manity: when a man has given away a small portion of his superfluity to relieve the poor; when he has bestowed a morsel of bread to feed that starving wretch; when he has covered those shivering limbs from the inclemeney of the air, he considers himself as having satisfied the demands of charity: he founds, shall I venture to say it, he founds on this symptom of love a title to warrant his indifference, his vengeance, his hatred: he backbites without control, he calumniates without hesitation, he plunges the dagger without remorse: he pines at the prosperity of another, and his neighbour's glory clothes him with shame. 2. But if the disciples of Jesus Christ are engaged as Christians to love one another, they more especially are so as ministers of the gospel. Where are we to look for charity, if not in the heart of those who are the heralds of charity? What monster so detestable as a minister destitute of charity! The more, that charity is inculcated by the religion which he professes to teach, the more it must expose him as a most unnatural being, if he is capable of resisting the power of motives so tender. The more venerable that his ministry is, the more liable must it be to suspicion and contempt, when exercised by a man who is himself a stranger to charity. He will warp the truths of religion according to seasons and circumstances; he will accommodate his preaching to his interest; he will carry his passions with him into the pulpit; he will conceal the heart of a wolf under the clothing of a sheep, and will avail himself of the law of charity itself, to diffuse through the whole church the pestilential air of that hatred, anımosity, and envy, which torment and prey upon his own mind. It was, in a peculiar manner, the desire of Jesus Christ, that charity should be the reigning principle in the college of the apostles, that united together in bands of the tenderest affection, they might lend each other effectual support in the great work of publishing the gospel. Never does the devil labour with more success against a church, than when he acquires the power of disuniting the ministers who have the oversight of it. Call to the pastoral charge of a flock persons of the greatest celebrity, preachers the most eloquent, geniuses the most transcendant, unless they are closely united in the bands of charity, small will be their progress; they will separate the hearts which they were bound to unite; they will foster the spirit of party; they will encourage the fomenters of discord; they will instruct one to say, 'I am of Paul;' and another, I am of Cephas;' and another I am of Apollos,' I Cor. iii. 4. They will be in constant mutual opposition. Apollos will do his utmost to pull down what Cephas has built up: Cephas will attempt to rear what Paul had demolished. Discover the art, on the contrary, of uniting the hearts of those who have the care of a flock, and you ensure their success: they will strengthen each other's hands; they will attack the common enemy with concentrated force; they will concur in pursuing the same object. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to an other. O charity! the livery of the disciples of Jesus Christ, must it needs be that thou shouldst be as rare as thou art indispensa ble! Banished from the rest of the universe, flee for refuge to the church. Exert thy sovereign power at least in the sanctuary. Bind together in bands of indissoluble affection the shepherds of this flock. Let all animosity, let discord, let envy, be for ever ba nished from the midst of us, my beloved companions in the work of the ministry,' Eph. iv. 12. SERMON LXXI. CHRIST'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO HIS DISCIPLES. PART II. JOHN xiv. 1. mentioned of the tenderness of the disciple whom Jesus loved, nothing of the vehemence of St. Peter, always ready to kindle into a flame when the glory and the life of his master were concerned, the very nature of the thing would be sufficient to give us the assurance of it. Who could have known Jesus Christ without loving him? Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in me. IV. THE fourth and last great end which, ular traits of their affection; had nothing been our blessed Lord had in view, in addressing this farewell discourse to his disciples, was to furnish them with supplies of consolation under the sorrow which his absence was going to excite in them. This sorrow is one of those dispositions of the soul which no powers of language are capable of expressing. The apostles tenderly loved their master. Though the history of their life had not conveyed to Is it possible to conceive the idea of a charus this idea of them; though the gospel had acter more amiable? Have you found in the pot traced, for our information, certain partic-history of those excellent ones, who were the delight of mankind; or even in the productions of those who have communicated to us imaginary ideas of excellency and perfection, have you found in these higher instances of delicacy, of magnanimity, of cordial affection? If it be impossible for you to apply your thoughts to this great object without being transported, what must have been the feelings of the disciples? Continual hearers of the gracious words which fell from the lips of the blessed Jesus, the constant witnesses of his virtues, the spectators of his wonderful works, admitted to the most intimate familiarity with him, and honoured with the most unbounded confidence, what must have been the love to him which inflamed their hearts? Now this is the gracious Master, this the delicious intercourse, this the tender-hearted friend whom they are going to lose. What charm can the world possess after we have had the infelicity of surviving certain persons who were dear to us? No, neither the mourning. of Joseph, when he accompanied with tears to the threshing floor of Atad' the coffin of Jacob his father, Gen. i. 10; no, nor the loud lamentation of David, when he exclaimed, in an agony of wo, 'O my son Absalom; my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee: O Absalom, my son, my. son!' 2 Sam. xviii. 