When storms arise, when dangers threaten, when inward and outward enemies attack our peace; when we cannot maintain our discipleship without the sacrifice of some darling passion of almost irresistible power; when we can walk no longer with our Master, without the loss of some considerable temporal advantages; when we are summoned by him to fly from the soft allurements of pleasure, to burst the bonds of avarice or ambition, to disclaim all dependence upon the world, ourselves, or any created being; in a word, "to forsake all, take up our cross, and follow him;" then, indeed, is our hour of trial! then the sincerity of our attachment to Christ, will be made manifest to ourselves, and to the world; and we shall learn to know assuredly, whether we are, or are not, of the number of those disciples, "who go back, and walk no more with him."
Therefore, O Christian, thy Beloved is then only thine, and thou art then only his, when thou canst abide with him in the darkness of the vale, as well as in the splendors of the mount; when thou canst walk with him in the wilderness, as well as on the plain; and when "neither tribulation, nor distress, nor trial, nor persecution, can separate thee from the Love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
DISCOURSE IV.
The Religion of Jesus, the only Source of Happiness.
St. John, Chap. vi. Ver. 66, 67, 68.
"From that time many of Disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the Twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord! to whom shall we go? Thou hast the Words of Eternal Life."
The motives which induced many of our Lord's first followers to withdraw themselves from his person, and wholly relinquish the connection they had formed with him and his disciples, I have explained in the preceding discourse. The erroneous conduct of mankind in general, their mistaken notions of happiness, the false and dangerous paths in which they pursue it, their delusive hopes and real disappointments; the palliative arts they make use of to reconcile their duty with their passions, and the various methods by which they deceive themselves as well as others; their hypocritical pretensions to religion, and the ways in which their deceptions are discovered, and their pharisaical professions unveiled; in a word, the genuine sources of that error and apostasy, into which the unworthy disciples mentioned in the text, as well as others who have since imitated their example, have sadly degenerated; all these particulars were suggested to my mind, from the consideration of these words of the Evangelist, "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him."
The tender and pathetic expostulation which this ungenerous conduct produced from the blessed lips of the common Friend and Saviour of Man, breathes such a spirit of love, kindness, and compassion, towards the souls of those whom he came to redeem, as cannot but claim our most serious and grateful attention. The deep concern he must have felt for such an instance of apostasy, added to his apprehensions of the fatal influence it might have upon his beloved Apostles, awakened in him all those innocent and delicate sensibilities, which, even in his human nature, were the genuine offspring of that Eternal Love to which he was essentially united.
Friendship, true friendship, is the Heaven-born Offspring of Divine Charity. Heaven is her native country. In that pure and gentle element she lives and moves without constraint, free, chearful, delighting and delighted. If ever she deigns to associate with the sons of men, it is among the truly virtuous alone she can be found. She visits none but those, whose "conversation is in heaven," who have within them a birth congenial with her own, whose hearts and affections are governed by the Spirit of Love, and can only be wooed and won by correspondent tempers and characters. Her sacred name, indeed, is often prostituted to venal, base, and corrupt purposes. Her fair and beauteous garb is often worn by the votaries of avarice, pleasure, and ambition. Her sweet aspect, her mild and winning graces, her obliging and disinterested disposition, yea, even her peculiar warmth of affection, and glowing sensibility of heart, are all profanely counterfeited by the selfish and sensual, the vain and the aspiring.
Take it for granted, however, that man, whether gay, dissolute, covetous, or ambitious, is incapable of real friendship: all his designs and prospects center in himself, and every seeming act of kindness, every splendid appearance of courtesy and generosity, is calculated to promote some selfish purpose, to procure some temporal emolument.