SERMON XI.

THOU SHALT NEVER WASH MY FEET.

JOHN XIII. 8.

PETER SAITH UNTO HIM, THOU SHALT NEVER WASH MY FEET. JESUS ANSWERED HIM, IF I WASH THEE NOT, THOU HAST NO PART WITH ME.

THESE words relate to one of the most surprising acts of the Saviour's life. So incredible did it seem that it excited in Peter, who seems to have spoken for the rest, a feeling of opposition. It is supposed by some that in washing the disciples' feet Christ began with Peter. In his ardent and ready way he resisted the approach of Christ as he came to kneel before him and perform the act which none but menial servants ever did. Seeing the Saviour proceeding to perform this act, it was the natural outbreak of his feelings of propriety, "Thou shalt never wash my feet." Lesser acts of condescension and kindness from our friends sometimes have a similar effect on us; our sense of fitness is violated when some who are above us, or for whom we cherish great regard, in the fullness of their love perform, or offer to perform,

services which belong to other hands and to a different station. Here was that Lord and Master whose divine power and majesty the disciples had seen when he opened blind eyes, healed lepers, cured the paralytics, raised the dead, and curbed the rage of devils - the great Messiah, the Son of the living God, the Teacher to whom the multitudes had listened as they had never listened to human lips, approaching with the necessary preparations to wash the feet of Peter and Iscariot, and the other disciples. "Then cometh he to Simon Peter, and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered, and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." This was not enough to overcome the instinctive repugnance of the disciple; that repugnance had in a moment grown to resolute resistance. "Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet."

Are we not sometimes conscious of feelings, and do we not sometimes notice feelings in others, not unlike those of Peter when he used these words?

We have perhaps felt, and have heard others say, that God can not be supposed to regard our little affairs. An infinite Being, reigning over a universe, a great God and a great King, it is not to be supposed, some say or think, that he can hear our prayers, or that he will concern himself about the circumstances of poor, insignificant creatures like us. If we were

angels of his presence, we might expect some particular regard; but how can we suppose that he will stoop to man, that is a worm, and to the son of man, which is a worm?'

But when we come to the work of redemption and salvation, the hearts of men are prone to suggest further difficulties. They sometimes object that the plan of salvation is incredible, considering the distance between God and man. That the Word, who was God, should be made flesh, that He who made all things, being made flesh, should give himself up as a sacrifice, that human guilt should be atoned for by the offering up of his body once for all, is, with some, too much even for faith; and to some who admit all this without much reflection, the gospel which contains these mysteries of condescension is like magnificent fables which they have never investigated, having the feeling still that it must be something exaggerated. It is the language of embellishment of a glowing zeal of rhetorical preaching; it never can be true in a literal sense. There seems to be an impossibility in the nature of things that God should show such love and condescension to men; and, having come to this conclusion, many do not receive the gospel, and for that reason. We have met with some who expressed the wish that the idea of the gospel could be stated to them in a more simple manner as to its facts; for the representations of the love of Christ to

reason

men which they hear from the pulpit they can not but regard as far beyond the truth. We should all probably be surprised to know to what extent and in what great variety this feeling exists in the minds of many estimable hearers of the gospel. The preaching of Christ and him crucified, with its representations of love and compassion, has no effect upon them, for this that, while they do not accuse us of misrepresentation, they have no ideas respecting the condescension and love of God to which these representations can make an effectual appeal. There is yet no staple in the mind to which this link can attach itself, and therefore it is that the preaching of Christ and him crucified, has so little effect on many serious hearers. They do not feel their guilt and condemnation to be such as to require and warrant all which has been done to save them. When they awake to a proper knowledge of sin, its intrinsic guilt, its consequences, and the natural difficulty in the way of pardon, all the condescension and love of Christ, all his sufferings and his death, seem justified by the worth of the soul and its redemption. It has never become, as yet, a part of their knowledge that there is really any such feeling on the part of God and Christ toward sinners as the gospel represents. This knowledge, or the entrance of this idea, is like the opening of the eyes of one who had been born blind. In no other way than this can you account for the total

insensibility with which many well-disposed hearers listen for years to the preaching of the gospel. They wish to be instructed, they wish to believe, they wish to be saved. You wonder why they are not at once melted by the story of a Saviour's love, why they need to hear it the second time before they are influenced by it, and how they can hear it for years and not be moved. The reason, let it be repeated, is in many cases this-with a ready consent to the general truths of religion, some have no idea of the condescension and love of Christ, chiefly because they do not feel their need of such compassion as the gospel describes, and also because it seems impossible for the great God and Saviour to have such feelings toward them. Therefore, all that is said of the love of Christ, and of his sacrifice for them, is hardly regarded by them with more emotion than if you should tell a young child, for example, that an emperor had expressed a strong desire for the child's happiness, or any other representation which the child can not appreciate, partly because it feels no need of such regard, and partly because it could not conceive or believe that a distant and great personage should feel any concern about a child in a foreign land. Thus, with many, the infinite compassion and love of God and Christ toward them is something of which they have never yet felt their need, and therefore concerning which they have no faith.