33; no, nor the anguish of Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted because they are not,' Matt. ii. 18. No, nothing is capable of conveying an idea of the condition to which the disciples were going to be reduced on beholding their Master expire. One must have survived Jesus Christ in order to be sensible what it is to survive Jesus Christ. This fatal stroke was to become to them an inexhaustible fountain of tears. This death appeared to them the utter annihilation of all things: it seemed as if the whole universe were dying together with him. Now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? but because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your hearts,' chap. xvi. 5, 6. A little while and ye shall not see me,' ver. 16. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful,' ver. 20. There can be no room to doubt that Jesus Christ, who himself loves with so much delicacy of affection, and who was animated with such a predilection in behalf of his disciples, tenderly participated in their sorrow. As the loss, which they were about to sustain, was the deepest wound in their soul, he pours into it the most powerful balm of divine consolation. And here, my dearly beloved brethren, here it is that I stand in need of, not all the attention of your intellectual powers, but of all the sensibility of which your heart is susceptible, that while you partake in the sorrow of the apostles, you may likewise partake with them in the consolation which their Lord and ours was pleased to administer. I shall sometimes turn aside from those holy men, my dear hearers, to address myself to you, and to supply you with abundant consolation, under the most oppressive ills which you may be called to endure on the earth; I mean under the loss of those who were most dear to you in life. I could wish to convince you, that the Christian religion is profitable for all things: that it will serve us as a bulwark and a refuge in our greatest sorrows, if we have but the wisdom to resort to it. Only take care to apply, every one to his own particular situation, the truth which I am going to propose to you. Derive your consolations from the same sources which Jesus Christ opened to his disciples, and to a participation of which we now, after his example, cordially invite you: prayer, the mission of the Comforter, the place to which your Redeemer is gone, the foretastes of the glory which he is there preparing for you, his spiritual presence in the midst of you, and the certainty and nearness of his return. 1. In all your distresses have recourse to prayer. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full,' chap. xvi. 23, 24. This ought to be adopted as a new form of prayer in the Christian world. Scarcely do we find any trace of it in the devotions of the faithful of ancient times. They indeed sometimes introduce the names of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; but nowhere, except in the prophecy of Daniel, do we find a prayer put up in the name of the Messiah. This at least is the sense which may be assigned to those words of that prophet: Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplication, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary, that is desolate, for the Lord's sake,' Dan. ix. 17. 6 But this unexampled form, or of which there is at most so few examples in the ancient church, was to be henceforward adopted by all Christians: it is the first source of consolation which Christ opened to his disciples, and it is likewise the first which we, after him, would propose to you. Perhaps there may be many among us to whom Jesus might still say, as formerly to his disciples, hitherto have yo asked nothing in my name.' To pray, and to pray in the name of Christ, is the Christian's grand resource. Resort to it in all your tribulations. Have you reason to apprehend that some stroke from the hand of God is going to fall heavy upon you? Do you believe yourself on the eve of hearing some melancholy tidings? Are you called to undergo some painful and dangerous operation on your person? And, to say every thing in one word, are you threatened with the loss of the most valuable, the most generous, the most tender friend that Heaven could bestow? Have recourse to prayer: God still subsists when all things else have become dead to thee. God continues to hear thee, when death has reduced to a state of insensibility all that was dear to thee. Retire to thy closet; prostrate thyself at the footstool of the throne of the Father of mercies. Pour out your heart into his bosom: say to him, O Lord, my strength, teach my hands to war, and my fingers to fight,' Ps. cxliv. 