most cordial concurrence, been sent by his Father to our earth, a remote region of His dominions, to serve ends of high importance in the administration of that kingdom of truth, and righteousness, and benignity, which ruleth over all. In working out his holy and merciful purposes, he had for more than thirty years dwelt a man among men. His condition, by his own choice and his Father's appointment, was a very humble and afflicted one. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; " but the Son of God, when he became "the Son of Man, had not where to lay his head;" he was "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." 1

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"The work given him to do" on earth, was now all but finished. It was to be accomplished by a still lower "stoop of majesty." The ever-blessed One must die like an accursed felon on the cross, and the Prince of Life lie dead in the grave. And then, after, and by means of his sufferings, he was to return to his Father's house,-to his Father's throne, to his Father's bosom. He was soon to be brought from the dust of death, by his Father, as "the God of peace," the propitiated Divinity;—and yet a little longer, and the heavens were to receive him, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand of those angelic spirits who count it their highest honour to worship him; he was to pass through these visible heavens, into the heaven of heavens, and “sit down for ever on the right hand of the Majesty on high;" "for the suffering of death," he was to be "crowned with glory and honour;" he was to be "glorified with that glory which he had with the Father before the foundation of the world;" and the Father was to say to him, "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool." Henceforth, his Father's house was to be his house,-his Father's throne his throne; and he was to dwell with Him in that house, sit with him on that throne. IIis "glory was to be great in his Father's salvation; honour and majesty

Matth. viii. 20. Isa. liii. 3.

were to be laid on him. He was to be made most blessed for ever,-made exceeding glad in the light of his Father's countenance."

Nor was this all. In his Father's house were many mansions”—many secure abiding dwelling-places-and those mansions were not tenantless. It is probable that there is an allusion here to the numerous chambers in the sacred precincts at Jerusalem, for the ministering priests and Levites. All in the holy house above are priests—ministering priests-and there is accommodation for them all. There were dwelling the countless host of those holy angels, "who kept their first estate, and left not their own habitation ;" and there were dwelling, too, all the redeemed from among men, from the parent pair, who trusted in the woman's seed for deliverance from the effects of their fatal transgression and the malignity of the old serpent, down to the last who had left the earth, looking for the salvation of Israel. There dwelt Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Elijah, and Isaiah, and multitudes more, in the kingdom of their Father. In the house of God, in the midst of these—the elders, and the innumerable company of angels-he was to dwell, the object of their most affectionate love-most reverent adoration; and, while

1 Heb. ii. 9. Psal. cx. 1; xxi. 1-6.

2 “ Non dicit τόποι πολλοί, non οἰκίαι πολλαί, non σκηναί πολλαί, sed μοναί, mansiones."-ERAS. SCHMID. "Multæ, quæ et angelos, et vestros fide antecessores, et vos, et quam plurimos capiant. Ipso plurali numero videtur etiam varietas mansionum innui, nam non dicit mansio magna, sed mansiones multæ."-BENGEL. "Cœlum vocat domum Patris sui: forsan allusione ad templum quod vocabatur Domus Jehova. Cum vero in templo Hierosolymitano varia essent conclavia, hinc est quod etiam in templo cœlorum, varia conclavia, et multæ quasi s nobis repræsententur. Vel allusione ad ædes regias et Domum ipsius Davidis et Solomonis in qua, variæ contignationes, innumeræque cameræ ad usum et voluptatem regis et aulicorum. Sic cœlum veluti Regis et Dei palatium ab illo solo non tantum occupandum sed ab angelis et fidelibus ad quorum usum variæ cameræ et quasi mansiones etiam hic a Domino nostro commemorantur."-LE MOYNE. A learned and ingenious friend suggests a doubt whether our Lord refers to heaven here, which is nowhere else in Scripture called God's house, or does not rather intimate that, though he and his disciples were to be visibly parted from each other, they were still to be, as it were, under the same roof-it being but one family in heaven and in earth, though living in different mansions.

