The “I Will” of Comfort

John xiv. 18

“I will not leave you comfortless [or, orphans]: I will come to you.”

Here we have an “I will not,” and an “I will,” in close and signficant conjunction. The one admits us into what we might call the negative and the other into the positive side of Christ’s love; the first gives us His knowledge, feeling, responsibility, &c., with regard to His people; and the second, the activity of His love. He will not leave them orphans. He will come unto them.

Reader, if you have become a disciple of Christ, peruse these pages, with reference to yourself, as well as those to whom the words we are now about to consider, were originally spoken. He who knows anything of the needs of the divine life will lay hold of such a promise as this, and take it in all its full teaching to himself.

And first, let us consider for awhile these blessed words.

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS,” or orphaned. Look at the prospect that lay before the disciples; whichever way we turn it was a comfortless one; the loss of Christ was the loss of all — the loss of their head — the subtraction of the great object of life — the bereavement of themselves, so that they must be left in a condition of orphanage, with all the evils consequent on that helpless state. Jesus made a provision for all this gloomy prospect, when He promised that He would not leave them orphaned.

What a fearful loss would Christ have been to His disciples, had He gone away never to return any more. He was the head of this little family; to Him they had been accustomed to look up as Teacher, Lord, and All in all; in all their ignorance He was their advisor, in all their difficulties He was their helper; and although they were no doubt much to each other in holy brotherhood, still their relationship to each other was founded upon their common relationship to Him. Let Jesus be severed from them, let their bond with Him be broken up, and there remained nothing to bind them to each other. Oh! how sorely we miss the earthly head of a family, when he or she has filled up the headship in the way which God designed; we never know what such a head is to us, until it is lost; then, when the great void is made, and there is no one to look to for counsel, no one for action, when we are thown back upon our own resources, then we feel what it is really to be left alone,

Jesus knew well what would be the condition of His disciples if He left them thus headless; well did He know what He had been to them; He knew this, far better than they did; and, acting out of his own knowledge, He makes the promise, will not leave you comfortless.’’ Is it not a comfort to us, also, that Christ acts towards us even as He did towards those His immediate disciples out of His own knowledge. Jesus foreknows all that lies before His people, under such and such circumstances, and makes provision accordingly; it is as though Christ said, I know what would happen if I were to leave you, do not fear, I will not hand you over to ruin.’”

Eight thankful ought we to be, dear reader, that Jesus knows so much better than we do ourselves, what He is to us. We grow gradually into the knowledge of His headship, into the deep feeling of our own need of it; but He starts as it were with that knowle*dge, and He acts upon it, and is often acting in the power of His headship, when we are coming sadly short of acting in the power of our membership.

And it will not be amiss to pause for a moment, and ask ourselves, whether Christ be indeed our head; whether we feel Him in that relationship to us; whether, if He were removed, we should not altogether go to pieces. Are we amongst those who would sorely miss Christ if He were to withdraw Himself and be gone? If we be, then we have this great comfort — Christ’s knowledge always overpasses ours. He knows what He is to us, even more than we can know; and if we shudder at the thought of being left — left headless — our feeling about the matter is nothing compared with His.

But there was another very important point in which the disciples would have been left comfortless, had Jesus wholly departed from them; such a departure would have involved the subtraction of the great object of their life; the apostles must have been left aimless, objectless men. Christ had been the one prominent figure before them for many a long day; with Him they journeyed, with Him they rested; with Him they lived and moved and had their being, and every hope and thought were centred in Him. Mistaken though they were, about the immediate restoration of the kingdom of Israel, and their own consequent exaltation; still everything was connected with their great Master; and so to take Him away was to take all. Now we ourselves, perhaps, know in some measure, what it is to have a great object in life removed. Here is one who has planned, and laid out, and built for another, and now that other is gone, and the flower beds are colorless and scentless to him, and the rooms echo gloomily to the solitary footfall, and where every minute thing used to be of interest, now alas! everything oppresses; for the object for which all these things were, is gone. There is always some one object which is the mainspring of life; and when that is removed, the wheels stand still. The aimless, objectless man is generally a misery to himself.

Now Christ foreknew what would be the misery of His disciples, thus left objectless in life. He knew that their nets could never be to them what they had been before, and that the receipt of custom had lost its exclusive charms; He knew, moreover, that it was He who had displaced these, as life’s great object, substituting Himself in their place; and now, if He went away for ever, what remained for them but an aimless life and a miserable death. We cannot imagine Christ’s calmly contemplating this, without making provision for it. And all true-hearted disciples are very much in the position of those to whom our Lord here speaks. Jesus has become to them the great object in life; I do not say that He has taken away all life’s interests, or that He has diminished the fondness of righteous affections, but He has placed Himself above them all, substituting Himself for whatever ruled the heart, and becoming THE object of that heart’s affection, and that mind’s thought, so that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again 2 Cor. v. 15.

