Page images
PDF
EPUB

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. These things I command you, that ye love one another.os from it!

Thus the great duty of maintaining union and mutual love is indispensably enjoined to the members of Christ's cliuich. Upon the observance of this command depends their proficiency in the ways of righteousness and the success of their prayers. Our Lord again assures his apostles, that, whilst they maintain this love and union, the prayers that they should make in his name would be accepted of his Father. It is also upon the sanction of this duty, that he confirms the great promise of sending the Holy Ghost, to direct their judgment, to sanctify their hearts, and to abide with them for ever." And he closes this solemn address by declaring, that his design in speaking these words to his apostles was, that in him they might have peace, though they should have tribu, lation in the world.

Thus we see that the main intention of this memorable charge is, to urge the absolute

necessity of union and harmony amongst the members of Christ's church. What an im pression must it have made upon the souls of his apostles, inforced as it was by the heart-rending circumstances of that awful night, when their kind and compassionate Lord was taking a tender leave of his assembled friends, and going to suffer a cruel and ignominious death; especially when they had before their eyes the elements of that holy ordinance, which commemorated his dying for their sake ouder bas

[ocr errors]

2

Can any thing be conceived which would have more deeply impressed the duty of shewing their love to their divine Master; by keeping his new commandment, and cherishing a spirit of union and harmony amongst themselves? Yes our attention is called to greater things than these.bujith Joonila "or

We must remember, that all this took place in the same night when our Lord, being in an agony, prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground>>(Luke, xxii. 44.) si di noiäi Having closed this charge to his apostles, he turns to his Almighty Father with the

[ocr errors]

most powerful intercession in their behalf, praying that he would keep them in suhity and in truth: Holy Father! keep, through thine own name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are! I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wouldest keep them from the evil. Sanctify them through thy truth thy word is truth! And now he adds a prayer for the whole body of his church upon earth: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word that is, for the Christians of all ages and nations who should believe through the preaching of his appointed ministers 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 šent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved meant ode of Sruby'a a1 to anot

[ocr errors]

Such is the tenor of the communion office,

as it was administered by Christ himself such the great law of union and harmony in his church, which is ratified by this holy ordinance an ordinance in which, salbuhis disciples are commanded to commemorate his death till he come agains to judgment: and we find it repeatedly urged, that this union and harmony of his church is intended as a powerful argument to convince the world of the certainty of our Lord's emis sion from God the Father; and, therefore, of the truth of his religioni uuln sendt

[ocr errors]

It is, then, evident that this new com mandment has a direct application to the whole of his visible church here upon dartla for in no other acceptation of the words can this argument apply to the world in general, And such being the union of love, and mutual affection, which is essentially re quired in the church of Christ in that church, for which our Lord intercedes with his heavenly Father, and stowwhich, alone, he promises the communication of his glory it may be asked, Where is this divine prin ciple now to be recognised amongst the pro fessors of his religion? Do the members of the various assemblies of our days maintain

that perfect union, which is the essential mark of true Christianity? If they do not, where is the ground of their confidence, to wards God, or what lesson do their strife and divisions offer to the world? to t

2

To the solemn charge of the dying Re deemer to his earnest prayer for the preservation of his universal church in perfect unity and peace all the apostles of Christ attended with reverence and deep humility, and with a feeling of that love which was enjoined by their blessed Lord-all, excepting one, who, though a professor of ostentatious zeal, had now withdrawn from their society upon a separate scheme of his own: but woe to that man who shall follow his example! All, excepting that one, re vered and observed the new commandment of their Master, and continued in perfect unity.

At the time when this injunction was given, they had all been partakers of the same bread and of the same cup and as this commemoration of Christ is the most sacred solemnity amongst his disciples, the church has given it the name of communion, or mutual fellowship, and has always es

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »