SERMON XV.

JOHN Xvii. 1.

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his

eyes to

beaven, and said: Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.

and

THE prayers of wise and good men are most instructive, and exhibit the human character in the noblest and most affecting point of view. Such are our Saviour's prayers; in the highest degree edifying, as might well be expected. But we have very few remains of them, as he left nothing in writing himself. And the historians of his life, the four evangelists, have only occasionally let us into this part of his character, as it fell in their way. For it is a very plain and remarkable Circumstance in their accounts of him, that

they

they had no design to write his panegyric to set him off to others, but barely to tell facts, and leave the readers to form their own judgements from them. However, from the incidental relations they have made of his devotions, and the few samples they have given us of him in this respect, he appears most eminent in piety, as every other virtue and excellence; with a constant and serious sense of God upon his mind; approaching him always with the deepest reverence, and with the most absolute resignation and submission of himself to him, who best knew how to dispose of him and all things; yet with that conscious dignity, and filial trust and confidence, which could only become one who' held such an important office under him, and who was on the best grounds persuaded, that he had invariably acted, and conducted himself agreeably to his holy will and appointment.

The only prayer of his of any length that is preserved, is that which begins with the words prefixed to my discourse. And it is impossible for any one that is of any sobriety of mind, to read it without being impressed, and deeply affected with such just and worthy sentiments of the great God, such firm assurance of being heard

and

and accepted by him, expressed with profound humility and sense of his dependence on him, by the most perfect creature, such as our Lord was.

throw

The right explication of the first sentence and petition in this prayer, will be found to great light on what follows after. And the chief difficulty lies in stating, what we are to understand by his glorifying God, and what by God's glorifying him, or the glory which he sought from God: which was not a thing peculiar to himself, however so misunderstood; for he says, "that the glory God had given him, he had also given to his disciples." These seem to be principal points; and with them he begins: "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee."

I.

To comprehend these, then, we are to consider our Lord's character, circumstances, and situation at the time. For his prayers, and of all other persons which are of

the

prayers

fered up as they ought to be, will always have something peculiar, and suited to their parti

cular case.

Now the blessed Jesus had been raised up

by

by Almighty God for the most important purpose that any being can be concerned in ; nothing less than that which the great God himself has at heart, and to which all his designs tend,—to bring back mankind, his degenerate offspring, to the right knowledge of himself, and the practice of holiness and of all virtue; as the means, and the only means, of making them happy for ever, as he intends them to be. For without the suitable dispositions, without habits of piety and virtue, none can be happy.

This was the momentous errand on which our Saviour was sent from God; in like manner as John the Baptist (John i. 6.) was sent from God, to prepare the way for him that was preferred before him, on account of his superior powers and endowments from God, and this his higher and more weighty office.

The blessed Jesus had been nursed and bred up in obscurity; nevertheless, by the care of his pious parents, though in low condition, and under the peculiar leading of divine providence, he became eminently fitted for this his destined work and station; when about the age of thirty years he came forth, and at his baptism by John was solemnly declared

clared of God to be his beloved and favoured child and messenger, whom all were to listen to and obey.

The whole Gospel-history contains an account of the works of a divine power which he wrought, and what he did, and taught, and suffered, to fulfil his ministry and bring men to God; and how he trained up his twelve chosen disciples after him, to carry on the same benevolent design :-his meek and patient temper, his true fortitude, his unwearied labours in the midst of calumnies, troubles, and persecutions, from those very men he sought to serve: which he that undertakes the dangerous part of a Reformer must expect to meet with.

In the four preceding chapters, our evangelist relates, he had been giving his long farewell charge before his death to his disciples, for their future direction, and present consolation under the anxious thought of his being to be taken away from them:-a part this of our Saviour's history and documents exceedingly to be admired, setting him in the most amiable light, full of wisdom and kindness, and the most perfect benevolence; but not in general sufficiently understood: as indeed many

of