SERMON XXV.

Second Sunday after Easter.

ST. JOHN X. 16.

There shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.

WHEN our Lord Christ, in that portion of St.

day's Service, speaks of the true shepherd and of the hireling, we must see that He is foretelling to His followers how that, in after times, two characters should appear in the Christian world. He informs them that there would be hirelings, and that there would be true shepherds; that the hireling would draw after him a portion of the flock, and that the true shepherd would have a portion also, which would follow him. The Lord states also that this division is displeasing to Him, because He adds that it shall not continue. He foretells that the hireling shall cease and fail, and that there "shall be one fold and one Shepherd."

There is one truth very plainly foretold both in the Gospels and in the Epistles, which is, that divisions would come in upon the Church of Christ. St. Peter, in his General Epistles, is particularly plain on this point; and in the second chapter of his B b

second Epistle describes the false teachers who would hereafter disturb the Church as clearly as though they were then standing before him; he earnestly warns Christians to avoid them, and to preserve themselves in unity. The Lord Christ strongly forewarns His disciples of this downfal. He says that peace would not follow His appearance upon earth, and that it would not spring out of His teaching, but divisions rather. He foretells that these divisions would run to a great height and power; that His preaching would even "send a sword upon the earth," and that "kingdom would rise up against kingdom, and nation against nation." All these things, which the Son of God hath foretold, have come to pass already; and as the minds of men are still often heated, blind, and angry on religious questions, it ought to be our prayer to God that there may be peace in the Church, and that such hard and cruel times may never befall us again. Every one who has made history his study, and especially if he has read the histories of the Church of Christ, will know that there have been repeated wars, and, moreover, very long, very bloody, very cruel wars, merely about religion. The sword has come, and "nation has risen up against nation."

Whenever we see the plain fulfilment of any of the prophecies of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have the comfort of a fresh confirmation of our faith in

a Matt. x. 34.

b Matt. xxiv. 7.

our Redeemer, because we have another proof that He was one with God, and that He was sent forth from the Father. Being in the counsels of the Most High, He foreknew what was to happen upon earth, and therefore, in the great things which He foretold, and also in what we may consider the lesser things of which He spake, a man who knows his Bible, and knows also the history of the times now gone by and ended, will find himself as he reads meeting with fulfilment after fulfilment both of that which is little and that which is great of all that the Lord hath spoken. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," he will close the book and say,-"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the Word of the Lord".'

Now, my brethren, men would never have thought that all these divisions and separations, these bloodsheds and massacres, would have sprung out of the Gospel. The Gospel is a religion of peace and goodwill; it is a religion of mutual forbearance; it says, "Be not high-minded"," love one another, be not " contentious;" it says, "Be gentle, be peaceable, be forgiving;" it says further, "You must be forgiving, you must have forgiven all things, or else you will never be forgiven yourselves." This is one main part of what the Gospel commands, so that a man when he heard the meek and lowly Jesus preach never would have said that destruction, war, and

c Matt. xxiv. 35.

d Rom. xi. 20.

e 1 Cor. xi. 16.

death would come upon the world out of that teaching. But the Lord God foreknew it, because He also knew the power and the malice of Satan. The Lord God foreknew that Satan would labour hard to hinder the redemption of that world which he had led into sin. Christ Jesus foresaw that the Enemy would not willingly let so many souls escape his snares; he would not permit, if he could hinder it, such a heavenly plan of peace and grace to run over the world, and to bring forth therein happiness, charity, loving-kindness among men, and the increase withal of the kingdom and the glory of the Lord, and the fulfilment of the Redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus well foresaw all this. He knew that, as in heaven so on earth, the spirits that are lost and fallen would fight against Him and oppose; He knew that their evil power would produce contention and disturbance for a long season, and that His Church would travail and labour and be " sore vexed."

We must look for those things to come upon us which the Lord hath spoken. Accordingly we find that these evil times have happened, and in some sense we may say, are still happening, upon the earth. At first Satan and his evil angels stirred up the heathen world to strangle Christianity in her birth. There are many histories of the terrible persecutions which, in the early days of the Church of Christ, both tried her and purified her. The history, however, where all must be true, is the history to turn

to in the first place; and so in the New Testament you may read, in the short account which St. Paul gives of his own persecutions, how the Christians generally were persecuted; how their persecutions grew at last to be fiery trials; how they were beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder, burnt, cast to be torn to pieces of wild beasts; how cruelty, in short, exhausted her inventions in an unfeeling age to tear the faith and the love of Christ from the hearts of all mankind.

The Lord, however, upheld them that were His own. Through persecution and against persecution the words of Christ still rose upon the world and flourished. From a few men the Christians became a multitude, and from a multitude they grew into kingdoms and nations. Satan saw his efforts fail. He could not destroy nor put down the Word of the Lord. It was too mighty for him. It was too mighty because it was so pure, because it was so merciful, because it was so just; it was too mighty because it was so true. Men would have it; and where they were willing, Christ's grace aided them, and the love of God cherished them, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost upheld them, so that they stood in the Lord. Satan saw the faith in Christ rise and establish itself under these graces, and he was defeated.

But he is never idle, and therefore he said, "Let me divide, and so I shall destroy." And now came into fulfilment the words of the Lord. Then came