ME, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain3:" and again, "Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed ME, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel"."

Let us now proceed to consider some of the instances of our. gracious LORD's forethought and kindness towards His chosen disciples during these last days of His humiliation and sufferings. But though I shall confine my remarks to incidents which occurred during these days, yet it ought to be borne in mind how long before our Blessed LORD had been training them on, that they might be able to endure this trial. He had been gradually opening their understandings, by explaining to them His deep sayings and parables, and by very plain allusions to all that was now about to come to pass. Indeed, so plain and clear are these allusions, that we can scarce comprehend, how it should be that the Apostles did not fully embrace our LORD's meaning; and should hardly think of calling by the name of allusions, what to us is exact and distinct announcement, were it not that we see the Apostles themselves received these sayings in some other sense, nor saw them in their true meaning, till after their accomplishment by His death and rising again from the dead.

It would seem that this subject of His approaching suffering and death was made a very frequent topic of discourse by our LORD to His Disciples during the last year of His ministry. Thus some months-more than half a year-before the Passover, at which He was betrayed and crucified, we read in St. Matthew, "From that time forth began JESUS" (as if from that time HE began to make this a frequent subject, of more or less clear and distinct instruction and allusion,) "to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day3.” And on two other occasions HE repeated to them, once more distinctly and circumstantially than in the passage just read, why He set His Face so stedfastly to be at Jerusalem against the approaching Passover.

3 John xv. 16.

4 Matt. xix. 28.

5 Matt, xvi. 21.

And although the Apostles did not rightly apprehend the meaning of these things at the time He spoke them, they were not without purpose for their confirmation, support, and comfort afterwards. "Now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe." And this is often the case with warnings and lessons of Divine instruction, that they seem to fail of their purpose when given, and are neither marked or understood. But afterwards they are brought into light. They are in some way accomplished; and, on a sudden, our MASTER'S gracious forethought bursts upon us. The true meaning of words, and events, and accidents, as we might call them, at the time they happened, comes out; and we see and trace God's Providential hand-that HE foresaw and foreknew, and was directing things to our hand, and providing for our comfort and our good in matters which we, at the time, gave no heed to, or could not understand, or were startled and perplexed about. We see a meaning in the ways of GoD, which we were before wholly in the dark about, or regardless of. When we look back, we trace landmarks and tokens, whereby we discern "it is the LORD's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." His hand was there, and HE was the doer of it. He was, in these ways, schooling and preparing us for what, at that time, we were not fitted to receive according to its true import. How often it is, that our LORD's ways of mercy and of grace towards His followers at first startle and make them sad, or even offend them! Even what they do understand is almost too much for them; and did they understand all, they would be wholly out of heart, or might even go back from following HIM; but afterwards, in the hour of trial, when their hearts are softened and opened towards HIM, in sorrow and heaviness, or in returning joy, then remember they that these things were written of HIM, and that they had done these things unto HIM. And how truly, and in how many ways, are those words accomplished which our LORD addressed to His warm-hearted Apostle, St. Peter, when he could not think it fitting for his MASTER to wash his feet: "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter"." What once we shrank from, were pained and shocked at, and could hardly bear to think of coming to pass, by and by we look 7 John xiii. 7.

6 John xiv. 29.

back upon, when we have come to better knowledge, as sources of chiefest comfort and blessing to us.

And as the time of their trial drew nearer, when "in all His affliction they should be afflicted," and "be scattered as sheep without a shepherd"," we find many other ways in which He was caring for them; not only preparing their minds by telling them more earnestly and more distinctly what was approaching, and what their own special dangers would be, and that at first they would give way; but providing them support, and comfort, and direction for their hour of trial; and in all manifesting the surpassing love with which "He loved them unto the end."