Should these pages fall into the hands of any young persons who fear that joining Christ in true discipleship involves great loss in the way of earthly interests, I would affectionately remind them that Christ has effectually provided for this by substitution. He ever gives more than He takes; it is a fixed rule of the divine life, that none shall be a loser by Him. It is because they are ignorant of this substitution, that many are afraid of union with J esus; nature abhors a vacuum, and they think only of what they shall lose, unmindful of what they shall gain. Just as the husband substitutes himself, and all his interests, and concerns, for the acquaintances and pursuits of unmarried life; and as this is no loss but a gain — a gain — when the husband is worth loving, so Christ substitutes Himself and all His interests, and concerns, for that which formerly absorbed the heart; and when He does this, it must be to our gain. Now, the very fact of Christ’s doing this is in itself an argument against His so departing from His people, as to leave them comfortless; deliberately to make Himself all this to the soul, and then deliberately to go away, would be cruelty indeed; we are slow in raising expectations which we are not certain of being able to answer; shall Christ bo less thoughtful than we?

Not SO. He substitutes Himself, the imperishable One, for all that passeth away. He gives Himself to His peopleasHeis, ^Hhe same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.“”

Did not the blessed Lord Jesus Christ see also the helpless condition of His disciples if He left them alone in the world, to return to them no more? We know that none are so helpless as the orphan: all the little needs of daily life are seldom thought of by any save a parents head, all the little sorrows of life are but feebly felt for except by a parent“s heart; and thus helpless must the disciples have been, if their connection with Christ were now to be broken off by death. For who in the world could supply their need, even supposing that need were known? The wants of the disciples were such as the world had no stores to meet; and this Jesus knew; the aspect of a friendless, helpless family was that which met His view, if His people were permanently despoiled of Him. This is the picture which a deserted leople present even now to Jesus; this picture He will never allow to become a reality, in the case of even the weakest, and most friendless, of those who have cast in their lot with Him. Be not afraid, dear reader, of ever becoming a poor forlorn creature, if you embrace Christ; friends, perhaps, threaten to desert, you may feel that even in your own family circle you must stand alone; Satan may work this thought in your mind, and say, How can you ever stand such a trial as this our answer is that of the apostle, I can do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth me;”” it is this, We take the promise of Jesus to ourselves, we are His disciples; His promise is to us also, as well as to the apostles, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.”

Now let us look at this dreary prospect of orphaned disciples in relation to the Lord Jesus Qhrist personally.

Their Master was, if we might so speak, hound to take care of them, as He had influenced them to give up all for Him. We are ready to grant that that all’^ was very little; still it was all to them; and God looks at all things relatively, as well as absolutely; Ho estimates that which is given according to the capacity of the one who gives. It is a very comforting thought that God looks at things in this light: that He puts His own and not man’s value upon the two mites; that He knows our feelings, and what it may cost us to do, or give, or give up, any thing for Him.

Whoever makes any sacrifice for Christ, comes forthwith into relation with Him in reference to that sacrifice; Jesus puts Himself in the place of all that we have given up; we have ventured in obedience to His word; it would be a horrible scandal throughout eternity, if any could point out a man who had been a loser by Christ. Christ will not disavow the consequences of the great act, by which we gave up all for Him; He will never say, Your act was right, these are only the natural consequences of it, I have nothing to do with them oh no! Christ links Himself to the consequences of the great act, even as He is unalterably linked to the act itself. Whenever we can clearly trace a connection between our suffering, and the One for whom we suffer, we may always rest assured, that that One will never leave us nor forsake us.

