the city of the living God; and are partakers in the general festal assembly and congregation of the firstborn. We shall know that we are risen with Christ, and seated with Him in the heavenly places; that we are sons of God, and partakers of the Divine Nature. "O the glory of our calling! Ours, whose bread is Bread from heaven, NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. The Vine and the Branches. John xv. I-12. WE are very familiar with the image of the head and members of the body, as descriptive of the unity and relationship of the Lord Jesus with His Church. It is well sometimes to vary our point of view; and to consider the same blessed truth under other figures which have been given us to illustrate it. Let it come before us to-day as it appears in the vine and its branches. : The vegetable has its life not less truly than the animal. It cannot indeed move from place to place it cannot exercise sensibility: still less is it capable of feeling or thought or speech. Yet it lives. It feeds and breathes : it wakes and sleeps: it reproduces its kind: it is born, and grows, and dies. All that is essential to life-mere life, as such-is presented here in perfection after its kind. And in that highest form of vegetable existence of which the vine is an example there is a feature which the animal has not so obviously-the bearing fruit. It is this upon which our Lord especially dwells in the discourse of His which we have cited: it is this which must above all things be reproduced in us if we are to be true branches of the heavenly Vine as well as true members of the Body of Christ. 66 "I am the true Vine: and My Father is the Husband man." The first thing the husbandman does is to plant the vine. In the Incarnation, accordingly, we see the heavenly seed sown among men; and in the life of Jesus upon earth the springing up of the new shoot. "He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant," says the Prophet and he may well go on-" and as a root out of a dry ground." Whence, indeed, out of this arid soil of our humanity can He draw form or comeliness, or beauty that we should desire Him? Yet to those who had eyes to see there was a glory in Him,-glory as of the Onlybegotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It was because this plant was really rooted not in earth, but in heaven because its vital sap did not ascend from the one but descended from the other. He Who stood on earth and spake was "the Son of Man which is in heaven." From that soil He grew, and could not but become to the spiritual eye the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely. : "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." As soon as the new shoot appears above the ground, it is the law of its existence that it put forth other shoots, which shall live with its life and bring forth the fruit of the same. Christ also appeared, that He might become the first-born among many brethren. Because He lived, others were to live also. As He, rooted in the Father, lived by the Father, so these should live by Him. We are His branches. If we regard our spiritual life only, we have grown out of Him: we were not till He was without His life we had not been. In another aspect, we have been grafted into Him. We were not His by nature, but grew out of the wild vine of fallen humanity. In either view we are now His, because baptized into Him. The sap of His life courses through us: we partake of the root and fatness of the Heavenly Vine: and we can and should bring forth the fruit of good works to the praise and glory of His name. First Here is the image in all its constituent parts. the Vine itself, the original root and stock. Then the secondary branches, springing from it, one with it, depending on it. Last, the Husbandman, who has planted the vine; and now watches the branches, that they may bring forth fruit to perfection. For these branches, the Lord says, there are three possible alternatives. 1. The first is a very sad one. It is that a man who has known Christ, and for a time has lived by Him, should of his own deliberate will and consent depart from Him. “If a man abide not in Me.” We almost incline to say, "Lord, it is impossible. Who can taste Thy sweetness, and not feel everything else in the world insipid in exchange for it?" Yet it does occur. There are those who trample under foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing, and do despite unto the Spirit of grace. Woe, woe unto them that forsake Him! The Lord Himself tells us of the destruction which shall come upon them. As a branch that is fallen from the tree, they are out" of the Vineyard of the Lord. Losing the flow of vital sap, by degrees they dry up and are "withered." As dead boughs they lie together without the garden wall: as dry sticks men shall " gather them" in the end, and cast them like the tares into unquenchable fire, and there they are burned." 66 66 cast 2. There is another alternative which is not so dark as this, but which is mentioned only to be avoided. There are branches in the Heavenly Vine which bear no fruit. They do not reject Christ; but they do nothing to mani fest Him. They acknowledge themselves His servants; but they stand all day idle in His service. They bury their talent in a napkin, and hide any light they have under a bushel. They allow the sap to circulate so languidly in them, that it cannot reach the surface and put forth blossom and fruit. Over such branches continual peril is impending. The Husbandman is watching this Vine with jealous care: and “ every branch in it which beareth not fruit He taketh away." O the judgment which must some day come on the lukewarm, on the unprofitable! It is long delayed, but it must come. God grant only that the "taking away" be not for ever; that it be as a deliverance unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 3. But the Lord is persuaded better things of His disciples, and things which accompany salvation, though He thus speaks. The greater part of His discourse is occupied with the true branches, with those which live and grow and bear fruit. And to these He saith, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me" lit. severed from Me "ye can do nothing." I think that the word "abide" here must have a stronger force than merely "remain." It seems to import an active holding on to, pressing into, clinging to the Source of our life and strength. It can only come out of a real knowledge of Christ, a conscious communion with Him, a love for Him as genuine and heartfelt as that which we have for our dearest upon earth With these we find it easy enough to "abide" in fellowship: let us so abide in Him. We could not have put |