23. They may be called _churchmen_, who exercise a public office in the Church. But of offices, there was one a _ministery_, another a _maistery_. The offices of the _ministers_, was to serve tables, to take care of the temporal goods of the Church, and to distribute, at that time when all propriety of riches being abolished they were fed in common, to each man his portion. The _maisters_, according to their order, were called some _apostles_, some _bishops_, some _presbyters_, that is to say, _elders_; yet not so, as that by the name of _presbyter_, the _age_, but the office might be distinguished. For Timothy was a _presbyter_, although a young man. But because for the most part the _elders_ were received into the _maistership_, the word, denoting age, was used to signify the office. The same _maisters_, according to the diversity of their employments, were called some of them _apostles_, some _prophets_, some _evangelists_, some _pastors_ or _teachers_. And the _apostolical_ work indeed was universal; the _prophetical_, to declare their own revelations in the Church; the _evangelical_, to preach or to be publishers of the gospel among the infidels; that of the _pastors_, to teach, confirm, and rule the minds of those who already believed. [Sidenote: The election of churchmen belongs to the Church; their consecration to the pastors.] 24. In the election of churchmen two things are to be considered; the election of the persons, and their _consecration_ or institution, which also is called _ordination_. The first twelve apostles Christ himself both elected and ordained. After Christ’s ascension, Matthias was elected in the room of Judas the traitor; the Church, which at that time consisted of a congregation of about one hundred and twenty men, choosing two men: _and they appointed two_, Joseph and Matthias: but God himself by lot approving of Matthias. And St. Paul calls these twelve _the first and great apostles_; also the apostles _of the circumcision_. Afterward were added two other apostles, Paul and Barnabas; ordained indeed by the doctors and prophets of the Church of Antioch (which was _a particular Church_) by the imposition of hands; but elected by the command of the Holy Ghost. That they were both apostles, is manifest in Acts xiii. 2, 3. That they received their apostleship from hence, namely, because they were separated, by command of the spirit, for the work of God from the rest of the prophets and doctors of the Church of Antioch, St. Paul himself shows; who calls himself, for distinction sake (Rom. i. 1), _an apostle separated unto the Gospel of God_. But if it be demanded further, _by what authority_ it came to pass, that that was received for the command of the Holy Ghost, which those prophets and doctors did say proceeded from him; it must necessarily be answered, _by the authority of the Church of Antioch_. For the prophets and doctors must be examined by the Church, before they be admitted. For St.