tween the Father and himself; and that after his departure, new, enlightening influences would descend upon them through God's Holy Spirit. In chap. xv. he points out the necessity of a living union between himself and his disciples, in order that they might be eminently useful; and assures them, that in his and his Father's love, and in their mutual affection for one another, and in the influences of the Holy Spirit, they would experience ample compensation for the hatred and persecution of the world. In chap. xvi. he would arm their minds for their coming trials by the assurance, that they were foreseen and predicted by their Master; by the promise of the Spirit, the love and the blessing of the Father; and by his own animating example in overcoming the world. In the next chapter he commends himself, his disciples, and his great cause to the care of God, in a prayer of inimitable sublimity and pathos, fitly concluding his divine instructions. In the language of Hug, as translated by Fosdic, "Is not all this in accordance with the character of Christ? Is it not the farewell of an exalted and noble soul, which, untroubled by the thought of impending suffering, occupies itself wholly with its lofty schemes, and with the business of instructing and consoling those whom it leaves behind? And I must further ask, could the gradation in the conversation possibly be more natural? Can there be imagined a more beautiful rise than is here presented; first, mutual remark, then increasing

silence among the listeners, broken only by a low question, till ultimately the last whisper dies away, and in the universal stillness the soul mounts upward to its loftiest elevation!"

CHAPTER XVII.

The following prayer of our Lord, first for himself, ver. 1-5, next for his apostles, ver. 6-19, and lastly for his followers throughout the world in all ages, ver. 20-26, brings his farewell discourse to a sublime close.

1. Lifted up his eyes to heaven. The natural posture of devotion.Father. Jesus addresses God in prayer by this title fifteen times in the four Gospels. The hour is come, i. e. the conclusion of his ministry_on earth.

Glorify thy Son, &c. This is a petition, that God would cause his death and resurrection, with other wonders, on the eve of taking place, to promote the spread of the gospel, in which the honor of both the Father and his Son was involved. See chap. xii. 28. Jesus was also soon to be advanced from a state of poverty, persecution, and suffering, on the earth, to the highest honors and glories of heaven.

2. Power over all flesh, i. e. the spiritual authority and dominion over mankind, which God had delegated to his Son. It would be a task to enumerate, on account of their number, the passages in which Jesus speaks of his power, influence, and all his gifts, as being conferred on him by God, not as being his own inherent and original possessions.

That he should give, &c. Gerard and Norton render it thus: "That he may give to them all that thou hast given to him," viz. eternal life, or blessedness; which is a far more correct transcript of the original than the present version.

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3. This is life eternal, &c. He describes in this verse the true origin and means of enjoying the spiritual, everlasting, and blessed life of the soul. It consists in the knowledge of God and his Son; by which is meant something more than a speculative or theoretical knowledge; there must be a practical, experimental heart-knowledge, constantly increased by loving God and imitating Jesus. The only true God. In reference to idols and other things, which men falsely regard and worship as God, and defraud the Supreme of his rightful homage.-And Jesus Christ, &c. Or, to adopt Newcome's rendering, “and him whom thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ;" though that candid and judicious commentator considers the words Jesus Christ as a gloss or marginal annotation crept into the text; for in no other place does our Saviour speak thus, but calls himself the Son of man. It is observable here, that but one God is spoken of, and Jesus Christ is not included in the Godhead, as constituting any part of it, but as the distinct and separate Messenger of the only true God. The "doctrine of pronouns," so termed by Worcester, furnishes here, as elsewhere, the strongest possible confirmation of the Antitrinitarian view. The terms thee, whom, thou, and, farther down,

I, me, &c., signify distinct, individual, unmixed beings, as much as when such terms are used in ordinary language; else we are all afloat, and have no fixed usages of speech, no rules of phraseology by which we can understand the Holy Scriptures.

4. I have glorified thee on the earth. By revealing the Father in my wonderful works, my divine doctrines, and unspotted character. God only requires to be known, to be glorious in the eyes of all his intelligent creatures. I have finished the work. He speaks of his mission as already ended, though its last painful scenes were still to be undergone. The great work for which he came, to testify to the truth, to reveal God to the benighted mind of man, to offer pardon to the sinner, and open heaven to the eye of duty and faith, was now drawing to its conclusion.

