And to those who will be in real and serious earnest, who will turn to God in faithful repentance and true prayers, who will put themselves, in body, soul, and spirit, under the holy discipline of the blessed Spirit of God, the lesson of the seed-corn springing up to a new life, the same and yet different,-the same and yet gloriously blessed and different,-will be a deep and divine comfort which will never disappoint them.

E am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

ST. JOHN xiv.

6. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.

THESE sacred words, brethren, are, I may safely say

some of the most precious words among the many

precious words of Holy Scripture. I feel particularly called upon to dwell upon them to-day,* and to endeavour, with God's assistance, to impress them in their true meaning and force upon your conscience and memory. The Lord had said to the apostles,—it was the solemn evening before the Crucifixion, and they had just partaken of His spiritual Body and Blood in the first communion of the Lord's Supper, the Lord, I say, had just said to the apostles, Whither I go ye know,

* This Sermon was preached in consequence of the spreading, by some unknown person, of a tract through the greater part of the parish, in which this text was interpreted so as to undervalue the Sacraments, and to urge people to leave the Church and attend the Dissenting Chapel.

and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.

Thomas, speaking for himself and the other apostles, declared that he knew neither the place to which the Lord was going, nor the way to reach it.

The Lord answers both questions, and His words of answer are full of the most precious value to every son of man who will hear and embrace them.

He was going to His Father in heaven, where were the many mansions which He promised to prepare for them, that where He was, there they might be also.

No further doubt as to whither He was going.

And what about the way to get there? I, He says, am the way. But how, we may reverently ask, are we to understand this? How can any one, how can Christ be a way? We know that a way means in general a road, a path, a track, along which a person travels to reach the place to which he is bound. How, then, are we to understand that Christ is the way to the Father?

It means, that we must be in Christ, united to Christ, made members of Christ's body, made living branches of Christ, who is the true Vine,-and if we are thus united to Christ, and abide in Christ, we have already reached

the Father, for the Father and Christ are one, and he who has seen Christ has seen the Father.

Instead, therefore, of pointing out any long and weary road to heaven, Christ says, Be ye joined to Me; I am the way. I do not shew you the way, or guide you to the way. I am, Myself, the way. Be grafted into Me, abide in Me, and the journey is done. As I go to the Father, so ye, joined to Me, and abiding in Me, go to the Father also. There is no other way. No man can come to the Father by any other road. In Christ, we are on the way to the Father, out of Christ, we are all astray, lost sheep, wandering in a wilderness, hungry and thirsty, fainting, helpless, and without hope.

Now, so much might have sufficed to answer the Apostle's question: for these words by themselves told him whether the Lord was going, and what was the way by which men were to reach the place. But the Lord always gives very full measure, full and running over; and He does not stop with the words that merely answer the Apostle's question. He says, not only I am the way, but He adds, the Truth, and the Life: and we must consider what these great words mean also.

How is Christ the Truth? He does not say that He is the teacher of the truth, but that He is the very truth itself. In Him, as we read in the Epistle to the Colossians, are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

So that we understand our Lord to mean that they who are in Christ as they are in the way, so are also in the truth. If they be duly joined to Christ, and abide in Him, they are in the very store-house, the very treasurehouse of truth, for that truth dwelleth in Christ, and they that abide in Him, live in the palace of truth, where all truth is to be found.

In Him was

"For as the

Again Christ says, I am the Life. We can have little doubt what this means. For in various passages of the New Testament the same thing is said. life," and the life was the light of men. Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." "He that hath the Son hath life," but he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

For Christ is the very source and well-spring of all spiritual life to men. Planted in Him and abiding in Him, they partake of His holy and Divine Life, of which, otherwise, they can have no share. As long as they abide in Him they have life, and bear fruit as living branches of the True Vine, and glorify God by the fruit they bear. This then is the meaning of this great verse. If we desire to reach the Father, we must come to Christ, and be joined to Him, and abide with Him. This is the only way by which we can have either Divine life in our souls, or Divine truth in our minds, and it is by the possession of that Divine life and that Divine truth