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SERMON XI.*

ST. JOHN, xvii. 21.

"THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE; AS THOU, FATHER, ART IN ME, AND I IN THEE, THAT THEY ALSO MAY BE ONE IN US."

THIS chapter exhibits as sublime a spectacle as imagination can conceive. It presents God the Son, as mediator, in the attitude of prayer to God the Father. It contains his prevailing intercession for all the heirs of glory, from that time forth to the consummation of the world.

Our Lord had now concluded his last Paschal Supper. The traitor had just gone out from him; the plot was thickening; the storm was gathering; it was the hour of darkness; and all the infernal powers were assembling, for the decisive combat with the champion of the human race.

To that mortal nature which the Son of God had, with all its innocent infirmities, assumed, such a conflict was, doubtless, most tremendous.

* Preached in the Chapel of the Magdalen Asylum, Leeson-street, Dublin, on Sunday, February 20, 1825, in aid of the Funds of that Institution. Originally published at the desire of the Guardians and Governesses.

But he prepares himself for it, with all the calmness of true magnanimity. "Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come!" The hour in which I am to offer up myself, as the great propitiatory sacrifice, upon the cross; and to bring deliverance to this lower world. "And now, O Father, glorify thy Son." Send him help from on high to strengthen him. Let thy angels encamp around him. Bear witness to him by signs from heaven. Raise him from the power of the grave. Let him be manifested as the true Messiah, the Saviour of the world.

At this trying moment, our Lord's chosen Apostles stood before him. Sorrow had filled their heart: they were about to lose their kind and watchful shepherd, and to go forth as lambs in the midst of wolves, as strangers in a strange land. And now, says he, "I am no more in the world, but these are in the world." These, my disciples and my friends, are still combating with its trials, and tossed upon its waves. "Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those

whom thou hast given me." "Neither pray I

for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one! as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us."

The union here spoken of, cannot be that of mere outward and visible profession. The words of my text give a far different notion of it. They limit it expressly, to what is intimate, spiritual, and holy. They liken it, in some remote sense, to the unity of the blessed Trinity; “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee." They describe the members of it as partakers of the divine nature, as dwelling in God, and God in them; "That they also may be one in us.”

All who come within the intention of my text, are united in faith, in principle, and in affection. They have believed, and known surely, that the Lord Jesus Christ "came out from God;" that he dwelt from all eternity in the bosom of the Father, and descended from the glories of heaven, that he might seek and save the lost; that he might open a new and living way into the holiest, by his blood, and unfold the gates of heaven to all believers.

Nor is this persuasion, in their case, a mere conviction of the understanding or profession of the lips. It is a deep impression upon their consciences and their hearts. They speak that they do know, and testify that they have seen. What others can treat of, they have felt, and are. They have gone through the process, which others can describe. So that the true believer stands to the

mere theorist in religion, precisely in the same relation, as the flowers and fruits of vegetable nature, to the classifying botanist; or as the luminaries that walk in brightness through the heavens, to him who views them through his telescope, who scans their distances, and calculates their motions. Religion is experience, and not speculation: and, therefore, the true knowledge of Christ Jesus, is the personal, and selfappropriating conviction, that he is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."

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Some, in arriving at this saving knowledge, pass through the deepest shades of an affrighted, conscience. The terrors of God set themselves in array against them. Before this, the sinner had, like the world around him, slept on, and taken his rest. But he now starts from his dreams; and, like some criminal upon the morning of his execution, wakes only to the conviction of the sentence that is past, and of the gulph that lies before him. The sorrows of death encompass him; the pains of hell get hold upon him. In short, no language can describe the horrors of that man who feels himself under the wrath of God; and before whose view eternity rises without hope. But these dark clouds are sometimes big with mercy. Amidst these terrors, a voice is

heard to say, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." The sinner is given to see, by faith, that sacrifice on whom his iniquities are laid. He learns and understands, that the pardon of all his sins is in entire accordance with the unbending justice, and unchangeable righteousness of God. The doors of his prison-house are now open, and he can come forth. He can look abroad, and see all Nature smile around him. He can lift up his eyes to the pure heavens, and cry, "Abba, Father."

Others are led to seek salvation, by a sense, not so much of the danger, as of the misery of sin. Persons in their natural state, are ignorant of themselves. Many a man, who prides himself on his knowledge of the world, is at home every where, but in his own breast; and, wonderful to say, is a stranger to his own motives. His constant habit of appearing to others different from what he is, reacts and recoils upon himself; and thus he takes his estimate of himself, from the character he has established in the world. From my own experience, as a clergyman, I can testify to the truth of this. I find such self-deception one of the greatest obstacles to my ministry. I find men, often, not so much unwilling, as unable to take advice. And this, because the motives which I can clearly perceive to actuate them are