In this respect the task which fell upon the Apostles, from the time of her Lord's departure, has been very concisely but, at the same time, very exactly defined in the last words of St. Matthew's Gospel, wherein our Lord Himself charged them to "Go forth and make disciples all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Herein the construction of the Church is marked in the authority which makes disciples everywhere, for the disciple stands to the teacher in a relation of obedience; in the rite of baptism, which binds them together in one whole, and which, standing at the head, represents the whole system of sacraments; while the teachers are enjoined to require observance of all those things which Christ had commanded them to teach in His name. These injunctions were recorded by St. Matthew in his Gospel many years after they had been exactly fulfilled by those to whom they were addressed. As soon as the Apostles were invested "with power from on high" at the Day of Pentecost, they began the simple work of making disciples, binding them together with sacraments, teaching them obedience to those things in which they had been enjoined by their Lord to instruct them. Again, we possess in the Gospel of St. Luke, dated, as is supposed, at least thirty years after the Day of Pentecost, a continuous record of what they began to do. But the work done, in all its length and breadth, was independent of these records. It is important to realise as well as we can the fact that the whole settlement of the Church as an institution, which embraces the worship of God, the administration of sacraments, the regulation of discipline, her essential polity, including the vocation, ordination, and jurisdiction of her ministers, and no less the instruction of men in that whole doctrine of salvation which consisted in the confession that our Lord was the Christ; all this, which was effected in the forty years which passed between the Day of Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem, was effected by oral teaching and living authority. The chief Sees were planted, and the divine polity in each of them, which formed the life of the Christian people, was laid down before the writings of the New Testament began to be published, long before they were collected, still longer before the Canon of the writings forming them was closed. The first generation of Christians received their religion from the lips of Messengers, Ambassadors, Heralds, who spoke in Christ's name the words which Christ had put in them. Christians so made entered upon the practice of a life the whole course of which was drawn out for them by their teachers. This is the force of the commission, "Make disciples of all nations." Mysteries were dispensed to them of which these teachers were stewards, and which they accepted from the hands of the teachers. And only when this work had been done, during a course of years and in many great cities, did the first written collection of some of the words and acts of Christ begin to be made public; while the last of this fourfold collection was not communicated to the general body of disciples until more than sixty years after the termination of our Lord's earthly life. Before that time the structure of the Church in those points of her external government which we have touched above had been entirely completed; the sound of the Apostles had gone out into all the world; a multitude of teachers had been commissioned by the Apostles; a multitude of people had been taught by them; martyrs had borne witness to the faith thus planted everywhere.