SERMON,

&c.

MATT. xxviii. 20.

“And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the

world."

OUR blessed Lord addressed these words to His Apostles a short time before. His ascension into heaven; and the communication which He made to them, as is here recorded by St. Matthew, fully corresponded with the importance of the occasion.

Already, as the other Evangelists relate, He had, in the short interval which occurred between His resurrection and His final departure, held various communications with the Apostles, on matters which it most concerned them to know; imparting to them light from Himself, by which the clouds, which appear still to have obstructed their mental vision, might be removed. He opened their understanding, as St. Luke specially records', that they might under

1 Luke xxiv. 45.

stand the Scriptures; that is, He endowed them from Himself with peculiar power to perceive the true meaning of the inspired Scriptures; and especially of those remarkable predictions "which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Law'," concerning Himself. The same sacred writer, when he relates 2 that our Lord showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, states that He was seen of the Apostles forty days, speaking of "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." His expression seems manifestly to imply that He was in the habit of discoursing to the Apostles respecting things pertaining to the kingdom of God, for a considerable portion of the forty days during which He abode with them on earth. We cannot doubt, then, that He imparted to them, at various times, and in often-repeated discourses, much instruction and information respecting the Church which they were to establish in His name, and the high duties and responsibilities which appertained to the sacred office to which they were called.

The last words of our Saviour, as recorded by St. Matthew, are peculiarly calculated to challenge the attention, and demand the serious consideration, of every Christian. These words are, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

These valuable and encouraging words declare to the Apostles, who were then present, and to the Church in every age, three several particulars. First, they convey a declaration of our Lord's special authority, as Supreme Head of the Church. Secondly, they contain a commission to the Apostles and their successors, grounded on the authority of Him from whom the commission is derived, to baptize all nations and to teach the Gospel. And, thirdly, they convey the great assurance of my text, that His special presence and all-powerful protection should ever be at hand, to give effect to the labours of those who should be engaged in this high and holy cause. "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

When He makes to them that declaration which was calculated, above every other, to excite their attention and to awaken their confidence, that all power was given unto Him in heaven and in earth, we at once understand His meaning to be, that all authority was given to Him, in His mediatorial kingdom, as the great Head of the Church, to regulate and control and ordain all things that appertained to the well-being of that Church. As He was the Son of God, partaking of the same nature with the eternal Father, we are well assured that He had possessed

from all eternity unlimited dominion over those heavens, and that earth, which He had Himself created. But now, with His human nature united to the divine, He was about to be raised from the form of a servant, and from a state of humiliation, to a place of the highest dignity and glory, at the right hand of God. Then it was that, as St. Paul expresses it', God having raised Him from the dead, set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come: and put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church." Thus in that exalted condition on which, at the very time at which He was speaking, He was about to enter, not only was all power given to Him, but the highest dignity assigned to Him. For, as the same Apostle elsewhere expresses, He then had "a name given to Him which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth"."

It is then in His high character of the Head of that Church which He had purchased with His own blood, that our Lord proceeds to deliver to the Apostles the important commission which follows. "Go ye therefore," He says, "and teach all nations and baptize." That is, Because all power is given unto me in

1

Ephes. i. 20.

2 Philipp. ii. 11.

heaven and in earth; Because I have received full authority to govern and appoint all things in the Church; therefore it is, that by virtue of that authority, I now say to you, "Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you." "Go forth," he means to say, as my messengers and ambassadors, as the ministers of my word, as the heralds of my kingdom. Go forth with full assurance of Divine protection; for it is the great Lord of heaven and earth, who sends you forth; He to whom all power is given, and who now declares that He will specially exert that power for the support of His Church. Go, and spread into all lands the glad tidings of salvation, make disciples from persons of every nation upon earth; admit them into the membership of the Church by baptizing them in the name of the triune God, of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier; and add the very important instruction, that obedience to the laws of my Gospel must follow from the outward admission to its privileges, its promises, and its hopes; an obedience not limited or partial, but extending to "all things whatsoever I have commanded," to all the doctrines I have taught, to all the duties I have set forth and enforced.

Having delivered to His Apostles this solemn charge and commission, our Lord adds the valuable promise and assurance of my text, "Lo, I am with