tend to convey by these words? Into what peace art thou wishing henceforth to depart, if these eyes, which behold the Messiah, are going to be doomed to the darkness of an eternal night? If these hands, which are privileged to hold. and to embrace him, are going to become a prey to worms? And if that life which thou wast enjoying before thy Redeemer appeared, is going to be rent from thee, because he is already come? Ah! my brethren, how widely different are the ideas which this holy man of God entertained! Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' Wherefore now? Because now I know, from the accomplishment of thy promise, what was before a matter of presumption only, namely, that my soul is not a mere modification of matter, and a result of the arrangement, and of the harmony of my organs: because I am now convinced, that this soul of mine, on being separated from the body, shall not become a forlorn wanderer in a strange and solitary land: because now I no longer entertain any doubt respecting my own immortality, and because I hold in my arms him who has purchased it, and who bestows it upon me because to see Jesus Christ, and to die, is the highest blessedness that can be conferred on on a mortal creature. Permit me, my beloved brethren, to repeat my words, and with them to finish this discourse: to see Jesus Christ, and to die, is the highest blessedness that can be conferred on a mortal creature. Enjoy, my friends, enjoy the felicity which the Saviour bestows upon you, during the course of a transitory life: gratify, as you this clay turn a wondering eye to the manger in which this divine Saviour lies, and as you celebrate the memory of his incarnation, gratify the taste which you have for the great and the marvellous: and cry out with an enraptured apostle, Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh,' 1 Tim. iii. 16. Gratify, as in the retirement of the closet you devote yourselves to the study of the doctrine of this Jesus, gratify the desire you feel to learn and to know: draw constant supplies of light and truth from those treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col. ii. 3, which he opens to you in his gospel. Gratify, as you receive, next Lord's day, the effusions of his love, gratify the propensity which naturally disposes you to love him 6 Let every power of the soul expand on hearing the tender expressions which he addresses to you in the sacrament of the supper: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' Matt. xi. 23. ⚫ Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me,' Rev. iii. 20. But after all, it is not during the course of a transitory life, at least it is not while you consider death as still remote, that you are capable of knowing the pleasure there is in being Christian. No, it is neither in the retirement of the closet, nor seated at the table of the Lord: it is not in your solemn feasts, that you are capable of relishing the sweetness which is to be found in beholding Jesus Christ, in embracing him, in believing on him: it is in the last moments of life; it is when stretched on a death-bed. Till then, your passions will sometimes call it in question, whether the man of the world does not actually enjoy more happiness than the Christian; whether the commerce of society, whether spectacles, plays, the splendour of a court, do not conter more real pleasure than that which flows from communion with Jesus Christ. But when you shall find yourselves, like Simeon, in a state of universal dereliction; but when you shall behold nothing around you save unavailing solicitudes, save ineffectual medicines, save fruitless tears, then you will know what the religion of Jesus Christ is ; then, my brethren, you will taste the delight of being a Christian; then you will feel all the powerful attraction of that peace which is mentioned in the text: 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' May these ideas of the Christian religion attach us inviolably unto it. Let us, with Simeon, embrace the Saviour of the world; let us, with the wise men of the East, present unto him our gold, and frankincense, and myrrh: or rather, let us present unto him hearts penetrated with admiration, with gratitude, with love. Yes, divine infant, desire of all nations, glory of Israel, Saviour of mankind! divine infant, whom so many oracles have predicted, whom so many prophets have announced, whom so many types have represented, and whose radiant day so many kings and prophets were desirous to behold: my faith pierces through all those veils which overspread and conceal thee; I behold, in the person of a creature feeble and humbled, my God, and my Redeemer: I contemplate thee not only as born a few days ago at Bethlehem of Judah, but subsisting before the mountains were brought forth, before the earth was formed, even from everlasting to everlasting, Ps. xc. 2. I behold thee not only lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths, but I behold thee seated on a throne of glory, highly exalted,' having a name that is above every name,' adored by angels and seraphim, encircled with rays of divinity. Every power of my understanding shall henceforth be devoted to the knowledge of thee: it shall be my constant endeavour to please thee, my supreme delight to possess thee; and it shall be my noblest ambition to prostrate myself one day before thy throne, and to sing with the innumerable multitudes of the redeemed of every nation, and people, and tongue: Unto him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, be honour and glory, and power, for ever and ever. Amen.' SERMON LXXI. CHRIST'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO HIS DISCIPLES. JOHN xiv. xv. xvi. