Amongst the officers magisterial, the first and principal were the apostles; whereof there were at first but twelve; and these were chosen and constituted by our Saviour himself; and their office was not only to preach, teach, and baptize, but also to be martyrs, witnesses of our Saviour’s resurrection. This testimony was the specifical and essential mark, whereby the apostleship was distinguished from other magistracy ecclesiastical, as being necessary for an apostle, either to have seen our Saviour after His resurrection, or to have conversed with Him before, and seen His works and other arguments of His divinity, whereby they might be taken for sufficient witnesses. And therefore at the election of a new apostle in the place of Judas Iscariot, St. Peter saith (Acts 1:21⁠–⁠22), “Of these men that have companied with us, all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection”: where by this word “must,” is implied a necessary property of an apostle, to have companied with the first and prime apostles, in the time that our Saviour manifested himself in the flesh.