1. Lord, take pity on thy creature; Lord, proportion | postor, seeing God had thus exalted him to the my trials to the strength thou shalt be pleased highest pinnacle of glory. to administer to sustain them; 'O my God, Once more, he shall reprove them of judg. hear the prayer of thy servant; cause thy face ment, because the prince of this world is judg to shine upon me, for the Lord's sake,' Dan. ed,' ver. 11; in other words, that the triumphs ix. 17. This exercise, my friend, will render which the Christian religion was about to obthee invulnerable: this exercise will commu-tain, through the miraculous endowments of nicate strength on which thou mayest, with confidence, rely, far beyond what thou durst have expected: it will place thee under the shadow of the Almighty, and will establish thee 'as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever,' Ps. cxxv. 1. its ministers, were to be an awful forerunner of the judgments which should overtake those who persisted in their unbelief. All this is peculiar to the apostles; all this relates to the circumstances of the primitive church. But this promise, my beloved brethren, has a reference to us also; and let it be our sup port in the midst of tribulation. Jesus Christ has promised to us also, the Comforter. His Spirit is within us: Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world,' 1 John iv. 4. Let us yield ourselves to the guidance of this Spirit: he will not grant us to exercise authority over insensible beings, to control the powers of nature, and to rule the elements; but he will exalt us to a glorious superiority over flesh and blood; he will support us under every pressure of calamity, and make us more than conquerors' over every foe. 2. In all your distresses call to remembrance the promise of the Comforter, which Jesus Christ gave to his disciples: 'I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter; that he may abide with you for ever,' chap. xiv. 16. This promise contained something peculiar, relatively to the apostles, and to the then state of the infant church. It denoted the economy of miracles, which was not to commence till Jesus Christ had reascended into heaven; and this is precisely the meaning of these words: 'If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you,' chap. xvi. 7; it is likewise the meaning to be assigned to that 3. In all your distresses, call to remembrance passage, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that the place to which Jesus Christ is gone. If believeth on me, the works that I do shall heye love me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father,' chap. xiv. By the works which the apostles were to do, we are to understand miracles. Those works were to be greater than the works of Jesus Christ, with respect to their duration, and with respect to the number of witnesses in whose presence they were to be performed. This is, farther, the idea which we are to affix to those other words of our Saviour: 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,' chap. xvi. 12, 13. This refers to those extraordinary gifts which the Holy Spirit was to pour down upon the apostles, the aid of inspiration, and the grace of infallibility, which were going to be communicated to them. It is likewise of these peculiar circumstances, that we must explain the effects which Jesus Christ ascribes to that Spirit whom he promises to send to his disciples: And when he the Comforter is come, he will reprove the world of sin, because they believe not on me,' chap. xvi. 8, 9; or, as it might have been translated, he shall convince them of their criminality in refusing to believe on me:' in other words, that the mission of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus Christ had promised to his disciples, should be a new proof of the divinity of his own mission, and should render those persons inexcusable who presumed to call it in question. go unto the Father,' chap. xiv. 28. It is the desire of Jesus Christ, that his disciples, on being separated from him, should not confine their thoughts to their own interest merely. It is his wish, that the glory to which he was about to be exalted, should sweeten to them the bitterness of separation. Jesus Christ teaches us how to love. We frequently ima gine, that we are inspired with love to a person excruciated with agonizing pains, whereas it is only self-love in disguise. When death has removed a person, who was justly dear to us, we dwell only on the loss which we have sustained, but make no account of what our friend has gained. Whence proceed those tears which stream from your eyes? Whence these sighs and sobbings? What dreadful event can thus have rent your heart, and excited those piercing shrieks which rend the air? You have just beheld one who was the object of your tenderest affection depart out of this valley of tears; he has breathed out his soul into the hands of his Creator, and the blessed angels, who rejoice over a sinner that repenteth, Luke xv. 10, experience new transports of delight, when a believer who had been combating under the banner of the cross of Christ, comes to be admitted to a participation in his triumph: and can you consider this as a ground of affliction to you? Do you call this love? No, you know not how to love. Ah! if the departed could see what is passing below the sun! if the supreme order of the Almighty would permit those who are in beaven to maintain a communication with their surviving friends on the earth! the person, whose loss you so bitterly deplore, would reproach you with that excess