SERMON XXXVII.

THE PERIL OF IRREVERENT FAMILIARITY WITH HOLY THINGS.

Wednesday before Easter.

ST. JOHN XVIII. 2.

AND JUDAS ALSO, WHICH BETRAYED HIM, KNEW THE PLACE.

BEING desirous, on the present occasion, to address you on a subject suited both to that solemn period of the Christian year at which we have arrived, and also to the week preceding the administration of the Holy Communion, I request your attention to some points in the mournful history of that unworthiest of Apostles and unhappiest of men, whose treachery ALMIGHTY GOD permitted to be accessory to the death of HIM Who was "delivered" by His own "determinate counsel and foreknowledge." The warning which the example of Judas supplies, belongs especially to this season, inasmuch as at this season his guilty act was perpetrated, and its fearful recompense suffered to fall on him; and, again, the warning is appropriate to those who are at any time about to partake of the highest of Christian privileges, since it proves to us how fearfully these privileges may be abused.

Judas, as you know, was one of the twelve whom our SAVIOUR "ordained, that they should be with HIM," and to whom "He gave power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease." During our SAVIOUR'S ministry, he was one of His eye-witnesses and servants, beheld His Miracles, heard His teaching, and was present on many occasions, of which no detailed record has been preserved in Holy Scripture, when the Apostles enjoyed the private converse and the familiar Example of their LORD. Of such occasions does the Apostle St. John speak in the words which immediately follow the text; the whole context runs thus: "When JESUS had spoken these words, He went forth with His Disciples over the brook Kedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered and His Disciples, and Judas also, which betrayed HIм, knew the place, for JESUS oft-times resorted thither with His Disciples.' Yet what was the melancholy end of all this privilege? In what issued the choice of CHRIST-election to the Apostleship-endowment with miraculous powers— intimate acquaintance with the dignity and glory, the grace and truth, of JESUS CHRIST? In what did all issue, but in the worst of guilt, the most fearful of overthrows? He to whom devils had been made subject through the Name of CHRIST, became himself the wretched bond-slave of Satan: he to whom a throne had been promised in the day when the Son of Man should sit upon the Throne of His Glory,' became liable, in that great day, to a sentence of fearful condemnation: he whose high calling kings and Prophets might well have desired, and who might to the end of time have been celebrated in the Church as one of "the glorious

1 St. Matthew xix. 28.

company of the Apostles," did, by transgression, so terribly fall from his high vocation and ministry, that it had been good for him had he never been born.

Nor let us think that the character of Judas was either suffered to exist, or has been left on record in Holy Scripture, save for our learning. Every thing which is recorded in Holy Writ, is intended for our instruction; other books may give us descriptions of character, or narratives of events, merely to interest and amuse us, but Scripture has a far deeper purpose than mere interest or amusement: it would not have told us of the privileges and of the fall of Judas, except that we might thereby be taught reverently to cherish advantages which we enjoy as he did, to suspect within ourselves that spirit which tempted him to evil, and to shun far off, with wholesome apprehension, the gulf of iniquity in which he was overwhelmed.

And when I say that we may well suppose that for the warning of all after-times such a character as that of Judas was suffered to exist, I do not, of course, mean that he was caused to be what he was in his own personal character, but that he had opportunity given him fully to exhibit the evils of his nature, and their fearful consequences. Pharaoh had been Pharaoh still, cruel, proud, and impious, had he never been king of Egypt; yet, "for this cause," says GOD to him, "have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power." God gave him his high station, that his pride and impiety therein might give occasion for the display of GoD's marvellous acts, and that His Name might be declared throughout all the earth. Thus did GOD cause Pharaoh's wrath to praise HIM, choosing him, who was in himself a vessel already prepared unto dishonour, to bear sway in a land which had long been sinning against

the people of the LORD, and was now to be judged for its iniquity. And so too in the case of Judas, God made him not what he was in himself, but suffered him, being what he was, to become an Apostle. He was in himself a deceitful, covetous, and ungenerous man, and the wise counsel of GOD ordained that these evil qualities should fully develope themselves in a high and holy station, and that the fallen Apostle should preach to the Church for ever, by the heinousness of his crimes, and by the severity of their punishment.

That an evil man should thus be numbered among the immediate followers of our LORD, had been the subject of prophecy, in reference to which fact our SAVIOUR, in the very hour of His Apostle's guilt, pronounced the awful words, "Those whom THOU gavest ME I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled," alluding, doubtless, to that Psalm of David which St. Peter cites on proposing the election of another Apostle to fill the room of Judas.

And now let us consider what principal lessons are to be learned from the awful example before us. First, the ministers of CHRIST's Church, even the highest among them, may learn that their office secures them not, that God may be, and is, served even by the evil, that He may make those in outward acts His ministers HE who are not in heart His servants.

And next, the Church at large may hence learn, as we have been faithfully taught in the twenty-sixth Article, that the unworthiness of ministers does not hinder the effect of CHRIST's Sacraments, nor of the Ministration of His Word, because what is thus done by evil ministers is done not in their own name but in CHRIST'S, and because they minister by His commission

and authority. Remember that God gave even to Caiaphas the gift of prophecy, because he was high priest that year, and this even though he prophesied undesignedly, speaking the words with another and very evil intent. And remember again, that even Judas was one of those to whom JESUS gave power to cast out devils, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease,- was one of those to whom He said, "He that receiveth you receiveth ME."

At present, however, I would rather direct your attention to the character of Judas, considered, not in his official, but in his private capacity; as a man highly favoured, by being called to the knowledge of truth, and to intimate companionship with CHRIST, yet despising and abusing, to the worst extremity, the advantages which he thus enjoyed. The words of our text set before us, in a condensed form, his peculiar privilege-his unparalleled sin. "Judas also, which betrayed HIM, knew the place." What place? The garden of Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, a little way without the walls of Jerusalem. And how came Judas to know it? Because "JESUS oft-times resorted thither with His Disciples." Judas had often been with his Master in that retirement, probably at the close of wearisome days, after our LORD had been teaching in the Temple, disputing with Scribes and Pharisees, wearied with their unbelief and hardness of heart, harassed by their threatenings, outraged by their open violence. violence. St. Luke indeed tells us of our LORD, while HE was abiding at Jerusalem, that "in the day-time He was teaching in the Temple, and at night He went out and abode in the Mount that is called the Mount of Olives." This garden was, then, in all probability, the scene of our SAVIOUR's sacred repose. His