And, surely, it has been the experience of God’s people, that Jesus has amply made up to them for any thing that they have given up for Him. Hewitson gave up every earthly prospect for Christ — the worlds and the things of the world; and what was his testimony? I never have a moment’s peace, when I return in the slightest degree to conformity with the world; hut I always have great peace when my soul returns home to its city of refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. Communion with Christ is the only source of satisfying, the only source of lasting enjoyment. I have enjoyed even more, this morning, from beholding the loveliness and glory of Christ, as revealed to me by the Spirit, than I have from the world, during the whole of my life past.” And in one of his letters to a college friend, he gives such a plain testimony to the all-sufficiency of Jesus, as a supplier of any void that is made for His sake, that we shall insert it here. Do you recollect,” writes he, what converse we often had together at on religious subjects? That converse was pleasant to me, and yet painful, for I was seeking Jesus then, but I had not found Him. I was too ambitious of human honor, too fond of the world, to seek any thing else in J esus, than a deliverer from the guilt of sin. I did not hate sin itself — I did not seek Jesus that I might be delivered from the power and dominion of sin. There was a vehement controversy between the Holy Spirit, and my carnal nature in those days! He often drew me with loving kindness, but my neck was an iron sinew, and I still willingly lay in chains of darkness, a slave to the beggarly elements of this world’s enjoyments. I did not lay to heart these words of J esus, How can ye believe, who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?’ I sought to believe, but the pursuit, or rather the thirst of worldly honor made faith impossible. Glad enough I would have been if I could have followed Jesus, without being obliged to deny myself, and to take up the cross. I was laboring under a strange delusion, for I did not know that if only I were willing to leave all and follow Christ, He would make the cross not heavy to be borne, but a delight, more pleasant than to the miser is his load of gold, or to the earthly monarch are his insignia of power. I did not know what these words meant, My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Now I understand, that if we only be willing to give up all for Christ, He is willing to give us more happiness, ten thousand fold, than we give up for His sake.“”’”*

J esus amply made up to Hewitson for all he gave up for Him.

Out of 365 religions in the world,“” said a highly educated Jew one day to his beloved child, an accomplished and lovely girl of nineteen, as she was urging upon him the wonderful graciousness of that Divine Saviour whom she had found in the crucified Nazarene, I don“t think yours the easiest; people have to work so hard, and be so distressingly earnest and so awfully solemn; it makes me ill to think of it.“” Ah!“” replied the youthful convert, this religion is a very happy and a very easy one. I have an inward peace and joy which is unspeakable. Jesus is precious; He is in heaven; He blesses me every moment. Oh! his boundless love to me!“”f

J esus amply made up to this girl for every thing she had to give up for Him!

The truth is, the love of Christ as realized, is in itself an immense compensation for all we have to give up; yes, more than this, it has an expulsive power, so that it and the world cannot consort together; and hence we should always seek to win the young to give up the world, not by imposing upon them a system of prohibitions, but by bringing them into personal contact with Christ, by showing them that Jesus will be better to them than all beside; that He will never allow them to say, The old way was better; my new pursuit is a failure; J esus is not as good as the world/” I cannot help thinking,“” writes Adelaide Newton to a school-fellow, that if you are much occupied with thoughts of heaven, of holiness, of the meek and lowly Jesus, and how he lived and walked on earth, you will feel a secret shrinking from worldly society, which will make balls, etc., very painful to you. God has left no positive commands upon things of this sort, for He knows that where the heart is given to Him, the life will assuredly be given too. And the motive of gospel obedience is not so much duty, as love. The child that loves its parents devotedly, or its friends, does what will please them at any cost.“”

This witness is true; the world is to be given up because of love; and that love supplies the great compensation for the world, — Jesus substitutes Himself.

I can never be thankful enough,“” says Mr. Hawkes, that I am not obliged to waste my time in visiting and receiving visits. There was a season when I was as fond of doing so as any one, but thanks be to my gracious Saviour, who has given me a new taste, new objects, new pursuits, new and true enjoyments. With my books I never find the day long enough, and the week is gone before I am ready for the end.’’

The time thus taken from the world was not given up as a prey to ennui; the gracious Saviour was present in the new tastes and new pursuits. Christ knows what any one gives up for Him, and he knows also how to fill the void.

We must also bear in mind, that Jesus knew what would happen to these disciples, if they were left to themselves; they, the sheep, must be scattered abroad, if He, the Shepherd, were permanently removed. Now Jesus knew well what lay before His disciples in their upward and onward struggle — a struggle on which He Himself had set them — a struggle for which they were wholly incompetent apart from Him. From Him they had received the mighty impulses of the new life; from Him, the visions of a noble future; they, like others, had through much tribulation to enter into the kingdom of God: and which of them were, in themselves, sufficient for these things? They needed their leader as well as their teacher, and Jesus would never leave them unled.

Let us contemplate also the difficulty which these disciples would have had in retaining their union with Him. When He had been taken from them by an ignominious death; when all the world hooted at them as the followers of a dead malefactor, how could they, by any mere force of natural character, have clung to Him.” The trial would have been too much for human nature; it would have failed. In the religion of Christ we have to cling not only to a system, but to an individual — not only to a creed, but to a man; and if the person vfere wholly taken away from the disciples what would have become of them?