5. With thine own self. Or, in thy presence; or, at thy right hand. With the glory which I had with thee before the world was. The nature of the glory of which he here speaks, has been before indicated in ver. 1, 4, and is still more plainly set forth in ver. 22, as the glory which he would also give his disciples, viz. that of instructing and converting mankind to a knowledge of the truth and life everlasting. He speaks, in ver. 22, as having already given it to his apostles, though it was still future. În like manner, that is often spoken of in the counsels of God, as being done, which is

designed to be done. Thus believers are spoken of as already glorified. Rom. viii. 30. Judas, in this chapter, ver. 12, is said to be destroyed, though

it was not yet accomplished. The glory, then, which Christ had with the Father before the foundation of the world, was the glory God designed he should have, when he came and performed his mission, and died to save the lost a view fitted to invest our Lord with the highest dignity in the estimation of his apostles and all ages, and to rebut the narrow Jewish charge, that he was an innovator upon Moses and the law. In the same way, the Lamb is spoken of, in Rev. xiii. 8, as slain from the foundation of the world, meaning, in the purposes of God, who designed that it should be slain. See note on chap. viii. 58; also Mat. xxv. 34; 2 Tim. i. 9; Heb. iv. 3, x. 34; 1 Pet. i. 20. The glory, for which Jesus here prays on account of his having finished the work given him to do, as if to be given in the light of a reward, or rather as an effect of his labors, could not have been any thing which he had before experienced; else there would have been no fitness, if it had been enjoyed before that work was done, in its being given to him out of consideration for what he had done, or in its following as the result of his exertions. Besides, as has well been observed, the prayer of our Lord was wholly disinterested; it was not personal enjoyment or selfish glory for which he supplicated; it shocks all our ideas of our self-denying, self-sacrificing Master, to suppose it for one instant; but his petition was, that the purposes of God, which had been formed before the world, and which were designed to have their fulfilment through his instrumentality, might now be crowned with the

most glorious success. When we understand, that it was the custom of Jewish writers to speak of what would be as having already been,-for instance, as the Talmuds say, that the law of Moses was before the world, i. e. in the counsels of God, — and when, furthermore, we compare scripture with scripture, we shall see the justice of the above interpretation, and that no violence is here done to the language of our Lord, but on the other hand, that its plain signification is taken.

6. Jesus now turns the course of his devotion, and supplicates the favor of God upon his disciples. Manifested thy name. Equivalent to, have made thee known, and taught thy will and purposes. Which thou gavest me out of the world. Or, as Bloomfield paraphrases it, whom by thy Providence thou hast delivered to me, to be taught and brought unto salvation.-Thine they were. For God is the proprietor and rightful disposer of all. Or, they were his by their faith and obedience.-They have kept thy word. They have believed in me, and obeyed my commandments, and thus done thy will.

7,8. All things whatsoever. My doctrines and my works, they have recognized as coming from thee. In other words, these verses declare, with repeated emphasis, that the disciples had full belief in the divine mission of their Master, that his works were the works of God, his words the words of God, and that the Father had specially commissioned him to save the world. For I have given unto them the words, &c. He here describes what was a consider

able part of the work which he had now finished, ver. 4, viz. instructing his disciples, and preparing them to be the heralds of the gospel to mankind.

9. I pray for them, i. e. in particular.-I pray not for the world, i. e. not now, for the same petition would not be appropriate for both, but he afterwards prayed for it. Ver.20-26. - For they are thine. This was the reason why he especially prayed for them. It was because they were the Father's, not only by nature and providence, but because they had gladly received and obeyed his Son, or were destined to be the ministers of the gospel to mankind. They were placed in an important post, and they needed unusual supports; they were exposed to terrible dangers and temptations, and they required the arm of Heaven for their defence.

10. Our Lord rises from the particular case of the disciples to the general truth, that there were the most uninterrupted communications between himself and the Father in respect to all the interests of his mission; so that what was one's might also be truly said to be the other's, and that thus his honor and dignity were vindicated against his cavilling enemies.-All mine are thine, i. e. according to Newcome, as the original. Thine are mine, i. e. by thy unbounded gifts,

Our

11. Keep through thine own name, i. e. through thine immediate and special power; or, as is preferable, in thine own name, or, in the pure faith, obedience, and love of God.-That they may be one, as we are. Lord's statement in this place, that the union connecting his disciples, was like that between God and himself, throws much light upon chap. x. 30. In both cases, it was not oneness of nature. which was meant, for that would be, not a mystery, but an absurdity; but oneness of love, of plans, binding the disciples together in a loving fraternity, as it bound the Father and the Son in the perfect harmony of a divine and spiritual fellowship.

12. I kept them in thy name. While Jesus continued to teach them, he retained them in their allegiance to God, with one exception, which he now proceeds to specify. The son of perdition, i. e. Judas. Ecclus. xvi. 9. A Hebrew form of speech, to describe one doomed to perdition or ruin. There is a paronomasia, or play upon words, which adds point and elegance to the original, but it is not easily retained in our language. None of them is lost, unohero, apoleto, but the son of perdition, of loss, analɛas, apoleias. That the Scripture might be fulfilled. Or, so that it was fulfilled, or verified; in other words, the ancient Scripture saying