power, by saying, that such passages only suit the primitive days and the Apostles’ own ministry. On the other hand, we would not pretend to decide how large an amount of favour may be vouchsafed to those who have not the blessings of a true priesthood. Cornelius, we know, was a just man, and largely acceptable unto GOD, before he saw St. Peter, or received Christian baptism. Some, again, of the earliest disciples had embraced the truth in some degree, before they had heard “whether there was any HOLY GHOST,” or had been baptized in the name of JESUS. And when the Philippian Church was deprived of the ministry of St. Paul, they were still admonished to rely on GOD’S in-dwelling SPIRIT in the Church, and “much more in the Apostle’s absence to work out _their own salvation_.” GOD may dispense with His own appointed means, and may supply the lack of them; but man cannot. But if it were right to compare, or contrast, one of GOD’S given means of grace with another, it might perhaps appear that none of them are _so_ essential as the Church’s MINISTRY, whereby all the rest seem to have been instrumentally preserved. Much which we are too apt think exclusively essential to the existence of Christian truth and purity, had no being in the early Church. It is likely that all essential means of edification would be given to the first generation of believers; and, in fact, was not the most exalted Christian grace possessed in the Church previous to the Christian Scriptures? Whoever will reflect on these points, will at least be prepared seriously to consider, what in primitive days was understood by the ministerial mission to teach,—what the meaning of St. Paul was in such terms as he applied to the ministers of CHRIST? (as that they were the “sent” servants, “stewards of mysteries,” “ALLOWED of GOD and PUT IN TRUST with the Gospel,”) and whether that may not be the true Christian meaning still?—whether, notwithstanding the altered times, there may not be as much meaning now as there ever was in the question, “How shall men preach except they be SENT?”