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me,* §.c. : WE begin, this morning, with explaining to you the texts which refer to our blessed Saviour's passion. If the knowledge of the Christian be all reducible to this, to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified,' 1 Cor. ii. 2, it is impossible to fix your eyes too frequently on the mysteries of the cross. Very few dis. courses, accordingly, are addressed to you, in which these great objects are not brought forward to view, Nay, more; it is the pleasure of this church, that, at certain stated seasons, the doctrine of the cross, to the exclusion of every other, should be the subject of our preaching that all the circumstances attending it should be detailed, and every view of it displayed. But whatever powers may be applied to the execution of this work, it cannot possibly be accomplished within the space of a few weeks. We have especially had to lament that our Saviour's last address to his disciples should be omitted: I mean the discourse which he addressed to them, a little while before he retired into the garden of Gethsemane, and which St John has preserved to us in the xiv. xv. and xvi. chapters of his gospel. This part of the history of the passion is, unquestionably, one of the most tender and most interesting. We propose to make it pass in review before you this day, as far as the bounds prescribed to us will permit. Were it proper to make the place where I stand a vehicle for communications of this kind, I am ready ingenuously to acknowledge, that a particular circumstance determined my choice on this occasion. A few days only have clapsed since I was called to be witness of the dying agonies of a valuable minister,† whom Providence has just removed from the superintendence of a neighbouring church. God was pleased to visit him for some months past, if we may presume to speak so, with a 'temptation,' more than is common to man,' 1 Cor. x. 13; but he granted him a fortitude more than human to support it. I was filled with astonishment at the violence of his sufferings; and still more at the patience with which he endured them; I could not help expressing a wish to know, what particular article of religion had contributed the most to produce in him that prodigy of resolution: Have you ever paid a closer attention, my dear brother,' said he to me, to the last address of Jesus Christ to his disciples? My God,' exclaimed he, what charity! what tenderness! but above all, what an inexhaustible source of consolation in the extremity of distress!' His words filled me with astonishment: my thoughts were immediately turned towards you, my dearly beloved brethren; and I said within myself, I must furnish my hearers with this powerful defence against suffering and death. I enter this day on the execution of my design. Condescend to concur with me in it. Come and meditate on the last expressions which fell from the lips of a dying Saviour; let us penetrate into the very centre of that heart which the sacred flame of charity animated. I must proceed on the supposition that your minds are impressed with the subject of the three chapters of which I am going to attempt an analysis. The great object which our Lord proposes to himself, in this address, is to fortify his disciples against the temptations to which they were about to be exposed. And, in order to reduce our reflections to distinct classes, Jesus Christ means to fortify his disciples, 1. Against the offence of his cross. II. Against the persecution which his doctrine was going to excite. A III. Against forgetfulness of his precepts. IV. Against sorrow for his absence. 1. First, Jesus Christ means to fortify his disciples against the offence of the cross. man must be a mere novice in the history of the gospel if he know not how extremely confused their ideas were with respect to the mys tery of redemption. Those who ascribe to them superior illumination are mistaken, both in the principle, and in the consequences which they deluce from it. Their principle is, that the Jewish church was perfectly well acquainted with the whole mystery of the cross; an opinion supported by no historical monument whatever, But granting we were to admit this principle, we must of necessity resist the consequences deduced from it, with respect to the apostles. It is very possible to have a clouded understanding amidst a luminous dispensation, and to grovel in ignorance be the age ever so enlightened. Had we a mind to demonstrate to what a degree the age in which we live surpasses those which preceded it, whether in physical discovery, or in metaphysical and theological speculation, would we go to collect our proofs among our common me. chanics, or from among the fishermen who in *Those who wish to derive benefit from the following discourse, must