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confidence which the constant communication with him had imparted. We know how indistinct were the views of his apostles at that time, how completely they identified every thing with his bodily presence, and how they mourned and were sad when their fondest hopes were disappointed in his death. They stood therefore in especial need of comfort at that moment when disappointed hope might, without grace, have ended in despair. Added to which, the season of his removal was to be the season of the commencement of their greater trials. During our Lord's lifetime it would seem that the disciples had undergone little or no persecution; but, according to the prophecies, these began soon after. "Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." "3 Satan made his first great attack on HIM, and it was not until after He was removed out of his reach that the fury of men and devils was directed against his followers, and that they began to experience the fulfilment of our Lord's warning to them, that the disciple should not be above his master, or the servant above his Lord." They were, therefore, not only to lose his presence, but to lose it at the very moment when they most needed it; and to this our Lord alludes in the words, "I AM NO MORE IN THE WORLD, BUT THESE ARE IN THE WORLD;" and a hard thing it will be for such poor weak creatures, without my counsel and protection, which has hitherto been their support, to escape the pollutions of it; or, if they are preserved from these, to be de

3 Zech. xiii. 7.

John xv. 20.

livered from its troubles and persecutions. But he not only grounds his petition on the fact of their greater exposure, but likewise on the fulfilment of his appointed work, so far as this world was to be the scene of it. He adds, "I COME TO THEE." He was not to go to his Father, he was not to resume his glory, the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, until he had thoroughly effected that work which he had undertaken voluntarily, but which, nevertheless, in the economy of redemption, the Father gave him to do. He alludes to this in the 4th verse of this chapter. "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." He speaks of it as then finished because he was just on the eve of completing it in his death, in which all the work of atonement was perfected, and it only remained for him to appear before his Father, to carry into the holy of holies, the heaven of heavens, the atoning blood of the victim, and there to plead with it before God. In this last prayer he antici, pates that act, and founds his application on behalf of his people, on the joint consideration of THEIR HELPLESSNESS, and of HIS OWN SERVICES.

But there is ANOTHER PLEA on which he urges their case before his Father, and that is, THE FATHER'S OWN INTEREST IN THEM. They were his Father's own, they were those whom HE HAD GIVEN TO HIM. He appeals to his Father's own love for them, as he said to themselves on another occasion, "The Father himself loveth you.' 995 He can have no doubt concerning God's care of them when he remembers what

5 John xvi. 27.

6

They were the

And wherefore

God had already done for them. children whom God had given him. had God given them to him? To redeem them by his most precious blood, to deliver them from the curse of the law, to rescue them from the dominion of Satan, and to ransom them from the power of the grave. And can there be any doubt that God will provide for his own whom he hath loved with an everlasting love? That be far from thee, O holy Father! O what a ground of consolation and comfort to the people of God; that as for them the Father hath not spared his own Son, and will with his Son give all other things; so he hath given them to his Son! We cannot too much declare all the offices of the persons of the glorious Trinity, and I feel that the love of the Father, as the great spring and source of salvation, is not sufficiently regarded. It is often swallowed up too much in the redeeming work of the Son, and in the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, who applies the Son's redemption, but according to the Father's eternal purposes. Some one, however, will perhaps say, how am I to take comfort from this? how am I to know that I am among those that are here described as given to the Son, and for whom the Saviour pleads? You can only know it by its effects. "All that the Father giveth me," saith the Saviour, "shall come unto me." 7 It is in going to Jesus, then, that you have the evidence, that you may apply "this strong consolation" to yourselves. If you have been led

6 Rom. viii. 32.

7 John vi. 37.

8 Heb. vi. 18,

Y

by the Word and by the Spirit to see your own exceeding vileness, if the plague of your own heart and nature have been made manifest to you, if you can see not only your corruption but your guilt, and that Jesus is the appointed remedy for both; for your guilt by the washing of his blood, and for your corruption by the regeneration and renewing of his Spirit; if, seeing and believing this, you throw yourselves upon that love and grace, renouncing every help of your own, and committing your soul to him, you have the proof that you are given to him of God, that you are in the covenant of his love, and that poor and miserable, and blind and naked as you are in yourself, utterly and entirely helpless, unable to do any thing as of yourself, that your sufficiency shall be of God, that his strength shall be made perfect in your weakness, and that whatever may assail you, either from within or without, the holy Father will 66

KEEP YOU THROUGH HIS OWN NAME.'

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And here I would close the subject with a brief reference to two circumstances which this portion of scripture sets before us. THE FIRST IS THE EXCEEDING GREATNESS OF THE SAVIOUR'S LOVE.

Events were then before him, which it might have been expected would have absorbed his every thought. Let us not imagine that there was any thing in the union of the divine nature with the human that lifted him above the perception of these sufferings, either in the act or in the anticipation. No; he met them and encountered them as man, his soul was "sorrowful even unto death;" and how deeply and

how heavily they pressed upon him is evident from his prayer: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done." Yes, he was perfect man, as well as perfect God: perfect man for every thing that obedience could effect or suffering endure. And yet, on the eve of his suffering, what were the subjects of which his mind and heart were full? His people's welfare, evinced in that blessed discourse which he addressed to his disciples, and which is recorded in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of St. John, and in the prayer to his Father and their Father, his God and their God, by which that discourse is immediately followed. He would sow the word of eternal truth in their hearts, and cover that word with prayer. O! that God would put it into the hearts of all his ministers to follow the blessed Saviour's steps! That they had the same love for souls! And that if it had pleased God to give any to them that they could pour out their souls before their Father in prayer for them, Keep, holy Father, those whom thou hast given us! And O that we could all approach him for ourselves with the same prayer, and in the same earnestness, knowing that unless the Lord keep us all our watching is in vain.

WE LIKEWISE SEE IN THIS A PATTERN AND EXAMPLE

OF THAT INTERCESSION WHICH HE CARRIES ON STILL.

Why did he pray aloud? why was this prayer heard by his disciples, but for their encouragement? and why was it committed to writing by the Holy Spirit, but

9 Matt. xxvi. 39.

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