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THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN 
 
 EXPOUNDED IN 
 
 A SERIES OF LECTUEES. 
 
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 THE. V /a .r;^. 
 
 FIEST EPISTLE OF JOHN 
 
 EXPOUNDED IN 
 
 A SEKIES OF LECTUEES 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE NEW COLLEGE, AND MINISTER OF FREE ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 EDINBUEGH 
 
 ADAM A^D CHAELES BLACK 
 
 1870 
 
Printed by R. Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 CONNECTION OF DOING RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 BROTHERLY LOVE AS PROVING A DIVINE BIRTH, 
 IN CONTRAST WITH THE UNRIGHTEOUS AND 
 UNLOVING SPIRIT INDICATING A DEVILISH 
 PARENTAGE. 
 
 "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the 
 devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he 
 that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard 
 from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as 
 Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And 
 wherefore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, and his 
 brother's righteous." — 1 John iii. 10-12. 
 
 The antagonism between the righteous Father and the 
 great adversary, and between their respective seeds or 
 offsprings, is here announced in such a way as to run it 
 up to a very precise point. The question to which of 
 the two you belong ; which of the two parentages or 
 fatherhoods, God's or the devil's, is really yours ; is 
 brought to a narrow issue. It is put negatively ; and it 
 is all the more searching on that account. The want of 
 righteous doing, — the absence of brotherly love, — is con- 
 clusive against your being of God ; — " "Whosoever doeth 
 not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth 
 not his brother." These two things are here virtually 
 identified ; or the one is represented as implying the 
 VOL. II. B 
 
2 CONNECTION OF DOING RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 other. The general is now made ]3articular ; what was 
 general and abstract — " doing righteousness" (ii. 29), is 
 now reduced to a particular practical test — " loving one's 
 brother," What sort of love is here meant will appear 
 more clearly as we proceed. It is, at any rate, love 
 whose obligation is not of yesterday ; the command- 
 ment rendering it obligatory is of old standing, of 
 ancient date : " For this is the message that ye heard 
 from the beginning, that we should love one another." 
 And the question arises — what message or command- 
 ment is here referred to ? 
 
 The idea is apt to suggest itself, not unnaturally, 
 that it is our Lord's commandment in the beginning of 
 the gospel : " A new commandment I give unto you, 
 that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that 
 ye also love one another ;" " This is my commandment, 
 that ye love one another, as I have loved you ;" "These 
 things I command you, that ye love one another " (John 
 xiii. 34, and xvi. 12-17). 
 
 But may not " the beginning " be held to date, not 
 from Christ's teaching, but from the real begimiing of 
 the gospel, immediately after the fall ? Does not the 
 mention of Cain indicate as much ? Is not the law or 
 message of love in question that wliich was violated in 
 " the beginning," when " Cain, being of that wicked one, 
 slew his brother?" 
 
 God's commandment, heard from the beginning, is 
 that we should love another. Therefore " he that loveth 
 not his brother doeth not righteousness," — the righteous- 
 ness required to make good or verify the fact of his being 
 
BEOTHEELY LOVE AS PEOVING A DIVINE BIRTH. 3 
 
 "born of God." He " committetli or doetli sin ;" the sin 
 which is " the transgression of the law." He is " of the 
 devil ; " — like Cain, who " was of that wicked one, and 
 slew his brother." 
 
 We are thus carried back to the earliest manifesta- 
 tion of the distinction between the children of God and 
 the children of the devil in the old familiar history of 
 Cain and Abel. 
 
 Of Abel little is recorded in the history. But it is 
 plainly implied, in what is said of him here, that he "loved 
 his brother." We read that " Cain talked with Abel his 
 brother." And we read this in immediate connection 
 with what the Lord said to Cain on the subject of his 
 rejected offering : — " But unto Cain, and to his offering, 
 he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his 
 countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why 
 art thou wroth ? and why is thy countenance fallen ? If 
 thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? and if thou 
 doest not well, sin" — a sin-offering — "liethat the door" 
 — at thy disposal, and available for thee. After that, 
 " Cain talked vdth Abel his brother." It is in that 
 connection that we read of his doing so. 
 
 It is not needful to suppose that his talk was, at 
 least in the first instance, a deliberate plot to draw his 
 intended victim into his power. It is quite probable, or 
 rather more than probable, that the conversation began 
 in good faith. The walk of the brothers in the field may 
 have been as much without any purpose on the one side, 
 as without any suspicion on the other, of anything like 
 treachery or violence. It is quite natural that Cain 
 
4 CONNECTION OF DOING KIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 should have talked with Abel his brother. And the 
 talk might turn on the recent incident of the two acts 
 of worship ; on the disappointment which Cain had ex- 
 perienced, and the explanation of it wdiich the Lord had 
 been pleased to give him. That " Cain was still wroth, 
 and his countenance still fallen," we may well believe. 
 He has not been able to bring himseK to submit to God 
 and his righteousness. He is in no mood for being ami- 
 able to one who seems to him to be a favoured rival. 
 But he does not meditate actual wrong. He would 
 startle at the thought of fratricide, when the talk with 
 Abel his brother begins. 
 
 As it goes on, we may imagine Abel warmly and 
 affectionately enforcing the gospel message which Cain 
 has just got from heaven ; opening up its gracious mean- 
 ing ; trying to persuade his misjudging brother that there 
 is really no respect of persons with God, no partiality for 
 one above the other ; but that for both alike there is 
 acceptance, as well-doers, if they can claim to stand on 
 that footing, and for both alike, if not well-doers, a sin- 
 offering at the door and at command ; — as near to thee, 
 brother, as to me, as available for thee as for me, as much 
 at thy service as at mine ; — thine, as freely as it is mine, 
 if thou wilt but have it to be thine. 
 
 Had I, brother, sought acceptance as a well-doer, 
 needing no atonmg blood of the slain lamb, coming 
 merely with a tribute of grateful homage, the Lord 
 would have had as little respect to me and my offering 
 as he had to thee and thine. Nay, less. I must have 
 been more decidedly and justly rejected ; for of sinners 
 
BROTHEELY LOVE AS PEOVING A DIVINE BIETH, 5 
 
 I am chief. But, in my sin, I looked and saw the sin- 
 offering at my door. And, brother, it lieth at thy door 
 too, if thou wilt but consent, as a sinner, to make use of 
 it. Has not our God been telling thee so ? Is not this 
 his gospel to thee as well as to me ? 
 
 Is it too much to conceive of righteous Abel thus 
 manifesting his being of God ; thus " doing righteous- 
 ness and loving his brother?" Is it at all conceivable 
 that he should deal otherwise with his brother, or not 
 deal thus with him, while Cain gave him the oppor- 
 tunity, by talking with him in the field ? Could any- 
 thing else be the burden of the talk than his beseeching 
 his brother to be reconciled to God by the sacrifice of 
 the slain lamb ? 
 
 And is it not just by his manner of requiting such 
 brotherly dealing with him on the part of Abel that 
 Cain manifests his " beinsr of that wicked one ?" Is not 
 that the explanation of his slaying him ? For " where- 
 fore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, 
 and his brother's righteous." 
 
 That was the real reason ; though of course he did 
 not avow it to himself. Probably he was not conscious 
 of it. He had some plausible plea of self-justification or 
 of self-excuse. His younger brother took too much upon 
 him ; affecting to be on a better footing with God than 
 he was, and to be entitled to dictate and prescribe to 
 him. It was bad enough that God should have rejected 
 his plea of well-doing, or of righteousness ; and bid liim 
 come, not with " God I thank thee," on his proud lips, 
 but with " God be merciful to me a sinner," in his 
 
6 CONNECTION OF DOING EIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 broken heart. That one who is his junior in age, and 
 in strength so completely at his mercy, should press the 
 same humiliating lesson, is more than he can stand. He 
 cannot reach God ; else his anger w^ould find vent against 
 him. But the meek and unresisting child of God is in 
 his hands. And therefore " he slays him ; because his 
 own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." 
 
 Well did our Lord say of the Jews who sought to 
 kill Imii : " Ye are of your father the devil ; and the 
 lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from 
 the beginning." And he was so, " because he abode not 
 in the truth, for there is no truth in him." To lie and 
 hate the truth, is his nature ; " when he speaketh a lie, 
 he speaketh of his own ;" — it is his native speech, his 
 vernacular ; — for "he is a liar, and the father of it " (John 
 viii. 44). And you are of him ; for it is "because I tell 
 you the truth that ye beheve me not " (ver. 45) ; and it is 
 that which provokes you to " seek to kill me " (ver, 40). 
 
 Here then are two instances of the children of God 
 being manifested, and the children of the devil : Abel, 
 and his brother Cain who slew him ; Jesus, and the 
 Jews who sought to kill him. It is the first that John 
 cites ; but the second throws light upon it. For Abel is 
 to Cain instead of Jesus ; and Cain is to Abel what he 
 would have been to Jesus. The antagonism is clearly 
 and sharply defined. On the one side there is love, 
 brotherly love ; love to one who slays his lover, and love 
 to him as still a brother, — Avhich is indeed " doing right- 
 eousness as God is righteous," and therefore betokens a 
 divine birth. On the other side there is hatred, deadly 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE AS PROVING A DIVINE BIRTH. / 
 
 hatred ; hatred of the righteous for his righteousness, — 
 which is " a work of the devil," and savours accordingly 
 of a devilish parentage. 
 
 For what brings out the antagonism in both cases is 
 truth or righteousness ; truth, as the Lord puts it (John 
 viii.) ; righteousness, as John puts it here ; the truth of 
 God ; the righteousness of God. Whosoever doeth 
 righteousness is of God ; born of God. And such an 
 one will, like Abel, love his brother ; not sinning, or 
 transgressing the law whicli commands love to men as 
 brethren. "Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of 
 God." And such an one " loveth not his brother," but 
 "doeth the work of the devil ;" being like Cain, who "was 
 of that wicked one, and slew his brother, because his own 
 works were evil and his brother's righteous." 
 
 ]Mark how these opposite dispositions towards truth 
 and righteousness, the truth and righteousness of God, 
 operate in producing the opposite dispositions of love 
 and hatred. 
 
 1. Consider that old message or commandment, heard 
 from the beginning, that we should love one another. 
 On what is it based ? It cannot, since the fall, be based 
 on our joint participation in the ills to which the fall 
 has made us heirs. Companions in guilt, shut up as 
 criminals in the condemned cell, together awaiting exe- 
 cution, can scarcely be expected, need scarcely be ex- 
 horted, to love one another. There is not much mutual 
 love lost in a band of outlaws or a community of rebels, 
 " Hateful and hating one another " is apt to be the 
 characteristic of the tribe. They may caH one another 
 
8 CONNECTION OF DOING EIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 brothers, sworn brothers ; in the riot of a common feast, 
 in the presence of a common foe. But there is little 
 real confidence or cordiality in their fellowship. It is 
 not, it cannot be, to guilty and sinful men, in their 
 natural condition of guilt and sinfulness, estranged from 
 God and at enmity with God, that "the message" or 
 commandment " heard from the beginning," to love one 
 another, is now addressed. At least it is not to such 
 that it can be addressed with any hope of its being com- 
 plied with and obeyed. It is a message or command- 
 ment that plainly, from its very nature, proceeds upon 
 the fact of there being a method of extrication, actual or 
 possible, out of that wretched state. It is redemption, 
 and redemption alone, with the regeneration which is 
 involved in it, that makes mutual brotherly love among 
 men, in its true and deep sense, a practicable duty, an 
 attainable grace. It is only one who, " being born of 
 God, doeth righteousness as knowing God to be right- 
 eous," that is capable of really loving his fellow-man as 
 a brother. Only righteous Abel can so love even mur- 
 derous Cain. 
 
 If you are the children of the righteous Father, you 
 can so love even those who " despitefully use you and 
 persecute you." For as his children you are one in 
 sjnnpathy with the righteous Father ; you are of one 
 mind with him ; you are on his side in the great cause 
 of righteousness, and of a rigliteous salvation, which 
 lies so near his heart. Submitting yourselves to his 
 righteous and sovereign grace, — receiving pardon and 
 peace, a new nature and a new life, on the footing of 
 
BKOTHEELY LOVE AS PKOVING A DIVINE BIETH. 9 
 
 your oneness with his righteous servant and beloved 
 Son, — you are now, as his children, being born of him, 
 altogether for his righteousness and against the world's 
 sin. 
 
 Wliat brotherhood then can there be between you 
 and the men who sin ; and who harden themselves, or 
 justify themselves, in their sin ? Is there not a great 
 gulf between you and them ? Are they not cut off from 
 you ? Are you not precluded from holding them to be 
 your brethren ? 
 
 Nay ; it is only now, — now for the first time, — that 
 you are in a position, that you have the heart, to feel 
 anything like a brother's love towards them. And it is 
 the very sharpness of the line that severs you from them 
 that makes your brotherly love towards them burn 
 bright and keen and warm. You love them as brethren 
 now, in a sense and manner in which you never could 
 love them before ; however closely you and they might 
 be knit together, as issuing from the same womb, or 
 dwelling in the same house, or associated in the same 
 calling, or walking in the same way. 
 
 Yes ; though you have " known that man after the 
 flesh ; " kno\\Ti him intimately, laiown him affectionately, 
 known him so as to love him as a very brother when 
 you sat together at the godless festive board, or drained 
 together the cup of sinful pleasure ; yet now henceforth 
 you " know him no more." It is after another fashion 
 than that of the flesh that you know him now ; and 
 after another fashion that you love him ; with an in- 
 tensity of brotherly longing for his good, unfelt, un- 
 
10 CONXECTIOK OF DOING RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 imagined before. AVliat sacrifice would you liave made 
 for him then ? You would " lay down your life" to save 
 his soul now. He was your playmate, your plaything 
 then ; you used him ; you sported with him ; you 
 enjoyed him. And you had a kindly enough feeling 
 towards him. He was profitable to you ; or you found 
 him always very pleasant to you. But he is far more to 
 you now. He is precious, oh ! how precious, in your 
 eyes ; precious, not as the congenial companion of a 
 passing hour, but as one whom you would fain grasp as 
 a brother for eternity. 
 
 2. 'No such brotherly love is possible for him who, 
 not doing righteousness, is not of God. His frame of 
 mind must be that of Cain ; a frame of mind that but 
 too unequivocally identifies him as one of the devil's 
 children, and not God's. For there is no room for any 
 intermediate position here. Either you are of God ; or 
 you are like Cain, who "was of that wicked one, and 
 slew his brother." It was the contrast between his 
 brother and himself that moved Cain to this act ; and 
 before he was moved to [it, that contrast must have 
 become very irksome and intolerable. It was not be- 
 cause he was void of natural affection, or because his 
 disposition was one of wanton cruelty and bloodthirsti- 
 ness ; it was not in the heat of sudden passion, or in a 
 quarrel about any earthly good, that Cain slew his 
 brother ; but " because his own works were evil, and his 
 brother's righteous." 
 
 It is this which chiefly marks the instigation of the 
 devil ; and his fatherhood of Cain, and such as Cain, 
 
BEOTHEELY LOVE AS PEOVING A DIVINE BIETH. 11 
 
 No doubt he has a hand in every sin or crime that his 
 children commit. He fans the flame of lust, and fires 
 the hot blood of furious passion. He sharpens the wits 
 of wily craft, and helps the plotter in many a stratagem. 
 He infuses fresh bitterness into the malign temper of 
 envious hate, whoever or whatever its object may be. 
 But he has a special grudge and spite against " the seed 
 of the woman who is to bruise his serpent-head." ]\Iore 
 than anything else on earth ; — infinitely more than any 
 remains or remnants of good that the fall has left in 
 human nature and human society; — for these he can 
 turn to his own account and make his o^vti use of; — 
 does that wicked one detest the faintest trace of the 
 footsteps, the slightest breathing of the spirit, of him 
 "whose goings forth have been from of old ;" who has 
 been ever in the world, the wisdom and the word of 
 God, the light and the life of men. Wherever his power 
 appears, setting up God's righteousness and its claim to 
 vindication against man's sin and its boast of impunity, 
 there Satan's malice is stirred. And he makes his 
 children fierce even to slaying ; as he made Cain. 
 
 He does so commonly by fretting and irritating the 
 conscience, while at the same time he fortifies the 
 stronghold of stout-heartedness and pride. For these 
 two in combination — an uneasy conscience and an 
 unbroken heart — are, in his hands, capable of being 
 wrought mightily to his purpose. Let the truth and 
 righteousness of God be brought so near to a man, by 
 the divine word and Spirit, as to stir and trouble 
 thoroughly his inward moral sense, while his desire and 
 
12 CONXECTION OF DOING EIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 determination to stand his ground and not give in 
 remains unabated, or rather is inflamed and acjgravated ; 
 — let the process go on ; — and let aU attempts towards 
 an accommodation, between the conscience's increasing 
 soreness and the heart's increasing self-righteousness 
 and self-will, be one after another frustrated and foiled ; 
 — you have then the making of a Cain, a very child of 
 the devil, who, if need be and opportunity serve, will 
 not scruple to cut short the terrible debate and end the 
 intolerable strife by slaying his brother Abel ; by 
 " crucifying the Lord of glory ! " my fellow-sinner, 
 let us beware! Let us not be "as Cain, who was of 
 that wicked one, and slew his brother." 
 
