his promises, and would be the pledge of their fulfilment. "I leave the world, and go to the Father: I go to receive the reward of my work; I go to plead with my Father in your behalf; I go to present your petitions, and to render them efficacious with GOD; I go to be by one perfect offering your powerful advocate on high, that, if any man sin, he may have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; I go that I may exercise that power which is committed to me over all things in heaven and earth on your behalf-that I may instruct you as a perfected prophet, that I may continuously present my offering for you as a perfected priest, and that I may reign over you and in your hearts as your king."

Herc, then, we find that a beam of divine light seems to have broken in on the minds of the disciples. I have before remarked to you how much the disciples had to get over in the circumstance of our Lord coming to them in such a very different condition from that in which he had been universally expected. His form of humiliation was an offence and a stumbling block to them; and long was it before they could reconcile their minds to receive Him whom they had expected as a glorious King, in the form of a man in poverty and in reproach. Here, however, they seem to have received a light which reconciled them to his appearance and satisfied their doubts. His discisples said to 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."

Here, then, is the second point: THE DISCIPLES' CONVICTION. The substance of this conviction was the divine mission of the Lord; and the

ground on which that conviction was built, was, that he had manifested a knowledge of what was passing in their hearts, and had solved their doubts and difficulties, which had not yet even been expressed to him. The belief of his divine mission would of course, involve the belief of his Messiahship. They could not believe that he came from God without believing that he was Christ. In fact, they here professed their faith in him as the expected Messiah: as if they had said, by this we believe that thou hast divine authority; by this we believe that all which thou hast said of thyself is true: we now do indeed cordially receive thee as the Christ and saviour of the world.

It is most important, however, for us to observe that the foundation of this conviction seems to have been in the mere exercise of the reasoning powers. You will observe that they could no longer resist the evidence which our Lord's omniscience furnished. "Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee." Their faith, then, had nothing of a moral or spiritual character about it; at least, this part of their faith had not. It was the result of a mere reasoning process: and hence it was just as transient as the impression which this striking evidence produced. It was a conviction akin to that which seems to have been produced on those who have merely examined the external evidences of Christianity. None can doubt that these men have a firm conviction of the truths of which they speak: they are masters in reasoning power; they produce the most unanswerable arguments, the full force of which they themselves seem to feel; and yet, perhaps, as we know, those who can reason most forcibly on the external evidences of Christianity are often

the infinite value of things eternal, and the trifling value of thing temporal; and yet you shall find him,' under the slightest temptation, sacrificing his eternal interest for some trivial temporal emjoyment. Again, you will find men proving the uncer

Now, beloved brethren, this ought to teach us that gospel faith is not a mere deduction of reason, or a result of evidence which we cannot rationally resist. It is true that our faith cannot be called for on any point which contradicts reason; for reason is the light of God within us, and one light cannot contradict another, though it may surpass another: and, therefore, those have done good service to the church who have shown that the foundation of our faith does stand the test of the most searching and solid argument. But more than this is needed to constitute a sound gospel believer. Faith, be it ever remembered, is not the deduction of reason, but is God's work in the heart of man; it is God removing those moral obstructions in the depraved mind of man, which, in trying circumstances, always prove more than a match for the conviction of reason. It is "an evil heart of unbelief," which the scriptures tell us we have to dread, and against which we have to guard. It is the love of this present world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. How plainly this is the case thousands of instances may show. You shall find a man proving, even to mathematical demonstration,

probable nearness of death; and yet you still find them, the very next hour, acting as if life were to last for ever, and death were never coming. Reason speaks one language, and speaks indeed unanswerably; but inclination speaks another, and inclination prevails over reason. But true faith, faith that is wrought of God in the heart, is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. True faith receives the things which God has promised as realities; and so the effects of such a faith, of a faith wrought by the spirit of God, is the rooting out of our hearts this inordinate love of earthly and temporal things, and filling the heart with the things of God. The convictions of reason catnot do this; it is reserved for the convictions of faith to do it.

Now, you will observe, it was just in this point that the faith of the disciples failed: they rested merely on the convictions of reason; their reason could no longer resist the glaring truth that our Lord knew what was passing in their hearts. But our Lord proceeded to warn them that such a thing would not stand in the hour of trial. **Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?” Search your own hearts-examine. "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.” Our Lord's warning, then, is, that strong as their convictions might seem, they would not stand the trial which now awaited them, a trial far

more severe than any they had yet endured, and involving a state of things far more offensive to their prejudices than any they had yet experienced. He warns them that their love of life would prove too powerful for their conviction, when they must choose between going with Jesus to prison and to judgment, or, on the other hand, virtually if not expressly denying him: the former would prove too strong for the latter; they would all forsake him and flee; they would get them to their own hiding places; they would be ashamed to acknowledge their connexion with him whom they professed to believe had come forth from God.

