'.'■*; -*■' ■ "' 
 
 
 JLAST DISCOURSES 
 
 0/ OUR LORD 
 
 IVesidiiigs for every 
 
 Day of Lent 
 
 
 
 
 ■n 
 
 " 
 
 Dt. a. G. MORTIMER. 
 
 
 • 
 
{^ 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of Rev. Robert Williams 
 
 Scct,on_._...._8,.rAS8 
 
I \Vi 
 
ll\'„ 
 
TLhc Xast Discourses ot our Xorb* 
 
THE LAST DISCOURSES 
 OF OUR LORD.; 
 
 ARRANGED AS 
 
 READINGS FOR THE FORTY DAYS OF LENT. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 ALFRED G. MORTIMER, D.D., 
 
 RECTOR OF S. MARK'S, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "HELPS TO MEDITATION," "LENTEN PREACHING," 
 "THE CHURCH'S LESSONS FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR," ETC. 
 
 THOMAS WHITTAKER, 
 
 2 AND 3, Bible House. 
 1905. 
 
TO 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 OZI WILLIAM WHITAKER, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 IN MEMORY OF TWELVE YEARS WORK 
 
 IN HIS DIOCESE, 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH AFFECTIONATE RESPECT. 
 
Conttnte. 
 
 £ent. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I.— THE DEPARTURE OF JUDAS i 
 
 S. John xiii. 31, 32. 
 
 2.— THE NEW COMMANDMENT 10 
 
 S. John xiii. 33-35. 
 
 3.— THE QUESTION OF S. PETER 19 
 
 S. John xiii. 36-38. 
 
 4.— THE TRAINING OF S. PETER 27 
 
 S. John xiii. 38. 
 
 5.— THE MANY MANSIONS OF THE FATHER'S 
 
 HOUSE 33 
 
 S. John xiv. 1-3. 
 
 6.— THE QUESTION OF S. THOMAS 41 
 
 S. John xiv. 4-6. 
 
 7.— CHRIST AS THE WAY 50 
 
 S. John xiv, 6. 
 
 8. -CHRIST AS THE TRUTH 56 
 
 S. John xiv. 6. 
 
 g.— CHRIST AS THE LIFE 64 
 
 S. John xiv. 6. 
 
 vii. 
 
&tnt 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 10.— S. PHILIP'S REQUEST 72 
 
 S. John xiv. 7-11. 
 
 II.— CHRIST'S ANSWER TO S. PHILIP ... 80 
 S. John xiv. 10-14. 
 
 12.— THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN PRAYER 87 
 
 S. John xiv. 13, 14. 
 
 13. -LOVE 94 
 
 S. John xiv. 15. 
 
 14.— THE COMFORTER 104 
 
 S. John xiv. 16. 
 
 15.— THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH iii 
 
 S. John xiv. 16, 17. 
 
 16.— CHRIST'S COMING THROUGH THE 
 
 HOLY GHOST 119 
 
 S. John xiv. 18-20. 
 
 17.— THE QUESTION OF S. JUDE 127 
 
 S. John xiv. 22-24. 
 
 18.— CHRIST'S LEGACY TO HIS DISCIPLES 135 
 S. John xiv. 25-27. 
 
 19.— UNSELFISH SORROW 143 
 
 S. John xiv. 28-31. 
 
 20.— CHRIST THE VINE 151 
 
 S. John xv. i. 
 
 21.— THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES ... 160 
 
 S. John xv. 2, 3. 
 
 viii. 
 
Contentg. ^^ 
 Btnt 
 
 PAGE 
 
 22.— THE FRUITS OF UNION WITH CHRIST i68 
 S. John xv. 4, 5. 
 
 23.— THE RESULT OF SEPARATION FROM 
 
 CHRIST 176 
 
 S. John xv. 6-10. 
 
 24.— THE JOY OF UNION WITH CHRIST ... 184 
 
 S. John xv. ii. 
 
 25.— THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST 191 
 
 S. John xv. 12-15. 
 
 26.— THE LAW OF VOCATION 200 
 
 S. John xv. 16. 
 
 27.— THE WORLD'S HATRED 210 
 
 S. John xv. 17-21. 
 
 28.— THE WORLD'S IGNORANCE 218 
 
 S. John xv. 21-25. 
 
 2g.— THE ADVOCATE AS CHRIST'S WITNESS 225 
 
 S. John xv. 26, 27. 
 
 30.— PERSECUTION THE RESULT OF THE 
 
 WORLD'S HATRED 233 
 
 S. John xvi. 1-4. 
 
 31. -THE EXPEDIENCY OF UNPLEASANT 
 
 TRUTHS 239 
 
 S. John xvi. 4-7. 
 
 32.— THE HOLY GHOST AND SIN 246 
 
 S. John xvi. 7, 8. 
 
 ix. 
 
Btnt 
 
 PAGE 
 
 33.— THE HOLY GHOST AND RIGHTEOUS- 
 NESS 253 
 
 S. John xvi. 8, 10. 
 
 34.— THE HOLY GHOST AND JUDGMENT ... 259 
 S. John xvi. 8 and ii. 
 
 35.— THE HOLY GHOST OUR GUIDE 267 
 
 S. John xvi. 12-15. 
 
 36.— NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SIGHT ... 277 
 S. John xvi. 16-19. 
 
 37.— SORROW TURNED INTO JOY 284 
 
 S. John xvi. 20-33. 
 
 38.— THE FATHER AND THE SON 293 
 
 S. John xvii. 1-5. 
 
 39.— THE SON AND THE DISCIPLES 304 
 
 S. John xvii. 6-19. 
 
 40.— THE SON AND THE CHURCH 314 
 
 S. John xvii. 20-26. 
 
 X. 
 
(preface. 
 
 Among the most sublime utterances of our Blessed 
 Lord, would be placed, by the majority of Christians, 
 His last Discourses. These were delivered partly 
 in the Upper Chamber in Jerusalem and partly in 
 some place on the way to Gethsemane. They 
 are recorded by S. John in his Gospel, and are 
 addressed to the eleven faithful apostles, and they 
 constitute at once Christ's farewell and His final 
 revelation to them. 
 
 The pathetic occasion on which they were spoken, 
 and the sublime character of the subjects of which 
 they treat, endow these Discourses with a profound 
 and unique interest for every Christian, and yet 
 they rarely form the subject of addresses, and 
 among our devotional works I know of only one 
 in which they are treated with any fulness, namely, 
 " The Upper Chamber," by the Rev. Father Bensoni 
 
 XI. 
 
'^ (preface. 
 
 S.SJ.E., which forms two volumes of the series 
 entitled " The Final Passover." I read carefully 
 the other volumes of this Series some ten years 
 ago, but omitted these two, intending to take them 
 up on another occasion. I, however, forgot them 
 until my attention was called to them a few weeks 
 ago, after this book was in the printer's hands. 
 I regret, therefore, that I have not had the 
 advantage of consulting them. 
 
 I am acquainted with many Commentaries, and 
 the best known works on the Passion, but the 
 only one which I have used with any frequency 
 in this book is Bishop Westcott's Commentary on 
 S. John ; and my indebtedness to this, as to other 
 works of the same author, is very great indeed. 
 
 These addresses were originally given as Medita- 
 tions in S. Mark's, Philadelphia, last Lent. They 
 were taken down as delivered by a stenographer, 
 from whose notes they are reproduced. 1 have, 
 however, rearranged them in forty portions, so as to 
 furnish devotional readings or subjects for medita- 
 tion for the forty days of Lent. 
 
 I have drawn attention to the most important 
 variations in the text, and to inaccurate and 
 
 Xll. 
 
(Preface> ^ 
 
 inadequate translations. Beyond this, my plan has 
 been simply to take the Words of our Lord 
 paragraph by paragraph, explaining them and 
 applying them, according to my ability, to the 
 practical needs of Christians in our day. 
 
 In putting forth these addresses I have gratefully 
 to acknowledge, as on a former occasion, the 
 encouragement and assistance of Mr. Elbridge T. 
 Gerry, of New York. Together with the two 
 volumes on the Passion, they form a somewhat 
 complete, practical and devotional study of the 
 last hours of our Blessed Lord's life. Mr. Gerry has 
 thought that such a series of works may be helpful 
 to the large class of persons whose occupation 
 prohibits them from attending addresses, except in 
 the evening, on week days in Lent. They may 
 also, perhaps, be useful for daily readings at 
 Lenten Services. 
 
 A. G. M. 
 
 S. Mark's, Philadelphia, 
 All Saints, 1904. 
 
 xiu. 
 
Baet ®t0cour0e0 of ^ut Borb, 
 
 I. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE OF JUDAS. 
 
 S. John xiii. 31, 32. 
 
 "Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of 
 man glorified, and God is glorified in Him, If God be glorified in 
 Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway 
 glorify Him." 
 
 [UR Lord's last Words to the world which 
 He died to save were spoken from the 
 pulpit of the Cross, but His last dis- 
 courses to the disciples whom He had trained to 
 carry on His work seem to have been spoken 
 immediately after the institution of the Holy 
 Eucharist, partly in the upper chamber, partly on 
 the way to Gethsemane, or perhaps on the way to 
 the Temple where His final prayer of self-consecration 
 was uttered. 
 
 I B 
 
^^ @.6^ ^cbncBba^. 
 
 The Words from the Cross consist of seven short 
 sentences embodying great principles. The dis- 
 courses, on the other hand, constitute the longest 
 unbroken utterances of our Blessed Lord. In them 
 He announces to His disciples the sad news of His 
 departure from them, reveals to them the purposes 
 and issues of that departure, and prepares them 
 to expect and to receive that further gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, through Whose power they were to 
 accomplish the work for which their Master had 
 trained them. 
 
 The associations which gatiier around these dis- 
 courses are most solemn, whether we regard them 
 from the point of view of the occasion on which 
 they were uttered — ^just after the celebration of the 
 first Eucharist, just after the Apostles had made their 
 first communion ; or whether we regard them from 
 the point of view of their subject matter — their 
 Lord's departure, and its consequences. 
 
 These discourses stand alone among the utterances 
 of Christ, not only because of their length — we have 
 noliced that they constitute the longest unbroken 
 utterances of our Lord, which have come down to us 
 in the Gospels — but still more on account of the 
 sublimity of their subject matter, and of a certain 
 deep and affectionate pathos which pervades them 
 throughout, and which may be traced to the sadness 
 
 2 
 
€^t ©eparture of %ub<XB. ^ 
 
 of the impending separation which the Divine 
 Master announces to His disciples. 
 
 That our Lord's words on this occasion sank most 
 deeply into the minds of His hearers, there can 
 be no doubt. Indeed, this is evident, from the 
 fulness and vividness with which they are recorded 
 by the Apostle most capable of understanding them, 
 the Apostle of Love, who, after meditating upon them 
 during a long lifetime, handed them down to the 
 Church as one of her most precious treasures, to be 
 pondered over and studied by every devout Christian. 
 Surely, we shall make no mistake if we devote some 
 part of each day this Lent to their prayerful 
 consideration. And may that Holy Spirit, who 
 enabled S. John so perfectly to record these teachings 
 of our Lord, unfold their meaning to us, guiding us, 
 according to Christ's gracious promise, into the 
 fulness of truth in our meditation upon His 
 words. 
 
 The discourses begin with the departure of Judas 
 from the upper chamber, that is, with the thirty-first 
 verse of the thirteenth chapter of S. John ; and 
 they continue without break, or with but one slight 
 break to the end of the sixteenth chapter ; and 
 then conclude with our Lord's prayer of consecration 
 in the seventeenth chapter. 
 
 The departure of Judas was a crisis in our Lord's 
 
 3 
 
^ (^g^ T3?ebne6b(Xg, 
 
 Passion. It marked His victory ; for it was the 
 moment when the element of evil in the apostolic 
 company was expelled. And that element of evil 
 represented by Judas went forth to work out its own 
 malicious purpose in betraying Jesus Christ into the 
 hands of His enemies. We must keep this in mind, 
 in order that we may understand the words with 
 which our Lord begins His discourse, " Therefore, 
 when he was gone out, Jesus saith, Now is the Son of 
 Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him : and God 
 shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straight- 
 way glorify Him." 
 
 We must observe that these words are spoken of 
 the relation of the Son of Man to God, not of the 
 Son of God to the Father. That is to say, they are 
 spoken in reference to our Lord's human nature. 
 Man in Christ has glorified God by entire fulfilment 
 of His Will ; and therefore God can now glorify the 
 Son of man by taking His glorified humanity from 
 henceforth into perfect fellowship with Himself. 
 Thus, we read, that S. Stephen, " being full of the 
 Holy Ghost, looked up stcdfastly into Heaven, and 
 saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the 
 right hand of God.""^ 
 
 The act of self-sacrifice, even unto death, and 
 therefore the conquest of death, is, you will notice, 
 
 * Acts vii. 55. 
 
 4 
 
€f)C departure of %nb(Xs. ^ 
 
 spoken of as past, even though it had not yet 
 occurred ; because, in dismissing Judas to do his 
 work, our Lord accepted the issues of that work. 
 The departure of Judas, with Christ's consent, was 
 the decisive act by which the Passion was accepted, 
 by which Christ perfectly fulfilled God's Will. 
 
 Our Lord came into the world, not only to die for 
 man, but to live for man, to live a life of perfect 
 obedience and absolute dependence upon His 
 Father's Will. In the beginning of His ministry 
 He said, " My meat is to do the will of Him that 
 sent Me, and to accomplish His work."* This was 
 the motto of Christ's life. It had been prophesied 
 of Him in the Psalms, " Lo, I come ; in the volume 
 of the book it is written of Me, that I should fulfil 
 Thy will, O my God : I am content to do it."f 
 
 Man had fallen in Adam by disobedience to the 
 revealed Will of God ; and from Adam to Jesus 
 Christ every child of man had fallen in the same 
 way. Now One came, the Son of Man, the 
 representative of humanity, the second Adam, Who 
 was not only to die a death which should be a 
 sacrifice for the sins of the world, but was to live a 
 life which should make that death of sacrificial 
 efficacy. It was not the mere act of dying to 
 redeem mankind ; it was that the Sufferer upon the 
 
 * S. John iv. 34. t Psalm xl. 9, 10. 
 
 5 
 
Cross had perfectly fulfilled His Father's Will, had 
 perfectly glorified God, even in accepting the sorrows 
 of the Passion, the humiliation and death upon the 
 Cross — it was the sinlessness, the perfect obedience of 
 the Victim, which gave to the Sacrifice its efficacy. 
 Others might have died, and died willingly ; but 
 their death would not have availed, even for 
 themselves, as a sacrifice, because their life was 
 marred by sin. But Christ was the Lamb without 
 blemish ; His whole life was absolutely perfect — 
 not one thought, not one word, not one act, which 
 was not in absolute conformity to His Father's 
 Will. 
 
 And therefore, in dismissing Judas to accomplish 
 his traitorous purpose, our Lord accepted what He 
 knew was involved in the departure of Judas, and 
 was able to turn to the Father and say these words, 
 " Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is 
 glorified in Him ; and God shall also glorify Him in 
 Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him." 
 
 If we ask the question of such deep importance to 
 us all, Why were we created ? there are many ways 
 in which we may answer it ; but one certainly is, To 
 glorify God. This is the true purpose, the highest 
 end, the final cause, of our creation. And therefore 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, in accepting God's purpose 
 that He should die for the sins of the world, is able 
 
 6 
 
Z^c ©eyarfure of ^ubas. 
 
 :)^ 
 
 to say, " Now is the Son of man glorified, and God 
 is glorified in Him." 
 
 To what extent do we make this the end of our 
 life ? How far do we live for the glory of God ? 
 Most men make the glory of self the great object of 
 their life. Their happiness is great when something 
 occurs to glorify t/ie?/i, when they win the praise 
 of men, not when they glorify God. What interest 
 we take in the favourable criticisms which others 
 make upon our words or actions ! How delighted we 
 arc when we read in some newspaper a tribute to our 
 cleverness, or popularity, or generosity ! 
 
 We are delighted, not because we deserve praise, 
 but because we have obtained it. Very possibly we 
 know that we do not deserve it, that our cleverness 
 was not altogether original, that our popularity was 
 not deserved, that our generosity was not unselfish. 
 But we do not stop to think of these things ; we are 
 happy because we have won the approbation of the 
 world, because we have obtained glory for ourselves, 
 even though, perhaps, we despise the organ which 
 praises us, and are well aware that its opinions are of 
 little value. How pleased we are when someone 
 tells us of the flattering words which someone else 
 has spoken concerning us, not because we value that 
 person's judgment, but because we like to be admired 
 and glorified. 
 
 7 
 
How different it was with our Blessed Lord ! He 
 realised that the full purpose of man's life was to 
 glorify God ; and therefore He accepted a life of 
 humiliation, and died amid the execrations of the 
 mob. But He is able to say, " Now is the Son of 
 Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." He 
 teaches us, by this, that man's true glory is to do 
 God's Will, to accomplish God's work, and so to 
 fulfil the purpose for which he was created. We all 
 know how worthless is the world's praise, how ill 
 bestowed ; and yet, how many of us crave it, and, to 
 obtain it, descend to the use of means which our 
 conscience tells us are altogether unworthy. 
 
 We have said that the departure of Judas marked 
 a crisis in our Lord's Passion, that it was the moment 
 when the element of evil in the Apostolic company 
 was expelled ; and that this expulsion involved for 
 our Blessed Lord those sorrows of the Passion which 
 culminated in the Sacrifice of the Cross. 
 
 So in our own lives, any great effort which leads 
 to the expulsion of evil, marks a crisis, and often 
 involves a sacrifice. We cannot drive out the evil 
 which is within us, without painful effort ; nor can we 
 give up the evil which is without us in the world, 
 without making some sacrifice. But until we do this 
 in obedience to God's call, surrendering perhaps 
 something which is very attractive in this world, but 
 
 8 
 
€^c ©eparfure of 3uba6» ^«- 
 
 which, for us, is incompatible with perfect obedience 
 to God's Will, there can be no real progress in the 
 spiritual life. The expulsion of evil must come first, 
 the breaking ofif from what is wrong ; and then will 
 follow the unfolding and development of the powers 
 of the soul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 
 And this will result in the growth of Christian virtues, 
 and the manifestation of the fruits of the Holy- 
 Spirit; in short, in the formation of a Christ-like 
 character ; and by this we glorify God, and are 
 glorified, not by man, but by God. 
 
II. 
 
 SixBt Z^ux&biX^ in S^tnt. 
 
 THE NEW CO:\II\IANDArENT. 
 
 S. John xiii. 33-35. 
 
 "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek 
 Me : and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come ; so 
 now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye 
 love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 
 By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if yc have 
 love one to another.'* 
 
 ^jUR Lord Jesus Christ, haviiifr uttered the 
 joyous burst of praise at the departure 
 of Judas, which we considered yesterday, 
 now turns to His disciples and says, " Little children, 
 yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek 
 Me : and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, 
 ye cannot come ; so now I say to ) ou.". 
 
 " Little children." The exact word (YcKvia) occurs 
 
 10 
 
€^t (ftcro Comntanbtnenf. ^ 
 
 here only in the Gospels, though it is found six 
 times, and perhaps a seventh time, in the Epistles 
 of S. John,* and once (probably) in S, Paul.f It 
 is an expression of deep affection, of solicitude for 
 those who are yet immature and need protection 
 and care, and to whom a great sorrow and trial is 
 shortly to come, in their Master's departure. This 
 sad news He reveals to them when He says, "Yet 
 a little while I am with you," — only a few more 
 hours. And then He goes on to add, " Ye shall 
 seek Me." He does not say, as He said to the 
 Jews, "Ye shall seek Me, and ye shall not find 
 Me : "I but, as He said to the Jews on another 
 
 occasion, " Ye shall seek Me whither I go, 
 
 ye cannot come."|| They were to seek Him and 
 find Him ; nay, more, to be found of Him. But 
 they could not go with Him where He was going ; 
 at least, not yet. So He says, " Whither I go, ye 
 cannot come." Naturally, they wanted to know why. 
 It was because they were immature, little children, 
 babes in Christ, that they were not yet ready to 
 follow Him into the kingdom of His glory. And 
 the season of bereavement, of sorrow, bitter as it 
 was, was to be a season of spiritual growth, and 
 especially a growth in that virtue, which is the 
 
 * C/. I S. John ii. i, 12, 28 ; iii. 7, 18 ; iv. 4 ; v. 21. 
 
 t Gal. iv. 19. J S. John vii. 34. (| S. John viii. 21. 
 
 II 
 
greatest of all virtues, the most godlike — the virtue 
 of love — that " charity which is the bond of perfect- 
 ness"* the bond by which the soul is united to 
 God, Who is Love. 
 
 And so the Master gives to His little children 
 a new commandment, to be the law of their life 
 during the period of their waiting and development. 
 He says, " A new commandment I give unto you, 
 That ye love one another ; as I have loved you, 
 that ye also love one another. By this shall all 
 men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have 
 love one to another." 
 
 In what sense was this new ? Not in the letter, 
 for love had always been the principle of the 
 decalogue ; but new in its motive, and scope, and 
 model. The old commandment was given from 
 Sinai, and was summarised by the Law-giver, " Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyselff The new 
 commandment is associated with Calvary. It is 
 a commandment of love, like the old, but enlarged 
 in its motive, and scope, and model. The motive 
 is the realisation of a new tie which binds Christians 
 together as fellow-members of the Body of Christ 
 in a new family, the Church, which is the Household 
 of God. 
 
 Then the scope is changed. It is not merely 
 
 * Col. iii. 14. t Levit. xix. 18. 
 
 12 
 
€^c aXm Commanbmcnt ^ 
 
 your neighbour whom you are to love, but all that 
 great multitude who make up the family of Christ, 
 in Whom " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there 
 is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor 
 female."* 
 
 And lastly, the model proposed is different. 
 You are no longer to love your neighbour as 
 yourself, but as Christ loved you. The model 
 proposed is not self-love, but the self-sacrificing 
 love of Christ. 
 
 We must observe, however, that there is a 
 limitation. Our Blessed Lord is not speaking of 
 that love which we should have for all men as 
 common children of a heavenly Father, but that 
 love which we should have for our fellow-Christians, 
 those who, in addition to being children of God 
 are members of Christ, and therefore bound to one 
 another in the closest possible union, in the mystical 
 Body of Christ our Lord. It is not, therefore, 
 philanthropy towards our fellow-men in general 
 that our Lord is inculcating, but love of the 
 brethren, of those who are knit together in the 
 bonds of love, because they are fellow-members 
 of Christ's Body. 
 
 We must observe, too, that the character of the 
 commandment is altogether new. Christians are 
 
 * Gal. iii. 28. 
 
 13 
 
^' ^ixBt S^^utBbdg in £enf. 
 
 to love one another, not merely as neighbours, not 
 only as they love themselves, that is, with a love 
 which is more or less selfish, but with the self- 
 sacrificing love which Christ manifests to all. The 
 selfish love might lead us to please our neighbour 
 in things which were not for his edification. The 
 self-sacrificing love would cause us to edi/y him 
 in things which, perhaps, did not altogether please 
 him. 
 
 We see that Christ proposes no one less than 
 Himself as our Model. His love was practical and 
 active. It was not merely a sentiment or feeling. 
 It led Him to perform works of mercy, to minister 
 to the sick, to sympathise with the sorrowful, to 
 rejoice at the marriage in Cana, to weep at the 
 grave of Lazarus ; and finally, as He reminds His 
 disciples in the next chapter, it led Him to lay 
 down His life for the brethren. 
 
 Another point we must notice in regard to this 
 new commandment is, that it was to be the outward 
 sign of discipleship. " By this shall all men know 
 that ye arc My disciples, if ye have love one to 
 another." That this was realised and acted upon 
 in the early days of Christian fervour we learn 
 from one of the first writers of the Church, 
 TertuUian, who tells us that the heathen, wondering 
 at this mutual love of Christians, were in the habit 
 
 14 
 
€^c (Uen? Commanbntent. ^ 
 
 of saying, "See how these Christians love one 
 another."* 
 
 How rapidly Christianity grew and spread in 
 those early days, in spite of opposition and 
 persecution, perhaps because of them ; but chiefly 
 on account of the fulfilment of this new command- 
 ment of love. The world wondered at a religion 
 which not only proposed mutual love as an ideal 
 of human conduct, but actually enabled men to 
 fulfil this law of love. And the secret of 
 Christianity's growth was the power of this new 
 commandment ; just as in later times, and, alas ! in 
 our own days, the non-fulfilment of the law of 
 mutual love is the principal cause of the weakness 
 and decay of the Christian religion, resulting not 
 only in the rending of Christ's body by innumer- 
 able schisms, but even in the Church itself, in that 
 party spirit which is incompatible with the law of 
 love. 
 
 Well may we lay this command of our Lord 
 to heart. It comes to us with all the force of 
 farewell words. We cannot heal the schisms of 
 the Church, but we can, by our mutual love to 
 one another, greatly diminish the bitterness of 
 party spirit ; for we can at least resolve to try to 
 understand one another, and never to speak with 
 
 * TertulL, "Apolog.,"c. 39. 
 15 
 
^ §mi 2^§ut6bag in £enf. 
 
 unnecessary bitterness of those from whom we are 
 conscientiously constrained to differ. 
 
 This is, of course, but a negative carrying out 
 of the commandment. And we may all do more 
 than this, by actively striving to minister to our 
 brethren in need, recognising in each a member of 
 Christ's flock, bound therefore to us by the ties of 
 holiest love. 
 
 Some have thought that this new commandment 
 refers to the institution of the Holy Eucharist, 
 which was to be the sacrament of love. But the 
 institution of a sacrament can scarcely be called a 
 commandment. And yet there is an element of 
 truth in the suggestion, since the Holy Eucharist 
 is the special manifestation of Christ's love to us 
 in supplying our soul's need, by giving us, as its 
 food. His Body and Blood ; and more, since every 
 Eucharist is the memorial of that act of love by 
 which, upon the Cross, our Lord gave His life for 
 us, of that Sacrifice by which we are redeemed. 
 
 Rightly, then, has the Church appointed these 
 words, " A new commandment I give unto you. 
 That ye love one another," as the first antiphon to 
 be sung during the ceremony of the feet-washing on 
 Thursday in Holy Week, from whence, as you know, 
 the day derives its name. Maundy Thursday ; so 
 that the anniversary of the institution of the 
 
 i6 
 
€^e (Tlen> CommMtmcnt ^^ 
 
 Blessed Sacrament is always associated, by its 
 nam % with this new commandment which Christ 
 gave to His disciples. 
 
 And surely this brinies before us another reason 
 why we should love one another, not only that 
 we are members of Christ's one Body, the Church, 
 but that we are fellow-partakers of that one Body 
 in the Eucharistic feast. Not only are we incor- 
 porated into Him by baptism, but we feed on 
 Him through Communion ; so that, by being 
 nourished with the same spiritual food, we are knit 
 together in the closest relationships of life. 
 
 We are to love one another as Christ loved us, 
 Who being in the form of God, was impelled by 
 love for man in his perishing condition to take 
 upon Him the form of a servant, and to become 
 obedient unto the death of the Cross. From His 
 throne in Heaven the Son of God beheld us in 
 our need, and hastened to our succour, thou;:^h to 
 help us and save us cost Him all the humiliation 
 of the Incarnation, all the sorrows of the Passion ! 
 
 And if we would fulfil this new commandment, 
 we must, according to our own measure, strive to 
 hasten to the succour of those members of Christ's 
 Body whom we see to be in distress, and whom 
 we are able to aid, either in mind, by sympathy ; 
 in body, by ministering to their sickness ; or in 
 
 17 C 
 
estate, by supplying their wants. We must not 
 grudge the trouble or pains this may involve ; for 
 we are to love our brethren, not with a selfish 
 love, but with the self-sacrificing love with which 
 Christ loved us. 
 
 i8 
 
III. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF S. PETER. 
 
 S. John xiii. 36-38. 
 
 ''Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest Thou? Jesus 
 answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now ; but thou 
 shalt follow Me afterwards. Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot 
 I follow Thee now ? I will lay down my life for Thy sake. 
 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake ? 
 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou 
 hast denied Me thrice." 
 
 UR Lord's announcement of His approaching 
 departure leads to questions from four of 
 His disciples, questions which reveal some- 
 thing of the character and spiritual comprehension 
 of each of the questioners, and something of the 
 difficulties which His words presented to their minds. 
 The questioners were S. Peter, S. Thomas, S.Philip, 
 and S. Jude, each of whom, taking up our Lord's 
 
 19 
 
-o^ ^mt ^xiia^ in &enf. 
 
 words, seeks further enlightenment as to their 
 meaning. 
 
 S. Peter as usual is the first to speak, for we read 
 that, " Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, whither 
 goest Thou ? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, 
 thou canst not follow Me now ; but thou shalt 
 follow Me afterwards. Peter saith unto Him, Lord, 
 why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down 
 my life for Thy sake." 
 
 It was a natural question to ask, when S. Peter 
 heard our Lord speak of His departure, but it showed 
 a very imperfect comprehension on his part in regard 
 to much of Christ's past teaching ; for it probably 
 implied that S. Peter, like most of the other 
 disciples, looked forward to the setting up of a 
 temporal kingdom in this world, with our Lord 
 as the Messiah. It showed that S. Peter had not 
 understood the revelation of the Passion, at which, 
 indeed, he stumbled so badly, that his Master then 
 said to him, " Get thee behind Me, Satan."* 
 
 Our Lord's answer to his question is not direct. 
 It was an answer to what was passing in S. Peter's 
 mind, rather than to S. Peter's words. The Apostle 
 had asked, " Lord, whither goest Thou ? " and Christ 
 replied, " Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me 
 now ; but thou shalt follow Me afterwards." 
 
 * S. Matt. xvi. 23. 
 20 
 
€^c iXucBJion of g, (peter. ^ 
 
 From this it is evident that when S. Peter said, 
 "Lord, whither goest Thou?"' he was not moved 
 so much by curiosity in regard to the place where 
 our Lord was going, as by his desire to go with 
 Him, to accompany Him. So that, without directly 
 announcing the goal of His journey, our Lord warns 
 S. Peter that he cannot follow Him now ; though He 
 comforts him with the assurance that he shall follow 
 Him afterwards. 
 
 S. Peter could not follow Christ where He was 
 going, to another world, at that time for many 
 reasons. First of all, S. Peter was not spiritually pre- 
 pared for his place in heaven ; his own character had 
 not yet been sufficiently disciplined and developed ; 
 his own faith which seemed to him so strong, was 
 not even able to bear the shock of temptation in 
 the high-priest's hall, where he denied his Master. 
 He was not morally ready. But there was another 
 reason — his work was not yet done ; indeed, it had 
 scarcely begun, that work for which his Master had 
 been for three years training him, the work of 
 preaching the Gospel, and organising the infant 
 Church in the world. Before S. Peter could follow 
 Christ to his reward, he must do his work ; he must 
 suffer ; and, by suffering, be made perfect, that he 
 might become one of the foundation stones of the 
 City of God. How great was the work that S. Peter 
 
 21 
 
^ ^ixBi S^tbdg in SLCnt, 
 
 was to accomplish in this world before he won his 
 crown ! 
 
 But our Lord gives him a promise, *' Thou shalt 
 follow Me afterwards." And that promise, remember, 
 was renewed to him after his denial, after his peni- 
 tence, after his pardon ; when, at the Lake of Galilee, 
 our Lord told him the manner of death by which he 
 should glorify his Master, and follow Him into the 
 world beyond ; for then He said to Peter, '* Verily, 
 verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou 
 girdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wouldest : 
 but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth 
 thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee 
 whither thou wouldest not." And S. John remarks, 
 '* This spake He, signifying by what death he should 
 glorify God.""*^ 
 
 " Whither goest Thou ? " Many who have visited 
 Rome will remember a little church, called the 
 Chapel of the Domine Quo Vadis — " Lord, whither 
 goest Thou ? " It is associated with a legend of very 
 early authority,! that when S. Peter was fleeing from 
 Rome, from the Mamertine Prison, our Lord met 
 him ; and to his question, '' Lord, whither goest 
 Thou ? " replied, " I am going to Rome to be 
 crucified again." S. Peter, from these words, undcr- 
 
 * S. John xxi. i8, 19. 
 
 t It is referred to by Origcn in " Joann " xx. 12. 
 
 22 
 
t^c 4jue6tion of ^. (peter. ^ 
 
 stood that the hour of his own martyrdom had come ; 
 and, returning to his prison at Rome, was shortly 
 afterwards crucified, under Nero. The place where 
 the meeting is said to have taken place is marked by 
 the Chapel of the Doinine Quo Vadis. 
 
 S. Peter says to our Lord, ** Why cannot I follow 
 Thee now ? I will lay down my life for Thy sake." 
 Here we recognise the impetuous nature which 
 always desires to act at once, and frets at waiting. 
 We cannot but admire the spirit that prompted these 
 words. The tendency of the world in regard to 
 unpleasant duty is, as a rule, not to act at once, but 
 to put off as long as possible the disagreeable duty. 
 But S. Peter, with his impulsive temperament, is not 
 content with the promise, " Thou shalt follow Me 
 afterwards," but asks, " Why cannot I follow Thee 
 now ? I will lay down my life for Thy sake." He 
 did not ask where our Lord was going, but he 
 recognised from our Lord's words that He was 
 going into some great peril, and at once offers to 
 share the peril with Him, even though it should 
 involve the sacrifice of his very life. 
 
 " I will lay down my life for Thy sake." He 
 thought he had counted the cost when he said 
 these words ; he believed that he could lay down his 
 life for Christ before Christ had laid down His life 
 for him. But later on he learned that it was only 
 
 23 
 
'^ ^ixBt S^ibag in &cni. 
 
 through Christ's Passion that his own martyrdom 
 became possible. 
 
 He was to wait. How much has to be learned in 
 periods of waiting ; how much, too, has to be done in 
 those times of delay, that we may be able, when the 
 opportunity offers, to embrace it, and to accomplish 
 God's work. S. Peter was tested that very night in 
 the high-priest's house ; the opportunity offered, but 
 he was not ready. And so, alas ! he denied his 
 Master from fear of a maid-servant. But afterwards 
 when, in that period of long waiting, he had learned, 
 by the things which he had suffered, and had come 
 to experience the grace of Jesus Christ, he was 
 able to lay down his life as a martyr. In the 
 high-priest's house he did not even dare to confess 
 Christ before a few soldiers and servants, but after 
 the period of waiting and preparation he cheerfully 
 went back to Rome, to suffer and to die for his 
 Master. 
 
 What a lesson there is for us here ! — that the 
 periods of waiting in this world, when God does 
 not seem to have anything very especial for us to 
 do, must be used as periods of learning and of 
 working. How many there arc who say, " I do 
 not know what my vocation is in life ; God has 
 not shown me my work, and therefore I will do 
 nothing, until He does call mc." 
 
 24 
 
t^c ^uegtion of ^. (pcicx. ^ 
 
 By such, when the call comes, the discovery is 
 often made that they are not able to follow Him. 
 They are like the foolish virgins, who, while pro- 
 fessing to be waiting for Christ, when the cry was 
 heard, " Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ; go ye 
 out to meet Him,"* discovered that, in their period 
 of waiting, the oil in their lamps had become 
 exhausted. 
 
 It is in times of waiting that we should be learning 
 and labouring, striving to fashion and sharpen the 
 instrument ourselves ; so that, when God is ready 
 to use it, the instrument may be found ready for 
 His purpose. 
 
 If we take the lives of those who have accomplished 
 the greatest work for God, we shall find that almost 
 always they had to wait many, many years before 
 the opportunity offered for carrying out what they 
 felt to be their life's work. But we shall also 
 discover that they did not spend these years in 
 idleness ; they spent them in prayer and the study 
 of God's Word ; so that when the moment came 
 that the opportunity presented itself, the work was 
 done with marvellous celerity and success, because 
 they had been so long preparing themselves to 
 do it. 
 
 To how many it is just the other way ! They 
 
 * S. Matt. XXV. 6. 
 
 25 
 
•^ ^ixBt St^ibag in £enf. 
 
 waste the periods of waiting ; and when the time 
 of work comes, they find that they have so blunted 
 their spiritual perceptions and ruined their natural 
 gifts, that they are no longer adle to do the work 
 which God puts before them ; not because they are 
 not willing to do it, but because they have lost, 
 they have forfeited, the power to do it. " Thou canst 
 not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me 
 afterwards." 
 
 26 
 
IV. 
 
 THE TRAINING OF S. PETER. 
 
 S. John xiii. 38. 
 
 ' ' Jesus answereth, Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake ? 
 Verily, verily, I say unto thee. The cock shall not crow, till thou hast 
 denied Me thrice." 
 
 UR Lord's repetition of S. Peter's exact 
 words, " Thy life for Me wilt thou lay- 
 down ? " has a deep pathos. It is as 
 though He accepted the essential truth of S. Peter's 
 generous assertion, while He pointed out the 
 impossibility of its fulfilment at that time. He 
 tells S. Peter he will have an opportunity that very 
 night of proving himself, not by dying for his 
 Master, but by confessing that he is a disciple. An 
 opportunity ? Nay, three opportunities ; and that 
 in every case he shall not only lamentably fail 
 
 27 
 
'^^^ ^ivBJ ^dfurbag in &enf. 
 
 to confess his Master, but shall shamefully deny 
 Him! 
 
 There are few episodes in the Gospels more full 
 of instruction than this ; for, from the example of 
 S. Peter, we learn that real strength is to be 
 measured, not by generous impulses, but by the 
 recognition of two fundamental truths — our own 
 natural weakness and inability, and God's unceasing 
 love. 
 
 As a great ascetic writer teaches,* the foundation 
 of all spiritual hfe must be laid in distrust of self and 
 perfect trust in God. S. Peter learned these truths 
 by the experience of the three years spent with our 
 Blessed Lord, and they were not entirely grasped 
 by him until the last disastrous fall which our Lord 
 here foretells — his threefold denial. Then S. Peter 
 fully learned his own weakness ; and from the look 
 of Jesus, which won him back to penitence, and the 
 words of Jesus after His Resurrection, he learned the 
 infinite and unchanging love of God. 
 
 With S. Peter, the generous impulse was always 
 present ; but, through over-confidence in self, it only 
 led to humiliation and failure. We may notice three 
 instances especially : when S. Peter saw our Lord 
 walking upon the sea, he did not hesitate to say, 
 " Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the 
 * C/. Scupoli's ''Spiritual Combat." 
 28 
 
t^t Zv(Xxnxna of g« (pcict. ^ 
 
 water." And when Jesus said, " Come," he cast 
 himself upon the water, and walked upon the very 
 waves. But, alas ! he looked for a moment away 
 from Christ, and observed that the wind was 
 boisterous, and the waves threatening, and his faith 
 began to fail, and he began to sink. He cried, 
 " Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched 
 forth His hand, and caught him, and said unto him, 
 O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? "* 
 There S. Peter learned the instability of his own 
 faith, and the constancy of Christ's love. His hand 
 was outstretched to save him the moment he began 
 to sink. 
 
 The second instance follows immediately upon 
 S. Peter's great confession of Christ's Divinity. To 
 the question, " Whom do men say that I, the Son of 
 Man, am ? "f the Apostles gave various answers ; 
 but S. Peter was the first and only one to say, " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God. "J Our 
 Lord praises him for this great confession, and gives 
 him a glorious promise and privilege. And yet we 
 read only a few verses further on in the chapter, that 
 when Christ proceeded to tell S. Peter of His 
 Passion, the Apostle stumbled at it, " and began to 
 rebuke Him, saying, be it far from Thee, Lord : this 
 
 * Cf. S. Matt. xiv. 28-34. t S. Matt. xvi. 13. 
 
 X S. Matt. xvi. 16. 
 
 29 
 
^ ^ixBi ^(Xtutbdg in £enf. 
 
 shall not be unto Thee." But Christ " turned, and 
 said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan ; thou art 
 an offence unto Me ; for thou mindest not the 
 things that be of God, but those that be of men."* 
 
 S. Peter's third great fall was in the high-priest's 
 palace, and it took place after our Lord's warning : 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not 
 crow till thou hast denied Me thrice." 
 
 S. Peter, knowing that some great peril threatened 
 his Master, had said : " Lord, ... I will lay down 
 my life for Thy sake." Christ tells him that before 
 the night is past he will have learned his own 
 weakness. It will not be a question of laying down 
 his life, but only an acknowledgment of his disciple- 
 ship. S. Peter thinks that this is impossible — 
 " Although all shall be offended, yet will not I." 
 But he learns with bitter shame that his Master 
 knows him better than he knows himself; that his 
 own boasted strength, apart from Christ's grace, is 
 utter weakness. And this knowledge for ever 
 destroys his self-confidence, and establishes the 
 conviction of his own natural weakness. Thus he 
 learns to distrust himself; but he learns more — to 
 trust Christ ; for, when he had so shamefully denied 
 his Master thrice, we read that " the Lord turned, 
 and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the 
 
 * C/. S. Matt. xvi. 21-24. 
 
 30 
 
t^c ^r dining of g> Qpeter. ^ 
 
 word of the Lord, how He had said unto him, Before 
 the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And 
 Peter went out, and wept bitterly.'"^ 
 
 What was there in that look of Jesus which 
 pierced S. Peter's heart, and recalled him to 
 penitence ? It is worth while noticing carefully the 
 exact word which S. Luke uses (eVe/SXe-y/^ei/). The verb 
 compounded with the preposition (iv), signifies, not 
 merely to look upon a person, but to look with a 
 swift, penetrating glance. So that it implies that our 
 Lord looked S. Peter through and through, and read 
 his very heart 
 
 It is not a little suggestive that this same word 
 is used of the look which our Lord cast upon S. 
 Peter the first time He met him, when He said to 
 him, " Thou art Simon the son of Jona : thou shalt 
 be called Cephas. "f The look recalled our Lord's 
 warning (this S. Luke tells us). But may it not also 
 have recalled that first meeting with his Master, 
 when He uttered the glorious promise, " Thou shalt 
 be called Cephas " — the rock ? As S. Peter pondered 
 upon his sin, what memories must have flooded his 
 mind — the glorious promise, the shameful failure, 
 but also the unwearied love of his Master ! 
 
 On Easter Day, we know that our Lord appeared 
 to S. Peter, although we are not told what passed 
 
 * S. Luke xxii. 6 1, 62. f S. John i. 42, 
 
 31 
 
between them ; for a veil is drawn over the inter- 
 course of the penitent soul with the great Absolver. 
 But later, by the Lake of Galilee, we learn that 
 S. Peter was fully restored to his pastorate. After 
 that he is a different man ; he has learned the two 
 great truths — to distrust himself and to trust God. 
 With the exception of the incident at Antioch, 
 recorded in the Epistle to the Galatians, there is no 
 further trace of weakness in S. Peter. 
 
 I said that this episode is full of instruction for us 
 all ; for we all alike have to learn by experience these 
 two fundamental truths of the spiritual life. We 
 have to learn them where S. Peter learned them — in 
 the school of temptation. And until we have learned 
 them, we, like S. Peter, shall be constantly liable to 
 find our most generous impulses leading us to 
 shameful failure. 
 
 32 
 
V. 
 
 THE MANY MANSIONS OF THE 
 FATHER'S HOUSE. 
 
 S. John xiv. 1-3. 
 
 ' ' Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also 
 in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions : if it were not 
 so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if 
 I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you 
 unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." 
 
 HE question of S. Thomas, which follows 
 that of S. Peter, is introduced by, and arises 
 out of, the section with which the fourteenth 
 chapter of S. John begins, " Let not your heart be 
 troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in Me." 
 
 There had been much to fill the disciples' hearts 
 with sorrow and alarm ; not only the announcement 
 
 33 r) 
 
^ i^ixBt (Qtonbag in &enf. 
 
 of their Master's departure, but the warning of the 
 treachery of Judas — "One of you shall betray Me;"* 
 and of the weakness of S. Peter — " Thou shalt deny 
 Me."t There was much to fill their minds with 
 terror. So now, in the touching words with which 
 this chapter opens, our Lord consoles His disciples — 
 " Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, 
 believe also in Me." 
 