Now Jesus well knows the difficulties which beset His j)eopl in retaining their union with Him; He knows also that the being linked to an abstraction — a system of truth — will never carry them whither He would have them be; and so He provides for His personal union with us now. We retain our union in the power of a personal attachment to a living Being personally attached to us. Christ is the vine and we are the branches; there must not only be vitality in us to cling to Him, but there must be vitality in Him to inject sap into us.

Remember then, dear reader, as you survey this side of the subject, that separation from the world does not involve a thoroughly orphaned or comfortless condition. If you have broken off affinities with it, you have become connected with higher affinities in Christ; ye have meat to eat which the world knows not of. We are told in Matt. ix. 25, that “when the people were put forth. He went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.’” How apt a picture is this of what we are considering now; the putting forth of those who can do us no good; the incoming of the One who can. Only remember, that by our own fault we may for a season be left comfortless; we may hide out our spiritual affinity with our Saviour; we may not see the One who lives for us, and still is ours, though our eyes are so dimmed, that we know not He is near.

Such a state of discomfort has ofttimes fallen upon the people of God, but it is not Jesus who has left them in it; it is they themselves who have gone into it. His promise is unbroken though we are suffering from our sin. Suffering, comfortless V Yes, happy is he who is suffering and comfortless without his Lord, his cries and griefs are a witness that he lives. The existence of life may be manifested by a tear, as well as by a smile; by the voice of weeping, as well as by the voice of joy.

And now comes the promise of our Lord, will come unto you,’” or as it is in the Greek, I am coming to you,” for He would be so short a time away, that His future is as it were present.

What is this coming?

Whatever other meanings may attach to this promise, we must hold that the primary one has reference to His personal appearance after the resurrection. The grief of the disciples was connected with the departure of their Lord; and that grief was primarily to be dispelled by His coming to them in person again.

We can easily understand how this reappearance of their Lord would comfort their poor hearts. Now first, the great loneliness would he done away, Dee”th brings with it the most saddening loneliness which falls to the lot of man; and in proportion as we have allowed ourselves to be bound up in a single object, in that proportion comes the desolation of loneliness when that object is removed. Now Jesus had been all to the disciples; and as we have already seen, when they lost Him, they lost all; when He returned, they got all back again.

And this suggests a solemn inquiry to us; would the loss or absence of Jesus cause the great loneliness in our heart? Have we so companied with Him, so been willing to give up all for Hira so had Him as the prominent object of our hearty that if He were taken away our heart would be lonely indeed?

If this be our condition, ours is the unspeakable comfort of knowing, that we shall never have the long loneliness which so often falls to the poor heart, whose one absorbing object was some human love. We may have a lesser loneliness; we too may have to look upon an empty chair, and to eat our morsel alone; but the great, the enduring loneliness of being eternally bereft of Christ shall never fall to our lot. Lesser stars may fall from their courses, yea, some of them of the first magnitude as stars, but the Sun of righteousness, which is the centre of our system, shall never be removed.

For, be it remembered, that it is as an eternal source of comfort that our Lord comes, Christ dieth now no more. Death hath no more dominion over Him.

I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore Rev. i. 18.

It was in resurrection life that Jesus would come; a life which they could understand; a life with which they could have a connection, for J esus was to return to them in a body again. It was in that body they saw Jesus ascend to heaven; to His Father, and their Father; and henceforth they had no more to do with a dead, but with a living Christ. An eternal source of comfort had thus come to the disciples; a source with which death could never again interfere, which nothing could break or dry up any more. And thus is Jesus to His people now all eternal source of comfort; we need never be afraid that the world can take Him from us; He is far beyond the world’s reach. Here we outlive our comforts; we see them fade and perish almost before our very eyes but Christ holds out to the very end.

One stormy winter day, when Rev. Mr. Young was visiting one of his people, an old man, who lived in great poverty in a lonely cottage a few miles from Jedburgh, he found him sitting with the Bible open on his knees, but in outward circumstances of great discomfort; the snow drifting through the roof, and under the door, and scarce any fire on the hearth. What are you about to-day, John was Mr. Young’s question on entering. “Ah! sir,” said the happy saint, I’m sitting under His shadow in great delight!” The old man was not left comfortless, the Saviour had come to him. And so was He also with that other old man of the same minister’s congregation, who was hourly looking for his last change. How do you feel yourself to-day asked the minister. Very weel, sir,” was the answer, ^S^ery weel, but just a wee confused in the flittin.’” Through the last broken circumstances of life in the one case, and on the point of death in the other, enduring even unto the end, the source of comfort did not fail!

