A30241:2714
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.
Sermon 111: That a Gospel-Ministry is to continue to the end of the world. And for what ends▪
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.
2. Whereas Christ prayeth for all that shall believe even to the end of the world, and yet they are said to believe by the Apostles word, when yet thousands and thousands have believed since the Apostles death and departure; Its necessary, that by the Apostles we do not understand only their persons, but the succeeding Ministry unto them, which is to be perpetual in the Church, all that now or hereafter shall believe, though by the present Ministers that lived many hundred years after the Apostles, yet may be said to obtain faith by the Apostles word, because they sit in the Apostles chair, they deliver the Doctrine, which they delivered, and succeed the Apostles, though not in personal and extraordinaries, yet in ordinaries, in which sense Christ promiseth to be with them to the end of the world. The words thus explained, we may observe,
2. Whereas Christ prayeth for all that shall believe even to the end of the world, and yet they are said to believe by the Apostles word, when yet thousands and thousands have believed since the Apostles death and departure; Its necessary, that by the Apostles we do not understand only their persons, but the succeeding Ministry unto them, which is to be perpetual in the Church, all that now or hereafter shall beleeve, though by the present Ministers that lived many hundred years after the Apostles, yet may be said to obtain faith by the Apostles word, because they sit in the Apostles chair, they deliver the Doctrin, which they delivered, and succeed the Apostles, though not in personal and extraordinaries, yet in ordinaries, in which sense Christ promiseth to be with them to the end of the world. The words thus explained, we may observe,
That God hath appointed a perpetual Ministry, 1even to continue as long as there shall be a Church in the world. All that shall believe are brought thereunto by the Apostles word; now they being long since dead, it necessarily followeth, either that none can now believe, or else that there is a Ministry to be perpetually succeeding them for this spiritual effect. That the Ministry and Word preached is the means of faith, appeareth evidently,