previously peruse, with attention, the xiv. xv. and xvi. chapters of John's gos-habit our seaports? pel. Mr. Begron, pastor of the church at Leyden. Let us call to remembrance the indiscreet 2. The second buckler against the offence of the cross-The downfall of the enemy of mankind, I mean the devil and his angels: the prince of this world is judged,' ch. xiv. 30; xvi. 11. The crucifixion of the Redeemer of the world, it is true, seemed to complete the triumph of Satan, but it was, in reality, precisely the point of his decline and fall. He bruised the heel' of the promised seed, but Jesus Christ bruised his head,' Gen. iii. 15. On the cross it was that Jesus executed the design of his coming into the world, namely, to destroy the works of the devil,' 1 John iii. 8. On the cross it was that Jesus Christ poured out the precious blood which was going to become the true seed of the church. On the the trophies of idolatry, and there he 'spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,' Col. ii. 15. zeal of Peter, when Jesus Christ declared to look for from heaven, but thunderbolts and a him, 'How he must go unto Jerusalem, and | horrible tempest,' to crush their guilty heads. suffer many things—and be killed,' Matt. xvi. On the cross it was that Jesus Christ restored a 21, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not blessed correspondence between heaven and be unto thee,' ver. 22. Recollect the reply earth; for it pleased the Father, that in him which Jesus made to that disciple: Get thee should all fulness dwell; and, having made behind me, Satan: thou art an offence to me,' peace through the blood of his cross, by him ver. 23. Recollect farther the question which to reconcile all things unto himself, whether the apostles put to their master some time be- they be things in earth, or things in heaven,' fore his ascension: Lord, wilt thou at this Col. i, 19, 20. time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' Acts i. 6. Above all, recollect the conversation which passed between certain of them immediately after his resurrection: we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done,' Luke xxiv. 21. You trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel!' Well! and wherefore trust no longer? Whence then arises this diffidence? Wherein has his promise failed? What oracle of the prophets has he neglected to fulfil? O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?' ver. 25, 26. Taking it for granted, then, that the apos-cross it was that he dashed down to the ground tles had but confused ideas of the mystery of the cross, what offence must they not have taken when they were called to be witnesses of that fearful spectacle! From our being accustomed to hear the punishment of crucifixion 3. The third buckler against the offence of spoken of in terms of high dignity, we lose the cross-The sovereign command of his sight of what was ignominious and humiliat-heavenly Father: the prince of this world ing in it. Represent to yourself a man whom you had made the centre, the fixed point of all your hopes. Represent to yourself a man, a God-man, to whom you had been accustomed to yield all the homage of adoration: represent to yourself this divine personage, whom you believed to have descended from heaven to remedy the woes of mankind; to remove your private distresses; to re-establish your credit, and to restore to your country all its splendour and all its importance: represent to yourself this divine personage bound by the hands of an insolent rabble; dragged along from one tribunal to another; condemned as a felon, and nailed to a tree. Can this be that Messiah, into whose hand God was to put a 'rod of iron to break the nations, and to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel?' Ps. ii. 9. Can this be that Messiah who should have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth?' Ps. lxxii. 8. Can this be the Messiah who was to make us sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel?' Luke xxii. 30. As this was the grand offence with the apostles, their Master supplies them with more than one buckler to repel it. 1. The first buckler for repelling the offence of the cross-The miserable condition of a lost world. I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you,' ch. xvi. 7. Had not Jesus Christ been offered in sacrifice, there had been no Comforter, and no consolation for the wretched posterity of Adam. The anger of a righteous God was kindled against them. They had nothing to cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do,' chap. xiv. 30, 31. What was the commandment given of the Father to Jesus Christ? You know it, my brethren; the commission which he had given him, was to deliver from the dreadful abysses of hell a world of miserable wretches, whom divine justice had there doomed to undergo the punishment of everlasting fire. This was the supreme will which the Redeemer had continually before his eyes. For this it was that he says, when he cometh into the world: 'sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire: but a body hast thou prepared for me: burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required: then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God,' Ps. xl. 6-8. For