And let us mark this inexpressible comfort, which the disciples received by the returning of Jesus to them again. They now had Him still to live for; they had the highest motive in life; they need not slip back again to living only for their earthly interests; He was alive, and could be served, and pleased; the great object of life was restored to them again.

This comfort belongs now to all true disciples of the risen Saviour; they have Him to live for, evermore; they need never slip back to the world, to find objects of interest and attraction to win them to activity; Jesus lives; His disciples must live for Him.

Yes for Him. Shall we be willing to live in Him, and by Him, so as to derive all personal benefit from Him, and shall Ave not be willing to live for Him also? Why this listlessness, this ennui in many in the Christian world? Why this frequent slipping down to earthly vanities, as though there were not enough in Christ abundantly to draw out our highest energies? It is because men are not living in the power of a living Christ — One, who has come unto them, and comforted them, and shewn them that His connection with them is unsevered, that they are serving a personal, living Lord.

Let us lay firm hold of this great idea; we are not merely fulfilling a law, we are serving a person; we are not only under the obligations of duty, we arc also under the constrainings of love; we are to live for the One who is walking amid the seven golden candle-sticks, and noting all that His people do. We should be ever rising higher and higher, above the world as the supplier of our objects of interest; all the interests connected with a dying world are perishing; all connected with a risen Christ are eternal.

As long as we realize that we have Christ to live for, we shall never feel that all is lost, even when the worst calamities and bereavements of life have fallen upon us. We shall not want to hide ourselves with a grief which devours us; nor feel a morbid pleasure in being eaten into by its corroding tooth. Oh! we shall grieve if we lose our dear ones; we shall weep and feel lonely, and Ave shall taste of that desolation which sin by death has brought into the world; but we shall also feel, that the living Christ rises in His great claims above the dead friend; we shall go forth to our work it may be men of sterner mould, hardened in the fires of sorrow against the blandishments of the world; but we shall not surrender ourselves a prey to aught that belongs to death, for we shall feel that we have to answer the claims of a living ‘LoyA, We may have close to us the ashes of the past, but we may nevertheless burn upon the earth with a brilliant glow; we also consuming in our service, and dying daily while we live.

Having declared our belief, that whatever other advents may be included in the will,’’ which we are considering; this, the appearing of our Lord in His resurrection body is the first and chief, and that indeed upon which all else must hang, let us now turn to the fulfillment of His promise, an account of which we have given to us by St. Luke. The disciples are assembled at Jerusalem — a company of troubled ones; with them things have been going hard indeed; without are fightings, and within are fears; good cause have they for trouble; they were weak in faith; their leader was away; they were half stupefied by all that had occurred; they had just gone through a terrible past; before them lay an unknown future; they seem, inasmuch as some of their company had walked with the One that had been crucified, to have come into awful proximity to the mysteries beyond the grave; the one cure for all their sorrow was Christ’s manifestation to them, as their own Christ, once more; and so. He stands in the midst of them, and says unto them Peace be unto you and when they are terrified and affrighted, supposing that they had seen a spirit He says unto them Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered. He said unto them, have ye here any meat? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled flsh, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them Luke xxiv. 38 — 43.

Christ’s manifestation of Himself is the great

CURE FOR THE TROUBLED SOUL.

Think, 0 wounded heart, on this great truth; think it into thy very being; it is a simple, but withal a mighty truth; it is a truth that will save thee a world of trouble in inquiring How am I to be comforted Thou art to be comforted by Christ’s manifesting Himself with special plainness to thee; by His saying.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see.”

But let us see what we can gather for ourselves from the sorrows of the disciples, and from the manifestation of their Lord.

We see that troubles may come on those who have compa7iied long with Christ, It is true that the disciples, though farther advanced than any upon earth, were as yet but little advanced in real knowledge of their Lord; but still they had been long with Him, and he Himself acknowledges this: for He says, Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations Luke xxii. 28. Upon these old companions and followers of Jesus deep trouble bad now come. It may be that we think that we are to be exempt from all trouble because we have been long followers of Jesus Christ; but perhaps we are like these disciples long following, and yet but little advanced; if this be the case, we shall have all the spiritual disquietude and sorrow which are incidental to those who have to face trial in such a state. But we must not on this account, allow ourselves to think, that we have not been followers of Christ at all; we may be true disciples, yea, even old disciples of Jesus, and yet be very deficient, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip John xiv. 9. The Evil One will draw no distinction between a man’s being a weak disciple, and not being one at all. Oh! that we may not only company long with Jesus, but advance far into the knowledge of Him; trouble loses half its power, if suffered with, or for, a well known Christ.