 I may think that there is no risk of my being as 
 Cain ; it wdU be long before I slay my brother Abel ! 
 But let me give good heed to what John records as the 
 natural history, as it were, of Cain's sin. He " slew his 
 brother ; and wherefore slew he him ? because his own 
 works were evil, and his brother's righteous." 
 
 Let me ask myself a plain but pointed question. Is 
 there no child of God, no godly man or woman of my 
 acquaintance, the thought of whom, or the sight of 
 whom, — or his or her talk in the field, — troubles me 
 and makes me feel uncomfortable? Many professing 
 Christians I know and like. Many who pass for serious 
 and evangelical I can meet and converse with, easily 
 and satisfactorily enough. There were four hundred 
 prophets of the Lord that Aliab had no sort of objection 
 to have near him and to listen to. But there was one 
 Micaiah that he did not ©are to send for. "I hate 
 
BEOTHERLY LOVE AS PEOVING A DIVINE BIETII. 13 
 
 liim," said the king, "for lie dotli not prophesy good 
 concerning me, but evil." Is there any Micaiah who is 
 thus a sort of eyesore to me ? — any Abel who provokes 
 in me a kind of Cainish spirit ? 
 
 It is not, strictly speaking, envy, or mere jealousy of 
 another's superior excellence. It is the tacit rebuke 
 administered to my shortcoming and sin ; — the awaken- 
 ing of a lurldng consciousness of something wrong in 
 my state of heart or way of life, — the unsettling of my 
 security, — the begetting in me of — I scarcely know what 
 to call it — dissatisfaction, apprehension, an uneasy and 
 unpleasant feeling of my not being altogether, in some 
 particulars, what I ought to be, or might be ; — it is that 
 which disturbs me, in the presence of some child of 
 God, or in the thought of such an one, as an unques- 
 tionable type of godliness. 
 
 Ah ! it is a dangerous symptom ; you brother, as 
 well as I, may give good heed to it. It is the very 
 germ of Cain's murderous mood. It may not lead you 
 to slay your Abel ; him or her who is thus obnoxious to 
 you ; whose eminent nearness to God causes you to be 
 too sensible of your distance. You have other ways of 
 getting rid of the troubler of your peace without raising 
 the cry, Crucify him ; away with him. You can evade 
 his company, keep out of hearing of his voice, and elude 
 the glance of his eye. You can shut him out of your 
 mind, and bid him be to you as if he was not. Or you 
 may try another plan. You may open your ears to 
 whispers against him ; you may sharpen your sight to 
 discover faults and follies in him ; you may " sit and 
 
14 CONNECTION OF DOING KIGHTEOUSNESS WITH 
 
 speak against your brother, slandering your own motlier's 
 son," if by any means you can make bim out to' be not 
 so very immaculate or so very beavenly, after all, but 
 that you may stand your ground and pass muster beside 
 him in the end. What is all that but slaying your 
 brother ; slaying him virtually if not literally ; slaying 
 him very cruelly? And wherefore? "Because your 
 own works are evil and your brother's righteous." Be 
 not deceived. Be very sure that " in this the children 
 of God are manifest, and the children of the devil : who- 
 soever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he 
 that loveth not his brother." 
 
 I draw an important practical inference from the 
 views now submitted. They may teach us something of 
 the nature, and what may be called the genesis, or natural 
 history, of brotherly love. 
 
 "We are accustomed, when we speak of the particular 
 affection of brotherly love, as distinguished from the 
 general affection of love or charity, to rest the distinc- 
 tion chiefly on the opposite characters of those who are 
 the objects of the two affections respectively. Charity 
 or love — I speak of it in its earthward, not its heaven- 
 ward direction — has for its objects men, all men, indis- 
 criminately ; men, as such. Brotherly love has for its 
 objects the children of God ; the members of the family 
 or brotherhood of Christ's people ; who have one Father, 
 one Lord and elder Brother, one Spirit, one hope, one 
 home. We love a,ll men with a love of benevolence ; we 
 love the brethren with a love of congeniahty and 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE AS PROVING A DIVINE BIRTH. 15 
 
 delight. So far as it goes, this is of course a true 
 account. 
 
 But does not John's statement here suggest a some- 
 what different, or at least an additional, explanation? 
 May not the root of the distinction lie in the subject of the 
 affection rather than in its objects ; in the person loving, 
 rather than in the persons loved ? Is not the character 
 of the affection determined by the character of him in 
 whom it dwells, even more than by the character of him 
 to whom it goes forth ? 
 
 At all events, when my character is changed, the 
 character of all my love, — let who may be its objects, 
 and let it have ever so many objects, differing ever so 
 widely, — is changed in a corresponding manner. There 
 is not one of those I loved before whom I love now as I 
 used to do. My love to every one of them is a quite 
 new love. The wife of my bosom, the child of my 
 house, the servant and stranger within my gates, the 
 beggar at my door, the queen reigning over me, the 
 companion of my leisure, the partner of my business, 
 the holy man of God, the wretched prodigal, the child 
 of misery and vice — there is not one of them wdiom I 
 love now as I did before. It is a new affection that I 
 feel to every one of them. 
 
 And what is it that is new about it ? Is it not that 
 it is all now brotherly love? Is it not that one and 
 all of the varieties of natural affection, — not stifled, 
 not lost or merged, but subsisting still, as distinct as 
 ever and stronger than ever, — have infused into them 
 this one common element of brotherhood in the Lord ? 
 
16 CONNECTION OF DOING KIGHTEOUSNESS, ETC. 
 
 In me, in my heart, there is brotherly love to every one ; 
 equal brotherly love to all. 
 
 It does not call forth the same response from all ; it 
 has not the same free course with respect to all. In 
 some, alas ! it is deeply wounded, meeting with what 
 sorely tries and grieves it, as when the sad cry breaks 
 forth, "Who hath believed our report?" — "All day 
 long have I stretched forth my hands to a perverse and 
 gainsaying generation." In others, again, it finds a 
 blessed, present recompense ; and the fellowship of 
 saints on earth becomes the foretaste of heaven's joy. 
 But is it not the same affection, — real, true, deep 
 brotherly love, — that is so sorely vexed in the one 
 instance, and so richly gratified in the other ? Was it 
 not the same affection in the heart of Jesus that caused 
 him to " rejoice in spirit," as he lifted up his eyes to 
 heaven and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of 
 heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes ; even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight ; " 
 — was it not, I ask, the very same affection that caused 
 him to exclaim, as he drew near to the city, and wept over 
 it, " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would 1 have 
 gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings ; and ye would not ! " 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 17 
 
 XXV. 
 
 BROTHEKLY LOVE THE FRUIT AND TEST OF PASS- 
 ING FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE— THE WORLD'S 
 HATRED— THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we 
 have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. 
 He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever 
 hatetli his brother is a murderer : and ye know that no murderer 
 hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love 
 of God, because he laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay 
 down our lives for the brethren." — 1 John iii. 13-16. 
 
 There is an emphatic meaning in the address (ver. 13), 
 " my brethren." It prepares the way for the use of the 
 first person " we " (ver. 14). You are of the company 
 of tlie brethren, as I am. I address you as such, when 
 I exliort you " not to marvel if the world hate you." 
 
 For why should you not marvel at this? Why 
 should you not count it strange or take it amiss ? 
 
 For this, among other reasons : because we know, — 
 you and I, as brethren, know, — that to love as brethren is 
 a grace belonging entirely to the new life of which we are 
 partakers. It is the very mark of our possessing that 
 life. Why then should we marvel if the dead are 
 incapable of it ? It is the world's nature to hate the 
 godly ; it was our nature once ; and if it is not so now, 
 it is because we have undergone a great change ; " we 
 
 VOL. IL C 
 
18 BKOTHEKLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 know that we have passed from death unto life because 
 we love the brethren." It must be so. The absence of 
 this brotherly love is, and must be, a fatal sign of death, 
 and of continued death ; " he that loveth not his brother 
 abideth in death." For not to love a brother is to hate 
 him ; and to hate him is to murder him ; and to murder 
 him is to forfeit life : — " Whosoever hateth his brother 
 is a murderer : and ye know that no murderer hath 
 eternal life abiding in him." Whereas, on the other 
 hand, the presence of this brotherly love is a blessed 
 sign of life ; for it marks our oneness with the Living 
 One ; our insight into the manner of his love and our 
 sympathy with it : — " Hereby perceive we the love of 
 God, because he laid down his life for us : and we ought 
 to lay down our lives for the brethren." 
 
 Here then w^e have, in broad contrast, the way of 
 the world, which is death, and the way of God, which 
 is life. It is the way of the world to hate, and so to 
 hate as to murder. It is the way of God to love, and so 
 to love as to lay down life to save. And it is in virtue 
 of this contrast that the test holds good : — " We know 
 that we have passed from death unto life, because we 
 love the brethren." 
 
 The world's hatred, — God's love, — these are what 
 are here contrasted. And yet there is one point at 
 least of partial similarity. The affection, in either case, 
 fastens in the first instance upon objects opposed to 
 itseK. The world hates the brethren ; God loves the 
 world, — " the world lying in the wicked one." And in 
 a sense too the ends sought are similar. The world. 
 
THE world's hatred — GOD'S LOVE. 19 
 
 which hates, would assimilate those it hates to itself, 
 and so be soothed or sated ; God, who loves, would 
 assimilate those he loves to himself, and so have satis- 
 faction in them. This indeed may almost be said to 
 be a universal characteristic of sentient and intelligent 
 mind ; be it pure and benevolent or depraved and 
 malevolent ; be its ruling passion hatred or love. It is, 
 so far, common to the wicked one and the Holy One. 
 The wicked one, in whom the world Kes, hates ; and 
 his hatred fastens on the brethren. In his hatred he 
 will not scruple aliout murdering them outright in 
 cruellest fashion. But he is as well, or even better 
 pleased, if he succeeds in murdering them after a 
 milder method ; by getting them to listen to his wily 
 speech. The Holy One loves ; and his love fastens on 
 the lost. It is a love in spite of which he must, at the 
 last, acquiesce in the inevitable ruin of multitudes, 
 whom alas ! its manifestation fails to touch. But his 
 heart is set on winning them to his embrace, and 
 having them to be of one mind and nature with himself. 
 And his love has this advantage over the opposite 
 affection. Who ever heard of the wicked one laying- 
 down his life to secure the accomplishment of his ob- 
 ject ? — or any Cain who is of the wicked one ? " But 
 hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid 
 down his life for us : and we ought to lay down our 
 lives for the brethren." 
 
 I. Of the world's hatred of the brethren two thino-s 
 are said : it is natural, and it is murderous. 
 
 In the first place, it is natural ; not " marveUous," 
 
20 BROTIIEELY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 but quite natural. The Lord prepared his disciples 
 beforehand to expect it, warning them not to look for 
 any other treatment at the world's hands than he had 
 met with. It should not, therefore, be matter of sur- 
 prise to you if the world hate you. And yet it is some- 
 times apt to be so. Notwithstanding all warnings, and 
 all the experience of others who have gone before him, 
 the recent convert, the young Christian, — fresh, buoyant, 
 enthusiastic, — may fancy that what he has to tell must 
 pierce all conciences and melt all hearts. He goes 
 among his fellows, eager to appear in his new character, 
 to bear his new testimony, to sing his new song. Alas ! 
 he comes in contact with what is like a wet blanket 
 thrown in his face : cold looks and rude gestures of 
 impatience ; jeers and jibes ; if not harsher usage still. 
 Instead of the welcome he anticipated, as he hastened 
 forth, with face aU radiant from the heavenly fellowship, 
 and lips divinely touched with a live coal from off the 
 altar, crying, — I have found him, come and see ; — he 
 meets with chilling indifference, or contempt, or anger. 
 He is tempted to give up as hopeless the task of dealing 
 with the dead. But no. Count it not strano'e, brother, 
 that you fall into this trial. AVhy should you ? Is 
 their reception of you very different from what, but 
 yesterday perhaps, yours would have been of one commg 
 to you in the same character and on the same errand ? 
 Surely you know that love to the brethren, brotherly 
 love, true Christian, Christ-like love — willing to give a 
 cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple, 
 and welcome the least of the little ones for the ]\ Easter's 
 
THE WOELD'S hatred — GOD'S LOVE. 21 
 
 sake — is no plant of natural growth in tlie soil of corrupt 
 humanity ; that, on the contrary, it is the fruit of the 
 great change by means of which a poor sinner " passes 
 from death unto life." Have you not found it to be so 
 in your own case ? Would anything short of that have 
 made you love the brethren, and hear them gladly, 
 when speaking in a brotherly way to you? Would any- 
 thing else have overcome your hatred of them? Then 
 "marvel not," nor be impatient, "if the world hate you." 
 Again, secondly, the world's hatred of the brethren is 
 murderous, as regards its objects : — " He that loveth not 
 his brother abideth in death : whosoever hateth his 
 brother is a murderer." 
 
 "Loveth not," "hateth," "murdereth!" There is a 
 sort of dark climax here ! Not loving is intensified into 
 hating, and hating into murdermg. The three, however, 
 are really one ; as the Lord teaches in the sermon on the 
 mount, to which undoubtedly John here points (Matt. v. 
 21-24). Not to love is to hate ; and to hate is to murder. 
 If, therefore, you would be safe from the risk of being 
 a murderer, see that you are not a hater. And if you 
 would not be in danger of being a hater, see that you 
 are a lover. 
 
 It is a solemn lesson that is thus taught ; and it 
 would seem to be meant for you who are apt to marvel 
 if the world hate you, as well as for the world that hates 
 you. In that application, it may suggest some important 
 practical thoughts. 
 
 1. AVhen Abel first caught a glimpse of Cain's state 
 of mind towards him, he might feel as one who painfully 
 
22 BKOTIIERLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 dreamed. He must have been slow to take it in. They 
 liad grown up together in the same home ; worked and 
 jilayed together ; prayed together at the same mother's 
 knee ; listened together to the same father's teaching ; 
 done one another many offices of kindness ; enjoyed 
 much pleasant intercourse in house and field. While 
 that strange conversation about God and his worship 
 goes on, Abel is startled as he sees Cain's dark frown 
 betokening growing wrath. Hate gleams more and 
 more from those kindling eyes. Is it fear that pales 
 the meek martyr's face, — or is it anger that agitates his 
 frame, — as that hoarse voice threatens and that cruel 
 arm is raised ? oSTot so. It is horrible surprise at first ; 
 and then deep concern, tender pity, bitter gi-ief. That 
 Cain has ceased to love him as a brother, — that is what 
 chiefly wounds him ; wounds him more keenly than the 
 stroke that fells him to the ground. Has he lost, can he 
 not win back, a brother's love? Is there such hatred,' 
 so murderous, in one who is still so dear to him ? Will 
 he rather slay me than taste and see how good our God 
 is who has provided for us both the same sin-offering of 
 the lamb ? It is a bitter sorrow. But it is not the 
 bitterness of a sense of his own wrong ; it is the bitter- 
 ness of the melancholy insight he has got into his poor 
 brother's dark and miserable heart. 
 
 Ah ! think ; — when you come in contact with some 
 one to whom you would fain commend the Saviour and 
 the sacrifice you have yourself found so precious, — an 
 old familiar friend perhaps with whom your intercourse 
 has been wont to be frequent and sweet, — a humble 
 
THE world's hatred — GOD'S LOVE. 23 
 
 neighbour who has often been glad to see you under his 
 lowly roof, to accept your alms in his poverty or your 
 kindly sympathy in his distress ; and when you begin 
 to discover that, as a child of God, you are not so wel- 
 come now as you were wdien like himself you were a 
 child of the world ; when he treats you coldly or 
 rudely, and makes it plain that he would fain in any 
 way get rid of you ; — think rather of his case than of 
 your own. It may be hard for you to bear with his 
 irritability and incivility ; and you may be provoked, if 
 not to retaliate, yet to let him alone and make your 
 escape. But consider him ; and have pity upon him. 
 This malignant spirit of dislike to righteousness, and to 
 him whose works are righteous, is far worse for him to 
 cherish than for you to suffer. Leave him not. Eather 
 stay by him and plead with him ; even though his 
 hatred rise to murder. 
 
 2. For you need, for yourselves, and with special 
 reference to the world's hatred of you, to be ever on 
 your guard, lest somewhat of the old dark spirit should 
 creep in again into your own hearts. And remember it 
 may insinuate itself very insidiously and stealthily. 
 
 Consider once more the stages or steps : not loving ; 
 hating ; murdering. Ah ! how easily may the first of 
 these begin : not loving. It is a simple negation ; no 
 taking of any positive step ; but only, as it were, not 
 taking any step at all ; or not this or that particular 
 step ; giving up ; letting alone ; using less energy of 
 prayer and pains ; feeling less interest. 
 
 "SA^io is it that you have ceased, or are ceasing, to 
 love with a true brotherly love like Christ's ? 
 