He told them plainly, "the Son of Man goeth, as it is written of HIM," that He should be betrayed and crucified; but HE declared also that He would rise again, and return unto them. HE gave them that solemn assurance, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." HE told them this on the occasion of certain Greeks (Gentiles) being brought unto HIM. And "HE HIMSELF, in His rising on EasterDay, was the offering of the first Sheaf on the morrow after the Sabbath; and the coming in of the Gentiles on the Day of Pentecost was the gathering in of the harvest.' "HE HIMSELF was the grain to be mortified and to be multiplied: to be mortified by the unbelief of the Jews; to be multiplied by the belief of all nations'." HE quickened their faith in His power by the effect of His curse upon the barren fig-tree, and His further promise, that if they had but faith, they should achieve greater works than those. He warned them of the trials they would be subjected to, in His discourse as He sat on the mount over against the Temple, bidding them take heed that they be not deceived. In the parable of the virgins, and more solemnly still in the garden, when for grief they could not keep themselves from sleeping, He told them, that in prayer and watchfulness would be their safeguard. In His description of the judgment of the last day, when the Son of Man shall appear in His glory, and all His angels with HIM, HE encouraged them to zeal and faithful

8 Isaiah lxiii. 9.

1 Matt. xxvi. 24.

9 Matt. xxvi. 31.

2 Williams, Holy Week, p. 64, 5.

ness in His service, in all works of mercy for His Name's sake, by the gracious saying, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto ME 3." And in His last evening with them, as He sat at table with them, He spoke to them those wonderful words of comfort contained in that Divine discourse recorded by St. John, from the 14th to 17th chapters, ending it with His great intercession for them to His heavenly FATHER. HE bade them not let their hearts be troubled, for that, though He was going from them, they need not be at a loss for guidance in His absence; for that, as they had seen and thoroughly known His manner of life among them, so they had but to follow, for that He was "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Nor need they be cast down at the troubles which He had been forewarning them of as their portion in the world, for that He left them a precious boon, not given as the world giveth, that is, not depending on the course of outward things, nor yet such as the world could take from them; for that He had overcome the world, and left them His "peace." And though He went from them, yet He would not be unmindful of them, for that He went to " 'prepare them a place;" and though absent, yet would HE not be far away, for that they had but to ask what they would in His Name, and it should be done unto them." Nor, indeed, would HE really be absent; for that, though unseen, yet in some inward mysterious manner He would come and make His abode with them;" and that from HIM should they derive all their inward life as intimately as the branches which are fed by the sap of the parent stock. Nay, and that it would be better for them that He went, for that HE would send another COMFORTER, even the SPIRIT OF TRUTH, who should guide them into all truth, and bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever He had spoken unto them, and should abide with them for ever." Then did He lift up His eyes to Heaven, and pray to His FATHER for them, and solemnly commend them to His Almighty keeping, that they all might be one, as HE and the FATHER are One-"I in them, and THOυ in ME, that they also may be one in Us ;" and that they might be with HIM, and behold His glory, which He had "before the founda

3 Matt. xxv. 40.

66

tion of the world." And His last word and last act in behalf of them as a body still betokened the inward greatness and power, which He veiled from the knowledge of His enemies, delivering HIMSELF into their hands of His free choice, which, at any moment, had HE so pleased, He could have revoked. For when one drew a sword in His defence, and smote the servant of the high-priest, He said, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My FATHER, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?" and touched his ear and healed it, showing He had power to strike and wound no less than to heal, if it had been His pleasure to exert it. And when He said to the armed multitude who came forth in search of HIM, “I am HE, they went backward and fell to the ground," confessing the mysterious majesty of His presence, and their powerlessness to stand before it; and then providing for the safety of His chosen friends, "Let these go their way."

And now, shall we not learn something from these many and various instances of our LORD's merciful condescension and considerateness towards the weaknesses of His followers? Shall we not see therein a sure token that such still is the Divine Mind towards all in any way resembling His disciples in the right dispositions of their heart, whatever their errors of judgment, through weakness of understanding, or sudden surprise and fear; towards all His servants who are really well-meaning and wellintentioned, though timid and mistaken in their notions, and too much influenced in their judgments of truth by the present course of events, by the visible results of things?

The Apostles understood not their MASTER's sayings, though so plainly spoken, concerning His violent Death; and when they first began to penetrate the meaning of these sayings, they cried, "Be it far from THEE, LORD, this shall not be;"-and when it came to pass, they all forsook HIM and fled, though they had joined with Peter in affirming that they would never so fail HIM. They were "slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets had spoken," who bore witness to His Words, and to the fulfilment of all things that were done to HIM. They had sided, more or less, with the covetous and apostate Judas against that woman, whose praise the everlasting Gospel has carried throughout the whole world,

4 Matt. xxvi, 53; John xviii. 6. 8.