Download or read book Report of the Proceedings (1874) written by Church Congress and published by . This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SERMON BIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY. Neither for these only do I pray; but for them also which believe on Me through their word; That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that, they also may be in Us: that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. -john ivii. 20, ZL Thus the Lord Jesus Christ offers His last and greatest prayer for His Church to God the Father; and He offers it aloud in the hearing of the apostles. It is not now a secret, mysterious prayer, such as He offered when He spent the whole night in prayer, or when in the agony of the garden He prayed yet more earnestly till the heavy drops of the sweat of blood fell from His brow?but a calm, audible prayer?a prayer which was not a prayer only, but a sermon as well?a sermon not for the benefit of the apostles only, but to be heard and known of, and the precept which it contained, obeyed by all the believers in Him, believing through the apostles' word even unto the end of the world. And the one subject of this great prayer is the Unity of the Church; an unity deep, vital, and mysterious as the unity that is between the Father and the Son. That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us. And He adds one blessed object and consequence?not, of course, the only one?that will ensue from such unity, that by the sight of it the world may believe in the Divine Mission of the Son, and, so believing, may come to Him, and be saved in His Church. No Christian can doubt that the prayer which thus filled the human heart of the Redeemer at the moment when He wasfinally stooping to the actual scene of agony and suffering, filleth that sacred heart still, and that in Heaven where He sitteth at the right...