of his joy; may we from the bottom of our hearts say, as he did to our risen Saviour, "My Lord and my God!"

But is there even something yet more? "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou hast believed: Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." A few hours before Christ had prayed, "not for his present disciples only, but for all those who were to believe on Him through their word." How graciously is His act in accordance with His prayer. Thomas was fully satisfied; his fellow disciples were satisfied; they had received all that they desired, and thankfully acknowledged it. But Christ remembers those also "who were to believe on Him through their word." To them must be given that same satisfaction which his first disciples were then enjoying; the beloved disciple of our Lord who had seen first the empty sepulchre, and who was now rejoicing in the full presence of Him who had been there, but was now risen, he was to convey what he had himself seen to the knowledge of posterity. And he was to convey it hallowed as it were by Christ's especial message; he was to record that on that evening in that one chamber, there were present before the Lord not His eleven disciples only, but all his universal Church to the end of time; to them He shows Himself; to them He addresses Himself; nay, His words to them are

if possible even more gracious than those to His earliest disciples: "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." We have all our portion in Christ's look and words of love, we have our portion in the full conviction then afforded that He was risen indeed; and besides all this, we have received besides a peculiar blessing. Christ Himself gives us the proof of His resurrection, and blesses us for the joy with which we welcome it.

With this most gracious message from our Lord Himself to those who should read his Gospel, St. John may be said to have concluded it. The last chapter was in all probability added afterwards; its character is clearly that of a distinct supplement, added after the original design of the work itself was completed. And the two last verses of the twentieth chapter are but a reference to our other accounts of our Lord's life, lest any should think that because St. John had omitted so much of what others had recorded he meant to throw a

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suspicion on its truth. Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book." St. John has himself related only a few, but he tells us that these were but a few out of many; it was far from his purpose to relate all, probably it has not been God's will that even the other Evangelists should have related all; it may be, and probably is true, that many other signs did Jesus in the presence of His

disciples which are not written in the books of any of the Evangelists. But what we have were "written, that we might believe that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through His name."

Seeing then that St. John's Gospel properly concludes with our Lord's answer to Thomas's confession, it is not surely fancy, if we connect this end of the Gospel with the beginning of it, and observe how St. John brings round his account of our Lord to the very point from which he began it. His Gospel opens with declaring who Christ was from the beginning; the Lord and Maker of all things. He then relates how the Lord of all things became flesh and dwelt among us; or, in the language of St. Paul, how He who was before in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man. Whilst He was on earth, His Divine nature was veiled from the eyes of His disciples, but now that He was risen to die no more, it was declared to them fully; and thus we find Thomas, immediately on being convinced that his Lord was truly risen, acknowledging Him to be his Lord and his God. So that St. John ends at that very point where the statement of Christ's nature made at the beginning of his Gospel was justified as it were by the event; he had told how Christ had come forth from His Father and was come into the world;

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and he ends his Gospel with showing how He left the world and returned to His Father; and how His true nature was at last manifested and acknowledged.

His true nature manifested and acknowledged! Yes, in one sense certainly, acknowledged in all our forms of worship, repeated in our creeds from one end of the world to the other. But not so acknowledged as St. John meant, when he said, as we heard in the Epistle this morning, "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" If this and this only be in St. John's sense an acknowledgment of Christ's true nature, then I fear that He is not yet acknowledged; not fully acknowledged, but I hope acknowledged in part, and becoming acknowledged more and more. I do trust that your faith is not in vain, that you do many of you know what it is to gain a victory through faith over the world and over yourselves. I do trust that to many of you Christ is risen indeed. May He be more perfectly acknowledged by them and by us all.

RUGBY CHAPEL,
April 2nd, 1837.

SERMON XXIII.

THE ANCIENT CHURCH.

ACTS, ii. 46, 47.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people.

IT has always seemed to me one of the great advantages of the course of study generally pursued in our English schools, that it draws our minds so continually to dwell upon the past. Every day we are engaged in studying the languages, the history, and the thoughts of men who lived nearly or more than two thousand years ago; if we have to inquire about laws or customs, about works of art or science, they are the laws, customs, arts, and sciences, not of existing nations, but of those whose course has been long since ended. And the very difficulty which is often found in realizing the