loose; confirmation strengthens; ordination sends in His name; the holy eucharist is a sacrifice before His Father, and a sacrament of life to His disciples, because with deeper revelations, and a fuller bestowal of Himself, He has come to us again, that, believing, we may have life, and that we "may have it more abundantly."

SERMON VI.

CHRIST VISIBLE TO LOVING HEARTS.

ST. JOHN xvi. 16.

"A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father."

HIS was a strange saying, and a stranger

THI

reason: "A little while, and ye shall not see Me; and again a little while, and ye shall see Me," and that "because I go to the Father." How should His going away be the pledge of their seeing Him again? What wonder they said, "What is this that He saith ?" "We cannot tell what He saith." And yet these words are plainly and divinely true.

There have already been three manifestations of our blessed Lord, and there shall be yet a fourth. The three first ascending to the last, which shall be full, perfect, eternal.

First, He has been seen by the eye, when He came in our manhood: "God was manifest in the

flesh."

....

"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory;" "That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon;... for the Life was manifested, and we have seen it.”3 From His birth to His baptism, from His baptism to His cross, from His cross to His burial; by visible presence, by miracles of power in Galilee and in Jerusalem, in life and in death, He manifested Himself to the sight of men. And so again after He rose from the dead. He did indeed thus manifest Himself to those that loved Him,-to the company of women and to Peter, to the eleven in the upper chamber, to the five hundred in the mountain, to the disciples on the seashore, and to all His Apostles when, for the last time, He led them out to Bethany. They had kept His word, and loved Him; and He loved them, and shewed Himself to them. But this is not the manifestation promised here. That was but local, partial, and transitory; this of which He here speaks is something larger and more abiding.

Again, He has also manifested Himself to the ear. He gave commandment to His Apostles that they should" Go teach all nations." And "have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound is gone 2 St. John i. 14.

1 1 Tim. iii. 16.

3 St. John i. 1, 2.

out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world." "The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." He has manifested Himself these eighteen hundred years to all the kingdoms of the earth. The name, the person, the love, the sacrifice, the presence of Christ has been revealed to the ear of all people. Who has not heard of Him, young and old, high and low, wise and simple? But neither is this the promised manifestation; for this too is an exterior revelation, made to all alike, to the good and to the evil, to those that love Him and to those that love Him not.

What He here promises is something special and interior, deeper and more intimate, the peculiar gift of those who " keep His commandments." It is a manifestation, not to the eye or to the ear, but to a sense above both hearing and sight; a spiritual sense, comprehending all powers of perception, to which all other senses are but avenues. "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and manifest Myself to him." And that "because I go to the Father." When I am ascended, I will return with a presence, not local, but in and above all place; not transient, 1 St. John xiv. 21.

but abiding; not visible to the eye, but to the heart, by a power of spiritual intuition. In these words He promises an illumination of the heart:

Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." And this presence is no mere figure, but a reality; this manifestation no empty metaphor, but a shewing of Himself to our spiritual sense; a perception which should be equal to the perception of sight in all fulness, vividness, nd truth.

Let us therefore take an example. What does the sight of any one, as, for instance, of a friend, bestow upon us? What are its effects?

1. The first effect it produces in us is a sense of his presence. We know what his coming and going awakens. It may be we were waiting for his arrival full of other thoughts, busy or weary, or musing, or all but forgetful. When he came, we were wakened up in every pulse. All our whole heart and mind, with all its affections and attention, fixed upon him. We are called, not only out of our former works and thoughts, but out of our very selves. Our hearts go forth to meet him. He is there before us. We see him, recognise him again; he sees us, and fixes our sight upon himself. Some such effect is wrought in faithful hearts by this promise of our Lord. As God, He is ever present with us. He is in