 It is difficult to decide the correct translation of 
 the latter part of this verse. The two verbs " believe " 
 in the Greek are precisely the same. They may be 
 either in the indicative or the imperative mood. So 
 that the translation may be either, " Ye believe in 
 God, and ye believe in Me ; " or it may be, " Believe 
 in God, and believe in Me." The rendering in our 
 Bible is unfortunate, in that it translates the first 
 verb as indicative, and the other as imperative. 
 Probably the best scholars agree that both should 
 be imperative — " Believe in God, and believe in Me 
 also." 
 
 Thus you will see the reason why they were not to 
 be troubled. "Let not your heart be troubled." Why? 
 Believe in God, and believe in Me also. Why should 
 you not be troubled ? Because you believe in God. 
 This means something much more than a mere 
 intellectual acceptance of the fact of God's existence. 
 
 * S. Jolui xiii. 21. t S. Matt. xxvi. 34. 
 
 34 
 
t h (tttdng (fflctngjong. ^ 
 
 It implies that faith in God which issues in perfect 
 trust in Him. The preposition (ds) which S. John 
 uses with the verb sicrnifies, or rather suggests, a 
 complete transference of trust of oneself to another. 
 Believe in God; that is, put all your trust in Him. 
 If you do, you will not be troubled. 
 
 Belief in God! and what does this imply? As I 
 have said, not merely a belief in God's existence, but 
 some realisation of God's character, a belief in His 
 attributes of Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Love. 
 If we believe in God's Omniscience, we realise that 
 He knows our necessities and troubles before we ask, 
 and our ignorance in asking. If we believe in His 
 Omnipotence, we know that He can help us in all 
 our troubles, that no difficulties are too great for 
 Him. And if we believe in His Love, that He loves 
 us ; then we shall be sure, not merely that He can 
 help us to the uttermost, but that He wz// help us as 
 is best for us. Believe, then, in God, and you will 
 not be troubled. 
 
 And then our Lord goes on to say, " Believe also 
 in Me." The exact repetition of the phrase implies 
 that Christ is what the Father is — God. Believe in 
 God, and believe in Me. And surely this was the 
 reason why their hearts were not to be troubled, 
 either by the news of His departure, or the warning 
 of the treachery of Judas, or of the denial of S. 
 
 35 
 
^^ ^ix&i (Qtonbag in i^txd. 
 
 Peter ; for, if Christ be God, He can comfort, console, 
 and help them in all their trials. 
 
 Then our Lord goes on to say, " In My Father's 
 house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would 
 have told you ; for I go to prepare a place for you." 
 
 Throughout these last discourses of our Blessed 
 Lord we observe the prominence of the word 
 "Father;" and that God, as our Father, is set before 
 us as the goal of life. Jesus says, " I go unto the 
 Father."* And He invites us to come to the 
 Father, through Him — "No man cometh unto the 
 Father, but by Me."t So here He says, " In My 
 Father's house are many mansions." 
 
 The word translated " mansion " (ftov^) occurs only 
 twice in the New Testament, both times in this 
 chapter — in this verse, and again in the twenty-third 
 verse, where our Lord, speaking of His Father, says, 
 " We will come . . and make our abode {yLovr]v) with 
 Him.":}: The word " abode " in the latter verse is 
 the same word which is here translated "mansion." 
 Now, what precisely does the word mean ? The 
 word " mansions " is itself taken from the Latin 
 translation (mansiones), and adequately represents 
 the Greek. It literally means the stopping-places 
 by the roadside where travellers on a journey found 
 rest and refreshment. Hence, there are bound up 
 
 * St. Joliu xiv. 28. t ^' Jolin xiv. 6. % ^' J**^"'" ^i^. 23. 
 
 36 
 
with it two ideas — repose and progress. They were 
 places where the traveller reposed for the night, in 
 order that he might have strength for a fresh effort 
 in his journey the next day. The fact that our 
 Blessed Lord is speaking of mansions in heaven has 
 led some to draw the inference that in heaven our 
 life will be one of progress ; at least, the word used 
 suggests this inference. 
 
 " In My Father's house are many mansions." 
 There will be room for all tliere. He is about to 
 tell them how they will be treated in this world ; 
 that they will be driven out of the synagogues ; that 
 they will be outcasts among their own nation ; but, 
 He says, there will be plenty of room for all in 
 heaven. When S. Mary and S. Joseph came to 
 Bethlehem, to be enrolled in the census, they found 
 that there was no room in the inn. But in heaven 
 there is no such danger ; there will be room for 
 all. 
 
 " If it were not so, I would have told you ; (for) I 
 go to prepare a place for you." The best manu- 
 scripts give us the word " for," which is not in our 
 Bibles. It makes the sentence much clearer. It is 
 as though our Lord would say, I have not withheld 
 from you the sorrowful news of My departure ; and 
 therefore I would not hesitate to tell you even 
 sadder news, if it were necessary. But now I tell 
 
 37 
 
^ ^ixBt (^lonbag in SLcnt. 
 
 you joyful news — that there are many mansions in 
 My Father's house, and that I go to prepare a place 
 for you. 
 
 This, indeed, is the bright side of Christ's depar- 
 ture. If He does not go to make preparation for us, 
 we cannot follow. The disciples, doubtless, would 
 have wished Him to have stayed with them on this 
 earth ; but He tells them that, in going before to 
 prepare a place for them in heaven, He affords them 
 both the possibility and opportunity of following 
 where He has gone before. 
 
 In the next verse He says, " And if I go and 
 prepare a place for you, I will come again, and I will 
 receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye 
 may be also." From these words we learn that our 
 Lord's departure is the condition of His return. His 
 visible separation from them is necessary as the 
 condition of His real union with them, through the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Christian, after Pentecost, is nearer to Christ 
 than the Apostles were before the Passion. They 
 were near to Him locally. They could see Him, and 
 hear Him. and touch Him, with their bodily senses ; 
 but there was no real spiritual union between Him 
 and them. After the coming of the Holy Ghost 
 they were to be incorporated into Christ, to become 
 living members of His Body. So that, in this sense, 
 
 38 
 
His departure was necessary as the condition of His 
 return to them through a more intimate union than 
 at that time they could conceive of. 
 
 Our rendering, " I will come again, and receive 
 you unto Myself," is not quite correct. It should 
 be, " I am coming again, and I will receive you unto 
 Myself." The first verb is in the present tense ; the 
 second, in the future. Thus the Greek brings out 
 the fact that our Lord is constantly coming. Though 
 in this passage He is referring, primarily, to His last 
 coming at the end of the world, we must not limit 
 His coming to that ; for Christ comes to the world, 
 to the Church, and to each individual Christian, 
 continually. He came to them at His Resurrection ; 
 He came again at Pentecost, through the operation 
 of the Holy Ghost ; He comes to each sinner at the 
 moment of conversion ; He comes to us in every 
 Communion ; He comes to us in our daily study of 
 His Word, if we read it prayerfully. And lastly, 
 He comes to us at the moment of death and at 
 the Day of Judgment. And all these comings are 
 comprehended in those words, " I am coming 
 again." 
 
 But while the Greek present implies, not a mere 
 act, but a state — that Christ is constantly coming — 
 the future can only be referred to one occasion, " I 
 will receive you unto Myself," that is, at the moment 
 
 39 
 
^^ -^ixQi (^onbag in SLCni. 
 
 of death, when He calls us away from this world 
 of sorrow and sin, and takes us to be with Him. 
 
 "That where I am, ye may be also." Where 
 Christ is, there is Paradise. So He said to the 
 penitent robber on the cross, " To-day shalt thou 
 be with Me in Paradise."* Thou shalt be with Me ; 
 therefore, thou shalt be in Paradise. After His 
 Ascension, Paradise was heaven ; for, as we profess 
 in our Creed, " He ascended into heaven, and sitteth 
 on the right hand of God the Father Almighty." 
 
 Our Lord's glorified humanity is not ubiquitous. 
 Locally, it is now only in one place, at the right hand 
 of God the Father in heaven. Sacramentaily, supra- 
 locally. His humanity is present in the Blessed 
 Sacrament. But we have no reason to suppose 
 that it is present with the souls in the Intermediate 
 State. His divinity is there, as everywhere, but not 
 His Humanity. 
 
 So in these words our Lord assures us that after 
 we have left this world of sin, and passed through a 
 state of purification, we shall be with Him, where He 
 is reigning with all the saints. 
 
 * .S. Luke xxiii. 43. 
 
 40 
 
VI. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF S. THOMAS. 
 
 S. John xiv. 4-6. 
 
 " And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith 
 unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest ; and how can we 
 know the way ? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life : no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." 
 
 UR Blessed Lord, consoling His disciples in 
 their grief at His departure, tells them that 
 He goes to prepare a place for them in His 
 Father's house ; that where He is, they may be with 
 Him ; that He is coming again, and will receive 
 them unto Himself. And then He adds, " Whither 
 I go> ys know the way ; " for this is the correct 
 reading, and not, as we find in our Bible, " Whither I 
 go ye know, and the way ye know." 
 
 Our Lord meant to remind them that He had so 
 
 41 
 
^ ^ixBt ZwBba^ in SLCnt. 
 
 often told them of the way by which they were to 
 follow Him, that they ought to know it well. It was 
 to be a way of suffering and of sacrifice, the way 
 of the Holy Cross ; for how many times He had 
 warned them that no one could be His disciple, who 
 did not take up his cross and follow Him. '' Whither 
 I go," He says, *'ye know the way." I am going to 
 My Father in heaven ; His house, in which are the 
 many mansions, is My goal ; and the way by which 
 I must reach it is the way of suffering, the way of 
 self-sacrifice and love. 
 
 At this point S. Thomas interrupts, and says, 
 " Lord, we know not whither Thou goest ; and how 
 know we the way ? " (the word " can " is not found 
 in the best text). It is most interesting to observe 
 that the questions asked by the different Apostles 
 are in strict accord with what we know of their 
 temperament and spiritual character. S. Peter's 
 question, " Why cannot I follow Thee now } I will 
 lay down my life for Thy sake,"''' is precisely the 
 utterance which might be expected from one of his 
 sanguine, impulsive nature. So, too, we shall find 
 that the interruption of S. Thomas is just what 
 might be expected from a man of his natural 
 temperament and spiritual development. 
 
 S. Thomas is a very distinct type of character 
 
 * S. John xiii. 37, 
 42 
 
t^c 4jue6tton of ^. t^om<XB. ^^ 
 
 among our Lord's disciples. He represents the 
 anxious, intellectual seeker after truth, who has an 
 almost morbid fear of things he cannot grasp, and a 
 tendency to despondency, but with a real love for his 
 Master. He will not allow himself to be carried by 
 enthusiasm to say that he believes more than he does 
 believe. 
 
 We have an instance of this in connection with our 
 Lord's visit to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the 
 dead. When the news came that Lazarus was sick, 
 we read that Christ " abode two days still in the same 
 place where He was. Then after that, saith He to 
 His disciples, let us go into Judsea again. His 
 disciples say unto Him, Master, the Jews of late 
 sought to stone Thee ; and goest Thou thither 
 again?" After answering this question, Christ said, 
 " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go, that I may 
 awake him out of sleep." The disciples thought that 
 He spoke of taking of rest in sleep ; but our Lord 
 told them plainly that Lazarus was dead. And 
 S. Thomas was the first to say, " Let us also go, that 
 we may die with Him."* 
 
 If we examine these words of S. Thomas in 
 
 connection with their context, we shall observe that 
 
 they manifest the same characteristics which led S. 
 
 Thomas to interrupt our Lord with the remark : 
 
 * C/. S. John xi. 6-17. 
 
 43 
 
^ ^ixBt S^uesbag in feenf. 
 
 " Lord, we know not whither Thou goest ; and how 
 know we the way ? " and after His Resurrection to 
 refuse to believe the testimony of his fellow-disciples, 
 that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. 
 
 We may notice, in regard to the death of Lazarus, 
 that S. Thomas keeps strictly within the limits of 
 that which he k7iew. He knew two things, the death 
 of Lazarus and the hostility of the Jews. Jesus had 
 invited His disciples to go with Him, saying that He 
 was going to awaken Lazarus out of sleep ; that is, 
 to raise him from the dead. About the raising from 
 the dead, S. Thomas says nothing ; but about the 
 hostility of the Jews, he realises that this probably 
 meant death to his Master and to those who were 
 with Him. 
 
 S. Thomas was no coward. He truly loved his 
 Master. Therefore he said, " Let us also go, that we 
 may die with Him." He did not shrink from suffering 
 with his Lord, but he would not commit himself to 
 expressing a hope which he did not really possess, 
 that Lazarus would be raised from the dead, and that 
 his Master would escape the hostility of the Jews. 
 S. Thomas will die for the love which he has, the 
 love of Jesus Christ, but he will not pretend to the 
 faith which he has not. To follow Christ where He 
 goes, is the duty of His disciples, even thoui^^h his 
 Master goes into danger. Therefore S. Thomas 
 
 44 
 
t^c (XxtCBtion of ^. t^om<XB. ^ 
 
 says, " Let us also go, that we may die with 
 Him." 
 
 In the third passage in S. John's Gospel, in which 
 S. Thomas is introduced to us, we find him 
 deliberately rejecting the testimony of his fellow- 
 disciples concerning Christ's Resurrection, and 
 saying, " Except I shall see in His hands the print 
 of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the 
 nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not 
 believe."* S. Thomas refuses human testimony, 
 though it was the testimony of so many of his 
 friends, and demands the evidence of his own 
 senses — the senses of sight and touch. Jesus, in 
 consideration of his natural difficulty of faith, offers 
 him the evidence for which he asks, but adds, 
 reproachfully, " Because thou hast seen Me, thou 
 hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, 
 and yet have believed."f 
 
 Altogether, we may consider S. Thomas as a type 
 of one who loved Christ, and was faithful to Christ, 
 but who saw intellectual difficulties at every step, and 
 was too honest to pretend that he did not see them. 
 Very probably S. Thomas looked for the establish- 
 ment of Christ's Messianic kingdom on earth ; so 
 that, when our Lord spoke of His departure, S. 
 Thomas said, in effect : All we know is, that Thou 
 
 * S. John XX. 25. t S. John xx, 29. 
 
 45 
 
-^^ :S'ir6f Jue0bag in £enf. 
 
 art going to leave us ; for that Thou hast told us ; 
 but whither Thou art going we know not. Wilt 
 Thou go to the dispersed among the Gentiles ? Art 
 Thou s^oincf to restore the kin^rdom to Israel ? 
 Thou hast told us that Thou art to be "lifted up ;" 
 but how is this exaltation to take place ? Thou hast 
 told us that Thou art going ; but whither art Thou 
 going, and by what way ? 
 
 To some like S. Thomas, inclined to find the 
 difficulties in revelation, rather than to see, as others 
 do, its positive truth, the objections of S. Thomas 
 may seem reasonable, and our Lord's answer may 
 appear to be wanting in directness. But this is only 
 because they are so occupied with the superficial 
 form of the answer that they fail to grasp its com- 
 prehensive significance ; for when our Lord replies, 
 * I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : no man 
 Cometh unto the Father, but by Mc. If ye had 
 known Me, ye should have known My Father also : 
 from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him," 
 He not only answers the question of S. Thomas, but 
 does more — answers the difficulty which is really 
 contained in the question. 
 
 The statement of S. Thomas was twofold : Wc 
 do not know whither Thou art going; how can we 
 know the way? Wc do not know the goal, or end, 
 of Th)' journey. How, then, can wc know the way 
 
 46 
 
t^t ^ueation of ^. ^^omctB. ^ 
 
 by which it is to be reached ? Incidentally, and yet 
 most clearly, our Lord, in the second part of the 
 verse, states the Goal, or End, of His journey. It 
 is the Father — " No man cometh unto the Father, 
 but by Me." They ought to have known this ; for 
 He had already told them, " In My Father's house 
 are many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place 
 for you."* But it was of more real importance that 
 they should know the waj' by which they were to 
 follow Him, not immediately, but afterwards ; the 
 way which was to bring them to those many 
 mansions, the way which was to bring them to that 
 goal of life — itself the true end for which they had 
 been created. 
 
 As we have said, our Lord did reveal the end, or 
 goal. And yet, this was not the important question, 
 since faith must be content to follow step by step 
 where it is led, and to wait until the goal is reached, 
 and the end is revealed. 
 
 " Lead, kindly Light; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step enough for me." 
 
 S. Thomas was unwilling to take the one step, 
 unless he could see where it was to lead him, unless 
 he could know the far-off end. 
 
 " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." The 
 
 * S. John xiv. 2. 
 
 47 
 
^ "SixBt S^ueebag in SLCnt. 
 
 three terms here are not co-ordinate. The latter two 
 are the unfolding, or explication of the first. " I am 
 the Way," signifies that Christ is the means, or way, 
 by which all are to come to the Father. And He is 
 the means, or way, because He is the Truth and the 
 Life. 
 
 Among the types of Christ in the Old Testament, 
 few are more prominent than the Ark of the 
 Covenant, which contained, as we are told, three 
 things — the Rod of Aaron, which blossomed ; the 
 Tables of the Law, on which God had written the 
 Ten Commandments ; and the Pot of Manna.* 
 
 The Rod typifies Christ as the Way, the staff for 
 the journey of life, the staff of discipline. " Yea, 
 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art with me ; 
 Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me."f The Tables 
 of the Law, which God gave from Sinai, symbolise 
 Christ as the Truth, the eternal Truth, which is to 
 guide us in all our actions ; of which Christ said, 
 ' Think not that I am come to destroy the law . . . 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil (fill out, or 
 complete)."}: 
 
 And the Pot of Manna represents Christ as the 
 
 * Cf. Ileb. ix. 4; I'^x. xvi. H, 34; Numb. xvii. lO ; Ex. xxv. 16; 
 Deut. x. 5. 
 
 t Psalm xxiii. 4. % S. Matt. v. 17. 
 
 4B 
 
€^c ^ucBiion of ^. Z^ottKXB. ^ 
 
 Life ; for He said, " I am the bread of life ; " and 
 again, ** I am the living bread which came down from 
 heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for 
 ever : and the bread that I will give is My flesh 
 for the life of the world."* 
 
 After Christ's answer, S. Thomas remains silent ; 
 perhaps, in order that he may ponder over and 
 reflect upon our Lord's words. 
 
 * S. John vi. 35-51. 
 
 49 E 
 
VII. 
 
 CHRIST AS THE WAY. 
 
 S. John xiv. 6. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : no 
 man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." 
 
 THOMAS asked to know whither his 
 Master was going. Christ reph'es, that the 
 important matter is to know the zuaj^ by 
 which they may attain to the end or goal of their 
 journey ; although He does repeat what He had 
 told them before, that the End is the Father — His 
 Father and their Father. And of this He reminds 
 them again in the message which He sends to 
 them on Easter morning, by S. Mary Magdalene, 
 " I am ascending unto My Father, and your Father ; 
 and to My God, and your God."* 
 
 * S. John XX. 17. 
 50 
 
He is the only Way by which the goal can be 
 reached. " No man cometh unto the Father, but 
 by" (through) "Me." He is the Way by which 
 God and man are united ; by which earth and 
 Heaven are joined ; by which time and eternity are 
 bridged. 
 
 Christianity differs from all other religions, 
 especially in this ; that it demands faith in a 
 Person, and not merely in a system of teaching. 
 In this Christianity stands absolutely alone, that it 
 requires faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. He 
 is ''the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 
 
 When S. Paul was preaching to the Athenians 
 on Areopagus, we are told that he preached unto 
 them "Jesus, and the resurrection."* He preached 
 to them, not a system of philosophy, not a code 
 of morals, but faith in a living Person, Jesus, Who 
 had risen from the dead. 
 
 He is the Way to the knowledge of God. No 
 man can come to know God, but through knowing 
 Christ ; as He says, "If ye had known Me, ye 
 should have known My Father also."t He is the 
 Way to the knowledge of God, not only because 
 He teaches us about God, but because He reveals 
 the Father in Himself. As He afterwards said to 
 S. Philip, '* He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father."! 
 
 * Acts xvii. 1 8. t S. John xiv. 7. % S. John xiv. 9. 
 
 51 
 
^ ^econb TJJebneebaj in £enf. 
 
 Hence, it is not enough to study the words of 
 Christ, important though that may be. We must 
 study Christ Himself; we must come to know Him 
 if we are to know His Father, if we are to know 
 God. 
 
 One of the passions most deeply implanted in 
 human nature is the passion of curiosity, the thirst 
 for knowledge. We strive to gratify it from the 
 first hours of our conscious existence. And as the 
 child grows into the man, if that thirst be not 
 destroyed by sin, it will impel the intellect into 
 new fields of investigation, until at last it leads the 
 mind to the knowledge of God in Christ. 
 
 Each man should be like the pearl merchant in 
 the parable, " seeking goodly pearls ; "* seeking them 
 in many regions of knowledge, in many kingdoms 
 of nature ; finding, with joy, pearls of truth, and 
 yet always feeling that there is something more, 
 something beyond ; until he learns at last that the 
 one Pearl of great price, without which the heart 
 of man can never rest satisfied, is the knowledge 
 of God ; and finds this knowledge, finally, in Christ, 
 Who is the only Way by which a man can come 
 to the Father. 
 
 But man has not only an intellect, and therefore 
 the passion of curiosity, the desire for knowledge. 
 
 * Cf. S. Mall. xiii. 45, 46. 
 52 
 
He has also a heart, and therefore the passion of 
 love, the desire to possess, and to be possessed by, 
 the object of his love. It is not enough for a man 
 to know God, or, rather, to know that there is a 
 God ; it is not sufficient for a man to know al^out 
 God, he must know by experience something of 
 God's character and attributes. Man craves to love 
 God, to possess God, to be possessed by God ; in a 
 word, man desires, above all things, union with 
 God. And as Christ is the Way to the knowledge 
 of God, so is He the only Way by which a man 
 may attain to union with God, and this in a two- 
 fold manner. 
 
 (i) Man craves to be united with God, but 
 recognises, as the insuperable obstacle to that union, 
 his own sin. He is alienated from God by sin, and 
 he realises that it is only by the removal of his 
 sin that he can be made one with God. And 
 Christ comes to pay the penalty of sin, to expiate 
 it, to reconcile God and man, to atone for sin, and 
 so to make God and man at one again. Christ, 
 then, is the Way to the union with God, through 
 His Passion on the Cross, by which He took away 
 the sins of the world, by which He removed the 
 obstacle to man's approach to God. 
 
 (2) This, however, is not all. It is only the 
 negative part of the work of union, the taking away 
 
 53 
 
of the sin which alienated man from God, the 
 removal of the hindrance to his union with God. 
 There is something more, something greater. By 
 sacramental incorporation into Christ, through 
 Baptism, that union is begun ; and by feeding upon 
 Christ, especially in the Holy Eucharist, the union 
 grows, and is perfected. And so, in this way also, 
 the second great passion of man's nature is 
 satisfied ; and, through Christ, man is enabled to 
 love God, to possess God, and to be possessed by 
 Him, 
 
 But yet again Christ is the Way, because He is 
 our Example. S. Peter teaches us that we become 
 " partakers of the divine nature."* That is, of 
 course, through Baptism ; so that, having become 
 " partakers of the divine nature " (that is, being 
 "in Christ"), we may follow the example of His 
 perfect manhood, we may become godlike, not only 
 in nature, but in character. 
 
 Hence, at every step, Christ is the Way ; for He 
 is not only the Means by which we approach the 
 Father, but the Example, by following Whom we 
 become Christ-like, and therefore godlike. " Follow 
 Me," He said ; and this command implies some- 
 thing more than enrolling ourselves under His 
 
 * 2 S. Peter i. 4. 
 
 54 
 
banner. It means following His example, walking 
 in the Waj/. 
 
 S. Paul tells us that, if any man is " in Christ," 
 he is a new creature ;* and further says, that the 
 effect of our being "in Christ," or baptised, ought 
 to be manifested by our walking in " newness of 
 life."t 
 
 Every day, then, of our journey heavenward we 
 find Christ is the Way, the Way by which we are 
 to advance, slowly but surely, to the End, the 
 Father, where He Himself waits for us, that He 
 may present us to the Father as redeemed by His 
 precious blood, made partakers of His divine 
 nature, moulded in character after the example of 
 His holy life, and so meet to be the children of 
 God throughout eternity. 
 
 * Cf. 2 Cor. V. 17. t Rom. vi. 4. 
 
 55 
 
VIII. 
 
 CHRIST AS THE TRUTH. 
 
 S. John xiv. 6. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Lite : no 
 man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." 
 
 S vvc have already observed, Christ is the 
 Way, because He is the Truth and the 
 Life. Let us consider each of these 
 attributes separately. 
 
 He is the Truth, first and in the most absolute 
 sense, because He is Eternal Truth, God. Truth 
 with Him, therefore, is not a gift acquired or 
 bestowed, but is His essential character ; for God's 
 so-called attributes differ from those of man, in 
 that they are all essential to God. God is Truth, 
 and Mercy, and Love. He docs not merely possess 
 
 5C 
 
these characteristics in such a way that we could 
 conceive of His being without them ; they are His 
 essential being. 
 
 Christ, therefore, does not say, what I teach you 
 is true, but I am the Truth ; because He does 
 not say, believe in My teachings, but, believe in 
 Me. He demands faith in His Person, not only 
 in His doctrine. But, not only is He Himself the 
 Truth, but the purpose of His life was to bear 
 witness to truth. At that great moment when He 
 stood before the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, 
 and was asked by him the question, " Art Thou 
 a king then ? Jesus answered. Thou sayest it, 
 because I am a king. To this end have I been 
 born, and for this purpose am I come into the 
 world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. 
 Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice."* 
 
 How faithfully He bore witness to truth, how 
 fearlessly He died for truth, the Gospels teach us ; 
 and in the book of Revelation His title, twice 
 repeated, is "the faithful witness,"f "the faithful 
 and true witness. "J 
 
 If we are to follow the example of Christ, surely 
 we must be witnesses to truth. This must be the 
 great end and purpose of our lives. And yet, how 
 many there are who either think that truth is very 
 
 * S. John xviii. 37. f Rev. i. 5. | Rev. iii. 14. 
 
 57 
 
unimportant, or that truth is unattainable. Some 
 devote their lives to the investigation of truths of 
 secondary importance, of mere phenomena, about 
 the real cause of which they are content to be 
 ignorant. They spend their time in studying in- 
 dividual facts, and drawing from them unimportant 
 generalisations. But the supreme truth regarding 
 our own nature, regarding the character of God, 
 and His purposes for us, the truth which relates 
 not only to time but to eternity — in regard to this 
 truth they are satisfied to know nothing ! 
 
 Some, it is true, will contend that nothing can 
 be known of these things, that God has never 
 given to man any revelation. For such we can 
 only have great pity. To Christians they seem 
 like the blind mole, who is content with his burrow 
 in the earth. The mole is content, because he cannot 
 see, and has no cravings for anything which he does 
 not possess. But the intellect of man can never 
 be content with such an answer ; for the very 
 passion of curiosity, which impels man to seek an 
 answer to the great questions of his soul's life, 
 assures man that He who implanted that passion 
 in him intends it to be satisfied in the revelation 
 of His Son Jesus Christ, Who is the Truth. 
 
 Yes, Jesus Qmst is_the^ Tnjth^__^^ is 
 
 the revelation of God to the world. All truth is 
 
 58 
 
in God, and all truth is revealed to us in Christ ; 
 for in Him is summed up all that is eternal and 
 absolute in the changing phenomena of finite being. 
 He is the revelation of the Father ; and this, not 
 so much on account of what he tells us in His 
 teachings of the Father's character, as that He 
 reveals the Father's character in His own life, mani- 
 festing those attributes of God, which it is most 
 important that we should know. So, in the next 
 verse Christ says, " If ye had known Me, ye should 
 have known My Father also : and from henceforth 
 ye know Him, and have seen Him." 
 
 There was but one way in which man could 
 ever come to know God, and that was through the 
 Incarnation. " The Word became flesh, and dwelt 
 among us ; "* and from the study of His life and 
 the knowledge of His Person, we come to know 
 God's character. 
 
 We learn God's purposes of love in Christ's 
 sacrifice upon the Cross ; His goodness and mercy, 
 in the actions of His life ; and God's power, in 
 His victory over sin and death. In proportion as 
 we know Christ, we shall know the Father. There 
 is no other Way by which we can come to the 
 Father, but through Christ. 
 
 We have referred to the thirst of the soul for 
 
 * S. John i. 14. 
 
 59 
 
truth as an evidence that truth must be attainable ; 
 for it is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of 
 the existence of an appetite for which there is no 
 possibility of satisfaction. Hunger connotes the 
 existence of food ; thirst of drink ; and so on with 
 every appetite of our nature. 
 
 Why, then, should the religious appetite be the 
 only exception, the thirst for God alone be without 
 any means by which it may be satisfied ? He Who 
 made man, and implanted in man the various 
 appetites of his nature, also supplied man with the 
 means of gratifying each one. Why, then, should 
 He have implanted in man that craving to know 
 the mystery of His Being, that thirst for truth, 
 which is so noticeable in every soul, if He never 
 intended to gratify it ? 
 
 The history of philosophy is the history of man's 
 attempt to solve the riddle of his existence, by his 
 own unaided intellect, and without recourse to 
 revelation. And what is the history of philosophy ? 
 The history of various systems, each of which 
 undertook to solve the problem of man's life ; the 
 history of great minds who have turned all the 
 powers of their intellect upon the greatest of all 
 subjects, and after years of laborious thought have 
 cried, " Eureka ! " and have given to the world a 
 system of philosophy ; who have gathered around 
 
 60 
 
them disciples, and have founded schools, and 
 have passed away! And another great mind has 
 come, and picked to pieces their system, has 
 pointed out its fallacies, and proposed another 
 system as a substitute for it. And the world has 
 accepted this, until some one else has treated it 
 in the same manner, and swept it aside. Each, 
 perhaps, has contributed some elements of truth 
 which have remained, as truth always does remain, 
 but they have only been a few grains amid bushels 
 of chaff. 
 
 If there is one thing which the history of 
 philosophy teaches us, surely it is that philosophy 
 can never lead man to absolute truth ; that the 
 human mind, unaided, is doomed to wander in the 
 schools of philosophy, chasing the phantom which 
 always eludes its grasp ! The very fact that 
 systems of philosophy are always changing, that 
 no one has ever lasted, ought to be, one would 
 think, sufficient to prevent any man from resting 
 in them. 
 
 But turn from philosophy to the revelation of 
 God in Jesus Christ, and what a contrast we 
 behold ! Nearly two thousand years have passed 
 since it was given to the world, the most profound 
 minds of every age have been occupied in its study ; 
 and with what result ? Not one of its doctrines 
 
 6i 
 
•^ ^econb 2^^ut6bag in £enf. 
 
 has been changed or proved to be untrue. Men, 
 by prayer and study have come to understand it 
 better, and to find in it, with the changing 
 difficulties of centuries, the solution of all life's 
 problems. 
 
 He Who said, " I am the truth," also said, '' If 
 any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."* 
 In the knowledge of Him can be quenched the thirst 
 of our soul for truth ; but that knowledge must 
 be acquired gradually, and involves labour. The 
 disciples, who had been with our Lord some three 
 years, had not all come to know Him in the same 
 measure. It is true, they had not then the Holy 
 Spirit to guide them into all truth, as we have. 
 But some of them had come to know Him better 
 than others ; S. Peter and S. John, better than 
 S. Thomas and S. Philip. 
 
 If we are to attain the truth, we must seek after 
 it ; we must be like the " merchant man, seeking 
 goodly pearls. "f He found many, but he was not 
 satisfied till he found the one pearl of great price. 
 Then he was content to sell all that he had, that 
 he might possess it. This parable is the history 
 of many a great soul ; it portrays the experience 
 of many a mighty intellect. It is the epitome, 
 for instance, of the life of S. Augustine, who, seeking 
 
 * S. John vii. 37. f C/. S. Matt. xiii. 45, 46. 
 
 62 
 
after truth, passed through many forms ot error 
 and partial truth, until at last he attained unto 
 the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then bore 
 witness to the fact that in Him he found the Truth 
 which satisfied his whole nature. His well-known 
 words sum up the experience of almost every great 
 soul, " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our 
 heart is restless, until it rests in Thee."* 
 
 * S. Aug. "Confess. ;" Migne, P. L. xxxii., col. 66i. 
 
 63 
 
IX. 
 
 ^econb Stibdg in &cnt. 
 
 CHRIST AS THE LIFE. 
 
 S. John xiv. 6. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : no 
 man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." 
 
 HRIST is not only the Truth, but the Life. 
 As He is the Truth because He is God ; so 
 is He the Life because He is God. " As 
 the Father hath Hfe in Himself; so hath He given to 
 the Son to have life in Himself."* He is the Life 
 because He is God, and because God is the only 
 self-existent Being. Every other living creature 
 derives its life from some other life. God alone 
 is underived ; God alone is self-existent ; God alone 
 is Life. 
 
 But God, in His infinite love, has given to us, His 
 
 * S. John V. 26. 
 
 64 
 
creatures, to have life, to have even eternal life, 
 though that life is not underived like the life of God ; 
 for we read that, " The gift of God is eternal life 
 through Jesus Christ."* And our Lord says, " I am 
 the resurrection, and the life ; "f and, speaking of 
 His sheep, says, " I give unto them eternal life ; and 
 they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck 
 them out of My hand."J 
 
 What a mystery life is in all its phases : physical 
 life — the life of the body, the life which is interrupted 
 by physical death ; mental life — the life of the 
 intellect, which is not interrupted by death ; spiritual 
 life — the life of the soul, which also is eternal ! 
 
 Who can tell us what life is, except that it is the 
 gift of God ; that it comes from Him Who is Life ; 
 that it depends upon Him for its conservation and 
 continuance ? In other words, that our life of body, 
 and mind, and soul, is an effect, of which God is the 
 continuous cause. But there is a link between the 
 effect and its cause, a condition which God imposed 
 when He gave, first, the gift of life ; a condition, 
 upon the fulfilment of which not only the continuance, 
 but the perfection of life in all its phases, depends, 
 the condition of food. 
 
 The fact that we must eat to live, is one of the 
 universal facts of the world's life. The tiniest 
 
 * Rom. vi. 23. t S. John xi. 25. J S. John x. 28. 
 
 65 F 
 
^ ^econb S^ibag in B!,cnt 
 
 vegetable, as well as the largest animal, can retain 
 the gift of life but for a few days, unless it fulfil 
 the God-imposed condition, that it eaf. And this 
 condition applies, not only to the life of the body, 
 but to the life of the mind and of the soul. All are 
 effects, of which God is the Cause, and in each case 
 food is the link between the Cause and effect, the 
 link which cannot be ignored without the forfeiture 
 of life. 
 
 Not only does the body starve without food, but 
 the mind also. Food, surely, we may say, is 
 something taken from without, and assimilated by 
 us through certain processes of digestion. The 
 mind of the infant unfolds and develops by feeding 
 upon the outer world, by investigating the sights and 
 sounds around it. After awhile it makes more rapid 
 progress by feeding upon the experiences of others. 
 If a child were shut up in a room where it never saw 
 or heard anything of the outer world, its intellectual 
 life would be dwarfed, it could be scarcely called 
 intellectual life at all. So, too, is it with the soul ; 
 it has need of food, and that food is the Word 
 of God, Jesus Christ. 
 
 As we have seen, our Lord Jesus Christ said, " I 
 am the resurrection, and the life ; " and, speaking of 
 those who believed on Him — " I give unto them 
 eternal life." And we find that He most emphatically 
 
 66 
 
Christ <X6 iU &ife. ^ 
 
 connects this gift of life with feeding upon His Body 
 He says, " I am the living bread which came down 
 from Heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall 
 live for ever : and the bread that I will give is My 
 flesh, for the life of the world." " Verily, verily, I 
 say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
 Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. 
 Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath 
 eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last 
 day."^^ 
 
 We shall observe here that our Lord confines the 
 gift of life to those who feed on His flesh ; that He 
 actually asserts that those who do not eat His flesh 
 have no life in them. And He further associates the 
 resurrection of the dead and eternal life with this 
 feeding upon His flesh. 
 
 But we may approach this subject from quite 
 another point of view. The fact that we must eat 
 to live, is such a commonplace in life, that in our 
 familiarity with it we often fail to realise what an 
 enormous factor food is, not only in the physical life 
 of man, but in his moral and spiritual well-being. It 
 teaches man many lessons which he needs to learn ; 
 and it not only teaches ^ but enforces its lessons. 
 Indeed, we may assert that food is the principal 
 natural instrument in man's progress in this life, the 
 * S. Johnvi. 51, 53, 54. 
 67 
 
chief agent for making him what God purposes man 
 to be. Almost every step forward in his development, 
 physical and moral, may be traced to some law of 
 food. 
 
 But it stops not with its work upon man as an 
 individual ; it deals with him as a social being, and 
 impels him continually on the road to civilisation. 
 But more still, it helps to develop his moral being, 
 and guides his spiritual appetites towards God. 
 Indeed, it is not too much to say, as we study the 
 laws of food in relation to man, that the condition, 
 that every one must eat to live, was imposed by God 
 as a means of preparing man for the great gift of 
 eternal life, and the joys of union with God in 
 Heaven. Let us briefly examine some of these 
 laws. 
 
 Food teaches man that he is dependent ; depen- 
 dent upon his fellow-man, and still more upon God. 
 It absolutely contradicts and forbids the dream of 
 independence which is so dear to man's pride. Man 
 cannot live without food for one day, without 
 beginning to suffer the pangs of hunger ; he cannot 
 live thus for one week, without endangering his life ; 
 and to obtain the food he eats he is dependent on 
 others — on those who employ him, and so furnish 
 him with the means of purchasing food, and on those 
 who work for him, and so provide him with the food 
 
 68 
 
he purchases. Left alone in his primeval condition, 
 man doubtless procured food for himself; but now 
 he has become quite dependent upon his fellow-men. 
 And still more is he dependent upon God, Who 
 gives or withholds the rain and the sunshine, upon 
 which the blessings of harvest depend. 
 
 Again, food teaches man the necessity of labour ; 
 he must work if he is to eat ; and, if, by the 
 accident of wealth, he is dispensed from the need 
 of actually working himself, his very wealth repre- 
 sents the accumulation of the work of others. 
 Without labour man cannot eat, and therefore 
 cannot live. 
 
 At this point we may notice the effect of food 
 upon man's mental development ; for all labour- 
 savinsf devices which are the result of man's 
 intellectual ingenuity can be ultimately traced back 
 to expedients for producing more easily the 
 necessities of life, which may be summed up under 
 the head of food. 
 
 But we may also notice the influence of food in 
 the social sphere. The common meal becomes the 
 symbol of union, and binds man to his fellow-man in 
 the ties of aUiance and friendship. And when the 
 meal partakes of a religious character, it is the 
 means of man's union with God — looked upon as 
 a sacrifice, it removes the obstacles to union with 
 
 69 
 
'^ ^econb Sy^bdg in &enf> 
 
 God caused by sin ; and, regarded as a Sacrament, it 
 becomes the instrument by which man is brought 
 into closest communion with God. 
 
 These are but a few of the lines along which 
 we may trace the work food accomplishes in making 
 man what God would have him to be ; and all these 
 lines meet in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, 
 Who is the Bread of life and the Food of man. 
 Food taught man the law of dependence upon his 
 fellow-man and upon God. And surely this was 
 the great lesson of the life of Jesus Christ, Who 
 said, ^' My meat is to do the will of Him that 
 sent Me, and to accomplish His work;"* Who 
 taught absolute dependence upon God, and also 
 enjoined subjection to those in authority in this 
 world. The dream of independence finds no support 
 in our Lord's teaching ; on the contrary, its keynote 
 is, " Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased ; 
 and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."t 
 
 Food taught man the necessity of labour ; and 
 the Son of God came into the world as a labouring 
 Man, rising early, and late taking rest, saying, " I 
 must work the works of Him that sent Me, while 
 it is day : the night cometh, when no man can 
 work."t 
 
 Food, too, had its effect upon man as a social 
 
 * S. John iv. 34. t S. Luke xiv. 1 1. J S. John ix. 4. 
 
 70 
 
being, becoming the bond of union with his fellow- 
 man, and the instrument of sacrifice and communion 
 with God. And our Lord Jesus Christ, above all, 
 came to teach men that they are brethren, to 
 bind them together in the bonds of love. And 
 further, He came to be the Sacrifice Which should 
 take away the sin of the world, and should make 
 God and man at one. And in the Sacrament of 
 the Eucharist He not only becomes the Food of 
 man's soul, but the Means by which man is united 
 to God. 
 
 All the laws, therefore, of food seem to have 
 prepared the human race for this great revelation 
 of God in Jesus Christ, that He is the Life of man, 
 and that this Life is imparted to man by feeding 
 upon His flesh. 
 
 71 
 
X. 
 
 ^econb ^aturbctg in £enf. 
 
 S. PHILIP'S REQUEST. 
 
 S. John xiv. 7-11. 
 
 " If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also : and 
 from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him. Philip saith unto 
 Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto 
 him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
 Me, Philip ? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; and how 
 sayest thou then. Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am 
 in the Father, and the Father in Me ? the words that I speak unto you 
 I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth 
 the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in 
 Me : or else believe Me for the very works' sake." 
 
 F ye had known Me, ye should have known 
 My Father also: from henceforth ye know 
 Him, and have seen Him." 
 Before we consider the application of this verse we 
 must notice the difference between the two verbs 
 
 72 
 
^. (p^i(ip*B (Reciueet. ^ 
 
 translated by " to know." " If ye had known Me " 
 (eyvcoKeiTe). The word used here means, to know a 
 thing by observation. It is as though our Lord had 
 said, If you had used your opportunities during the 
 three years which you have lived with Me, you would 
 have come to know Me from what you have seen and 
 heard of Me, in such a way that you would have 
 " known My Father also." 
 
 But here we have a different verb (rjbeire), which 
 signifies, to know a thing by reflection. There are 
 certain things which we come to know by the 
 exercise of our senses. There are others which 
 we know by reflection. Our Lord says : If ye had 
 come to know Me by observation during My life, 
 ye would have known, by reflection, My Father; for 
 ye would have seen Him manifested in Me. 
 
 This verse concludes our Lord's answer to the 
 question of S. Thomas. S. Thomas, however, is 
 silent, apparently because he desired to ponder over 
 and reflect upon Christ's words. But here S. Philip 
 takes up the conversation and asks, as though the 
 request had been suggested by what our Lord had 
 just said, " Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufiflceth 
 us." 
 
 S. Philip, in spiritual comprehension, seems to 
 have been the slowest and dullest among the 
 apostles ; for, while the objection of S. Thomas 
 
 73 
 
^ ^econb ^dtutbcij in SLcnt. 
 
 is the objection of a thoughtful man, the request 
 of S. Phih'p is based upon a merely superficial 
 apprehension of our Lord's teaching. He takes 
 up our Lord's last words, "If ye had known Me, 
 ye should have known My Father also : and from 
 henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him," 
 and says, " Lord, shew us the Father, and it suffices 
 us." Instead of spiritual sight, he asks for bodily 
 sight, not considering how impossible was his 
 request. 
 
 If we look back to the beginning of S. Phih'p's 
 spiritual life, we shall find the same characteristics 
 manifested. He was one of the first five disciples whom 
 Jesus called, as S. John records in the first chapter of 
 his Gospel. Of these five, two came to Christ of 
 their own volition or seeking ; two were brought to 
 Him by their friends. S. Philip stands alone among 
 the five as the one who had to be sought by Christ. 
 We read that, Jesus '' findeth Philip, and saith unto 
 him, Follow Me."* He has to be sought, and 
 found, and commanded to follow Him ; and then he 
 obeys. He had probably had the same teaching as 
 the others in the school of S. John Baptist ; so that, 
 like them, he was prepared to receive Christ ; and 
 having accepted His call, he brings his friend 
 Nathanael to our Lord. 
 
 * S. Jolin i. 43. 
 
 74 
 
In his conversation with Nathanael we, however, 
 recognise the same dulness in the blunders which he 
 makes about Christ's Person. He says to Nathanael, 
 " We have found Him, of Whom Moses in the law, 
 and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 son of Joseph."* Nathanael objects, " Can there 
 any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " The 
 prophets to whom Philip referred had foretold that 
 the Messiah should come from Bethlehem. 
 
 S. Philip makes two blunders. Our Lord was not, 
 in a true sense, Jesus of Nazareth ; and He was not 
 the Son of Joseph. It is true, that He dwelt at 
 Nazareth after His return from Egypt, and so was 
 often spoken of by the common people as " Jesus of 
 Nazareth." 
 
