"Lord's-day, July 4th, was the third anniversary of our pastorate at Foot's Cray. We have preached, by God's help, the grand old gospel of sovereign grace, and we have kept the ordinances as they were delivered by the Master. We have seen many changes; faith has been tried,ciently; and, in the unavoidable absence

Gethsemane.

The outline of a Sermon preached at Eden Chapel, Cambridge, Aug. 1st, 1880. By J. JULL.

"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder."-Matt. xxvi. 36.

LET us go back with our thoughts nearly 1,900 years to one particular Thursday evening and night—one of the most memorable evenings in the world's history. Jesus had just now finished His last discourse, and His farewell prayer with His disciples. Do we not somewhat wish we had been there, to have heard that sincere, pure, earnest, loving prayer drop from His sinless lips just on the eve of His suffering?

How full of might and power does that one sentence even now reach us: “For their sakes I sanctify myself;" or, for their sake I consecrate Myself to Thee in My death as a holy offering, for I am both the High Priest and sacrifice, that they may be holy through the truth.

According to the immemorial custom to mingle songs of praises to God with their feasts at the passover, which were from the 113th Psalm to the 118th, they had already sang the first two, and now the last fitly began, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory; for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake," and closed with the 118th Psalm, "Blessed be He that cometh in the name of Jehovah." And now all was over, and the eleven, following their Master, went out into the night. And now we see them on their way to Gethsemane. Observe the conversation on their way to the garden-Jesus breaks the silence by saying, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night." How strange, how surprising must this language have been to them! They be offended with Him! why we can imagine their feelings, and mentally saying-We be offended! we love thee too much.-Thou hast now our hearts-we never can leave Thee or forsake Thee. He now tells them what is written of Him: "I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." BUT, although there His sufferings and death are foretold, yet there is hope-life beyond. "After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee."

We now come to Peter's answer to our Lord's statement respecting Himself: "Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended." Here we see a display of Peter's ignorance of his own weakness, and his impetuosity, yet at the same time a loving heart to his attached Lord and Master.

Jesus answers with an assurance that he will, and also gives the time-by the cock crowing he will have denied him thrice. Ah, Jesus knows our weakness and failings, if we do not; and when we repent over them, and turn to Him with a contrite soul, how ready He is to heal and forgive!

Peter still continues in the same mind, and so also the rest of the disciples. No. 574.-OCTOBER, 1880.

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By this time they had passed through the city over Kidron's brook, and we now see them in the garden of Gethsemane.

There are four things worth noticing in the text:

1. Where does He come from. 2. What brought Him there. 3. His state of soul and employment. 4. His companions.

I. He comes from the place of commemoration. He, with His twelve disciples, had just partaken of the passover supper. This was a command of God given by Moses. Every year this ordinance of the passover was to be observed. Now, Jesus with His disciples being Jews, met together, and for the last time see them alone partaking of the roasted lamb and bitter herbs, here commemorating their deliverance from Egyptian bondage and oppression. He comes from the place of inauguration. Having finished now with the last rite of the Jewish dispensation, before separating, and previous to His death, He institutes His own ordinance, which is properly called the "Lord's supper." Listen to the Lord Himself, instituting and administering His own ordinance, first, it is to His own disciples, and these are baptized ones. He, Jesus, takes the bread, blesses it, and breaks it, then says to them; "Take eat, this is My body which is given for you." Now the command for the future is, "This do in remembrance of me." Then follows the cup; He gave thanks once more, and passed it to the circle, and said, "Drink ye all of it, for this cup is the new Covenant in My blood, which is shed for you and many, for the remission of sins." The cup, He told them, was a symbol of the new covenant, under which His followers had now come, in distinction to the one they had left for His sake. It was to be a memorial of Him, and a constant recognition of their faith in the virtue of His atoning death-that death which was the seal of this new covenant.

II. What brought Him there?

The place was Gethsemane, a garden that Jesus often frequented alone, and also with His disciples. As Hart says:

Thither, by their Master brought,

His disciples likewise came;

There the heavenly truths He taught,
Often set their hearts on flame,
Therefore they, as well as He,
Visited Gethsemane."

It was a place of quiet and calm retreat from the noise and excitement, and business din of the city; for Jesus loved often to be alone, sometimes in secret communion with God, at other times with His disciples.

A garden. When we begin to read the Bible, we soon come to this word; it was where our first parents were placed; hére in the garden, where man was found, sin is first committed, and the curse is entailed. Ages roll away: at last we find the second man, the Lord from heaven, in the garden; there He comes under the curse of sin, to roll it away for His church.

But what brought Him there?

1. It was love-His love was fixed upon His church before time, though fallen, sunken, and ruined, His love remained the same. It was His love

for her brought Him to the spot-brought Him in to the sad, gloomy, suffering condition in which we now behold Him.

"Nothing brought Him from above,
Nothing but redeeming love."

