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clouds, to meet their Lord in the air: and so shall they ever be with the Lord." Thus shall they be received to their Lord, cordially welcomed home to the house of many mansions, where they shall for ever be with him where he is. Having made his house ready, he will then admit them into it as his ransomed bride, now fitly adorned for her husband. As the beloved disciple did to the honoured mother of his Lord, when from the cross he had set the seal on his filial love and friendship by commending his mother to the care of his friend, he will "take them to his own home."

Our Lord's words deserve close attention. "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself." His object would not be gained if they did not occupy the place he had prepared for them; and they might rest assured that he would not leave his work half done. Till the place be prepared, till all things be ready, he will not come; but when the place is prepared, when all things are ready, he will not tarry. He himself will come. To bring his redeemed ones home is a work at once too great in itself, and too grateful to him, to be done by substitute. He himself will conduct his collected brethren to the house he has prepared for them. Like Joseph, he himself will place his brethren, and give them a possession in the best of the land of the blessed. Is it not meet, then, that they should gratefully acquiesce in the arrangement, and say, "Thou shalt guide us by thy counsel, and thou shalt afterward receive us to glory." He does not say, 'I will come and stay with you on earth;' but, "I will come and receive you unto myself." He does not come to live with them, but to take them to live with him. It is not 'that I may be where you are,' but that you may be where I am.' There are some good Christians who very fondly

11 Thess. iv. 15-18.

2" zgos iμautóv. Majestatis plena locutio. Patris domus, Filii domus."BENGEL.

3 John xix. 27.

Gen. xlvii. 11.

cherish the thought, that the Saviour, when he comes, will stay with them on earth; but we rather think they will be agreeably disappointed. He will be better to them than they hope, he will take them to heaven. To have Christ with us on earth would be good, but to be with Christ in heaven is far better. We think it safer, as more scriptural, while it is also more pleasant, to look for him from heaven, not to remain with us on earth, but to take us to heaven. We would "set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth;" we would "seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." 1 He does not say, 'I will come and visit you, but return without you;' he says, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." "

Much of what we know to be included in our Lord's promise could not be known to the disciples; but the general statement, that his departure was necessary for their welfare, and that in due time he should return, and take them to be for ever with him in a state of blessedness, was well-fitted to relieve them of that excessive trouble of spirit which now oppressed them. It was true here, as it is in many other cases, the narrowness of their minds, and their mistaken apprehensions, were the great cause of their sorrows. The coming event which so alarmed them, whether looked at in reference to its ultimate results to their Master or to themselves, was a fitter cause of satisfaction than of perplexity, of joy than of sorrow. If they loved him, they would have rejoiced because he was going to the Father; if they loved themselves, they would have rejoiced, for he was going to prepare a place for them.

In illustrating these two principles, I have explained every part of the passage before us except what looks like a parenthetical statement, "If it had not been so, I would have told you." The construction and meaning of the original

1 Col. iii. 1, 2.

2 Horton.

words are somewhat doubtful. Some connect these words with what follows, and explain them in various ways. Some, 'If there were not many mansions in my Father's houseroom enough for your reception-I would say to you, I go to prepare mansions for you. I have too great a regard for you not to take care that you shall be well accommodated; but I need not say this, for the accommodation is ready,— there are many mansions prepared.' Others,' reading it interrogatively, 'If it were not so, would I say—what I am just about to say, and in effect have said to you already— would I say, I go to prepare a place for you?' Others, 'Besides moreover I say to you, I go to prepare a place for you.' We prefer, upon the whole, the rendering of our translators, and the sense it brings out: If there had not been many mansions in my Father's house, and mansions for you,'—i. e., ' if provision had not been made for your complete and eternal happiness,-I would have told you that it was so I would never have encouraged you as I have done, to entertain so high hopes. I knew that you expected eternal happiness from me in a future world, as well as high places in the kingdom you expected me to establish in this world; and I encouraged the one hope as much as I discountenanced the other. I never would have done this, had there not been an absolute certainty that that hope would never make you ashamed.' Viewed in this light, its import has been beautifully brought out by an accomplished writer:-" He was not the person to mock them with vain hopes, to cheat them with empty and fallacious promises. He had never scrupled to tell them forcibly how grievously they were deluded by the phantoms and day-dreams with which they suffered their imaginations to be dazzled in connection with his anticipated reign. Their fond visions of earthly pomp, power, and pleasures, he had

This is Bengel's interpretation. Semler gives the words a somewhat different turn-"Si vero res sic non haberet,-si hac in terra expectanda esset Messiæ politia humana, jamdiu vos ista in sententia et spe confirmassem."

unsparingly exposed and dissipated, and thus had given them the most convincing pledge, that if these anticipations of the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,' had been equally unfounded and illusory, he would not have spared to tear from their bosom the dear deceit, the beautiful delusion, he would not have invited them to sacrifice all that they esteemed most precious in this world, in order to obtain an unreal shade, in order to purchase an eternal disappointment."

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How replete with instruction and consolation to the disciples of Christ in every country and age is the passage of Scripture we have thus attempted to illustrate! How wellfitted to sustain, and invigorate, and comfort, amid the labours, and anxieties, and sorrows of life-while mourning over the graves of our friends, and looking forward to our own dissolution! Are not the heaviest of our afflictions light-are not the longest-lived sorrows but for a moment -when compared with that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is here held out to us? With such a home before us, who would grudge though the road to it were rough and thorny, long and devious? And how do the reflected glories of that region where "they have no need of the sun and moon to enlighten them, for the Lord and the Lamb are the light thereof," not only shed a heavenly radiance over the darkest scenes of this dark world, but cast so deeply into the shade all mere earthly enjoyments, as to make us feel that it is madness to seek our portion in them, and that to depart to that land where there are no shadows is indeed far better!

Brown Patterson.

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III.-CHRIST THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE."

JOHN XIV. 4-6.-" And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

The power of prejudice over men, is indeed wonderful. The importance of pre-occupancy, with regard to property, has passed into a proverb; and no possessors seem more indisposed to be expelled from the tenement they have secured, than the occupants of that little world, the mind of man. When an opinion, or feeling, however originating, has obtained a place there, and kept it for a long series of years, it is no easy matter to unsettle and dislodge it. We are very unwilling to be convinced, that what we have long counted true, is false, especially in cases where, in consequence of our interests and passions being involved, a conviction of the falsity of an opinion long held, is connected with the relinquishment of expectations long and fondly cherished. On the one hand, evidence which seems to every other person perfectly conclusive, seems to the prejudiced person destitute of all force, when directed against his favourite opinion; and, on the other hand, arguments which appear to indifferent persons obviously altogether irrelevant, sophistical, and inconclusive, have on his mind. the effect of powerful confirmations and most satisfactory proofs.

Never, perhaps, was the power of prejudice more strikingly displayed than in the rejection, by the great body of the Jewish people, of the claims of Jesus Christ to be the Messiah promised to their fathers. The idea of a temporal Messiah-the notion, that the promised deliverer was to be a secular prince, and his kingdom a worldly empire-had taken early possession of, and had for ages held all but universal dominion over, the national mind. This notion was

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