 But if Philip referred to the prophets, he ought to 
 have remembered that ^/ley spoke of One Who 
 should come from Bethlehem. And then, too, Jesus 
 was not the Son of Joseph ; He was the Son of 
 Mary, by the operation the Holy Ghost. 
 
 S. Philip is brought before us in the Gospels in 
 two other passages, which do not, however, throw 
 any special light upon his character. But the cir- 
 cumstances of his call, and of his bringing his 
 friend Nathanael to Christ, suggest very much the 
 type of spiritual character which is manifested in 
 
 * S. John i. 45, 
 
 75 
 
^ ^econb ^aturbag in SLtnt 
 
 the request, " Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth 
 
 us." 
 
 S. PhiHp's difficulty is not unbelief, so much as 
 spiritual dulness ; for the very request, " Shew us the 
 Father," implies the belief that Christ could show 
 them the Father ; but also exposes his want of 
 spiritual preception in supposing that the Father 
 could be seen with bodily eyes. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord's reply is full of deepest pathos 
 and reproach, " Have I been so long time with you, 
 and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?" Here 
 the word " to know " is to know by observation. 
 Have you witnessed My life so long, and learned 
 nothing from it ? Have you listened to My words so 
 often, and forgotten what they taught ? "I and the 
 Father are one." '* The Father is in Me, and I in 
 Him."* " He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father ; " not because he hath seen the Father in 
 His absolute Being, but because he hath seen God 
 revealed in the Fatherly relation, revealed as 
 Father ; for in Christ, as S. Paul tells us in the 
 Epistle to the Colossians, "dwellcth all the plentitude 
 of the Godhead bodilywise."t 
 
 In this reproach of our Lord to S. Philip we have 
 a most important spiritual distinction brought before 
 us, perhaps the most important in the whole spiritual 
 
 * S. John X, 30 ; 38, f Col. ii. 9. 
 
 76 
 
^. (p^idf'B (Request. ^ 
 
 life — the difference between knowing Christ, and 
 knowing about Christ. S. Philip had followed our 
 Lord for some three years. He knew a great deal 
 about Him ; he knew what He had said ; He knew 
 what He had done — the works of wonder, the words 
 of love; but, somehow, he had not come to know 
 Christ. 
 
 There are many Christians who really desire to 
 serve Christ faithfully, who, either from spiritual 
 dulness, or from some other cause, are very much 
 like S. Philip. They know a great deal about God ; 
 they have read the Gospels through again and again ; 
 they have read many books on our Lord's life ; they 
 have heard sermons, and lectures, and meditations. 
 And in these various ways they have come to amass 
 a great deal of information about Christ. They 
 could answer almost any question which could be 
 asked them in regard to our Lord's history. But 
 they do not know Christ in the intimate knowledge 
 of spiritual communion with Him; they do not know 
 Him in the intimacy of spiritual friendship. 
 
 It sometimes happens that we have read a great 
 deal about some great man, one of the world's 
 heroes, who happens to be contemporary with us. 
 We have read, perhaps, a great many biographies 
 of this man ; and we have formed our own mental 
 picture of the man and of his character. We think 
 
 77 
 
^ ^econb ^aturbag in &ent, 
 
 we know him. But some day it comes to pass that 
 we are introduced to him, and come to know him as 
 a friend. And very often we find that all our 
 conceptions of him are wrong. He is not a bit 
 like what we thought he was. 
 
 So it is with Christ. Knowing a3out Christ, and 
 knowing Christ, are very different things. We come 
 to know about Christ by reading about Him. We 
 come to know Him, chiefly in meditation, in prayer, 
 and in communion. You get to know a man, not by 
 reading about him, but by talking to him. An 
 hour's conversation reveals more to you of the man, 
 than reading many books about him. 
 
 So you get to know Christ through prayer, 
 especially mental prayer, or meditation. And I 
 suppose it is on this account, on account of its 
 immense value, that Satan tries to discourage people 
 so much in regard to meditation. He tries to make 
 them satisfied with knowing about God, with reading 
 books which are interesting, instead of going through 
 the hard work of speaking to God in meditation, 
 listening for His Voice ; and so coming to know 
 Him through personal intercourse. 
 
 Let us prayerfully consider Christ's reproach to S. 
 Philip, and ask ourselves whether it applies to us — 
 " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast 
 thou not known Me, Philip ? " How many years is 
 
 7S 
 
it since we gave ourselves to Christ ? Can we say, 
 humbly but sincerely, that we have learned to know 
 Him as the Lord of our Life, as our Master, and as 
 our Friend ? 
 
 79 
 
XL 
 
 ^econb Otonbag in &cnt. 
 
 CHRIST'S ANSWER TO S. PHILIP, 
 
 S. John xiv. 10-14. 
 
 " Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ? 
 the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself: but the 
 Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. BeHeve Me that I 
 am in the Father, and the Father in Me : or else believe Me for the 
 very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth 
 on Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
 than these shall He do ; because I go unto My Father. And 
 whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father 
 may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I 
 will do it." 
 
 F we examine our Lord's answer, we find it 
 falls very clearly into three divisions : first, 
 there is the reproach, " Have I been so 
 long time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
 Me, Philip? "then there is the dogmatic statement, 
 
 80 
 
e^rtefB Answer to ^. (p^tftp. ^ 
 
 " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; " and 
 finally, an indication of the lines of evidence which 
 should have led S. Philip to a clearer apprehension 
 of our Lord's person and teaching. Let us turn our 
 attention to this last part of Christ's answer. 
 
 The difficulties which are brought before our Lord 
 by different persons on different occasions, ought to 
 be of special interest to us, inasmuch as they often 
 call our attention to great principles which are in 
 danger of being overlooked. Christ seldom meets a 
 difficulty by a categorical yes or no ; but if His 
 answer sometimes seems less direct, it is because it 
 is more exhaustive, because our Lord answers not 
 merely the verbal question, but unfolds principles 
 which are involved in it. 
 
 In the case under our consideration Christ appeals 
 to evidence of two kinds — objective and subjective. 
 First, He points out that both His words and His 
 works bear witness to His relation to the Father, 
 and to His intimate communion with Him. He 
 says, " Believest thou not that I am in the Father, 
 and the Father in Me? The words that I speak 
 unto you, I speak not of Myself: but the Father that 
 dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me 
 that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me : or 
 else believe Me for the very works' sake." 
 
 Here He appeals to the objective evidence of His 
 words and works. And He reminds S. Philip that 
 
 8i G 
 
^ ^econb (gtonbdg in £enf. 
 
 He had often called their attention to the fact that 
 neither His words nor His works were self-originated; 
 that both alike proceeded from His relation to the 
 Father. For instance, He had said, " My doctrine is 
 not Mine, but His that sent Me ; "* and, " I have not 
 spoken of Myself ; but the Father Which sent Me, 
 He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, 
 and what I should speak."t 
 
 Then, in regard to His works. He had said, 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do 
 nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father 
 do : for what things soever He doeth, these also 
 doeth the Son likewise.''^ And in reference to both 
 words and works, Christ had said, " When ye have 
 lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I 
 am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My 
 Father hath taught Me, I speak these things. And 
 He that sent Me is with Me : the Father hath not 
 left Me alone ; for I do always those things that 
 please Him."§ 
 
 With these aids from Christ's own words, the 
 Apostles ought to have been able to draw the 
 inference of His relation to the Father, and of the 
 fact that He in His own Person manifested to them 
 the Father; as He said to S. Thomas, *' If 3/c had 
 
 * S. John vii. 16. f S, John xii. 49. | S. John v. 19, 
 
 § S. John viii. 28, 29. 
 
 82 
 
Cgrjgfg ^mmx to g, (pgtfty> ^ 
 
 known Me, ye should have known My Father also 
 from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him."* 
 
 The same dogmatic statement which He makes 
 in these words they could have reached themselves, 
 if they had known Him as they ought to have known 
 Him. His gracious words and wonderful works 
 themselves bore witness of His communion with the 
 Father. 
 
 To use an imperfect illustration, we are told of 
 the Apostles S. Peter and S. John, who were ignorant 
 and unlearned men, that when they were brought 
 before the authorities of the Jewish Church, "they 
 took knowledge of them, that they had been with 
 Jesus."t That is to say, the Jewish authorities 
 explained the marvellous power of their preaching, 
 and the miracle which they had wrought in the Name 
 of Jesus, by the fact that they had been with Jesus. 
 They drew this inference from their words and 
 actions, which would otherwise have been incom- 
 prehensible in unlettered and ignorant men ; they 
 saw that they were the effects of their communion 
 with Christ. 
 
 So in the passage we are considering, though in a 
 much higher sense, our Lord points to His own 
 words and works as proving His communion with 
 His Father, and as proving His Father's witness to 
 
 * S. John xiv. 7. f Acts iv. 13. 
 
 83 
 
^ ^econb (tttonbag in S^cni, 
 
 Him. He says, " Believe Me that I am in the 
 Father, and the P'ather in Me : or else believe Me 
 for the very works' sake." " Believe Me," He says ; 
 that is, have faith in Me, on account of My teaching ; 
 for I have taught you that I am in the Father, and 
 the Father in Me. But if you have not this faith, at 
 least use your reason, and from the divinity of My 
 works deduce the necessary divinity of My nature. 
 Believe Me, because you know Me. Or, if you do 
 not, use your intellect and ask yourselves, could any 
 mere man have uttered the words ; have done the 
 miracles, that I have done? 
 
 Then our Lord passes from the objective evidence 
 of his words and works to certain subjective evidence 
 which was not at that time in their possession, but 
 which He promises soon shall be theirs. He says, 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on 
 Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and 
 greater works than these shall he do ; because I go 
 unto the Father." 
 
 Christ turns from the objective manifestation of 
 God — that is, His manifestation outside of themselves 
 by teaching and miracles — to the subjective manifes- 
 tation of God, the manifestation of God which they 
 shall experience in their own souls, in the exercise 
 of new powers to be committed to them. They had 
 wondered at His gracious words, which reached the 
 
 84 
 
C^rjgfg (^ngn^er to g. (P^iftp> ^ 
 
 hearts and swayed the minds of the multitude. 
 They had marvelled at His miracles of healing the 
 sick and raising the dead. And He tells them, as an 
 evidence of the truth of His mission, that they shall 
 do greater works than these. And we know His 
 promise was fulfilled. After Pentecost, their 
 preaching did reach men's souls, and through the 
 Name of their Master they were able to heal the 
 sick and to raise the dead. 
 
 But in what sense were their works to be greater 
 than their Master's? Not greater in kind, but 
 greater in scope. The number of disciples who were 
 gathered together in the upper chamber at Jerusalem 
 after Christ's Ascension, as a result of His three 
 years' preaching, was only some hundred and twenty; 
 but the effect of S. Peter's sermon on the Day of 
 Pentecost is seen in the gathering into the Church 
 of about three thousand souls ! And the marvel of 
 Christianity at its birth was its missionary power. 
 In less than a generation it had spread almost 
 throughout the then civilised world. 
 
 Our Lord has appealed to His works as an 
 objective evidence of the truth of His mission, and 
 now announces that the believer shall find in himself 
 a subjective proof of its truth in the experience of a 
 new power, greater even than that which His Master 
 had manifested — the power of converting the world 
 
 85 
 
'O^ ^econb (Ulonbag in &tni. 
 
 to Christ. And this was to follow as the result of 
 His departure to His Father ; for our Lord says, 
 " Greater works than these shall he do ; because I go 
 unto the Father." 
 
 But here we may ask in what sense, precisely, 
 these greater gifts to the Church were to be the 
 result of Christ's going to His Father. He tells us — 
 because He would send the Holy Ghost the 
 Comforter ; and because He would begin His work 
 of intercession at the right hand of the Father. 
 
 Of the mission of the Holy Ghost He treats fully 
 in the rest of His discourse. But first He refers to 
 the effects of His intercession in the new power 
 which should be attached to the prayer of the 
 Christian. This we may consider more fully in the 
 next section. 
 
 86 
 
XII. 
 
 ^econb Cueebag in &tnt. 
 
 THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN PRAYER, 
 
 S. John xiv. 13, 14. 
 
 *' Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the 
 Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My 
 name, I will do it." 
 
 N these words our Lord reveals the instru- 
 ment by which His disciples are to do 
 greater works than those which they had 
 seen Him do. The instrument is prayer ; not, 
 however, mere prayer, but prayer in the Name, 
 and therefore through the power, of Jesus Christ. 
 All can pray to God as their Creator. The heathen 
 can thus pray, and their prayers are heard. But the 
 Christian prays, not merely to God as his Creator, 
 but to God as his Father — his Father, because he is 
 
 87 
 
an adopted son of God, adopted through incorpora- 
 tion into Christ, a member of Christ, therefore a son 
 of God. So he is taught to pray, "Our Father, 
 Which art in heaven." Moreover, he can plead not 
 only with God as a Father, but he can plead the 
 merits, the infinite merits, of his great Elder Brother, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Prayer with a Christian is something very different 
 from prayer with a heathen. It is the prayer, not 
 merely of the creature to his Creator, not only of a 
 son to his Father ; but prayer made in the Name and 
 through the merits of Jesus Christ, Who sitteth at 
 the right hand of the Father, and adds to our prayer 
 the plea of His merits, the power of His all-prevailing 
 intercession. 
 
 In these discourses our Lord returns many times 
 to the subject of prayer. But if we examine His 
 words at this point we may pass over, with but a 
 brief notice, the other references to it First, we may 
 observe in this passage the scope of prayer — " What- 
 soever ye shall ask in My Name ; " how enormous ! 
 "Whatsoever!" You will say the scope is unlimited. 
 But no ; it is limited by the purpose of prayer — 
 " Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I 
 do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." 
 All prayer must have as its end the glorification of 
 God through Jesus Christ. This, therefore, shuts out 
 
 88 
 
t^t (porocx of C^rtgtian (praget > ^ 
 
 those things which are not for God's glory, and 
 therefore not for our own real good. 
 
 " Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name," that has 
 God's glory as its end, " that will I do." People are 
 often puzzled to know what they ought to pray for ; 
 sometimes, what they ought no^ to pray for. In 
 regard to prayer, we may divide all things into three 
 classes : 
 
 First, there are those things which we know are for 
 God's glory and in accordance with God's Will ; 
 such, for instance, as all things which pertain to our 
 spiritual growth and sanctification. For these we 
 may pray, with the absolute certainty that they will 
 be granted. For it is revealed to us that, "This is 
 the Will of God, even your sanctification."* Every- 
 thing connected with our spiritual life, with our 
 growth in goodness, we can pray for without doubt. 
 We know that God wills to give it to us, desires that 
 we should pray for it. We have the assurance of 
 Christ's own promise that our prayer will be granted, 
 if we do not put an obstacle in the way by our sins. 
 
 Then, secondly, there is that large class of things 
 about which we are quite sure that they are not for 
 God's glory, not for our own good ; as, for instance, 
 when we want to have our own way, knowing that it 
 is not the right way ; when we desire success in some 
 
 * I Thess. iv. 3. 
 
 89 
 
'^^ ^cconb ^ueebag in SLCnt 
 
 undertaking, which is not right or honest. These 
 things are excluded entirely from the scope of 
 Christian prayer ; for they are not for God's glory. 
 
 Between these two divisions lies a third — that 
 large class of things about which we are not sure 
 whether they are according to God's Will or not ; 
 success, for instance, in our undertakings in this 
 world ; the restoration of health when we are sick ; 
 the acquisition of wealth in business ; and many 
 other things which may or may not be for God's 
 glory and our own good. For these, therefore, we 
 are to pray, with the proviso, " Not my will, but 
 Thine, be done." We can pray to God to bless our 
 undertakings in the world, the work we do, if we add, 
 " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." We 
 can ask Him to restore us to health when we are 
 sick, if we are sure that we are entirely resigned to 
 His Will, believing that He knows what is best for 
 us ; and therefore leaving ourselves in His hands, 
 to suffer or to get well, as He deems best for 
 us. 
 
 We learn, then, from this passage, first, the scope 
 of Christian prayer — " Whatsoever ye shall ask in 
 My Name ; " secondly, its purpose — " that the Father 
 may be glorified in the Son ; " and thirdly, what is, 
 perhaps, most important of all, we are taught the 
 channel of Christian prayer — " in My Name." That 
 
 90 
 
€^c (porotv of C^ttgftan (prager^ ^^ 
 
 means, through My Person and character, through 
 the merits of My Passion, through the power of My 
 intercession ; for the channel of Christian prayer is 
 the merits of Christ. Therefore, we finish our 
 prayers with the words, " through Jesus Christ." 
 
 It is in this that Christian prayer differs from all 
 other prayer — that it pleads the Name which is 
 above every name, the Name of Jesus ! Others may 
 base their prayers upon God's mercy, or upon His love. 
 The Christian adds to this the all-prevailing plea of 
 Christ's own promise, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in 
 My Name, that will I do." This plea is infinite in 
 its power, as the merits of Christ are infinite. 
 
 We plead, by all that Christ did for us, all that He 
 suffered for us ; " By the mystery of Thy Holy 
 Incarnation ; by Thy Holy Nativity and Circum- 
 cision ; by Thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, 
 Good Lord, deliver us. By Thine Agony and Bloody 
 Sweat ; by Thy Cross and Passion ; by Thy precious 
 Death and Burial ; by Thy glorious Resurrection and 
 Ascension ; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost, 
 Good Lord, deliver us." 
 
 And more still — not only by all that He did for us, 
 all that He suffered for us upon earth, we plead what 
 He is now doing for us in heaven — His continual 
 intercession at the right hand of the Father, where 
 He ever liveth to make intercession for us. The 
 
 91 
 
-^^ ^econb ZncQ^dT^ in £enf. 
 
 Christian's prayer is of all-prevailing power ; because 
 it flows through the channel of Christ's merits, it 
 is made in the Name of Christ's Person. 
 
 In the sixteenth chapter our Lord repeats this 
 promise — "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatso- 
 ever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will 
 give it you." But there He adds, " Hitherto have ye 
 asked nothing in My Name : ask, and ye shall 
 receive, that your joy may be fulfilled."* 
 
 You will observe that Christ Himself draws atten- 
 tion to the fact of the difference between Christian 
 prayer and other prayer. He says, " Hitherto have 
 ye asked nothing tn My Name." The disciples had 
 prayed ; they had asked, and had obtained, doubtless, 
 many things from God ; but they had never used the 
 all-prevailing plea, the Name of Christ Henceforth 
 their joy was to be fulfilled in prayer ; for they were 
 to pray with an assurance based upon Christ's own 
 words, '' Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My 
 Name, He will give it you." 
 
 We must not, however, forget that, while Christ is 
 the Channel of Prayer, the Holy Ghost is the Agent 
 of Prayer. Prayer — Christian prayer, at least — is 
 His work in the soul ; as S. Paul teaches us, " The 
 Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not 
 what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit 
 
 * S. Jolin xvi. 23, 24. 
 92 
 
€^c (power of C^ttBttdn (ftr<xger> ^ 
 
 Itself maketh intercession for us with groanings 
 which cannot be uttered."* 
 
 You will observe that S. Paul points out three 
 ways in which the Holy Spirit is to help us in our 
 prayers. He is to help us in the matter of prayer, to 
 teach us what we should pray for. He is to help us 
 in the manner of our prayer, to teach us to pray as 
 we ought ; to teach us how to pray. And then 
 again, He is to make " intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered." Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father in 
 heaven intercedes for us ; and the Holy Ghost in our 
 own soul, acting upon our spirit, with aspirations, 
 and desires, and sighs, and groanings, which cannot 
 find words to express themselves, intercedes also. 
 
 But here we must leave this inexhaustible subject, 
 striving to learn from Christ's own words some 
 simple lessons in regard to the supreme duty of 
 prayer. 
 
 * Rom. viii, 26. 
 
 93 
 
XIII. 
 
 2^^tri) T3?ebne6bag in SLCni, 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 S. John xiv. 15. 
 "If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' 
 
 HE thought of love follows the thought of 
 faith. In our last meditation we saw 
 that faith by the agency of prayer can 
 work even greater things than those which Christ 
 did upon earth. Here we are taught that love 
 issues in works of devotion especially manifested 
 in an obedience which shows itself in loving self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Our translation has " keep my commandments," 
 but in the best manuscripts the verb is in the future, 
 not in the imperative : it is rr/pjyo-T/re not TTjpTja-are — 
 If ye love Mc, ye will keep My commandments. 
 
 94 
 
And this indeed is required by the relation of 
 obedience to love. As our Lord implies, obedience 
 is the necessary consequence of love. It is 
 unnecessary to say, "If ye love Me, keep My 
 commandments ; " for if you love, you will obey. 
 And this is what our Lord is pointing out in this 
 passage that obedience is the proof of perfect love, 
 and therefore that disobedience is an evidence of 
 the imperfection of love. For it is absolutely 
 impossible to love God and wilfully to disobey 
 His commandments. 
 
 We may also notice that in the original the 
 word translated " My" {ra^ evroXas ras (fias) is emphatic. 
 Indeed, we might render the passage, " ye will keep 
 the commandments, which are in a special sense 
 Mine." Our Lord is evidently referring to the 
 Gospel, since the commandments given therein 
 are especially His, in that they are characteristic 
 of His teaching which love will lead us to carry 
 out with scrupulous fidelity. 
 
 Love is the " antiphon " of these discourses. 
 We find it enjoined in no less than seven 
 distinct passages. In four, it is love directed 
 towards God and associated with obedience,* as 
 in the verse under our consideration ; and in 
 three it is love directed especially towards our 
 
 * S. John xiv. 15, 21, 23 ; xv. 9. 
 
 95 
 
^ 2;^trb TJJebneebag in £ent. 
 
 neighbour."^' In this verse obedience is set forth 
 as the consequence of love. "If ye love Me, ye will 
 keep My commandments." And similarly in verse 
 23, " If a man love Me, he will keep My words." 
 In verse 21, it is adduced as the evidence of love: 
 " He that hath My commandments, and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth Me." In the next 
 chapter, verse 9, obedience is shown to be the 
 preservative of love : "If ye keep My command- 
 ments, ye shall abide in My love." 
 
 In all these passages it is love towards God of 
 which Christ is speaking. In the other three 
 instances in these discourses in which our Lord 
 enjoins love it is the fruit of love towards God 
 manifested in love towards our neighbour ; and 
 in two of them our Lord proposes, as the model 
 of that love which He commands us to show 
 towards our neighbour, nothing less than His 
 own wondrous love towards us. " A new com- 
 mandment I give unto you. That ye love one 
 another; as I have loved you, that ye also love 
 one another." And again, "This is My command- 
 ment, That ye love one another, as I have loved 
 you ; " and here He adds, " Greater love hath no 
 man than this that a man lay down his life for 
 his friends," thus adducing the supreme act of 
 
 * S. John xiii. 34 ; xv. 12, 17. 
 
 96 
 
love by which He redeemed the world as the 
 pattern of that love which we should show to 
 one another. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ would therefore teach 
 us that love is the true motive of all Christian 
 life and of Christian obedience. It is the force, 
 the principle, which is to regenerate the world 
 by conquering sin. There are really only two 
 great moral forces working in this world — the 
 force of sin and the force of love. We can trace 
 them from the very beginning making their way 
 down the great stream of human history. We 
 find them everywhere present, always in conflict 
 and meeting for their supreme effort in the cross 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 There we learn what, perhaps, we should not 
 have found out by our own observation, that the 
 force of love is stronger than that of sin. As we 
 look upon this world, marred and ruined by sin, 
 we might be led to suppose that sin was stronger 
 than love, because it seems to be so much more 
 universal, and so much more certain in its effects. 
 Everywhere we see the marks of sin ; not only 
 in the prisons, and hospitals, and asylums, in 
 which sin's victims are restrained or ministered to, 
 but in almost every home, in almost every life, 
 not only is sin present, but present to wreck all 
 
 97 H 
 
^ 2^^irb TJ?ebne6i)dg in &eni 
 
 that is fairest, all that is truest, all that is best in 
 man. 
 
 U we regard the world as a great battle-field 
 in which the forces of sin and love are in ceaseless 
 conflict, it would seem to the superficial observer 
 that sin carried the warfare into every part of 
 love's country, making prisoners everywhere. We 
 see homes in which love reigns, homes of peace 
 and happiness, but after a while sin finds entrance 
 there, peace departs, happiness dies, the home is 
 wrecked. This is the dark side of the picture, 
 and it is true that the power of sin is enormous, 
 that its captives are drawn from every class. 
 
 But is there not another side to the picture — a 
 brighter one ? We see bands of devoted men and 
 women going down into the slums of our great 
 cities to wage a hand-to-hand battle with sin. 
 What is the motive that sends them there ? 
 What is the force which gives them courage to 
 meet the foe, to persevere through long years in 
 their work, to endure all sorts of hardships and 
 ingratitude. The motive, the force is love ! And 
 if we see sin entering the homes of love and 
 carrying off as prisoners those who dwell therein, 
 we also behold the servants of love rescuing sin's 
 prisoners, even those who have fallen most under 
 its degrading power, and bringin;^ them back in 
 triumph to the obedience of love. 
 
 98 
 
£ot?e» -"^ 
 
 Again, we behold men and women leaving 
 not only their homes but their country, taking 
 their lives in their hands and going as missionaries 
 to the heathen, meeting the dangers of exposure, 
 disease, and the violence and treachery of those 
 under the dominion of false religions, who, under 
 the influence of their native savagery, stop at no 
 cruelty in their efforts to destroy missionaries 
 bringing them the gospel of peace. 
 
 Again, we ask, what is the spirit which inspires 
 these missionaries ? What is the motive which 
 leads them to abandon the comforts of civilisation, 
 to face the dangers and difficulties of missionary 
 work ? What is the force which supports them 
 through many years under the disappointments 
 of almost fruitless effort. It is the love of souls 
 which flows from the love of God. It is the 
 carrying out of our Lord's command, '' That ye 
 love one another, as I have loved you." 
 
 There is, however, another way in which we 
 may estimate the relative strength of these forces 
 of sin and love. It is by tracing them each to 
 their source, to their origin. If we do this we 
 shall find that sin has its origin in the devil ; it 
 is diaboHcal in its very nature and source. But 
 love, on the other hand, has its origin in God, 
 since " God is Love ; " so that its source and 
 
 99 
 
^ ^^irb TJJeinecbag in £enf. 
 
 nature is divine. Sin is a tremendous force, and 
 its author is a creature of enormous power, but 
 not almighty, not infinite. Love, on the other 
 hand, is of God, and God is ahnighty, God is 
 infinite, God is supreme. So that if we trace the 
 two forces to their origin, we shall be saved the 
 mistake, so natural to one who simply observes 
 them in their conflict around us — the mistake 
 of thinking that sin is more powerful than love. 
 
 Again, we may investigate the relative power 
 of these two forces, not only in a thousand petty 
 engagements in the world about us to-day, but in 
 their supreme effort, in their great duel on Calvary. 
 There we see all the forces of sin marshalled and 
 directed by their leader, Satan, in the attempt to 
 crush out, in the Person of Jesus Christ, supreme 
 goodness and supreme love. And what is the 
 result? Sin can point to the dead Body of Jesus 
 Christ hanging upon the cross, and can say, " See 
 what I have done. I have killed the only perfect 
 and sinless man. He came to set free from my 
 power the human race. He came to redeem my 
 slaves. He taught the Gospel of love. He lived 
 a life of love, and now it is all over. There He 
 hangs upon the cross, dead, killed by those 
 whom He came to save. And it was I who 
 incited them to do the deed, incited them to 
 
 lOO 
 
£oioe. ^ 
 
 murder Him Who desired to be their Deliverer. 
 Can you doubt my power? Which is stronger, 
 sin or love ? " 
 
 It is true that the Passion of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, His death upon the cross, is a witness to 
 the power and malice of sin ; but it is also a 
 witness to the power of love. For the Christian 
 beholding Christ upon the cross can reply to the 
 challenge of the evil one, " Great is your power, 
 but in compassing the death of Christ, you over- 
 reached yourself, and your power was shattered 
 in the very act by which you thought you had 
 gained the victory." 
 
 There is another point of view from which the 
 death of Christ may be regarded. It is a 
 manifestation of the greatness of love : " Greater 
 love hath no man than this. That a man lay 
 down his life for his friends." It was love that 
 led the Son of God to become Incarnate, to 
 endure all the ills which this sinful world could 
 inflict upon him. It was love which took Him 
 through the length and breadth of the land, 
 healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the 
 hungry, teaching the ignorant. It was love which 
 led Him to accept the return which an ungrateful 
 world rendered Him for all these benefits. It 
 was love which made Him willing to suffer and to 
 die for man. loi 
 
-o^ ^^trb n3?ebnegbag in &enf. 
 
 All the cruelty, all the humiliations of the 
 Passion, were but opportunities for manifesting 
 the greatness of His love. The wounds which 
 were inflicted upon the sacred Body of Jesus by 
 the Roman scourges, were but so many gaping 
 lips eloquent with the language of love. " Behold, 
 and see if there be any sorrow like unto My 
 sorrow," says the prophet, speaking in the Person 
 of Christ, and from the greatness of My sorrow 
 learn the greatness of My love. 
 
 It was love which led Him to sufl"er, not only 
 the ignominies and cruelties of the Passion, but 
 to die. " Greater love hath no man than this, 
 That a man lay down his life for his friends." But 
 love is stronger than death, and on the third day, 
 Love arose triumphant from the dead. After 
 forty days, Love ascended into heaven to reign 
 there in His own Kingdom, and on earth still to 
 sway by His Divine power the hearts and minds 
 of His subjects. Sin could inflict death ; but 
 Jesus passed through the grave and gate of death 
 and rose again, and " death hath now no more 
 dominion over Him." 
 
 So it is now in tliis world, so will it always be 
 while this world shall last, sin may persecute, 
 may scourge, may crucify, may kill the body ; 
 but there is a world beyond, a kingdom of love 
 
 102 
 
in which sin shall be no more. And those who 
 have been subjects of Jesus Christ in this life will 
 bear witness through all eternity to the power of 
 His love, that it was stronger than sin, stronger 
 than death ; that by it, that is, by letting it rule 
 their lives, they conquer sin. " If ye love Me, ye 
 will keep My commandments," said our Lord 
 to His disciples, and " This is My commandment, 
 That ye love one another, as I have loved you." 
 If we keep these commandments we shall be 
 doing Christ's work in this world, helping to 
 redeem the world from sin, for Love is the 
 regenerative force of Christian life. 
 
 103 
 
XIV. 
 
 Z^ixt ^^utfibcig in &cni. 
 
 THE COMFORTER. 
 
 S, John xiv. i6. 
 
 "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
 Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." 
 
 EFORE we consider the teaching in this 
 verse, it will be worth our while to notice 
 the word which is translated, or mis-trans- 
 lated, " pray." It should be, " I will ask the Father," 
 not ''pray the Father." Prayer implies the entire 
 subordination of the suppliant, and the immeasurable 
 superiority of Him to Whom prayer is directed. 
 But this is not the case with our Lord's prayers, 
 and so wc find in the original a word used here 
 which is never used of our prayers to God. The 
 verb here is epcorau^ and it is used in regard to prayer, 
 
 104 
 
€^t Comforter. -«• 
 
 only of petitions addressed to God by our Blessed 
 Lord Himself. Wherever the prayers of the disciples 
 are spoken of another word (itVeTv) is used. The 
 word epcorai/, to ask, implies some sort of fellowship 
 or equality between the person who asks and Him 
 to Whom the request is addressed. 
 
 We find this word used in the Synoptic Gospels 
 where the disciples ask our Lord to do things 
 for them in the spirit of fellowship, not of prayer. 
 But wherever the word is used of prayer in the 
 Gospels, it is used only in regard to our Lord's 
 prayers to His Father. He asks, not as we ask, 
 realising our inferiority. He asks with a sense of 
 divine fellowship, so He says, " I will ask the Father, 
 and He shall give you another Comforter." You 
 will notice that there is no sense of uncertainty 
 as to whether the prayer will be granted. Christ 
 says, I will ask, and the Father will give. 
 
 " I will ask the Father, and He will give you 
 another Comforter." This title of the Holy Ghost 
 occurs only in these discourses. We find it first 
 in this verse, afterwards in the twenty-sixth verse 
 of this chapter, in the twenty-sixth verse of the 
 next chapter, and in the seventh verse of the 
 sixteenth chapter. The word is only used in one 
 other passage in the New Testament, and there 
 it refers to our Lord Himself For in his first 
 
 105 
 
^ Z^ix'b 2^^ur6bag in &enf. 
 
 Epistle, S. John says, " And if any man sin we 
 have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ 
 the righteous ; and He is the propitiation for our 
 sins. * 
 
 Beautiful as the title " Comforter " is, and truly 
 as it represents one great aspect of the work of the 
 Holy Ghost, it is difficult to see how it can be 
 regarded as a translation of the Greek irapdKKrjTos in 
 these passages, since the Greek word can only be 
 passive, while the word Comforter is active in its 
 signification. If we take the word Paraclete to 
 pieces we find it is compounded of two words, Trapd 
 and kKtjtos, and that it means literally one who is 
 called to your side to help you in some emergency or 
 difficulty. The word Trapd/cXj^ro? is a forensic term, a 
 legal term, generally applied to the advocate for the 
 defence in a lawsuit, and thus it perfectly brings 
 before us what the Holy Ghost is — a Divine Person, 
 Who is called to our side to help us, to plead for us. 
 As S. Paul says, *' The Spirit Itself maketh inter- 
 cession for us with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered. "-f The translation in S. John's Epistle, 
 " the Advocate," is an accurate representation of 
 the Greek, which "Comforter" is not. 
 
 Our Lord says, " I will ask the Father, and He 
 shall give you another Comforter." Wc may notice 
 
 * I S. John ii. i. f Rom. viii. 26. 
 
 106 
 
t^e Comforter. ^ 
 
 the word " another/' which implies that they had 
 already had one Comforter, our Lord Jesus Christ 
 Himself, and this S. John shows in the passage we 
 have just quoted, where he says, "If any man sin we 
 have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 righteous." Their Comforter, their Advocate, Christ, 
 was about to depart, and He promises that another 
 Comforter, another Advocate, should take His place, 
 and by His operation bring back to them, under a 
 new and more intimate relationship, their Lord and 
 Master. For Christ goes on to say, " I will not 
 leave you orphans or comfortless : I will come to 
 you." 
 
 Since the title "' The Comforter " brings before 
 us a very important aspect of the work of the 
 Holy Ghost in our souls, it may be well for us 
 to dwell for a moment on the character of the 
 comfort which he ministers. " Comforter," which is 
 a Latin word, really means the strengthener, one 
 who, by his words, encourages another, arousing 
 in him the spirit of bravery or courage. We 
 often use the word comfort in such a different 
 sense that it is well to notice its true significance. 
 We speak of the comforts of life or of home, 
 even meaning its luxuries. But luxuries have 
 an enervating rather than a stimulating effect 
 upon us, whereas the derivation of the word 
 
 107 
 
-^ ^gtrb ^^urgbag in &ent> 
 
 ** comfort," signifies that which strengthens us, 
 not that which enervates us. 
 
 The Holy Ghost ministers to us in our sorrows, 
 bringing to us consolations of grace, and He 
 does this chiefly in three ways : — 
 
 First, He enlightens our intellect, enabling us 
 to see the true end and purpose of sorrow and 
 adversity, that by it God's Will is fulfilled in us, 
 and that through adversity the various faculties 
 of the soul are developed and character is 
 moulded and formed for eternity. It was this 
 illumination of his intellect by the Holy Ghost, 
 v^hich enabled S. Paul to say, " Our light affliction, 
 which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
 more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."* 
 
 Then again the Holy Spirit strengthens our 
 will by His grace, enabling us to endure our trials 
 with patience, and teaching us the blessedness of 
 this endurance according to the words of S. James, 
 "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; 
 for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown 
 of life, which the Lord hath promised to them 
 that love Him."f We must remember S. Paul's 
 words, that " God is faithful, Who will not suffer 
 you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but 
 will with the temptation make the way to escape, 
 
 * I Cor. iv. 17. t •^- Jiinics i. 12, 
 
 108 
 
€^e Comforter . ^ 
 
 that ye may be able to bear it""*^ The way to 
 escape, of which he speaks, is evidently not escape 
 from the trial, but from failure under trial ; for 
 the purpose for which this way of escape is given 
 is that we may be able to bear the trial, that is, 
 that we may be strong to endure patiently 
 whatever testing God sends us. It is not getting 
 rid of difficulties which perfects us in Christian 
 life and character ; but patient endurance of them, 
 nay, even joyful endurance ; because we realise 
 the greatness of the work which they are intended 
 to effect in us. As S. James says, " Count it 
 all joy when ye fall into divers temptations ; 
 knowing this, that the trying of your faith 
 worketh patience. But let patience have her 
 perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
 wanting nothing."f 
 
 And, lastly, the Holy Ghost kindles our affec- 
 tions with love for God, so that we not merely 
 endure our adversities and bear our cross, because 
 we see that they are the means by which 
 character is formed, and the latent possibilities 
 of the soul developed ; but because we love and 
 trust God Who has sent them, and because we 
 desire to show that love by accepting with 
 trustful patience, whatever of affliction or adversity 
 
 * I Cor. X. 13. f St. James i. 2-4. 
 
 109 
 
God wills us to bear. Thus the Christian endures 
 his sufferings, not in a mere spirit of stoical 
 courage, but with loving trustfulness, regarding 
 them not as a mark of God's displeasure, but 
 rather of God's love. For it is revealed, " Whom 
 the Lord loveth. He chasteneth, and scourgeth 
 every son whom He receiveth."* What true 
 consolation there is in the thought that the Holy 
 Spirit is always with us in our infirmities, 
 strengthening us to bear our trials, teaching us 
 to love the cross, encouraging us to persevere 
 under adversity, until it has done its work in us, 
 and God in His good providence removes it. 
 
 * Hebrews xii. 6. 
 
 IIO 
 
XV. 
 
 e^trb f rtbag in &ent. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 S. John xiv. i6, 17. 
 
 "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another 
 Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. Even the Spirit of 
 Truth ; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, 
 neither knoweth Him : but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth with you, 
 and shall be in you." 
 
 HE second title by which our Blessed 
 Lord describes the Holy Ghost in this 
 passage is " The Spirit of Truth," and 
 this title implies the distinct personality and true 
 divinity of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " The Spirit of Truth." What does this mean ? 
 The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Christ, Who is 
 the Truth, and He is to guide Christ's children 
 into all truth, as we are told in the next chapter.* 
 
 * S. John XV. 26. 
 Ill 
 
-^ tf^iti Sribag in &eni 
 
 All truth is contained in the " deposit " of the 
 Day of Pentecost. This was given to the Church 
 at Pentecost potentially, and is the deposit over which 
 S. Paul exhorts S. Timothy to keep guard.* And 
 this deposit was '' the faith once for all delivered 
 unto the saints," for which S. Jude, in his Epistle, 
 exhorts us earnestly to contend.j- While we must 
 realise the perfection of this Pentecostal gift, that 
 it contained in the germ all truth ; so that there 
 can be no new doctrines of the faith, we must 
 also remember that it is the office of the Holy 
 Ghost to unfold this truth according to the needs 
 of different ages. 
 
 This unfolding, or development of the truth, is 
 the special function of the Holy Ghost as the 
 Spirit of Truth. Thus He supplies the wants of 
 every age, bringing home to the mind of the 
 Church truth which was contained in the revela- 
 tion of Pentecost, truth which is enshrined in the 
 words of Holy Scripture, but which has often 
 remained unnoticed or imperfectly comprehended by 
 the Church, until some need for it has arisen. Then 
 the Holy Ghost has supplied that need by showing 
 to the Church, not new truth, but some aspect of 
 the original deposit which met the exigencies of 
 the times. This, which we may see again and 
 
 * Cf. \ S. Timothy vi. 20. f Cf. S. Jude 3. 
 
 112 
 
e^e ^pitit of ttut^. ^ 
 
 again in Church history, is our assurance, that in 
 all the difficulties of future ages, the Spirit of 
 Truth will preserve the Church from error, and 
 unfolding the Pentecostal revelation more and more, 
 will guide the Church to the comprehension of all 
 necessary truth. 
 
 There are many doctrines of the Church which 
 illustrate this work of the Spirit of Truth. 
 Doctrines, which were implicitly contained in the 
 original deposit, of the faith, but which were not 
 explicitly defined until need for them arose in the 
 Church. Such, for instance, are the doctrines of the 
 Holy Trinity, and of the Incarnation of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 These are contained in Holy Scripture. They 
 were implicitly held by the Apostolic Church. 
 And yet we find that writers of the second and 
 third centuries treat of them vaguely, and some- 
 times even inaccurately. But, when in the fourth 
 and fifth centuries heretics arose who denied these 
 doctrines, then the Church, under the guidance of 
 the Holy Ghost in her ecumenical councils, defined 
 accurately what was the truth, and gave us the 
 Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the former by 
 conciliar action, the latter by natural growth, but 
 both under the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, 
 Who is the Spirit of Truth. 
 
 113 I 
 
There are many other doctrines which have 
 been unfolded from time to time ; but we must 
 bear in mind that every doctrine in its full growth 
 is identical with the original revelation of the Day 
 of Pentecost. Some persons have thought on this 
 account that the doctrines of the Church have 
 changed, but we must remember that there is 
 a change which destroys, and a change which 
 perfects, the identity of things. For instance, all 
 growth is change, yet the oak of the forest has 
 perfect identity with the acorn from which it 
 sprang, and the change of ages, which has passed 
 upon it, perfects its identity by unfolding its 
 stateliness, and beauty, and strength. On the 
 other hand all decay is change. When the 
 branches of the oak droop, when the tree dies and 
 falls into the dust, this stage is corruption. 
 
 By this rule we may test the doctrines of the 
 Church in comparison with those of the heretics. 
 For instance, as we have shown, wc may trace 
 this growth in the expression of the doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity from the Baptismal formula to 
 the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. This is 
 growth, but absolute identity. So we may follow 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation from the formula, 
 " The Word became Flesh,"* to the full definitions 
 
 * S, John i. 49. 
 114 
 
t^t ^pixii of txui^. -^ 
 
 of the ecumenical councils against Arians, 
 Apollinarians, Nestorians, and Eutychians. So, 
 too, with the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. 
 Here again we have growth but identity. 
 
 If we test the same doctrines among schismatics 
 and heretics, we find the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity represented by a series of heresies, from 
 Sabellius to Socinus, or we may trace the 
 progress of the perversion of the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation from Nestorius to Strauss, or of the 
 Holy Eucharist from Luther to Zwinglius. Here 
 is change indeed, but change in which identity is 
 lost. The oak has mouldered and fallen to the 
 ground. 
 
 That this is the teaching not of the Church 
 alone, but also of Holy Scripture, we shall see if 
 we read carefully the second chapter of the First 
 Epistle of S, John. " But ye have an unction 
 from the Holy One, and ye know all things. 
 I have not written unto you because ye know 
 not the truth, but because ye know it, and that 
 no lie is of the truth . . . But the anointing 
 which ye have received of Him abideth in you, 
 and ye need not that any man teach you : but as 
 the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and 
 is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught 
 you, ye shall abide in Him."* 
 
 * I S. John ii. 20, 21, and 27, 
 
•^^^ g^irb f rtbag in feent. 
 
 In these words, S. John, writing to the Church 
 at the end of the first century, affirms : 
 
 (i) That it had already received the unction 
 of the Spirit of Truth, and that, therefore, its 
 members had no need to seek for knowledge 
 elsewhere, because this unction enabled them to 
 know all things ; for it was the unction of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 (2) That they had no need of human teachers : 
 " Ye need not that any man teach you." 
 
 (3) That this unction was absolute truth, that 
 it is no lie ; that is, it is not mixed with any 
 falsehood, error, or doubt. This unction rested 
 first on our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, the 
 Head of the Church, and from Him descends 
 upon His Body which is the Church, and goes 
 " down to the skirts of His clothing," that is, to the 
 members who abide in the Church. 
 