But perhaps the reader is ‘privileged believer; and says, Am I, with all my privileges, still to be subject to sorrow T’ Were not all the disciples privileged? Who had such privileges as they had, and yet what greater trouble could any have had, than that which now filled their hearts? Had the disciples used their privileges aright, they would probably have escaped the trouble which came upon them now — trouble, from not being able plainly to discern Jesus; but no amount of privilege, even if made the most of will save from trial of every kind. We must use our privileges to carry us through trial, not to procure exemption from it; Hor whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye he without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons Heb. xii. 6 — 9. Dear reader, do not deny your privileges, because you cannot deny your trials; never listen to your great enemy, when he says, If you were a child of God, you would never have been thus tried this was how the Evil One assaulted Job, when he said, Put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face Job ii. 5.

Let us enquire, however, into some of the causes of the disciples’ trouble, which Jesus dispelled by the performance of His promise, I will come unto you.”

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”

A part of their troubles arose from imperfect apprehension of the truth. They cannot apprehend the ressurrection of the body as yet. They believed no doubt in a future life, but the resurrection of the body was a mystery to them. And from this very source come many of our troubles; we knew a part of a truth, but we have failed in taking in the whole; and then, when events occur, which can be explained only by our knowledge of that part of the truth which we have failed to learn, we are confused, perhaps confounded, and brought into great trouble. If we have but a very imperfect apprehension of the great truth that” God is love then when His love is shown in sorrowful dispensations, we do not perceive that there is love in them, and we are amazed. If we had fully grasped the truth, then we should have known that let what will come, love must be in it — must come with it — and the fulness of our knowledge of Divine love would keep us in perfect peace.

It is a great thing to have our apprehension of truth made more perfect; to be growing in knowledge which will keep us from disagreeable surprises in the Divine life. Had the disciples apprehended more fully the resurrection of the body that which at first proved to them a disagreeable surprise (disagreeable inasmuch as it affrighted them) would have proved a most agreeable one — yes the most agreeable they could possibly have had. If we enter fully into the teachings of Jesus, we shall have no disagreeable surprises, we shall have many most agreeable ones; for we shall in all behold Him, that it is He Himself.

Another part of the disciples’ trouble arose from an unaccustomed manifestation. One who had been dead and buried came amongst them alive again. But why should they have been so amazingly astonished at this? Jairus’s daughter, and the nobleman’s, and the widow’s son, and Lazarus, had been raised from the dead; might they not have remembered these, and so have been less troubled when they saw the Lord Himself.^ In the first place, death and resurrection came more home to themselves now, than they had done on any previous occasion; this was a matter in which they were personally concerned; and in the next place, on all previous occasions, those who had been restored to life, lived again in the old bodies, the same that they ever had, and not in resurrection bodies at all. They had bodies which belonged to this life, the same as before; Christ had a body which belonged to this world no more. J esus could prove the identity of His body, for He says, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have but it was now the body of the resurrection, and to the manifestation of such a body, they were wholly unaccustomed.

And are we to expect that we are never to travel out of the beaten road of accustomed manifestations? If this be the case, we can never make great advance in the Divine life. It is by going on to new problems that the mathematician perfects himself in science; it is by copying new scenes that the artist perfects himself in art; it is by practising new pieces that the musician perfects himself in song; and it is by new manifestations of Jesus that the believer also makes his advances. Surely we shall lead a miserable life, if every unaccustomed, every new aspect, in which Jesus presents Himself to us, is to bring us consternation and misery. May we so apprehend Christ’s teachings by the Spirit, that when He manifests Himself in any way we may not be troubled, but say, I discern His hands and feet; it is He Himself.”

There is another aspect in which this trouble of the disciples must be surveyed. They were all in trouble together; they could not help the one the other. The stoutest of the apostles — Peter — was as much terrified as any of the rest, and so was the most loving, John; as they looked in each other’s faces, they could see nothing to calm and re-assure; all was consternation, terror, and distress. They were just as helpless as they had been in the storm on the lake, when they saw Jesus, and thinking that it was a spirit, cried out for fear.

There are seasons of trouble, when no one on earth can help ns; when we find old familiar spiritual friends quite unable to bring us comfort; when they themselves are as much astonished and perplexed as we are. The child of God is sometimes like one in a family, where death has made an awful chasm; he looks in every one’s face for comfort, but each one looks as mournful and comfortless as he does himself. Have not some of us experienced this; have we not been amongst many who would have comforted us, but they could not? The lack was in their power and not their will. Christian families, and Christian communities and churches, have been like the disciples — the whole body confused, terrorstricken, and distressed.

