An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…An exposition with practicall observations continued upon the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of…

¹There are in the Hebrew (to note that by the way) five words, which signify a rod or a staff. Some resolve that seeming contradiction which is in the two Evangelists, Matthew and Mark, by the different signification of these words. When Christ (Matth. 10.10. as also, Luk. 9.3.) sent forth his Apostles to preach the Gospel, among other instructions and directions given them for their journey, this is one, Take no staves. But (Mar. 6.8.) Christ commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only. One Evangelist saith, they must not take staves, and in the other they are bidden to take staves. Now (say these) in Matthew and Luke, where he forbids his ⟨p. 397⟩Disciples to take staves, he expresseth himself by the word in the text, Shebet, which signifies a correcting or smiting staff:² Take no staves to smite and strike with,³ ye go out with a message of peace in your ••uths, let there not be so much as an instrument of contention in your hands. But in Mark he useth the word Misnan, which signifies a staff to lean upon; Take a staff to rest or ease your selves upon, or to help your selves on in your travel,⁴ A walking staff, but not a striking staff. Thus they reconcile the difference. But though this interpretation be good, yet this ground of it appears not, either in the Syriac, which in both texts hath the word Shebet, or in the Greek, which expresses both by ([Greek or Hebrew]) So then we must rather say, that the same word signifies a staff for both uses, and that when Christ forbids his Disciples a staff, he means a staff to strike with (Preachers must be no strikers, according to the Apostles rule in Timothy) and that when he bids them take a staff, he means a walking staff. Itinerant Preachers might be wearied with travelling, as well as with speaking.