 In regard to the character of the presence of 
 the Holy Spirit in the Church, our Lord in this 
 passage teaches us three things : 
 
 (i) " He shall abide with you for ever." Christ's 
 historical presence might at that time be measured 
 by hours, He was soon to leave them ; at the 
 longest, from the beginning of His ministry, it 
 was measured only by years. But the Holy 
 Ghost comes that He may abide with the Church 
 
 116 
 
t^e ^ytrtt of trui^. «•»• 
 
 for ever. This is not a transient presence, but a 
 continual presence, preserving the Church from all 
 error, guiding her into all truth. 
 
 (2) It is, however, a presence which the world 
 cannot apprehend : *' Whom the world cannot 
 receive because it seeth Him not neither knoweth 
 Him." With the world, lack of the capacity of 
 sight made reception of the Holy Ghost impossible ; 
 with the disciples, on the other hand, His presence 
 brought knowledge which gave them greater power 
 of reception of the Holy Spirit. For Christ goes 
 on to say : " But ye know Him : for He dwelleth 
 with you and shall be in you." 
 
 We may ask how they had come to know the 
 Holy Ghost when this was apparently the first 
 time they had heard of Him. They had come 
 to know Him through Christ, for in Christ the 
 Spirit was always truly present, though not in 
 His characteristic manifestation ; just as Christ 
 now is ever present with His Church through 
 the operation of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine 
 of the Circumincession teaches us that where 
 any one Person of the Holy Trinity is, there 
 the Others are also. That whatever any one 
 Person of the Holy Trinity does the Others share 
 in that action. So the Holy Spirit was in Christ 
 when Christ was in the world, just as Christ is 
 
 117 
 
'^§ ^^irb :§'ribag in kcnt. 
 
 present now through the operations of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 (3) " Dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." 
 " Dwelleth with you " {nap' vfxiv fxevei) might be 
 nnore accurately rendered, " abideth by your side." 
 And in these words we have brought before us an 
 important theological doctrine. Before Pentecost 
 the Holy Ghost was abiding close to them, as it 
 were by their side, for He was the Spirit of Christ. 
 But there was no indwelling of the Holy Ghost 
 in man until Pentecost. We observe that our 
 Lord, speaking of the Holy Ghost, says to the 
 disciples, He abideth by your side (that is, before 
 Pentecost), but He adds, " And He shall be in 
 you," that is, in the near future, after Pentecost. 
 
 In the Old Testament the Holy Ghost was 
 God's Agent, as He is now ; but He worked in 
 a different way. " He spake by the Prophets " 
 the Creed tells us, but He did not dwell in them. 
 His action upon them and upon others was but 
 transient. Now in the Church and in the Christian 
 soul it is permanent ; there is an abiding presence. 
 He is given to us that He may abide with us for 
 ever. 
 
 118 
 
XVI. 
 
 Z^ith ^aturbag in SLtni. 
 
 CHRISrS COMING THROUGH THE 
 HOLY GHOST. 
 
 S. John xiv. 18-20. 
 
 " I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to you. Yet a little 
 while, and the world seeth Me no more ; but ye see Me : because I 
 live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in My 
 Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My command- 
 ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me : and he that loveth 
 Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will 
 manifest Myself to him. ' ' 
 
 THIRD cause of consolation which our 
 Lord sets before His disciples in this 
 chapter is that after His departure, and 
 through the gift of the Holy Ghost, He Himself 
 will come to His disciples in a union more intimate 
 than the fellowship which they had enjoyed with 
 Him in His life on earth. He says, " I will not leave 
 
 119 
 
^^ 
 
 i^ixi ^afurbdg in &cnt. 
 
 you comfortless : I will come to you." The word 
 translated "comfortless" (dpcpavovs) is really "orphans." 
 '• I will not leave you orphans." The very word 
 which describes their sorrow confirms their son- 
 ship. When He departs for a brief space they 
 will be like orphans. But even this shows their 
 true relation to Christ, that they are His children, 
 and He promises, " I will not leave you orphans : 
 I will come to you : " or as we should read 
 it, "I am coming to you," for the verb {^px^f^^O 
 is in the present tense, not in the future. " I am 
 continually coming to you and to the Church in 
 all the work of the Holy Ghost ; " for all the great 
 operations of the Holy Spirit in the Church are but 
 the energies of the living and reigning Lord Jesus 
 Christ, Who comes to us also as individuals through 
 the work of the Holy Ghost in our own .souls. 
 
 In how many ways does our Blessed Lord come to 
 us through the work of the Holy Ghost in us ? He 
 comes to us in the hour of prayer : we not only pray 
 in His Name, that is through His merits, but with 
 Him, in the realisation of His great intercession at 
 the right hand of the Father. He comes to us at the 
 time of meditation, when we are pondering upon the 
 words in the Holy Gospel, which depict some scene 
 in His life, or record His teaching. The sacred page 
 glows under the illumination of the Hcjly Ghost, and 
 
 120 
 
C^rtefe Coming. ^^ 
 
 the actions and utterances of our Lord come to us 
 with greater power probably than they exercised 
 over the Apostles who heard them, but had not 
 the Holy Spirit to bring them home to their 
 souls. 
 
 He comes to us at the moment of temptation to 
 help us by His grace to resist and to conquer — He 
 Who once " was in all points tempted like as we are, 
 yet without sin."* He comes to us in the Holy 
 Communion to give us strength to bear the burdens 
 of life, to do the work to which we are called, to 
 guide us in our difficulties that we may not only 
 rejoice in our union with Him, but in the power of 
 His grace may fulfil God's purposes for us, meeting 
 with courage the obstacles which the world puts 
 in our way. 
 
 He comes to us in our joys to show His interest 
 in us. He comes to us in our sorrows to tell us 
 of His sympathy for us. He comes to us in the 
 days of sickness to teach us to bear with patience 
 the discipline of ill health, and to unite our little 
 sufferings to the great pains of His Passion. 
 
 Lastly, He comes to us in the hour of death to 
 strengthen us for the last great struggle. If David 
 could say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art 
 
 * Heb. iv. 15. 
 121 
 
with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me/"'' 
 how much more can we make these words our own 
 as we pass through the valley of the shadow leaning 
 upon our Beloved. As He has come to us in all 
 the various vicissitudes of our life here, so He will 
 take us to be with Him in that glorious life hereafter, 
 where, if we have been faithful, we shall learn that 
 our light affliction in this world has worked for us a 
 far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory in 
 the world beyond, in heaven itself. 
 
 "Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no 
 more ; but ye see Me : because I live ye shall live 
 also." The world was to behold Him but a little 
 while longer, for its followers deprived themselves 
 of the power of seeing Him by their own act when 
 they crucified Him. But even while they still behold 
 Him, they only behold Him with that outward 
 vision which could see but His natural life. His 
 disciples, however, had another kind of vision, so 
 that, although His death was to remove Him from 
 their natural sight, it did not interfere with that 
 spiritual vision through which they received mani- 
 festations of Himself, and, indeed, after Pentecost 
 this power of spiritual vision, by which they received 
 revelations of Christ, was to be immensely increased. 
 
 " The world seeth Me no more ; but ye see Me." 
 
 * Psalm xxiii. 4. 
 122 
 
C^txBfB Coming, ^ 
 
 Ye see Me always. But He promises more than 
 this : " Because I live, ye shall live also." Fellow- 
 ship with Christ involved not only sig-k^ but /z/e. 
 Not only were they to receive revelations of Christ, 
 but they were so to be made one with Christ through 
 Baptism, so that, with S. Paul, they could say, '' I 
 live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."* And 
 this incorporation is the work of the Holy Ghost. 
 Made one with Christ in Baptism, that union grows 
 and increases, as we feed upon Christ through medi- 
 tation upon His words, and in the Holy Eucharist 
 receive the very Body and Blood of Christ, so that 
 we are able to live by His life. 
 
 " At that day ye shall know that I am in My 
 Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." " At that 
 day." At what day ? The day in which the new 
 revelation is realised : the day which began at 
 Pentecost, and lasts for the Church until Christ's 
 return. But for the individual soul it is the day 
 in which we realise the fulness of our fellowship 
 with Christ through the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost ; it is the day of our intensest joy, the day of 
 our spiritual awakening, the day when we realise 
 we are Christ's, not merely in name, but in deed, 
 the day in which we realise that we live, and yet 
 not we, but Christ liveth in us. 
 
 * Gal. ii. 20. 
 123 
 
^^ C^trb gaturbgg in &cnt 
 
 "At that day ye shall know that I am in the 
 Father." Then should they apprehend Christ's 
 union with Him Who is not only t/ie Father, but 
 His Father. That is to say, they should then 
 realise the true relation of Christ to God the 
 Father, and their relation to the Father through 
 their union with Christ This is what S. Paul 
 means when he says, " For as many as are led by 
 the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For 
 ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again 
 to fear ; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself 
 beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the 
 children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs 
 of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."* We are 
 children of God, not only by creation, as all the 
 heathen are God's children, but we are children by 
 adoption, that is, God is our Father because He is 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and because 
 we are incorporated into His Body and live with 
 His Life. 
 
 " At that day ye shall know that I am in My 
 Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." So we are 
 taught that in order to know the Father, in order 
 to see the Father (as S. Philip asked to see Him), 
 we must have communion with Jesus Christ in 
 
 * Rom. viii. 14-18. 
 124 
 
C^mf 6 Coming. ^ 
 
 His Humanity. But, on the other hand, in order 
 to have the fullest and most intimate union with 
 this Humanity, we must realise its exaltation into 
 God, for only as Christ is in the Father is He able 
 to be with us and in us, through the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " He that hath My commandments, and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth Me : and he that loveth 
 Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love 
 him, and will manifest Myself to him." This verse 
 must be compared with the fifteenth verse, of which 
 it is the converse, " If ye love Me, ye will keep My 
 commandments." There obedience is shown to be 
 the consequence of love : '' If ye love Me, ye will 
 keep My commandments." Here obedience is shown 
 to be the evidence of love : " He that hath My 
 commandments and keepeth them, he it is that 
 loveth Me." 
 
 But more, " and he that loveth Me shall be loved 
 of My Father," not merely in the sense and in 
 the degree in which God loves the world at large, 
 but in a peculiar and individual degree, as the father 
 loves the child who is specially dear to him because 
 he fulfils all his purposes and satisfies all his hopes. 
 In other words, we shall be loved of the Father 
 because we love Christ, Who is the superlative 
 object of the Father's affection, the only begotten 
 
 125 
 
^ ^^irb ^aturbag in SLcni. 
 
 Son of God, and this love for Christ we prove by 
 our obedience to His teachings. 
 
 But there is yet more, " And I will love him, 
 and will manifest Myself to him." The word 
 "manifest" in this verse is emphatic and signifies a 
 close revelation of Christ's Person. " He that loveth 
 Me, shall be loved of My Father : and I will love 
 him, and will manifest Myself to him." The word 
 " manifest " implies that our Lord will make clear 
 to those who love Him with this perfect love, His 
 nature and character, in a union so intimate that 
 it can only exist in the soul which has given itself 
 up altogether to the love of Christ. 
 
 126 
 
XVII. 
 
 €^trb (tttonbdg in Sitnt 
 
 THE QUESTION OF S. JUDE. 
 
 S. John xiv. 22-24. 
 
 "Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that Thou 
 wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus 
 answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My 
 words : and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, 
 and make Our abode with him. He that lovcth Me not keepeth 
 not My sayings : and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the 
 Father's which sent Me." 
 
 UDAS said unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, 
 how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself 
 unto us, and not unto the world ? " 
 This Judas is the apostle who is brought before us 
 in the lists of the apostles given by S. Matthew and 
 S. Mark* under the name of Thaddaeus, and in that 
 
 * S. Matt. X. 3. S. Mark iii. 18. 
 127 
 
^ tf^ixi) (Utonbag in S^tnt 
 
 jriven by S. Luke as Judas the son (not the brother) 
 of James.* We know absolutely nothing about him 
 except that he asked this question of our Lord. 
 Some have identified him with the S. Jude who wrote 
 the Epistle. But that Judas was a brother not a son 
 of James, and was one of our Lord's '* brethren ; " 
 moreover it is extremely doubtful, or rather im- 
 probable, that any of our Lord's brethren were 
 numbered among the twelve Apostles. We are so 
 distinctly told in the Gospels " neither did His 
 brethren believe in Him,"t that it seems impossible 
 to suppose that they could have been among the 
 Apostles. Since we know nothing about this S. 
 Jude, except that he asked this question of our 
 Lord, we are not able, as in the case of S. Peter 
 and S. Thomas and S. Philip, to investigate his 
 character and spiritual development. 
 
 He interrupts our Lord with a fourth question, 
 and, as in the previous questions, Christ's answer 
 clears up certain difficulties. S. Peter had asked, 
 '' Why cannot I follow Thee now ? " and Christ had 
 shown that none can follow Him into His Kingdom 
 in Heaven until they have been prepared for it by 
 following Him in obedience and suffering in His 
 
 * S. Luke vi. i6. Our version is wrong in inserting "brother" in 
 this place. 
 
 t S. John vii. 5. Cj. also S. Mark iii. 21. 
 
 128 
 
t^c ^uegtion of ^> %xibe. ^ 
 
 Kingdom on earth. S. Thomas had asked, " We 
 know not whither Thou goest ; and how can we know 
 the way ? " and Jesus had revealed that He Himself 
 was the Way : " No man cometh to the Father but 
 by Me." " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 
 S. Philip had said, " Show us the Father, and it 
 sufficeth us," and our Lord had replied to him : " He 
 that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," and then 
 had gone on to show him how He Himself revealed 
 the Father. 
 
 Now another disciple, S. Jude, asks a further 
 question. " How is it that Thou wilt manifest 
 Thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? " The 
 clause translated " how is it," etc. (W yeyovev) ought to 
 be, " What has happened that Thou wilt manifest 
 Thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? What has 
 happened to change Thy plans ? Surely as Messiah 
 Thou wouldest reveal Thy glory publicly to the 
 world. For this the Jewish nation has long hoped. 
 What then has happened to cause Thee to change 
 these plans and to tell us that Thou art about to limit 
 the revelation of Thy glory to us, Thy disciples ? " 
 
 This is the idea which the question of S. Jude 
 expresses, and we shall remember that a similar idea 
 is contained in the words of His brethren to our Lord 
 at an earlier period of His ministry, when they said 
 to Him, " Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that Thy 
 
 129 K 
 
^ i^ix'b (tttonbctg in Si,cnt. 
 
 disciples also may see the works that Thou doest. 
 For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, 
 and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If 
 Thou do these things show Thyself to the world."* 
 As is so often the case, our Lord's reply does not 
 appear to be a direct answer to the question, 
 although, if we study it carefully, we shall find 
 that it is more than an answer, in that it indicates 
 the true cause why Christ did not manifest His 
 Messiahship at that time to the world. 
 
 The Jews were expecting a political Messiah, who 
 should deliver them from foreign foes, from their 
 Roman masters, and should make the nation glorious 
 as it was in the time of Solomon, or rather, more 
 glorious than it had ever been. There is little doubt 
 that most of the Apostles shared in this expectation 
 in spite of many warning utterances of Christ. Even 
 after His resurrection we find that they asked Him, 
 " Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the 
 kingdom to Israel ?"t They looked for the setting 
 up of a temporal kingdom of great power and glory, 
 and it was not until they had been enlightened by 
 the gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost that they 
 were able to understand that Christ's kingdom was 
 not of this world, was not a temporal kingdom 
 amongst the kingdoms of the earth, but was a 
 
 ♦ S. Juhn vii. 3, 4. t Acts i, 6. 
 
 130 
 
t^c <£^uegtton of g> gube. ^ 
 
 universal kingdom over men's minds and souls, a 
 spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 But let us examine our Lord's answer, for it 
 contains a very important declaration of the law 
 of the progress of God's revelation to man. We see 
 first the condition of this revelation, that it depends 
 upon obedience resting upon personal love, and then 
 the mode of this revelation, which is shown to be the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost. For in verse twenty- 
 six our Lord goes on to speak of the Holy Ghost, 
 Who was to bring all things to their remembrance. 
 To this is added a recapitulation of Christ's work for 
 His people, both in Heaven and earth, with which 
 the chapter concludes. 
 
 ''Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love 
 Me, he will keep My words ; and My Father will 
 love him, and We will come unto him, and make 
 Our abode with Him." The first clause is practically 
 a repetition of verse fifteen, " If ye love Me, ye will 
 keep My commandments." If a man love Me, he 
 will keep My zuord, not words, for here the word 
 referred to is the Gospel, containing, as it does, 
 Christ's own commands. But to this He adds, not 
 as in verse eighteen, " I will come to you" but " We 
 will come," My Father and I. Thus implying, of 
 course. His true divinity. 
 
 131 
 
'^ Z^it'b (Blonbdg in iLCnt, 
 
 " We will come to him and make Our abode with 
 him." Here the thought carries us back to the first 
 verse. " In My Father's house are many mansions." 
 
 We have already noticed that the word ftoi"?, trans- 
 lated " mansions," occurs only twice in the New 
 Testament, both times in this chapter — in the first 
 verse and in the present verse. '* For We will make 
 Our abode with him" is, if we are to retain the same 
 translation of f ovj;, " We will make our inansion with 
 him." 
 
 Surely this introduces us to one of the deepest 
 mysteries of Christian experience. Not only has 
 Christ gone to prepare a place for us in the many 
 mansions of His Father's house, but if we, through 
 love and obedience, prepare a place for God in our 
 souls, He will come and take up His abode with us. 
 This verse is paralleled by the passage in the Epistle 
 to the Church of Laodicea : " Behold, I stand at the 
 door, and knock : if any man hear My voice, and 
 open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with 
 him."- 
 
 It is comparatively easy for us to conceive of 
 Christ preparing a place for us in Heaven, but now 
 He reveals to us that we need not wait for this, that 
 if we will but prepare our hearts, God the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Spirit will come and make Their 
 
 * Rev. iii. 20. 
 132 
 
tU iX^CBtion of g> gube, ^ 
 
 abode in us ; so that we can have Heaven within 
 us with all its joys, even though we are surrounded 
 by the sorrows and struggles of the life of this 
 world. 
 
 But this wonderful union of the soul with God, 
 which is the climax of our Lord's revelation, has its 
 condition. We must not forget it. The condition is 
 obedience which springs from personal love. " If a 
 man love Me, he will keep My words : and My 
 Father will love him, and We will come unto him, 
 and make Our abode with him." The capacity to 
 receive Christ's revelation and the capacity to 
 possess God's presence in the soul depends upon this 
 loving obedience. Therefore, our Lord goes on to 
 say, " He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My 
 sayings ; and the word which ye hear is not Mine, 
 but the Father's Which sent Me." 
 
 This is the real answer to S. Jude's question, 
 " What has happened that Thou wilt manifest 
 Thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? " That 
 which had happened was this, that the love of the 
 disciples rendered them, even imperfect as they 
 were — rendered t/ie7n capable of receiving Christ's 
 revelation ; while the lack of love on the part of the 
 world rendered the world incapable of receiving it. 
 The reason that Christ would manifest His glory to 
 the disciples and not to the world, was that the world 
 
 133 
 
^^ tf^ix'b (Blonbag in £enf. 
 
 had no eyes to see, no capacity to receive it, and the 
 want of sight and the want of capacity was to be 
 traced back to the lack of love. Thus we are told 
 that disobedience to Christ's words (that is, to the 
 constituent parts of His one word, the Gospel) is, 
 in fact, disobedience to God, manifesting Himself 
 under the aspect of Love. 
 
 There are some, alas, who reject Christ's words, 
 and yet profess to believe in God. Those, for 
 instance, whom we call Unitarians. If we were to 
 ask them what was their conception of God, they 
 would probably reply, " God is Love," and yet they 
 reject the one and only manifestation of perfect love 
 in Jesus Christ, which the world has ever seen. 
 When our Lord says, " He that loveth Me not, 
 keepeth not My sayings : and the words which ye 
 hear are not Mine, but the Father's, Which sent Me." 
 He shows that those who love Him not, and keep not 
 His commandments, cannot receive the full revelation 
 of the Father — that in rejecting Christ's words, they 
 are really rejecting God, manifested under His 
 attribute of Love. 
 
 134 
 
XVIII. 
 
 CHRISrS LEGACY TO HIS DISCIPLES. 
 
 S. John xiv. 25-27. 
 
 " These things have I spoken unto you, bemg yet present with you. 
 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whonr. the Fathei 
 will 5.-end in My name. He shall teach you all things, and bring all 
 things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 
 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you : not as the 
 world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, 
 neither let it be afraid." 
 
 N the last section our Lord revealed the 
 condition on which the reception of 
 revelation depends — obedience resting upon 
 personal love, without which the capacity to receive 
 revelation cannot exist. Now we are told of the 
 mode of revelation. It is by the operation of the 
 Holy Ghost, and in regard to this operation we 
 
 135 
 
•0^^ t^ix'b ^uesbdg in Si^cni, 
 
 are taught four things, (i) That the Holy GhoFt 
 is sent by the Father. (2) That He comes in 
 Christ's name, character, and power. (3) That He 
 comes to teach us all things ; and (4) that Ke is 
 to bring to our remembrance and to make clear 
 to our understanding all that Christ taught His 
 disciples. 
 
 "These things have I spoken unto you, being 
 yet present with you." " These things " refer to 
 the consolations given by our Lord to His disciples 
 in the previous part of the chapter, and they are 
 put in antithesis to the " all things " which the Holy 
 Ghost was to teach them. The earthiy teaching 
 of Christ was limited by the circumstances under 
 which it was given, especially by the unenlightened 
 character of the disciples before Pentecost. This 
 teaching of Christ, however, was to be completed 
 by being filled out and developed by the Holy 
 Ghost in the Church. 
 
 " But the Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost." 
 This is the only place in the Gospel in which we 
 have the full emphatic title " the Holy Ghost." 
 In our Bible we find the title several times in the 
 Synoptic Gospels,"*^ but the form in the original 
 Greek is quite different. There it is, nuevfia "lyiou, 
 
 * S. Malt. i. 18, 20; iii. 11 ; S. Mark i. 8 ; S. Luke iii. 16; 
 S. John i. 3^. 
 
 136 
 
C^tiBf 6 £egacg fo ^xb ©iBctpfeB. ^ 
 
 without the article. Whereas here it is, t6 nvevfia t6 
 ayiov, signifying the Spirit, Which is the Holy Ghost. 
 Our Lord in this passage, and again in the thirteenth 
 verse of the sixteenth chapter, speaks of the Holy 
 Ghost as the Teacher and Guide, Who is to lead 
 them into all truth. As the latter passage is 
 somewhat fuller in its treatment of this aspect of 
 the work of the Holy Spirit, we shall pass over 
 the present verse and consider it when we come 
 to treat of the parallel passage. 
 
 " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto 
 you ; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. 
 Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
 afraid." This is our Lord's solemn farewell and 
 last legacy to His disciples. " Peace I leave with 
 you, My peace I give unto you." And what sort 
 of peace is tliis, of which our Lord speaks as I/z's 
 peace, and which He contrasts with the world's 
 peace. The peace which He gives, His own peace, 
 is the result of struggle endured and victory won. 
 The world's peace, on the other hand, is generally 
 the result of a compromise or truce with evil. 
 The world's peace is the absence of struggle, the 
 shrinking from, rather than the meeting and over- 
 coming of difficulties. " My peace I give unto you." 
 It will not save you, our Lord would tell us, from 
 struggle and persecution and sorrow, but it is an 
 
 137 
 
*^ ^^^y^ ^ue abag in &ent. 
 
 interior peace which the world cannot give, and, 
 thank God, cannot take away — a peace which is 
 the result of the presence of the Prince of Peace 
 within your souls. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord once told His Apostles of 
 quite another sort of peace ; for we read that He 
 said to them, " When a strong man armed keepeth 
 his palace, his goods are in peace."* The " strong 
 man " in this passage is, of course, the Devil, his 
 goods are the souls of men, and captivity to him 
 is described as a sort of peace, the peace of the 
 slave who has abandoned all hope of liberty and has 
 accepted a degrading bondage. This is the peace 
 of the world, the result of a compromise with evil, 
 of a truce with the Devil, by which he is allowed 
 to retain possession, or at least an abiding-place, 
 in the soul of man. But the peace of which our 
 Lord speaks as His legacy to His disciples is the 
 very opposite to this. 
 
 " But (Christ goes on to say) when a stronger than 
 he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he 
 taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, 
 and divideth his spoils." The "stronger" is Christ, 
 Who sets free the captives of Satan, and, if they 
 will, takes up His abode in their souls. This peace, 
 as we have said, will not secure thcni any exemption 
 
 * .S. Luke xi. 21. 
 
 138 
 
Cgrtef B feegacg to ^ jb <S)teciyfeB. ^ 
 
 from the struggles of life : the evil spirit will come 
 back again and again and endeavour to regain his 
 entrance into the soul, to recapture those who have 
 been freed from his power ; but the presence of 
 Christ, the Prince of Peace, Who conquered the 
 Evil One upon Calvary, is the assurance that, 
 though the struggle be fierce and temptations 
 many, the soul is absolutely safe so long as He 
 is enthroned in it as King. 
 
 After our Lord's resurrection He came to His 
 disciples with the greeting, " Peace be unto you." 
 Thrice the greeting is given,* but never before the 
 resurrection, although it is anticipated in the 
 passage we are now considering. It was by the 
 struggle of His Passion, by the conflict on the 
 battle-field of Calvary, that Christ won the peace 
 which He promised as His legacy, which He 
 bestowed as His Easter gift. And surely the 
 lesson we may learn is that we cannot have real 
 peace without struggle, that it must be the result 
 of victory. 
 
 The very laws of political science teach us this ; 
 for nations now at peace have won their peace 
 upon the battle-field, and in order to retain it keep 
 themselves always prepared for war ; not that they 
 desire war, but that preparation for it is the only 
 
 * S. John XX. 19, 21, rind 26. Cf. S. Luke xxiv. 36. 
 
way of avoiding it. If tlien we are to appropriate 
 to ourselves the peace which Christ offers us, we 
 must fight the necessary battle, drive the foe out 
 of our soul, the foe who has gained an entrance 
 into our heart, and then, after we have invited the 
 Prince of Peace to make His abode with us, after 
 we have enthroned Him as our King, we must 
 be always ready to fight for Him, always watching 
 against the attacks by which the Evil One tries to 
 drive Jesus from the soul and once more to make 
 himself its master. 
 
 Now our Blessed Lord turns back and takes 
 up the first words of the chapter, " Let not your 
 heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." There 
 is a wonderful sequence of thought in these last 
 discourses which people often fail to discern. The 
 chapter begins with the words, " Let not your heart 
 be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in 
 Me." And now having given to His disciples 
 various reasons why they are not to be troubled, 
 various causes of consolation, He reiterates the 
 words, " Let not your heart be troubled." Why 
 not? What has He said to console? 
 
 In this chapter of thirty-one verses wc find no 
 less than eight distinct causes of consolation which 
 Christ sets before His disciples. He told them first 
 of the many mansions in His Father's house which 
 
 140 
 
Cgmt'g feegacg to ^ig 'E)i0ciyfe6. g» 
 
 He was going to prepare for them ; that there was 
 room enough for them all in Heaven. He told 
 them next that He was Himself the Way to the 
 Father, the Way by which they were to attain to 
 the mansions of His house. Then He told them 
 thirdly that in Him they could see the Father. 
 Fourthly, He revealed to them that they were to 
 carry on His work, and were even to do a greater 
 work than He had done in the world. Fifthly, 
 He promised them that He would send them 
 another Comforter, the Holy Ghost. Sixthly, that 
 the Holy Ghost, when He was come, should reveal 
 to them Christ, as Christ Himself had revealed 
 to them the Father. As a seventh cause of con- 
 solation He assured them that the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit would come and take up their 
 abode in the obedient and loving heart. And 
 lastly. He assures them that the result of this 
 presence within them, of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, would be a peace which the world could 
 not give. 
 
 As we have read these chapters we have probably 
 dwelt upon certain verses which were full of con- 
 solation, but perhaps have failed to discern how 
 the whole chapter is filled with consolation for those 
 who were grieved at the thought of their Master's 
 departure ; and not for them only, but for all 
 
 141 
 
-^ ^^jtbT^uegbag in feenf. 
 
 Christ'sJdisciples. Many deep mysteries are treated 
 of thriwghout the discourse, but through them all 
 runs the golden thread of consolation. 
 
 It is not only that our Lord consoles the Apostles 
 with loving words, which touch their hearts and 
 heal the wounds which sorrow has inflicted, but 
 that He shows them how much there is connected 
 with His departure which is to be a blessing to 
 them, and more than a blessing — a joy. He tells 
 them that if they love Him they will rejoice at 
 His departure, because it means the consummation 
 of His work and His glorification as the Son of 
 Man. But not only this, He reveals to them that 
 their own joy will be great because by His 
 glorification they will receive new gifts and powers, 
 especially the gift of the Holy Ghost, through 
 Whom He Himself will be restored to them in a 
 closer and more intimate fellowship than that which 
 they had enjoyed when He was upon earth. 
 
 142 
 
XIX. 
 
 UNSELFISH SORROW. 
 
 S. John xiv. 28-31. 
 
 "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again 
 unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto 
 the Father : for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told 
 you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might 
 believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you : for the Prince 
 of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world 
 may know that I love the Father ; and as the Father gave Me 
 commandment, even so do I. Arise, let us go hence." 
 
 F ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because 
 I said I go unto the Father." Unselfish 
 sorrow has in it an element of joy in 
 the thought of the gain of another through our 
 bereavement. Our Lord reminds His disciples 
 that if they love Him, while they may sorrow at 
 the thought of being parted from Him, they will 
 rejoice in the realisation of His exaltation, in the 
 
 143 
 
'^ Sourt^ TJ^ebnecbag in Silent 
 
 fact that His sufferings have come to an end, that 
 His work is done, and that He is about to 
 enter into His reward in the glory of the Father. 
 
 Surely this ought often to be a consolation to 
 us when we are mourning for one who has been 
 taken from us. Our sorrow may be deep, but it 
 is sorrow for our own loss ; and if we are unselfish 
 in our sorrow, we shall rejoice in the gain of the 
 friend we loved who has gone to the Father — that 
 is, if he is one of the dead who died for Christ ; for 
 his work shall follow him, and we must rejoice 
 that he rests from his labours. Of course, our 
 predominant feeling will be sorrow, not joy ; but 
 it will be sorrow which is lightened by moments 
 of joy as we think of the happiness of being with 
 Christ in the kingdom of His love. And this idea 
 is very strikingly expressed in the tense of the 
 words translated, "ye would rejoice" (c;tap7;re). In 
 the Greek it is an aorist, and so implies a 
 momentary feeling of joy, not a continual state. 
 Their state of mind must, of course, be one of 
 sorrow at His departure, and yet sorrow brightened 
 with flashes of realisation of the happiness into 
 which their Master was about to enter. 
 
 "For My Father is greater than I." These 
 words bring before us a very deep theological 
 question, which we shall pass over, merely pointing 
 
 144 
 
out that the Father is not essentially greater than 
 the Son, for the Son is of the same substance or 
 essence as the Father, as we are taught in the 
 Nicene Creed. The Father is not greater in 
 essence but in relation^ since in the relationship of 
 Father and Son, the relationship of paternity is 
 superior to that of sonship, since the son derives 
 his being from the father not the father from the 
 son. In the Godhead the Father is the Source 
 possessing an underived essence, while in the Son 
 the divine essence is communicated from the 
 Father by eternal generation. This is the 
 explanation of this mysterious passage given by 
 the Greek fathers. 
 
 Western theologians, however, while recognising 
 this as true, rather dwell upon the fact that at 
 the time our Lord spoke. He was, as S. Paul 
 says, "In the form of slave," and that He was, 
 therefore, referring to the inferiority of His 
 position as Man. This is best expressed in the 
 Athanasian Creed: "Equal to the Father, as 
 touching His Godhead: and inferior to the Father, 
 as touching His Manhood." The two views are, 
 however, mutually complementary, and together 
 tell us all that we can know of this mysterious 
 subject. 
 
 " And now I have told you before it come to 
 
 145 L 
 
'^ §omi^ T37ebne6i)ag in feenf. 
 
 pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might 
 believe." " Now," that is at this crisis when your 
 faith is about to be put to the test by My 
 crucifixion. I tell you this in order that in that 
 hour of trial ye may believe — that is, that your 
 faith may not fail. I am telling you beforehand 
 that I am going to the Father that your faith 
 may be strengthened by the remembrance that I 
 forewarned you of the trial through which you 
 must pass. 
 
 " The prince of this world cometh, and hath 
 nothing in Me." Our Blessed Lord here, as in 
 other places, clearly recognises the personality of 
 the devil. He is the prince of this world, the ruler 
 of those who are the children of the world. Our 
 Lord points him out as the chief of all the 
 subordinate evil spirits, and knows that the hour 
 is approaching when, for the last time, he is 
 to come to tempt, and so to test Him, as 
 he tempts every man. It was not the first 
 time that the devil had come to Him, for he 
 came to Him in the wilderness at the beginning 
 of His ministry, when after He had fasted forty 
 days and forty nights he came to tempt Him. 
 The devil came to Him many times throughout 
 His life, and now comes for the last supreme 
 effort in the trial of His Passion, and Death. 
 
 146 
 
(UncefftB^ borrow, ^ 
 
 He "hath nothing in Me." In these words our 
 Lord bears witness to His own sinlessness. Satan 
 might search Him through and through, might ply 
 Him with every form of temptation ; but he would 
 find in Him nothing which he could claim as even 
 a momentary yielding to evil — nothing of failure, 
 nothing even of imperfection. Christ goes forth to 
 the final duel with the prince of this world with 
 calm confidence in regard to its result, with entire 
 certainty of ultimate victory. He knows that the 
 victory will involve great suffering, unspeakable 
 humiliation, even an ignominious death, but its 
 results will be the final conquest of the evil one, 
 the setting free of his captives, the redemption of 
 man. 
 
 " But that the world may know that I love the 
 Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, 
 even so I do." This was the secret of our Lord's 
 whole life, the perfect fulfilment of His Father's 
 will, the entire accomplishment of His Father's 
 work, the carrying out of God's plans for man's 
 redemption. Christ's was the one absolutely perfect 
 human life lived in this world. In it He showed 
 His love for His Father by keeping His Father's 
 commandments, doing His Father's will at the 
 very cost of life itself. 
 
 He points to this as the evidence by which the 
 
 147 
 
^ ^ouxt^ ^ebneebag in &enf. 
 
 world may know His love of the Father. His was a 
 life spent largely in waiting for His Father's call. 
 Thirty years spent in obscurity at Nazareth, 
 waiting until the hour should come when His 
 Father should call Him forth to the work of 
 His ministry, and throughout that ministry all things 
 were done, without hurry, but without delay, in 
 accordance with His Father's Will. In neither the 
 triumphs nor sorrows of His life does He anticipate 
 by one minute, the hour of His Father's purpose 
 for Him. When His Blessed Mother at the 
 marriage of Cana of Galilee told Him of the 
 needs of the guests, saying, " They have no wine," 
 His answer is, " Mine hour is not yet come," that 
 is, the moment for working the miracle had not 
 yet arrived, though apparently, almost immediately 
 after, the time was fulfilled, and the miracle 
 performed. 
 
 If we are to manifest our love for God, it must 
 be by following the example of Christ in this, by 
 realising that the true purpose of our life is to do 
 God's Will and to accomplish God's work; for God 
 has a work for each of us to do — a work which He 
 reveals to us, not all at once, but gradually as life 
 goes on. Sometimes we have to wait a long while 
 for this revelation, and there is the danger that we 
 may become impatient, and because we are tired 
 
 148 
 
(Un6efft6^ Norton). ^ 
 
 of waiting for God's call, may throw ourselves 
 into some work which is not the work which God 
 meant us to do. We must learn from our Lord 
 to tarry God's leisure, to put our trust in God 
 to believe that at the right moment He will 
 manifest to us His will. 
 
 As we have seen in the case of S. Peter, the time 
 of waiting must not be a time of idleness, but a 
 time of preparation, during which we are learning 
 those things which we shall need to put in practice 
 when God calls us to our work. What quietness 
 and dignity this thought gives to every life. Life 
 has a purpose — the purpose for which we were 
 created — and our eternity depends upon the 
 fulfilment of this purpose. 
 
 Life is not given us that we may drift aimlessly 
 along, sometimes doing one thing, sometimes 
 another, so that, when our years draw to a close, 
 we wonder whether our life has been of any use 
 to us, or to anyone else. Life is given us to love 
 and to labour. Love without labour is enervating, 
 and labour without love makes us hard, and bitter, 
 and hopeless ; for that which ennobles labour and 
 makes it a joy is that it should be done for one 
 we love. Thus a husband works for his wife and 
 children, so, only in a higher sense, the Christian 
 works for God. 
 
 149 
 
^- Soutt^ Ti7ebne6bag in SLCni. 
 
 Christ said, *' That the world may know that 
 I love the Father ; and as the Father gave 
 Me commandment, even so I do." We must 
 say, " That the world may know that I love God — 
 and it is part of my duty to show that I love 
 God — I must keep His commandments, and 
 accomplish the work which He has given me to 
 do." 
 
 " Arise, let us go hence." Thus our Lord 
 finishes the discourses in the Upper Chamber. 
 
 150 
 
XX. 
 
 CHRIST THE VINE. 
 
 S. John xv. i. 
 
 " I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman." 
 
 HE allegory of the Vine and the branches 
 beeiiis the second division of our Lord's 
 discourses. In the first, which were spoken 
 in the Upper Chamber, Christ comforts His apostles 
 in regard to His departure, which He plainly reveals 
 to them, and answers certain questions put to Him 
 by S. Peter, S. Thomas, S. Philip, and S. Jude. These 
 discourses close with the last words of the fourteenth 
 chapter, "Arise, let us go hence." In the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth chapters He continues His discourses 
 vouchsafing to them a revelation even more sublime 
 
 151 
 
•^ Soutt^ ^^^urcbag in SLCnt. 
 
 leading them deeper and deeper into the mysteries a^ 
 His union with them. 
 
 But where were these last discourses uttered ? 
 There are several views. First, the opinion that 
 they were spoken in the same place, in the Upper 
 Chamber; that when our Lord said, "Arise, let JS go 
 hence," the disciples arose from the couches on 
 which they were reclining, but stood around Him 
 in the room, bidding Him farewell and hearing His 
 last words; so that it was still in the Upper Chamber 
 that He delivered tlie discourses recorded in these 
 chapters. 
 
 There are two objections to this view ; one that it 
 is quite inconsistent with the words, " Arise, let us go 
 hence ; " the other that it is inconceivable to suppose 
 that the great High-Priestly prayer in the seven- 
 teenth chapter could have been uttered while they 
 were standing about the room. 
 
 A second view, which is original and modern, is 
 suggested by Coleridge in his " Treatise on the Life 
 of our Lord." He thinks that they adjourned to 
 another chamber, which had been prepared for the 
 celebration of the first Eucharist ; that the institution 
 of the Holy Eucharist took place at this point, 
 and that the discourses and High- Priestly prayer 
 followed after the First Communion of the apostles. 
 Coleridge's theory is, however, so unnatural and 
 
 152 
 
efriet t^e (gine. ^ 
 
 forced that it is scarcely worth considering. It 
 has been adopted by some few Roman theologians, 
 but it is so evidently a theory constructed for an 
 ulterior purpose, and not to meet the circumstances 
 of the case that, like the first view, we may dismiss 
 it. 
 
 There remains, therefore, a third opinion that our 
 Lord uttered these discourses on the way to Geth- 
 semane, probably in some place where a halt could be 
 made. This halt seems necessary, because we cannot 
 conceive of His speaking any of these sublime 
 and solemn words as He was walking through 
 the streets of the city, but there is no place on the 
 western side of the city, in the descent to the Brook 
 Cedron, so far as we can see, where He could have 
 made this halt. The place is too public, and the 
 eighteenth chapter of S. John, in telling us that they 
 went over the Brook Cedron, seems to require that 
 the discourses should have been delivered before 
 they crossed the Cedron, and, therefore, before they 
 entered Gethsemane. 
 
 It has been suggested* that after they left the 
 Upper Chamber they made a final visit to the 
 Temple, for Josephusf in his "Antiquities" tells us 
 that during the festivals it was the custom of the 
 
 * By Bishop Westcott in his '' Commentary on S. John." 
 t Joseph., "Ant.," xviii. 2, 2. 
 
priests to open the gates of the Temple at midnight, 
 so that pilgrims could go in to make their devotions. 
 Nothing could be more fitting than that our Blessed 
 Lord should make a final visit to that place He loved 
 so well, His Father's House, and that there in the 
 Temple courts He should utter the prayer of 
 consecration, in which He revealed the purpose of 
 His work and the destiny of His Church. 
 
 But there is another argument for this visit to the 
 Temple, for Josephus informs us* that on the gates 
 of the Temple was wrought a magnificent golden 
 vine, which was intended to typify the relation of 
 God's chosen people to Himself This vine was a 
 type of Israel, as we learn from the prophet Isaiah,t 
 and it seems quite probable that it supplied the 
 imagery of our Lord's allegory of the vine, with 
 which the discourse opens. Pointing the disciples to 
 the familiar object upon the Temple gates, our Lord 
 may have said, " I am the true Vine, and My Father 
 is the Husbandman." 
 
 While we cannot claim for Bishop Westcott's view 
 anything more than that it fulfils all the conditions of 
 the problem, as no other theory does, yet we must be 
 struck by the extraordinary fitness of the Temple to 
 be the place in which our Lord uttered not only 
 
 * Joseph., "Ant.," xv. ii, 3, and Bell, " Ju'l.," v. 5, 4. 
 t C/. Isaiah v. 1-8. 
 
€^mt t^e QOinc. 
 
 :n^ 
 
 His last discourse to His disciples, but also His 
 great Hi^h-Priestly prayer. From the time when 
 Araunah's threshing-floor was set apart by David 
 as the site of God's Temple, priesthood and sacri- 
 fice had been confined in their association to that 
 spot. Nowhere else could sacrifice be offered, 
 nowhere else did the priests fulfil their sacerdotal 
 functions. 
 
 There is, therefore, not only an appropriateness, 
 but a wonderful suggestiveness in the thought that 
 in the courts of God's house, which for so many 
 centuries had been dedicated to His worship, and 
 yet had been so often desecrated by imperfect 
 service, the great High Priest of the New Covenant 
 should perfectly fulfil the idea of priesthood, as 
 the one Mediator between God and man ; and not 
 only of priesthood, but of sacrifice, as the one 
 Sacrifice by which the world was redeemed, and 
 that He should there consecrate Himself as the 
 Victim and Priest for all humanity. 
 
 Let us try to picture the scene. It is past mid- 
 night. The city is wrapt in slumber. The silver 
 light of the Pascal moon penetrates the courts of 
 the Temple, where a few pilgrims have found their 
 way that they may join their presence, if not their 
 voices, to those servants of the Lord of whom the 
 Psalmist speaks, who "by night stand in tlie house 
 
 155 
 
^ Sourf^ €l^nxBi<X2 in &cnt 
 
 of the Lord, even in the courts of the house of 
 our God.'"'' 
 
 In some retired spot our Blessed Lord, alone with 
 His disciples, utters His last discourses and bids 
 farewell for ever to that House of His Father, in 
 which, from His boyhood's days. He had so often 
 worshipped. Alas, He knows that its glory was 
 about to depart, that when the veil of that temple 
 was rent, at the moment of His death, a more 
 acceptable sacrifice would have been offered than 
 those sacrifices which in so many thousands had 
 been offered upon the altars of the Temple — " a 
 full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of 
 the whole world." And He knows too that this 
 sacrifice should live on, in an unbloody form, upon 
 the altars of the Christian Church in the sacrifice 
 of the Holy Eucharist — that Eucharist, which, like 
 the vine upon the Temple gates, was to symbolise 
 the union between God and His chosen people, 
 but, unlike the golden vine, was not only to 
 symbolise^ but to be the means by which that 
 union was to be consummated. 
 
 " I am the true Vine, and My Father is the 
 Husbandman." The construction \w the Greek is 
 very suggestive, it is, " I am the Vine, the true 
 Vine." The words,t " I am the Vine," mark the 
 
 * Psalm cxxxv. 2. f ^ afxjreXos rj dXtjOiurj. 
 
 156 
 
identification of Ctirist with the image ; the addition 
 *' the true Vine," implies the absolute fulfilment 
 of the image in Him ; for Christ in His Person 
 brings to complete fulfilment the vital relation of 
 all parts to the whole — the conception of unity and 
 multiplicity, of growth and yet identity, which are 
 set forth in the image of the vine. 
 