24 BROTHERLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 Is it one still unconverted and unsaved ? You have 
 been dealing with him, as you think, faithfully and 
 affectionately ; pleading with him for Christ, and with 
 Christ for him. You have had much patience, and have 
 persevered long. Nor has it been mere taskwork with 
 you ; it has been a work of love. You have felt a real 
 concern for his soul — a real longing for his salvation. 
 But somehow the case is not very hopeful ; it was not 
 very hopeful at first, and it is becoming less so, — or at 
 least not more so. You are getting reconciled to the 
 idea of failure and disappointment. You are not at first 
 conscious of a diminished regard for your poor brother ; 
 but you are becoming less sanguine, and gradually less 
 earnest. The work of love becomes more like taskwork 
 now. You will do your duty ; you will continue to be 
 kind to him, — to warn and exhort him, to set Christ 
 before him, and urge him to believe and live. But there 
 is less cordiality in what you do and say ; you bestow 
 less of your heart upon hmi. This may be natural, — in 
 a sense and measure perhaps unavoidable, and not alto- 
 gether unreasonable. There may be a limit to your 
 earnest striving, in love, with an obdurate sinner, as 
 there is a limit to the strivincj in love, of God's own 
 Spirit with him. But beware. It is not because he 
 ceases to love that the Spirit ceases to strive. See that 
 it be not otherwise with you; that it be not your 
 ceasing to love that makes you cease to strive. If it be 
 Christ's mind that you should shake off the dust of your 
 feet as a testunony of judgment against any one whom 
 you have been plying with the testimony of mercy, he 
 
THE world's hatred — GOD'S LOVE. 25 
 
 will make that plain enoiigli to you by unmistakeable 
 indications of his will. And you will see all the more 
 clearly, and judge all the more fairly, if there be no 
 ceasing to love ; no growing coldness and indifference ; 
 no feeling of a sort of apathetic acquiescence in the in- 
 evitableness of that poor soul's fate. No such feeling is 
 there in the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem. Beware, I 
 repeat, of any such feeling insinuating itself into your 
 bosom. Not to love, with a love that yearns to save, 
 and weeps rivers of waters for the lost, is to hate ; and 
 to hate is to murder. " Deliver me from blood-guilti- 
 ness, God, thou God of my salvation." 
 
 Or is it one of Christ's little ones ; one of the 
 fatherless and widows whom you visit in their afflic- 
 tion ; one whose feet you have counted it a privilege 
 to wash ? The service has been a delight ; — that suffer- 
 ing samt's chamber has been to you a Bethel. You 
 have got in it far more than you have given of spiritual 
 refreshment and consolation. So you say and feel, 
 under the impulse of your first love for that brother in 
 Christ. But on further acquaintance you find, or think 
 you find, things in him or about him that are fitted to 
 damp and repel your ardent advances. He is not so 
 perfect as you thought ; his person not so pleasant ; his 
 room not so tidy. Infirmities come out ; disagreeable 
 incidents occur ; rude friends interfere. It is not 
 romance now, but reality. You are not quite so en- 
 thusiastic as you were in your esteem of him, or quite 
 so frequent and regidar in your caUs upon him. A sort 
 of weariness comes over you when you knock at his 
 
26 BROTHERLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 door ; a sort of distasteful recoil arrests you as you 
 enter his chamber. It is jilain that your Christian 
 admiration, your brotherly love towards him, is not 
 exactly what it was ; not so glowing and so gushing. 
 It may be as real and genuine ; it may be even more 
 trustworthy, because it is more sober. If so, it is well. 
 But beware. It may be otherwise. There may be an 
 approximation to a state of mind not quite so right or 
 safe ; — " not loving your brother," ceasing to love him 
 as your brother in Christ, allowing natural or accidental 
 causes of estrangement or indifference to cool your 
 brotherly affection. And what then ? May there not 
 come something worse ? A certain half-unconscious 
 dislike ; a certain pleasure, even, in hearing him ridi- 
 culed or defamed ; a not unwilling participation in the 
 idle talk that, exaggerating defects, and overlooking or 
 misrepresenting excellences, would take away his fair 
 name and reputation, and play the murderer as regards 
 his Christian character and standing ? 
 
 Be on your guard against this spuit of the world 
 finding harbour again in your breasts. I speak to you 
 who have " passed from death unto life," and who know 
 what it is to love the brethren ; to love all men with a 
 true brotherly love in the Lord, — a love that looks on 
 them as immortal beings, — having near them a Saviour 
 dying for them, having in them a Spirit striving with 
 them, having before them a Father Avaiting to be 
 gracious. Even you need to be warned against the 
 world's evil temper of dislike and envy. Consider how 
 insidious it is. It begins with what may attract little 
 
THE world's hatred — GOD'S LOVE. 27 
 
 observation and awaken little alarm ; a cliange, scarcely 
 noticeable, or if noticed easily explained by altered cir- 
 cumstances, sobering age, sad experience, repeated 
 disappointment, or any of the thousand causes that 
 make the heart beat less wildly as time rolls on. Con- 
 sider also its deadly danger. The "not loving," or not 
 loving so purely and so truly, comes to be " hatmg," — 
 avowed or unavowed, — distaste, disinclination, displea- 
 sure, dislike ; estrangement, suspicion, envy. And to 
 hate is to " murder ; " one way or other, by neglect or 
 by calumny, by ill thoughts or ill words or ill deeds, it 
 murders. Consider finally how natural it is ; so natural 
 that only your "passing from death unto life" can rid 
 you of it, and make you capable of its opposite. You 
 need not marvel if the world thus hate ; for it is its 
 nature. Nor need you marvel that you should still 
 require to be exhorted not thus to hate ; for it is your 
 nature too. Grace may overcome it ; — grace alone can 
 do so. And even grace can do so only through con- 
 tinual watchfulness and prayer, continual recognition of 
 the life to which you pass from death, and continual 
 exercise of the love which is the characteristic of that 
 Hfe. 
 
 II. Of this love, as of the hatred, two things are 
 said. In the first place, it is natural now to the 
 spiritual mind ; natural as the fruit and sign of the new 
 life ; — " We know that we have passed from death unto 
 life because we love the brethren." It is natural to us, 
 in our old state of death, to hate ; it is, or should be, 
 natural to us, in our new state of life, to love. For our 
 
28 BROTHEELY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE. 
 
 life is our participation with Christ in his life ; and his 
 life, like the Father's, is manifested in love ; or is love. 
 Our life, therefore, is also love ; it is our loving as the 
 Father loves, and as the Son loves. And this, secondly, 
 implies that the love in question is the very opposite of 
 the murderous hatred of the devil ; it is self-sacrificiug, 
 like the love of God himself : — " Hereby perceive we 
 the love of God, because he laid down his life for us : 
 and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" 
 (ver. 16). 
 
 It is a high ideal of this love to men as brethren 
 that is set before us. It is sympathy with God in his 
 love to us ; and in that love as measured by his laying 
 down his life for us. Whom does he thus love ? Us ; 
 and all such as we are ; or as we were, when his love 
 reached us. " Scarcely for a righteous man will one 
 die : yet peradventure for a good man some would even 
 dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, 
 in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 
 " When we were without strength, in due time Christ 
 died for the ungodly." For us sinners, for us without 
 strength, for us ungodly, he laid down his life. And it 
 was a brotherly love to us that moved him to do so. It 
 was as our brother that he sacrificed himself for us. It 
 is that we may be his brethren that he would have us 
 to perceive his love, in sacrificing himself for us, — and 
 to believe it. 
 
 Oh ! to be enabled to enter more and more into this 
 brotherly love of Jesus ; to apprehend its nature ; to 
 imbibe its spirit ! Truly it is the opposite of the 
 
THE world's IIATEED — GOD'S LOVE, 29 
 
 hatred of a brother which marks one abidiiig in death. 
 That hatred prompts to take away another's life ; this 
 love to lay down one's own. " "Whosoever hateth his 
 brother is a murderer;" but here is one so loving his 
 brother, that to save him alive he sacrifices liimself. 
 Cain was bent on slaying his brother ; — Abel was 
 anxious, at the risk of death, to win Cain. We, in our 
 hatred, because he was righteous and we were evil, 
 slew a greater than Abel. He loved us with more than 
 Abel's love when " he laid down his life for us." 
 
 We know that we have passed from death unto life, 
 when we love our fellow-men with a brotherly love like 
 his ; when we are so bent on saving and blessing them, 
 that we are willing, not only to give our whole lives for 
 their good, but to suffer all loss — even death itself — at 
 their hands. Even when they are still our enemies, 
 because the enemies of our Lord ; even while they 
 hate us, and persecute us, and say all manner of evil 
 against us ; how does it become us still to love them 
 as brethren, — with a love that would seek them as 
 brethren, and welcome them as brethren, and live and 
 die for them as brethren ! Can they be more hostile 
 or injurious to us, than we were to Christ when he 
 loved us and laid down his life for us ? Have they 
 wearied us as we have wearied him? or provoked us 
 as we have provoked him ? or pierced us as we have 
 pierced him ? How shall we not continue to care for 
 them and plead with them, as Christ continued to 
 care for us and plead with us, — oh! how long, how 
 patiently, how tenderly, — if by any means he might 
 
30 BROTHERLY LOVE THE TEST OF LIFE, 
 
 bring lis to receive liim as laying down his life for ns ! 
 And when, by his Spirit, they are moved and melted, 
 and on the footing of that great propitiation reconciled 
 to God and to ns, — how shall we set bounds to the 
 warmth and cordiality of our embrace of them as now 
 our brethren indeed ! Can we grudge any service or 
 sacrifice to show our love, even should it be the laying 
 down of our lives for them, as he laid down his life for 
 us ? 
 
 This is our security against the evil spirit of Cain 
 coming in again to trouble us. It is to make full proof 
 of the better spmt of Abel, or of him in whom Abel, 
 like us, believed, even Jesus, who " so loved us, even 
 when dead in sins, that he gave himself for us, the just 
 for the unjust, that he might bring us to God ; " and 
 who so loveth us, as his brethren, for whom he laid 
 down his life, that he would have us to be sharers as 
 his brethren with him in all the love with which the 
 Father loveth him and all the glory which the Father 
 aiveth him. 
 
KIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BROTHERLY LOVE. 31 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS OR TRUTH IN BROTHERLY LOVE- 
 ESSENTIAL TO THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CON- 
 SCIENCE IN OURSELVES AND BEFORE GOD. 
 
 " But whoso hath this workl's good, and seeth his Ijrother have need, 
 and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth 
 the love of God in him ? ily little children, let us not love in 
 word, neither in tongue ; but in deed and in truth. And hereby 
 we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts 
 before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is gi'eater than our 
 heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us 
 not, then have we confidence toward God. "— 1 John iii. 17-2L 
 
 The lessou here is siucerity. It is with special reference 
 to the grace or affection of brotherly love, that this les- 
 son is in the first instance enforced ; and the manner 
 in which the subject is introduced is noticeable. 
 
 The highest possible model or ideal has been pre- 
 sented for imitation : — " Hereby perceive we the love 
 of God, because he laid down his life for us : and we 
 ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Then 
 immediately, by way of contrast, the testing case put is 
 made to turn on one of the simplest and commonest 
 instances of the exercise of human pity : — " But whoso 
 hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, 
 and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, 
 how dwelleth the love of God in him ?" It looks almost 
 
32 RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 like irony or sarcasm. Your love to tlie brethren, — to 
 men as brethren, — should reach to your laying down 
 your lives for them. Yes ! And it would, if that were 
 necessary, or might do them good. So you say, and 
 think But what if, having this world's good, and see- 
 ing your brother have need, you shut up your bowels 
 of compassion from him ? How then dwelleth the love 
 of God in you ? Is that loving as God loves ? 
 
 Beware of seK-deception in this matter. It is easy 
 to imagine what you would do to win or help a brother ; 
 and you may please yourselves by carrying the imagi- 
 nation to any length you choose. If a great act of seK- 
 sacrifice would avail, you would not shrink from it. 
 But what if you grudge some far readier and easier 
 service ; — a gift to the needy out of your abundance ; or 
 a visit of sympathy to the widow out of your leisure ; 
 or a word in season to the weary out of the fulness of 
 your own happier experience ; or a helping hand to 
 snatch a perishing soul from the pit and set hhn on the 
 rock on which the Lord has set you ? You w^ill lay 
 down your life for one who is, or who may be a brother ! 
 And yet you cannot lay down for him your love of this 
 world's good ; your love of ease and selfish comfort ; 
 your fastidious taste, that shrinks from contact with 
 squalid wi'etchedness and vulgar ways ; your proud or 
 shy reserve, that keeps the humble at a distance ; your 
 false shame, that sends you in upon yourself when you 
 should be sowing beside aU waters. 
 
 Thus somewhat sternly John's tender expostulation 
 — for it is very tender — is introduced : '• My little 
 
THE ANSWEE OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 33 
 
 children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue." 
 There is enough in the world of that sort of love. "Let 
 us love in deed and in truth." It is only thus that we 
 can " know ourselves to be of the truth," or to be true, 
 and so can "assure our hearts before God." We can 
 have no such assurance if our consciousness hints that 
 there is guile in our spirit. "For if our heart condemn 
 us," how can we face him " who is greater than our 
 heart and knoweth all things ; " all things about our 
 heart ; its secret windings and subtle refuges of lies ? 
 It is only " if our heart condemn us not," — condemn us 
 not, that is, as unrighteous and insincere in the matter 
 on hand, — it is only then that we can " have confidence 
 toward God." 
 
 Thus John brings out into prominence a general 
 principle connecting conscience and faith, with imme- 
 diate reference to his particular topic of brotherly love. 
 
 The principle may be briefly stated. There can be 
 no faith where there is not conscience ; no more of faith 
 than there is of conscience ; no firm faith without a 
 clear conscience. In plain terms, I cannot look my 
 God in the face if I cannot look myseK in the face. 
 In a sense, I must be able to justify myself if I would 
 look on God as justifying me ; I must be able to 
 acquit myself of guile if I would reckon on his ac- 
 quitting me of guilt. If my heart condemns me, much 
 more must he condemn me who is greater than my 
 heart, and knoweth aU things. 
 
 But must not my heart always condemn me ? Must 
 I not be always confessing that my heart condemns 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
34 RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BEOTHEELY LOVE. 
 
 me^ and tliat therefore the searcher of it must condemn 
 me much more ? 
 
 No. This is not the language of legitimate confes- 
 sion, although it is often used as such. On the con- 
 trary, it is rather a protest against the very sort of 
 confession which it is too commonly employed to ex- 
 press. It rebukes all conventionalism ; all formal 
 routine or covert guile ; all false dealing with myseK 
 and "with God. It demands, in worsliip and fellowship, 
 that I approach him who is greater than my heart and 
 who knoweth all things, as one whose heart does not 
 condemn him. 
 
 Eeserving the special application of this principle to 
 the grace of brotherly kindness, I ask you for the pre- 
 sent to consider it more generally with reference to the 
 divine love^ — first, as you have to receive it by faith ; 
 and, secondly, as you have to retain it and act it out in 
 your loving walk with God and man. 
 
 I. I am a receiver of this love. And it concerns 
 me much that my faith, by which I receive it, should 
 be strong and steadfast ; which, however, it cannot be 
 unless my conscience, in receiving it, is guileless. 
 David experienced this ; and he describes his experi- 
 ence in the thirty-second Psalm. Tliere was a time, he 
 says, when he kept silence ; when there was guile in his 
 spirit. Then he had no rest. He Avas unwilling to be 
 thoroughly searched and tried by God ; to have the 
 hurt of his soul otherwise than slightly healed ; to have 
 the deadly sore probed to the bottom, that the oil and 
 balm to be poured in might reach the root of the 
 
THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 35 
 
 disease. " His lieart condemned liim ; " and there was 
 one " greater than his heart, knowing all things," whose 
 " hand day and night was heavy npon him " (ver. 3, 4). 
 He got enlargement and assurance only when he tried 
 the more excellent way of fuU. and frank confession, 
 apprehending full and free forgiveness (ver. 5-7). Then 
 " his heart did not condemn him, and he had confidence 
 toward God;" "being of the truth, he assured his 
 heart before God." 
 
 It must be noticed, however, that the ground of this 
 assurance or confidence is not the consciousness of 
 integrity, thus declared to be indispensable, but that 
 gracious dealing on the part of God for which it makes 
 way. The negative form of John's langTiage is not 
 without its meaning here, — " if our heart condemn us 
 not, then have we confidence toward God." It de- 
 scribes simply the removal of an obstacle ; a hindrance 
 or obstruction taken out of the way. A haze or mist of 
 earth is dispelled, that the sun from heaven may give 
 light and warmth. A work of the devil is undone, 
 that the work of God may be wrought. For this inward 
 misgiving, this secret consciousness of insincerity, " our 
 heart condemniuQ- us," is of that wicked one. It comes 
 of his lie still heeded, and, as it were, half believed. 
 We must let it go, that the truth may make us free. 
 
 The plain question then is. Are you dealing truly 
 with God as he deals truly with you ? Are you meet- 
 ing him, as he meets you, in good faith ? Is reserve on 
 your part laid aside, as it is thoroughly laid aside on 
 his part ? He makes advances to you in his gospel, 
 
36 EICxHTEOUSXESS ESSENTIAL TO BEOTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 advances most generous and free ; he gives you assur- 
 ances most firm and faithful. These are the ground 
 and warrant of your confidence before him ; — these 
 alone, and not anything in yourselves, in your own 
 consciousness of integiity, or in your conscience ac- 
 quitting you of deceit. But they can be so only when 
 they have their free course and their perfect work in 
 you. And that they cannot have if " there is guile in 
 your spirit," if " your heart condemns you." 
 