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the inner circle-redeemed men, "nearest the throne and first in song"-raise their hallelujah, "Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood," the wondering angels surrounding them join in the chorus, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." He was to dwell with God in the midst of these holy happy beings, "the Lamb being the light" of that blessed region-the immediate author of all their happiness. All this is implied in our Lord's going to the house of his Father-that house in which were many mansions. This was "the joy which was set before him," and for which "he endured the cross, and despised the shame." "

Our Lord's words could be but imperfectly understood by the disciples at this time; but, if they had but believed them, what they could comprehend was well fitted to relieve them of that oppressive trouble of heart under which they laboured. Their Master was soon to be placed beyond the reach of his enemies, and put in possession of blessings and honours far above the highest conception they could form of happiness or of glory. True, the cross and the grave lay between, but heaven-the heaven of heavensclosed the prospect, and their Lord there sitting on the right hand of the throne of God. Surely our Lord might well say to them, " If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I." Such is the view which our text gives us of the results of our Lord's going away, so far as he himself was concerned, and such the influence which it was fitted to have in lessening his disciples' trouble of heart.

§ 2. The results of Christ's going away, to his disciples. But there is reason to think that that trouble of heart proceeded, at least as much from a consideration of the

1 Rev. v. 9-14.

2 Rev. xxi. 23.

3 Heb. xii. 2.

4 John xiv. 28.

manner in which their own interests were to be affected by their Lord's departure, as from the anticipations of what might befal him; and, accordingly, we find our Lord's statement directly and fully meeting their anxieties and fears with regard to themselves. When their Lord left this world, and went to the Father, he was not about to forget them. By his going to the Father, he was to secure for them a place in his Father's house; and when he had made everything ready, he was to return again, and take them to himself, that where he was, there they might be also. Such are the declarations he makes; and he appeals to themselves if they had not had abundant evidence to demand the unhesitating belief that, if these things had not been so, he never would have encouraged them to cherish such hopes.

"I go," says he, "to prepare a place for you." "In my Father's house are many mansions." There is room enough for you as well as for me. There are many there already, but there is room for many more. But that is not enough. Mansions must be prepared for you-and you must be prepared for these mansions-and my purpose in going away, and in going away in the manner in which I am going"going as it was written "-" going as it was determined" -is to secure both these purposes.'

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"I go to prepare a place for you." We are not to understand these words exclusively, or perhaps even chiefly, of what our Lord was to do after he had arrived at his Father's house in heaven. They refer fully as much to what he did in going, as to what he is doing, now that he is there. But for his going, and going in the way in which he went— through death and the grave-they never could have come to the Father in heaven; and many as are the mansions in his house, none of his people would have ever been prepared for a place in these mansions.

1" Locus ipse paratus est: vobis parabitur. Præparatio alia absoluta, alia respectiva."-BENGEL.

It may be asked, But was not the kingdom-which is but another name for a place in Christ's Father's house (for none are there but the children, and all the children are "kings" as well as " priests to God, even the Father”)— Was not "the kingdom prepared for them from before the foundation of the world?" 1 So far as the Divine purpose was concerned it was so. But the Divine purpose can only find fulfilment in accordance with the principles of the Divine government. Preparation must be made to make the admission of such persons, as all men-the elect as well as others are, consistent with the character and law of God as the moral governor of the universe.

Had sin never entered our world, so far as admission to heaven is concerned, all things would at all times have been ready for the innocent holy children of men. Their Father's house would always have been ready for them, and they ready for their Father's house. But all-the elect as well as the rest of men-have sinned, and have been condemned. That sentence of condemnation must be removed, in order to their admission to heaven; and forgiveness and justification can proceed only on the ground of an atonement being made and accepted. There is-there can be— no place in heaven for men labouring under unexpiated guilt, unforgiven transgression.

Nor is this all. Heaven must not only be opened to men, but men must be made fit for heaven. God's justice refuses admission into heaven to the guilty-God's sanctity to the unholy. The preparation of a place for his people in heaven implies, I apprehend, the doing all that is necessary to secure them a welcome, a suitable, a permanent place there.

Now, this was the design of our Lord's going to heaven, and going to heaven in the way he did. This was the design of what he did, to open up for himself, as the repre

1 Rev. i. 6. Matth. xxv. 34.