of grief. would address you in the words of the Saviour to his disciples: If you loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, He for the Father is greater than I.' Would you tear me from the bosom of that Father? Would you recall me to this scene of tribulation and distress? Do you wish to see me again struggling with the calamities which are inseparable from the life of wretched mortals? tracting thyself with its projects: eagerly hunting after its pleasures: thou art suffering thyself to be fascinated with its charms: thou art devoting no portion of thy immortal capacity to the perception of that delight which the regenerated man enjoys, when he can say But there is something farther which chal- to himself, I know the Father:' he is such as lenges our attention. All that our blessed I know the Son to be, full of love, full of chaLord has done for himself, has an intimate re- rity, full of goodness and longsuffering. Jelation to us. All the glory which rests on our sus Christ has left me his peace;' I bear illustrious head extends its influence to each of within me the testimony of a conscience its members. All the parts of the economy void of offence:' I give myself up to the joy of into which he has entered for our salvation, reflecting that my salvation is secure.' Thou have a direct reference to our salvation. He renderest thyself insensible to these sublime was delivered for our offences, and was raised attractions: and then, when the world beagain for our justification: He is even at the trays thee; when thy gods are taken away right hand of God, where he also maketh in- from thee,' Judg. xviii. 24; when thou art tercession for us,' Rom. iv. 25; viii. 34. In bent on every side with a great sight of afall your distresses, reflect not only on the place fliction,' thou findest thyself destitute of eveto which Christ is gone, but likewise on what ry resource. Reform thy depraved taste. he has thither gone to do, on your behalf. In Call down paradise to reside within thee; anmy Father's house are many mansions: if it ticipate that glorious period, when thou shalt were not so I would have told you. I go to see God as he is;' 1 John iii. 2. Call to prepare a place for you,' chap. xiy. 2. God remembrance these words of thy Saviour! no longer dwells in light which no man can From henceforth ye know the father, and approach unto,' 1 Tim. yi. 16. Direct your have seen him: he that hath seen me hath eyes to heaven. There are no longer cheru- seen the father: peace I leave with you; my bim, and a flaming sword,' Gen. iii. 24, to ob- peace I give unto you; not as the world givstruct your passage. 'Whither I go ye know, eth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be and the way ye know:'... 'Jesus Christ is troubled, neither let it be afraid.' the way, and the truth, and the life,' chap. xiv. 4. 6. Keep but yourselves closely united to the Redeemer in the hour of tribulation; place continually before your eyes this model of patient suffering, and he will himself conduct you to those mansions of glory. 5. There is a fifth source of consolation which Jesus Christ disclosed to his disciples, and which we, after him, disclose unto you: it is the assurance of his spiritual presence, and of the presence of his heavenly Father in the midst of you. I will not leave you comfortless,' or, as it might have been rendered, I will not leave you orphans. . . . . . 'If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him :' chap. xiv. 18. 23. In all your distresses call to remembrance that God is with you of a truth. With what fortitude did this reflection inspire those holy men whom the Scriptures have proposed to us as models! 6 4. But an impenetrable veil conceals from our eyes those mansions in our Father's house: but there is an infinite distance between this little corner of the world, into which God has been pleased to send us, as into a state of exile, and the place which Christ is preparing for us. God is still, with respect to us, a strong God, who hideth himself,' Isa. xlv. 15. Well, you must learn to look through that veil. You must learn to fill up the mighty void which is between heaven and earth, and to see this God With what fortitude was Moses animated who still conceals himself from our eyes. 'Faith by it! Wherein shall it be known' here,' is the substance of things hoped for, and the said of old time that eminent servant of God, evidence of things not seen,' Heb. xi. 1. The 'that I and thy people have found grace in thy Christian is instructed to unite the present to sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? faturity. The Christian is instructed to anti- So shall we be separated, I and thy people, cipate periods the most remote. The Chris- from all the people that are upon the face of tian is a man already quickened together the earth:' Ex. xxiii. 16. With what fortiwith Christ; already glorified; already seat- tude did it animate the prophet, when he ed in heavenly places with Christ Jesus,' Eph. said, When my father and my mother forii. 5. How so? By the foretastes of those sake me, then the Lord will take me up!' Ps. blessings which are the object of his expecta- xxxvii. 