 May not this be the explanation of that want of 
 assurance of which some anxious souls complain ? They 
 are not at ease ; they have not comfort, peace, liberty : 
 they feel as if they could not win Christ, so as to be 
 sure of being in him. They see how complete he is 
 for them, as well as how complete they would be if 
 once in him ; and they would fain win him and be 
 found in him. But they cannot. Why not ? What is 
 there between hun and them ? Guilt it cannot be ; for 
 guilt of deepest dye he takes away ; but it may be 
 " guile." Sin it cannot be ; but it may be silence ; 
 " keeping silence." Let them not lay the blame of their 
 unquiet and unsatisfied state of mind upon God, or 
 Christ, or the Holy Spirit ; upon the gospel way of sal- 
 vation, or upon the gospel call. All the persons of the 
 Godhead are in favour of their "assm^ing their hearts 
 before God." In the Father, they have rich, free, 
 sovereign grace ; altogether gratuitous ; unbought and 
 unconditional. In the Son, they have an infinitely 
 precious atonement, an infinitely meritorious work of 
 righteousness, meeting all claims in law against them 
 
THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 37 
 
 and upon them. In the Spirit, they have an ahuighty 
 agency, shutting them up into Christ, and taking of 
 what is his to show to them. Tlien in the gospel, they 
 have all this love of the one God, — Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, — made over to them, if they will but have 
 it, without price and without reserve, — ^just in order 
 that they may " assure their hearts before God." The 
 whole plan of salvation contemplates that result, and 
 makes full and adequate provision for its being realised. 
 
 If it is not, why is it not ? Look well to this ques- 
 tion, my brother. See if there is not in you some 
 double-dealing, for which " your heart condemns you." 
 Is all straightforward ? Is all real and downright 
 earnest with you ? Or are you toying and playing with 
 spiritual frames as if it were all a mere affair of senti- 
 mentalism ? Or are you brooding over your own gloomy 
 thoughts with that sort of morbid self-satisfaction that 
 feeds on doubt and despair ? 
 
 Thus, first, is it a real thirsting for God, a genuine 
 and strong desire for his face and favour, that is moving 
 you ; such as will break through obstructions and " take 
 the kingdom by force ?" Or is it the old Israeli tish 
 temper of peevish and petulant discontent, rather 
 pleased than not to have to complain that you cannot 
 find the living water ? And, is all right as regards your 
 perfect willingness to fall in with God's plan ? Is there 
 no disingenuousness here ; no dislike of being indebted 
 wholly to free grace ; no hesitancy about letting go 
 your last hold of the prop on which you have been 
 leaning, and casting yourself, as by a leap in the dark. 
 
38 FJGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BEOTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 into the arms of the waitmg Saviour ? Above all, 
 thirdly, is there a clear understanding as to the terms 
 on which you would choose to be with God ? Is there 
 no shrinking from the footing on which Christ would 
 place you with his Father and your Father, his God and 
 your God ? Is there a sort of half-consciousness in you 
 that you would reaUy apprehend and welcome the media- 
 tion of Christ better than you do, if it were meant 
 merely to establish a relation between God and you, so 
 far amicable as to secure your being let alone now and 
 let off at last ; and that, in consideration of certain 
 specitied and ascertainable acts of homage ; without its 
 being insisted on that God and you should become so 
 completely one ? If your heart misgive you and con- 
 demn you on such points as these, it is no wonder that 
 you have not peace with him " who is greater than your 
 heart, and knoweth all things." 
 
 But, beloved, now your hearts condemn you not ! 
 "You are of the truth ;" you are true yourselves, and 
 truth is your object ; the truth ; the truth of God. 
 Then you can have no objection to take in the truth, 
 full and entire, no matter what humiliating discoveries 
 it gives you of your own character and state ; or what 
 demands it makes upon you for submission to the 
 sovereignty and grace of God. You have no quarrel 
 with the gospel method of salvation for anything in it 
 that abases you and exalts the Lord alone, — if you are 
 " of the truth." Nor can you now be cleaving to any 
 righteousness of your own. You cut the last cord that 
 binds you to the old natural way of making your peace 
 
THE AKS\YEE OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 39 
 
 with God, and sink into the embrace of him who is 
 himself your peace. And it is peace, immediate, full, 
 free, unreserved, that you are eager to have. No truce 
 or compromise will content you now. You cannot be 
 too completely reconciled to God, or brought into 
 friendship too intimate, or fellowship too close and con- 
 fidential, with your Father in heaven. 
 
 Is it so ? In all this your hearts condemn you not. 
 Then why should you not "have confidence toward 
 God ?" Is it not precisely thus that he -is willing, in 
 truth and faithfulness, to deal with you ? Then taste 
 and see that God is good ; suffer " the love of God to 
 dwell in you," without obstruction on your part or any 
 partial dealing any more. 
 
 II. Not only as receiving God's love does it concern 
 me to see to it that my heart condemns me not ; but as 
 retaining it, and acting it out, in my w^alk and conduct. 
 Otherwise, " how dwelleth the love of God in me?" 
 
 The apostle Paul speaks of "holding faith and a 
 good conscience ; " " holding the mystery of faith in a 
 good conscience." "Herein," he says, "do I exercise 
 myself, that I have always a conscience void of offence, 
 toward God and toward men." This was, in a large 
 measure, the secret, or at least one indispensable condi- 
 tion, of his confident boldness, as a worker and a witness 
 for Christ. His heart did not misgive or condemn him, 
 as to any part of his habitual demeanour and behaviom-. 
 If it had, he w^ ould have been instantly smitten with a 
 sort of moral or spiritual paralysis. For the absence of 
 conscious, or half-conscious, guile, is not more essential 
 
40 EIGIITEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BROTHEELY LOVE. 
 
 to your standing right with God, as regards your accept- 
 ance and peace, than it is to your continuing to stand 
 right with him in the whole work of faith and labour of 
 love by wdiich you have to glorify him. 
 
 What a source of imbecility and unhappiness, even 
 for the Lord's o\vm people, is there in this ; " their heart 
 condemning them ! " Peter's heart must have condemned 
 him, more or less consciously, when he entered the high- 
 priest's hall, and mingled with the servants. What had 
 he to do there at all ; getting in as he did ; taking the 
 place he did, and the character ? Could he fail to have 
 some misgivings, as he stood beside the fire warming 
 himself, like any ordinary onlooker, while false testi- 
 mony, that he could have contradicted, was swearing 
 away his master's life ? He " kept silence " and slunk 
 away among the menials of the ofiice. He must have 
 felt that either he should not have been there at all, or 
 if there, he should have been at his master's side. He 
 could not " assure his heart before God," or " have con- 
 fidence toward God." It is all the less surprising, in 
 these circumstances, that he should have fallen when 
 sharper trial came. He was not found " holding faith 
 and a good conscience." 
 
 May we not thus account for the want of joy and 
 power that too often characterises your practical Chris- 
 tianity ? Your experience is felt to be lacking in life ; 
 your influence somehow does not tell. May it not be 
 because "your heart condemns you?" " Happy is he 
 that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." 
 Is that happiness yours ? Is there nothing in which you 
 
THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 41 
 
 allow yourself about which you have a doubt ? Have you 
 a latent suspicion that you are not quite acting up to 
 the standard of attainment at which you ought to aim ; 
 that you are not following out your convictions to the 
 full extent to which they might lead you ; that you are 
 tolerating what may be at least of questionable expedi- 
 ency ? You may have your excuses ; your reasons why 
 you cainiot be expected to be altogether so heavenly as 
 one* or so self-denied as another, or so decided and out- 
 spoken as a third, or so emphatic a protester against the 
 world's follies as a fourth. But do these reasons satisfy 
 you ? Do they keep your mind at ease ? Or have you 
 occasional qualms ? 
 
 It is a great matter if the eye be single ; if " your 
 heart do not condemn you." The consciousness of in- 
 tegrity is, of itself, a well-spring of peace and power in 
 the guileless soul. The clear look, the erect gait, the 
 firm ste|), the ringing voice, of an upright man, are as 
 impressive upon others as they are expressive of himself. 
 But that is not all. The assurance or confidence of 
 which John speaks, is not self-assurance or self-confi- 
 dence. No. It is " assurance before God ;" it is " con- 
 fidence toward God." 
 
 Why does the apostle make " our heart condemning 
 us " so fatal to our " assuring our heart before God ?" 
 It is because " God is greater than our heart, and know- 
 eth all things." He assumes that it is with God we have 
 to do ; and that we feel this. Our own verdict upon 
 ourselves is comparatively a small affair ; we ask the 
 verdict of God. " With me," says Paul, " it is a very 
 
42 RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BEOTHEELY LOVE. 
 
 small matter tliat I should be judged of man's judgment ; 
 yea I judge not mine own self." I am not consciously 
 self-convicted ; " yet am I not thereby justified ; but he 
 that judgeth me is the Lord." 
 
 If indeed my heart condemns me, there can be little 
 room for question as to what I am. Even then, however, 
 what is fatal to my peace and power, is not my heart 
 condemning me ; but God's being greater than my heart, 
 and knowing all things. My own heart is not likely to 
 condemn me without God condemning me also, and still 
 more. But does it follow that, if my heart acquit me, 
 he must do the same ? The contrary, rather, might be 
 inferred. My heart not condemning me might be no 
 proof or presumj)tion that God did not condemn me. 
 He may not acquit me as easily as I acquit myself ; for 
 he is gi'eater than my heart, and knoweth all things. 
 There is, therefore, not a little grace here ; in our being 
 permitted to infer, from our own heart not condemning 
 us, a like acquittal on the part of God. 
 
 And yet how should it not be so if we are his 
 children ? Does not the Spirit witness with our spirit 
 that we are so ? And that, not merely generally, with 
 reference to the general question of our being God's 
 children ; but specifically, with reference to our being — 
 at each successive moment in our Christian experience, 
 and each successive step in our Christian life — his 
 children ; his children, not in right of a past act of 
 adoption and work of regeneration, but in virtue of a 
 present filial heart and filial frame of mind towards him. 
 It is thus that " the Spirit witnesseth with our spirit." 
 
THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 43 
 
 Our spirit witnesses first ; faithfully ; for we are 
 upon honour. How is it with you, brother, with 
 reference to this present duty ; this present trial ? 
 AVhat are you thinking and feeling about it ? That it 
 is hard, too hard ; that too much is asked of you, or 
 laid upon you ; but that you must do, or bear, as best 
 you may, simply because you cannot help it ? These 
 are servile thoughts and feelings ; they breathe the 
 spirit of bondage, not the spirit of adoption. Your 
 heart condemns' you ; your own spirit witnesses against 
 you ; the Divine Spirit therefore cannot witness for 
 you. You cannot lift an honest filial eye to your 
 Father ; for " he is greater than your heart, and know- 
 eth all things." But if now, by grace, you get the 
 victory over these risings of the old slavish mind in 
 you, and have again somewhat of the same mind that 
 was in him who was ever saying, "Abba, Father," as 
 to every business, every cup, every cross ; — ah ! then 
 your heart condemns you not of servile guile, and the 
 sullen, dogged sense of bondage is aU. gone. Your own 
 spirit witnesses, not of past but of present sonship. It 
 is " Abba, Father," with you and in you, here and now ; 
 you are here and now crying, "Abba, Father." And an- 
 other there is who is in you here and now crying, " Abba, 
 Father ;" the Spirit of adoption ; the Spirit of God's own 
 Son. So he witnesses with your spirit that you are the 
 sons of God ; that you are so here and now, at this mo- 
 ment, in the doing of this painful business, in the drink- 
 ing of this bitter cup, in the bearing of this heavy cross. 
 And thus he gives you great enlargement and assurance, 
 
44 EIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 great boldness and confidence, as you walk abroad in 
 the liglit of God's loving face shining npon you, to mani- 
 fest his love everywhere and always among your fellow- 
 men ; — his love as " dwelling in you." 
 
 For I must advert again to the immediate occasion 
 of this appeal of John on the subject of sincerity or 
 truthfulness. It is brotherly love of which he is dis- 
 coursing ; the duty of loving all men as brethren ; loving 
 every man as a brother ; with a true and real brotherly 
 love ; a love that has respect to his being, or becoming, 
 a brother in the Lord. Judge yourselves here, that you 
 may not be judged. "What says your heart, your con- 
 science, as to this matter ? Does it acquit you ? Does 
 it absolve you from the blame of blood-guiltiness ? Paul 
 could take the people among whom he had lived and 
 laboured to record, the day he bade them farewell, that 
 he was pure from the blood of them all ; for he had not 
 shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God. 
 May I venture to do so ? AVoe is me ! Can you venture ? 
 Have you done Avliat you could ? Are you doing what 
 you can ? Or have you misgivings ? Here, a stumb- 
 ling-block is put in the way of an inquu-er by some sad 
 inconsistency, or some cold repulse ! There, a precious 
 opportunity of showing a little kindness, or speaking a 
 word in season, is lost irretrievably ? Ah ! are these 
 hands of yours clean which you hold out to some dear 
 friend, or some well-disposed neighbour, or some stranger 
 at your gate ; clean from the sin of careless dealing with 
 that man, as regards the welfare of his soul for eternity? 
 
THE ANSWER OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 45 
 
 Are yoii conscious of indifference or insensibility about 
 his spiritual state being your prevailing temper, in your 
 intercourse with this or tliat person in your house, or in 
 your social circle ? Are you conscious of estrangement, 
 alienation, distance, dislike ? Does your conscience tell 
 you that you are not treating him kindly as regards his 
 own good, or not treating him faithfully as regards the 
 claims of God ? Ah ! then, you cannot face your own 
 heart ; and how then can you, with open eye and up- 
 ward gaze, face your God ! If there be even a lurking- 
 suspicion of duty possibly neglected, or of wrong pos- 
 sibly done, rest not till all is righted. " If thou bring 
 thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy 
 brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift 
 before the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled to 
 thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." 
 
 And generally I would urge the vast importance of 
 guilelessness and unreservedness, in the whole domain 
 of your spiritual experience. AVliy is it that we see so 
 many joyless, cheerless, one might almost say useless 
 Christians ? Why so many living and walking in such 
 a way as to give the notion of godliness being all gloomy 
 doubt, painful discipline, seK-absorbing anxiety, listless 
 musing ? Awake ! Arise ! Shake off the chains that 
 bind you. Go forth in open day, under the open sky, 
 to meet your God and Father, with your heart open to 
 him, as his heart is open to you. Stand fast in the 
 liberty with which Christ makes you free. Be upright. 
 Be honest, frank, and fearless. Be yourselves ; out and 
 out yourselves. Dare to avow yourselves what you are, 
 
46 RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 to God, to your own liearts, to all men. Be of the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; yourselves 
 true ; receiving all truth, declaring all truth ; every- 
 where, and always. Be honest, thoroughly honest, in 
 the closet, in the family, in the market-place, in the 
 parlour. Be transparently honest to yourself and to 
 your brother. Be honest to your God and Fatlier in 
 heaven. Do but consent to treat him as he treats you. 
 His whole heart, he himself wholly, is yours ; all liis 
 love ; all his fulness. Let your whole heart be his. Be 
 you, yourselves, his ; with no reserve ; be altogether, 
 now and for ever, his. 
 
OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASING TO GOD. 47 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS ESSENTIAL TO OUR PLEASING GOD 
 AND TO HIS HEARING US. 
 
 " And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, hecause we keep his com- 
 inandnients, and do those tilings that are pleasing in his sight. 
 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the 
 name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us 
 commandment." — 1 John iii. 22, 23. 
 
 This is one of tlie strongest assertions that we liave in 
 Scripture of the eflicacy of good worlvs, as bearing on 
 our relation to God. It has no reference, however, to 
 tlie question of our acceptance or justification ; it raises 
 an ulterior question. It manifestly connects a certain 
 privilege with a certain practice, in the case of true 
 Christians, considered as already in a state of grace. 
 And it connects them, so as to make the privilege de- 
 pendent upon the practice. 
 
 The privilege is, that " whatsoever we ask, we re- 
 ceive of him." This is partly an explanation of the 
 jwevious statement (ver. 21), and partly an additional 
 thought. The " confidence which we have toward God " 
 is such as emboldens us to ask what we will. And we 
 ask confidently, because we know that God will not re- 
 fuse us anything that we ask. 
 
 But it is the fact itself here asserted, and not our 
 
48 OUR EIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 sense or appreliension of it, tliat chiefly claims attention. 
 It is certainly a strong assertion, " Whatsoever we ask 
 we receive of him." And it is altogether unqualified ; 
 absolute and unrestricted. We are on such terms with 
 God that he will deny us nothing ; — that is the plain 
 unequivocal meaning of what John says. And it is not 
 to be modified or explained away by any supposed ex- 
 ceptions or reservations. It must be taken in all its 
 breadth as literally true, in connection with the practice 
 on which it is dependent. 
 
 That practice is obedience, " we keep his command- 
 ments ; " — or the performance of good works, " M'e do 
 those things which are pleasing in his sight." For there 
 are not two separate acts or exercises here spoken of ; 
 but only one. " Doing things pleasing in God's sight " 
 is not something over and above " keeping his command- 
 ments," or something different from it. That cannot be. 
 For it is not merely doing things, — any things, — that 
 may be pleasing in his sight, — but doing " those things ; " 
 which must mean doing the things which he has com- 
 manded, and none other. 
 
