would lose the benefit of their instructions and prayers. What an inconceivable loss would this have been both to Jews and Gentiles ! Yea, in what a state of ignorance should we our- selves have been at this moment !
Next, it would have been inexpedient on God's account, if I may so speak. The Disciples were to be, like the dispossessed Gadarene, monuments of God's mercy6. They were to ex- emplify in their own persons the all-sufficiency of Divine grace under every situation. They were to be instruments also whereby the eternal counsels of the Deity were to be accom- plished : their removal therefore would have robbed God him- self of his glory.
Lastly, it would have been inexpedient on account of the Disciples themselves. They would have been glad to have accompanied their Lord ; but it would not have been for their advantage at that time. Their reward was to be proportioned to their labours and sufferings f. If they had been taken away at that time they had done but little for God ; consequently they would not have possessed so bright a crown as they now do. How glad are they now that their abode on earth was prolonged !]
The request which our Lord offered for them was far better —
[He prayed that they might be kept from the evil of it. Satan is by way of eminence called " the evil one." He is incessantly plotting the destruction of God's chosen people g, and our Lord might have respect to their preservation from himh', but he rather refers to the moral evil that is in the world. And there was good reason why he should pray for their deliverance from that.
The temptations they would have to encounter were innumer- able. Their poverty might beget impatience and discontent: their persecutions might provoke them to retaliation and re- venge; their incessant danger of a violent death might tempt them to apostasy. They were to have innumerable trials from without and from within: how needful then was it that they should have an almighty Keeper!
They were utterly unable of themselves to withstand the smallest temptation. The Disciples were altogether men of like passions with ourselves; nor had they any more sufficiency in themselves than the weakest of us1. The most confident of them fell, as soon as he boasted of his strength11. Almighty
e Luke viii. 39. r 1 Cor. iii. 8. * 1 Pet. v. 8.
h 'Ek- tov Trovqpov — Satan is often called 6 ivort]poQ. Eph. vi. 16. and 1 John v. 18.
' 2 Cor. iii. 5. k Matt. xxvi. 33, 35, 74.