port and bless them. I will come to you. He came to them after his resurrection personally, but the assurance he here gives, refers, according to Norton, "not to any personal presence with his disciples, but to his presence with them in the power of his religion, his presence to their minds and hearts." He might be said to come to his disciples in the communications of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Carpenter observes that this verse may be punctuated differently, so as to be connected with ver. 19, thus: "I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you for a little while longer; yet the world seeth me no more," &c.

19. The world seeth me no more. Our Lord was soon to die; and after his resurrection he would show himself, not to the people at large, but to his friends and disciples. - Ye see me, i. e. spiritually. In like manner, he told them that, by being acquainted with him, they saw the Father. Ver. 9. Because I live, ye shall live also. Life usually stands for blessedness in the writings of John. "Because I am blessed, ye shall be blessed also," is a rendering more true to the idiom in the original.

was intimately united to the Father in his benevolent purposes, and fully competent to act as the spiritual Saviour of mankind, drawing them unto him by the cords of love. — I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. If any doubt exist in any mind as to the nature of the union of the Father with the Son, and of the Son with the Father, it can be dissipated by no clearer explanation than that here given by Jesus himself, in which he declares their connexion to be of the same character as his own union with his disciples, and their union with him. The same golden chain of love and sympathy that unites the Son to the Father, and makes them one, joins the disciples to the Saviour, and to one another, and thus makes them all one. Chap. xvii. 21. He it is that loveth me, &c. Note on ver. 15. — And he that loveth me, &c. As a continuation of his consoling words, he tells them that, by loving him, they would secure the love of the Father, as well as his own. — And will manifest myself to him. Not necessarily in a personal manner, but, more probably, in the spiritual presence and power of his religion, felt in their hearts and lives.

22. Judas; elsewhere called Lebbeus, or Thaddeus, brother of James the Less, and author of the Epistle of Jude.

Mat. x. 3.- Unto us, and not unto the world. Bradford here remarks that "the apostles were still ignorant of the resurrection of their

Master, and of the spiritual nature of his religion. They were not yet aware that the spirit of the gospel and of Jesus might abide with, and guide, and sanctify, and comfort its recipients, without the world perceiving it." 23-25. Jesus reiterates the declaration he had already made in ver. 15, 20, 21, that to love him was to keep his commandments; that the faithful disciple would be loved by God, and visited by the constant tokens of the divine presence and favor; but that the unbelieving and disobedient were guilty, not only of rejecting him, but also the Father, whose commission he bore. We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. "He who acts out the commandments of Jesus from the heart, elevates and purifies his moral sense. He discerns the moral significance of things. He sees the Father and the Son-they come to him, not personally, in visible shapes, but they are manifested in the brightness of their moral being, present to his heart. They not only come to him, but they are in him, and he is in them. A far more intimate acquaintance, a far closer and more inspiring union, takes place than could be formed by mere personal intercourse."-FURNESS.The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's, &c. A Hebraism. The word or doctrine which I have preached and you have heard, is not

so much mine as it is the Father's, who sent me to teach it. It should not be forgotten that this discourse of our Lord was addressed to the twelve, and contains promises in relation to miraculous powers, and spiritual gifts, which, in some cases, are limited to them, and do not hold true of all his disciples in every age.

26. The Comforter, &c. He here explains what he meant by the Comforter, the Paraclete, or Advocate. It was not a person, but the Holy Spirit of God, a divine influence, which the Father would communicate in the name and through the mediation of Christ, and which would at once revive the holy impressions they had already received from their Master, bringing his teachings back freshly to their minds, and also guiding and directing them into all farther truth, necessary to the apostolic office.

27. Peace I leave with you, my peace, &c. "Peace be with you," was the eastern mode of salutation. Our Lord says, that in bidding them farewell, he did not do it after the heartless and unmeaning manner in which the world observed such forms of civil respect, but in the high spiritual sense, as well as with full and fervent affection. "I wish," he says, "that you may possess peace; though I am called to leave you myself, I will leave my peace behind me with you." The peace of Jesus - how great, how blessed must that have

been, how like "the peace of God, which passeth understanding"! The adieu, the benediction of such a being, was indeed an earnest of the most true and unalloyed happiness of which the human heart was susceptible. War, not peace, might seem, if we judged by the harassed, persecuted life of the apostles, to have been the parting salutation. But if there was war without, there was peace within, for though imprisoned, beaten, tortured, killed, they still enjoyed that secret approbation of conscience, that praise of God and Christ, which could shed serenity over the gloom of the dungeon, still the noisy fears of prince and people, and convert the rough and horrible cross into a sweeter resting-place than the downy pillow of self-indulgence, or the purple throne of tyr

anny.

"Peace' was the prayer the Saviour breathed

When from our world his steps withdrew,
The gift he to his friends bequeathed,
With Calvary and the cross in view :-
Redeemer with admiring love

Our spirits take thy rich bequest,
The watchword of the host above,
The passport to their realm of rest."

Let not your heart be troubled, &c. By bestowing on them his blessing, he would encourage them to rise above all trouble and fear.