10. With what fortitude did it intions. This is the fourth source of the conso-spire Jesus Christ himself, under that univerlation which our Lord opens to his disciples, sal desertion which he experienced at the and which we, after him, open to you. From hour of death? Behold, the hour cometh, henceforth ye know the Father, and have seen yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered him: he that hath seen me hath seen the Fa- every man to his own, and shall leave me ther: peace I leave with you; my peace I give alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Faunto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto ther is with me,' chap. xvi. 32. you,' chap. xiv. 7. 9. 27. My soul, if these are mere empty ideas with respect to thee, to thyself alone is the evil to be imputed. Thou hast corrupted thy taste: thou art plunging thyself in the world; dis · . Let us never lose sight of God in the day of adversity. Let us ever dwell with complacency and joy on that expression of the Re deemer, I will not leave you orphans.' Let us apply to ourselves what God said of his an tient people: Surely they are my people, Isa. liv. 2, a fearful night must involve thee in children that will not lie: so he was their Sa- thick darkness. Till that blessed period, viour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them,' Isa. lxiii. 8, 9; and let us exult in the fulness of a Christian confidence: 'I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved,' Ps. xvi. 8. 6. Finally, the last source of consolation which Jesus Christ disclosed to his disciples, and which we, after his example, would disclose unto you, is the nearness of his return: Ye now have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you,' chap. xvi. 22. In all your distresses call to remembrance, that if Jesus Christ be not now sensibly present in the midst of you, the time is at hand when he I will certainly be so. Call to remembrance what the angels said unto the apostles, when lost in astonishment at beholding a cloud receive him out of their sight; Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven;' Acts i. 11. Call to remembrance that Jesus Christ will quickly reappear; Yet a little while, and he who shall come, will come, and will not tarry,' Heb. x. 37. No, this economy is not made for eternity. The world is waxing old; our years arc has tening to fill up their measure: we are advancing with rapid strides towards the tomb. The decorations of the universe are speedily to be changed with respect to us. The universe itself is about to undergo a real change. The state of the world, that now is, presents a state of violence, which cannot be of long duration. The last trumpet must ere long utter its voice: yet a little while, and those thunders must be heard which shall shake the pillars of the earth: arise ye dead,' and leave your tombs. Yet a little while, and we shall see again those whose death hath eost us so many tears, and we shall be reunited to them. Yet a little while, and the sign of the Son of man shall appear in heaven,' Matt. xxiv. 30. Yet a little while, and this Son of man shall himself appear in his own, and in his Father's glory, with all his holy angels.' weep; weep, dejected Christian, disciple of the crucified Jesus, weep and lament, and let the world rejoice because ye are sorrowful,' but ere long, 'your sorrow shall be turned into joy. . . . . I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.' What powers of thought are equal to a happy termination of this subject of medita tion! What pencil is capable of depicting the joys of the sons of God, in that eventful day, in which they shall behold again, in which they shall embrace, a father, a friend, a child, from whom death had once separated them! Let imagination soar to the highest object which the mind is capable of contemplating. Let nothing divide the love which we entirely owe to our adorable Redeemer, or damp the delight which we derive from the exalted hope of seeing him return to us in the clouds of heaven, with his angels that excel in strength.' Who is capable of representing the tran sport which the return of this Jesus shall kin. dle in the bosoms of the faithful! There he is, that Jesus in whom we believed: this is he, that Jesus whom we loved, and to whom we were 'faithful eyen unto death.' Come, Redeemer of our souls, come and wipe away the tears which thy departure drew from our eyes: come, and compensate to us the heavi ness of so long a separation from thee; come and receive the effusions of our gratitude and joy suffer us, suffer us to yield to the trans. ports of that love which absorbs every faculty, which constrains us, which exalts us to seraphic ardour. This is the last source of consolation which Jesus Christ disclosed to his disciples; this is that consolation which flows out in copious streams towards you, Christian, confounded, overwhelmed with wave upon wave, in all thy fears, thy sorrows, thy sufferings. O religion of the blessed Jesus, how powerful are thy attractions! What charms dost thou possess for a wretched creature who feels the whole earth a cheerless void: let this religion, my beloved brethren, be the object of our most ardent affection. Let us go on unto perfection let us transmit it to our children, as the goodliest portion, as the fairest inheritance: let us live with Jesus Christ: let us die with May God grant us this su Ah! my brethren, till that blessed period arrive, we dare not promise you the possession of the fulness of joy. Till that blessed Jesus Christ. period, church of Jesus Christ, 'thou afflict-preme felicity. To him be honour and glory ed, tossed with tempest, and not comforted,' for ever and ever. Amen. |