CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

Some answer, though they did believe at that time, yet because after Christs Resurrection, their faith was more clear and explicit, therefore they may be comprehended in the future tense, their former faith not being worthy the name of faith respectively to that they obtained afterwards. But the more genuine answer seemeth to be, that by the future tense is included the present tense also, it being ordinary in Scripture to express a thing that hath a permanent duration, by the future tense, not excluding the present, but denoting the constant succession, in 1 Tim. 1.16. Therefore I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus might show his long-suffering, for the instruction of those [Greek or Hebrew], who should believe in time to come. That Doctrine of Christs long-sufferance was demonstrated to those that believed at that time in a more remarkable manner; but because it would be a perpetual useful document, he instanceth in those that are to come, yea all the believers for the time past, since the beginning of the world, are not excluded from this Mediatory prayer, while they needed it, no more then from his death; for Christs prayer, as his death, profuit antequum fuit, ¹it profited before it was, because it was present to God from eternity in which sense he is said to be a Lamb slain from the beginning of the world.

Some answer, though they did believe at that time, yet because after Christs Resurrection, their faith was more clear and explicit, therefore they may be comprehended in the future tense, their former faith not being worthy the name of faith respectively to that they obtained afterwards. But the more genuine answer seemeth to be, that by the future tense is included the present tense also, it being ordinary in Scripture to expresse a thing that hath a permanent duration, by the future tense, not excluding the present, but denoting the constant succession, in 1 Tim. 1.16. Therefore I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus might shew his long-suffering, for the instruction of those 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, who should believe in time to come. That Doctrine of Christs long-sufferance was demonstrated to those that believed at that time in a more remarkable manner; but because it would be a perpetual usefull document, he instanceth in those that are to come, yea all the believers for the time past, since the beginning of the world, are not excluded from this Mediatory prayer, while they needed it, no more then from his death; for Christs prayer, as his death, profuit antequum fuit,