[3.] For whom he came, for wretched men, to seat us in the vacant places of fallen angels.
2. ' And they have believed that thou hast sent me.' — There is a mission on God's part, as well as obedience on Christ's.
Observe the love of God in sending Christ, and giving him a charge concerning us. This sending implieth distinction, but not inferiority. Persons equal by mutual consent may send one another. The Father sent him because in the business of salvation the original authority is said to reside in God the Father. God would not trust an angel with your salvation, but sent his own Son : 1 John iv. 9, 10, ' In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only- begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Here- in is love, not that we lo^^ed God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' He thought nothing too dear nor too near for us. His Son was not sent to treat with us, but to take our nature, to be substituted into our room and place. But this point, of God's sending Christ, hath fallen under our consideration in hand- ling other verses of this chapter.
VeR. 9.] SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. 241
SERMON XII.
I pray for them: I pray not for the luorld, hut for them ivliich thou hast given me ; for they are thine. — John XVII. 9.
Christ, having urged several arguments on the behalf of the disciples, Cometh now to limit his prayers to them, which is a new argument : ' I [)ray for none but those which thou hast given me ;' not for obsti- nate persecutors and perverse rebels, but for thine own, thy charge put into my hands. If I had prayed for any which belong not to the purpose of thy grace, thou mightest deny me ; but ' I pray not for the world, but for thine,' therefore hear me. In the words you have : —
1. The object of Christ's prayer.
2. The object limited, / pray for them ; which is amplified nega- tively by a refusal to pray for others, I pray not for the tvorld.
3. The reasons, thou hast given them me, and they are thine ; mine by oppignoration, not alienation, thy charge put into mine hands. I have a charge over them, and thou hast a right in them. Christ was tender of his charge, and the Father still loved and owned them. Thy right and propriety is not lost by thy donation, but confirmed, for tliey are thine. It is not only a reason of the donation, but an argument that Christ usetli in prayer.
First, The great matter, that needeth not so much to be cleared as to be vindicated, is Christ's refusal to pray for the world. It needeth not to be cleared, because Christ doth expressly limit the persons, ' I pray for them ;' he doth not only explain it, whom he meaueth by tliem, ' those which thou hast given me ;' which explication, if no- thing else had been added, would have been exclusive, and would have amounted to them, and only them ; but he doth himself exclude the world from having any share in his prayers. By the -world, he meaneth the reprobate world, not only the unregenerate elect, who are sometimes called the world, but reprohos amatores scecidi, as the Car- thusian, the reprobate j^erverse world.
But some object, and it is fit they should be heard : —
1. That the apostles only are here intended, and that there is not a distinction between the elect and reprobate, but between the apostles and others ; for afterwards Christ prayeth for others ' that shall be- lieve through their word,' ver. 20. I answer —
[1.] The apostles are chiefly intended, but not only ; elsewhere doth he pray for the disciples and believers of that age ; there were more than the eleven apostles, and if they be excluded, they have no name in Christ's prayer.
[2.] All others besides the apostles could not be reckoned to be in the world ; now here is a perfect distribution of men into tvv^o ranks — those that were given him, and the world.
2. Others say that the words are not to be taken as utterly exclu- sive, but only that he prayed not for the world in this place ; the re- quests of fatherly protection, the gift of the Spirit, love and concord, being only proper to them that did actually believe : elsewhere, they
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242 SERMONS UPON JOHN XVII. SeR. XII.
say, they find Christ praying for the world. They bring that place for one, Luke xxiii. 24, ' Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do ;' where he prayed for his persecutors, some of which never were converted. I answer —
[1.] We must distinguish the prayers of Christ as a holy man, and the prayers of Christ as mediator. So Camero. Owen, p. 44, &c. ; Gomarus in locum, and Rainoldus de Intercessione, &c. As he was a holy man, he was to lay aside all show of revenge. This was not a prayer by virtue of his office as mediator, but in answer to his duty, as he was subject to the law, and a private person. Those things which he did in obedience to the law as a private person were not acts of mediation ; they were acts of the mediator, but not as mediator. He taught us to pray for enemies : Mat. v. 44, ' Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for thcni that despitefully use you, and persecute you.' Kevenge is forbidden, and pardon and prayer enjoined.