 Is then this second clause a mere redundancy ? Nay, 
 it adds much to the meaning. For one thing, it implies 
 that when " we kee]) his commandments," or do the 
 things commanded, we do them as " things pleasing in 
 his sight ;" — we take that view of them in the doing of 
 them. And further, it implies that God is really pleased 
 with them. They are done in obedience to his com- 
 mandments, and so done as to be in very truth " pleasing 
 in liis sight." They do please him ; and it is because 
 
AND ENSURES HIS HEAEING US. 49 
 
 tliey do please Mm, that he is so 23leased with us who 
 do them that he can refuse us nothing that we choose 
 to ask. He derives real gratification from what we do 
 for him. "What then will he not do for us ? 
 
 To make this view of the matter clear, let us take 
 our Lord himself as our example, in respect of both of 
 these sayings of his beloved disciple. 
 
 I. " We keep his commandments, and do those 
 tilings that are pleasing in his sight." So John writes ; 
 and so also Jesus speaks ; " He that sent me is with me : 
 the Father hath not left me alone ; for I do always those 
 things that please him" (John viii. 29). That was the 
 hold which he had on the Father. It is, in a measure, 
 the same hold that John says we have on the Father. 
 " I do always those things that please him." " We do 
 those things that are pleasing in his sight." The lan- 
 guage is the very same ; — the sense and spirit in which 
 it is used must be the very same also. Let us consider 
 it as used by Jesus ; let us try to enter into his mind 
 and heart in using it. 
 
 There is indeed in it, as used by him, a depth of 
 meaning which we dare not hope, or even try, to fathom. 
 It touches what must ever be an inscrutable mystery ; 
 the ineffable mutual complacency of the great Three in 
 One, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and especially the 
 Father's ineffable complacency in the Son of his love, as 
 fulfilling on earth and in time the counsel of the God- 
 head which dates from everlasting in heaven. But 
 Jesus uttered the words for our sakes ; and as express- 
 ing a human feeling which we may understand, and with 
 VOL. II. E 
 
50 OUK EIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 wliicli lie would have us to sympatliise. That human 
 feelhig in the bosom of Jesus must have been very 
 shnple, and intensely filial ; realising intensely his filial 
 relation to the Father, and his filial oneness with the 
 Father. There is, if 1 may venture so to speak, a child- 
 like simplicity, a sort of artless straightforwardness, in 
 his saying so confidingly, so lovingly, so naturally, " I 
 do always those things that please him." It is ahnost 
 as if the words came out, half-unconsciously, from his 
 lips ; as if he were thinking aloud. And certainly it is 
 not of himself and his merit that he is thinking ; but of 
 the Father and the Father's love. I always please him ; 
 what I do always pleases him ; is the quiet comfort he 
 takes in a trying moment. For it is indeed a trying 
 moment. He has the cross in view. Men, displeased 
 with him, are to " lift him up," and leave him to die in 
 his agony alone. Not so the Father. He leaves me 
 not alone ; he is with me ; " for I do always those things 
 that please him." 
 
 Somewhat similar are the circumstances in which 
 John would have us to say ; " we do those things that 
 are pleasing in his sight." We are not to marvel if the 
 world hate us ; the source of its hatred we know (ver. 13). 
 And we know also the source of that better spirit of 
 brotherly love with which it is to be met (ver. 14-16). 
 Only let there be, on our part, open, guileless, unreserved 
 sincerity (ver. 17-21). Let our heart, as in the sight of 
 God, acquit us of all secret dishonesty. Let there be 
 truth in the inner man ; the truth in love. Then we 
 have the confidence of little children toward God. And, 
 
AXD ENSURES HIS HEARING US. 5l 
 
 as little children, we join with John, and with Jesus, in 
 saying, — AVhatever the world may do to us, we are not 
 alone ; the Father is with us, and heareth us, for " we 
 do those tilings that are pleasing in his sight." 
 
 There is nothing then here of a legal spirit ; nothing 
 of the Pharisee's self-righteous gratitude : " God, I thank 
 thee that I am not as other men are." It is not thus 
 that John asks us to join with him in saying " we do 
 those things that are pleasing in God's sight." Eather, 
 he makes our saying this the very test of our entire 
 freedom from all guile in our spirits ; all that sort of 
 guile which such prayer as the Pharisee's implies. For 
 the Pharisee's prayer represents him as keeping God's 
 commandments, in so far as he does keep them, merely 
 to gain a selfish end and serve a selfish purpose. If he 
 cares about doing what pleases God at all, it is merely 
 with that view. He may be in earnest, ever so much. 
 It is the earnestness of one seeking to make terms with 
 an adversary, and win his favour or forbearance, by a 
 measure of forced submission. It is the earnestness of 
 one striving to effect a truce or compromise, on condi- 
 tions ever so severe, for a boon ever so far off, and apt 
 to be lost after all. Take the man who is serving God 
 most anxiously, and with most painstaking observance 
 of the letter of the commandments, on that footing ; — on 
 the footing of his having thus to win his way to such 
 kind and measure of God's countenance as he thinks he 
 needs, or cares to have. Ask that man, as before God, 
 and in the eye of his own conscience. Is all clear and 
 open, free and forthflowing, between you and him whom 
 
52 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 you SO painfully serve ? Is there not, on the contrary, 
 reserve and restraint ; a holding back, as it were, of con- 
 fidence on both sides ; something still outstanding be- 
 tween him and you wliich makes you feel that all is 
 hollow and unsatisfying ? 
 
 Oh ! to be converted, and become as little children ! 
 First, to be made willing, as little cliildren, that all this 
 misunderstanding should be ended, and tliis breach 
 thoroughly healed, at once, and once for all, as the 
 Father would have it to be, in the Son, And then, as 
 little children, to know something of a little child's 
 touching and artless simplicity, as we look with loving 
 eye into the loving eye of the Father, and lovingly lisp 
 out the touching words : " We keep his commandments 
 and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." 
 
 Therefore now, humble and simple child of God, 
 if, in saying this, you feel yourself to be identified with 
 the holy child Jesus ; if your saying it is really his 
 saying it in you by his Spirit ; if it is as one with him 
 that you say it, or in all honesty would fain say it ; do 
 not hesitate, or have any scruple, from any apprehension 
 of its being presumptuous, or any misgivmg lest it should 
 savour of self-righteousness. There can be no risk of 
 that, if you say it in and with Christ. There w^as no 
 seK-righteousness in him ; there could not be. For he 
 began his work, himself already personally accepted as 
 righteous ; and it was as a Son that he learned obedience. 
 He makes you one with himself in his acceptance and 
 in his sonship. He asks you to let him make you thus 
 one with himself ; on the gi-ound of his making himself 
 
AND ENSUEES HIS HEARING US. 53 
 
 one with you in your sin and death. You are as he is 
 when you join Avith him in his saying, " I do always those 
 things that please him." There is no seK- righteous- 
 ness here ; scarcely even self-consciousness. It is all 
 direct, outward, upward motion of the soul ; the out- 
 going of filial trust and love and loyalty ; the fond and 
 guileless unreserve, one would say, of an unreflecting 
 child, who would be amazed if any doubt were cast on 
 his father's being always with him, and always hearing 
 him ; for his heart bears him out in saying, with a 
 child's simple and artless love, — I keep his command- 
 ments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 
 Only make sure that with reference to tliis matter 
 there is no guile in your spirit ; that your heart does not 
 condemn you. And there is one plain and practical test 
 or safeguard. Your doing those things that are pleasing 
 in God's sight, is simply your keeping his commandments. 
 If your heart is not right with God, you will be seeking 
 to recommend yourself to him, by services or sacrifices 
 that you think may give you some extra-claim upon liim, 
 and almost lay him under obligation to you, as if you covdd 
 benefit or profit him. You will be going about to 
 establish or make good certain meritorious and tangible 
 grounds of confidence, that may avail you when you 
 have to plead with him in the judgment. But does not aU 
 that imply deceitful and double dealing both with him 
 and with yourselves ? If you would really please him, he 
 has told you how to do so. You are not to cast about 
 for ways and means of winning his favour ; his favour 
 is freely yours, in his Son. And what now will he have 
 
,54 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 at your hands ? How, on the footing on which he 
 would have you to he with hun, are you to please him ? 
 How, but just as his own Son pleased him ? It was his 
 meat to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish 
 his work. He kept the Fatlier's commandments, and so 
 abode in the Father's love. 
 
 II. " And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him." 
 In this saying also we have the countenance of Jesus ; 
 for we find him using it : " Father, I thank thee that 
 tliou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me 
 always" (John xi. 41, 42). It was beside the grave of 
 Lazarus. What it was that he had been asking, is not 
 said. So far as appears, the prayer for the answer to 
 which he gives thanks consisted not of articulate words 
 but of tears and groans. At all events he was heard ; 
 what he asked, whatever it was, he received of the 
 Father. And while openly acknowledging this, for the 
 sake of the bystanders, he is careful to explain that it is 
 no exceptional case. " Tliou hearest me always ; " 
 " whatsoever I aslv, I receive of thee always ; " thou 
 never refusest me anything. Why Jesus was so anxious, 
 in this instance publicly to connect the miracle he was 
 intending to do with the Father's hearing his secret 
 prayer, it is perhaps useless to conjecture. It was a 
 signal display of his power to overcome the corruption 
 of the grave that he was about to give ; that power 
 which lie is to put forth on a wider scale when he comes 
 again. It was fitting, one might say, that in giving it 
 he should, with more than ordinary explicitness and 
 solemnity, carry the Father along with him. But his 
 
AND ENSUKES HIS HEARING US. 55 
 
 studied generalisation of liis tlianksgiving is remarkable. 
 "I knew that thou hearest me always." Never doth 
 the Father leave me alone ; for I do always those things 
 that please him ; and he heareth me always ; I have his 
 ear always ; and whatsoever I ask I receive of him. 
 
 The Lord's manner of asking varies much. He weeps. 
 He groans in the Spirit. He offers up prayers and suppli- 
 cations, with strong crying and tears. He asks, some- 
 times, as it might seem, almost incolierently (John xii. 
 27). Once, at least, he asks conditionally, " Father, if 
 it be possible." But, be his manner of asking what it 
 may, always the Father heareth him ; always, what- 
 soever he asks, he receives of him. 
 
 "- Thou hearest me always ! " It is a blessed assurance. 
 And the blessedness of it really lies, not so much in the 
 good he gets from the Father's hearing him, as in the 
 Father's hearing him itself ; not so much in what he 
 receives, as in his receiving it from the Father. For this 
 is the charm, the joy, the consolation, of that access to 
 the Father and that influence with the Father which you 
 now have in common with the Son. It is not that you 
 may enrich and gratify yourselves with what you win by 
 asking from him. But it is literally that whatever you 
 ask you receive of him, as his gift ; the proof that he is 
 ever with you and heareth you always. Do you not lay 
 the stress on the "him?" Whatsoever you ask you 
 receive of " him." You might have to do with one as 
 to whom your only consideration would be, how much 
 you could get out of him or extract from him. There is 
 a common proverb about quartering upon an enemy. 
 
56 OUR EIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 And tliere is no little satisfaction in the idea that you 
 have a powerful and wealthy patron at your command, 
 ■on whose resources you may draw at pleasure. But it is 
 not thus that you stand with God. In these other in- 
 stances, the chief, if not the whole value of any influence 
 you have, is merely the amount of actual benefit ob- 
 tained. The asker cares little or nothing for the motive 
 which leads the giver to give, or for the disjDOsition 
 towards himself that the gift implies and indicates. It 
 is aU the same to him, whether it be extorted by 
 menace ; or wrung reluctantly by importunity ; or 
 made matter of cold and cautious stipulation. So as 
 only he gets, any how, and on any terms, a certain 
 amount or quantity of what he wants, he is content. 
 That is not the mind of Christ, when he says, "The 
 Father is with me;" "thou hearest me always." The 
 support which this thought gives to him is not that it 
 warrants him in demanding any personal benefit he may 
 choose to specify, that would be pleasing to flesh and 
 blood. No. It is its imparting to his inmost conscious- 
 ness the sense of his being such a Son to the Father, — 
 so dear in the Father's sight, — that the Father can refuse 
 Mm nothiug, He may ask what he will ; and he is sure 
 to receive it of the Father. 
 
 Ah ! how then shall I ask anything at all ? If such 
 is my position, in and with Christ, how shall I have the 
 heart or the hardihood to ask anything at all of the 
 Father, except only that he may deal with me according 
 to his good pleasure ? If I am really on such a footing 
 with the Father that "he heareth me always," and 
 
AND ENSUEES HIS HEARING US. 57 
 
 "whatsoever I ask I receive of him ;" — if I have such 
 influence with him ; — if, as his dear child, pleasing him, 
 and doing what pleases him, I can so prevail with him 
 that he can refuse me nothing ; — what can I say ? What 
 can I do ? I can but cast myself into his arms and cry, 
 Thou knowest better than I, my Father ! Father, thy 
 will be done ! 
 
 Yes. And under that blessed committal of all to 
 him, what freedom may I not use ? "When told that I 
 and my doings are so pleasing to him that I may ask 
 what I will and it shall be done ; the very abundance of 
 the grace silences me. It is enough for me. Father, that 
 such is my acceptance in thy sight. But can I wield 
 the sceptre ? Can I use so tremendous a power as this, 
 that whatever I ask thee to do thou doest? Nay. I 
 am thy servant. Undertake thou for me. Enough for 
 me to be assured that I so find grace and favour in thy 
 sight that I have but to ask thee to do anything and it is 
 done. Enough ! ISTay, more than enough ! I can ask 
 nothing on these terms, I must leave all to thee. But 
 leaving all to thee, I pour out all the more freely my 
 whole soul to thee, I spread out my w^hole case to thee. I 
 speak to thee of all that is upon my mind and heart. I 
 tell thee all my desire. My groaning is not hid from thee. 
 
 Let us look in closing at the two specimen command- 
 ments, if one may so call them, or the two parts of the 
 one specimen commandment, which John expressly men- 
 tions in tills connection. 
 
 1. " That we should believe ou the name of his Son 
 
58 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 Jesiis Christ." The keeping of this commandment is 
 the doing of what is pleasing in the Father's sight. It is 
 so in proportion to the love with which he loveth the 
 Son, and loveth us in the Son. We can do nothing that 
 will please the Father more. It is what his heart is set 
 on ; that the Son of his love should be the object of our 
 faith. 
 
 Is there not here a word in season for you, sinner, 
 whoever you are, however guilty and however helpless, 
 poor and needy, lost and undone ? You, as it might seem, 
 are in no condition to keep God's commandments so as 
 please him ; and you cannot venture to ask anything, or 
 to hope that you will receive anything, at his hands. 
 Nay ; but here is something that you may do, and that 
 will be very pleasing to him. " Believe on the name of 
 of his Son Jesus Christ." It is true that he will not be 
 pleased with your keeping any other commandment ; 
 but he wiU be pleased with your keeping that one. You 
 may not be in circumstances to do anything else that 
 will be pleasing in his sight ; but you are in the very 
 circumstances to do that which will please him best. 
 He asks you if you wiU not do him this pleasure, " to 
 believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ." Be it that 
 you cannot receive anything you ask otherwise than 
 on the footing of your keeping his commandments and 
 doing those things that are pleasing in his sight. Here is 
 the commandment for you, here and now, to keep ; here is 
 the thing pleasing in his sight for you, here and now, to 
 do. Without faith it is impossible to please God ; but 
 faith pleases him ; it pleases him well. Then believe 
 now. 
 
AND ENSURES HIS HEARING US. 59 
 
 And take a right view of the duty of believing. It is 
 not using a great liberty to believe on the name of Jesus ; 
 it is simply " keeping the commandment of God." The 
 liberty is all the other way. You use a great liberty 
 when you refuse to believe. Be not disobedient ; dis- 
 please not God by unbelief ; rather please him by be- 
 lieving. And believing, ask what you will, and it shall 
 be given you. 
 
 Keep on believing. Continue to believe more and 
 more, simply because you see and feel it more and more 
 to be "his commandment that you should believe on the 
 name of his Son Jesus Christ." Unbelief, in you who 
 have believed, is aggravated disobedience. And, as such, 
 it is and must be especially displeasing to God. It is 
 his pleasure that his Son should be known, trusted, 
 worshipped, loved ; honoured as he himself would be 
 honoured. You cannot displease the Father more than 
 by dishonouring the Son ; refusing to receive him, and 
 rest upon him, and embrace him, and hold him fast, and 
 place full reliance upon him as redeemer, brother, friend. 
 Do not deceive yourselves by imagining that there may 
 be something rather gracious in your doubts and fears ; 
 your unsettled and unassured frame of mind ; as if it 
 betokened humility, and a low esteem of yourselves. 
 Beware lest God see in it only a low esteem of his Son 
 Jesus Christ. Beware of guile. May not your stagger- 
 ing, hesitating faith be but half-faith after all ? May it 
 not be that you are unwilling to be wholly Christ's, and 
 to have Christ wholly yours ? Can that be pleasing to 
 God? "What shaU we do that we misjht work the 
 
60 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 works of God?" asked the Jews, and the Lord replied : 
 " This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom 
 he has sent." Therefore let iis believe ; and let us be 
 " strong in faith, giving glory to God." 
 
