Who art, with God the Father, And Spirit, ever blest. Prayer before Sermon. PREVENT US, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy us, most gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help; that in the preaching and hearing of Thy Word, as in all our works begun, continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy holy Name, and finally by Thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Father which art in heaven; Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in carth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil : For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. SERMON. THE SAVIOUR'S PRAYER FOR THE FIRST COMMUNICANTS. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.—ST JOHN XVII. 15. THESE words deserve our special attention on an evening like this. It is not merely the kindness and the wisdom that shine through them, that I should wish you to observe. But when we look at them, we find that there is a great principle involved in them; and a principle which runs through all God's dealings with His children and servants. God's plan with His Christian people, is not to withdraw them from danger, but to shield them in it: not to remove them from labour, but to strengthen them for it: not to keep them entirely free from sorrow, care, and trial, but rather to comfort under these, and turn all these into : a heavenly discipline. Even worldly wisdom can see that it is a nobler thing to strengthen the back, than to lighten the burden: it is worthier to give more power to the arm, than to lessen the work it has to do it is better to strengthen the ship till it shall be able to face the hurricane, than to keep it always sailing upon a breezeless sea. In many respects, and for many reasons, it is better to bring up the strength to do and bear, than to let down the standard of what is to be done and borne. And so the Christian principle is, that we must labour to enter into rest,— that through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God,—that we must pass to that country where there is no darkness of night, through the dark valley of the shadow of death. Our Blessed Saviour, as all here well know, after addressing His apostles in that most beautiful discourse which is recorded in the three chapters which precede that in which my text stands, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and poured out that kind, wise, comforting Intercessory Prayer. He is about to leave His chosen friends in a world of sin and sorrow: and He thinks mainly of them, and not of His own approaching agony and death. How often have we all lingered upon these wonderful words; wherein the Redeemer asks that so much of good and so much of glory may be the appointed portion of those He is leaving behind! He says much of an evil world in which they were to be left: a world that would hate His friends because they were not of it: a world in which they never would find the rest, the holiness, the happiness, the home, which He prayed they might yet enjoy: a world from which He was Himself going soon away; and from which it might have seemed a blessed and a happy thing that they should all go together. But the Saviour's purpose and the Saviour's prayer were not like that. He did not wish to withdraw the labourer from the burden and heat of the day: He did not intend to remove the soldier from the field on which he must fight the good fight of faith it was no plan of His to take away the apostles from a world in which they were to preach the gospel to perishing souls, and to testify of Christ's work and resurrection. But yet the wind must be tempered to the shorn lamb: He would not cast them forth upon this world at its worst, to bear the brunt of whatever storm might blow. The prayer was as kind and thoughtful as if it had asked that they might enter into heaven at once: but still it went upon that great principle on which all God's dealings with His children go. The Redeemer prayed for His apostles, and prayed with all the tenderness of the dying father who is leaving his little children behind yet His words are, I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil!' You see, there were the two good things which |