No appearance of furniture, real or pretended, can warrant a man's exercising of the ministry, unless he have a regular call. That _all may prophesy one by one_ is indeed hinted in the sacred records: but there it is evident inspiration treats of what pertains to extraordinary officers in the church; hence there is mentioned _the gift of tongues_, extraordinary _psalms, revelations_: the _all_ that might prophesy are, therefore, not _all_ the members of the church; not _women_, who are forbid to speak in the church; but _all_ the extraordinary officers called prophets, 1 Cor. xiv. 31. The _all_ that were scattered abroad from Jerusalem, and _went about preaching the gospel_, Acts viii. 2, could not be _all_ the believers; for there remained at Jerusalem a church of believers for Saul to make havoc of. It must therefore have been _all_ the preachers, besides the apostles. To strengthen this, let it be observed, that the word here rendered _preaching_ is nowhere in Scripture referred to one out of office: that every one of this dispersion, we afterward hear of, are represented as evangelists, pastors, or teachers, Acts ix. 1, 11, 19, and xiii. 1. Parents and masters convey the same instruction that ministers do; but with a different authority: not as ministers of Christ, or officers in his Church. If other gifts or saintship entitled to preach the gospel, wo would be unto every gifted person, every saint, that did not preach it. If our adored Redeemer refused the work of a civil judge because not humanly vested with such power, will he allow his followers to exercise an office far more important, without any regular call? His oracles distinguish between the mission of persons, and their gifts, sometimes called a receiving of the Holy Ghost, John xx. 21, 23. To render the point incontestably evident, he demands, how men shall preach _except they be sent_? declares, that _no man_ rightly _taketh this honor to himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron_. "I sent them not, therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord." The characters divinely affixed to ministers, preachers, or heralds, ambassadors, stewards, watchmen, angels, messengers, brightly mark their call and commission to their work. The inspired rules for the qualifications, the election, the ordination of ministers, are divinely charged to be kept till _the day_, the second coming _of Jesus Christ_. For intermeddling with the sacred business without a regular call, has the Almighty severely punished numbers of men. Witness the destruction of Korah and his company; the rejection of Saul; and the death of Uzza; the leprosy of Uriah; the disaster of the sons of Sceva, &c., Num. xvi.; 1 Sam. xiii.; 1 Chron. xiii.; 2 Chron. xxvi.; Acts xix.