this it was that, dismayed, and cast down, as it were to the ground at Gethsemane, at the bare apprehension of approaching sufferings, he prayed, saying: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,' but immediately added, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt,' Matt. xxvi. 39. · 4. The fourth buckler against the offence of the cross-The idea of the storm which was ready to burst on the authors of those sufferings, and upon a whole guilty nation which had obstinately rejected his ministry: 'If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also,' chap. xv. 22, 23. This parricide filled up the measure of the incredulity and barbari- [ vice,' chap. xvi. 1, 2. But while he utters a ty of the Jews: it was going to put the last prediction so melancholy and discouraging, he hand to an accumulation of criminality. But softens it, and supplies them with motives the let not the impatience of the flesh hurry the best adapted to fortify and sustain them against spirit into the formation of precipitate judg- the fearful accomplishment of it. The objects ment let not the libertine and the profane which Jesus Christ presents to the eyes of his here display their abominable system: let disciples, in the three chapters which we are them not say, as they point to the cross of the attempting to analyze, are the same which have Saviour, on which innocence is immolated to supported our own martyrs and confessors in iniquity, where is that Providence which this age of fire and blood, when the enemies of guides the helm of the universe? Where are religion have taken for their models the persethose eyes which go up and down through the cutors of Christ and of his apostles. earth, to contemplate the actions of men? I suffer, I die for the gospel, said each of Where is that righteous judge of all the earth, our confessors and martyrs within themselves, ever ready to administer justice? Have a lit- in the extremity of their sufferings: I suffer, tle patience, and you shall see, that as this I die for the gospel: it is my highest glory; parricide constituted the most atrocious of all it is my badge of conformity to my adorable crimes, it was likewise speedily followed by Saviour: 'I fill up that which is behind of the the most tremendous of all punishments. You afflictions of Christ in my flesh,' Col. i. 24. shall behold the accomplishment of that pro-I bear in my body the marks of the Lord phetic denunciation: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,' Luke xxiii. 28. You shall behold the Jews driven to desperation, imploring assistance from the rocks and from the mountains, to shelter them from the strokes of that divine vengeance which pursues them: you shall behold that Jerusalem, that murderess of the prophets, deluged with her own blood: two millions of Jews offered in sacrifice to the justice of that God, who requires at their hands the blood of the Messiah. Jesus,' Gal. vi. 17. It is one of the motives which our Lord himself proposes to the apostles: if the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you,' chap. xv. 18. 20. xv. 19. I suffer, I die for the gospel. The world places before me a theatre of misery and persecution only: but it is because I am not of this world. I am looking and longing for another establishment of things, and every 5. The fifth buckler against the offence of stroke aimed at me by the men of the world, the cross-The spectacle of charity which is a pledge of myeing a citizen of another, Jesus Christ presents to his disciples: Great- of a heavenly country. This is a farther moer love hath no man than this, that a man lay tive suggested by Jesus Christ to the discidown his life for his friends,' chap. xv. 13. ples: If ye were of the world, the world Accordingly, when this divine Saviour had ar- would love his own: but because ye are not rived at the period of his death, and had of the world, but I have chosen you out of the formed, if I may use the expression, the ulti-world, therefore the world hateth you,' chap. mate resolution to die, every flood-gate of his charity is set open: from this fountain of love, whence emanated the heroic purpose of immolating himself for his disciples, we behold every other proof of affection gushing out in copious streams: Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you,' chap. xv. 15. If you have been faithful to me while I was giving you strong proofs of my tenderness, is it possible you should be unfaithful, now that I am preparing to give you a demonstration of it still more irresistible? Is it possible you should choose the time of my crucifixion to betray me? Is it possible you should deny your Redeemer, precisely at the moment when he is dying to accomplish the work of your redemption? II. Our blessed Lord having spoken to the disciples, of the cross which he was about to suffer, and this is the second article of mediation, proceeds to speak to them concerning their own. He disguises not either the horror or the weight of it: These things I have spoken unto you, that you should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God ser I suffer, I die for the gospel. How glorious it is for a man to devote himself in such a cause! How glorious it is to be the martyr of truth and of