SECTION LXIII.

Chap. xv. ver. 9—19.

THE LOVE BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES.

9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

I have loved you with the greatest possible love. (The Father is infinite in his love to the Son, and the Son is infinite in his love to his disciples to the end of the world. -Edit.) "Continue ye in my love. Let the sense of it be always warm upon your minds. This is knocking loudly at the door of our hearts. What stubborn things they are, if they can be unmoved with such love as his !

10. 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.

Then verily we can keep them; we can know what they are, study them, bend our wills to them, and take delight in them, with the help that is afforded us; and without this proof of our love to him, we can have no other; hence if this be wanting, the words of Christ plainly imply, that we do not belong to him.

11. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

Christ's joy was the joy of love and obedience to the Father from a root of love to God, and compassion to men. Our's is the joy of remission completed by obedience; and if they are separated will dwell with neither. He came to put us in possession of it; and if he had known of any other kind of true joy, or any other way of attaining to the fulness of it, he would have told us so.

12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

This one commandment compriseth all; for love breaks none, but is all regularity in the life, as well as great joy and sweetness in the heart. Nothing is wanted but unfeigned, universal love, to make us a blessing to ourselves, and to all about us.

13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Here are two things distinctly mentioned, and carefully to be observed.

1. Though Christ died for all, none can have the benefit of his death, but those whom he vouchsafes to call his friends.

2. None are his friends, but those who keep his commandments. He has rich mercy in store for all; but the generality choose rather to go without it, than to be Christ's friends in his appointed way.

15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but 1 bave called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto

you.

Jesus does not call us servants, he has delivered to us all the will of God, and opened his whole heart of love to us, as one friend does to another, for our present peace and everlasting happiness. But if we would reap all the fruits of a blessed friendship, let us not be less his servants on that account.

16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, 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.

Christ chose them to the apostleship; not to salvation, except by their faith, and choice of him. They were to bring forth fruit in the conversion of sinners. The fruit which the apostles brought forth does remain; and they are still bringing forth fruit, and will do so to the end of

the world. St. John is now delivering Christ's words to us, and we may be his fruit, if we please. On the warrant of Christ's promise, they would ask for souls, and plead hard for them, in Christ's name.

17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

Let the repetition of this commandment convince us of its great excellency, and the necessity of it. It is God's image again in us; we were created in it, and for it, and without it we can neither be happy on earth, nor received into heaven.

18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

As if he had said, the world hateth me, and will hate you; but do not therefore abate of your love, any more on that account. Observe, that is no true love which cannot maintain itself against opposition and hatred. This is a hard lesson; but I had rather learn it of Christ, than be the most esteemed person upon earth.

19. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

The disciples of Christ, if they know what they are, must not be of the world, any more than the apostles, but forsake it, in will and affection; and bear their testimony against it; and when they do, the world will be true to itself, and forsake, hate, and persecute them.

SECTION LXIV.

Chap. xv. ver. 20-27.

MEN CANNOT HATE CHRIST WITHOUT DISPLEASING THE

FATHER.

20. Remember the word that said I unto you, The servant is

not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

Since the Jews persecuted Jesus, he assures them that the same Jews would persecute them also. Men will always be men.

21. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

So long as they are of a worldly, persecuting spirit, whatever they think, or prate of God, however learnedly they analyse his nature, and attributes, they know nothing of him as the God of love, by their own resemblance to him.

22. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.

Here is our condemnation. Christ hath spoken to us also; he is speaking to us now; and if we do not hear him, we shall have nothing to plead for ourselves, in excuse for our own neglect of his call to us.

23. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

This may seem a hard saying. Hating God is a grievous charge. But remember it came from the mouth of him who knew what was in man; and if we do not suffer him to bring us to God, what can be the reason of it, but that we hate him in our hearts ?

24. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

They had not had sin, comparatively speaking; or the great sin of unbelief to answer for. It would be a double aggravation of their sin, (as it will be of ours,) that neither Christ's words, nor works, could prevail with them to own and forsake it. They might have had as perfect knowledge of God, for all the ends of salvation, as revealed by Christ, proving his mission by his miracles, as if they had seen him

with their eyes. Christ sticks to the word hate, and would not soften it.

2. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

Not only without a cause, but in spite of the greatest love. He says a little, and leaves us to think a great deal

more

26. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

According to the tenor of these words, the Holy Ghost is equally the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, sent from both and one with them; and therefore the Spirit of truth, because he is the eternal Spirit of the Godhead.

"He shall testify of me:" outwardly, by extraordinary operations; and inwardly, by his quickening, transforming power. He is an infallible witness for Christ in every converted soul. We can no more change ourselves, than we could make ourselves at the first.

27. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

The apostles did bear witness even unto death. Blessed be God for his grace in them, and that we still have their testimony in our hands, to build us up in the knowledge and love of Christ.

SECTION LXV.

Chap. xvi. ver. 1—11.

CHRIST COMFORTS HIS DISCIPLES.

1. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be

offended.