And as to the only rational ground of trouble of heart in your condition—the sense of the Divine displeasure, the restlessness of a disordered, because depraved, nature, the terrors of everlasting destruction-these can be effectually removed only by the faith of the truth with respect to God and his Son. Believe that God is "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, rich in mercy,"-" ready to pardon,"-" a just God, and a Saviour,"-" God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," "seeing he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him ;" and believe God when he says, when he swears, that "as he lives, he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wills that they turn from their evil ways and live,”—when he declares, " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Believe that Jesus Christ hath

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put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,"-that "his blood cleanseth from all sin ;" and believe him proclaiming -“If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Thus believe in God, and in his Son Jesus Christ, whom he has sent, and even you who have been, who are, seeking peace where you never can find it— away from God, apart from Christ—even you, " believing, shall enter into rest," and your hearts shall no longer be troubled as they have been. The faith of the truth about God, as it is in Jesus," can alone deliver either saint or sinner from that worst of all kind of trouble, trouble of heart. With the heart whole, what cannot man do and suffer? but who can act, who can endure, with a broken heart? "The spirit of a man can sustain his infirmity;

but a wounded spirit who can bear?”

Exod. xxxiv. 6. Neh. ix. 17. Isa. xlv. 21. 2 Cor. v. 19. Ezek. xviii. 23, 32; xxxiii. 11. Isa. xliii, 25. Heb. ix. 26. 1 John i. 7. John vii. 37. John iii. 16. Heb. iv. 3.

Spirit-stricken, heart-troubled men,-in vain do you look to man, to earth, to time, for relief. Look to God, who, while "great and of great power," "telling the number of the stars, and calling them all by their names," "healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." Look to Jesus, who," though in the form of God," has become a partaker of human nature, and been made in all things, sin excepted, like his brethren; so that he can sympathise with and succour those who are tried, and, according to the good will of the Father, bind up the broken-hearted. Believe in God-believe in Christ; and faith in them will unfold to you in heaven and in eternity, what will effectually relieve your perplexities and soothe your sorrows. Rest to the heart is thus, is only thus, to be found.

II. WHERE CHRIST WAS GOING-AND WITH WHAT

PURPOSE.

JOHN XIV. 2, 3.-"In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."1

The trouble of heart which, at the time our Lord's discourse was delivered, so painfully agitated the disciples, and which it was his purpose to soothe and assuage, had originated

1 I delivered a discourse on these words some years ago, on occasion of the death of a truly venerable minister of Christ (the Rev. Dr Peddie), which was subsequently published as a merited tribute of respect to his memory. My object in that discourse was to fix the attention on those views of heaven which the text opens to the mind-as a house,-the house of God,-the house of Christ's Father,—a house of many mansions,--a house into which he is gone to prepare a place for his people,-a house to which he is ultimately to conduct all his people, and in which they are to dwell with him for ever. My intention, in the remarks that follow, is to look at the passage in its connection, and to consider it as a part of that statement of truth by our Lord, which calls on his disconsolate disciples to believe, in order that they might be delivered from those painful emotions of anxiety, and fear, and sorrow, which were now in so distressing a degree agitating their minds and troubling their hearts. In prosecuting this design, some of the truths stated in that discourse will necessarily be brought again before the mind; but, viewed from a different stand-point,

in the intimation he had given them, that he was about to leave them. He had said to them, "Now I go to him that sent me;" and because he had said this, "sorrow had filled their hearts." There are two things which chiefly make us unwilling to part with our friends,-the thought that it may not be so well with them where they go-and the thought that it may not be so well with us when they are gone. And nothing is so well fitted to reconcile us to the parting, and soothe the painful feelings such a prospect naturally awakens, as the assurance, that neither party is to lose-still more, that both parties are to gain-by the separation.