 As we have said, the vine was the image of Israel, 
 the image of that theocratic and sacramental com- 
 munity which had its centre in the Altar and Ark 
 of testimony and the Holy Place, This was what 
 the vine on the gates of the Temple symbolised, 
 but, alas, the Jewish Church had never justified 
 this image, had never fulfilled God's purposes for 
 it. It had not been true to God's call, and so Christ 
 puts Himself in the place of the Jewish Church 
 w^hen He says, " I am the true Vine." Israel failed 
 to satisfy the images symbolised in the natural vine, 
 He fulfils them perfectly in His Church. 
 
 The Old Covenant awakened a glorious hope in 
 God's people, but the hope w^as never realised because 
 of their disobedience. The New Covenant which 
 was to be sealed with Christ's Blood, began, not with 
 hope only, but with realisation. Christ says, " I am 
 the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman," 
 and in these words He shows how He fulfils perfectly 
 all that was symbolised under the Old Covenant of 
 God with Israel. 157 
 
To those who have studied ' the prophecies of 
 Isaiah, this thought will be familiar, for the " Servant 
 of Jehovah," who occupies so prominent a position in 
 his writings, is in his earlier prophecies the Jewish 
 nation, but becomes in the later the Messiah Him- 
 self. The Jewish nation was chosen to be God's 
 servant in this world, it had a mission to mankind, 
 but after ages of testing it failed altogether to 
 fulfil this service for which God had raised it up, 
 and God's purpose for Judaism passed into the work 
 of Messiah, when Christ came to be the Saviour of 
 the world. 
 
 So our Lord says, " I am the true Vine, and My 
 Father is the Husbandman." I am the Vine, but 
 " no man can come to Me, except the Father Which 
 hath sent Me draw him."* The care of God the 
 Father for His Church is here touchingly brought 
 before us under the figure of the husbandman. The 
 Church is not merely the concern of Christ, or of the 
 Holy Spirit, but God the Father is the Husbandman. 
 It is by His Will that the disciplines and adversities 
 are sent by which the Church is purged and purified. 
 Christ's Body, the Church, is the object of the 
 Father's special love and special care, though the 
 Holy Ghost is the Agent by Whose operations the 
 Father's purposes for the Church are effected. 
 
 * S. John vi. 44. 
 
 158 
 
€ gmt i^e (^tne. ^ 
 
 The word which is translated husbandman (yeapyos) 
 implies more than its English equivalent sug^^ests. 
 It is not as in the parable of the fig tree in S. Luke* 
 (dfiTreXovpyos) the dresser of the vineyard, but the 
 owner of the land as well. As members of Christ's 
 Body we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, but 
 not only citizens of the Kingdom, but by adoption 
 children of the King ; so that we can address 
 Him as " Our Father, Which art in Heaven." The 
 Kingdom is His. It is the Church of the livino- 
 God, Who is Owner as well as Husbandman. 
 
 * S. Luke xiii. 7. 
 
 159 
 
XXI. 
 
 Sourt^ ^xii(XT^ in £enf. 
 
 THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES. 
 
 S. John xv. 2, 3. 
 
 "Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away : and 
 every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth 
 more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken 
 unto you." 
 
 VERY branch in Me." In these words the 
 Christian is identified with Christ ; for the 
 union between the soul and Christ is shown 
 to be as close as the union between the branch and 
 the vine which bears it. But at this point our atten- 
 tion is drawn to a possibility in spiritual experience 
 which is often overlooked in the treatment of this 
 allegory. All would say that there are two kinds 
 of branches — fruitful branches and those that are 
 withered. 
 
 This, however, is not the division which our Blessed 
 
 160 
 
Lord makes when He says, " Every branch in Me that 
 beareth not fruit He taketh away." He shows that 
 it is possible to come into organic relation with the 
 vine, with Christ, to be " in it," in Christ, a part of 
 Christ, and yet to bring forth no fruit. It is possible 
 to be baptised and to be a communicant, and perhaps 
 not even to be separated from Christ by any mortal 
 sin, and yet (because there is no effort of our own, no 
 correspondence with grace) to live a life which is quite 
 unfruitful, a life which is represented by those 
 branches which are not withered, but which bear 
 no fruit. 
 
 The unfruitful shoots seem often to be as strong- and 
 vigorous as those which bear fruit. They draw their 
 nourishment from the same stock, they produce 
 abundance of leaves ; but as our Blessed Lord shows 
 in the parable of the Fig tree, if they produce nothing 
 but leaves they are worthless, and therefore are not 
 allowed to cumber the vine. Christ says of them, 
 " Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He (My 
 Father, the Husbandman) taketh away." 
 
 S. Paul in his second Epistle to the Corinthians 
 exhorts his readers to be careful that they receive not 
 the grace of God in vain.^ Our Lord is referring to 
 this class of Christians, who do receive the grace of 
 God, who frequent all the sacraments and means of 
 
 * Cf. 2 Cor. vi. I. 
 
 i6i M 
 
•^^ ^onti^ -§Txb(X^ in £enf. 
 
 grace, but because they do not use the grace which 
 they have received, receive it in vain. These repre- 
 sent the branches which the Father taketh away, 
 and they are not to be confounded with the withered 
 branches which are separated from the Hfe of the vine 
 and draw no nourishment from it because they are 
 already dead, whose fate is considered in the sixth 
 verse. 
 
 But there is another class of branches — those that 
 are not only in Christ, but who by virtue of their 
 union with Him, bring forth fruit. What does the 
 Father do with these ? " Every branch that beareth 
 fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more 
 fruit." How important it is that we should keep this 
 teaching before us. It is not enough to be in Christ, 
 to be a member of His Church through Baptism ; it is 
 not enough to be free from mortal sin, to have no 
 hindrance to our union with Him, to the work of 
 Christ in our souls. There must be a correspondence 
 with this grace, a fruitfulncss in our life. — And then 
 ihe Father will send such disciplines into our life as 
 may help us to bring forth more fruit. 
 
 Of the fruitful branches we are told that the Father 
 purgeth them. The word rendered " purgeth " 
 (Ka^atpfi) primarily signifies a cleansing by lustrations, 
 a removal by washing of anything that could hinder 
 the vine from bringing forth fruit. It also evidently 
 
 162 
 
signifies here pruning with a knife — not only the 
 spraying of the vine to cleanse it from insects 
 which might injure it, but pruning it ; so that all the 
 vital forces of the vine may go into production of fruit, 
 and not merely into the production of useless branches 
 and leaves. 
 
 Our Lord says to His disciples, " Now are ye clean 
 through the Word which I have spoken unto you." 
 Here He applies the idea of cleansing contained in 
 the word " ptirgeth." The word " now " means 
 " already." The spiritual cleansing of the Apostles 
 had been potentially completed, though it was not 
 realised until the day of Pentecost. The Word by 
 which they had been cleansed is of course the Gospel, 
 the whole revelation of Christ which they had poten- 
 tially received, and which the Holy Ghost was to 
 bring home to their understandings. 
 
 But what is the fruit which the vine is to produce ? 
 It is evidently the fruit of a Christ-like life, for the 
 branches of a vine do not bring forth fruit of their 
 own, but the fruit of the vine. The good works 
 which are done through the grace of Christ are 
 really not so much our own good works as the work 
 of Christ in us. Sometimes these fruits are spoken 
 of as fruits of the Spirit, because, as our Lord teaches 
 us in these discourses, it is the Holy Spirit which 
 enables us to produce them. 
 
 163 
 
•o^ ^ontf^ ^xxb(XT^ in £enf. 
 
 S. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians gives us a 
 list of this fruit, which, while it does not include all the 
 fruits of the Spirit, is well worthy of our study. He 
 says, " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, lon$^- 
 suffering. gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
 perance."* It will be very useful for us to take this 
 list and look into our lives and see how far we are 
 producing these fruits ; in other words, to examine 
 ourselves in regard to them. For if we are in Christ 
 as fruit-bearing branches, the proof will be manifested 
 in the fruit we are bringing forth. 
 
 If we examine S. Paul's list we shall find that these 
 nine fruits fall into three divisions, corresponding to 
 our three-fold duties towards God, our neighbour, and 
 ourselves. He begins with the fruit of the Spirit 
 towards God — love, joy, and peace. These are not 
 the only fruits which we can bring forth in the fulfil- 
 ment of our duty to God, but they are three very 
 representative fruits. 
 
 Love is the first, the greatest of all Christian virtues, 
 that without which no other virtue is of any value, that 
 which, if we possess it in its fulness, will enable us 
 sooner or later to produce all the other virtues. Then 
 joy : there are many Christians who forget that joy is 
 one of the fruits of the Spirit and seem to think the 
 Christian life must be all sadness and gloom ; but if we 
 
 * Gal, V. 22-23. 
 164 
 
are filled with the love of God we shall certainly 
 rejoice, and our lives will be happy even though 
 sometimes sorrowful. Then there is the virtue of 
 peace. A life inspired with the love of God must be 
 a life not only of joy but of peace, that peace which 
 does not save us from the struggles of life, but which 
 preserves in our souls an interior peace as the result 
 of Christ's presence there. Have we this love and 
 joy and peace in our life towards God ? 
 
 In regard to our neighbour, S. Paul mentions 
 three fruits — long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness. 
 These too are not the only virtues which we must 
 manifest towards our neighbour, but they are very 
 important ones. Long-suffering ! how impatient we 
 often are with people because they are so slow and 
 stupid, because they irritate us or do not understand 
 us ; yet how patient God is with us and what great 
 cause we give Him for displeasure. 
 
 How many good resolutions we make and how few 
 we keep, how many things we begin for the glory of 
 God and how few we finish, how many faults we 
 intend to conquer, yet how few we succeed in really 
 eradicating. Yet God is patient with us. His long- 
 suffering is wonderful. As we say in the penitential 
 psalm against Anger, " O Lord, rebuke me not in 
 Thine indignation : neither chasten me in Thy dis- 
 pleasure."* And again in another of the penitential 
 
 * Psalm vi. i. 
 
 165 
 
'^ ^onxt^ ^xxb(XT^ in £enf. 
 
 psalms, " If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark 
 what is done amiss : O Lord, who may abide it ? For 
 there is mercy with Thee : therefore shalt Thou be 
 feared."* We must strive to exercise the same long- 
 suffering towards our neighbour which we pray 
 God to show towards us. 
 
 Then gentleness and goodness : these are really 
 active and passive sides of the same virtue, related 
 to one another as benevolence is to beneficence. The 
 word translated gentleness, Xprjo-TOTTjs, is that kindly 
 disposition towards others, that good will to all men, 
 which we associate with the idea of a benevolent 
 character. The word dyadoa-vvr], translated " good- 
 ness " on the other hand, is the active and practical 
 carrying out of the spirit of benevolence in works of 
 mercy — the ministering to the needs of those in sor- 
 row or suffering. In our self-examination do we find 
 these three virtues conspicuous in our relations with 
 the world around us ? Are we patient with those 
 who try us, do we show good will to all men, and are 
 we striving so far as we have opportunity to relieve 
 the needs of others with a Christ-like beneficence ? 
 
 And lastly in regard to ourselves, are we careful to 
 exercise the virtues of faith, meekness, and temper- 
 ance ? Faith in this passage does not mean faith 
 towards God, but ralhcr what we should speak of as 
 * Psalm cxxx. 3, 4. 
 166 
 
"fidelity," a trustworthy character. Meekness is a 
 virtue which of course we have to exercise towards 
 others, but which we can regard as belonging to our 
 duty to ourselves, in that we must cultivate a meek 
 spirit ; for meekness has been defined as the conquest 
 of passion. And then Temperance, which includes so 
 many virtues, is really the virtue of self-control, of 
 holding ourselves well in hand — a virtue which we 
 have opportunities of practising every day of our lives 
 in some form or other. 
 
 If we are bringing forth these fruits, the Father will 
 purge us with the discipline of life that we may bring 
 them forth in even greater abundance. Adversity is 
 a great opportunity for the practice of all the Christian 
 virtues, and of none more than these virtues which 
 S. Paul speaks of as the fruit of the Spirit. 
 
 167 
 
XXII. 
 
 Sourt^ ^ctfurbag in &tni. 
 
 THE FRUITS OF UNION WITH CHRIST. 
 
 S. John xv. 4, 5. 
 
 ''Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit or 
 itself, except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide in 
 Me. I am the Vine, ye are the branches : He that abideth in Me, 
 and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for without Me ye 
 can do nothing." 
 
 HERE are few images or figures which bring 
 before us the reciprocal conditions of our 
 union with Christ so perfectly as the image 
 of the vine. Let us therefore examine it carefully. 
 
 " If ye abide in Me." The abiding in Christ 
 depends upon the wi// of the believer. It is not 
 merely a negative result of our incorporation into 
 Christ by baptism, it demands the effort of our 
 
 168 
 
t^t ^xuiU of (Union wxt^ C^rief. Se- 
 
 own will for its continuance. We must abide in 
 Him, not only He in us. There is, we see, a 
 reciprocal " abiding." Christ wills to abide in us, 
 and we must will to abide in Him. If we do not 
 cling to Him by the exercise of our will we shall 
 not long abide in Him. 
 
 " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except 
 it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide 
 in Me." The preposition which is translated by '*of" 
 (aTTo) indicates the source of the fruit. The branch 
 cannot bear fruit "of itself" as if it had vital forces 
 of its own ; the life by which it lives is the life of 
 the whole vine, and it can only preserve its own 
 life, as a branch, by preserving its relation to the 
 vine. 
 
 The same mystery is taught us by S. Paul when 
 he describes the Church of Christ under the figure of 
 a " body and its members." The whole Church is 
 the mystical Body of Christ, we are members of that 
 body ; and we can have no life apart from Christ. 
 Different members have different functions, the eye 
 is the organ of sight, the ear is the organ of hearing ; 
 but the eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear apart 
 from the body. The life of the body is functionised 
 in the eye for the purpose of sight, in the ear for the 
 purpose of hearing ; but at the moment of death, 
 though the eye and the ear retain all their intricate 
 
 169 
 
parts, they can neither see nor hear, because they are 
 separated from the life of the body. 
 
 We may carry the analogy a step further and 
 show how the researches of science often help 
 true faith. If we were to ask the scientist about 
 the mystery of life, he would have to admit that 
 it has escaped all the investigations of science. 
 No one knows what life is. He would perhaps 
 say, as some do, that, since each of the myriad cells of 
 which the body is composed has its own life, 
 the life of the body is the sum total of the 
 life of all these cells. Further, he would have to 
 admit, what is not inconsistent with this theory, that 
 when the life of the whole body departs at the 
 moment which we call death, the life of all the 
 cells begins to decay and gradually dies also, not 
 immediately, but very soon as corruption sets in, 
 some cells living longer than others. 
 
 But how wonderfully this illustrates the depen- 
 dence of our spiritual life upon union with Christ. 
 We are each of us members of His one Body, 
 living with His Life ; and so long as we abide in 
 Him, and preserve our organic union with Him, 
 we each live our true spiritual life, producing the 
 fruits which are the result of our union with Christ. 
 
 But the moment we cease to abide in Him, the 
 moment that wc arc separated from Him, our 
 
 170 
 
t^c fruits of (Union mii^ Christ ^ 
 
 spiritual life begins to decay just as the life of 
 each of the many cells of the body begins to fail 
 when life is withdrawn from the whole body. The 
 cell can only preserve its life by its relation to the 
 whole body, it cannot live apart from the body, 
 neither can we live, spiritually, apart from Christ. 
 This is what our Lord teaches us in these words, 
 " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except 
 it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye 
 abide in Me." 
 
 " I am the Vine, ye are the branches : He that 
 abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth 
 forth much fruit : for without Me ye can do nothing." 
 In this passage the whole allegory is summed up 
 and expressed with even greater definiteness. " Ye 
 are the branches " states distinctly what had been 
 assumed before. Christ had said, " Every branch 
 in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away," but had 
 not told us who the branches were. Now He says 
 emphatically, " I am the Vine, ye are the branches," 
 and adds, ''without Me ye can do nothing." This 
 does not mean that without Christ's aid we can 
 do nothing, as so many people suppose, and as 
 our English translation implies. The Greek 
 word translated " without " {x<^pls) means apart from, 
 separated from ; so that we might render it " apart 
 from Me ye can do nothing." When once there 
 
 171 
 
is a separation between Christ and ourselves, when 
 we have ceased to abide in Him, when the organic 
 union has been interrupted we can do nothing. 
 " Ye can do nothing." What does this signify ? It 
 means we can produce no fruit which the Father 
 will recognise as the fruit of the vine, as Christian 
 fruit. 
 
 If we are to understand this we must realise 
 that the New Testament regards every man as 
 living in this world in one of two distinct states 
 — the state of nature or the state of grace. This 
 is what S. Paul means when he speaks of the 
 " natural " man and the " spiritual " man, and says 
 that " the natural man receiveth not the thincfs 
 of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness 
 unto him : neither can he know them, because they 
 are spiritually discerned."* And that "they that 
 are after the flesh do mind the thincrs of the flesh : 
 but they that are after the Spirit the things of 
 the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death ; 
 but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 
 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, 
 for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
 indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh 
 cannot please God. But ye arc not in the flesh, 
 but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
 
 * I Cor. ii. 14. 
 172 
 
t^t f ruit6 of QXnion mt^ C^xxBt ^ 
 
 dwell in you.""^' By " flesh " and " spirit " in this 
 passage S. Paul means man in his natural state, 
 and man in his spiritual state. 
 
 Man in his natural state can produce natural 
 virtues ; for Solon was prudent, Aristides was just, 
 Leonidas exhibited the virtue of fortitude, and 
 Socrates was temperate. These virtues are not 
 without their value in our life as citizens of this 
 world, but they have to be raised to a different 
 plane if they are to be recognised by God as 
 fruits of the true Vine, Christ. 
 
 The motive and end is different in the natural 
 and in the Christian virtues. The motive in the 
 Christian virtue is the love of God, its end the 
 glory of God ; whereas the motive of the natural 
 virtue is love of man, often love of self, and its end 
 generally the glory of self Man can live apart from 
 Christ in a state of nature, producing natural fruits 
 and looking for a reward in natural beatitude, that 
 is in the happiness which belongs to a man in a state 
 of nature. But this is not the happiness to which 
 the Christian looks forward. 
 
 Our Lord emphatically tells Nicodemus, " Except 
 a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
 God." " Born again " (avadev) may be translated 
 *' born from above ; " and lest there should be any 
 
 * Rom. viii. 5-9, 
 
^? 
 
 ^onri^ ^dfurbag in £eni 
 
 doubt as to the means by which this new birth is 
 to be attained, Christ adds, " Except a man be 
 born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh 
 is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is 
 spirit."* 
 
 The whole teaching of the New Testament is quite 
 consistent on this point. It takes its origin from 
 these words of our Lord, and is recognised and 
 developed especially in the writings of S. Paul and 
 S. John. The happiness to which the Christian soul 
 looks forward is to see God and to dwell with God in 
 eternity, and this our Lord says can belong only to 
 those who are " born from above," " born of water 
 and Spirit." 
 
 Natural virtues are not to be despised ; but Christ 
 did not come into this world to live and die only that 
 man might produce the natural virtues, which he had 
 been able to produce before the Incarnation. Christ 
 came to take us into union with Himself that we 
 might produce the fruits of His life, the fruits of the 
 true Vine, the Christian virtues, and that the practice 
 of these virtues might prepare us for a life in heaven 
 in which every faculty of our nature should find its 
 beatitude — a life in which the intellect should attain to 
 its highest powers in seeing God, and the soul should 
 
 * S. John iii. 3, 5, and 6. 
 
th ftmiB of (Union wtt^ Cartel *«• 
 
 find its supreme happiness in loving God. But this 
 must depend absolutely upon our abiding in Christ ; 
 for, as He tells us, " apart from Me ye can do 
 nothing " — nothing, that is, which pertains to our 
 life as Christians. 
 
 175 
 
XXIIl. 
 
 5'ourt^ (Itlonbaj in SLCnt 
 
 THE RESULT OF SEPARATION FROM 
 
 CHRIST. 
 
 S. John xv. 6-io, 
 
 '* If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is 
 withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they 
 are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall 
 ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My 
 Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit ; so shall ye be My disciples. 
 As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you : continue ye in 
 My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love ; 
 even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His 
 love." 
 
 F a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth 
 as a branch, and is withered." Hitherto 
 Christ has spoken only of branches which 
 maintain a vital union with Himself. These fall into 
 two classes — those that bear fruit and those that do 
 not bear fruit. The latter were taken away, the 
 
 176 
 
(geguft of ^eygration from C^ri gi ^ 
 
 former were purged that they might bring forth 
 more fruit. Now our Lord passes to the consider- 
 ation of those who by their own wilful act, that is 
 by mortal sin, have become separated from Him. 
 The unfruitful branches are taken away, these, 
 however, are cast forth, that is, cast out of the 
 vineyard and become withered. 
 
 Here we have brought into sharpest contrast 
 the consequences of union with Christ and of the 
 loss of that union. Union with Christ results in 
 the production of fruit, separation from Christ not 
 only implies loss of the power of fruit bearing, but 
 the rejection of the branch itself. It is cast forth 
 and withered. For a while it may remain upon the 
 vine, disfiguring it by its lifeless aspect ; but it will 
 not be for long. 
 
 We must carefully observe that our Blessed Lord 
 in this allegory distinctly recognises three classes of 
 branches, representing three kinds of Christians : — 
 those who abide in Him and produce fruit ; those 
 who abide in Him, but do not produce fruit ; and 
 those who neither abide in Him nor bear fruit. 
 The fate of this last class is brought before us in 
 the words we are considering. They are cast forth 
 from the vineyard and withered. But more than 
 this : " men gather them and cast them into the fire 
 and they are burned." 
 
 177 N 
 
^^ '^ouxi^ (Qitonbag in &eni 
 
 The vine is the most productive of all trees, that 
 is, it produces the greatest amount of fruit in 
 proportion to its size. In passing through vine- 
 yards in a wine-producing country we cannot but 
 be struck with the insignificant size of the vines 
 which are so abundantly laden with grapes. We 
 must not think of the vines which we see in hot- 
 houses in England or trained against the walls of a 
 house, but of the vineyards where grape-growing is 
 the industry of the country. 
 
 One reason why these vines are kept so small is 
 that all their strength may be put forth in producing 
 fruit, because the grapes are the only things of value 
 which the vine produces. The wood of the vine is 
 quite valueless. There are many trees, like the 
 walnut tree, which produce fruit, and the wood of 
 which is also of great value. Rut it is not so with 
 the vine, the withered branches are burned because 
 they are worthless. S. Augustine has a beautiful 
 saying in regard to this. " To the branch one of 
 two things is fitting, either the vine or the fire."* 
 The scene suggested by this verse is the withered 
 and worthless branches of a great vineyard, gathered 
 outside the vineyard, and burning, while the fruitful 
 branches remain in the vine producing their luxuriant 
 fruit. 
 
 * "Unum de duobus palmiti congruit, aut vitis aut ignis." 
 
 178 
 
(geguft of Reparation from C^mt, ^ 
 
 But let us notice the sugg^estiveness of the words 
 which describe the scene — " cast forth as a branch 
 and withered ; and men gather them and cast them 
 into the fire, and they are burned." Of the five 
 verbs in this sentence the tenses of the first two, 
 "cast forth" and "withered" {^^X^drj, e^r]pdv6rj), are 
 
 aorists, the last three (a-wdyova-iv, ^dXKovo-iv, KaUrai), 
 
 "gather," "cast into the fire," and "are burned," 
 are in the present tense. The " casting forth " and 
 the " becoming withered " are definite acts, the 
 result of a definite sin by which we separate 
 ourselves from Christ. But the " being gathered 
 together," the " being cast into the fire," and " being 
 burned," are states which continue — at least so the 
 Greek implies. 
 
 How true this is of spiritual experience. The 
 action which severs our vital union with the vine 
 will take but a short time to complete — one wilful 
 deliberate act of mortal sin ; but the burning to 
 which our Lord refers, as continuing, is evidently 
 not the punishment of eternity ; for He says they 
 are dem^;' cast into the fire and being burned. The 
 verbs are present, not future ; they refer not to 
 something which will happen after the Day of 
 Judgment, but to something which is taking place 
 now, to something which happens in this life, and 
 which continues. 
 
 179 
 
'^^ ^onrt^ (tttonbdg in &ent. 
 
 What is this ? Surely it is that fiery furnace of 
 temptation in which we all move. But this has no 
 more power to injure those who are in Christ than 
 Nebuchadnezzar's furnace had to injure the three 
 holy children who walked in it unhurt. There was 
 with them, as there is with us, the form of a fourth 
 like unto the Son of God.* If we are in Christ 
 temptation cannot hurt us. If we are not in Christ 
 men gather us together. The word (awdyova-iv) 
 suggests the binding of the withered branches into 
 bundles for the fire. So when the soul is separated 
 from Christ its binding begins, a binding with the 
 chains of sin, the soul is bound together with 
 others, its companions in evil habits, and then 
 bound hand and foot, so to speak, is cast into the 
 fires of temptation. 
 
 What are the chains by which the sinner is 
 bound ? A collect of our Prayer Book tells us, 
 — *' tied and bound with the chains of our sins." 
 Who forged those chains which bind the sinner .'' 
 He forged them himself. Each separate link was 
 some act of sin ; these acts, repeated again and 
 again, went to form a habit of sin ; and we all 
 know what it is to be tied and bound with the 
 chains of evil habits. So strong they are that, 
 though we make many efforts to get free, we 
 
 * C/. Daniel iii. 19-26. 
 180 
 
(Refiuft of ^eyarafion from C^mt. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 cannot break them. They were not forged all at 
 once, but very gradually. There was a time when 
 it would have been easy to have broken the bad 
 habit, but after perhaps years of indulgence our 
 case seems hopeless. We know, however, that it 
 is not hopeless, that there are no limits to the 
 power of the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, that 
 if we come to Him with penitence one drop of 
 His Blood can break those chains and set the 
 sinner free ; for we know that the Blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth us from all sin.* 
 
 The phrase, '' men bring them together," suggests 
 especially the difficulty of freeing ourselves from 
 evil companions who have tempted us. " If I 
 could only get away from that one companion," 
 says the sinner to himself; "but when I am with 
 him all my good resolutions vanish, and I seem 
 to be bound by chains which I cannot break." 
 Perhaps his companion is saying the same to 
 himself; each wishes to get free, neither has the 
 strength to break away, and so both, bound together, 
 go on burning in the furnace of temptation like the 
 rejected branches in the fires outside the vineyard. 
 
 "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, 
 ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
 you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear 
 
 * C/. I S. John i. 7. 
 181 
 
much fruit ; so shall ye be My disciples." In these 
 two verses are shown the blessings of union with 
 Christ in prayer fulfilled and fruit produced, and 
 we are reminded that the fruitfulness of the vine is 
 the glory of the husbandman. Therefore, Christ 
 says, " Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear 
 much fruit." 
 
 Two great results of union with Christ are here 
 brought before us — the glory of God is seen in 
 the fruit we produce, and the answer to prayer is 
 the evidence of our discipleship. Everyone can 
 pray, even those who are not in a state of grace, 
 but it is the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous 
 man that availeth much.* God hears the prayers 
 of sinners, if it were not so we should indeed be 
 hopeless. But still mc^re does God grant the prayers 
 of His saints, of those who are living the life of 
 uni^.. through Jesus Christ. 
 
 " As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved 
 you : continue ye in My love. If ye keep My 
 commandments, yo shall abide in My love ; even 
 as I have kept My Father's commandments, and 
 abide in His Love." Throughout all these dis- 
 courses wc find a sort of antiphon constantly 
 recurring, an antiphon in which the relation of 
 love to obedience is continually brought before us. 
 
 * C/. S. James v. 1 6. 
 182 
 
(Reauff of geparafton from C^mt« ^ 
 
 " If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments."* 
 *' He that hath My commandments and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth Me." " If ye keep My 
 commandments, ye shall abide in My love."t Thus 
 we are first taught that obedience is the consequence 
 of love, then that it is the evidence of love, and 
 lastly, that it is the preservative of love, that if we 
 keep Christ's commands we shall abide in His love. 
 Love is the greatest and most godlike of the 
 Christian virtues. The end and aim of every 
 spiritual life must be to grow in love, and we 
 learn that there is but one way to this — the path 
 of obedience. 
 
 * S. John xiv. 15. f S. John xiv. 21 ; xv. 10. 
 
 183 
 
XXIV. 
 
 THE JOY OF UNION WITH CHRIST. 
 
 S. John xv. ii. 
 
 "These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain 
 in you, and that your joy might be full." 
 
 llTH this verse commences a fresh section of 
 the discourse. After having treated of the 
 union between Christ and the soul, as 
 typified by the vine and the branches, and the 
 fearful results of its forfeiture, our Lord Jesus 
 Christ goes on to tell us of some of the issues of 
 that union, some of its consequences to His disciples 
 — consequences both joyful and sad. And first He 
 speaks of the joy which is the fruit of their union 
 with Him. He says, "These things have I spoken 
 unto you that My joy might remain in you, and 
 that your joy miglit be full." 
 
 184 
 
t^c gog of (Union wii^ C^xid. s«- 
 
 What were these things which He had spoken 
 unto them ? They fall under two heads. He had 
 told them of His departure — that surely could not 
 fill them with anything but sorrow, except in so far 
 as their love led them to rejoice that His work was 
 accomplished, His glory won, and that He was going to 
 His Father. Again He had told them of the various 
 consolations which should sustain them under the 
 sorrow of His departure. And finally He had 
 revealed to them the privileges which should flow 
 from their union with Him, and these last were the 
 things which were to fill them with joy, and that joy 
 was to be not only their own, but His joy also. He 
 says, " These things have I spoken unto you that My 
 joy might remain in you." The words in the original 
 for " My joy " (17 Xapj? 7 e/Lt?)) are very emphatic. They 
 remind us of the expression, " My peace I give unto 
 you." The joy which is Mine, the peace which is 
 Mine, I give unto you. Not as a passing emotion 
 but as a permanent possession. 
 
 " That My joy might remain with you." In what 
 characteristics did this joy differ from the world's 
 joy ^ (i) In permanence. The world's joy never 
 lasts. It is a tumultuous emotion which quickly 
 passes away. Christian joy is a permanent posses- 
 sion, like Christian peace — the world cannot bestow 
 it and the world cannot destroy it. S. Paul speaks 
 
 185 
 
-^9 ^oxitt^ ^uesbag in &ent 
 
 of himself as rejoicing in tribulation. He says, " I am 
 exceeding joyful in all our tribulation."* 
 
 (2) Again, it is the outcome of sorrow. In the next 
 chapter Christ contrasts the joy of the disciples with 
 that of the world. He says, " The world shall rejoice : 
 and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be 
 turned into joy."f Sorrow is the raw material of 
 Christian joy, f(^r it is, our Lord says, " turned into 
 joy." How sad to have no sorrow which can be 
 turned into joy. 
 
 This, too, is the teaching of the Psalmist. " He that 
 now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth 
 good seed : shall doubtless come again with joy, and 
 bring his sheaves with him. "J 
 
 And it is referred to in the book of Revelation 
 as one of the joys of heaven: "And God shall 
 wipe away all tears from their eyes : and there 
 shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor cry- 
 ing, neither shall there be any more pain : for 
 the former things are passed away."§ How sad in 
 that great day to have no tears for God to wipe 
 away. 
 
 (3) But this joy is not only the outcome of 
 sorrow, it gives us courage to bear (Uir trials. As 
 we read of our Lord Himself, "Who for the joy that 
 
 * 2 Cor. vii. 4. t '^- Jo^" ^vi. 20. 
 
 X Psalm cxxvi. 6, Prayer Book Version. § Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
 186 
 
€U gog of (Union mtf} €6n6t ^ 
 
 was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the 
 shame."* 
 
 (4) And lastly, it is the result of self-sacrificing 
 love. Such was the joy of our Lord to which we 
 have just referred ; such is the joy of His followers — 
 the joy of suffering for love's sake, for love of God 
 and for love of those whom God loves. This, too, is 
 the joy of missionary work for Christ. 
 
 We must, however, remember that joy is the second 
 fruit of the Holy Ghost, and that our Lord not only 
 spoke of His joy remaining in His disciples, but of 
 their own joy being full. Most Christians admit, in 
 theory at least, that love is an important virtue of 
 Christian life, and lament perhaps their own want of 
 charity ; but (e\v go on to realise that joy is just as 
 much the fruit of the Holy Ghost as love is, and, 
 while not equally important in Christian life, certainly 
 ought to be found there. Love, joy, peace — these are 
 the first three fruits of the work of the Holy Spirit in 
 our lives. How many of us speak of Christian life as 
 though it were altogether a life of sorrow. And yet 
 joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and no one can 
 read the Epistles of S. Paul, for instance, without 
 observing how large a place joy occupies in his life. 
 
 In these last discourses of our Blessed Lord, uttered 
 as they were on the very tlireshold of His Passion, 
 
 * Heb. xii. 2. 
 
 187 
 

 5'ourt^ ZuCBixXT^ in £enf. 
 
 and filled with references to His departure, there is 
 yet found again and again the note of joy. Not only 
 in this passage, but in the next chapter, He promises 
 that sorrow shall be turned into joy, that when they 
 see Him again their heart shall rejoice, and that their 
 joy no man taketh from them. That they are to 
 pray, not only that they may receive what they ask 
 for, but that their joy may be full. And He finishes 
 the discourse with the words, " Be of good cheer (that 
 is, rejoice), I have overcome the world." 
 
 But what is the special function of joy in the 
 Christian life, the special office of this fruit of the 
 Holy Spirit? A consideration of the Old Testament 
 phrase, " the oil of joy,"-'' " the oil of gladness,"t will 
 help us to answer this question. What is the function 
 of oil ? Among other things it saves friction ; we pour 
 oil into the wheels of a machine and it prevents the 
 friction which would otherwise take place. Without 
 oil the machine would soon tear itself to pieces, so to 
 speak, through friction ; but oil [)revents this. So joy 
 in spiritual life saves us from that friction which does 
 so much to spoil all that is beautiful in life. If you 
 go about rejoicing, happy in your union with Chiist, 
 glad to bear life's sorrows, to meet its tribulations in 
 the thought that they are but the seeds of future joys, 
 how little life's tribulations will be able to injure you, 
 
 * Isaiah Ixi. 3. f Psalm xlv. 7. 
 
 188 
 
tU gog of (Union mi^ C^xid. ^ 
 
 how great will be your power to help others in their 
 journey through life. 
 
 We all know how helpful a cheerful person is, one 
 whose presence is like sunshine in the house, who, 
 when things go wrong, instead of making them worse 
 by bemoaning them, starts in at once to remedy them, 
 if that is possible, or, if not, to set an example of 
 bearing them cheerfully. Take two Christians, one 
 who cultivates the spirit of joy and one who does not. 
 The first will go through life so happily that tempta- 
 tions will lose half their force and trials, half their 
 power to weary him. The other looks at the dark 
 side of life, exaggerates its trials and difficulties, and 
 gets out of every difficulty the greatest amount of 
 friction possible. What he needs is to pour the oil 
 of joy into the machinery of life, and, if he did, many 
 things would be possible to him which he deems quite 
 hopeless. Take a rusty piece of machinery, turn the 
 crank, and the wheel moves with great difficulty, 
 perhaps refuses to move at all. But pour oil upon 
 the axle and begin to turn the wheel slowly. There 
 will be some difficulty at first, but soon, as the oil is 
 absorbed, the rust wears off and the machine does its 
 work. It is a type of human life. Joy is that which 
 lubricates life's machinery and makes it work easily. 
 
 A great writer on the spiritual life asks what is 
 the first weapon with which to meet temptation, 
 
 189 
 
-^^ ^onxtf^ S^ueebdg in £enf. 
 
 and answers cheerfulness. What, he says, is the 
 second one ? Again cheerfulness. But what is the 
 third ? Still cheerfulness, always cheerfulness. He 
 pictures two children running along the road, one 
 of them falls, and lays there crying till someone 
 comes along and picks him up. The other also falls, 
 but picks himself up and goes on his way. Those 
 children are types of two classes — those who cultivate 
 the spirit of joy and those who do not. The one after 
 every fall wastes time and strength in useless lamen- 
 tations ; the other gathers himself together and with 
 an act of contrition for the past, at once sets him- 
 self to do better in the present, and to be more 
 careful in the future. 
 
 We must bear in mind, however, that joy is d. fruit 
 of the Holy Spirit, not a gifty that its production 
 depends first upon our union with Christ, then upon 
 our own efforts, our own endeavours, to bear life's 
 trials, to meet life's temptations in the spirit of cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 190 
 
XXV. 
 
 f ift§ TTebneBbag in £ent. 
 
 THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST. 
 
 S. John xv. 12-15. 
 
 *'This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have 
 loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down 
 his life for his friends. Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I 
 command you. Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the servant 
 knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for 
 all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto 
 you." 
 
 [ERE we have a repetition of the antiphon of 
 these discourses — love and its consequence 
 obedience. But not only is the measure of 
 the love given here, as in the promulgation of the new 
 commandment — " As I have loved you," but lest 
 there should be any mistake the manner in which 
 this love is to be manifested is indicated in the tense 
 
 191 
 
§0- ^iftf} ^tbnCBbd^ in &enf> 
 
 of the verb " loved " (vy<^7rr]aa). It is an aorist, and 
 therefore points to some distinct act of love, and that 
 act is shown to be the supreme act of love by which 
 Christ laid down His life for the world, for He says, 
 " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
 down his life for his friends." And yet our Lord's 
 act was even greater than this, for He laid down His 
 life not only for His friends, but for His enemies, for 
 those who murdered Him. And even those whom 
 He honoured by the name of friends, how poorly they 
 showed their friendship, for one betrayed Him, 
 another denied Him, and all forsook Him in His 
 hour of adversity. 
 
 He teaches us here that the measure of love is 
 the sacrifice of life. He offered up His life for us 
 upon the Cross through death, and if we are to love 
 the brethren as He commands, we must offer up our 
 life, not through death but through loving service. 
 
 S. John develops this thought very beautifully 
 in his first Epistle, w^here he says, ''Hereby perceive 
 we the love of God, because He laid down His life 
 for us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the 
 brethren. But whoso hath this world's good, and 
 seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his 
 bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the 
 love of God in him ? "* 
 
 * I S. John iii. i6, 17. 
 192 
 
t^c SyJenbg of C^mt> ^ 
 
 There is a legend that in extreme old age S. John 
 confined his preaching to his flock at Ephesus to one 
 text — " Little children, love one another." Whether 
 the legend is true or not there can be no doubt that 
 his Epistle is but the development of that text, and 
 that he learnt this sublime doctrine from the last 
 discourses of his divine Master. 
 
 There is a very striking play upon the words 
 translated " life " and " good " in the Greek of the 
 above passage, which is lost in our translation. In 
 the original both words mean life, but in a different 
 sense. The first (^vxn) signifies that physical life 
 which S. John says we ought, if need be, to lay 
 down for the brethren. The second (/Stos-) means 
 the life which we live in this world, the life which 
 is made up of what we say and do. This is the 
 word we use when we describe the history of a 
 man's life under the term "biography." S. John 
 says we ought to lay down our very /z/e for the 
 brethren, and yet too often we grudge to spend 
 our means in his service. He implies that there 
 may be times when the actual sacrifice of life for 
 others become a duty ; the soldier realises this 
 when he dies for his country. This may be 
 exceptional, but for all of us, he says, as opportunity 
 offers, there must be a readiness to employ time 
 and means and strength in our neighbour's service. 
 
 193 O 
 
*' Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I 
 command you. Henceforth I call you not 
 servants ; for the servant knoweth not what 
 his lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; 
 for all things that I have heard of My Father 
 I have made known unto you." How precious is 
 the privilege of friendship with one of the world's 
 great men ! How much more precious to be a 
 friend of Jesus Christ ! a friend of God ! One man 
 stands out upon the pages of Old Testament history 
 who won that title, Abraham the friend of God.''' 
 But all who are the disciples of Jesus Christ and 
 show forth the evidence of love by obedience are His 
 friends ; for He says, " Ye are My friends, if ye do 
 whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you 
 not servants." Literally, we may render it, " No 
 longer (ovKeri,) do I call you servants, that is slaves, 
 but I call you friends (<^tXovs), that is objects of My 
 love." 
 
 The disciples of Christ, however, continued to call 
 themselves His bondslaves. It is S. Paul's favourite 
 word to describe his relation to Christ, and not only 
 S. Paul, but all alike retain this title. And why? 
 Because it is included in the higher title of friends. 
 Because they were His friends they loved to remind 
 themselves and others that friendship with Jesus 
 
 * C/i 2 Chron. xx. 7 : Isaiah xli. 8 ; S. James ii. 23. 
 194 
 
t^c ifrienbg of C^xi&t ^ 
 
 Christ depends upon absolute obedience, upon the 
 whole service of life. Christ had said, " Ye are My 
 friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Hence, 
 while He also said, " No longer do I call you servants 
 but friends," they went on styling themselves His 
 bondslaves, and leaving it to Him to designate them 
 by the nobler title of friends. 
 
 The mere slave is an instrument only for perform- 
 ing his lord's commands, but does not aspire to any 
 knowledge of his lord's motives or purposes. He 
 does what he is told without knowing the reason or 
 the object of what he does. But the obedience of 
 friends differs from servile obedience in this, that it is 
 based on love and knowledge and sympathy. They 
 obeyed because they loved Christ, because they 
 knew Christ, because of their sympathy with His 
 work, and, as He Himself points out, because He 
 took them into His confidence and revealed to them 
 the purposes of His work as His Father had revealed 
 that work to Him. " The servant knoweth not what 
 his lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all 
 things that I have heard of My Father I have made 
 known unto you " — not all the mysteries of the 
 Father's counsels, but all that it was fitting that man 
 should know, all that Christ as Man had heard of the 
 divine purposes. These counsels, for the Apostles 
 and for us, are contained in the Divine Revelation, 
 
 195 
 
^ Stft^ T^ebnegbag in &enf> 
 
 and our work under the guidance of the Holy Ghost 
 is so to study them that we may work for God 
 intelligently, not merely as bondslaves but as the 
 friends of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Friendship implies privileges, but it involves also 
 responsibilities. It would be difficult to exaggerate 
 the privileges we have as the friends of God — 
 the special revelations through the Holy Spirit 
 in regard to the mysteries of our religion and 
 to the purposes of God for us. But while we 
 may dwell on these with thankfulness it may 
 perhaps be even more helpful to us to consider 
 the responsibilities which are involved in this 
 relationship to Christ. 
 
 The first responsibility is love, to love Christ 
 and to manifest that love by obedience to His 
 commands, and especially by such love of the 
 brethren as He indicates when He says, " Love 
 one another as I have loved you." Of this we 
 have already treated ; we will pass, therefore, to 
 the second condition demanded by friendship — 
 loyalty. We must be loyal to Christ when others 
 are disloyal, that is, we must be ready to confess 
 Christ among those who show Him no allegiance. 
 We must be prepared to proclaim ourselves His 
 servants and His friends, when to do so will 
 bring upon us ridicule or even persecution, and 
 
 196 
 
t^c Snenbg of Christ ^ 
 
 we must show our loyalty not only with our lips 
 but in our lives, not only by proclaiming by 
 words that we are friends of Jesus Christ, but 
 by showing by our deeds our devotion to His 
 services, by keeping His commandments, even 
 when to do so involves the world's opposition. 
 
 And lastly, we must remember that as friends 
 of Jesus Christ His interests must be our 
 interests. What are the interests of Jesus 
 Christ in this world ? Perhaps they may be 
 most briefly summed up as the interests of 
 His Church, especially in missionary enterprise 
 at home and abroad. How inconsistent it is of 
 us to claim the title, friends of Christ, when we 
 have no interest in the expansion of His 
 kingdom upon earth. Everything that belongs 
 to the well-being of Christ's Church ought to 
 be of intensest interest to us. We should, 
 therefore, read a great deal about the needs 
 of the Church at home and abroad. We should 
 strive by all means in our power to spread this 
 information among others, to interest others in 
 the Church's work, and to ask ourselves what we 
 can do practically to further the Church's work. 
 