28. Ye have heard, &c. See ver. 3. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, &c. So far from being distressed at my departure, if you truly loved me, and sympathized with me in the grand object for which I came into the world, you would rejoice to know that I am about to leave you and to go unto the Father, who is infinitely great and good, and able and disposed to confer on me the highest honor and happiness, and to bless

you most abundantly. "It is the same observation that commonly occurs to pious persons when they die, and leave their children and friends in the hands of God, who, they naturally say, can take better care of them than they could do." For my Father is greater than I. This clause contains the reason why they ought to rejoice, that he was going to the Father. It was because He was a being greater than himself, and capable of providing for his best welfare and that of his bereaved followers. They had, therefore, nothing to fear, but could resign themselves to the divine will without one throb of apprehension. Our Lord here declares himself to be subordinate to the Father, in terms the most direct and explicit. The common mode of explaining this expression by the theory of the two natures, is wholly unauthorized both by Scripture and reason. For, as remarked by Priestley, "to suppose that Jesus spoke of his human nature only, when he said that he was inferior to the Father, is to suppose that he meant to puzzle and mislead his hearers. By himself, certainly he meant his whole self, and not a part only." To regard our Saviour as speaking, now as man, and now as God; at one time in his official character as the Messiah, and at another in his divine nature as the Supreme Being, introduces such confusion into the Gospels as must tend to make them appear, to a candid observer, rather in the light of books of riddles, than of revealed truths. If, when he said, "My Father is greater than I," he did not mean that God, as one being, including all his attributes, was greater than Jesus Christ, as one being, including all his pow

you:

: 30

ers and qualities, we shut up the New Testament in despair of arriving at its real meaning. But if we understand the clause in its obvious sense, it harmonizes with what is elsewhere said of the subordinate nature of our Lord, and adds one to the many proofs, that he was not God, or equal to God, but the Son, Messenger, Mediator, raised up by God to be the Teacher and Saviour of mankind. While the common theory involves the nature of God in darkness by assigning to Him three persons, it also mystifies the person of Christ, by attributing to him two natures. "The text was always understood to express a real superiority in the Father to the Son, even after the notion of the deity of Christ had gained ground in the Christian church. There was a long interval between the notion of Christ being God in some low and qualified sense of the word, and that of his being God, equal in power and glory to the Father. Such a great corruption of Christianity as this, did not rise to its full height at once, but by very slow degrees."

29. That when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Jesus predicts what is soon to take place, in order that after its fulfilment, it might increase and confirm their belief in him. This is the main object of prophecy in general, and it is nowhere more clearly stated than in this text and in chap. xiii. 19.

30. I will not talk much with you. The opportunity of conversing with his disciples was passing rapidly away. The prince of this world.

See note, chap. xii. 31. A personification of the evil principles and passions that were contending against the spread of his gospel; or of the ecclesiastical power of the Jews, and the civil authority of the Romans, that would be instrumental of putting him to death.-Hath nothing in me. Finds no crime or guilt in me, whereon to ground a just charge and condemnation; for even Judas, Pilate, Herod, and the centurion, testified to the perfect innocence of Jesus. Or, he finds in me no susceptibility or tendency to sin, nothing to lead me to swerve from the path of rectitude and God.

31. But, i. e. according to some, "But he cometh," or "this must be, that the world may know," &c. Arise, let us go hence. They are conjectured at this point to have left the room where they supped. Some connect this clause with the former part of the verse, and read it thus: "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do; arise, let us go hence;" i. e. as an evidence that I love the Father and obey his commands, let us arise and go hence, for my hour has come to meet danger and death in the work whereto he hath sent me. proof of my fidelity and affection, let me go forth to Gethsemane and Calvary, to Judas and Caiaphas, to Pilate and Herod, to the cross and the sepulchre.

As a

This chapter is often resorted to by the bereaved and afflicted, and never in vain, for it contains consolations fitted to soothe the deepest sor

rows of the heart; since it breathes in every line that calm, filial trust in God, which infuses peace into the agitated, anguished soul. It speaks of death in the cheerful language of going unto the Father, and opens visions of blessedness beyond the grave. It suggests numerous topics of comfort, applicable to every age, as well as to the little flock of anxious disciples, to whom it was first addressed. God is presented in the tender light of a Father, and Jesus as the Forerunner, to prepare mansions of rest for his faithful followers; while the recurring burden and chorus of the consolatory strain is, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "Well do the sons and daughters of affliction turn always first to the fourteenth chapter of John. What a fountain of consolation flows forever here!"

CHAPTER XV.

to

1. Our Lord is supposed at this time to have gone forth with his disciples from the supper-room, on his way Gethsemane. - I am the true vine. This imagery was suggested, as has been conjectured, either by the fruit of the vine, of which they had partaken at the feast; or by the splendid golden vine, attached to the temple as one of its most costly and magnificent ornaments, and which might fall under their observation as they passed by; or by the vineyards along their way to the garden of Gethsemane;

which last supposition is preferable. Our Saviour represents himself as the genuine Teacher of divine truth, and the source of spiritual light and strength to his disciples, under the figure of a vine, which, from its single root and trunk, nourishes many branches, and enables them to bear fruit; while his Father is the husbandman, or, more accurately, the vine-dresser, that dresses and prunes the vine and its branches, and makes them fruitful. He thus paints in the liveliest colors the union between himself and his followers, and their common relation to God.

2. That beareth not fruit, i. e. unfaithful and unprofitable disciples, like Judas. - He taketh away. The Greek verb here, auget, airei, is similar to the verb below, purgeth, nacióɛi, kathairei, and the adjective clean in ver. 3, xa0aigoi, kathairoi. This paranomasia, or play upon words, is lost in our translation. Purgeth. Better, pruneth. God designs the discipline of life, and the influences of his grace, to make the good better, and the fruitful more fruitful.

3, 4. Clean. Or, according to the figure in the original, pruned. - The word, i. e. the doctrines of Jesus, which were adapted to free the minds of his apostles of all excrescences and encumbering prejudices and sins, and render them vigorous and fruitful. Chap. xvii. 17.- Abide, &c. Or, "remain connected with me, and I will remain connected with you.”