VII. SUNDAY AFTER CONFIRMATION.

JOHN XV. 5.

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

IT was of course a mere coincidence that the Confirmation of this year* immediately preceded St Mark's day. Yet if I had been asked to choose a passage of Scripture to read to you in this Chapel after the celebration of that ordinance, as most full of warning and instruction to those who had just taken part in it, I could have selected none more appropriate than the Gospel for that festival. It was surely most striking and impressive to think how every word of that passage of St John which you heard on Wednesday morning, applied to the confirmed of the day before. Suffer me now, brethren, to read to you once more the sacred words, uttered by our Lord Himself to the founders and first representatives of the Church, on the very morning of the crucifixion, as the blessings and promises and warnings with which, after teaching them His Father's will, and confirming their faith and hope and love, He sent them forth to begin their labours. I am

* The Confirmation day was April 24.

the true Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. 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. Abide in me, and I in you. 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. If a man abideth 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 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. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

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Such is the passage which we heard on Wednesday, and now let me explain the circumstances under which it was originally spoken, and remind you, how exactly it applies to yourselves.

If you look at the end of the chapter preceding this, the 14th, you will see that Jesus there finishes a discourse which He had addressed to his disciples by the command: Arise, let us go hence. But then, unwilling no doubt to part from them without a few more words of warning and a yet more loving farewell, He continued to speak to them, probably while they stood around the table, ready to accompany Him to Gethsemane. Perhaps with reference to the fruit of the vine of which they had just partaken together, at the last supper, He illustrated His connection with them by the metaphor of the vine and the branches. It is a simile or parable of the same character as that of the Shepherd and the sheep*, only, as the hour of separation approached, our Lord seems to have sought for deeper and tenderer expressions by which to impress upon His disciples the earnest devotion of His love for them, and their entire dependence on Him, and thus here He chooses an image which implies a yet closer, more intimate, more essential connection than that of Sheep to their Shepherd; a union denoting that He and they were to be parts of one undivided whole, pervaded by one and the same Life. Thus it answers to St Paul's favourite simile of the Head and the members, which occurs in such passages as these: Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular+: +1 Cor. xii. 27.

* Joh. x. I ff.

we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones*; or in his warning to those who are not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of Godt. The connection between Christ and His people is not merely an outward one, like that of a teacher and his disciples, even though strengthened by the closest bonds of affection, of tender care on the one hand, and devoted reverence on the other; but our spirits must be actually quickened and pervaded by His Spirit, the life which we now live in the flesh, we must live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

He then is the Vine, we are the branches, and His Father is the Husbandman, who planted that Vine in the earth, who sent His Son to take upon Him human nature, and to become the head and chief corner stone of a Church, from which, as from a tree, should spring forth many branches, some fruitful, some unfruitful, some to honour, some to dishonour, some abounding in love, in perseverance, in all good works, others forgetting their high calling, their baptismal pledges, their solemn consecration to the service of God. The whole Vine therefore, of which our Lord Himself is the Root or Trunk, + Col. ii. 19.

Eph. v. 30.

+ See Alford on the passage.

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represents the Body of Christ, the visible community of God's people, the holy Catholic Church, in its present outward manifestation, the field in which wheat and tares alike are growing*, the drawnet gathering fishes of every kind both bad and good, to remain mixed together till they shall be separated by the heavenly Fisherman †, till the Catholic Church shall be purified and transformed into the true Communion of Saints. It includes us all; all who have been baptised, all who were confirmed last Tuesday, all who are about to receive Christ's blessed Sacrament to-day. All of us are outwardly His, branches growing from that trunk which is His Body, the Church, and without Him, that is without the real spiritual help arising from an inward connection with Him, able to do nothing.

We see then that in this way the parable, so to call it, applies directly to us all, and most directly to those who on Tuesday were, so to speak, again grafted into Christ's. Body, whose original connection with Him was then strengthened and renewed, and who, if we may so apply the language of the passage, were then purged by their Heavenly Father, that they may bring forth more fruit. They are purged or cleansed, unless indeed, which God forbid, they turned their Confirmation into a mere mockery; they are cleansed, not as is sometimes the * Matt. xiii. 24. Matt. xiii. 47.