The duties of hofpitality have been held facred, even amongst the most uncivilized nations; and a breach of them confidered as an act of treachery. Under this head, I cannot but confider a practice, which, though generally reprobated, is, I fear, too conmon: I mean that of taking advantage of the freedom which generally prevails at table; by repeating what may pass, to the injury perhaps of those prefent: and this is rendered ftill more difgusting, when turned against the entertainer himself. Against this practice, I cannot too strongly warn my readers, as being equally ungenerous and dangerous.

"19. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pafs, ye may "believe that I am he.

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20. Verily, verily, I fay unto you, He "that receiveth whomfoever I fend, re"ceiveth me; and he that receiveth me, "receiveth him that fent me."

That

That one from amongst their own body, one of the chosen twelve, fhould be the betrayer of the Lord, must have been a circumstance so unthought of, and incredible to the other apostles, that our Saviour might well make the knowledge of it a test of his own truth: fince nothing lefs than omniscience could have discovered it.

Our Lord feems, in the last verse, to allude to the holy fpirit which he should fend after he quitted them; declaring, that no person can receive or acknowledge the Son without the Father, or the Father and Son without the Holy Ghoft; but that the belief in one muft, neceffarily, include a belief in all three. This promised gift was to be univerfal; not confined to high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, but to be bestowed liberally on all who fhould be baptized into the faith of Christ as lays the prophet Joel, (chap. ii. ver. 28. 29.): "And it fhall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your fons and your

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daughters shall prophefy, your old men

Mmm

"fhall

"fhall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the fer

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vants and upon the handmaids in those

days will I pour out my fpirit." Jeremiah also prophefies to the same effect, (chap. xxxi. ver. 34.): "And they fhall "teach no more every man his neighbour, "and every man his brother, faying, "Know the Lord: for they fhall all know me, from the least of them unto the

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greatest of them, faith the Lord: for I "will forgive their iniquity, and I will re"member their fin no more."

These two prophecies clearly point out to what a degree the Chriftian world fhould be enlightened.

How great is the delight of those whofe minds are anxious for true wifdom, to have it in their power, by the affiftance of God's holy spirit (which always attends fuch as are defirous of entertaining the heavenly gueft) to trace the prophecies recorded in the Old Testament, to their completion in the new! This is one of the rewards (and a moft fatisfactory one it is)

of

of those who seriously and attentively study the holy Scriptures.

"21. When Jefus had thus faid, he was "troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I fay unto you, that one shall betray me.

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of you

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22. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. 23. Now there was leaning on Jesus' "bofom one of his disciples, whom Jesus "loved.

24.

Simon-Peter, therefore, beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should "be of whom he spake.

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25. He then lying on Jesus' breast, "faith unto him, Lord, who is it?

"26. Jesus answered, He it is to whom "I fhall give a fop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the fop, "he gave to Judas Iscariot, the fon of Simon."

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Our Lord, with that tenderness and compaffion which fo eminently distinguishMmm 2

ed

ed every act of his life, even towards his bitterest enemies, could not reflect on the bafe ingratitude of Judas, and the fatal confequences he would inevitably draw on himself by fo foul a crime, without being 'troubled:' although his pure mind abhorred the guilt, he could not help feeling for the traitor; particularly when he faw him in one with whom he had long lived in habits of focial intercourse.

The difciples, on our Lord's declaration That one of them fhould betray him, were thrown into the greatest consternation, as well as aftonifhment: they looked on each other with fufpicion and dismay; but knew not on whom to fix: trembling and disheartened, each of them feared, though unconscious himself of so deteftable a design, the all-searching eye of their Lord might have discovered the yet-unformed intent lurking in his heart. The fufpenfe was too painful to be long borne; and Peter, who feems to have ac quired more diffidence of himself, fince his laft difcourfe with Jefus concerning the wafhing