All this is very terrible, but, perhaps, we must be taught the nothingness of man in this form, as well as others; it may be that God would speak to us and say,

Your comfort, your peace lie not in the many, any more than they do in the few; you will find these blessings not amongst many of your fellow men, or from their countenance and ministry, but from one man, even Christ Jesus, His countenance, and His ministry, and that alone.”

Yes! the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself is the solution of trouble. Jesus knew this when He gave His disciples the promise, I will come unto you He proved it when He now appeared; and it was on the full manifestation of His identity that they obtained peace. I will come unto you everything hung upon the identification of their Lord.

Now this fulfilment of Christ’s promise has much to do with ourselves; we also are greatly concerned in the identity of Christ. For, when this identity is established, we know that we have to do with One whose new life is connected with previous well-known life that previous well-knoion life being identical with our oion. This idea amongst others underlies the words of our Lord to St. JohUj when He appeared to him in, not only a resurrection, hut also a glorified hody, thus He comforted the apostle who fell prostrate at the sight. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth and was dead, and hehold, I am alive for evermore. Amen Rev. i. 17, 18. am He that liveth and was dead.’^ It is by bringing the past and present together that the Lord, declaring His identity, comforts the affrighted man.

What can comfort us more than the knowledge that our Lord, now in union with us, although in glory, remembers well His former life upon the earth. What that life was, we know full well; in it met all the sorrows of humanity in the highest form; none endured such pain as He; none wept such tears as He; none were so isolated in loneliness as He; none were so maligned, insulted, wronged, as He; His life was like an hour glass, every sand-grain in which represented a sorrow, — one upon another do they heap with deep broad base and tapering point,’ — the base made up of the falling together of many a sharp point, until at last there remains not a grain to fall — not a sorrow to be endured; He had exhausted the sum total of human woe! Then came the turning of the glass: behold for Him all things are made new; in resurrection life He receives glory for all the sufferings of the past; but it is no part of His glory to forget the past. To forget the past would be to destroy human sympathy — to blot out all that it has to do with meditation comfort and support. This [man] because He continueth ever hath an unchangeable priesthood Heb. vii. 24. But what kind of priesthood? The priesthood of the man Christ Jesus: For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the. sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted Heb. ii. 16-18.

In this well-known passage, the great comforting point is the identity of the Christ on earth with the Christ in Heaven, — the oneness of the suffering and the glorified One, — the carrying out, in fact, to its legitimate result, the promise, I will come unto you.’’ It involves the retention and exercise of the power of human memory — the power of throwing one’s self into the past, with all its circumstances and feelings, and then acting in the vividness of that recollection. How little do we know of this! We have memories, but they are imperfect; we recall facts, but we cannot recall the feelings connected with facts in their original power; but Jesus recalls feelings and facts together, and acts in the power of both. When J esus said, I will come unto you,” that promise linked itself to all the future trials of His Church, from the spilling of the martyrs’ blood, down to the breathing of the half unconscious sigh; with that golden chain He bound Himself as the

Man Christ Jesus” to his Church, in the weakness of its suffering humanity, and pledged Himself to be a man with men; one of them, even after having passed through death — the great severer of human ties. Jesus lives at present surrounded with the memories of the past; His coming in human form to the apostles was but a preliminary step to His after visitations by the Spirit. It is such a Christ that we must take as our own, hearing Him say to us no other than what He said to the apostles of old, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you.’’

But this is not all. When Jesus fulfilled His promise to His disciples. He brought them peace as regards the world beyond, by the convincing proof of a bodily human life which had gone through and survived death. This body had wounds; and whatever aspect these wounds might have worn, when He hung upon the cross and lay in the tomb, as the tokens of the power of the violated law, avenging itself on Him; the aspect which they wear, as Christ comes now in this same living body, to fulfil His promise to His disciples, is one of victory. These wounds were the proofs of His triumph over death; they were “peace-tokens connected with His death in His very body Jesus brought the elements of comfort; the marks of suffering all spake,

* “The Lord showeth His wounds not merely as the tokens of His crucifixion, for the identity of His body; but evidently also as the tokens of victory, the proofs of His triumph over death, and therefore also — and this is its deepest meaning — as pertaining to His introductory greeting! as the peace-tokens of His sacrificial death, of His accomplished atonement. This had reference, indeed, rather to the future understanding of the disciples (which soon followed in the opening of Scripture), in the symbolical meaning of this His revelation for and said, Peace be unto you ye are not left comfortless, I have come unto you.’’ “We will have no Saviour,’’ says St. Martin, without the prints of the wounds so say we; for these are speaking wounds, and their utterance is, peace.”