What an instructive lesson is this to us! How well calculated to check presumption, and to prove the weakness of man! How calculated to lead us to self-suspicion and self-enquiry! "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall,"

We know that the sad event proved too well how much our Lord's warning was needed. Only a very few hours after this, perhaps indeed, not more than an hour after this bold assertion of their faith-but one short hour after this expression of their conviction that Jesus had come forth from God, with all the authority and with all the power of God, these men forsook him and fled. They saw him led away to the judgment seat of Pilate and of the high priest, and they left him to his fate: there was not one among them to bear witness in his favour, there was not one of them to bear testimony to his divinity, and to say, "we know he is divine, for he told us the very thoughts of our hearts." Each one looked to his own things, and not to the things of Christ; each one followed where his own inclinations led him, and left the Lord of Glory to be led as a malefactor to the cross.

Such an instance may well lead us to search into the character of our faith. Oh, if it be a mere conviction built upon the testimony of miracles, or upon the fulfilment of prophecyif this be all you can say of your faith, be assured it is not such a faith as would lead you to the fire and to the stake, it is not such a faith as would lead you to prison and to death, for the name of the Lord Jesus: and if your faith be not such as would lead you thither for his sake, it is nothing worth. Be assured there must be more than this; there must be the work of grace wrought in the heart; there must be the power and the presence of the spirit of God; there must be faith resulting from the combined view of our sin and wretchedness and lost condition, and of the suitableness and all-sufticiency of the Lord Jesus Christ i there must be a practical conviction, not only that the truth of Christianity may be demonstrated, but that it is a scheme precisely adapted to our wants. Christ must be apprehended as a saviour, with a personal appropriation to ourselves: we must see in him all our salvation and all our desire: we must see him as all-sufficient, and ourselves as lost without him. And if, indeed, we so see our selves, and so see him, then any thing will seem preferable to the loss of him; affliction, danger, death itself, will be preferable to the denial of him: for what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Finally, the passage leads us to contemplate another of the trials of the man of sorrows. Let us pause one moment on the concluding words of the verse. "Ye shall leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." We are to consider that our blessed Lord

to an exquisite degree; and that, therefore, he would be peculiarly alive to a breach of friendship and to the unfaithfulness of men. He had all the feelings of mankind, sin only excepted; and that exception from sin would enable him to enter into all the sympathies of mankind to an extent inconceivable by any of us. So we find it expressed in one of those psalms which are the outpourings of Messiah's soul before God, (the forty-first psalm), where he complains of this: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." If we think light of such trials as these, if we think light of the Lord being left alone in his sorrows, it is only because it fell short of those feelings which, in a perfect man, binds man to his fellow man. Such was Jesus: he was the perfect man; he deeply felt the faithlessness and ingratitude of man.

But mark-and oh, mark it in order to imitate his example-mark whither he betakes himself for comfort: "and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." Of Jesus Christ no doubt this might be said in a way in which it cannot be true of any one else; there is a sense in which God the Father was in him, in which he cannot be with any one else; for he was one in essence with the Father. Yet, I apprehend, it is not in this sense that the Father's presence is spoken of, but rather as a privilege which is common to all believers; for herein Christ became an example to his people and it is well to contemplate such an emergency that we may be prepared for it, and know where to flee for comfort. God does indeed give to us many supports and consolations in things which are below. We may be strengthened by the presence and intercourse of Christian

through the creature, even as the Lord Jesus Christ was ministered to by angels, and as he also received comfort and countenance from his friends. It is not wrong to find such support from God's creatures, if we bear in mind always that these are but streams which flow. from the inexhaustible fountain above, and if we partake of them only as streams-if we take heed not to put them in the place of the fountain, and if we are ready, on their being cut off, we betake ourselves to the fountain as our satisfying and allsufficient portion. It is not wrong to enjoy those blessings which God has confered upon us here, if we only enjoy them in him, and are willing to relinquish them when we ought to seek comfort in him only. “I am not alone, because the Father is with me." All below this may go. Whatever is created does but derive its power to administer comfort or pleasure from the Creator himself: all that we enjoy in the creature may be cut off from us. To him, therefore, we are to flee when those earthly sources are dried up: and in him we never can be disappointed. For "the Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear. The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Trust in him, O ye peo-. ple; trust in him when ye find all other assistance but broken reeds. Trust in him, for "they that trust in the Lord shall not want any thing that is good." Though all earthly supplies are stopped, though every stream is cut off, you shall find yourselves abundantly satisfied while you drink from that fountain which can never be exhausted.