our being "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." Let us pray then without ceasing for that divine grace, from which "all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed :" Jesus has promised to send His Holy Ghost, the Comforter, for the guidance and guardianship of every true believer, of every faithful follower; let us earnestly implore the heavenly gift, and it will be certainly bestowed: we shall be enabled, through the whole course of our pilgrimage, to "walk worthy of our high calling;" to bear the good fruit of our christian profession; and at length we shall "receive the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls."*

* 1 Pet. i. 9.

SERMON IX.

GOD EVER PRESENT WITH HIS PEOPLE.

JOHN Xvi. 32.

And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

THE Apostles had been expressing their lively conviction of the character and office of Jesus, as Messiah; their belief in him as the Son of God. "Jesus answered them, do ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone:" that is, in the midst of enemies, unfriended and unprotected; without a human being to take an open part with me, to say a word

in my vindication, or comfort me in my sorrows. How affecting a consideration! to think that the Lord of creation should have come into His own world, that the Lord of goodness and of grace should have come to His own people, and to bring the good tidings of salvation to all mankind, and yet not only to be scorned, and rejected, and persecuted, but not to find even an individual, who should stand by Him in His extremity; to bear any portion of His burden, or to express so much as a tender feeling on His behalf.

There seems to have been no imaginable scene of affliction, through which the Lord did not pass; no cup of sorrow which He did not drink, as the surety and sacrifice for man: and here we find Him exhibiting a pattern to all those children of grief, whom the world leaves alone to suffer and to mourn; a pattern therefore to multitudes untold and unknown: and He has opened to them the only true source of consolation, and a mighty one it is; "I am not alone, because the Father

is with me." As man and mediator, He felt and acknowledged the same dependance upon His heavenly Father, as His disciples are called to do; and He intimates to them, that this divine favour and protection is abundantly sufficient, whatever their need or necessity may be. We cannot conceive a case of greater destitution, of more pressing urgency, of more unmitigated endurance, than the Saviour's here presents the weight of a rebellious world was upon him, and His "soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death;" and yet He takes comfort, that He was not alone; that there was a presence, which would sustain Him in the evil hour; administering an energy and strength, that would make Him more than conqueror over all the powers of darkness. How precious an example is here afforded, how sure and safe a way pointed out, to all the children of infirmity and oppression, by which they may be comforted and secured in the midst of those trials, through which they may be

こ

destined to pass, during their abode in that world, "which knows them not, because it knew Him not;" which opposed Him, and therefore opposes them.: Many of us, it may be said, go through life without any similar enduring; but each will find his sorrows: the heart of every man, more or less, " knows its own bitterness:" and there are few faithful disciples, who do not experience, at one time or other, a considerable degree of opposition and vexation from an unfriendly world. The indifferent and the luke warm, they who fall in readily with the world's lax notions and habits, or, who offer no resistance to them by word or deed, may peradventure meet with little hindrance or trouble; but the Christian, whose settled purpose it is to hold a constant, unbroken fellowship with his Redeemer, and to walk closely and faithfully with his God, in all the ways of a pious and righteous obedience, will commonly find that he has much to bear from the contradiction raised against him, by faith