 We should begin perhaps in our own house- 
 hold, among our own friends. Could we help 
 them to know more about the Church of Jesus 
 
 197 
 
•»? ^ifi^ nX>ebne0bftg in &ent. 
 
 Christ, to take more interest in her claims ? 
 Then in our own parish. What do we know 
 of its needs? Are we doing our best to supply 
 them according to our own ability, whether that 
 be great or small ? Are more workers needed 
 in our parish, and is there something to be 
 done which we could do? Then, further, the 
 claims of our diocese, and of our own Com- 
 munion. Are we really interested in Church news 
 because the interests of Jesus Christ require that 
 we should care for everything that pertains to 
 the welfare of His kingdom ? Do we take as 
 much interest in Church news as we do in the 
 world's news, of what is going on in politics or 
 literature or social life ? 
 
 Yet further, we are members of the Church 
 Catholic, and therefore ought to care deeply for 
 all that affects the life of the whole body of 
 Christians. We cannot work for every Com- 
 munion, but we can pray, and especially pray 
 that some day all may be one according to 
 Christ's own prayer, that divisions may be healed, 
 and misunderstandings removed, and that, with- 
 out any sacrifice of truth, love may prevail and 
 bring together those who are now separated 
 though part of the same Body of Christ. 
 
 Then there is missionary work amongst the 
 
 198 
 
t^c Srtenb6 of C^xxBt ^ 
 
 heathen. What an immense interest of Jesus 
 Christ this is. Millions there are still to be 
 converted to Christianity, millions who know 
 nothing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the 
 salvation He won for all men, of the means of 
 grace by which man is enabled to conquer sin. 
 
 This is perhaps the largest demand which 
 friendship for Jesus Christ makes upon us, 
 that we should make His interests our 
 interests, the great interests of our lives. 
 Let us examine how far we have failed in 
 this and strive by His help to be more faith- 
 ful in our friendship for the future. 
 
 199 
 
XXVI. 
 
 fift^ t^nxBU^ in feenf. 
 
 THE LAW OF VOCATION. 
 
 S. John xv. i6. 
 
 "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained 
 you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should 
 remain : that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He 
 may give it you." 
 
 HIS section of the fifteenth chapter closes 
 with these wonderful words so full of en- 
 couragement and consolation to us. The 
 tenses of the verbs are aorists, not perfects, there- 
 fore it should be rendered, " Ye did not choose Me, 
 but I chose you." The Apostles did not choose 
 Christ as their Master, He first chose them as 
 His friends, and then He ordained them, that is, 
 instituted them to a certain office and work as His 
 apostles. 
 
 200 
 
t^c &(Xro of (pocation. ^ 
 
 In these words we are taught one of the most 
 important lessons of Christian life — the principle of 
 Vocation. Every Christian who thinks seriously 
 has at some time or other asked with anxiety, 
 " What is my vocation in life ? " This is especially 
 a question for the youn^, and yet how often it is 
 either ignored or misunderstood. Everyone has a 
 vocation in life, and it is of the utmost importance 
 that each one should strive first to know what his 
 vocation is, and then to walk worthy of it. 
 
 But what do we mean by vocation ? A very large 
 number of persons probably mean the state of life 
 which ^kej' choose as their business or profession, 
 and they choose it probably with regard only to 
 worldly success or worldly enjoyment. But surely 
 this is not the meaning of vocation. Vocation is a 
 state of life to which we are called by God, not 
 one which we choose for ourselves. Of course we 
 must realise that God reveals to us our vocation 
 largely through His providence, that is, through the 
 environment in which He has placed us. Parents' 
 wishes, personal gifts and inclinations, all may 
 be legitimate means of finding out what is God's 
 work for us, if only we start with the realisation 
 that we want to find out what is God's Will for us, 
 and not merely to gratify our own ambitions. 
 
 Surely this is what we are taught by our Lord's 
 
 201 
 
words to His apostles, " Ye did not choose Me, 
 but I chose you, and ordained you " — to be My 
 apostles. Very likely they thought that in follow- 
 ing Christ they had made the choice, and so in a 
 sense they had ; for we can obey or disobey God's 
 call, and in determining to obey we are choosing 
 God. But before we can make that determination 
 God must have chosen us, and spoken to our 
 hearts through His preventing grace, thus enabling 
 us to recognise His call, and to obey it. 
 
 How few, even of those who grow up in Christian 
 homes, are brought up to consider vocation from this 
 point of view. They are asked what they would 
 like to be, what they would like to do, and while 
 recognising, as we have done, that inclination is 
 often a factor in deciding vocation, yet prayer that 
 we may know God's Will for us should have the first 
 place, and the end we must have in view in finding 
 out our vocation must not be only worldly success 
 but rather God's glory. God has a work for me 
 to do, and there is a state of life in which I can best 
 do that work. I must ask earnestly in prayer that 
 God will show me what that state of life is, I must 
 not decide upon it merely with a view to worldly 
 ambition. 
 
 When we have in this way learnt what our 
 vocation is, wc must walk worthy of it, as S. 
 
 202 
 
t^c &(XW of (gocdfton. ^ 
 
 Paul exhorts us,* and if at times we shrink from 
 the responsibilities it involves, and are inclined to 
 say that the work is too great for us, we have as 
 our encouragement these words, " Ye did not choose 
 Me, but I chose you, and ordained you" to this work. 
 How great is the comfort through life of this revela- 
 tion — if I have sought guidance in regard to my state 
 in life, I need not afterwards fear that I have made a 
 terrible mistake and that I am quite in the wrong 
 place. There are many in this condition, but pro- 
 bably in most instances it is because they chose their 
 vocation quite irrespective of God's guidance. They 
 did not seek from Him humbly and earnestly a 
 manifestation of His Will, they did not ask Him, 
 '' Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do .? " They 
 only considered what they wished to do, what would 
 gratify their inclinations or ambitions in life, and 
 so they found out, when it was too late, that they 
 had made a mistake — a mistake which perhaps could 
 not be rectified, and which spoilt their lives. 
 
 How different it is with those who have sought the 
 guidance of God in the matter of vocation, and who 
 can say, " I did not choose, but God called me to 
 this work, and therefore, because He called me, He 
 will give me the grace I need to accomplish it, the 
 opportunities which are necessary for bringing it to a 
 
 * Cf. Eph. iv. I. 
 203 
 
*9 ftftg g^urobag in &e nt. 
 
 successful issue — successful in that it will be the 
 fulfilment of God's Will. 
 
 We may observe that our Lord indicates four 
 consequences of His choice and ordination. He 
 says, " I ordained you, that ye should go and bring 
 forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain : that 
 whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, 
 He may give it to you." 
 
 First they are to go. This implies the taking up 
 of an independent and definite work. They are not 
 to drift about, as so many do, without any real 
 purpose, any definite work in life. There is some- 
 thing for each to do, and they are ordained that they 
 may go and do it. If I do not know what my work 
 is I ought to feel very anxious lest it should be 
 my own fault that I do not know it, lest I should 
 have shut my eyes to God's leading, closed my 
 ears to the voice which would have guided me to 
 the work which God ordained for me. 
 
 Secondly, they are to bring forth fruit. This is 
 a most important and precious revelation. If we 
 arc doingf the work which God has called us to 
 do, that work is certain to be fruitful. We have 
 Christ's own promise that it shall be. People 
 often labour with energy at a work of their own 
 choosing, but it ends in failure ; because God's 
 blessing does not rest upon it. But there can be 
 
 204 
 
tU &aw of (gocafton, ^ 
 
 no such thing as failure to one who is walking in 
 the vocation to which God has called him, doing 
 the work which God has given him.. We have a 
 very striking illustration of this in the miraculous 
 draught of fishes which preceded the call of S. 
 Peter. We read* that after our Lord had been 
 teaching from S. Peter's boat, He said unto him, 
 " Launch out into the deep, and let down your 
 nets for a draught. And Simon answering said 
 unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night : 
 nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the 
 net. And when they had done this they 
 inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their 
 net brake." He had toiled all night and had 
 taken nothing, but when he let down his net 
 at the command of Jesus Christ, it was filled 
 with fishes. There are many who toil all through 
 the dark night of this life ard find at the end 
 that they have taken nothing — nothing, that is, 
 which will follow them into the world to come. 
 Life has been wasted, its opportunities lost, its 
 true work left undone ; because they have been 
 working according to their own will, not accord- 
 ing to the will of God. There are others 
 whose lives do not seem to be particularly 
 successful from this world's point of view, who 
 
 * Cf. S. Luke V. I- 1 1. 
 205 
 
-^ ^ift^ Z^uxBba^ in &cnt. 
 
 when their net is drawn ashore at the last day 
 will find it filled with fishes. 
 
 Thirdly, their fruit is to remam, " that your 
 fruit should remain." There are many men 
 whose names are known all over the world, 
 who, after years of enormous effort, have 
 amassed an immense amount of this world's 
 fruits in the shape of wealth or popularity or 
 power, but when they come to die none of that 
 fruit will remain to them. Think of the 
 millionaire who by his wealth one day controls 
 the little world in which he lives, the next day 
 he dies and whose is that wealth ? It is no 
 longer his, he cannot control one penny of it. 
 He has not taken it with him. The fruit of all 
 his labours is {^one to others, nothing perhaps 
 remains to him except the remorse of lost 
 opportunities, of an ill-spent life. But to those, 
 on the other hand, whose work has been done 
 for God, and under His guidance, our Lord 
 promises that their fruit shall remain. Their 
 works do follow them into the world beyond, into 
 eternity, to be their joy in God's kingdom in 
 heaven. 
 
 Lastly, there is the promise, " That whatsoever 
 ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He 
 may give it to you," the promise that in answer 
 
 206 
 
t^c &(Xro of QOocdtion. 
 
 ^>^ 
 
 to prayer through Christ, all that is necessary 
 for the fulfilment of vocation shall be given — 
 wisdom to meet the difficulties of the work to 
 which God has called us, strength to accomplish 
 it, the grace of perseverance to the end. He 
 who has called us will, in answer to our prayers, 
 give us all that we need to enable us to obey 
 His call and to do His work. 
 
 We must briefly notice the bearing of these 
 words upon the vocation of the Apostles. Christ 
 assures them that He chose them, and why ? 
 Surely, because He saw in each a special fit- 
 ness for the apostolate. The apostles were of 
 different temperaments, possessing different gifts, 
 but each had that which was necessary to enable 
 him to fulfil his vocation. One of the twelve 
 was unfaithful to his vocation — Judas Iscariot — 
 but his call was as true a call as was the 
 vocation of the others, and from what we 
 know of him, he seems to have possessed 
 even greater natural gifts than his fellow 
 apostles possessed. He was the only Judsean 
 among them ; the others were all Galilean 
 peasants and fishermen. He was probably the only 
 educated man, and possibly was a man of some 
 means. He may have made greater sacrifices 
 of this world's position and goods than the 
 
 207 
 
-^ ^ift^ S^^urebaj in SLtnt 
 
 others made, when they obeyed Christ's call 
 and followed Him as their Master. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that he was 
 not quite in earnest when he took up the 
 yoke of Christ. He had a besetting sin, but 
 so had all, and when he enrolled himself in the 
 apostolic band and accepted the poverty which 
 was their lot, he doubtless thought that he would 
 be free from temptation to his besetting sin, 
 which was covetousness ; for inasmuch as following 
 Christ involved poverty, he would have little 
 temptation to covetousness. But because of his 
 administrative ability he was chosen to bear the 
 bag, to be the almoner of the apostolic college, 
 and again had to handle money, and to face his 
 besetting sin. 
 
 With a renewal of temptation we may be sure 
 grace was given him to enable him to overcome the 
 temptation. But he first yielded to his besetting 
 sin of covetousness — he became a thief ; and then 
 apparently he lost his faith in Jesus Christ and 
 lived untrue to his vocation. So he forfeited by 
 his own act the apostolic office, and another 
 S. Matthias, was raised up to do his work and 
 to receive the reward, the crown that would 
 have been his. 
 
 Judas is an awful example — not to the godless, 
 
 208 
 
t^c &(XKo of (goc(Xfton« ^ 
 
 but to religious people ; the example of one who 
 had a real call from Jesus Christ, who recognised 
 his vocation and accepted it ; but because he 
 did not walk worthy of it, because he was not 
 faithful in persevering in it, he lost his vocation, 
 and with it lost his soul. 
 
 309 
 
XXVII. 
 
 f iff^ f ribag in £ent. 
 
 THE WORLD'S HATRED. 
 
 S. John xv. 17-21. 
 
 " These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the 
 world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye 
 were of the world, the world would love his own : but because ye are 
 not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore 
 the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, 
 The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, 
 they will also persecute you : if they have kept My saying, they will 
 keep your's also. But all these things will they do unto you for My 
 Name's sake." 
 
 N the earlier part of the fifteenth chapter 
 our Blessed Lord revealed to His disciples, 
 under the image of the vine and its 
 branches, the vital union which exists between 
 Himself and the soul of the believer, pointing out, 
 on the one hand, the consequences of the severance 
 
 210 
 
of this union, and on the other the blessings of 
 its continuance. In the former case He draws 
 attention to the worthlessness of the branches, their 
 unfruitfulness, and their destruction by fire ; in the 
 latter He warns of the purging and pruning 
 necessary that they may bring forth more abundant 
 fruit, and promises three great privileges as the 
 result of this union with Him — a special power in 
 prayer, and the glorious titles of disciples and 
 friends of Jesus Christ. At the seventeenth verse 
 we are introduced to a new section, which extends 
 to the seventh verse of the next chapter. In this 
 section Christ tells of the consequences of His friend- 
 ship as manifested in the world's treatment of those 
 who love Him, and are His disciples and friends. 
 He draws our attention to the dark side of the 
 picture, and shows that in contrast to the joys and 
 glories and privileges which pertain to those who 
 love Him, there will be sorrows, trials, and 
 persecutions, which arise from the world's hatred 
 of Christ and His followers. 
 
 The seventeenth verse is often regarded as 
 summing up the last section, but it really belongs 
 to the next, to which it forms an introduction. 
 The antiphon is repeated, " These things I command 
 you, that ye love one another," and in sharpest 
 contrast is put the result of obedience, as seen in 
 
 211 
 
^ f tf<^ f ribdg in &eni 
 
 the world's hatred of those who love God and love 
 one another. 
 
 " If the world hate you, ye know that it hated 
 Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, 
 the world would love his own : but because ye are 
 not of the world, but I have chosen you out of 
 the world, therefore the world hateth you." What 
 does Christ mean here by the " world " (6 Koafios) ? 
 He means humanity apart from grace, man apart 
 from Christ, the natural man as distinguished from 
 the supernatural. 
 
 The world in which we live has its interests, its 
 ambitions, its code of morals, its loves, and its 
 hates. But our Blessed Lord describes it as 
 diametrically opposed to Him, to His teaching, to 
 His works, and to those who have enrolled them- 
 selves as His disciples and friends. The world can 
 love with a certain sort of affection, for He says, 
 "If ye were of the world, the world would love 
 his own." And the world can hate, and it hates 
 those who are not its own, whose lives arc ;i 
 continual reproach to it, and whose allegiance is 
 given, not to its claims, but to Christ. The words 
 of Christ in this passage imply that it is impossible 
 to belong to the world and to belong to Him, for 
 He says, " Because ye are not of the world, 
 therefore the world hateth you." 
 
 212 
 
He forewarns His disciples of the world's hate. 
 He points out that it is only what they must 
 expect, since it is but a repetition of the world's 
 treatment of their Master. He shows that the 
 immediate cause of this hatred will be their 
 mutual love for one another, because that love 
 testifies that they belong to Him, and also because 
 this love witnesses against the world's supreme 
 characteristic of utter selfishness, for the world's 
 love is a selfish love. Our Lord says, " If ye were 
 of the world, the world would love his own." If 
 ye were of the world, deriving your life from the 
 world, finding in its praises your reward, in its 
 customs your enjoyment and pleasure, the world 
 would recognise you as belonging to it, and so 
 would love you — not with that spiritual love which 
 is implied in the use of the verb dyanav, which 
 signifies a love founded upon the worthiness of 
 its object, and upon an appreciation of the character 
 of the one we love. The word e<^tXet> used of the 
 world's love, signifies natural love, the love of 
 passion. 
 
 "If ye were of the world, the world would love 
 his own," and that not because of the worthiness 
 of those who belong to the world, but often for the 
 very opposite reason, because in everything they 
 accept the world's low standard, and so fulfil the 
 
 213 
 
^ f ift^ fribdg in feenf. 
 
 claims which the world makes upon them. In the 
 clause, " the world would love his own," we may- 
 notice the expression " his own " (r6 tBiov). It is 
 neuter, and signifies not a person, but a quality. 
 The world does not love them as persons, as 
 individuals, it only cares for those qualities in 
 them which belong to it, and especially that 
 quality of selfishness, which is the special 
 characteristic of worldliness. 
 
 We may also observe that the fivefold repetition 
 of the word " world " in this passage brings into 
 very strong relief the antagonism that there must 
 be between the world and those who love Christ. 
 Christ goes on to say, " Remember the word that 
 I said unto you, The servant is not greater than 
 his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will 
 also persecute you : if they have kept My saying, 
 they will keep yours also. But all these things 
 will they do unto you for My Name's sake." 
 " Remember the word that I said unto you." We 
 find this saying also in S. Matthew.* Persecution, 
 we are told, is to be expected. If we are Christ- 
 like we must expect to suffer as Christ did, to 
 be treated as Christ was treated. If we are 
 nominal Christians, but not Christ-like, the world 
 will probably let us alone. 
 
 * S. Matt. X. 24. 
 214 
 
e^e nrorf^B gatreb. 
 
 £^ 
 
 The thought by which our Lord would sustain His 
 disciples under persecution is contained in the utter- 
 ance, " These things will they do unto you for My 
 Name's sake." All sufferings which you endure in the 
 world because you are manifesting a Christ-like life 
 are borne for Christ's sake. What a sustaining 
 thought He had said of Himself, " Greater love 
 hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
 life for his friends." Now He says to them, If ye 
 love Me, ye must be ready to suffer for Me, and 
 ye must recognise in your sufferings a glorious 
 opportunity of showing your love. If in our time 
 of trial we keep this thought steadfastly before us, 
 that it is for Christ's sake that we endure the trial, 
 it will rob our sufferings of all their bitterness and 
 transmute them into glorious privileges. It was 
 this thought which enabled the martyrs so gladly 
 to suffer and die for Christ. 
 
 With what transparent honesty our Lord puts 
 before His disciples the consequences of following 
 Him — not only in this passage, but again and 
 again throughout the Gospels does He call upon 
 everyone who comes to Him to count the cost 
 before they take up His yoke. To the man who 
 proclaimed, " Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever 
 Thou goest," He said, "Foxes have holes, birds 
 of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath 
 
 215 
 
^ S^f^^ Sribdg in BLCnt. 
 
 not where to lay His head."* How many times, 
 too, He said to His disciples, " If any man will 
 come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up 
 his cross and follow Me/'f And, " Whosoever doth 
 not bear his cross, and come after Me, cannot be 
 My disciple."t 
 
 Our Blessed Master will allow none to enrol them- 
 selves under His banner before they realise what 
 His service involves of suffering and self-denial. 
 The reward, He tells them, is the greatest that 
 the human heart can conceive of, but the journey 
 to be traversed before the reward is won is by a 
 narrow and strait and difficult path. Opposition 
 must be encountered and persecution endured. 
 They will go forth as disciples of love, and they 
 will meet in return only hate. The world will hate 
 them because they love Christ, and love one 
 another. 
 
 Christ says, " Remember the word that I said 
 unto you." It ought to be a very real help to us 
 in time of trouble to remember that our Master 
 warned us to expect trial. S. Paul says, " There 
 hath no temptation taken you but such as is 
 common to man : but God is faithful, Who ^jjill 
 not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are 
 able ; but will with the temptation make the way to 
 
 * S. Luke xix. 57, 58. t S. Mult. xvi. J4. % ^' ^-i''^^' '^'^■- -7- 
 
 216 
 
escape, that ye may be able to bear it."* Trial, 
 testing, is common to all men, necessary for all, 
 and especially for the Christian, but with the trial 
 God will always send the way of escape, the means 
 of grace by using which we may be able — not to 
 get rid of the temptation, but to bear it ; for it is 
 by endurance of temptation that we win the crown 
 of life.f 
 
 The hatred of the world of which Christ forewarns 
 His disciples was very definite in its manifestation, 
 for we read of it first as shown by the Jews, and 
 then after the fall of Jerusalem we find it in the 
 various persecutions of Christians under the Roman 
 Empire. Now the world has lost some of its powers 
 of persecution, but it has not lost its hatred of all 
 who are Christ's. The form of its manifestation 
 is more civilised, but the spirit is the same. 
 
 * I Cor. X, 13. -f Cf. S. James i. 12 ; 2 Timothy iv. 8. 
 
 217 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 THE WORLD'S IGNORANCE. 
 
 S. John xv. 21-25. 
 
 " But all these things will they do unto you for My Name's sake, 
 because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and 
 spoken unto them, they had not had sin : but now they have no cloke 
 for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had 
 not done among them the works which none other man did, they had 
 not had sin : but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My 
 Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fullilled 
 that is written in their law, They hated me witliout a cause." 
 
 E have seen that tlie immediate cause 
 of the world's hatred is the spirit of 
 love manifested in a Christ-like life, 
 but our Lord also ascribes this hatred to another 
 cause — ignorance, "because they know not Him 
 that 'sent Me." All sin may be ultimately traced 
 
 218 
 
t^c TJJorfb'B 3gnorance. 
 
 i)c- 
 
 to ignorance, as our Lord shows us, when He 
 prays for His murderers, saying, " Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do."* 
 Ignorance with regard to the intellect and per- 
 version of the will are the two causes of sin, 
 though ignorance is the primary cause. 
 
 Christ, when weeping over Jerusalem, said, " If 
 thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
 thy day, the things which belong unto thy 
 peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes 
 
 because thou knewest not the time of 
 
 thy visitation."! Here He traces their rejection 
 of His love to ignorance. On another occasion 
 He said, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that 
 killest the prophets, and stonest them which are 
 sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered 
 thy children together, even as a hen gathereth 
 her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 notrx In this passage He points out that 
 perversion of will prevented them from listening 
 to His pleading with them. 
 
 However, to confine ourselves to the passage 
 under our consideration, we shall observe that 
 Christ very distinctly traces the cause of the 
 world's hatred and rejection of Him to ignorance. 
 
 * S. Luke xxiii. 34. f Cf. S. Luke xix. 41-44. 
 
 X S. !Matt.. xxiii. t^*]. 
 
 219 
 
" They know not Him that sent Me." The Jews 
 of our Lord's day knew a great deal about God 
 and His revelation to men. It was an intensely 
 religious age. The leaders of the nation held 
 their positions by virtue of their religious 
 profession. They were : Pharisees or Sadducees, 
 Scribes, Elders or Priests ; and all these titles 
 told either of their religious views or of their 
 religious occupation. 
 
 The services of the Temple had probably 
 never been performed with greater splendour, 
 and the Temple itself as restored by Herod 
 had attained to its greatest magnificence. Then 
 the study of the letter of Holy Scripture was 
 pursued with painstaking industry and passionate 
 devotion. It had reached its highest development ; 
 there were volumes of traditional comments on 
 the letter of Holy Scripture, but the spirit, alas, 
 was neglected or forgotten. 
 
 The Jews then knew about God, about the 
 Father Who had sent Christ, but they did not 
 know Him, they did not apprehend His character, 
 His attributes of love and mercy and truth. The 
 ignorance to which our Lord refers was not a 
 theological but a moral ignorance. Theology was 
 recognised as the very queen of sciences in those 
 day, but, alas, it was divorced from practical life. 
 
 220 
 
€U T37orfb*6 35ttorance. 
 
 H- 
 
 The positive enactments of Holy Scripture in 
 regard to tithing, mint and anise and cummin* 
 were strictly observed, and the ritual law in 
 regard to the washing of pots and cups was 
 rigidly enforced, but the weightier matters of the 
 law, righteousness and truth and mercy, were 
 sadly overlooked. 
 
 " If I had not come and spoken unto them, they 
 had not had sin : but now they have no cloke 
 
 for their sin If I had not done among 
 
 them the works which none other man did, they 
 had not had sin, but now they have both seen 
 and hated both Me and My Father." The 
 complete parallelism of these two verses is very 
 striking. " If I had not come and spoken unto 
 them, they had not had sin." " If I had not 
 done among them the works which none other 
 man did, they had not had sin." In the first our 
 Lord points to His teachings as a testimony to His 
 Person and mission, in the second He points to His 
 works ; and He shows that if the ignorance of those 
 who persecuted Him had been the ignorance of those 
 who had never come in contact with truth, it 
 would have been excusable, but that it was ignorance 
 persevered in in spite of the evidence of Christ's 
 teachings and of His miracles and works of mercy. 
 
 * S. Matt, xxiii. 23. 
 221 
 
-o^ Stft^ ^gfutbag in &enf. 
 
 Their ignorance was wilful ignorance, and there- 
 fore it was sin, and sin which had no cloke, that 
 is, no excuse. They had abundant evidence of the 
 truth of Christ's claims, they even investigated some 
 of the evidence, as in the case of the man born 
 blind," but though they were constrained to admit 
 the facts, they absolutely refused to acknowledge 
 the inference which the facts suggested. " They 
 wondered at the gracious words which proceeded 
 out of the mouth of Christ, "-(• but they rejected His 
 teachings. . They could not deny His many miracles 
 of healing the sick and raising the dead, but they 
 refused to acknowledge that He came from God. 
 They shut their eyes to the truth ; they hated it, and 
 as Christ says, in hating it, hated both Himself and 
 His Father. 
 
 This was the result of their sin, and their sin was 
 the result of wilful ignorance. Darkness hates light, 
 it cannot endure it, because light disperses and 
 destroys darkness. Sin hates goodness, because 
 goodness is a constant reproach to the sinner. Error 
 hates truth, because error is of the Evil One and 
 truth is of God. How clearly our Lord points out 
 the difference between ignorance which is a mis- 
 fortune, and that ignorance which is wilful, and 
 therefore without excuse, we see this when He pleads 
 
 * Cy. S. John ix. 13-34. t O^ ^- Luke iv. 22. 
 
 222 
 
for His murderers, saying, " They know not what 
 they do." 
 
 Then again, Christ points to the warnings of the 
 prophets. Their own Scriptures not only prophesied 
 of the coming of the Messiah, but of His rejection, 
 and of the hatred with which He would be met. 
 " But this Cometh to pass, that the word might be 
 fulfilled which is written in their law. They hated 
 Me without a cause." The Jews had everything : the 
 evidence of our Lord's words and of His miraculous 
 works ; they had also the witness of their own 
 Scriptures, but they would not believe, and therefore 
 He holds them responsible for their unbelief 
 
 There are many lessons which we may learn from 
 this passage. What do we love ? Light or darkness, 
 goodness or evil, error or truth ? Are we content 
 with the theological knowledge of Christ, or do we 
 strive to know Him as our Master and our Friend ? 
 Some may say, " How can I know whether I am 
 right, whether what I believe is truth } " The 
 answer is not so difficult as it seems. We can 
 know by the guiding of the Holy Ghost, Who is 
 the Spirit of Truth, and of Whom our Lord tells 
 us that He shall guide the Church into all truth. 
 There are many theological opinions about which 
 there may be different views, but the essential truth 
 into which the Holy Ghost has guided the Church 
 
 223 
 
§0^ iS^ft^ ^dtutbag in &enf. 
 
 can without much difficulty be recognised because 
 it is held and taught by every part of the Church. 
 
 That parts of the Church may err in regard to 
 theological opinion, is not inconsistent with God's 
 promise. It is impossible that the whole Church 
 can be led astray ; so that wherever we find a truth 
 taught by every part of the Church we may be 
 sure of its authority ; and we shall find upon 
 investigation that this includes all essential truth, 
 that the matters of theological speculation upon 
 which different communions in the Church disagree 
 do not touch the vital truths of the Christian creed. 
 
 We must pray to be delivered from prejudice, 
 and, claiming Christ's promise, we must ask the 
 Holy Ghost to guide us into all truth, and to this 
 end diligently study that truth which comes to us 
 with the authority of the Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 224 
 
XXIX. 
 
 ^ift^ (Ittonbag in &cnt 
 
 THE ADVOCATE AS CHRIST'S WITNESS. 
 
 S. John xv. 26, 27. 
 
 " But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you 
 from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, Which proceedeth from 
 the Father, He shall testify of Me : And ye also shall bear witness, 
 because ye have been with Me from the beginning." 
 
 EFORE we proceed to a consideration of 
 the special teaching of this passage — that 
 the Comforter or Advocate is to bear 
 witness to Christ — it will be well to examine 
 carefully its theological bearing upon the doctrine 
 of the Holy Ghost. We must first notice the 
 emphatic use in the Greek of the personal pronouns, 
 that they are not contained in the verb, but that a 
 separate personal pronoun is employed in referring 
 both to Christ and to the Holy Ghost. 
 
 225 Q 
 
-^ ^iftf^ (fflonbgg in &enf. 
 
 In the clause, " When the Comforter is come 
 Whom I will send unto you from the Father," our 
 Lord uses the emphatic " I " (Eyf^), and its use 
 involves a claim to divine power, to equality with 
 the Father. For in a previous passage relating to 
 the Holy Ghost Christ had said, " Whom the Father 
 will send in My Name."* Now He says emphatically, 
 " Whom / will send," claiming to do that which He 
 had before ascribed to the Father. 
 
 Again, in the clause " He shall testify of Me," 
 the personal pronoun (cWvor) which is rendered "He" 
 is masculine, but in the Greek the word for Spirit 
 (nvlviia) is neuter, so that the concord in gender, 
 between the pronoun and the noun to which it 
 refers, is violated in order to bring out clearly the 
 personality of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 We must further notice the expression "which 
 proceedeth from the Father." It will carry our 
 thoughts at once to the article of our Creed con- 
 cerning the Holy Ghost — " Who proceedeth from 
 the Father and the Son ; " an article of faith which, 
 in its wording rather than its essential doctrine, 
 separates the Eastern Church from the rest of 
 Christendom. 
 
 The Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the 
 Father and the Son, not as from two origins, but 
 
 * S. John xiv. 26. 
 226 
 
as from one, not by two spirations, but by one 
 spiration. He proceeds, therefore, by an act of the 
 will ; and as we have no name for this procession 
 suggested by what occurs in man, and as the act of 
 intellect by which the Father generates the Son is 
 virtually distinct from the act of will by which the 
 Father with the Son breathes forth the Holy Spirit, 
 the general word " spiration " (breathing) is used for 
 this procession of the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy 
 Ghost (like the Son) is not distinct in essence from 
 the Father from Whom He proceeds, this procession 
 is called " immanent procession," for in Theology the 
 word procession signifies the origination of one thing 
 from another, but where the thing originated is not 
 really distinct in essence from the principle which 
 originated it, the procession is termed " immanent 
 procession." 
 
 The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father onljy 
 as the Source, Fountain, or Beginning. He is the 
 eternal love of the Father and the Son mutually 
 breathed forth by them, and is, as it were, the bond 
 of union in the Eternal Trinity. 
 
 In the Creed, as set forth by the Council of 
 Chalcedon, A.D. 451, the article to which we have 
 referred reads, " Who proceedeth from the Father ; " 
 the words, ** and the Son," having been added later 
 and without conciliar authority. Hence they are 
 
 227 
 
•»§ f ift3 (fflonbag in feent. 
 
 rejected by the Eastern Church, which accuses the 
 West of having; altered the Creed by interpolating 
 these words. The point of agreement in regard to 
 the doctrine of the procession is that both Churches 
 hold that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father 
 only as from the Source, Fountain, or Beginning, but 
 that He proceeds through or by the Son. 
 
 Althougli the words " from the Son " crept into 
 the Creed without adequate authority, the West 
 cannot surrender them, now that they have become 
 part of her recognised theology, without seeming to 
 throw doubt upon the doctrine which they teach — 
 that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and 
 Son by mutual spiration, though from the Father 
 only as the Source. But in its explanation of the 
 manner of this procession the Western Theologians 
 entirely accept the language of the Greek Fathers, 
 that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, 
 through or by the Son, the difference therefore is 
 one rather of words than of faith. 
 
 We may further point out that there are two 
 Missions of the Holy Ghost — His eternal Mission 
 by which He proceeds from the Father and the Son 
 in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity, and His 
 temporal Mission by which He proceeds from the 
 Father and the Son to accomplish His work in the 
 world. The question may be asked to which of 
 
 228 
 
these processions is our Lord referring in the passage 
 under our consideration. "The Comforter . . . 
 Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even 
 the Spirit of Truth, Which proceedeth from the 
 Father." There seems no doubt that Christ is 
 referring to the temporal mission of the Holy Ghost. 
 This is evident, first from the purpose of His Mission 
 — to testify unto Christ in the world — and then also 
 from the pronoun used in the phrase " from the 
 Father" (Trapd). This pronoun signifies from the 
 side of a person, not like dTro, from a source. 
 
 With this explanation let us pass on to the con- 
 sideration of the special function in the temporal 
 Mission of the Holy Ghost to which our Lord draws 
 attention — the work of witnessing to Christ. If we 
 compare the twenty-sixth verse with that which 
 precedes it, we shall see that the witness of the Holy 
 Ghost is contrasted with the hatred of the world, 
 which is the main subject of this section of our 
 Lord's discourse. 
 
 Christ had traced this hatred to ignorance of the 
 Father.* He had further showm that this ignorance 
 was inexcusable, because the Jews had the testimony 
 of their own Scriptures and prophets, which bore 
 witness to the Messiah. These Scriptures and 
 prophecies He had Himself so fulfilled as to leave 
 
 * C/. ver. 21. 
 229 
 
-^ f tft^ ^ottbAg in &eni 
 
 no doubt in the mind of an unprejudiced Jew that 
 He was the Messiah. 
 
 He now goes on to show that in the future the 
 world should be still more without excuse, because 
 the Holy Ghost should testify unto Him, which He 
 has done through the marvellous works wrought in the 
 Christian Church by His power. Not only did the 
 miracles worked by the Apostles after the Day of 
 Pentecost, through the agency of the Holy Ghost, 
 bear witness to Him, but the world has before it 
 a constant miracle in the existence of the Church 
 of Christ as a perpetual testimony to the truth of 
 His teachings and to the divinity of His Person. 
 This testimony is not confined to the apostolic age, 
 but in its fullest application is to be taken of the 
 interpretation of Christ's life and work as given by 
 the Holy Ghost through the teachings of the 
 Church. 
 
 Not only was the Holy Ghost to bear this witness 
 unto the world, but they themselves were also to 
 bear witness. That is, they were to testify to what 
 they had seen and heard without them — to the 
 objective facts of the life and teachings of their 
 Master. And they were also to testify to that 
 which they had experienced within them — to the 
 subjective experiences of their own soul's life. 
 
 The passage further points out their fitness to bear 
 
 230 
 
this testimony because they had been with Christ 
 from the beginning, and so were peculiarly com- 
 petent to give evidence of all that He had said 
 and done in His historic life on earth. This 
 injunction is repeated by our Lord just before His 
 Ascension into Heaven, when He says to them, 
 "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
 is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto 
 Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in 
 Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."* 
 
 This command is handed on by the Apostles to 
 us, and no duty can be more binding on us than that 
 of bearing witness to the world of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity ; but the witness which we can bear is not so 
 much to the objective facts of our Lord's life, as to 
 its subjective power manifested in our own lives, 
 enabling us to show forth in a world, which hates 
 the light and loves darkness, the brightness of a 
 Christ-like life. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord in giving this command to His 
 Apostles knew that it would be the most convincing 
 evidence of the truth of His claims, that it would be 
 the force by which the world should be won to Him. 
 The evidence of the Apostles alone would have been 
 powerless, but they were to bear witness in conjunc- 
 tion with the witness of the Holy Ghost. So it is 
 
 * Acts i. 8. 
 231 
 
-9$ ftft^ (fflonbag in feeni 
 
 now. It is not by the eloquence of preaching, nor 
 the cogency of argument, it is not by the brilliancy 
 of our learning or the attraction of worldly success 
 that we are to win souls to Christ, but by the simple 
 testimon}^ of Christian lives lived under the guidance 
 of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 232 
 
XXX. 
 
 Stft^ 2;ue6b<xj in SLtnt 
 
 PERSECUTION THE RESULT OF THE 
 WORLD'S HATRED. 
 
 S. John xvi. 1-4. 
 
 "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be 
 offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues ; yea, the time 
 Cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God 
 service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have 
 not known the Father, nor Me. But these things have I told you, 
 that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of 
 them." 
 
 T this point we have a division of chapters, 
 but there is no break in the discourse, for 
 the first six verses of the sixteenth chapter 
 belong to the section we have been considering — 
 the section in which our Lord treats of the hatred 
 of the world towards those who are united to Him, 
 and are living with His Life, as the branches are 
 united and live with the life of the vine. Christ 
 
 233 
 
•^^^ Stft^ ^uefibdg in £enf. 
 
 has shown that the hatred of the world proceeds 
 from ignorance of God, but that this ignorance is 
 rendered inexcusable in the case of the Jews by 
 the testimony of their own scriptures, and in that 
 of the world at large, by the testimony of the 
 Holy Spirit in the Church of Christ. 
 
 He now proceeds to foretell the issue of this 
 hatred in persecution, which shall take the form, 
 first, of excommunication, and shall then manifest 
 itself in an attempt to extirpate His teaching by 
 personal violence towards His followers, ending in 
 the crime of murder on the part of their persecutors, 
 and in the glories of martyrdom for those who are 
 faithful to Him. Christ further shows that in its 
 blindness the world shall hide its crime by the 
 assumption of religious zeal, and shall think that in 
 taking the lives of God's servants they are offering 
 Him religious service. 
 
 These things Christ foretells in order that, when 
 they come to pass, the Apostles may not be offended. 
 While this is the only passage in S. John's Gospel 
 in which the word " offended " is used, it occurs 
 frequently in the synoptists, and it may be well, 
 therefore, to examine its exact significance. The 
 Greek word (o-KaudaXa) of which this is a Latinised 
 equivalent, is derived from a noun which signified 
 originally the spring or trigger of a trap for 
 
 234 
 
(gemfi of iU ^orfb^g ^afreb. ^ 
 
 catching birds. Then it came to be appHed to an 
 obstacle put in a person's way to cause him to 
 stumble or fall, so that, in this sense, a stumbling- 
 block would be a good rendering of the word. 
 In our verb " to scandalise " we have the actual 
 Greek word used metaphorically, in somewhat the 
 same sense as the word " offend " is here employed. 
 
 Our Lord further reveals that His purpose in 
 foretelling the persecutions which await them is to 
 forewarn them, lest they should stumble or fall 
 when they actually occur. To be forewarned is 
 to be forearmed ; and nothing is more striking in 
 the Gospels than the frequency and distinctness 
 with which Christ forewarns His Apostles that those 
 who follow Him must expect persecution, that they 
 cannot be His disciples without taking up the cross 
 of suffering. In this passage He tells them that 
 one form of suffering will be persecution, caused 
 by the hatred of the world towards all who show 
 themselves to be His disciples by following in the 
 steps of His life. Let us examine this revelation 
 a little more in detail. 
 
 The form which persecution was first to take, 
 our Lord tells them, would be excommunication — 
 *' They shall put you out of the synagogues." We 
 know that this decision was reached by the Jewish 
 Church after the miracle of the healing of the blind 
 
 235 
 
'^^ :S'tft^ €ncBb(X^ in SLcni. 
 
 man recorded in S. John ix., where we read, " The 
 Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess 
 that he was Christ, he should be put out of the 
 synagogue."* And later we are told " they cast 
 Him out," or excommunicated Him.t 
 
 Christ tells them, however, that persecution shall 
 not stop at excommunication, that the time shall 
 come when "whosoever killeth you will think that 
 he doeth God service." Here our Lord not only 
 foretells that martyrdom awaits them, but reveals 
 to them the motives by which their adversaries 
 shall seek to justify their cruelty; for He points 
 out that the excuse will be religious zeal, that they 
 shall think that they are doing God service in 
 putting you to death. And we may notice that the 
 word translated " service " (Xarpemj/) signifies the 
 highest act of religious worship — the worship which 
 is due to God alone. 
 
 This prophecy has been fulfilled again and again 
 in the history of the Church. For not only were 
 our Lord's disciples persecuted by the Jews, and, 
 as in the case of S. Stephen, S. James, and others, 
 put to death by them ; but they were persecuted 
 by the Roman Emperors throughout three centuries, 
 when the blood of the martyrs became the seed 
 of the Church. 
 
 * S. John ix. 22. f S. John v. 34. 
 
 236 
 
(gtend of fge ^orfb'B j^afreb. ^ 
 
 This, however, does not exhaust the prophecy, 
 for Christians, alas, have put their fellow-Christians 
 to death in vain attempts to extirpate what they 
 deemed to be heresy, and have excused their 
 cruelty by ascribing it to religious zeal. They 
 thought that they were doing God service. Such 
 was certainly the feeling of Mary, Queen of England, 
 as she reluctantly signed the death-warrants pre- 
 sented to her by her ecclesiastical advisers, who 
 thus attempted to stamp out rebellion against 
 Romanism. Possibly the same excuse may have 
 been made by her successor, Elizabeth, for the far 
 greater number of persons put to death in her reign 
 for their religious convictions. Such, doubtless, was 
 the motive which led to the establishment of the 
 Inquisition, whose cruelties, while they shock a 
 more refined age, were undoubtedly in the first 
 instance the outcome of religious zeal against 
 heresy. 
 
 " All these things will they do unto you, because 
 they have not known the Father, nor Me." We 
 may observe how emphatically our Blessed Lord 
 traces the real cause of these cruelties to ignorance 
 of the character of God — " They have not known 
 the Father, nor Me ; " and this ignorance is in 
 Christians absolutely inexcusable. The heathen 
 who does these things because he knows not God, 
 
 237 
 
^ fift^ gueebdg ttt &enl 
 
 can plead ignorance as an excuse, but the Christian 
 who does them is inexcusable. For while he knows 
 a great deal about God and God's revelation, he 
 cannot know God Himself ; for God is Love, and 
 it is inconceivable that a God, Whose character is 
 love, could justify cruelty, even for the purpose 
 of enforcing orthodoxy. 
 
 Truth, to be of any value to a man, must be 
 the result of intellectual or moral conviction, not 
 of physical compulsion. To enforce a verbal accept- 
 ance of theological dogmas by threats of physical 
 pain or death, can never result in either intellectual 
 or moral conviction. At most it can but convert 
 a heretic into a hypocrite, and that at the cost 
 of employing measures which must always be 
 abhorrent to a God of Love. 
 
 238 
 
XXXI. 
 
 ^ixt^ T3?ebne6bag in SLCnt 
 
 THE EXPEDIENCY OF UNPLEASANT 
 TRUTHS. 
 
 S. John xvi. 4-7. 
 
 "But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, 
 ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said 
 not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But 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 heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth ; 
 It is expedient for you that I go away." 
 
 UT these things have I told you, that when 
 the time shall come, ye may remember 
 that I told you of them." These are 
 important words ; for they are applicable not only to 
 the Apostles themselves in the troubles which were 
 coming upon them, but to Christians of all ages, 
 even to ourselves in the difficulties of life. For in 
 the trials and temptations which come to us in our 
 
 239 
 
^ ^irt^ ^ctncBbaT^ in feent. 
 
 efforts to serve God and to keep His commandments, 
 which come to us often just because we are striving 
 to be faithful to His precepts, we shall find strength 
 and help in the thought that our Lord warned us 
 that we must expect just such difficulties, that He 
 told us clearly that all who followed Him would be 
 treated by the world as He was treated, that He 
 called upon us to count the cost before we enrolled 
 ourselves in His service, and to remember, when 
 trial or suffering befell us, that He had warned us 
 that this would be our lot. 
 