 2. " And love one another as he gave us command- 
 ment." The keeping of this commandment of love, as 
 well as the keeping of the former commandment of faith, 
 is the doing of that which is very pleasing in God's 
 sight ; and, therefore, in the keeping of it we may with 
 much confidence reckon and rely on the assurance that 
 "whatsoever we ask we shall receive of him ;" that "he 
 will hear us always." 
 
 I do not know — who can tell me ? — what connection 
 there was between the silent prayer of Jesus at the grave 
 of Lazarus, and the utterance of that voice of power, 
 " Lazarus, come forth ! " Evidently the Lord wished it 
 to be seen and known that in some very special manner 
 the Father was with him, and went along with him, in 
 that great work. " Father, I thank thee that thou hast 
 heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always ; 
 but because of the people that stand by I said it, that 
 they may believe that thou hast sent me." He would 
 have it understood that he did the work as one whom 
 the Father had on this occasion heard ; as one whom 
 "the Father heareth always," and whom "the Father hath 
 sent." For he was to do it, not as a thing that might 
 please himself, but as a thing that would please the 
 Father. He " loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus," 
 and he was about to manifest and gratify his love by a 
 very signal proof and token. But he would have all 
 
AND ENSURES HIS HEARING US. 61 
 
 men to observe that it "was not merely on the impulse of 
 a spontaneous burst of affection that he acted, but as 
 doing what the Father commanded, and what would be 
 pleasing in the Father's sight. Loving, in that way, 
 Martha and her sister and Lazarus, he knew that in the 
 practical outgoing of his love towards them ; in what- 
 ever loving words he was to say, and whatever loving 
 works he was to do ; he might be sure of the Father 
 being with him. For " he pleased the Father ; " he 
 sought to please the Father, and did please the Father. 
 Therefore he was sure of receiving what he asked ; sure 
 of the Father hearing him then and hearing him always. 
 Go ye and do likewise. Love one another ; love 
 your brother ; love as a brother every one with whom 
 you have anything to do ; love him with the love that 
 would fain have him for a brother. And let your love 
 still always be "the keeping of God's commandment," 
 and " the doing of what is pleasing in his sight." Let it 
 not be, as it were, at your own hand that you love, but 
 in obedience to the commandment of God. This may, 
 in one view, be felt by you to be a sort of damper ; a 
 drawback upon the warm spontaneous flow of your affec- 
 tions. It may seem to detract from the generous enthu- 
 siasm of your good will and your good offices. It takes 
 away the chivalry and romance of this virtue. It makes 
 Christian philanthropy a very humble and homely duty. 
 You are to go among your fellows, — not loving them of 
 your own accord, and at your own discretion showing 
 your love, — but lovmg them in obedience to " the com- 
 mandment of God ; " and in all the expressions and acts 
 
62 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS PLEASES GOD, 
 
 of your love, simply bent on doing what is " pleasing in 
 his sight." But after all, if this is a lowlier, it is a far 
 more becoming and safer position for you to occupy. 
 And it is one in Avhich, if you honestly occupy it, 
 you may with all the greater confidence rely on his 
 hearing you now, and always. You do good and com- 
 municate ; you are fruitful in every good work ; you 
 wash the feet of saints ; you visit the fatherless and 
 widows ; you speak a word in season to the weary ; you 
 stretch out a helping hand to all that need ; not merely 
 as indulging your own loving impulses, but rather as 
 carrying out God's loving purposes. You do these things 
 because they are " well pleasing in his sight." Doing 
 them thus, in singleness of eye, what encouragement 
 have you to expect that he will be with you in the 
 doing of them ; that he will hear your prayer for those 
 to whom you do them ; and that whatsoever you ask on 
 their behalf you will receive of him ! 
 
 But in all this, let us see to it that we are " of the 
 truth;" simple, guileless, upright; as regards our whole 
 life and walk of faith and love. Only then can we have 
 confidence before God that whatsoever we ask we shall 
 receive of him. Let us lay to heart the Psalmist's ac- 
 knowledgment, — " If I regard iniquity in my heart, the 
 Lord will not hear me;" and his thanksgiving, — "but 
 verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the 
 voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not 
 turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me." Let 
 us lay this to heart, not in any spirit of self-righteous- 
 ness or vain-glory; but in simple sincerity, as little 
 
AND ENSURES HIS HEAEING US. 63 
 
 children, honouring our Father; according to tlie quaint 
 thought of an old writer : — " I find David making a 
 complete syllogism, perfect in mood and figure. The 
 first premiss being, ' If I regard iniquity in my heart, 
 the Lord will not hear me;' and the second, ' But verily 
 God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of 
 my prayer;' — I look for his drawing the conclusion: 
 Therefore I regard not iniquity in my heart. But no. 
 When I expect him to put the crown on his own head, 
 he places it on God's ; — ' Blessed be God, which hath 
 not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.' I 
 like David's logic better than Aristotle's ; that whatever 
 be the premiss God's glory is the conclusion." * 
 
 * Fuller's Good Thoucjhts in Bad Times. 
 
64 OUK ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS ATTESTED BY OBEDIENCE, AS 
 IMPLYING OUR ABIDING IN GOD, AND HIS ABID- 
 ING IN US BY THE SPIRIT GIVEN BY HIM TO 
 US. 
 
 "And lie that keepeth liis commandments dwelletli [alddeth] in him, 
 and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by 
 the Spirit which he hath given ns. Beloved, believe not every 
 spirit, but try the spirits Avhether they are of God : because many 
 false prophets are gone out into the world." — 1 Johx iii. 24; iv. 1. 
 
 This is another fruit of the keeping of God's command- 
 ments ; or another view of the blessedness of doing so. 
 It ensures our abiding in God, and his abiding in us ; 
 and that in a manner that may be ascertained and veri- 
 fied. Two practical questions are thus virtually put and 
 answered. I. How may we abide in God? — so abide in 
 him as to have him abiding in us? By keeping his 
 commandments. How may we know that he abides in 
 us? By the Spirit which he givetli us, — and giveth us 
 in a way that admits of the gift being verified by trial. 
 
 I. In the keeping of God's commandments there is 
 this great reward, that he that doeth so " dwelletli in 
 God, and God in him." Negatively, it has been already 
 shown that there can be no such mutual indwelling if 
 there is on our part disobedience to God's command- 
 ments. Sin, as " the transgression of the law," is in- 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIKIT. 65 
 
 compatible with such high and holy communion (iii. 6). 
 It is the positive form of the statement that is now 
 before us. Obedience, or the keeping of God's com- 
 mandments, actively promotes this communion. It is 
 more than the condition of it ; it is of its very essence. 
 If this mutual indwelling is not to be mere absorption, 
 — which some dreamers in John's day held it to be ; — 
 if it is not to be the swallowing up of our conscious in- 
 dividual personality in the infinite mind or intelligence 
 of God; — if it is to conserve the distinct relationship of 
 God to man, the Creator to the creature, the Euler to 
 the subject, the Father to the child ; — it must be realised 
 and must develop itself, or act itself out, through the 
 means of authority or law on the one side, and obedience 
 or the keeping of the commandments on the other. It 
 is, in fact, the very consummation and crown of man's 
 old, original relation to God ; as that relation is not only 
 restored, but perfected and gloriously fulfilled, in the 
 new economy of grace. 
 
 For consider the divine ideal, if I may so speak, in- 
 volved in the creation of man after the image of God, 
 and in the footing on which it pleased God to place man 
 towards liimself. E\ddently God contemplated obedience, 
 or the keeping of his commandments, as the normal state 
 or character of man. While that state or character con- 
 tinued, there was the best understanding between the 
 parties ; between God and man ; they were on the best 
 of terms with one another. There was entire com- 
 placency on both sides ; each resting and dwelling in the 
 other with full and unalloyed satisfaction. You would 
 VOL. II. F 
 
66 OUR ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 not say, in these circumstances, that this mutual in- 
 dwelling of man in God and God in man was, in any 
 proper sense, procured or obtained by man's obedience, 
 by his keeping the commandments of God. You would 
 rather say that it had in that way its proper outgoing or 
 forthgoinff, its conscious realisation. It is man's method 
 of intercourse with God ; the only competent, the only 
 conceivable method, if God and man respectively are to 
 keep their relative positions as distinct intelligences. It 
 is only along the line of God ruling and man obeying, 
 that the two, as separate persons or individuals, can so 
 walk together as to get into one another's minds and 
 hearts, and thus abide in one another. Such mutual in- 
 dwelling of God in man and of man in God, becoming 
 day by day more close, confidential, loving; through 
 man's increasing insight into the exceeding excellency 
 of the commandments he is keeping, — or rather of him 
 whose nature and will they discover, — and through 
 God's increasing delight in the growing intelligence and 
 sympathy with which man keeps them ; might seem to 
 be complete ; having in it all the elements of perfection, 
 as regards both the holiness and the happiness of man. 
 Can God and man be more to one another ? 
 
 Alas ! the drawback of a conditional standing, and a 
 possible fall, is fatal. It leaves an opening for suspicion 
 creeping in, upon the hint of a seeming friend, who 
 would insinuate that restraint is irksome and independ- 
 ence sweet. Then all mutual indwelling is over. God 
 and man must dwell apart. There may indeed be some 
 sort of formal dealing between them; at least man 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIKIT. 67 
 
 fondly imagines that there may. He thinks that he can 
 so far keep God's commandments as thereby to right 
 himself with God ; to the extent at least to which he 
 cares to be righted. He will make certain terms with 
 God, or conceive of God as making certain terms with 
 him; and he will be punctilious in the fulfilment of 
 these terms. But that is not really keeping God's com- 
 mandments. It is the keeping of a paction, if you will; 
 the doing of his part in a bargain. And if the two 
 parties concerned were equals, or if the relation between 
 them were one of mutual independence, this might lay 
 a foundation for some sort of mutual indwelling, by faith 
 and love, in one anotlier. Even in that case, however, 
 the foundation is too narrow and precarious. If the 
 mutual indwellino- is to be real and thorough, there 
 must be something more than the fulfilment of certain 
 stipulated conditions between the parties. They must 
 submit themselves, each to the other, cordially and 
 without reserve; they must study to obey and please 
 one another. Between God and man especially, the in- 
 troduction of the conditional element, of anything that 
 savours of the striking of a bargain or the making of 
 terms, is and must be destructive of all real fellowship 
 or intercommunion. No obedience rendered on that 
 footing or in that spirit can ever secure your dwelling in 
 God and his dwelling in you. In point of fact, it is 
 apt, — if not from the first to occasion a breach, — yet ever 
 afterwards, when a breach occurs, to widen, deepen, and 
 perpetuate it, however it may be meant and may seem 
 to bridge it over. 
 
68 OUR ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 The practical value of a free gospel is, that it places 
 your " keeping of God's commandments " on a different 
 footing, and breathes into it a different spirit. You 
 look to Jesus, and are one with him. You are in the 
 same position of advantage for keeping God's command- 
 ments in which he was. You start, as he did, on the 
 walk and work of obedience, not as seeking acceptance, 
 but as already accepted ; not as a servant on trial, but 
 as " a son abiding in the house evermore." You are not 
 only what unfallen Adam was when the task of keeping 
 God's commandments was set before him ; you are as 
 Christ was when the same task was set before him. 
 
 Consider, then, what sort of keeping of God's com- 
 mandments his was ; and how it must have conduced 
 to his abiding in the Father, and the Father's abiding 
 in him. Of course that mutual indwelling never could, 
 through all his keeping of the Father's commandments, 
 become more full and complete, in principle and 
 essence, than it was before he began to keep them. 
 But we may well imagine that to his human conscious- 
 ness, and in his human experience, the sense of it must 
 have been growing more intense, and more intensely 
 soothing and beatific, as his keeping of them went on, 
 and on, to its terrible and triumphant close. Among 
 the things about obedience which he learned by suffer- 
 ing, surely this was one, that it has a mighty power to 
 promote, enhance, and intensify the indwelling of man 
 in God, and of God in man. He learned the grief and 
 pain which such obedience as he had undertaken to 
 render involved. Did he not learn something of its joy 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIRIT. 69 
 
 and pleasure too — the joy and pleasure of apprehending 
 and feeling, more and more, in his human soul, his 
 dwelling in the Father and the Father's dwelling in 
 him throughout it all ? 
 
 I dare not venture upon particular illustration here. 
 But I ask you, in any hour of deep and private medita- 
 tion, and after you have prayed, or wliile you are pray- 
 ing, for the help of the Spirit, to put yourself alongside 
 of Christ, in the sorest and hardest of the experiences 
 which his keeping the Father's commandments entailed 
 upon him. Try to enter into what his soul was feeling 
 when it was " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." 
 There was anguish, agony ; the anguish and agony of 
 having guilt to answer for, and a penal death to die. 
 But was he not then and there, in his keeping of the 
 Father's most dread and awful commandments, and 
 through his keeping of them, dwelling in the Father 
 and the Father in him, in a sense and with a depth 
 and force of meaning, of w^hich that human soul of his 
 could not otherwise have had any experience ? A\Tiat 
 insight, what sympathy, what rest, repose, and peace, — 
 the rest, repose, and peace of unutterable complacency, 
 on his part, in the Father, and on the Father's part in 
 him, must there have been in his utterance of these simple 
 words, "It is finished;" "Father, into thy hands I 
 commend my spirit !" 
 
 Let our keeping of God's commandments be like 
 his. Let us seek grace that it may be so. In our case, 
 as in his, this may imply a bitter cup to be drunk ; a 
 heavy cross to be borne. Like him, we have to learn 
 
70 OUK ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 obedience by suffering. Let the obedience we thus 
 learn be of the same sort as his. Let it be the giving 
 up of our own will, always, everywhere, that God's will 
 may be done. We shall then prove how good and 
 acceptable and perfect that will of God is. We dwell 
 thus in God when our will is merged in his will ; we 
 have rest and repose in him ; our will in his will ; our 
 thoughts in his thoughts ; our ways in his ways. And 
 he dwells in us ; his will in our will ; his thoughts in 
 our thoughts ; his ways in our ways. We enter into 
 his mind and heart ; and he enters into ours. 
 
 II. The manner of God's abiding in us, or at least 
 the way in which we may know that he abides in us, is 
 specified : — " Hereby we know that he abideth in us, 
 by the Spirit which he hath given us." We are to dis- 
 tinguish here between our dwelling in God and his 
 dwelling in us. Both are to be known as facts of our 
 own consciousness ; not as revealed truths merely, but 
 as realised experiences. The one, however, our dwelling 
 in God, is to be thus known by our " keeping his com- 
 mandments ;" the other, God's dwelling in us, by "the 
 spirit which he giveth us." The one we know by what 
 we do to God ; — the other, by what God does in us. 
 And yet, the two means of knowledge are not far apart. 
 They are not only strictly consistent with one another ; 
 they really come together in one point. 
 
 For the Spirit is here said to be given to us ; — not 
 in order to our knowing that God abideth in us, in the 
 sense of his opening our spiritual eye and quickening 
 our spiritual apprehension ; — but rather, as the medium 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIRIT. 7l 
 
 of our knowing it, — the evidence or proof by which 
 we know it. He giveth us the Spirit ; and by that 
 token, his giving us the Spirit, we are taught by the 
 Spuit to know that God dwelleth in us. The question 
 therefore as to what this gift of the Spirit may be, is 
 thus narrowed to a precise point. 
 
 Is it the gift of the Spirit enabling men to perform 
 supernatural works that is meant ? That can scarcely 
 be ; the gift of the Spirit for such works was never a 
 sure sign of God's really and savingly dwelling in those 
 who did them. Surely it must be the gift of the Spirit 
 for the ordinary purposes of the Christian life and walk 
 that John has in view ; the gift of the Spirit common 
 to all believers in all ages. God giveth us the Spirit in 
 order that, by the Spirit being given, we may know that 
 he dwelleth in us. He means us, therefore, to recognise 
 this gift as a sure evidence of that fact. And how are 
 we to recognise the Spirit as given to us ? How other- 
 wise than by recognising the fruit of the gift ? The 
 Spirit given to us is, as to his movement or operation, 
 unseen and unfelt. But the fruit of the Spirit is pal- 
 pable and patent. " It is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." 
 For " against such there is no law " (Gal. v. 22, 23). 
 
 "Against such there is no law." That is an im- 
 portant addition or explanation here. There is nothing 
 in the gift of the Spirit, or in the fruit of the Spirit as 
 given, that is contrary to law ; nothing, therefore, that 
 can again bring us under the risks and liabilities of law. 
 On the contrary, the Spirit being given, with such fruit, 
 
72 OUR ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 is precisely what secures that kind of " keeping of the 
 commandments " on our part, by which we " dwell in 
 him." For, I must repeat, it is as the Spirit of adoption 
 that he is given ; " God sendeth forth the Spirit of his 
 Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 
 
 Thus the two elements and conditions, — the two 
 means and evidences, — of this mutual indwelling of us 
 in God and of God in us meet tosrether. "We dwell in 
 God by keeping his commandments ; he dwells in us 
 by giving us his Spirit. But our keeping his command- 
 ments and his giving us his Spirit are really one ; one 
 and the same fact viewed on opposite sides. It is not 
 any sort of keeping his commandments on our part 
 that will ensure or attest our dwelling in him. It is 
 not any way of giving us his Spirit on his part that will 
 ensure or attest his dwelling in us. Our keeping his 
 commandments in the spirit of bondage ; in a legal, 
 self-righteous, formal, and servile frame of mind ; is 
 not our dwelling in God. God's enabling us, by the 
 power of his Spirit, to work mu-acles, would not be his 
 dwelling in us. Our dwelling in him is our keeping 
 his commandments, as his Son did, on the same filial 
 footing and with the same filial heart. His dwelling in 
 us is his "sending forth the Spirit of his Son into 
 our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 
 
 III. From all this it follows that the counsel or 
 warning, " Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
 whether they be of God " (iv. 1), is as needful for us as 
 it was for those to whom John WTote. We may think 
 that it is the Spirit of God whom we are receiving into 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIRIT. 73 
 
 our hearts and cherishing there, when it may really be 
 another spirit altogether : one of the many spirits in- 
 spiring the " many false prophets that are gone out into 
 the world." Therefore we must " try the spirits." 
 
