beloved brother John would one day be cast into a caldron of boiling oil, at Ephesus, during a persecution ? What good would it have done Peter, to know that John would spend years of weary captivity on the Isle of Patmos, and finally outlive all the company of the Apostles, and be left last and latest on the stormy sea of this troublous world ? To know all this would not have done Peter the slightest good, and would more likely have added to his own sorrow. Wisely and well did our Lord say, " What is that to thee ? " Wisely and well does He teach us not to be over-anxious about the future of our children, our relatives, and our friends. Far better for us, and far happier, to have faith in God, and to let the great unknown future alone.
Burkitt observes, " There are two great varieties in men with reference to knowledge. The one is a neglect to know what it is our duty to know. The other is a curiosity to know what it doth not belong to us to know."
In any case, the words " Follow Me " should always teach ns that our first duty in religion is to look to our own souls, and to take heed that we ourselves follow Christ, and walk with God. Whatever others may do or not do, suffer or not suffer, our own duty is clear and plain. People who are always look- ing at others, and considering others, and shaping their own course accordingly, commit a great mistake. Of all weak and foolish reasons assigned by some for not coming to the Lord's Supper, the weakest perhaps is that very common one, — the conduct of others who are communicants ! To such persons the words of our Lord apply with emphatical force, " What is that to thee ? Follow thou Me."
The words of our Lord, " If I will that he tarry till I come," are a deep and mysterious saying, and in every age of the Church have received different interpretations.
(a) Some, as Gerhard, Maldonatus, and Wordsworth, hold that Jesus meant, " If I will that he tarry a long time on earth, lingering here long after thou art gone, until I come for him at death, what is that to thee ? " — I cannot, however, admit thia interpretation for a moment. Death and the coming of Christ are two totally different things, and it is an entire mistake to confound them, as people often do (with very good intentions), in selecting texts for tombstones, as part of epitaphs. There is not a single passage in the New Testament, where the com- ing of the Lord means death. Moreover, the very next verse in this chapter seems to place the two things in strong contrast, as not the same.
(&) Some actually hold that Jesus meant that the Apostle John was never to die at all, but to remain alive until the second ad- vent ! This, however, is a wild and preposterous interpreta- tion, which will satisfy no sober mind. Moreover, it is contra- dicted by the whole tenor of ecclesiastical history. All early