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The Son as Man empowered by the whole Trinity. HOMIL. to Whom He prayeth are One. In the sequel, however, there is yet a passage where we shall have to discourse of this matter more diligently.

CVII.

v. 12.

ch. 16, 23.

v. 12.

6. Here however He goes on: While I was with them, I kept them in Thy Name. When I, saith He, come to Thee, keep them in Thy Name, in which, when I was with them, I also kept them. In the name of the Father, the Son kept His disciples as Man, being with them by human presence; howbeit the Father also kept in the name of the Son those whose prayers He heard when they asked in the Son's name. Since to these the same Son had said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask any thing of the Father in My Name, He will give it you. Nor must we take this so carnally as to imagine that They take turns in keeping us, Father and Son, alternately receiving us into Their custody, one succeeding as the other leaves: for both Father and Son and Holy Ghost do together guard us, that is, the one, true, and blessed God. But the Scripture doth not lift us up, except it come down to us: even as the Word made Flesh came down to lift us up, not fell to be Itself laid low. If we have known Him coming down, let us rise with Him when He lifteth up; and let us understand that, in so speaking, He distinguisheth the Persons, not separateth the Natures. What time therefore as the Son in bodily presence was keeping His disciples, the Father was not waiting to succeed to the guarding of them when the Son should depart; but Both kept them by spiritual power: and when the Son withdrew from them His bodily presence, He still with the Father retained the spiritual custody. Because both when the Son as Man received them into His custody, He did not take them away from the Father's custody; and when the Father gave them into custody of the Son, He did it not without Him to Whom He gave them; but gave them to the Man His Son, not without the God Who is that self-same Son.

7. The Son therefore goes on to say: Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled. By the son of perdition is meant the betrayer of Christ, predestinated Ps. 109. to perdition, according to the Scripture which in the hundred Acts 1, and eighth Psalm prophesieth chiefly concerning him.

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As man He received the elect, as God He gave. 973

XVII.

8. But now, saith He, come I to Thee: and these things JOHN I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled 13. in themselves. Lo, He saith that He speaketh in the world, v. 13. Who a little before had said, Now am I not in the world: which why He said, we there expounded, or rather shewed that He has Himself expounded. So then, both because He was not yet gone, He was yet here; and because He was soon about to go away, He was in some sort now not here. But what this joy is, of which He saith, That they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves, is already expressed above, where He saith, That they may be one, even as We are. This His joy, i. e. bestowed on them by Him, He saith must be fulfilled in them; to which end, He saith, He spake in this world. This is that peace and blessedness in the world to come, to obtain which we must live temperately Tit. 2, and righteously and godly in this world.

12.

v. 14.

JOHN Xvii. 14—19.

I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth: Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.

1. THE Lord, still speaking to the Father and praying for His disciples, saith, I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them. They had not yet experienced this by sufferings of their own, which ensued to them afterwards: but, as His manner is, He saith these things, by words of past time foretelling things future. Then subjoining the cause why the world hated them, He saith, Because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. This was conferred upon them by regeneration for by natural generation they were of the world, wherefore He had ch. 15, said to them, I have chosen you out of the world. It was given them therefore to be, as He was, not of the world, by His delivering them Himself from the world. But He Himself was never of the world: because even in regard of the form of a servant He was begotten of the Holy Ghost, of Whom those were begotten again. For if they were there

19.

The Saints "not of the world," but still need sanctification. 975

XVII.

fore not of the world, because begotten again of the Holy JOHN Ghost, He was never of the world, because begotten of the 15-17. Holy Ghost.

2. I pray not, saith He, that Thou shouldest take them v. 15. from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. For though they were now no more of the world, yet they must of necessity be still in the world. He saith the same sentence over again: Of the world, saith He, they are v.16.17. not, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the Truth. For so are they kept from the evil: which above He prayed might be done for them. But it may be asked, how they were now not of the world, if they were not yet sanctified in the Truth: or, if they were sanctified already, why He asks that they may be sanctified? Is it because even being sanctified they make progress in that holiness, and become more holy, nor this without aid of the grace of God, but by His sanctifying their advancement, Who sanctified their beginning? Whence also the Apostle saith, He Phil. 1, that hath begun a good work in you, shall perfect it even unto the day of Christ Jesus. To be sanctified, therefore, in the Truth is for the heirs of the New Testament, of which Truth the sanctifications of the Old Testament were shadows: and, in being sanctified in the Truth, clearly their sanctifying is in Christ, Who truly said, I am the Way, and the ch.14,6. Truth, and the Life. Also when He saith, The Truth shall ch. 8, make you free, a little after, expounding what He meant He saith, If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed; to shew that what He before called the Truth, is none other than what He afterwards calls the Son. Then what other hath He said in this place also, Sanctify them in the Truth, but, Sanctify them in Me?

6.

32. 36.

3. As indeed in going on He forbears not to intimate this more openly: Thy word, saith He, is Truth. For [where the Latin hath, Sermo tuus,] the Greek Gospel hath Aoyos, which is the expression in the place where it is said, In the ch. 1, 1. beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And we know of course that the Word, Which was made flesh and dwelt in us, is none other than ib. 14. the Only-Begotten Son of God. Whence it might here also have been expressed, and in some copies is expressed,

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Christ as God sanctified Himself as Man,

HOMIL. Verbum tuum veritas est; as in some copies the expression CVIII. in the other passage is, In principio erat Sermo: while in the Greek, without any variation of the phrase, both there and here it is Aóyos. Therefore the Father sanctifieth in Rom. 8, the Truth, i. e. in His Word, in His Only-Begotten, the heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

17.

v. 18.

4. But now He still speaks of the Apostles; for He goes on and adds, As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Whom hath He sent, but His Apostles? For the very name 'Apostles,' being Greek, signifies in our tongue, 'persons sent.' So then, God sent Rom. 8, His Son, not in flesh of sin, but in the likeness of flesh of sin ; and His Son sent those whom, being born in flesh of sin, He hath sanctified from the taint of sin.

3.

1 Tim. 2, 5.

29.

ib. 16.

5. But since by reason that the Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, is made Head of the Church, those are members of Him; hence it is that He saith v. 19. what follows, And for their sakes I sanctify Myself. For what meaneth, And for their sakes, but, I sanctify them in Myself, seeing they are Myself? Since they of whom He saith this, are, as I have said, His members, and Head and Body is one Christ; as the Apostle teacheth, saying of the Gal. 3, Seed of Abraham, But if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's Seed; when he had said above, He saith not, And to Serm. seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is 144, 5. Christ. If then the Seed of Abraham is Christ; when it is said, Then are ye Abraham's Seed, what other is said to them but, Then are ye Christ? Thence is it that in another Col. 1, place the same Apostle saith; I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh. He saith not, Of my afflictions, but, Of Christ's: because He was a member of Christ; and in his persecutions, the like of which Christ behoved to suffer in His whole Body, he also in his proportion was filling up the afflictions of Christ. But that this may be certain from this passage also, mark the words v. 19. following. For when He had said, And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, then, in order that we might understand that in Himself He sanctified them, He presently adds, That they also may be sanctified in the Truth. And what

24.