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the church, and that now, himself lifted up, he would draw all men after him.

When it is a pastor of the ordinary rate that expires, no other consequence can be deduced from his preseverance to the last but this, that he had preached what he believed to be the truth, not what was so in fact. And it is possible he may deceive himself when he is dying, as he pretended not to infallibility while he lived. But the death of those extraordinary men, who have established, by their testimony, the facts on which all religion rests, is the touchstone of the doctrines which they taught. As it was impossible they should have been deceived in the points which they attest, there can remain no other suspicion to affect their testimony, but this, that it was their intention to impose upon others and this suspicion falls to the ground when we behold them, without deviation, persisting to the end in the faith which they professed, attesting it by new appeals to heaven, calling God to witness their sincerity, and their innocence.

All these different considerations unite in the person of Jesus Christ: all these motives to attention, and in an order infinitely superior, fix our meditation on the words which have been read. Come and behold the sentiments of your Saviour unfolded without disguise: come and behold the most lovely display of the human soul that ever was exhibited: come and behold whether he for one moment doubted, whether he shrunk back : above all, come and behold the charity by which he was animated. Charity formed the plan of the sacrifice which he should offer, and charity is hastening to accomplish it. Every thought of this dying Jesus is employed on his disciples; is employed about you, my beloved brethren. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me. I pray for

them. I pray for those whom thou hast given me : keep them through thine own name. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.

Such are the objects, my friends, which I would this day present to your contemplation. I put aside all the theological controversies which have taken their rise from the passage under review. My only aim shall be to recommend to your most serious attention the expressions, one after another, the heart-affecting, the penetrating expressions of the dying Saviour of mankind. So far from going abroad in quest of enemies to combat, I could even wish to confine my address, at the present hour, to such of my hearers as have a heart susceptible of those tender sentiments with which the religion of Jesus Christ inspires all who cordially embrace it. On hearts possessed of such sensibility I could wish to engrave the last expressions of the Redeemer's love: I could wish this sermon might accompany you up to your dying hour: I could wish that, in the moment of expiring agony, you might be enabled to oppose to the fearful threats of the king of terrors, these fervent petitions of the Saviour of the world, which set open to you the gates of heaven, and which establish your eternal felicity on a foundation more unmoveable than those of heaven and earth: 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. Amen.

We shall arrange our subject in the order of the three following ideas, and shall endeavor to point out to you:

I. The relation in which Jesus Christ stands to God.

II. The relation which subsists between the. apostles and Jesus Christ.

III. The relation subsisting between believers. and the apostles.

We shall distinguish these three ideas, only for the purpose of afterwards establishing, and sublimating the mystery of their union. For the perfect obedience which Jesus Christ yielded to the supreme will of his heavenly Father, has united him to God in a manner ineffable, so that he is one with God, not only as partaking of the divine nature, but considered as a creature.

Again, the glorious manner in which the apostles have executed the functions of their apostleship, having not only believed the doctrines which their Master taught them, but diffused them over the whole world, and like him, sealed them with their own blood, has united them in the closest intimacy with Jesus Christ, so that they are one with him, as Jesus Christ is one with the Father.

Finally, the respect with which believers receive, and acquiesce in, the doctrine of the apostles, apď that of Jesus Christ, raises them to a participation of the same exalted glory and felicity; so that believers being united with the apostles, the apostles with Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ with God, there results from this union, a society, a whole, noble, sublime, possessing the perfection of glory and blessedness. Now, it is the complete union of this whole, it is the perfection of this communion among all these orders of being, that Jesus Christ here asks of the Father.

I. Let us, first, examine the relations in which Jesus Christ stands to God. Jesus Christ may be

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considered under two different ideas, as God, and as Mediator. There are, accordingly, two kinds of relation subsisting between God and Jesus Christ; 1. a relation of nature; and 2. a relation of economy. Jesus Christ as God is one with the Father; he is likewise so in his character of Mediator.

1. There subsists between God and Christ, a unity of nature. We perceive more than one proof of this in the words of my text. For what are we to understand by that glory of which Jesus Christ speaks, which he had with the Father before the world was, unless it be that he is God, as the Fa ther is God.

I am well aware, that in the very chapter we are attempting to explain, some have pretended to discover an argument which militates against this doctrine. The enemies of the divinity of our blessed Lord, have frequently employed the words which we have recited, as a bulwark to defend their error: this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, ver. 3. They tell us, that Jesus Christ here distinguishes himself from the true God, and they have thence concluded, that he is of a different nature. But it is an easy matter to refute this objection, by permitting Jesus Christ to explain his own meaning, and interpreting scripture by scripture. Let us, from other passages, see how Jesus Christ has distinguished himself from the true God. Is it because he is not the true God? By no means; for it is expressly declared in another place, that he is the true God, and eternal life, 1 John. v. 20.

If then, Jesus Christ has referred to two classes, every branch of Christian knowledge: if he has placed in one class, the knowledge relating to the true God, and in the other class, all knowledge re

lating to the Son, whom the true God has sent into the world, this is simply reducing the whole of Christian Theology to the two great questions which were the subject of discussion in his time, and which contained a summary of all the topics which can be discussed on the subject of religion. The first was the point in dispute between the Pagan and the Jew: the other, between the Jew and the Christian.

The matter in dispute between the Pagan and the Jew, was, whether there were only one God, or more than one. Respecting this question, Jesus Christ pronounces a clear decision; that eternal life consists in knowing the one true God. The point in dispute between the Jew and the Christian, related to Christ's being the Messiah, the sent of God. But this Jesus, whom God has sent, is he God Creator, or is he a creature merely? Neither the negative nor the affirmative side of this question is directly established in these words: this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. Once admit what Jesus Christ demands on the subject of the first two questions, and the third will presently resolve itself. For if we know that there is only one God, and that Jesus Christ is sent by him, we must receive, without hesitation, the doctrine which God has taught us by his Son, whom he hath sent and if we receive this doctrine, we must believe, from the doctrine itself, that he who is sent, must be God because the divinity of his nature is one point of the doctrine which he hath taught.

There are, therefore, relations of nature between Jesus Christ and God. There is a unity of Jesus Christ as God with his Father. There is a glory which Jesus Christ had with God before the world was, and which he always possessed, even at the

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