 S. Peter takes up and enforces this teaching when 
 he says, " Beloved, think it not strange concerning 
 the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some 
 strange thing happened unto you : But rejoice, 
 inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings ; 
 that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be 
 glad with exceeding joy."* How often we forget 
 this admonition, and think it very strange, and, 
 perhaps, even unjust, that we should have to endure 
 certain sorrows or sufferings — unjust, because we 
 have always striven to serve God faithfully. And 
 yet our Lord and His Apostles point out to us that 
 this is precisely the reason why we must expect 
 peculiar sufferings; for the world hates those who are 
 Christ's, and persecutes them. And not only the 
 
 * I S. Peter iv. 12, 13. 
 240 
 
(Brpebtencg of (Unpfeacant Zxutf^B. ^ 
 
 world, but he who is the Prince of this world, the 
 devil, will bring peculiar temptations to bear upon 
 those who are striving most earnestly to follow the 
 steps of their Lord's life. 
 
 S. Peter exhorts us to rejoice, inasmuch as by 
 these trials we are made partakers of Christ's 
 sufferings ; and what can be a greater privilege to 
 the Christian than to share his Master's Cross ? As 
 we have already noticed, our Lord draws attention to 
 the same privilege when He says, " All these things 
 will they do unto you for My Name's sake."* 
 
 " And these things I said not unto you at the 
 beginning, because I was with you. But 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 heart." While Christ was with them He could 
 comfort them and guide them, but now that He is 
 about to leave them, He tells them of all the sorrows 
 which shall befall them, in order that when they 
 happen. His disciples may be prepared for them, and 
 may not be overwhelmed as by unexpected trials. 
 But Christ does more than this. He goes on to 
 promise them another Comforter, Who, like Himself, 
 and even more than Himself, shall comfort and guide 
 them. These things He had not told them at the 
 
 * S. John XV. 21. 
 
 241 R 
 
^ ^ixi^ T^ebnecbag in £enf. 
 
 beginning-, because, while He was with them, He 
 could help them to meet their difficulties as they arose. 
 He now tells them of another Guide, Who shall 
 never leave them, Who shall guide them into all 
 truth and shall comfort them in all sorrows. The 
 coming of this Comforter, however, depends on 
 Christ's departure. 
 
 He says, " 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 heart." Surely these 
 are words of gentle reproof. They were so absorbed 
 in their own sorrow at the thought of losing Him, 
 that they did not stop to think or to ask how His 
 departure would affect Himself. They knew He 
 was leaving them ; in the thought of their own loss 
 they did not enquire concerning His gain. He was 
 going to the Father Who had sent Him; He was 
 going to prepare a place for them in the Father's 
 house. Surely these words opened out wonderful 
 possibilities in the great future beyond the grave ; 
 yet they were so occupied in their present grief, that 
 they had little interest in what He said about the 
 future. 
 
 " None of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou ? " 
 But some may say, did not S. Peter and S. Thomas 
 substantially ask this question. S. Peter used the 
 
 242 
 
(B;rpebtencg of (Unpfeacanf Cxuf^e. ^ 
 
 very words, " Lord, whither goest Thou ? "* and S. 
 Thomas suggested this question when he said, " Lord, 
 we know not whither Thou goest, how know we the 
 way? "f This is true ; but if we examine what they 
 said a Httle more carefully, we shall observe that 
 they were both thinking of themselves, of our Lord's 
 departure in relation to themselves, and that they 
 were neither of them solicitous about their Master's 
 future, except in so far as it affected themselves. 
 
 Christ's answer to S. Peter shows this, for He says, 
 " Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now ; but 
 thou shalt follow Me afterwards." S. Peter's question, 
 '* Lord, whither goest Thou ? " had for its motive 
 S. Peter's intention to go with his Master ; and 
 similarly S. Thomas is more concerned with the fact 
 that he is not clear about the way in which he 
 himself is to walk, than he is in regard to the goal 
 of his Master's journey. When, therefore, Christ 
 says, *' None of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou? 
 But because I have said these things unto you, 
 sorrow hath filled your heart," He is referring not 
 so much to the verbal question, " Whither goest 
 Thou ? " as to the fact that their sorrow was so 
 entirely selfish, that they were occupied exclusively 
 in the consideration of the effect of their Master's 
 departure upon their own lives. 
 
 * S. John xiii. 36. f S. John xiv. 5. 
 243 
 
•o^ ^ixi^ T3?ebnegbag in &enf> 
 
 " Nevertheless, I tell you the truth ; It is expedient 
 for you that I go away." In these words we have 
 a great practical lesson. Our Lord does not hesitate 
 to tell them the truth, when it is expedient for them 
 to know that truth, even though that knowledge is to 
 fill their heart with sorrow. How often we shrink 
 from telling other people unpleasant truths, which 
 we ought to tell them, because we are afraid of 
 displeasing them, or of causing them pain. Again, 
 ^ we do not like others to tell us unpleasant truths, 
 because they hurt our vanity. But, alas, we are 
 quite ready to speak unpleasant truths to gratify our 
 malice against those whom we do not love, or 
 perhaps even without this excuse, when we indulge 
 in idle gossip. 
 
 How different was our Lord's rule. He says, 
 " Although these things fill you with sorrow, never- 
 theless, I tell you the truth." He told them what 
 was unpleasant, because it was for their good. He 
 did not hold back part of the truth, as people so 
 often do, for fear of offending them. He told them 
 the whole truth because it was important that they 
 should know it, although it was hard for them to 
 hear it. It was expedient for them that He should 
 go away, in order that the Comforter might come 
 unto them ; and instead of waiting for them to find 
 this out for themselves, Christ tells them of it, tells 
 
 244 
 
(B;ryebtencg of (Unyfeaeant txni^B. ^ 
 
 them plainly, though it pains them to hear it, tells 
 them not only that He is about to leave them, but 
 that His departure, the very thought of which fills 
 them with sorrow, is for their ultimate benefit. 
 
 ;i 
 
 245 
 
XXXIL 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST AND SIN. 
 
 S. John xvi. 7, 8. 
 
 *' It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the 
 Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send Him 
 unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, 
 of righteousness, and of judgment." 
 
 N these words our Lord not only tells His 
 disciples why it is expedient that He 
 should go away — that the Comforter may 
 come unto them — but He reveals to them the 
 purpose and work for which the Comforter shall 
 come as it regards the world at large. Of course, 
 we must bear in mind that the work of the Holy 
 Ghost in the world is many-sided. He comes to 
 bear witness to Christ ; He comes to guide the 
 Church into all trulh ; He comes to endow the 
 
 246 
 
Church with special powers of grace ; but His work 
 upon the world and in the individual soul is summed 
 up with great conciseness, and yet with sufficient 
 fulness in the v/ords, " He shall reprove the world 
 of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." Most 
 persons probably read these words without adequately 
 understanding them, certainly without realising that 
 in them is contained an epitome of the work of 
 the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man. 
 
 First we must point out that the word translated 
 " reprove " (eXe-y^ei) ought to be convict. The word 
 itself signifies to convince by argument, and so, in 
 this case, to convict the world of sin. But what do 
 we mean by convict ? What is the full force of this 
 word ? It is a word of very wide meaning, for it 
 implies, first an authoritative examination, and 
 then someone who has a right to make the 
 examination — as in a court of justice the court has 
 authority to examine witnesses. It further implies 
 unquestionable proof; in a court conviction cannot 
 follow unless the crime has been proved. And 
 lastly it implies the power to punish, for no court 
 convicts a man of crime unless it can pass sentence 
 upon that man. 
 
 If we apply this to the conviction of the world 
 by the Holy Ghost we shall see that the term 
 conviction involves such a conviction, that he who 
 
 247 
 
•«^ ^irt^ ^^^utBbdg in &cnt 
 
 rejects it, rejects it with his eyes open and at his 
 peril. And this is precisely what happens when 
 an individual rejects the work and teaching of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 We cannot apply this to the heathen who know 
 not God, nor to those nominal Christians who have 
 never really come into contact with the work of the 
 Holy Ghost, and whose rejection of Christ's claims 
 upon them is not so much wilful, as from ignorance 
 of the overwhelming force of those claims. We 
 must refer it rather to those who have seen the light 
 and turned from it, because they loved darkness 
 better ; who have seen the truth and rejected it, 
 because its acceptance involved sacrifices which they 
 were not prepared to make. But it refers also, 
 thank God, to those who have seen and followed the 
 guiding of the light, and have heard and obeyed the 
 teachings of the truth. 
 
 The work of the Holy Ghost is put by our Lord 
 under three categories or heads — sin. righteousness, 
 and judgment. And this division is in a sense 
 exhaustive, since sin, righteousness, and judgment 
 are the cardinal elements in the determination of 
 man's spiritual state in the world ; for in them his 
 past, his prese7it, and his future are summed up. 
 Man's past is summed up in the word " sin ; " if 
 the conviction of sin has led to its proper result 
 
 248 
 
tf}C %oi2 (B^M Ci.xi^ ^tn. 
 
 r^©- 
 
 in penitence, his present will be an intense striving 
 for righteousness ; and this will enable him to look 
 forward, with hope and confidence in the mercy 
 of God, to the future, to the judgment which 
 awaits all men. 
 
 Let us further consider these three states more in 
 detail, and first the work of the Holy Ghost in 
 convicting man of sin. The first work of the Holy 
 Ghost upon the soul of man is its illumination. 
 God's light shines in the soul revealing to man 
 two things — his present condition — what he is ; and 
 his future possibilities — what he may become by the 
 help of God's grace. And this self-knowledge is the 
 basis of all future growth in righteousness. We 
 need to pray, ** Lord, show me myself ; Lord, 
 let me not deceive myself." 
 
 The first revelation of self to a sinner is indeed 
 overwhelming. Long forgotten sins stand out 
 clearly in the light of the Spirit of Truth, and the 
 soul too often seems a chaos of conflicting passions 
 and desires. We see good and noble purposes 
 formed, but never carried into execution. We see 
 grievous sins realised, feebly struggled against, and 
 then constantly yielded to. 
 
 The Holy Ghost first brings home to man that he 
 is a fallen creature, possessed of great possibilities of 
 good or evil, but unable, by himself, to rise from sin 
 
 249 
 
'^^ ^ixt^ S^^utfibag in £enf. 
 
 to break its chains, to live the life of righteousness. 
 So that he can express his conviction of sin in 
 S. Paul's words, " For the good that I would I do 
 not : but the evil which I would not, that I do . . . 
 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is 
 present with me. For I delight in the law of God 
 after the inward man : But I see another law in my 
 members, warring against the law of my mind, and 
 brinf^ing me into captivity to the law of sin which is 
 in my members. O wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death ? "* 
 
 This is the first step in the work of the Holy 
 Ghost in man's soul — to convict him of sin. We 
 must first learn the possibilities of evil in us, and 
 then the dangers which threaten us and our own 
 absolute inability of ourselves to overcome this evil. 
 After this we must realise that we are subject to the 
 influence of one of two powers, of one of two spirits 
 — the Spirit of good, the Holy Ghost, or the spirit of 
 evil, the devil. We must recognise the fact that we 
 are not, and that we never can be independent. Our 
 will is free to choose which it will serve of these two 
 masters, but serve it must, either enrolling itself in 
 the service of God, which is perfect freedom, but not 
 independence, or in the service of the devil, which is 
 degrading bondage. 
 
 * Romans vii. 19-24. 
 250 
 
The Holy Ghost shall convict the world of sin. 
 The world is always making mistakes about sin, 
 taking erroneous views of it — that sin is a misfortune 
 which cannot be avoided, or a disease which man has 
 inherited. In either case it persuades itself that it is 
 something which man cannot help, and for which, 
 therefore, he is not really responsible. The world 
 will not admit the guil^ of sin. 
 
 Our Lord says that the Holy Ghost will convict 
 the world " of sin because they believed not on Me." 
 Since Christ came into the world sin may be traced 
 back to rejection of Him ; and it is this which the 
 Holy Ghost brings home to the soul, that sin is 
 practically the result of unbelief in Christ as the Son 
 of God, unbelief in Christ as the Redeemer of man, 
 unbelief in the power of His precious Blood to wash 
 away sin. For the basis of repentance is faith. If 
 you do not believe in the power of Christ's precious 
 Blood to cleanse you from all sin, you will never 
 rightly repent of your sin. You may have remorse 
 for it, you may regret it, but you will not repent 
 of it. 
 
 The Holy Ghost shall convict the world " of sin, 
 because they believed not on Me." It is the work of 
 God's Spirit to bring this faith home to your soul, to 
 make it not only an intellectual opinion, but a moral 
 conviction, so that you may not merely believe in 
 
 251 
 
-o^' ^xxt^ ^^^urebag in &enf. 
 
 theory that Christ has made provision in His Church 
 for the absolution and remission of your sins, but 
 that the moral conviction of sin may lead you to use 
 diligently the means which Christ has provided and 
 appointed for its remission. 
 
 But not only does the Holy Ghost convict the 
 soul of sin, it provides the remedy. For the Holy 
 Ghost is the Agent in the Sacraments of the Church; 
 by Baptism He applies the precious Blood of Christ 
 to the remission of all sin both original and actual ; 
 and for post-baptismal sin through the absolution of 
 the Church He restores the soul to the state of grace 
 by the renewed application of the Blood of Christ. 
 
 The Holy Ghost convicts the world of rejecting 
 Christ, of leaving unused His sacraments of grace, of 
 refusing to see that sin is rebellion, lawlessness, of 
 attributing sin to other and insufficient causes — to 
 weakness or ignorance, instead of error in the 
 intellect and perversion in the soul, and therefore 
 the rejection alike of truth and righteousness. The 
 Holy Ghost convicts the world of the erroneousness 
 of its theories and brings home to the penitent a true 
 conception of the malice of sin, a realisation of what 
 sin is in God's sight, and so, lays in the sinner's soul 
 the foundation of penitence. 
 
 252 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 ^ixt^ S^tbag in &enf. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 S. John xvi. 8, lo. 
 "And when He is come, He will convict the world . . . ot 
 righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more." 
 
 E have seen that the cardinal elements in 
 the determination of man's spiritual state 
 are three — sin, righteousness, and judgment ; 
 for in them his past, present, and future are severally 
 summed up. We are told by our Lord, in the 
 passage under our consideration, that the Holy 
 Ghost has a special work to do in the human soul 
 in regard to each of these. We have treated of 
 His work in convicting the world of sin ; we have, 
 therefore, for our consideration to-day His work in 
 convicting the world of righteousness. 
 
 253 
 
The first work of the Holy Ghost in the sinner's 
 soul, as we have seen, is to reveal to it its true state, 
 to bestow upon it the gift of self-knowledge, and, 
 if he use it, the gift of penitence. This is strikingly 
 brought before us in the parable of the woman 
 and the ten pieces of silver,* which is indeed the 
 great parable of the work of the Holy Spirit 
 
 The woman begins her work by lighting a candle, 
 which typifies the illumination of the soul by the 
 Holy Ghost, the light of the candle revealing the 
 condition of her house. She sees the dust of sin, 
 the result, perhaps, of years of neglect. Then follows 
 the diligent sweeping, which brings before us the 
 work of penitence ; and as this sweeping proceeds 
 and the dust is removed, the piece of silver is 
 discovered hidden away among the dust. The light 
 shines upon it, and the silver piece responds to 
 the light, reflecting it with metallic glitter. 
 
 At this point in the parable we reach the second 
 stage of the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul — 
 the discovery of its innate possibilities of righteous- 
 ness. Some have seen a striking analogy between 
 the coin stamped with the image of the reigning 
 sovereign and the soul impressed with the image 
 of God, the Lord of all ; but, beautiful as the analogy 
 is, it can scarcely be pressed in this case, since 
 
 * Cf. S. T.uke XV. 8-10. 
 
 254 
 
the word {dpaxfMrjv) translated a " piece of silver " 
 signifies the Greek drachma, which did not, like 
 the Latin denarius, bear upon it the emperor's 
 image and superscription, but was generally stamped 
 with some device — an owl or tortoise, or the head 
 of Minerva. 
 
 While we may not press the analogy, the fact is 
 no less true that the soul of man bears impressed 
 upon it the image of God ; and it is the revelation 
 of this, its intrinsic value because of its immense 
 possibilities, which is the second stage of the work 
 of the Holy Ghost in man's soul. The Holy Spirit 
 not only reveals to the sinner what he is, but 
 shows him what he may become if he will correspond 
 with God's grace, diligently sweeping away the dust 
 of sin through penitence, and earnestly striving to 
 perfect the work of righteousness in his life. 
 
 But this, again, is the special work of the Holy 
 Ghost, Who is the Sanctifier of the elect, and Who, 
 after He has convicted the world of the need and 
 possibility of righteousness, proceeds to the work 
 of sanctification in the soul which surrenders itself 
 to His guidance. But in what does this work 
 consist ? 
 
 First, in bringing home to the soul the righteous- 
 ness of Christ as the only righteousness possible. 
 Our Lord said of the Comforter, " He shall testify 
 
 255 
 
^ ^ixi^ Snbctg in SLcni, 
 
 of Me," and again, " He shall glorify Me, for He 
 shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto 
 you."* 
 
 Then in the work of imparting to the soul this 
 righteousness through incorporation with Christ by 
 Baptism, and through feeding upon Him in the 
 Holy Communion ; for we must remember that the 
 Holy Ghost is the Agent of all the Sacraments. The 
 priest may pour water upon the child and say the 
 words which Christ commanded, but it is the Holy 
 Ghost Who regenerates that child. For, as our 
 Lord said to Nicodemus, '* Except a man be born 
 of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
 the Kingdom of God."-f- The priest may consecrate 
 the elements in the Holy Eucharist, but it is the 
 Holy Ghost Who makes the Bread and Wine to 
 become the Body and Blood of Christ. And yet 
 ap^ain, if this righteousness should be lost by 
 yielding to mortal sin, it is the Holy Ghost Who, 
 working in the Sacrament of Penance, restores the 
 soul to the state of grace. 
 
 " He will convict the world .... of righteous- 
 ness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me 
 no more." In these words our Lord associates 
 righteousness with His Ascension ; for the life and 
 death, the resurrection and ascension of Christ 
 
 * S. John XV. 26 ; xvi. 14. f S. John iii. 5. 
 
 256 
 
placed righteousness in a new light, and brought 
 it within the reach of every believer. Christ's 
 Ascension, the consummation of His life and work, 
 was the vindication of God's righteousness, of 
 Christ's righteousness. And more, the exaltation 
 of the Son of Man to the life of glory at the right 
 hand of the Father in Heaven was necessary, as 
 our Lord reminded His disciples, in order that He 
 might send that Holy Spirit, Who should convict 
 the world of righteousness, and sanctify all who 
 should yield themselves to His gracious influence. 
 
 So S. Paul, quoting from the Psalmist,* says, 
 " When He ascended up on high, He led captivity 
 captive, and gave gifts unto men/'-f* What were 
 these gifts ? First, the Holy Ghost ; for Christ said, 
 " It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I 
 go not away, the Comforter will not come unto 
 you ; but if I depart I will send Him unto you."{ 
 Then the gifts of grace which the Holy Ghost 
 brings to the soul. 
 
 Lastly, to encourage us in our pursuit of right- 
 eousness, there is the thought, the conviction, that 
 since, and because of, Christ's Ascension there is 
 reigning in Heaven glorified Humanity in the Person 
 of the Son of God, the Lord of righteousness ; 
 and there comes to us from the throne of Heaven 
 
 * Psalm Ixviii. i8. f Eph. iv. 8. j John xvi. 7. 
 
 257 S 
 
^ ^m frtbftg in &ent. 
 
 this message, " To him that overcometh will I 
 grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also 
 overcame, and am set down with My Father in 
 His throne."* 
 
 * Rev. iii. 21. 
 
 258 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 ^ixi^ ^dturbag in £enf. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST AND JUDGMENT. 
 
 S. John xvi. 8 and ii. 
 
 *'And when He is come, He will convict the world .... of 
 judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." 
 
 F man's past state has been one of sin, and 
 his present condition ought to be a state of 
 righteousness, there can be no doubt in the 
 mind of the Christian that there awaits him in the 
 future the Day of Judgment. And it is the work of 
 the Holy Ghost to convince man of this, to bring it 
 home to him, not merely as a dogma of faith to 
 which his intellect gives assent, but as a tremendous 
 moral fact which must influence the whole of life ; 
 for the teaching of S. Paul, that " we must all 
 appear before the judgment seat of Christ ; that 
 
 259 
 
every one may receive the things done in his body, 
 accordinor to that he hath done, whether it be good 
 or bad,"* is an essential dogma of a Christian's faith. 
 
 This is accomplished largely by arousing in man, 
 or, if it be already aroused, deepening in him, a sense 
 of responsibility, a conviction of the strictness of the 
 account which he must give for his life here. A 
 conviction that the day will come when he will have 
 to render an account of his stewardship, when he will 
 be accused by the accuser of the brethren, the devil 
 himself, of wasting his Lord's goods, of misusing or 
 not using the talents committed to him for the work 
 of life in this world. 
 
 There is in every man the sense of responsibility ; 
 for this is one of the innate ideas implanted in man 
 by God Who created him. If you were to stop an 
 unbeliever in the street and ask him, " Are you a 
 responsible being ? " what would he answer ? He 
 would certainly say, " Yes ; every man who is not 
 deprived of the light of reason is a responsible 
 being." He will say this ; for there is in everyone 
 an innate conviction, the voice of natural conscience, 
 which brings home to him, more or less, a sense of 
 responsibility. 
 
 But if you were to go on to ask, " To whom arc 
 you responsible?" you would not find the same 
 
 * 2 Cor. V. lo. 
 
 260 
 
universal agreement in the answer. The Christian, 
 without hesitation, would say, " I am responsible to 
 God ; " the unbeliever might reply, " I am responsible 
 to society, to my fellow-men, or, perhaps, to my own 
 higher self. I am responsible to my conscience 
 which, if I do wrong, reproaches me and pursues me 
 with the accusations and pangs of remorse." 
 
 We shall not consider the unbeliever's answer 
 further than to observe that it is quite inadequate, 
 and is extorted from him only by the undeniable fact 
 of the existence in every man of a sense of responsi- 
 bility. Our Lord reveals to us that it is the work of 
 the Holy Ghost to convince the world of judgment, 
 that is, to enlighten the natural conscience in regard 
 to this innate sense of responsibiHty, to be its guide 
 and to teach it why it is responsible, in what way 
 and to whom. 
 
 But first, what do we mean by this word " respon- 
 sible " ? Its derivation suggests that it means we 
 must give an answer, when we are examined, con- 
 cerning the thoughts, words, and actions of our life. 
 We are responsible because God, Who created us, 
 endowed us with the light of reason and with a sense 
 of right and wrong, with a knowledge of good and 
 evil. The lower animals and those unfortunate 
 human beings who are bereft of reason, are not 
 responsible because they have not the light of reason 
 
 261 
 
and the knowledge of ri^ht and wrong to guide 
 them. There is an instinct in the lower animals 
 which prevents them from doing things harmful to 
 themselves, and leads them to choose what is best 
 for their own limited life. Yet this instinct does not 
 give them the power of moral choice. A dog may- 
 be trained to do certain things and to abstain from 
 others, but the motive is remembrance of pleasure or 
 pain, or fear of punishment ; it is not a sense of right 
 and wrong, not a knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 Again, we are responsible because there is a 
 tribunal before which we must stand to give account 
 of our life in this world. As S. Paul says, " We 
 shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," 
 and " and every one of us shall give account of 
 himself to God."* It is the work then of the Holy 
 Ghost to convince us of this tremendous fact which 
 awaits us in the future, that there is a day of judg- 
 ment when we must render our account to God, and 
 to teach us now to prepare for that great day. This 
 preparation should affect our daily lives, should lead 
 us so to live " That we may have boldness in the day 
 o f judgment"! 
 
 The conviction that there is a day of judgment 
 when we must give an account of our stewardship, 
 will lead practically to great carefulness and watch- 
 
 * Rom. xiv. lo and 12. f i S. John iv. 17. 
 
 262 
 
fulness in our present lives. It will also kindle a 
 great desire for accurate self-knowledge, and will 
 impel us, therefore, to such steps as will enable us to 
 advance in this important duty. But self-knowledge 
 and watchfulness alike demand the practice of self- 
 examination ; for if we are to give an account we 
 must keep an account, and self-examination is the 
 means by which our account is kept. 
 
 Again, if we are to watch we must practice con- 
 stant self-examination ; for this is really what 
 watchfulness means. The watchman on the walls 
 of a beleaguered city is constantly examining or 
 watching all that takes place without the city, in 
 order that he may detect any covert approach of the 
 enemy, and give the alarm to those within. The 
 only way in which we can follow this example in 
 regard to our spiritual life is by frequent examination 
 of our thoughts and words and deeds, to see if 
 temptation has been yielded to, and more, to find 
 out precisely through what temptations the devil 
 is striving to gain an entrance into our souls. 
 
 Then, too, self-examination is necessary in order 
 that we may repair the breaches which have been 
 made in our spiritual fortifications by our yielding to 
 temptation. For self-examination reveals not only 
 the temptations by which Satan is striving to over- 
 come us, but the extent to which they have been 
 
 263 
 
•^ ^ixi^ ^(tturbag in &ent. 
 
 consented to, and therefore the extent of the injury 
 to the fortifications of our soul. This will lead, on 
 the one hand, to penitence by which we remove the 
 guilt of sin and heal its wounds, and on the other 
 hand to efforts to acquire the opposite virtues. For 
 penitence alone is but negative in its effects, the 
 undoing of the injury done to our souls through sin, 
 and it is only through the acquisition of Christian 
 virtues, especially such as are of the very opposite 
 character to our sins, that we can acquire strength 
 and develop spiritual character. 
 
 In this work of self-examination we must carefully 
 bear in mind that we have not only to give account 
 of what we have done amiss, but also of what we 
 have left undone, of the opportunities which we have 
 neglected, of having wasted the goods committed to 
 us. Our Blessed Lord in more than one of His 
 parables warns us of this. In the Parable of the 
 Talents and in the Parable of the Pounds, it was the 
 man who had not used his one talent or pound who 
 was cast into the outer darkness ; and in the Parable 
 of the Judgment Day, those on the left hand, 
 who received the sentence of condemnation, were 
 told that it was because they had left undone 
 works of mercy, because they had failed to use 
 opportunities of loving service to their fcllow-nicn, 
 that they were condemned. 
 
 264 
 
We must further notice that our Lord tells us that 
 the Holy Ghost shall convict the world of judgment, 
 because "the prince of this world is judged," or 
 rather hath been judged ; for the tense is the perfect 
 (KCKpirat). The prince of this world, Satan, was 
 judged on the Cross, when guilty man was redeemed, 
 for the Cross was indeed the judgment seat of 
 Christ, where the debt of sin was paid, the devil 
 condemned, and man, through the merits of Christ, 
 acquitted. 
 
 The devil, as his very name implies, comes before 
 God as the accuser of man, but finds himself accused 
 of man's fall, and condemned in the very act by 
 which he thought to gain the victory, the act by 
 which he strove to put to death the Son of God. As 
 S. Ambrose has said, The wolf seized the Lamb of 
 God in his jaws, but found his jaw broken on the 
 Rock of Ages ; for Satan's power over man was 
 broken by the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Cross of our Lord is the judgment throne not 
 only for Satan, but for all men who come in contact 
 with it ; for all men are judged by their relation to 
 the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Sin was the 
 cause of our Lord's Passion — our sins ; and we must 
 say in the words of the great penitent, David, 
 " Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God."* He 
 
 * Psalm li. 14. 
 265 
 
^ ^ixi^ Safutbag in SLtni, 
 
 was thinking of his guilt with respect to the shedding 
 of Uriah's Blood, we of our share in the shedding of 
 the Blood of Christ by our sins. 
 
 We are judged by our relation to His Passion ; for 
 that Blood which was shed upon the Cross either 
 cries out against us for vengeance, or is poured upon 
 us, cleansing us through penitence. Satan has been 
 judged and condemned, and for him there is no 
 further judgment ; we are being judged now. We 
 are called upon to judge ourselves day by day ; for 
 there is a tribunal of mercy before which we may 
 even now give our account, and receive acquittal for 
 our debts in preparation for that great day when all 
 accounts will be rendered, and each will receive 
 either acquittal or condemnation. 
 
 266 
 
XXXV. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST OUR GUIDE. 
 
 S. John xvi. 12-15. 
 
 ' ' I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
 now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide 
 you into all truth : for He shall not speak of Himself ; but whatsoever 
 He shall hear, that shall He speak : and He will show you things to 
 come. He shall glorify me : for He shall receive of Mine, and shall 
 shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine : there- 
 fore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you." 
 
 |E have spoken of the work of the Holy- 
 Ghost towards the world, and towards the 
 individual soul in the world, as manifested 
 in convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and 
 of judgment. In the next section, which we are 
 to consider to-day, our Lord turns to the work of 
 the Holy Ghost in relation to the Church, to His 
 work among those who have passed from sin unto 
 
 267 
 
^ (fflonbdg in ^ofg ^uL 
 
 righteousness, and are members of Christ's mystical 
 Body, the Church. The office of the Paraclete is 
 not confined to the conviction of the world ; He 
 carries forward the work begun by Christ in the 
 disciples, and, by guiding them into all the truth, 
 He glorifies Christ, and inspires and directs the 
 Church. 
 
 " I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
 ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the 
 Spirit of truth, is come. He will guide you into 
 all truth : for He shall not speak of Himself ; but 
 whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak : 
 and He will show you things to come." This is 
 one of the most important passages, one of the 
 most encouraging promises, in the Bible ; for it 
 is upon this promise that the Church depends 
 absolutely as the teacher of truth. Our Lord had 
 laid down certain principles in His teaching, but 
 One was needed to guide the Church in the 
 application of those principles, One who could 
 supply a divine commentary upon them, applying 
 them, not only to the needs of individual life, but 
 to those of the universal Church. 
 
 Especially was there need that the meaning of 
 our Lord's Passion should be unfolded ; but this 
 was not possible until the Resurrection and the 
 Ascension and the life of glory which followed 
 
 268 
 
tU l^ofg <g^ogt out (guibe. ^ 
 
 had made clear the significance of the Passion. 
 It was the office of the Spirit of Truth, the Divine 
 Paraclete, to reveal this and other necessary truths 
 to the Church. The work of the Holy Spirit is 
 not to reveal new truths to the Church, but to 
 develop and unfold, and make clear the truths 
 which our Lord had taught. For Christ tells us, 
 " He shall not speak of Himself ; but whatsoever 
 He shall hear, that shall He speak." And again, 
 " He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto 
 you." 
 
 We have already treated of the work of the 
 Spirit of Truth in regard to the dogmas of the 
 Church. Let us to-day rather dwell upon His 
 guidance in the study of Holy Scripture. We are 
 meditating upon Christ's words to-day, as thousands 
 of Christians of every age, since Christ uttered them, 
 have meditated upon them. And it is a wonderful 
 thought that we meditate upon them, because the 
 Holy Ghost brings them home to us with ever 
 new significance, according to the needs of our 
 age, and indeed according to the needs of each 
 individual soul. 
 
 To those who are familiar with the commentaries 
 upon Holy Scripture which every age has contributed 
 to the treasures of the Church, it is marvellous to 
 see, as the centuries roll by, that the inspired 
 
 269 
 
-^ (fflonbag in j^ofg ^uL 
 
 words of Holy Writ are never exhausted. Each 
 great writer or Father of the Cliurch contributes 
 some beautiful thought which has come to him 
 through the guiding of the Holy Ghost. And yet 
 the gold-mine of Holy Scripture can still be 
 worked for more treasure ; and indeed one of the 
 most striking discoveries that we make is that each 
 age finds in Holy Scripture just the treasure of 
 truth which it needs to meet the difficulties of its 
 own times. 
 
 There are some who approach Holy Scripture 
 under the guidance of their own conceit, and apply 
 to it merely the resources of their own unaided 
 reason. Some of these have come to the conclusion, 
 in our times, that most of the Bible is untrue. 
 But those who approach its study, relying upon 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit, find in it just 
 the stores of truth which enable them to meet 
 their own difficulties, to grapple with the problems 
 of their own life. And yet what they find is not 
 new truth. It was always there, waiting to be 
 discovered by those who sought it under the Holy 
 Spirit's guidance. 
 
 The discovery of the laws of electricity and their 
 application has transformed the conditions of man's 
 life in the world to-day, and has enabled him to 
 harness the forces of nature to supply his needs ; 
 
 2/0 
 
t^C %0i2 <K^06t out ^UX'tt. 
 
 yet the force of electricity is no new force ; it has 
 existed from the beginning, but its immense power 
 and manifold application is only now being dis- 
 covered by man. So in the spiritual world the 
 Holy Ghost is guiding us to the discovery of new 
 treasures in the inexhaustible mine of spiritual 
 truth, treasures which will supply the needs and 
 meet the difficulties of our own times. 
 
 '' I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
 ye cannot bear them now." Why not ? Chiefly 
 for two reasons — because the Passion without the 
 Resurrection and the life of glory, the sufferings 
 of our Lord without the Holy Ghost to enable 
 us to understand them, would indeed crush us. 
 "Ye cannot bear them now." The word translated 
 "bear" (8ao-ratet»/) suggests the bearing of the cross, 
 and none could bear the Cross of Christ until the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost should make clear the 
 purpose of the Cross. Our Lord says, " Ye cannot 
 bear them now," and how soon they learnt the 
 truth of this ; for they stumbled at our Lord's 
 Passion, they fell under that Cross, one denied 
 Him, all forsook Him. 
 
 We cannot follow Christ in the power of mere 
 natural courage. The apostles were not wanting 
 in that gift — quite the contrary. S. Peter, when 
 he was surrounded by the soldiers and the servants 
 
 271 
 
^ (Utonbgg in j^ofg ^uL 
 
 of the High Priest, could draw his sword and cut 
 off the ear of Malchus, though he was but one 
 against a multitude. He was not wanting then in 
 natural courage, and yet he denied his Master. 
 If we are to bear the Cross, it must be through 
 the guidance of the Holy Ghost, teaching us the 
 relation of the Cross to the glories of eternity, 
 teaching us the meaning of the Passion, as 
 interpreted by the Resurrection, the Ascension, 
 and the glorified life in Heaven. 
 
 But our Lord says, " When He, the Spirit of 
 truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth," 
 or rather into all the truth, for the words in the 
 Greek imply truth in all its parts (els ttju aky]6tLap 
 Trda-av). The order of the words is somewhat 
 peculiar, and this very peculiarity of arrangement 
 implies that the Holy Ghost was to guide them 
 into comi)lete understanding and sympathy with 
 the Truth, Jesus Christ Himself. 
 
 We must notice that the words are not, as 
 translated, " into all truth," but " into all t/ie truth." 
 The Holy Ghost was not to guide them into 
 all truth, in which might be included scientific 
 truth, mathematical truth, and the laws of the 
 physical world, but into all the truth, that is, the 
 truth of which our Lord had been speaking when 
 He said, " I am the Truth." Those truths which 
 
 272 
 
t^c l^ofg (g^Qgt our (guibe. ^ 
 
 concern His kingdom and Person and work, those 
 truths upon the knowledge of which man's welfare 
 and happiness depends. 
 
 There is not the slightest intimation that if the 
 Church should be foolish enough to dogmatise in 
 regard to science or mathematics, she would not 
 make gross blunders, as the Roman Church did 
 in the time of Galileo, but there is the promise 
 that where she is concerned about the truth which 
 is in Jesus, about God's revelation to man through 
 Christ, she shall be guided by the Holy Ghost into 
 that truth in all its parts. 
 
 We must observe, too, the force of the word 
 "guide." "He will guide you." Christ is the 
 Way, and the Truth, and the Life. In that Way, 
 in that Truth, in that Life, the Holy Ghost is the 
 Guide. And that way leads to the Father, Whose 
 House is in Heaven, and Who is the goal of every 
 Christian life. The Holy Ghost is to be the guide, 
 therefore we are not mere passive instruments, but 
 living agents. Christ does not say the Holy Ghost 
 shall transport you into all truth, or compel you to 
 believe the truth ; we can follow the Guide, or we 
 can refuse to follow. There is room left for the 
 working of our own intellect, for the exercise of 
 our own will. If we do not follow the Guide, it 
 is our own fault, but we fare not compelled to 
 follow. 273 T 
 
-^ (Btonbag in ^ot^^ n^eeft, 
 
 "For He shall not speak of Himself; but what- 
 soever He shall hear, that shall He speak. . . . 
 He shall take of Mine, and shall shew it unto you." 
 The test of the Holy Ghost's teaching lies in the 
 fact that His teaching is the perfect expression of 
 the one will of God. There is no originality in 
 the teaching of the Holy Ghost. He is to unfold 
 God's revelation, but if people turn away from 
 revelation, which it is the work of the Holy Ghost 
 to bring home to them, and look to the Spirit 
 alone for illumination, they are likely to mistake 
 their own tastes and their own prejudices for the 
 truth. History shows us many instances of those 
 who have ignored the fact that the work of the 
 Holy Spirit is not to speak of Himself, but to 
 take of the things of Christ, and show them to us. 
 Such persons have fallen into all sorts of error, 
 and even absurdity, from the time of Tertullian 
 down to our own day, while claiming a special 
 enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Father and 
 of the Son, and His operation is the operation of 
 the one Will of the undivided unity. The message 
 of the Holy Ghost is a complex message, but it 
 is complete. Nothing is kept back which is made 
 known to Him in the order of divine wisdom, and 
 the order of that wisdom is the revelation which 
 
 274 
 
t^c %oi2 (K^oet our (Buibe. -«• 
 
 is contained in the great fact of the Incarnation, 
 and its consequences — the Passion, the Church, and 
 the Sacraments. 
 
 '* He will show you things to come." The Greek 
 word {ra €px6fj.eva) signifies that the Holy Ghost is 
 to show you things that are coming, that He will 
 reveal to you the future. The Holy Ghost, then, 
 is to declare unto the Church the whole of 
 Christianity, the constitution and economy of the 
 Christian Church in this world and in the world 
 to come. Too often we confine our thouohts of 
 the Christian Church to the world in which we 
 live, to the Church Militant, we forget that by far 
 the greater part of the Church now is in the world 
 beyond — either in the Church Expectant, or already 
 enjoying the Beatific Vision of God in the Church 
 Triumphant. And Christ tells us that the Holy 
 Ghost is to reveal to us the future, that is, the 
 interests of the Church in Heaven. And surely 
 these interests ought to be to us matters of great 
 solicitude. 
 
 " He shall glorify Me : for He shall receive of 
 Mine, and shall show it unto you." It is very 
 noticeable that the work of the Holy Ghost in 
 relation to God the Son is presented as parallel 
 to that of the Son in relation to the Father, The 
 Son came to glorify the Father. — " I seek not Mine 
 
 275 
 
^ (tttonbgg in j^ofg TJJeeft. 
 
 own glory."* The work of the Son of God in 
 the world was then to glorify His Father, and the 
 work of the Holy Ghost in the world is to glorify 
 the Son. 
 
 " He shall glorify Me," and further, as we read 
 in the opening verses of the next chapter, the work 
 of the Father is also to glorify the Son. " Father, 
 the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son 
 also may glorify Thee."t These passages are a 
 striking testimony to the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity. It is quite impossible to understand them, 
 or to accept them, without believing in the doctrine 
 of the Holy Trinity ; for they are both an exhibition 
 of the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost, and a very remarkable setting forth of their 
 threefold Personality. What the Father does, the 
 Son does ; what the Son does, the Holy Ghost 
 does. The undivided Will, the undivided operation, 
 the oneness of purpose, of substance, is shown on 
 the one side, and yet there are three distinct 
 Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
 * S. John viii. 50. f S. John xvii. I. 
 
 276 
 
XXXVL 
 
 2^ue6b(Xg in ^o(2 T3?eefe, 
 
 NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SIGHT. 
 
 S. John xvi. 16-19. 
 
 "A little while, and ye shall not see Me : and again, a little while, 
 and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father. Then said some 
 of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He saith unto us, 
 A little while, and ye shall not see Me : and again, a little while, and 
 ye shall see Me : and, Because I go to the Father ? They said there- 
 fore, What is this that He saith, A little while ? we cannot tell what 
 He saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and 
 said unto them. Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A 
 little while, and ye shall not see Me : and again, a little while, and ye 
 shall see Me ? " 
 
 LITTLE while, and ye shall not see Me." 
 The best manuscripts read, " Ye shall see 
 Me no more" (ov^eVi). It is difficult for 
 English readers to understand these words, because, 
 unfortunately, the translators have used our verb " to 
 
 277 
 
'^^ Znui(X^ in l^ofg TJ?eeft. 
 
 see" to represent two quite different verbs with 
 different meanings in the Greek. The first verb 
 (Oeapeire) in the clause, " A Uttle while, and ye shall 
 not see Me," refers to physical sight, and might be 
 better rendered by the word " behold." The noun 
 derived from it (ol Beapoi) signifies " the spectators," 
 those who look on and behold ; so that this clause 
 might be paraphrased, "A little while, and ye shall 
 behold Me no more with your physical eyes." 
 
 The second verb (o-^fo-Be) in the clause, " Again, a 
 little while, and ye shall see Me," signifies also 
 spiritual sight, spiritual perception or knowledge, so 
 that we might paraphrase the whole passage, " A 
 little while, and ye shall behold Me no more with 
 your physiccd eyes, and again, a little while, and }'e 
 shall see Me — not with the eyes of the body, but 
 through the power of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 But this " little while," what does it mean ? It 
 meant for the disciples, the period between our 
 Lord's Passion and the Day of Pentecost. During 
 that time, they neither beheld Him with the eyes of 
 their body, nor saw Him with the eyes of their mind, 
 except, indeed, when He chose to manifest Himself 
 to them on certain occasions during the great Forty 
 Days after Easter. But when the Holy Ghost was 
 come, while they were nu longer to behold Him 
 physically, they were to sec Him more clearly than 
 
 278 
 
they had ever seen Him before, with the eyes of the 
 mind illuminated by the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 He had said to them, when speaking of the Holy 
 Spirit, " Whom the world cannot receive, because it 
 seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him."* Here we 
 have the same word " behold " (Oecopel). We cannot 
 behold the Holy Ghost, that is, we cannot see Him 
 with physical sight, with our natural eyes. There- 
 fore, as our Lord said the world cannot receive Him ; 
 for as a rule, the world will only believe in that 
 of which it can receive physical demonstration. 
 
 So we find that some in the so-called Christian 
 world speak of the Holy Ghost as an " Influence," 
 but do not believe in Him as a real Person. Those 
 who have the eyes of their mind enlightened by the 
 Holy Ghost are able to believe in that which they 
 cannot see, and of which there can be no physical 
 demonstration, and to believe with a conviction 
 which, in force, far surpasses the effects of any mere 
 natural knowledge. 
 
 But this passage brings before us a very practical 
 question in our spiritual life. Christ says, " Again, a 
 little while, and ye shall see me," meaning that after 
 the Day of Pentecost, the natural powers of the soul 
 should be so quickened by the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, that we should be able to see Him through 
 
 * S. John xiv. 17. 
 279 
 
-^ tuCBbiXT^ in ^ofT^ Weeft. 
 
 the exercise of spiritual vision, even more clearly 
 than we can see things by physical sight. And He 
 further points out that this shall be accomplished by 
 the Holy Spirit, Who shall. He says, " Take of Mine 
 and shall shew it unto you ; "* for by this operation 
 of the Holy Spirit He comes to them again, 
 according to His promise, " I will not leave you 
 orphans, I will come to you."t 
 
 Now we have to ask ourselves very seriously 
 whether we are exercising this power of the Holy 
 Ghost, whether we do see Christ with the eyes of our 
 soul, see Him, that is, with the clearness and fulness 
 which spiritual vision implies. The Holy Ghost, so 
 our Lord tells us, is so to take of the things which 
 are His, and declare them unto us, that Christ's 
 Person, Christ's words, Christ's works may be even 
 more clearly comprehended by us than they were by 
 the disciples who walked with Him on earth. Can 
 we say that this is true of our experience, that wc 
 do see and know Christ in this intimate and close 
 manner."* If we do not, it is because we are not 
 using the gift of the Holy Spirit, because we are not 
 exercising our faculty of spiritual perception. 
 
 But you may say, " How can I use this gift, how 
 can I train this spiritual faculty?" In more ways 
 than one; but chiefly in prayer and meditation, and by 
 
 * S. John xvi. 15. f S. John xiv. 18. 
 