2. His covenant engagements brought Him there too.

If we make certain engagements, they involve us in certain responsibilities, and liabilities. Now, Jesus engaged in covenant with God, His Father, to redeem the church, to purify, to justify, to glorify, and present her faultless and unblameable before God in love. Such an engagement involved the engaged in corresponding liabilities, and no release from them could there be but by the due performance of them. Thus we find Jesus here in the garden, in order to fulfil these engagements. He was there to receive the cup of wrath of God's righteous anger due to sin-He took it and drank the whole, and obtained the cup of blessing and salvation for His loved body, the church.

Painfully was His path marked with scorn and reproach from men: He, whose soul was truth, was condemned as a deceiver and blasphemer,

With what willingness He came to the place, there to be arrested--to be condemned by Pilate, and led to Calvary, to die and become the sacrifice to atone for our guilt!

III. His state of soul and employment.

"My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death," are his own words— He is called the man of sorrows-now He declares how sorrowful He is.

Sin brings sorrow, and as the Substitute of the church-the cup having been put into His hands, nothing now but suffering is before Him. "And very heavy." Sin is heavy, and all the sins of millions are now laid upon Him. "And the Lord (Isaiah says) hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." Thus we see the soul of the Redeemer exceeding sorrowful, and very heavy with the church's sins upon Him, bearing the curse due to them, paying the penalties demanded of Him. He bore all away, and before He expired said, "It is finished," and with a "loud voice gave up the ghost." 2. Employment.-"Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder."

Full of sorrow, bowed down with the heavy weight of sin upon Him, He resorts to prayer, and that private. "Sit ye here." I must be alone to pray. You cannot hear My groans; you must not hear My language to My God in this deep soul trouble. The intensity of His soul trouble is seen by the language he uses:- "Oh my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from Me!" and the threefold repetition of the words again proves how overwhelmed He was. Thus we see prayer eases the mind of the sorrowing and

suffering Saviour.

What a lesson is here taught to the anxious sinner, burdened with his sin, and full of heaviness because of soul trouble!-Go in secret, and pour out your heart into the ears of Him who once trod the like path penally for you. To the troubled and distressed Christian :-Art thou overwhelmed

with sorrow, grief, trial, difficulties? Go with thy burden, and thy trouble, and say with thy suffering Lord, "Oh my Father, if it be possible

let this cup pass from me." He will ease thy mind, soothe thy soul, and deliver thee, for Jesus, His Son's sake.

IV. Who are His companions? His disciples. Peter, James, and John-How came they to be His companions? How came they to be so honoured, so favoured, to be in such company-for they were once rude, rough fishermen- caring nothing for Jesus, wholly absorbed with this life. The answer is simple, plain, and clear-for He called them, and they followed Him.

1. What is the call? Out of darkness into His marvellous light-all the time we are in the dark, we can neither see the deformed objects by which we are surrounded, nor the beautiful ones. So man by nature, he is in the dark-when he is called by grace, he is brought into the light: now he sees sin in all its deformity, its evil, and defilement in his own person, life, and character. He, with this light, sees the danger to which he is exposed. Now, with the light of grace, he sees the beauty of Jesus' person-His work of law obedience- -His death, as making an end of sin, as just suitable and adapted to save him from his ruined state. Thus he is called by grace, and made a loving and willing companion of Jesus.

Again, we are called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. These disciples enjoyed His company-had the advantage of His teaching, counsel, advice-were often profited by His prayers, in contrast to the multitude who only heard and understood Him by parables; but these men, His disciples, were called into the meaning of them, and have fellowship by the way.

So the sinner now is called by divine grace to have fellowship with Jesus, and to be a partaker of some of the things He has obtained for us on our way homewards. Do we partake of Him by precious faith-the blood He has shed, the peace He has procured, the pardon effected, and the righteousness He has wrought out? thus are we the called disciples of Jesus and His chosen companions; and because of His choice of us in so calling us, we make Him the chief companion of our hearts.

Are there any here who are not companions of Jesus, but companions of the world and sinners? Oh, think of what a sad state you are in; for the world is to be burned up, and sinners are to be consumed from off it; and where will you be found? Oh, think of this, and remember there is only one place of safety, and that is—to be a companion of Jesus, the once suffering, one, but now risen and glorified Mediator.

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP.
By W. J. STYLES, Keppel-street Chapel.

THE Word of God enjoins baptized believers to pursue their heavenward journey in company with those that fear God. Isolated Christians were all but unknown in the apostolic age -the age which set a pattern and precedent to the church to the end of time and, in prospect of a period of

unparalleled peril, the Hebrew Christians are earnestly besought not "to forsake the assembling of themselves together," as was the manner of some, who are mentioned only to be censured. Christian association is therefore incumbent upon all that fear God.

The duty, moreover, is not merely stated in broad and general terms, but in the New Testament very ex