Perhaps the other portion of the passage seems to you plain enough. 'The command to the disciples to love one another--that sounds so beautiful! there is nothing in that to which every heart must not respond.' Brethren, I will tell you plainly: I find far greater difficulty in this commandment than in all the rest of the discourse. The Church has been trying to construe it for eighteen hundred years, and has succeeded miserably ill. I will go further. I will say that, if it is a mere precept written in letters in a book, it is the cruelest precept that was ever uttered. Men say so when they are honest: they say, 'Tell us to do anything but this. We will give, if it is necessary, ten thousand rivers of oil, the first-born of our body for the sin of our soul. But do not tell us to love. That we can do in obedience to no statute, from dread of no punishment.' Even so. If God demands that we should bring this offering to Him or perish, we must perish. But if He says, 'My name and nature is love; my Son has manifested my name and nature to you: you are created in Him; you are created to obey Him: you need not resist Him: His Spirit shall be with you that you may do His will as He has done mine,'--then the precept is not cruel, but blessed and divine. For then in the commandment is life--life for those who first heard it, life for us. He was going away from them where they could not follow Him, that He might make it effectual for those who never saw Him, but over whom He reigns the same Son of Man, the same Son of God, to-day and for ever. '_Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered Him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now: but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice._' This is the commentary on the new commandment and on the whole discourse. Let St. Peter's-day fix it deeply in our hearts. Where lay his error? Why was it inevitable that he should fall? He thought he loved. He fancied his love would stand him in some stead. That delusion must be thoroughly purged away from him. The washing of the feet did not cleanse him as long as he gave himself credit for possessing that which was God's own possession, which none can enter into till he gives up himself. The prophecy to Peter, fearful as it was to him, fearful as it should be to every one of us, is yet the induction to the words, '_Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me_,' and to all the depths of consolation which Christ opened to His disciples in His Paschal discourses. DISCOURSE XXIII. THE FATHER'S HOUSE. [Lincoln's Inn, 8th Sunday after Trinity, July 13, 1856.] ST. JOHN XIV. 25, 26.