A30241:2361
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, or, Christs prayer before his passion explicated, and both practically and polemically improved by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
WE have handled Christs Mission, and the matter imported in that Expression. We come now to the Apostles Mission, wherein there is considerable, 1. Their Office under this notion of sending. 2. The Person sending, I have sent them. 3. The Subjects, Them. 4. The Term of their Mission, Into the world. 5. The Pattern, As the Father hath sent me: They have the same common vocation, Every particular will afford its proper usefulness.
WE have handled Christs Mission, and the matter imported in that Expression. We come now to the Apostles Mission, wherein there is considerable, 1. Their Office under this notion of sending. 2. The Person sending, I have sent them. 3. The Subjects, Them. 4. The Term of their Mission, Into the world. 5. The Pattern, As the Father hath sent me: They have the same common vocation, Every particular will afford its proper usefulnesse.
And 1. Let us begin with their Office, It's called a sending, This doth imply that they did not intrude themselves into it, They did not usurp upon the Office, but they were called and lawfully authorized thereunto; It had been sinful presumption in any of the Apostles to undertake that Office till Christ gave them this Commission: There is no difficulty in the words, only it's questioned why our Saviour speaks in the preterperfect tense, I have sent them, seeing they were not yet sent to publish the Gospel to the whole world, for that was not done till his Ascension; But it's answered, that it's ordinary with the Scripture to put one tense for another, and besides, Christ had begun already to send them, though not into the whole world, yet into Judea, and Luk 6. he had already given them the name of Apostles, which is as much as those that are sent, yet because after his Ascension he then enlarges their Commission, To preach to all Nations beside Judea. Hence Joh. 20.21. Christ there speaks in the present tense, As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you: So then the Apostles did not undertake their ministerial Office before they were sent,1