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SERMON II.

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 discourses, 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

*Those who wish to derive benefit from the following discourse, must previously peruse, with attention, the xiv. xv. and xvi. chapters of John's gospel.

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, ingeniously to acknowledge, that a particular circumstance determined my choice on this occasion. A few days only have elapsed since I was called to be witness of the dying agonies of a valuable minister, * whom Providence has just removed from the superintendance of a neighboring church. God was pleased to visit him for some months past, if we may be presumed 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 particula 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

:

* Mr. Begnon, pastor of the church at Leyden.

all, what an inexhaustible source of consolation în the extremity of distress! His words filled me with astonishment: my thoughts were immediately turned toward 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 his 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:

I. Against the offence of his cross.

II. Against the persecution which his doctrine was going to excite.

III. Against forgetfulness of his precepts.

IV. Against sorrow for his absence.

I. First, Jesus Christ means to fortify his disciples against the offence of the cross. A man must be a mere novice in the history of the gospel, if he knows not how extremely confused their ideas were with respect to the mystery of redemption. Those who ascribe to them superior illumination,

are mistaken both in the principle and in the consequences which they deduce 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.

F

But granting we were to admit this principle, we must of necessity resist the consequence 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 mechanics, or from among the fishermen who inhabit our seaports?

Let us call to remembrance the indiscreet zeal of Peter, when Jesus Christ declared to him, how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things and be killed, Matt. xvi. 21. be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee, ver. 22. Recollect the reply which Jesus made to that disciple: get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence to me, ver. 23. Recollect farther, the question which the Apostles put to their Master some time before his ascension: Lord, wilt thou at this 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 twhich should have redeemed Israel: and beside 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!

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