 Do you ask how, or by what test ? — " Hereby know 
 ye the Spirit of God : Every spirit that confesseth that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God : and every 
 spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in 
 the flesh is not of God." 
 
 The full meaning of this pregnant and searching test 
 will be afterwards considered. Meanwhile, as bearing 
 on the subject now in hand, it admits of at least one 
 obvious application. 
 
 The Spirit that is of God will ever honour Christ ; 
 and especially Christ come in the flesh ; which means 
 not only Christ incarnate, but also and emphatically 
 Christ crucified. The person and work of Christ, as the 
 outward object of our faith, — the ground of our confi- 
 dence before God outside of us and apart from us, — the 
 true Spirit of God will ever magnify and glorify. He 
 will not consent to substitute for that any inward experi- 
 ence, however heavenly, as superseding it or setting it 
 aside. That is what false prophets, moved by an anti- 
 christian spirit, are apt to do. It was a very marked 
 characteristic of their teaching in John's own day. An 
 inward light, — an inward sense, — something, or much, of 
 a Christ in them ; an inward revelation, or rapture, or 
 elevation, — a sort of mystical indwelling of God or of 
 Christ in them, — they extolled and cried up ; making it 
 the sum and substance of all Chiistianity, — the whole 
 
74 OUR ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 gospel of the grace of God. Now any spirit that fosters 
 such a tendency is not of God. Any spirit that would 
 encourage us to look in upon ourselves and not out to 
 Christ for peace or holiness is not of God. Inward 
 experience is very precious ; it is indispensable. A 
 growing inward consciousness of our " keeping God's 
 commandments," — or, in other words, of our conformity 
 of mind and heart and wiU to God's character and law, 
 — a growing inward consciousness of the fruit of the 
 Spirit, love, joy, peace — we must have ; and we must 
 seek to have it more and more, if we would have real 
 communion with God. But if we are rightly exercised, 
 how will this affect our views of "Christ come in the 
 flesh," — our feeling of our need of him and of his exclu- 
 sive sufficiency for us ? Will it make us at all the less 
 inclined to be ever looking to Christ, ever leaning on 
 Christ, ever laying hold of Christ, ever having recourse 
 to Christ, and that blood of Christ which cleanseth from 
 all sin ? Nay, on the contrary, our growing acquaint- 
 ance with God, our growing delight in his law, our 
 growing apprehension of the blessedness of perfect one- 
 ness, in nature and in will, with him, — will only give us 
 deeper convictions of sin, and open up to us new and 
 fresh discoveries of our corruption and our guilt, and 
 lead us to be ever saying, with reference not to past but 
 to present evil in us : " wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" — and to 
 be ever taking refuge in Paul's last stronghold — " This 
 is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of 
 whom I am chief." 
 
GOD ABIDING IN US BY THE SPIRIT. 75 
 
 Let US then, acting upon the belief that " whatsoever 
 we ask, we receive of him," be ever asking God to give 
 us the Holy Spirit, that we may know experimentally 
 his dwelling in us. We cannot have too much of this 
 gift of the Spirit, if it is indeed the Spirit " confessing 
 Christ " that we ask God to give. We need not be 
 afraid of having too much of the inward fruit of the 
 Spirit ; nor need we shrink from recognising the Spirit 
 given to us by God as the spirit of assurance ; " the 
 spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." If 
 indeed we find ourselves leaning to the imagination that 
 we have got past the stage at which we need to be liv- 
 ing, as sinners, upon Christ the Saviour, and are tempted 
 to live upon inward frames and feelings ; putting the 
 Spirit's work in us instead of Christ's work for us ; then 
 we do well to beware. But there is really no incompa- 
 tibility between the two ; our coveting, asking and 
 obtaining more and more of the inward testimony of the 
 Spirit, and our being by that very testimony — as it un- 
 folds to us more and more God's high ideal and our sad 
 coming short of it — shut up more and more into Christ 
 as the Lamb of God ; — with whose atoning blood and 
 justifying righteousness we feel more and more that we 
 can never for a single moment dispense. 
 
 Finally, let us remember that it is in the actual 
 " keeping of God's commandments " that we find all this 
 great mystery of " our dwelling in God and his dwelling 
 in us," practically cleared up. In the onward path of 
 the just, wliich is as the shining light, shining more and 
 more unto the perfect day, we come to know the Spirit 
 
7G OUR ABIDING IN GOD BY OBEDIENCE. 
 
 given to us, by liis " confessing Jesus Christ as come in 
 the flesh." Let us therefore so keep God's command- 
 ments as not to vex or grieve the Holy Spirit. For we 
 do vex and grieve him when our keeping them is either 
 ungracious on the one hand ; or, on the other hand, be- 
 comes to us a ground of confidence before God. As the 
 Spirit of God, he is vexed by our submission to God 
 being any other than a submission of the whole heart ; 
 filial altogether, and not servile at all. And as " the 
 Spirit confessing Jesus Christ come in the flesh," he 
 cannot but be vexed if we unduly lean even on his own 
 work in us, to the disparagement of what is the one 
 only ground of a sinner's hope, from first to last, " Christ 
 and him crucified." But let us keep the commandments 
 of God simply, humbly, lovingly ; not as doing any 
 great thing, but only as doing his will, and content that 
 his will be done. So keeping his commandments, we 
 abide in God, and so also we know that he abideth in 
 us, by the Spiiit which he hath given us. 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS — TRYING THE SPIRITS. 77 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS EXERCISED IN TRYING THE 
 SPIRITS ; THE TEST, CONFESSING THAT JESUS 
 CHRIST IS COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 " Hereby we know that he ahideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath 
 given us. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
 Avhether they are of God ; because many false jjrophets are gone 
 out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God : Every 
 sjiirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of 
 God : and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh is not of God : and this is that spirit of anti- 
 christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come ; and even now 
 already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have 
 overcome them : because greater is he that is in you, than he that 
 is in the world." — 1 John iii. 24 — iv. 4. 
 
 The appeal in tlie beginning of the fourth chapter 
 springs out of the closing statement in the third : 
 " Hereby we know that God abideth in us, by the Spirit 
 which he hath given us." This evidently tlu-ows us back 
 into ourselves ; into some consciousness on our part of 
 his having given us the Spirit. It is an inward or sub- 
 jective test. Have we in us the Spirit as given to us by 
 God ? If so, we have the Spirit in us " confessing that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." And by his confess- 
 ing that truth, we may distinguish liis indwelling in us 
 from all attempts of any antichristian spirit, or any 
 
78 JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 false j)ropliets or teachers inspired by an anticlnistian 
 spirit, to effect a lodgment in our hearts. For this is 
 their characteristic ; — they refuse to " confess that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh." 
 
 The meaning of that confession, objectively con- 
 sidered, has been already brought out in what John says 
 of Antichrist as " denying that Jesus is the Christ ;" — 
 and so virtually " denying the Father and the Son " (ii. 
 21-25). I am inclined to think that we have now to 
 deal with it more subjectively ; as a matter of inward 
 experience rather than of doctrinal statement. For the 
 starting-point is our " knowing that God abideth in us, 
 by the Spirit which he hath given us." It is the fact of 
 the Spirit confessing in us, and not merely to us, that we 
 have to ascertain and verify ; and therefore the test 
 must apply inwardly : — Have we in us " the Spirit that 
 confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?" As 
 it stands here, therefore, I think we are called to deal 
 with tha,t formula rather experimentally than dogmati- 
 cally ; and so to make it all the more available for the 
 searching of our hearts. 
 
 Taking that view, I shall consider, in the first place, 
 what the inward confession of the Spirit in us that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh may be held to imply ; 
 and then, secondly, how our realising this in our ex- 
 perience secures our personal and practical victory over 
 all antichristian spirits or prophets who deny that great 
 and blessed fact. 
 
 I. It properly belongs to the Spirit to " confess that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." He had much to do 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS — TEYING THE SPIRITS. 79 
 
 with the flesh in which Jesus Christ came. He pre- 
 pared for him a body in the Virgin's womb, so as to 
 secure that he came into the world pure and sinless. 
 And all throughout his sojourn on earth the Spirit 
 ministered to him as "Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" 
 he could not minister to him otherwise. It is the flesh, 
 or humanity, of Jesus Christ that brings him within the 
 range of the Spirit's gracious care. It was his human 
 experience that the Spirit animated and sustained ; and 
 it is with his human experience also that the Spirit 
 deals when he " takes of what is Christ's and shows it 
 unto us." His object is to make us one with " Jesus 
 Christ as come in the flesh." That practically is his 
 confession to us and in us. Let us see what it implies. 
 1. He identifies us with Jesus Christ in his humiha- 
 tion. There is no real humiliation on the part of the 
 Son if his coming in the flesh is denied. He might be 
 conceived of as coming gloriously, graciously, conde- 
 scendingly, in his own original and eternal nature alone ; 
 taking the mere semblance of a body, or a real body 
 now and then, as the Gnostic dreamers taught. But 
 there would have been no humbling of himself in that, 
 and no room for any concurrent humbling testimony or 
 w^ork of the Spirit in us. It is Jesus Christ as come in 
 the flesh, " made of a woman, made under the laAv," 
 that the Spirit owns and seals. And he confesses or 
 witnesses tliis in us by making us one, and keeping us 
 one, wdth our Lord in that character, as " Jesus Christ 
 come in the flesh." In our divine regeneration he brino-s 
 us to be, — what, through his interposition, Jesus Christ 
 
80 JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 ill his miraculous human generation "became, — servants 
 under the yoke ; subject to the authority and command- 
 ment of God; willingly subject; our nature being re- 
 newed into the likeness of his. 
 
 2. The Spirit identifies us with Jesus Christ, not 
 only in his humiliation but in its conditions and liabili- 
 ties. For " to confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh/' 
 is not merely to admit the fact of his incarnation, but to 
 admit it with whatever consequences necessarily, in 
 terms of law, flow from it. His coming in the flesh is 
 not simply an incident or event in history; it has a 
 special meaning in the moral government of God. It 
 brought him, not merely into the position of one made 
 under the law, but into the position, under the law, of 
 those whose place he took. 
 
 The old deniers of his coming in the flesh saw this ; 
 and it was their chief objection to the doctrine. They 
 might have allowed that the mysterious efflux or emana- 
 tion of Deity that they seemed to own as a sort of 
 Saviour did somehow identify himself with us, by 
 making common cause with us, and even temporarily 
 assuming our nature with a view to purge and elevate 
 it. But they perceived that the literal incarnation of 
 the Son of God, truly and fairly admitted, carried in its 
 train the vicarious substitution and atonement. Modern 
 teachers in the same line think that they may hold the 
 first without the last. But I am mistaken if any incar- 
 nation they may thus hold does not slip insensibly, in 
 their handlin£j of it, into some modification, suited to 
 modern turns of thought, of the old vague notion of a 
 
EIGHTEOUSNESS — TEYING THE SPIEITS. 81 
 
 certain divinity being in every man ; and in some one 
 man perhaps pre-eminently as the type and model of 
 perfect manhood. That, however, is not to "confess 
 Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" for his coming in the 
 flesh, accepted as a reality, implies his really putting 
 himself alongside of those in whose flesh he comes, and 
 serving himself hen to all the ills to which their flesh is 
 heir. 
 
 Let us look, then, at " Jesus Christ coming in the 
 flesh," — the Son of God taking our nature into oneness 
 with himself. He takes it pure and sinless, so far as he 
 is personally concerned; but he takes it with all the 
 liabilities which our sin has entailed upon it. And the 
 Spirit, confessing in us that he is come in the flesh, 
 makes us one with him in this view of his coming ; our 
 guilt and condemnation being now his, and his taking 
 our guilt and bearing our condemnation being ours. 
 His coming in the flesh is his consenting to be crucified 
 for us ; the Sphit in us confessing him as come in the 
 flesh makes us willing to be crucified with him. And 
 so, by means of this confession, the true Spirit of God 
 and of Christ opens to us a prospect of glory and joy 
 such as no lying spuit of antichrist can hold out. If it 
 was not really in the flesh that he came, — or if, coming 
 in the flesh, he failed to redeem by substitution those 
 whose flesh he shared, — then flesh, or human nature, can 
 have little hope of reaching the blessedness of heaven. 
 But having really come in the flesh, and in the flesh 
 suffered for sin, he raises the flesh in which he suffered 
 to the highest capacity of holy and happy being. " In 
 VOL. n. G 
 
82 JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 my flesli I shall see God," was the hope of the patriarch 
 Job. It is made sure by Jesus Christ come in the flesh, 
 and by the Spirit confessing in us that he is come. 
 
 II. This accordingly is the secret of our present 
 victory over antichristian spirits and men : " Ye are of 
 God, little children, and have overcome them" (ver. 4). 
 The intimation (ver. 3) that the spirit of antichrist is 
 already, even now, in the world, is fitted to make this 
 assurance very welcome. For war is proclaimed ; war 
 that is to last as long as the world lasts. It is the old 
 war, proclaimed long ago, between the serpent's seed and 
 the woman's. But it has taken a new form ; and that 
 its final one. From the first manifestation of it, — from 
 the day when Cain slew his brother, — it might be seen 
 to turn upon the question of the worship of God by 
 atoning sacrifice. Is there, or is there not, to be the 
 shedding of blood for the remission of sins? That, 
 more or less clearly, with variations suited to the varied 
 aspect of the church and the world, has ever since con- 
 tinued to be in substance the point at issue. 'Now that 
 Christ has come in the flesh, it is so more than ever. 
 " Jesus Christ come in the flesh" is its ultimate expres- 
 sion and embodiment. In the contest about this high 
 theme, " you, little children, have overcome them." The 
 victory is already yours : for " you are of God." 
 
 Two questions here occur : — 1, What is the nature 
 of the victory ? 2. How is it connected with your being 
 of God ? 
 
 1. The victory is a real victory got over the false 
 prophets or teaohers, who are not of God, — whom the 
 
EIGHTEOUSNESS — TRYING THE SPIRITS. 83 
 
 spirit of antichrist inspires. And it is a victory over 
 tliem personally ; not over their doctrines and principles 
 merely ; but over themselves : " Ye have overcome 
 them." True, it is, in a sense, a war of doctrines or of 
 principles that is waged ; its field of battle is the field of 
 argument and controversy. You and they meet in dis- 
 cussion and debate ; and when you succeed in refuting 
 their reasonings, you may feel the complacency of a per- 
 sonal triumph over them as, vanquished, they seem to 
 quit the field. But even though vanquished they may 
 argue still. They are silenced, merely, and not subdued ; 
 and their silence is only for a time. You may soon have 
 the battle to fight over again; and in the incessant 
 fighting of it, you may be doomed to suffer wounds, in 
 your temper at least, if not in your faith ; in your equa- 
 nimity of spirit towards men, if not in your peace of 
 mind within yourselves, or even your peace with God. 
 I cannot think that that is the victory on which John 
 congratulates his "little children" so affectionately. 
 
 No doubt such victory is valuable, as the sort of war 
 in which it is won is inevitable. It is idle to affect to 
 run down controversy, as long as there is error abroad 
 among men. It is mere prudery to be always groaning 
 over the symptoms of irritability which controversialists 
 have exhibited, and bemoaning evermore their lack of a 
 smooth and oily tongue. AH honour to the champions 
 of God's holy word and blessed gospel, who have waxed 
 valiant in fight against the adversaries of both! All 
 sympathy with them in their indignant sense of what 
 touches the glory and insults the majesty of him whose 
 
84 JESUS CHKIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 battles they fight ; with large allowance for the heats 
 into which, being but men, they may suffer their zeal 
 to hurry them ! And all thankful joy in the success 
 with which they wield the weapons of their keen logic, 
 their learned study, their burning eloquence, in baffling 
 the sophistries of heresy and infidelity, and rearing an 
 impregnable defence around the battlements on which 
 the banner is planted which God " has given to them 
 that fear him, that it may be displayed because of the 
 truth !" 
 
 But that is not exactly the victory which is here 
 meant when it is said, " ye have overcome them." For 
 what really is your contest with them ? It is not about 
 an abstract proposition, a mere article in a creed. It is 
 not whether you can prove that Jesus of Nazareth was 
 man as well as God, or God as well as man, — or they 
 can prove the reverse. No. " Jesus Christ come in the 
 flesh" is not with you a mere matter of disputation. It 
 is a pregnant and significant fact in God's government 
 of the universe, grasped by you as such, and appre- 
 hended as such in your experience. By faith you know 
 and feel what it means. You identify yourself with 
 him in his coming in the flesh ; consciously and with 
 entire community of mind and heart ; and in the very 
 doing of this you " have already overcome them." 
 
