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considers himself as having satisfied the demands of charity he founds, shall I venture to say it? he founds on this system 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 neighbor'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 wrap 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, animosity, 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 labor 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 transcendent, 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, 1 Cor. iii. 4. They will be in constant mutual opposition. Apollos will do his utmost to pull down what Cephas has built: 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 you love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. O Charity! the livery of the disciples of Jesus Christ, must it needs be that thou shouldst be as rare as thou art indispensable! 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 banished from the midst of us, my beloved companions in the work of the ministry, Eph. iv. 12.

Amen.

CHRIST'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO HIS

DISCIPLES.

PART II

IV.

JOHN xiv. 1.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe

THE

also in me.

fourth and last great end which our blessed Lord had in view, in addressing this farewel 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 us this idea of them; though the gospel had not traced, for our information, certain particular traits of their affection; had nothing been 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?

Is it possible to conceive the idea of a character more amiable? Have you found in the history of

those excellent ones, who were the delight of mankind; or even in the productions of those who have communicated to us imaginary jdeas 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, he constant witnesses of his virtues, the spectators of his wonderful works, admitted to the most intimate familiarity with him, and honored with the most unbounded confidence, What must have been the love to him that 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 treshingfloor of Atad, the coffin of Jacob, his father, Gen. 1. 10. no, nor the loud lamentation of David, when he exclaimed in an agony of woe: 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 an

nihilation of all things: it seems 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, ch. 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 truths which I am going to propose to you.

Derive your consolation from the same

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