virtue! Our Lord suggests this likewise as a motive to his disciples: all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him whe sent me,' chap. xv. 21. I suffer, I die for the gospel; but God is witness of my sufferings and death: he feels every stroke which falls upon me he who toucheth me, toucheth the apple of his eye,' Zech. ii. 8. And as he is the witness of the barbarity of my tormentors, he will likewise be the judge and the avenger. This likewise is a motive suggested by our Lord to his disciples: he that hateth me hateth my father also,' chap. xv. 23. · I suffer, I die for the gospel: but I have before my eyes the great pattern of patience and fortitude. I derive the support which I need from the same source whence my Saviour derived his : I look to the author and finisher of my faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame,' Heb. xii. 2, and I aspire after the same triumph. This is a motive suggested by Jesus Christ to his disciples; in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have over SER. LXXI.] TO HIS DISCIPLES. now ready to be offered, 2 Tim. iv. 6. What cross, he advances forward, braving the cross, being come the world,' chap. xvi. 33. III. We observed, in the third place, that Arise,' says he to them, arise,' (he was still in the house where he had just eaten the passover, when he pronounced the discourse which we are endeavouring to explain) let us go hence,' chap. xiv. 31. I must pass no more time with my beloved disciples; I am going to be delivered up to my executioners; I must no more drink' with you of the fruit of the vine,' Luke xxii. 18, in a feast of love; it is time for me to go and drink to the very putting into my hands: let us go hence:' dregs the cup which the justice of my Father let us go to Gethsemane: let us ascend to Golgotha. But, Simon, Simon, behold, sift you as wheat,' Luke xxii. 31. But, all Satan hath desired to have you, that he may But, the devil, and the Conformably to this idea, one of the most ye shall be offended because of me this night,' grievous solicitudes which, at a dying hour, Matt. xxvi. 31. have oppressed the minds of those extraordi- world, and all hell, are going to unite their Hary men to whom God committed the over-efforts to dissolve your communion with me. sight of his church, proceeded from the ap- What does he oppose to danger so threatenWhat ought to be done by a good prehension of that corruption into which their ing? What means does he employ to precharge was in danger of falling after their own vent it? departure; and the object of their most anx- pastor when stretched on a death bed; not onious concern has been to prevent this. Be- ly earnest prayers addressed to heaven, but hold Moses approaching the last closing scene also tender exhortations addressed to men. of life: Take this book of the law,' says he He gives them an abridgment of the sermons to the Levites, and put it in the side of the which, during the period of his intercourse ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, with them, had been the subject of his minthat it may be there for a witness against thee, istrations: if ye love me, keep my commandfor I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck:ments, chap. xiv. 15. behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?' Deut. xxxi. 26, 27. Behold St. Paul: consider the terrors which he feels as he prepares to go up to Jerusalem: it is not that of being made a partaker of his master's sufferings: no,' says he, the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, sayin, that bonds and afflictions abide me at Jerusalem. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, 1. As Christians: without charity Chrisso that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of tianity cannot possibly subsist. A society, God.' Acts xx. 23, 24. But that which fills the individuals of which do not love each him with painful apprehension is the danger other, cannot be a society of the disciples of of apostatizing to which his beloved Ephesians, Jesus Christ. Tell me not of your passing among whom he has been so successful, were whole days and nights in meditation and readgoing to be exposed after he had left them: ing the Scriptures; of your uninterrupted asfor this reason it is, that in bidding them a fi-siduity in exercises of devotion; of your fernal adieu, he expresses an ardent wish that a last effort should indelibly impress on their hearts the great truths which had been the subject of his ministry among them; 'I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men: for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock,' Acts xx. 26-29. Jesus Christ, in like manner, is ready to finish the work which his heavenly Father has given him to do: he shrinks from it no longer: But what merits especial attention in the last address of Jesus Christ to his apostles, s the precept on which he particularly insists: and the subject of that precept is charity: 'by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another,' chap. xiii. 35. 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,' ver. 34; a precept which they were bound to observe as Christians, and more especially as ministers of his gospel. vour and frequency of attendance at the table |