or not receiving Christ. Beware or rejecting him. Deware of the excuseless sin. 5. Ou,- great Advocate can find an ezcusefor every 8in but thiR. For this there is no dofence; for he is rojectetl for whose sake God alone can forgive. There is in him no CBWIO of hatred or rejection; but there is in hir,1 11.n infinitely extending pardon to the vilest penitent. Some of his murderers avniled themRclves of this. And 1t is ever avo.lloble and infallible: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord," etc.-D. T. Vera. 1-6.-The vine and the branches. I. THE STATEMENT OJ' CONNECTION DETWEEN JEsus AND ms PEOPLE. The connection is neither nominal nor artificial; it is a living union. The life of our Lord goes out to us every day. He is full of the noblest life-that whioh is nourished and developed by Divine love; and because be lives, we o.re to live also. There is to be the most entire community of life between Jesus and us; his affairs are our affairs, and our affairs are his alfa.irs. He is interested in all of us. No step we take but he regards it with o.nxious eye; no true success we gain but what gladdens him as much as it gladdens us. He loves us all, the worst as well as the best. The true mother has a tender heart for all her children ; for the stubborn, headstrong boy as much as the docile and yielding one; for the vain and giddy daughter as much as the quiet and gentle. All are in the family, and so are we. Sometimes we play sad havoc with the profession of believers in Christ Jesus. Some very sour grapes appear on our particular branch. But Christ will be very patient with us. He who is long-suffering with the fruitless fig tree will be long-suffering with the fruitless branch. II. WE MUST LABOUR TO CONTINUE IN THIS CONNECTION. 1. We are to receive JeS?M altogether. It will not do to take what we like and reject what we like. We must receive him in every relation which he declares himself to sustain to us. We are not to say, when we come across any hard saying, that it must be practically expunged because we cannot understand it. The real hardness is not in the sayings; it is in our own heart. Time and a change of experience make a difference in many of our im- pressions; and we alter, while Jesns and the Scriptures remain the same. There is a softening of the stouy heart, a susceptibility to the powers of the world to come. When we feel the nee<l of Jesus, there is no difficulty about taking him just as he is. 2. There must be constant communion. 'l'he first act of real prayer makes the first step towards this. A prayerless life means a life without Christ, without faith, without work, without consistency. On such a branch the husbandman looks with suspicion. Christ wants to shine out in the life, so that people may say the branch is worthy of the trunk. He cannot bless us without our consent, or without our active approach to him. III. THE ULTIMATE RESULT OF THIS UNION. The more we abide in Christ the more he abides in us, and then the constant and powerful infiwr:: of his energy causes a great putting out of fruit. Just o.s the sap from the trunk makes every <hy a difference in the branch, causing it to shoot forth twigs, and buds, and leaves, and flowers, so the presence of Christ in our souls makes us to grow and to manifest the fruit of that presence.-Y. Ver. 9.-Abiding in the love of JeS1J,s. I. PAST SATISFACTION. How Jesus here lifts up bis disciples by a recognition of the good thing in them I The Father loved the Son; found in Jesus of Nazareth what he could not find in any other being of flesh and blood. And so the Son loved his disciples, finding in them a spirit of obedience and recognition of himself which promised great results in due season. To us it may seem as if Jesus must have been pninfully impressed with the faults of his friends. In many things they wero so ignorant and slow of heart; in many things their motives were so narrow 11.nd unworthy. But, with o.ll their faults, they were fundamentally true; better for than Pharisees ; better far than the common run, who as yet followed Jesus only when they could get the loaves and be filled. And so Jesus loved them for this. What a view this gives us of the 11speot or Jesus towards men I All are sinners and need salvation; they are loved with the love of pity; they have their share in that great declaration concerning God's love to the worlJ. (eh. iii. 16). But, so far as inclination towards God is concerned, all are not equally loveless; some are near the kingdom, 296 THE GOSPEL AOOORDING TO ST. JOHN. [~IJ x\'. 1-27.
like thRt mRn on w_hom, ~·hen Jesus lookrd, he loved h~m. These disoiples still had far t-0 go and many d1fficult1es to overoome; but surely 1t w11s no small matter to have rcnched the hRppy ~tage when Jesus oould say th11t, RB the Father loved him so he lo"cd them. Look into the expression, and you will seo it is a very strong, encou~·noin" 0 11ppr<'cintivc one. "'