And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.
Ver. 1. He departed thence to teach, &c.] Never out of action: the end of one good work was with our Saviour the beginning of another. So must it be with ministers: let them never look to rest till they come to heaven; but (as St Paul, that insatiabilis Dei cultor, as Chrysostom called him) teach God's people publicly and from house to house, incessantly warning every one night and day with tears, Acts 20:20; Acts 20:31. Dr Taylor, martyr, preached not only every Sabbath day and holy day, but whensoever else he could get the people together. So did Bishop Ridley, Bishop Jewel, &c. So did not their successors, once a year was fair with many of them (like the high priest in the law), as if they had concurred in opinion with that Popish bishop, that said, It was too much for any man to preach every Sunday, and that bishops were not ordained to preach, but to sing mass sometimes, leaving all other offices to their suffragans. It is as rare a thing at Rome, said Dr Bassinet, to hear a bishop preach as to see an ass fly. Oh what will these slow bellies do when Christ riseth up? and when he visiteth, how will they answer him? Job 31:14 .
To preach in their cities] That is, in the cities of his twelve disciples, in the coasts of Galilee, while they were doing the same in Jewry. Maldonate the Jesuit will not have this to be the sense of this text, and only quia, inquit, est hereticorum, because it is the sense that the heretics (as he calls the Protestants) set on it. A goodly thing he holds it to dissent from them, though in a manifest truth. So George, Duke of Saxony, was heard to say, Though I am not ignorant that heresies and abuses are crept into the Church, yet I will never obey the gospel that Luther preacheth. For hatred to the man he would not hearken to the truth he taught. This is to have the faith of Christ "in respect of persons," James 2:1 .