The disciples were troubled at what they anticipated as about to take place in reference to their Lord. He was to leave them, to leave them by dying, and by dying in very painful circumstances. They were troubled, too, at what they anticipated as about to take place with regard to themselves,―disappointed hope,—disgrace,―persecution, and an endless train of ill-defined, but not on that account less dreadful or less dreaded, evils. To relieve them, our Lord, in these words, shows them that there was no sufficient ground for such extreme trouble of heart at the thought of his leaving them, either on his account or on their own; for that ultimately his departure would prove productive of far higher advantages to both, than could have resulted from his continuance with them on the earth. Whatever temporary sacrifices and suffering the parting might occasion, it was the necessary means of his return to his Father, and his Father's house, with whom and in which he was to enjoy a state of happiness and dignity, strikingly contrasted with that state of degradation and suffering in which he was now placed, infinitely superior to any situation, however blissful and exalted, to which he could be raised on earth;

they will-many of them-be presented in a new light. It is a subject which well deserves to be looked at in all its aspects, and if a spiritual householder has his treasure moderately well furnished-however frequently he resort to it --he will bring forth from his store things new as well as old.

and it was equally the necessary means of their being ultimately made partakers of his joys and glories, by his conducting them to the mansions which he went to prepare for them, in the house of his Father, and their Father; his God, and their God.

This is the substance of the statement contained in the words before us; and surely if the disciples believed in him who made that statement, their troubled hearts could not. but be re-assured and comforted. Let us then turn our attention for a little somewhat more particularly to the results of our Lord's going away, first to himself, and then to his disciples, as these are exhibited in the text, and show how the consideration of these was fitted to comfort their hearts, and reconcile them to what, at first sight, seemed so fraught with discouragement and sorrow. "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go. and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

§ 1. The results of Christ's going away, to himself.

Let us first, then, attend to the results of our Lord's going away, in reference to himself, as these are represented in these words. His going away, so far as he was concerned, was to terminate in his arrival at the house of his Father, and his dwelling there in holy, happy fellowship with Him, and with the blessed inhabitants of the many mansions which are to be found there. There can be little doubt that, by the house of our Lord's Father, we are to understand heaven; that portion of the created universe where the Divinity has made the fullest manifestation of his excellences, and which he has appointed as the proper residence of unfallen and restored intelligent creatures-of his holy angels, and redeemed men.

Heaven is sometimes spoken of in Scripture, as a world,

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-a country, a city.' Here it is termed a house, the house of Christ's Father. The image brought before the mind is that of a magnificent palace, which the Great King of the universe, "wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working," has "built for the house of his kingdom, by the might of his power, and for the honour of his majesty." I need scarcely say, the language is figurative: He who fills heaven and earth with his presence, "who is a God at hand, and a God afar off," can have no special dwelling-place: but the meaning of the figure is not difficult to discover. The universe is God's house, for there is no place in it where he is not in all the fulness of his infinite perfections,-no place in which these perfections are not more or less clearly displayed. The temple, under the Jewish economy, was God's house, for there was the symbol of his presence, and there had he commanded those religious ordinances to be observed which are the means of communion with him. And heaven is his house, for there the most glorious revelation is made of his character, and there holy intelligences are admitted to most intimate and uninterrupted fellowship with him.

Heaven is his house also, for he is its builder. This house has not been " made by hands"-it is not the work of the wisdom, and power-of men or of angels. Its "builder and maker is God."2 "The Lord made the heavens." "The heavens are the work of his hand." And, finally, it is his house too, for he is its inhabitant. "The Lord is in his holy temple;" "in heaven is his throne;" "the Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens." It is there that he is to be seen, as he is. What is seen of him elsewhere, is only his shadow. It is there that he is to be known; it is there that he is to be communed with.

Our Lord was the Son-the only-begotten Son-the well-beloved Son of the Supreme Sovereign, whose palace is the heaven of heavens. He had, with his own

1 Luke xx. 35. Heb. xi. 10, 16. 'Heb. i. 10.

2 Heb. xi. 10.

Hab. ii. 20. Psal. ciii. 19.