 280 
 
prayer I do not mean only asking God to give us those 
 things which we need, but telling God of our love, 
 of our trust, of our joy in communion with Him. It 
 is, however, in the exercise of meditation that we 
 train our spiritual perception best — in meditating 
 upon the words of Christ until the sacred page 
 seems to glow under the light of the Holy Spirit, 
 and the words, which we have so often read, are seen 
 to contain deeper truths than are manifest on the 
 surface, truths, which meet the needs of our own 
 individual souls, which satisfy the cravings of our 
 spiritual nature. 
 
 Worldly people find it impossible to meditate 
 upon Divine truth ; impossible, because they have 
 never developed the power of spiritual vision. They 
 can meditate, and do meditate, upon the things of 
 the world, but they have so accustomed themselves 
 to the mere gas-light of the world, that the sunlight 
 of God's presence confuses and blinds them, and in 
 it they, therefore, see nothing. Many people too, 
 who are not worldly, find it difficult to meditate, 
 because meditation is a purely spiritual exercise, and 
 their spiritual faculties are undeveloped. 
 
 Again, we may ask the question. How are we 
 using the gift of spiritual sight in regard to the Holy 
 Eucharist ? Do we, as S. Paul says, discern the 
 Lord's body therein? It is not enough to say, 
 
 281 
 
Of course I believe in the Real Presence. I believe 
 that when our Lord said, " This is My Body, This is 
 My Blood," He said what was absolutely true. We 
 may believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the 
 Holy Eucharist, and yet not discern His Body there. 
 Let us go on to ask whether our belief is a mere 
 intellectual assent to a theological doctrine, which 
 appeals to our reason, or whether it is a spiritual 
 power, by which we see Jesus Christ in the Sacrament 
 of His love. 
 
 If we would see Him in meditation, if we would 
 discern His Body in the Holy Eucharist, we must 
 train our spiritual vision ; for spiritual gifts, like 
 intellectual gifts, have to be trained. If we are 
 going to study languages, or literature, or science, we 
 train our intellectual powers in that special direction. 
 A man of science may not be a linguist, not only 
 because he has not, as we should say, the gift of 
 languages, but sometimes because he has never 
 trained the gift, which, perhaps, he once had. 
 
 We read in the life of Charles Darwin that, in his 
 early days, he was specially drawn by religion, and 
 had some ideas of entering the ministry ; also that he 
 was very fond of music. However, he turned all his 
 energies in the direction of science, and carefully 
 trained his mind for scientific investigation. And in 
 a letter that he wrote in later life to a friend, he 
 
 282 
 
remarks that he has entirely lost his fondness for 
 music ; and we know that he quite gave up his 
 religion. It would probably not be correct to say 
 that this was because of his scientific knowledge ; for 
 there are many great scientists who are dsvout 
 Christians. It was rather because he allowed the 
 religious faculty to become atrophied by disuse, 
 while he trained the faculty of scientific observation 
 to its highest excellence. 
 
 If we desire to see Christ, as He may be seen 
 through the operation of the Holy Ghost in our souls, 
 we must train our spiritual sight through the exercise 
 of prayer and meditation, and then we shall realise 
 a complete fulfilment oi our Lord's promises, " I will 
 come to you." " Again, a little while, and ye shall 
 see Me." 
 
 283 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 T3?ebne0ba5 in %oi^ TTeeft. 
 
 SORROW TURNED INTO JOY. 
 
 S. John xvi. 20-33. 
 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, 
 but the world shall rejoice : and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow 
 shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath 
 sorrow, because her hour is come : but as soon as she is delivered of 
 the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is 
 born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow : but I will 
 see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man 
 taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My 
 Name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My 
 Name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These 
 things have I spoken unto you in proverbs : but the time cometh, 
 when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew 
 you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in My Name : 
 and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you : For the 
 Father Himself lovcth you, because yc have loved Me, and have 
 believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, 
 and am come into the world : again, I leave the world, and go to the 
 Father. His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakcst Thou plainly, 
 
 284 
 
gotten? Znrncb info 3og. ^ 
 
 and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that Thou knowest all 
 things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee : by this we 
 believe that Thou earnest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do 
 ye now believe ? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye 
 shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone : 
 and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things 
 I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the 
 world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have over- 
 come the world." 
 
 E shall weep and lament, but the world shall 
 rejoice." This, of course, refers primarily 
 to the sorrow of the Apostles at their 
 Master's death, and to the joy of the world at the 
 accomplishment of its wicked purpose. But in 
 foretelling the sorrow that should come upon them, 
 Christ also indicates the ultimate consequence of 
 that sorrow — that it should be turned into joy — 
 and He illustrates this from the sorrows of a woman 
 in travail. 
 
 While the joy to which our Lord refers was, in 
 the case of the Apostles, to issue from Christ's 
 Resurrection and the life of power which should 
 follow it, yet His promise is not exhausted by this 
 fulfilment ; for, as in so many of our Lord's utter- 
 ances, we may trace the revelation of a great 
 principle, that all sorrow, which is not caused 
 directly by our own sin, is the raw material, so 
 to speak, of future joy, if it be borne rightly, and in 
 
 285 
 
-o^ HTebn egbag in ^ofg TTeel 
 
 reliance upon the Holy Ghost. This, of course, does 
 not refer to the selfish sorrow of the world, but to 
 those sorrows of the Christian life which come to us 
 with God's permission, as disciplines and trials, to 
 prepare us for the joys of Heaven. 
 
 Indeed, it is perhaps not too much to say that 
 sorrow is one of the most precious things we have 
 in this world, developing, as it does, sympathy and 
 love for one another, faith and trust in God. The 
 joys of this life are enhanced by the background of 
 difficulty and suffering-, out of which they emerge, 
 and the joys of Heaven on their negative side will 
 be largely the consciousness of freedom from the 
 disappointments and dangers of the world. 
 
 The joy of pardoned sin in this life can be 
 measured by the depth of sorrow, which our peni- 
 tence produces in us, as the Psalmist teaches in that 
 verse, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."* 
 The harvest of joy seems here to be proportioned to 
 the tears that are sown, and so we find among the 
 joys of God's people in Heaven that " God shall 
 wipe away all tears from their eyes."t 
 
 " And your joy no man taketh from you." What 
 a glorious promise. We know something of the joys 
 of earth, of the world, of the intoxicating joys of 
 pleasure, of worldly success ; and wc know, not as a 
 
 * Psalm cxxvi. 6. f Revelations xxi. 4. 
 
 286 
 
^otxoro Zuxnci into 3og. ^ 
 
 matter of faith, but of absolute experience, that these 
 joys do not last. They are taken from us, and what 
 is left behind is generally the bitter sting of remorse 
 in remembrance of the very joy which seemed at the 
 moment so transporting. But the joy of which our 
 Lord speaks, the joy which is the fruit of godly 
 sorrow, this joy abides, for no man can take it from 
 us. 
 
 " In that day ye shall ask Me nothing." That is, 
 no question ; for all will then be clear. They would 
 not need their Master's guidance then, for they 
 would have the guidance of the Holy Ghost, Who 
 should lead them into all truth. 
 
 " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, 
 He will give it you. Hitherto ye have ask nothing 
 in My Name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your 
 joy may be full." Here we have another repetition 
 of the promise of special power in prayer, as 
 the result of our Lord's intercession in Heaven, 
 and of the intercession of the Holy Ghost in 
 the human soul. A special efficacy is attached to 
 the prayers of those who are in union with Christ, 
 and especially to the prayers of those who have 
 tasted the cup of sorrow. " A broken and contrite 
 heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise."* 
 
 " These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs ; 
 
 * Psalm li. 17. 
 287 
 
^ n rebnegbdg in j^ofg TT eeft. 
 
 but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak 
 unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of 
 the Father." Christ had taught them under images 
 and parables, under the image of the vine, under the 
 parable of the woman in travail. Now the Holy 
 Ghost was to unfold these images, and through Him 
 Christ was to speak plainly, and to declare clearly, 
 the relations of God the Father to man. 
 
 " At that day ye shall ask in My Name : and I 
 say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for 
 you ; for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye 
 have loved Me, and have believed that I came out 
 from God." "At that day." The day, that is, when 
 we possess the Holy Spirit, and act in His strength 
 and see by His light. In that day the fulness of 
 knowledge will lead to the fulness of prayer, and our 
 new relationship as sons by adoption, will constitute 
 us in a special sense the objects of God's love. 
 
 " I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father 
 for you " ; (as though you had no direct claim upon 
 the Father, and it was necessary that I should plead 
 for you ;) '' for the Father Himself loveth you, because 
 ye have loved Me." The result of our incorporation 
 into Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit, 
 making us members of Christ and children of God, is 
 freedom of access to the Father through Jesus 
 Christ, and a special claim upon God's love; God 
 
 288 
 
borrow ^urneb into ^og. ^ 
 
 becomes our Father in a new sense, and loves us 
 with a Father's love, and this must be a great 
 encouragement to us in prayer. 
 
 If we were to dwell a little more upon God's love 
 for us, and worry ourselves less about our love for 
 God, it would often be better for us in our spiritual 
 life. Many persons complain, " My heart is so cold, 
 I cannot love God. I want to love Him, but I am 
 not able. What can I do ? " The answer is that 
 all do not love God in the same way, and that there 
 is a very real love of God, which does not produce 
 any sensible emotion in our heart, that our Lord 
 made the evidence of love to consist in keeping 
 God's commandments, not in feeling deep emotion. 
 
 But you ask, " What can I do .'* " Meditate upon 
 God's love for you in creating you, in sending His 
 Son to die for you, in watching over you through all 
 the vicissitudes of life, in vouchsafing to you a 
 knowledge of the Catholic Faith, in sending you 
 many calls to repentance, in bestowing upon you 
 privileges and gifts without number. Meditate upon 
 God's love for you ; that will help you to love God 
 better. For love begets love. Many a person has 
 learned to love another by learning how great was 
 that other person's love for him or her. Dwell upon 
 God's love for you ; realise that, as incorporated into 
 Christ, you are the object of God's love. Remember 
 
 289 u 
 
^^ 
 
 TJ?ebne6bag in ^o{^ T3?eeft. 
 
 that you did not first love God, but that He loved 
 you.* Dwell upon this and it will cause your love 
 for God to burn up, and fill your heart and life with 
 love. 
 
 " I came forth from the Father, and am come into 
 the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to 
 the Father." In this passage we may notice in 
 passing our Lord's clear assertion of His unity of 
 essence with the Father. 
 
 " His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now speakest 
 Thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we 
 sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not 
 that any man should ask Thee : by this we believe 
 that Thou camest forth from God." This was the 
 supreme confession of their faith before the Passion, 
 and how was it elicited, to what may it be traced ? 
 " Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things, and 
 needest not that any man should ask Thee." Christ 
 had interpreted their thoughts. They had been 
 saying to one another, " What is this that He saith 
 unto us ? A little while, and ye shall not see Me : 
 and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me." 
 Christ, Who had not heard their discussion, read 
 their thoughts and answered them, " Do ye enquire 
 among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and 
 yc shall not see Me : and again, a little while, and ye 
 
 * C/ I S. John iv. lo. 
 
 290 
 
^oxxoro Zuxncb into 3og. ^ 
 
 shall see Me ? " It was because our Lord read their 
 thoughts and hearts that they were ready to confess 
 that He came forth from God, for God alone can read 
 the thoughts and hearts of men. 
 
 Christ's last words to them in these discourses are, 
 " Do ye now believe ? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, 
 is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to 
 his own, and shall leave Me alone : and yet I am 
 not alone because the Father is with me. These 
 things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might 
 have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation : 
 but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." 
 In these words our Lord accepts their act of faith. 
 " Do ye now believe ? " He means to say, " Yes, you 
 do believe with all the power of your natural heart, 
 but you have not yet received the Holy Ghost, and 
 so your faith has a weakness which belongs to all 
 natural faith, and then He clearly points out four 
 things : — 
 
 (i) Their desertion of Him, the temporary failure 
 of their faith. " Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is 
 now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to 
 his own, and shall leave Me alone." (2) Then, lest 
 that revelation should overwhelm them with dis- 
 couragement, He tells of their ultimate triumph, 
 " These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me 
 ye might have peace." Their failure will be only for 
 
 291 
 
n3?ebne6bag in l^ofg ^ctL 
 
 a little while. He will rise again, and having won 
 by His death and resurrection the great victory over 
 evil, He will come to them again on Easter Day 
 with the gift of peace — His peace ; that is, the 
 peace of those who possess Him, and who, in that 
 possession, can face all the struggles of life with a 
 courage born of the assurance of ultimate victory. 
 
 (3) But lest they should misunderstand the 
 character of this peace which He would give them, 
 He warns them, saying unto them, " In the world ye 
 shall have tribulation." That is, although in the 
 possession of peace and the assurance of victory, 
 yet so long as they were in this world, there must be 
 struggle and sorrow. 
 
 (4) But, He says, " Be of good cheer ; I have 
 overcome the world." And because I have over- 
 come it, when the Holy Spirit brings to you the 
 power and grace which I have promised you, ye 
 shall overcome it also. " Be of good cheer," for 
 though, in the world, tribulation be your lot, the 
 victory is secure. Abide in Me, and I will abide 
 in you, and as I have overcome the world, ye too 
 shall overcome it. 
 
 292 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
 THE FATHER AND THE SON. 
 
 S. John xvii. 1-5. 
 
 " These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and 
 said, Father, the hour is come ; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also 
 may glorify Thee : As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that 
 He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And 
 this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the 
 .earth : I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And 
 now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory 
 which I had with Thee before the world was." 
 
 HIS chapter stands absolutely alone and 
 unapproachable in Holy Writ ; for it con- 
 tains our Lord's High Priestly prayer, 
 or, as it may be termed, His prayer of self-con- 
 secration. This prayer is indeed sublime ; for 
 in it we are permitted to know something of 
 
 293 
 
^ (^dunbdj ^^utBbdg. 
 
 the communion of our Lord Jesus Christ with 
 His Father. We see His two natures, human 
 and divine, so blended in one consciousness that, 
 while preserving and displaying the prerogatives 
 of both, we behold them united under the one 
 Person of the Son of God. 
 
 We are often told that our Lord prayed, but 
 never so fully as here what He said to the 
 Father in His prayers. Now we have revealed 
 to us in this chapter the very words of the 
 great prayer of self-consecration, which our Lord 
 uttered before He entered Gethsemane and His 
 Passion began. 
 
 The prayer seems to have been uttered at mid- 
 night in the courts of the Temple. This point 
 we have already discussed.* And that it was 
 spoken aloud in the hearing of the disciples is 
 evident both from the fact that S. John reports 
 what our Lord said, and also because we read 
 (in verse 13), "These things I speak in the world, 
 that they might have My joy fulfilled in them- 
 selves." 
 
 The chapter begins with the passage, " These 
 words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to 
 Heaven, and said." " These words " refer to the 
 discourses upon which we have been meditating 
 
 * Page 154. 
 
 294 
 
throughout this Lent. The prayer which follows 
 the discourses falls into three very clear divisions, 
 bringing before us (i) The relation of the Son 
 to the Father (vv. 1-5) ; (2) The relation of the 
 Son to the disciples (vv. 6-19) ; (3) The relation 
 of the Son to His Church throughout all time 
 (vv. 20-25). 
 
 The clause, " He lifted up His eyes to Heaven," 
 which in the Greek is connected with the verb 
 " Said," marks the new region to which our Lord's 
 thoughts are turned, His sense of perfect fellow- 
 ship with the spiritual world. As in the Seven 
 Words from the Cross, the first three are spoken 
 to man, and the last four addressed to His 
 Father ; so here, our Lord having uttered these 
 long discourses, in which He gives His final 
 instructions to His disciples, turns away from the 
 things of earth, and addresses Himself in prayer 
 to His Father in Heaven, allowing His disciples, 
 for their comfort and edification, to hear what He 
 says. The first word of the prayer is " Father," 
 and it is the keynote of the first division of the 
 prayer, which treats of the relation of the Son 
 to the Father. We may notice that the prayer 
 is not directly personal. Christ does not say 
 "glorify Me," but "glorify Thy Son." 
 
 " Father, the hour is come." It is worthy of 
 
 295 
 
^ (Utdimbag €^ur6bag. 
 
 notice that in no fewer than six passages S. 
 John refers to our Lord's "hour." S. John reveals 
 to us a conception of our Lord's life and work 
 in which all things are in accordance with the 
 Father's Will and rigidly ordered as to time by 
 that Will. At the Marriage of Cana of Galilee, 
 when His mother says to Him, " They have no 
 wine," Jesus replies, ** Mine hour is not yet 
 come."* Twice we are told that His enemies 
 sought to take Him, but that '* no man laid hands 
 upon Him, because His hour was not yet come."t 
 Again we read that before the Feast of the 
 Passover, "Jesus knew that His hour was come.":}: 
 To His Apostles our Lord says, "The hour is come 
 that the Son of Man should be glorified. "§ And 
 lastly, in His High Priestly prayer. He begins 
 with the words, " Father, the hour is come ; glorify 
 Thy Son." 
 
 Nothing can be more clear from this than that 
 Christ recognised God's Will, God's providence, as 
 ruling precisely the order of His life. But not 
 only has our Lord His hour, we have ours. God's 
 providence orders our life, we cannot hurry things, 
 we must wait till our hour is come ; wait, praying 
 that, wlicn it does come, we may rcco;^nisc it 
 
 * S. John ii. 4. t 'S. John vii. 30; viii 20. j S. John xiii. i. 
 
 § S. John xii. 23. 
 
 296 
 
and seize the opportunity. How often we beat 
 our wings, as it were, in vain against the prison 
 bars, longing for the door to open ; but we have 
 to learn that the door of opportunity does not 
 open till the moment ordered by God's Will. 
 
 We, who this Lent have been following Jesus 
 Christ, must learn from Him this lesson before 
 we go any further, that we must be patient and 
 wait till our hour comes, that we cannot be 
 saints at once, cannot conquer all our temptations 
 in one battle, cannot accomplish all the work 
 that God has for us to do by one effort, we 
 must be patient, but we must also be watchful, 
 that when the hour does come, it may find us 
 ready to act. 
 
 " Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also 
 may glorify Thee." This glorifying of the Son 
 is the fuller manifestation of His true nature 
 seen in the fact of His victory over death, 
 and established by His Resurrection and Ascen- 
 sion. ''Glorify Thy Son." How we shrink from 
 suffering, and yet it is the only path to glory ; 
 for " If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him."* 
 
 Death, how dreadful it seems, and yet it is 
 the gate which opens into the realms of glory. 
 So Christ, standing upon the threshold of death — that 
 
 * 2 Tim. ii. 12. 
 297 
 
'^ (ttlaunbag ^^urebog. 
 
 death, the issue of which was to be eternal life 
 for us all— says, " Glorify Thy Son ; " for " the 
 hour is come." How easy it is for us to say 
 it, how difficult to realise it, that only through 
 death can we pass to our true life. If we could 
 make this world as happy as Heaven, we should 
 not want the eternal life of Heaven. 
 
 This world is but the waiting-place. All tears 
 and sorrows will end with the joy of serving 
 Christ and with the sunshine of His Presence. 
 For when death comes to those who have been 
 waiting with full trust in Christ, waiting and 
 working for Him, it will be but the opening of 
 the prison door by which they pass into the 
 glories of His Kingdom. Our Blessed Lord, after 
 His Resurrection, told S. Peter by what manner 
 of death He should die, and S. John's comment on 
 this is, "This spake He, signifying by what death 
 He should glorify God." 
 
 " As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh." 
 The word translated " power " (e^ovaiav) signifies 
 rather authority, and the verb is in the aorist, 
 {f8a>Kai,) so that a more accurate rendering would be 
 '*even as Thou gavest Him authority over all 
 flesh." The term "all flesh" describes mankind in 
 its solidarity. Christ, as the Incarnate Son of 
 God, exercises legitimate authority over all man- 
 
 298 
 
kind, as its true Head and Representative now 
 reigning at the Right Hand of God. As the Son 
 of Man, the second Adam, the representative Man, 
 Christ is the sum of humanity, and, therefore, 
 has authority and sovereignty over it. 
 
 " Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all 
 flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many 
 as Thou hast given Him." The words translated 
 " as many as Thou hast given Him " are, in their 
 original form, very remarkable.* Literally it is 
 that " the whole of that which Thou hast given 
 Him, to them should He give eternal life." And 
 we have a contrast between "all flesh" over 
 which He has authority, and all " given Him," 
 that is, all the elect, who are drawn to Him by 
 the Father, to whom He gives eternal life. For 
 only those can come to Him whom the Father 
 draws, and to these, who accept Him, He gives 
 eternal life, and what this eternal life is, He 
 explains in the next verse. 
 
 "And this is (the) life eternal, that they might 
 know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 Whom Thou hast sent." (Literally, "that they know 
 Thee and Whom Thou didst send.") We learn 
 from this verse, first that eternal life is the gift 
 of Christ, it cannot be obtained otherwise ; and 
 
 * nau 6 debcoKas a.vT(o, 
 299 
 
secondly, that it consists in a knowledge of the 
 Father, the only true God, Who is manifested 
 and revealed by Christ and in Christ. 
 
 Here knowledge implies the apprehension of 
 truth by the whole nature of man. We may 
 know a great deal about God by studying reve- 
 lation and theology, but that is not "the eternal 
 life." The eternal life is a personal knowledge 
 of God, which involves not only an intellectual 
 apprehension and moral conviction, but the action 
 of the whole nature upon that conviction, the appro- 
 priation of the knowledge so that it influences the 
 whole life. This is the eternal life — to know God 
 and Jesus Christ ; for you cannot know God with- 
 out knowing His Son, Jesus Christ, Who reveals 
 Him. 
 
 "I have glorified Thee on the earth ; I have 
 finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." 
 The first two tenses are aorists {€56^a(Ta, reXacoo-af), so 
 that the translation should be, " I glorified Thee 
 on earth, having accomplished the work." The 
 accomplishment of this work was the means by 
 which Christ glorified the Father. But what was 
 this work which the Father gave Him to do, and 
 which He here claims to have accomplished? It 
 was a life of unswerving obedience, of perfect 
 love, which made His Death meritorious. There 
 
 300 
 
have been theologians in the past, who have 
 looked upon the sacrifice of our Lord's death as 
 an isolated act, as though it was the mere fact 
 of His dying which redeemed the world. 
 
 Our Lord's sacrifice, however, was not only the 
 act of death, but the sacrifice of the perfect life 
 which culminated in death. It was the offering 
 of the life of One Who had never disobeyed one 
 of God's laws, never faltered in fulfilling one of 
 His Father's commands, never swerved from the 
 path of Divine Love. It was this which made 
 the Life, offered on the Cross through death, 
 efficacious for taking away the sins of the whole 
 world. The life of love issued in the Hfe of 
 obedience, which was the consequence and evidence 
 of His love. The Passion and Death were the 
 climax of this obedience, and they are here spoken 
 of as though already accomplished, because they 
 were then accepted. The perfect Life was finished, 
 the perfect work was done, and Christ stood, as 
 it were, before the altar on which He was to be 
 offered as a sacrifice. 
 
 There is, however, another point brought before 
 us in this passage — a point of great importance, 
 though sometimes overlooked. It is the entire 
 absence of any sense of failure on the part of our 
 Lord in regard to His work; He says, " I have 
 
 301 
 
-^ (ttlaunbdg 2^^ut6bag. 
 
 finished," or, rather, " I have accomplished (reXftwo-af) 
 the work which Thou gavest Me to do." And on 
 the Cross, just before He died. He again said, " It 
 
 is finished " (rereXeorai).* 
 
 Throughout our Lord's life we see the same con- 
 sciousness of absolute power, the conviction that 
 His work was progressing steadily to its appointed 
 end. And yet, looked at from a mere human point 
 of view, it seemed to be a failure, for all His disciples 
 deserted Him and fled, and He was condemned 
 to death. Humanly speaking, our Lord's life ended 
 in failure, and yet, never for one moment, even in 
 His darkest hour, did He utter one word which 
 implied that His work was anything but a success. 
 
 And this consciousness of success amid apparent 
 failure is, in itself, an indication of His Divinity, 
 for no mere man could have said to the Father, 
 " I have accomplished the work which Thou gavest 
 Me to do." S. Paul, when his life was drawing 
 to a close, writing from his prison in Rome to 
 S. Timothy, says, " I am now ready to be offered, 
 and the time of my departure is at hand. I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith."t He says, " I have finished 
 my course^' not I have finished my work. " I have 
 fought the good fight, I have kept the faith." He 
 
 • S. John xix. 30. f 2 Timothy iv. 6, 7. 
 
 302 
 
could be thankful for what he had accomplished 
 through the grace of God, but he was conscious 
 of many failures in his work. Only Christ could 
 say, " I have finished the work which Thou gavest 
 Me to do." 
 
 Throughout this chapter the pronoun " I " is 
 emphatic, and who is the " I " ? There can be no 
 doubt from the next verse, " And now, O Father, 
 glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the 
 glory which I had with Thee before the world 
 was." In these words our Lord claims, as He 
 does again in the twenty-fourth verse, to have lived 
 with God before the world came into being, claims 
 eternal Sonship, claims to have possessed a glory 
 which He laid aside when He became Man, and 
 which, now that His work is accomplished. He 
 is to reassume. 
 
 303 
 
XXXIX. 
 
 THE SON AND THE DISCIPLES. 
 
 S. John xvii. 6-19. 
 
 " I have manifested Thy Name unto the men which Thou gavest 
 Me out of the world : Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me ; 
 and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things 
 whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given unto 
 them the words which Thou gavest Me ; and they have received them, 
 and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have 
 believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them ; I pray not for 
 the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me ; for they are 
 Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine ; and I am 
 glorified in thcni. And now I am no more in the world, but these are 
 in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keej:) through Thine 
 own Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, 
 as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy 
 Name : those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is 
 lost, but the son of perdition ; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 
 And now I come to Thee ; and these things I speak in the world, that 
 they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them 
 Thy word ; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of 
 the world, even as I am not uf the world. I pray not that Thou 
 
shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep 
 them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of 
 the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth : Thy word is truth. 
 As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them 
 into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also 
 might be sanctified through the truth." 
 
 HAVE manifested Thy Name unto the 
 men which Thou gavest Me out of the 
 world : Thine they were, and Thou gavest 
 them Me; and they have kept Thy word." Here 
 the prayer passes into a new channel, and as our 
 Lord had prayed for Himself, so now He prays for 
 His disciples. The petition ''glorify Me" becomes 
 " sanctify them " and " keep them." In this first 
 verse we may notice a threefold declaration : (i) Of 
 the relation of the disciples to Christ ; (2) of their 
 relation to the Father ; and (3) of their own intrinsic 
 worth. And each of these statements is a plea in 
 favour of the petitions which follow, and together 
 with them make a portrait of a true disciple. 
 
 First Christ says of them, " I have manifested Thy 
 Name unto the men whom Thou gavest Me out of 
 the world." The Father must draw them (out of 
 the world) to Christ ; for our Lord said, " No man 
 can come to Me, except the Father, which hath 
 sent Me, draw Him."* 
 
 * S. John vi. 44. 
 
 305 X 
 
^ (&oob :§'rtba8» 
 
 " I have manifested Thy Name." What Name ? 
 We, who have been studying our Lord's last 
 discourses this Lent, can have no hesitation in 
 answering this question ; for we must have been 
 struck by the fact that the one absorbing subject 
 of the addresses is the revelation to the disciples, 
 and through the disciples to the world, of God as 
 t/ie FatJier. The Name which Christ manifested 
 to them was the name " Father." 
 
 In the Old Testament God revealed Himself to 
 His people under various names, the greatest of 
 which was Jehovah, the Self-existent One, The 
 revelation of God under the Name Jehovah to the 
 Israelites was an immense advance in their know- 
 ledge of God ; for they learned that He was not 
 only their Creator, but that He was Himself 
 Underived and Self-existent. In the New Testa- 
 ment, however, the advance in the knowledge of 
 God is enormous when Christ reveals Him as the 
 Father. The Father, that is, of Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, and of all those who, by incorporation 
 into Christ, have become His sons by adoption. 
 From the philosophic conception of God as 
 Underived and Self-existent, we pass to the tender 
 and comforting revelation of God as " Our Father, 
 Which art in Heaven." 
 
 In this first declaration, then, Christ manifests 
 
 306 
 
their relation to Himself, in the next He shows 
 their relation to the Father. " Thine they were, 
 and Thou gavest them Me." They belonged to 
 God, not merely as His creatures, like the rest of 
 mankind ; not merely as Israelites, like the rest 
 of their race, but as Israelites indeed, who responded 
 to God ; and because they belonged to Him in a 
 special sense through this response, they were given 
 to His Son. 
 
 But, thirdly, our Lord reveals something of their 
 own intrinsic worth, when He says, " And they have 
 kept Thy word. What word ? The whole revelation 
 of Christ which we include under the name of the 
 Gospel. They not merely heard this Gospel as 
 others did, but they kep^ it. In the Parable of 
 the Sower we are told of the seed falling on various 
 kinds of ground, some by the wayside, some upon 
 rock, some among thorns, but some upon good 
 ground ; and we read, " That on the good ground 
 are they, which in an honest and good heart, having 
 heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with 
 patience."* These keep the word of God as our 
 Lord declares the Apostles had kept it. 
 
 " Now they have known that all things whatsoever 
 Thou hast given Me are of Thee. For I have given 
 unto them the words which Thou gavest Me ; and 
 
 * S. Luke viii. 15. 
 
^^• 
 
 (Koob Stiixxg. 
 
 they have received them, and have known surely 
 that I came out from Thee, and they have believed 
 that thou didst send Me." All careful students of 
 S. John's Gospel must have observed his habit of 
 using certain emphatic words to emphasise the point 
 of his argument. There are three such words in 
 this passage, which together bring out the character- 
 istics of faithfulness in the Apostles. They are the 
 words " received," " known," and " believed." They 
 received the words, that is, the revelation which 
 Christ gave them ; and they came to know {^yvoiaav) by 
 personal experience, and therefore with certainty, 
 that I catne out from Thee, and therefore believed 
 that Thou didst send Me. The characteristics 
 of the disciples are gathered up under two heads 
 of knowledge and faith, both alike directed to 
 the recognition of Christ and His Mission. 
 
 " I pray for them ; I pray not for the world, but 
 for them which Thou hast given Me ; for they are 
 Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are 
 Mine ; and I am glorified in them." I am praying 
 for them ; the verb is in the present tense, and the 
 " I " is emphatic. I am not praying for the world. 
 The exclusion of the world from this particular 
 prayer of Christ's is no limitation of the extent of 
 His love for the world, but is the necessary conse- 
 quence of the circumstance of the prayer. At this 
 
 308 
 
€^c ^on dnb t^e ©t6Ctpfe6. ^ 
 
 moment He is interceding exclusively for those who 
 have been prepared by Him beforehand to continue 
 His work. Later in the prayer He does pray for 
 others, for those who should be brought to know 
 Hiin through the instrumentality of the Apostles. 
 
 When He says, " I am praying for them ; I am 
 not praying for the world," it does not mean at all 
 that the salvation of the world is not dear to His 
 heart, and ever in His thoughts ; for on the Cross 
 His arms were wide stretched for three longr hours 
 in intercession for the world. But here the inter- 
 cession is for His disciples, and the declaration of 
 the grounds upon which His prayer is urged, is 
 followed by a statement of the circumstances which 
 make it necessary. 
 
 Christ leaves the world, but the Apostles still 
 remain. The Master must be separated from His 
 scholars, for Christ goes to the Father, and so enters 
 upon a new sphere of His mediatorial work in 
 which His mode of action shall be changed ; and 
 so He prays, " Holy Father, keep through (in) Thine 
 own Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that 
 they may be one, as We are." The correct reading 
 here is "Keep in Thine own Name." Christ had 
 already said I have manifested Thy Name of Father 
 to them, now keep them in that Holy Name, keep 
 them in its power, help them to realise what 
 
 309 
 
^ (Boob 5^fib<xg. 
 
 is implied in Thy Fatherhood, that they may be 
 one, as We are. That is, that as children of the 
 same Father, they may be like brethren who dwell 
 together in unity. 
 
 " While I was with them in the world, I kept 
 them in Thy Name. Those that Thou gavest Me 
 I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the 
 son of perdition ; that the scripture might be 
 fulfilled." The two words translated "kept" in 
 this passage are not exactly the same, the second 
 signifying rather to keep watch over, to guard 
 (e(/)vXa^a). While He was with them, our Lord 
 preserved them and watched over them ; now that 
 He is leaving them He asks His Father to take 
 them under His care." 
 
 " And now I come to Thee ; and these things I 
 speak in the world, that they might have my joy 
 fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy 
 word ; and the world hath hated them, because they 
 are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." 
 In the clause " these things I speak in the world " we 
 find additional evidence for the fact, implied by S. 
 John's record of this prayer, that it was spoken aloud 
 for the encouragement and edification of the disciples 
 that they might draw strength and joy from the 
 words which they heard ; for they heard their Master 
 interceding for them, and committing them to the 
 care of His Father. 310 
 
t^c ^on (Xni it}t ^xmipiu. ^ 
 
 Then our Lord goes on to repeat, what He had 
 already told them, that the world should hate them 
 because they were not of the world, and He makes 
 this a plea that His Father should keep them and 
 preserve them from the world. Because Christ's 
 followers are not of the world, their lives are a 
 reproach to the world ; the world's laws, the world's 
 maxims, the world's fashions, and the world's ambitions, 
 all are untrue ; and because the Christian's life wit- 
 nesses against these things, it is a reproach to the 
 world, and awakens the world's hatred. 
 
 But Christ goes on to say, " I pray not that Thou 
 shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou 
 shouldest keep them from the evil." We must 
 remember here that the word translated "pray" 
 (epcurw), as in the fourteenth chapter, is used 
 exclusively of our Lord's prayers to the Father, and 
 might perhaps be better rendered by " ask," inasmuch 
 as it implies fellowship and equality with the Father, 
 rather than the inferiority of the suppliant. 
 
 Our Lord prays not that they should be taken out 
 of the world, for then what hope would there be for 
 the world ? Their presence in the world was to be 
 the leaven which was to leaven the world, the salt 
 which was to preserve the world from corruption, the 
 light set upon a hill to disperse the darkness, and to 
 attract to it all that was good in the world. So 
 
 311 
 
^^ (Boob iS'ribag. 
 
 Christ says, " I pray not that Thou shouldest take 
 them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest 
 keep them from the evil." There is little question 
 but that the correct translation is " Keep them from 
 the Evil One," the devil, who is the prince of the 
 world. 
 
 Then comes the central petition of the prayer. 
 " Sanctify them through Thy truth : Thy word is 
 truth," and this is repeated in the nineteenth verse, 
 " For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also 
 might be sanctified through the truth." The word 
 " sanctify " in these passages means to consecrate, 
 and the instrument, as we see, by which the con- 
 secration is to be effected is truth. 
 
 This suggests to us in a very striking manner the 
 real end and purpose of truth. If you were to ask 
 a man of the world what was the purpose of truth, 
 he would probably say that the end or purpose of 
 truth was wisdom, that man investigates truth, in 
 order that by its acquisition he may become wise. 
 But if we were to ask the Christian, who has studied 
 Christ's words, he will tell you that the end of truth 
 is not wisdom, but holiness, sanctification ; that the 
 purpose of the investigation of truth is the 
 development of character. 
 
 By truth here, of course, we do not mean merely 
 investigating the secrets of nature or the principles 
 
 312 
 
of mathematics. A man may have discovered 
 wonderful truths in the sphere of natural science, or 
 made great progress in the study of mathematics, 
 and this may be of use to him in his work in the 
 world ; but it will not affect his character in the 
 slightest degree. The truth of which our Lord is 
 speaking, is a truth which manifests its effects in the 
 sanctification of life and in the development of 
 character. " Sanctify them through Thy truth." 
 This is the central petition of this section of the 
 prayer. As Christ had prayed for Himself, " Father, 
 glorify Thy Son," so He prays for the disciples, 
 " Sanctify them through Thy truth." 
 
 " As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so 
 have I also sent them into the world." Their mission 
 was to be the same as His. They were to carry on 
 His work. For their sakes Christ says, " I consecrate 
 Myself, and this consecration was to be effected by 
 His sacrifice on the Cross. The disciples too were to 
 be consecrated through a knowledge of God's truth, 
 which knowledge should lead them to follow Christ's 
 example in consecrating themselves through sacrifice, 
 that they might carry on His work in the world. 
 
 313 
 
XL. 
 
 THE SON AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 S. John xvii. 20-26. 
 
 " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which 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 : that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the 
 glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them ; that they may be 
 one, even as We are One : I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may 
 be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that Thou hast 
 sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me. Father, I will 
 that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am ; 
 that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me : for 
 Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous 
 Father, the world hath not known Thee : but I have known Thee, 
 and these have known that Thou hast sent Me. And I have declared 
 unto them Thy Name, and will declare it : that the love wherewith 
 Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." 
 
 N each of the three divisions of our Lord's 
 High Priestly prayer, there is a central 
 petition which is, as it were, the keynote 
 to that part of the prayer. As we have seen, in 
 
 314 
 
the first division it was, " Father, glorify Thy Son ; " 
 in the second, " Sanctify them through Thy truth." 
 In the third we shall observe not less clearly that 
 it is the prayer, " That they all may be one," and this 
 petition is repeated again and again four times. The 
 prayer began with the concerns of Christ Himself, 
 then passed to the special needs of His immediate 
 disciples, and is now extended to embrace all those 
 who, by the .labours of the apostles, shall be brought 
 into the body of Christ ; for these last verses are 
 our Lord's great intercession for His Church. 
 
 He prays first for the unity of the Church, " That 
 they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, 
 and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us : 
 that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." 
 And this is repeated in the next verse. Surely this 
 prayer for unity, so dear to our Lord's heart, ought 
 to be precious to the heart of every Christian. Even 
 though for many centuries the unity of the Church 
 has been broken, and there may now seem little 
 prospect of any immediate answer to that prayer, yet 
 we must go on praying it. 
 
 In the Liturgy of the Western Church, the Prayer 
 for Unity is one of the three prayers which the priest 
 says immediately before his own Communion. 
 
 "O Lord Jesus Christ, Who saidst unto Thine Apostles, Peace I 
 leave with you, My Peace I give unto you ; regard not my sins, but 
 
-^ i^ofg ^aturbag. 
 
 the faith of Thy Church ; and grant her that peace and unity wliich 
 is agreeable to Thy will, Who livest and reignest God for ever and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 This prayer has been adopted by the Society for the 
 Promotion of tlie Unity of Christendom, as the 
 prayer to be said daily by its members. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord not only prays for the unity 
 of His Church, but indicates one great result of that 
 unity. " That the world may believe that Thou hast 
 sent Me." There is probably nothing which so hinders 
 Christian work as the divisions and want of unity 
 which are manifest among Christians themselves. 
 When there is so much quarrelling and fighting 
 amongst ourselves, how can we commend our cause 
 to those who are not Christians, but whom we wish 
 to win to Christ .'* If we are to convert the world, 
 we must begin by striving for greater unity among 
 the divided Churches of Christendom. And yet 
 much as we desire union, earnestly as we ought to 
 pray for it, we must not be willing to gain it at 
 the expense of truth, or as the result of the com- 
 promise of truth. 
 
 There is a plan of union which some people of our 
 own day propose, which would be quite disastrous to 
 truth. It is that everyone should give up that which 
 others object to, so that a residuum would be left, 
 upon which all could unite. This residuum however 
 
 316 
 
would not be the truth which our Lord handed down 
 to His Apostles. A better way to work for unity is 
 to try to understand one another's position, to be 
 willing to listen to other people's explanations of 
 their views, and to approach the study of their 
 position in a spirit of charity, earnestly striving to 
 lay aside our own prejudices, and asking the Holy 
 Spirit to guide us into the truth. 
 
 We should find probably that a very large number 
 of the differences which exist between Christians, 
 and which lead to bitter controversy, are differences 
 in regard to " terms " far more than in regard to 
 " things." People associate with certain theological 
 terms, doctrines which they rightly reject, and yet 
 very often theologians do not use those terms at all 
 in the sense in which their adversaries understand 
 them. A real desire to understand one another, and 
 to arrive at the truth, together with charity and 
 earnest prayer, will do more to prepare the way for 
 unity than either controversy or compromise. 
 
 "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast 
 given Me, be with Me where I am ; that they may 
 behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me : for 
 Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the 
 world." Having prayed for the unity of His Church, 
 Christ asks two things — (i) That those who have 
 been given Him, the Elect, may be with Him where 
 
 317 
 
^^ 
 
 J^ofg ^aturbajj. 
 
 He is, that is, in His kingdom in Heaven ; and (2) 
 That they may behold His glory, and in beholding 
 it may be partakers of that glory. This, of course, 
 refers to the future of His Church in eternity, when 
 all who have fought a good fight in the Church 
 Militant, shall have attained to the glories of the 
 Church Triumphant in Heaven. 
 
 He prays that they may be where He is, and to 
 be with Christ is Heaven. The penitent robber 
 upon the Cross said, " Lord, remember Me, when 
 Thou comest into Thy Kingdom," and Christ 
 answered, *' Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt 
 thou be with Me in Paradise." That day our Lord 
 went into the Intermediate State with the penitent 
 thief, but His presence there transformed it into 
 Heaven, into Paradise. 
 
 Since His Ascension, Christ's glorified Humanity is 
 present nowhere except at the Right Hand of God ; 
 so that at that time Heaven became Paradise. For 
 S. John in his vision of heaven speaks of the " tree 
 of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of 
 God,"* of which those, who overcome in the battle 
 of life, are to eat as their reward ; and by this he 
 certainly means Heaven, not the Intermediate State. 
 And again S. Paul tells us that he was " caught up 
 to the third Heaven," and " that he was caught up 
 
 * Revelations ii. 7. 
 
 3i« 
 
into Paradise,"* by which he certainly does not mean 
 that he went to the place of departed spirits, but 
 that he was caught up, as he says, into Heaven 
 itself. 
 
 From these passages it is clear that in the 
 Bible, Paradise is " to be with Christ," that before 
 His Ascension, during the brief space in which He 
 was with the departed spirits in Hades, He trans- 
 formed Hades into Paradise ; for where He is there 
 is Paradise ; but that after His Ascension, Paradise 
 and Heaven are synonymous. This, too, is the 
 teaching of the early Fathers of the Church, from 
 Tertullianf to S. Gregory. 
 
 " O righteous Father, the world hath (did) not 
 known Thee ; but I have known (knew) Thee, and 
 these have known (knew) that Thou hast (didst) sent 
 Me. And I (have) declared unto them Thy Name, 
 and will declare it ; that the love wherewith Thou 
 hast (didst) loved Me, may be in them and I in 
 them." These are the last words of this sublime 
 prayer. Six times we find in it the Name " Father." 
 So the prayer begins, so it ends, and by the addition 
 
 * 2 Corinthians xii. 2 and 4. 
 
 t Tertullian is sometimes quoted on the other side, since he uses the 
 term " Paradise " to describe the abode of the martyrs. But he 
 explicitly excludes from his Paradise all other souls, and identifies 
 Paradise with the altar in heaven, under which S. John saw the souls 
 of the martyrs. Rev. vi. 9. 
 
of the word " righteous," our Lord appeals to the 
 justice of God, for the word " righteous " means just. 
 
 He sums up the principal thoughts not only of 
 His prayer, but of the discourses, in three state- 
 ments : — (i) The world's ignorance of God as 
 contrasted with the disciples' knowledge of Him. 
 (2) Christ's work in declaring or making known to 
 them God's Name of Father. And (3) the purpose 
 of the revelation of that Name, that they may possess 
 divine charity. " That the love wherewith Thou 
 lovedst Me may be in them and I in them." 
 
 Throughout these chapters the antiphon has been 
 love. The discourse begins with it, *' A new 
 commandment give I unto you, that ye love one 
 another."* And as it begins so it ends. " I declared 
 unto them Thy Name . . . that the love wherewith 
 Thou lovedst Me, may be in them and I in them." 
 Ignorance of God renders this love impossible. We 
 must know God, and know Him as the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore our Father in 
 Heaven, if we are to love Him as we should. This 
 is the purpose of our Lord's revelation, that we may 
 know God as our Father, may love Him as His 
 children, and that Christ may dwell in us. 
 
 LAUS DEO. 
 
 * S. John xiii. 34. 
 
 Jarrold and Sons, Ltd., Printers, The Empire Press, Norwich, 
 

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