Should these lines be read by any one who is taking this world as his portion, I would say to such a one, this is a comfortless world apart from Christ.’ Sooner or later, what you think to be springs of comfort will dry up, what you think to be gold and wealth, will become ashes and dross; and then, perhaps, for you there will be no friendly comforting Christ. Alas! for you there will remain no promises, no sympathies, and this your desolation will come upon you by your own rejection, by your own fault. A visiting Christ bodes no good to you — no good — but evil — deep dark evil of the most fearful

His whole future church; yet we may, as Diez says, expound it as historically true, that ‘ they began to have a presentiment of the mysterious connection between this peace and the wounds of J esus. This is the true token by which He comforts the terrified conscience and heart That He retained in the resurrection these marks of

His wounds on the body which was to be exalted to heaven (marks which otherwise, as the concomitant of death, might or should have been abolished); and that He retains them till now, and for eternity, as the glorious tokens of His victory and atonement, is of great and blessed significance for our faith. It was as assuredly the Lord’s will, as we see, to appear Himself to His disciples as ‘the crucified,’ as the angel in the empty sepulchre termed Him; and thereby to manifest His glory, thereby to seal His peace. To this referred that suggestive legend of Satan’s appearance in the form of the glorified Saviour, when St. Martin repelled him by asking him for the prints of the wounds. Ho (ypavTaGjLLa (phantasm) could counterfeit these wounds, for these were chosen and sanctified by the Lord of glory as the tokens and marks by which He would be known.” See Steir’s “Words of the Lord Jesus,” vol. viii. kind. Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him Rev. i. 7. Ah! poor fellow sinner, where will you be then? Where will you hide yourself? What cave will open its mouth to hide you in its stony breast? What mountain will fall upon you to crush you with its ponderous weight? For you there will be no hope; for you there will remain nothing but an eternity of deep and dark despair. May such a fearful doom be averted by a speedy closing with the offers of the Lord; amongst the true disciples of the Lord, the comforted and the blest, yet, yet there is room.”

And to the Lord’s people I will add this comforting word.

(1.) Look not at yourself as isolated, as the sparrow upon the housetop, as one friendless, homeless, belonging indeed to Christ, but having no affinity, no relationship with any one else. You are one of a family, of a family like that of the disciples, made up of one gathered from this quarter, and another from that; you have first the great affinity with Christ, and then that with His people; you have relations; there are those with whom you have a common interest; those to whom Jesus says, will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you.” Be cheerful in the thought; you have friends both in heaven and on earth!

And (2.) Never permit yourself for one moment to consider that you are cut off from the benefit of Christ’s personality. If you do, vagueness and indistinctness will characterize your spiritual life; and you will lose yourself in the surrounding haze.

It is the privilege of the believer to have to do with a substantial Christ; thrice happy he who knows what it is to live and move and speak with a personal, living Lord. Jesus fulfilled His promise to His disciples. Let us also grasp the I wilh” which He spake to them, and He will fulfil it to our peace.

The following extract, from one of Captain Hedley Vicars’ letters, gives us a touching instance of the comfort given by the presence of Christ, in cheerless daily life.

It is a very gloomy day, the sky black and lowering, and the rain descending in torrents. I was meditating just now ou this bleak scene of cheerless solitude — my only companion a little quail! — and thinking over the strange and often appalling sights my eyes have looked upon, in the realities of death and the grave, since God called me here. As these ideas floated through my mind, the train of my thoughts suddenly changed, and the dismal view without, and the cold and dreary room I occupy, brought before me Ghe man of sorrows’ — Jesus — who once weathered the stormy tempest for you and for me, and of whom it maybe said, from the manger to the grave, that He had not where to lay his head.’ It is so soothing to the soul, in seasons of cloud and distress, to know that Jesus hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,’ and to rest on the tender kindness of Him who has said, As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.’”

The troubled ones form a large portion of the great family of God. There are many mourning garments, many sorrowful countenances, many depressed hearts amongst His children; all tears are not yet wiped away from the eyes of the people of the Lord. It may he that we are sad because of our own fault; or perhaps, without any fault of ours, simply because we are under discipline; but whatever the cause, amongst us the sadness is often to be found. Some are sitting silent, some solitary, some perplexed, some weeping, some doubting; there are different kinds and different degrees of woe.

But for all these there is the one Christ, uttering now the self-same words.

I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you.”