John 17:20

20. For these alone Most merciful as is the interior of the Saviour’s intercession, there is a stern exclusiveness, a terrible outside to it, expressed not so much in words as in silence. Cold and dreary is the condition of those who stand without the boundary of the Christly supplication.

Shall believe Foreknown future voluntary receivers of the apostolic Gospel. The shall here is a mere future, equivalent to will. Faith is either a power or an act; as a power it is a gift of God, and may be prayed for; as an act it must be from ourselves, and cannot be a gift from any other.

Their word No traditions of an interior Christian doctrine are to be received by us which are uncorroborated in the written word. This, the written testament alone, can assure us that the tradition is apostolic and binding; for unwritten traditions are unstable, easily forged, and unreliable. But as it appears from John 17:18 that the apostles were commissioned by Christ, as Christ by God, so the true written tradition of the apostles, whether it be John, or Paul, or Peter, are the authorized word both of Christ and God. Those, therefore, who endeavor to separate the apostles’ doctrine as contrary to Christ’s, are enemies of the truth, sacrilegiously endeavouring to cut the Gospel in two, that they may murder both parts.