A30241:759
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.
2. As the end of the Ministry is thus to bring light in the world, so the end of all people that enjoy a Ministry in all their hearing and coming to Church ought to be thus likewise: As the Minister sins greatly if he preacheth to advance his parts, his Name, to humour people in their sins, so do the people sin dangerously if they come out of formality and custom, or if they come to have the ear and fancy pleased but attend not at all to the saving knowledge of God; Oh thou foolish and vain man, thou makest not a good use or improvement of the Minister till it hath thus wrought upon thee; Therefore the Ignorance and profaneness of most men, proclaimeth that they never made a right use of one Sabbath or one Sermon all their life time, though they have heard many; Oh then that every Sabbath day you would put this question, To what end am I going to the public Assembly? Why go I to hear the Word preached? If I do not attain to the end I lose my labour; Is it not the end of preaching and the end of hearing to deliver me from my former Ignorance, my former lusts; how then comes it about that I am still as I was? It is because I do not consider the end of these things.
2. As the end of the Ministry is thus to bring light in the world, so the end of all people that enjoy a Ministry in all their hearing and coming to Church ought to be thus likewise: As the Minister sinnes greatly if he preacheth to advance his parts, his Name, to humour people in their sins, so do the people sin dangerously if they come out of formality and custome, or if they come to have the ear and fancy pleased but attend not at all to the saving knowledge of God; Oh thou foolish and vain man, thou makest not a good use or improvement of the Minister till it hath thus wrought upon thee; Therefore the Ignorance and prophanesse of most men, proclaimeth that they never made a right use of one Sabbath or one Sermon all their life time, though they have heard many; Oh then that every Sabbath day you would put this quest•on, To what end am I going to the publike Assembly? Why go I to hear the Word preached? If I do not attain to the end I lose my labour; Is it not the end of preaching and the end of hearing to deliver me from my former Ignorance, my former lusts; how then comes it about that I am still as I was? It is because I do not consider the end of these things.