 For it is the fact that they dislike ; not argument 
 about the fact. It is the actual " coming of Jesus Christ 
 in the flesh," and his actual accomplishment, in the flesh, 
 of aU that in the flesh he came for, that they resent and 
 resist. It is that which Satan, the original spirit of 
 
EIGHTEOUSNESS — TRYING THE SPIRITS. 85 
 
 antichrist, would fain have set himseK to hinder ; moving 
 Herod to slay Jesus in his childhood, and Judas to betray 
 him in his manhood ; tempting Jesus himself to make 
 shipwreck of his integrity. And it is your actual personal 
 participation with him, as "Jesus Christ come in the 
 flesh ;" your being really one with him in that wondrous 
 humiliation, in its spirit and its fruit ; that, so far as you 
 are concerned, they seek to frustrate. In realising that, you 
 get the better of them ; confessing thus Jesus Christ 
 come in the flesh, you have overcome them. It is not 
 that you are able to discuss with them, as debatable ques- 
 tions in argument, the reality and the meaning of Jesus 
 Christ having come in the flesh, You may have to do so, 
 and if you do so on a clear call of duty, you are sure of 
 divine support and help ; perhaps even of success and 
 triumph. But that is not your having already overcome 
 them. Very gladly would they often drag you into this 
 snare ; making you mistake the chance of overcoming them 
 in a discussion about Jesus Christ come in the flesh, for 
 the certainty of your having overcome them through your 
 simply confessing him in that character. But be not 
 drawn down to lower ground. Stand upon your position 
 of oneness with him whom you confess as Jesus Christ 
 come in the flesh. Meet thus any and all antichrists ; 
 antichristian spirits, antichristian prophets. They are 
 not to be overcome. You have abeady overcome them. 
 2. Your having overcome them is connected with 
 your "being of God" (ver. 4) ; which again is intimately 
 connected with your "confessing that Jesus Christ is 
 come in the flesh" (ver. 2). Your being of God is the 
 
86 JESUS CHEIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 intermediate link between your confessing tliat Jesus 
 Christ is come m the flesh (ver. 2) and your having over- 
 come them who reject that truth (ver. 4). 
 
 "Ye are of God" (ver. 4). Tliis, let it be observed, 
 is what has previously been asserted of the Spirit that 
 "confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." 
 He "is of God" (ver. 3). And it is denied concern- 
 ing any sphit refusmg to confess that. Such a spirit 
 " is not of God." 
 
 Now what, as applied to the Holy Spirit, does this 
 mean? How, — in what sense and to what effect, — is 
 the Sphit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh said to be " of God ?" 
 
 He is of God essentially, being himself God ; pro- 
 ceeding from the Father and the Son ; one with them in 
 the undivided essence of the Godhead. He is of God, 
 if I may so say, officially ; condescending, in infinite 
 love, to be the gift of the Father and the Son to guilty 
 and sinful men. But here, more particularly, he is of 
 God as confessing, or in vu'tue of his confessing, that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. He is on the side of 
 God, or in the interest of God ; he consults and acts for 
 God ; he takes God's part and is true to God. It is as 
 being thus of God that the Spirit confesses that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh. He contemplates, if I may 
 so say, that great fact with all its issues from the divine 
 point of view ; in its bearing on the divine character and 
 nature, the divine government and law. He is " of God" 
 in it ; in that fact and in all its issues. 
 
 Do I take too great a liberty in speaking thus of the 
 
EIGHTEOUSNESS — TRYING THE SPIRITS. 87 
 
 Holy Ghost ? I scarcely think so when I call to mind 
 how this phrase describes Christ's own position in the 
 world with reference to the Father. He was "of God ;" 
 he was so in a very emphatic and significant sense ; not 
 only as regards his origin and mission ; his coming from 
 God and being authorised by God ; but also, and spe- 
 cially, as regards his end and aim all through his humilia- 
 tion, obedience, and sacrifice. He was "of God;" on 
 the side and in the interest of God. It was the zeal of 
 God's house that ate him up. It was the doing of God's 
 will, and the finishing of God's work, that was his meat. 
 It was the glorifying of his Father, and the finishing of 
 the work which his Father gave him to do, that minis- 
 tered to his satisfaction in his last farewell prayer. Of 
 him pre-eminently it might be said : " He is of God." 
 And in his being thus " of God," as to the whole mind and 
 meaning of the phrase, the Holy Ghost is with him and 
 in him. Jesus Christ come in the flesh is, in this sense 
 emphatically, confessed by the Spirit. The Spirit is 
 with him, and in him, as the Spirit that is of God ; and 
 as bemg to him the Spirit that is of God. He and the 
 Spirit are at one in being both " of God." And you, in 
 the Son and by the Spirit, are "of God;" as truly of 
 God as is the Sphit, or as the Son was when God " gave 
 not the Spirit by measure to him." 
 
 The essential characteristic of the spirit of antichrist 
 is that it is, in the sense now explained, " not of God." 
 It does not look at the Saviour and the salvation as on 
 the side of God ; rather it takes an opposite view, and 
 subjects God to man. It subordinates everything to 
 
88 JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 human interests and human claims ; looks at everything 
 from a human and mundane point of view ; measures 
 everything by a human standard ; submits everything 
 to human opinion ; in a word, conceives and judges of 
 God after the manner of man. This, indeed, may be 
 said to be the distinctive feature of all false religions, as 
 well as of all corruptions of the true religion. They 
 exalt man. They consider what man requu'es, what he 
 would like, what is due to him. Even when they take 
 the form of the most abject and degrading superstition, 
 that is still their spirit. They aim at getting God, by 
 whatever means of persuasion and prostration, to do the 
 bidding of man. For it is the essence of our corrupt 
 human nature, of which these corrupt worships are the 
 expression, to care and consult for self, and not for God. 
 This is the essence of the spirit of antichrist ; the spirit 
 that breathes and moves in the false notions that have 
 gained currency in the church respecting " Jesus Christ 
 come in the flesh." Their advocates give man the first 
 place m their scheme. Their real objection lies against 
 those views of gospel truth which assert the absolute 
 sovereignty of God, and put forward pre-eminently what 
 he is entitled to demand, — what, with a due regard to 
 his own character, government, and law, he cannot but 
 demand. They dislike such representations as bring in 
 the element of God's holy name and righteous authority, 
 and lay much stress upon that element, as one of pri- 
 mary consideration in the plan of saving mercy. Hence 
 they naturally shrink from owning explicitly Jesus 
 Christ as come in the flesh to make atonement by satisfy- 
 
EIGHTEOUSNESS — TRYING THE SPIllITS. 89 
 
 ing divine justice. They prefer some loose and vague 
 way of putting the fact of his interposition, and the 
 manner of it. Admitting in a sense its necessity, they 
 are unwilling to define very precisely, either the nature 
 of the necessity, or the way in which it is met. He 
 came in the flesh, to redeem the flesh, to sanctify, ele- 
 vate, and purify it. He came in the flesh, to be one 
 with us, and to make us, in the flesh, one with him. So 
 they speak and think of his coming in the flesh. Any 
 higher aim, — any prior and paramount design involved 
 in this great fact, viewed in its relation to the nature 
 and supremacy of God, his holiness and justice, as law- 
 giver and judge, — they are slow to acknowledge. Hence 
 their gospel is apt to be partial and one-sided ; — looking 
 rather like an accommodation of heaven and heaven's 
 rights to earth and earth's wishes and ways, than that 
 perfect reconciliation and perfect assimilation of earth to 
 heaven for which we hold it to have made provision ; — 
 our heavenly Father's name being hallowed, his kingdom 
 coming, his will being done, in earth as it is in heaven. 
 Theii' system is not " of God " as the primary object of 
 consideration ; for they themselves are not out and out, 
 in this sense, " of God." 
 
 But " ye are of God, little children," in this matter ; 
 in the view that you take, and the conception that you 
 form of Jesus Christ come in the flesh ; of the end of 
 his coming, and the manner in which that end is attained. 
 You look at that great fact, first and chiefly in its rela- 
 tion to God, and as on the side of God. It is from God 
 and for God that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. So 
 
90 JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH. 
 
 he alM^ays taught ; and so you firmly believe. He 
 placed God always first ; the glory of God, the sove- 
 reignty of God, the will of God, always took precedency. 
 Man's concerns and interests were subordinate to that. 
 Nothing is more conspicuous in " Jesus Christ come in 
 the flesh," throughout his whole ministry, in all his life 
 and in his death, than this loyalty to God his Father, 
 prevaHing even over his amazing tenderness and pity for 
 men. He was truly of God, even when his being so 
 might tell against men ; tell to their destruction rather 
 than their salvation. He does not shrink from the dark- 
 est issues which, in that view, his coming in the flesh 
 carries in its bosom. He did not shrink from them 
 when realised in his own person, and in his personal 
 experience, as the suffering substitute of the guilty. He 
 does not shrink from them as they are to be realised in 
 the persons, and in the personal experience, of those who 
 " will not come unto him that they may have life." 
 
 If you are " of God," you are of his mind. You ap- 
 prove of this principle ; you recognise the propriety of 
 what is due to God being first attended to and provided 
 for, in preference even to what may be needed by man. 
 What God, being such as he is, must require, since " he 
 cannot deny himself," that is the first question ; then, 
 and in subordination to that, what can be done for men. 
 It is a great matter for you to view the whole plan of 
 salvation, as being yourselves, in this sense, " of God." 
 It is your doing so that secures your having overcome 
 all spirits of antichrist. If thus " you are of God," you 
 are already raised to a higher platform than they can 
 
RIGHTEOUSNESS — TEYING THE SPIRITS. 91 
 
 occupy, SO as to have a loftier and wider range of vision. 
 Your profound reverence for the majesty of God ; your 
 loyal, loving recognition of his holy and righteous sove- 
 reignty ; your deep, admiring esteem of his government 
 and law ; your calm conviction that the Lord reigneth ; 
 your intense desire that the Lord should reign ; your 
 determination, may I say, that the Lord shall reign ; 
 lifts you out of the region of human questionings and all 
 doubtful disputations. It is your very humility that 
 lifts you up. You sit at the feet of Jesus Christ come 
 in the flesh. You stand beside his cross. You do not 
 now stumble at the mystery of its bloody expiation ; or 
 quarrel with the great propitiation-sacrifice through un- 
 behef of its necessity. The ideas of justice needing to 
 be satisfied ; punishment inevitably to be inflicted ; one 
 wiUing to bear it in your stead being found ; that one 
 being "Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" do not now 
 offend you. Nay, being " of God " — on his side and in 
 his interest in the whole of this great transaction, — you 
 can meekly, in faith, commit to him and leave in his 
 hands even the most terrible of those ultimate and eter- 
 nal consequences, — involving the aggravated guilt and 
 final ruin of many, — that you cannot but see to be in- 
 separably mixed up with the confession that " Jesus 
 Clu'ist is come in the flesh." 
 
92 THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN US : 
 
 XXX, 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN US GREATER THAN THE 
 SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST IN THE WORLD. 
 
 " Ye are of God, little cMldren, and have overcome them : because 
 greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They 
 are of the world : therefore speak they of the world, and the world 
 heareth them. We are of God : he that knoweth God heareth us ; 
 he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit 
 of truth, and the spirit of error." — 1 John iv. 4-6. 
 
 The security for our full and final victory over antichrist 
 and his spirit lies in the emphatic declaration : "Greater 
 is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." He 
 that is in you is the Spirit of God ; for " hereby we 
 know that God abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath 
 given us ; " the Spirit that, being of God, " confesseth that 
 Jesus Christ is come in the flesh " (iii. 24 ; iv. 2). He 
 that is in the world is the spirit of antichrist, "whereof 
 ye have heard that it should come, and even now already 
 is it in the world " (iv. 3). Therefore you who " are of 
 God have overcome them," — " the spirits," the false pro- 
 phets, " that are gone out into the world " (iv. 1). They 
 are of the world ; what they speak is of the world and 
 meets with the world's acceptance (ver. 5). We, the 
 true teachers, are of God ; what we speak is of God ; 
 and meets with the acceptance, not of him who is not of 
 
THE SPIEIT OF ANTICHKIST IN THE WOELD. 93 
 
 God, but of him who, bemgof God, knows God (ver. 6). 
 By this test the spirit of truth which is in us is to be 
 distinguished from the spirit of error that is in them 
 (ver, 6). From whom do we obtain a hearing ? 
 
 " Ye are of God ;" and your being of God raises you 
 above the risk of being "seduced by false prophets;" 
 for it enables you to " try the spirits." " We too are of 
 God." And this is the proof of it, — that our teaching 
 commends itself, not to the world, but to you who know 
 God and are of God. Between you and us there is a 
 blessed harmony ; between your state of mind as you 
 try the spirits, and our teaching as we stand the trial. 
 You who are hearers, are secure in trying the spirits 
 against all false prophets ; for you have overcome them, 
 being yourselves of God. We who are preachers, being 
 of God as you are, have assurance that our spirit, the 
 spirit of our teaching, is the Spirit of truth, when we see 
 the world hearing them, and only you who are of God and 
 know God hearing us. Thus you and we are both safe ; 
 you who try and we who are tried ; you safe from being 
 misled by false prophets, we safe from being confounded 
 with them. And our joint safety lies in both you and 
 us being " of God." 
 
 Taken thus, this passage bears closely on a deeply 
 interesting subject ; the self-evidencing power of the 
 gospel of Cluist in the hands of the Spirit of God. 
 There is a wonderfully gracious correspondence between 
 the spiritual intelligence of the man who is of God and 
 knows God ; and the spiritual intelligibility and accep- 
 tability of the teaching which is of God. The two fit 
 
94 THE SPIRIT OF CHEIST IN US : 
 
 into one another ; tlie state of mind and heart in the 
 receiver who tests, — and the character of what is sub- 
 mitted to him to be tested. You who test, and we who 
 are tested, are in a close and intimate relation to one 
 another. A common quality unites us ; or a common 
 agency ; opening your eyes to try, and fashioning our 
 doctrine for being tried. The same spirit is in you and 
 in us ; the Spirit that is " of God " — the Spirit of truth. 
 
 There is something like this on the other side. 
 There is the world ; and there are the false prophets who 
 are of the world. They are mutually related to one 
 another, precisely as you and we are. What you are to 
 us, that the world is to the false prophets. What we 
 are to you, that they are to it. The world knows its 
 own. The teaching which is of the world commends 
 itself to the world. That teaching, therefore, must be 
 antichristian ; for the world is antichristian. 
 
 Here, then, are the opposite workings of two oppo- 
 site powers ; and here is the secret of their greatness. 
 For both are great ; and both are great, not only in 
 themselves, but in their adaptation to those with whom 
 they have to deal. 
 
 I. " He that is in the world is gTeat." And his 
 greatness lies in this, — that he operates in a twofold 
 way. He forms and fashions the world spiritually ; and 
 he finds for it, or makes for it, appropriate and congenial 
 spiritual food. He creates or moulds the world's appetite 
 for some sort of religious teaching ; and he inspires for 
 his own ends the religious teaching that is to suit his 
 world and be accepted by it. Hence his false prophets 
 
THE SPIEIT OF ANTICHRIST IN THE WOELD. 95 
 
 are sure of their own nieasure of success ; " they are of 
 the world : therefore speak they of the world, and the 
 world heareth them " (ver. 5). 
 
 But he cannot succeed with you who are " of God ; " 
 for there is one in you who, great as he is, is greater 
 still. And he also operates in a double way. He gives 
 you inwardly spiritual intelligence, spiritual insight and 
 sympathy, to try ; and he gives you outwardly spiritual 
 truth to be tried. You are yourselves of God, and there- 
 fore competent to judge what we speak. And we too, 
 being of God, speak what cannot be acceptable to the 
 world, but only to him who is of God, and knows God. 
 Thus what you are prepared to apprehend and appreciate, 
 and what we are moved to speak, harmonise and are at 
 one. It is all the doing of " him who dwelleth in you," 
 and of whom "we know," through your acceptance of 
 our teaching, " that he is not the sjjirit of error, but the 
 Spirit of truth." 
 
 Look for a little at the world, and him that is in the 
 world. He is great, undeniably great ; great in power and 
 wisdom ; in command of resources and subtlety in the 
 use of them. He has largely, as to its moral and spiritual 
 tastes and tendencies, the making of the w^orld in which 
 he is, and of which he is the moving soul. The world, 
 in a sense, lives, and moves, and has its being, in him. 
 He is in it as the spring of its activities, the dictator of its 
 laws, the guider of its pursuits and pleasures ; in a word, 
 "the ruler of its darkness." The darkness of its deep 
 alienation from God, he rules. And he rules it very 
 specially for the purpose of getting the world to be con- 
 
96 THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN US : 
 
 tented with an image, instead of the reality, of godliness. 
 For he knows well enough that the world is, and must 
 be, in a sense and after a fashion, religious. He cannot 
 put it off with the "no God" which the fool would 
 fain say in his heart. He is far too sagacious and 
 shrewd to attempt that. What he does attempt is a 
 much more plausible device. He takes advantage of 
 whatever may be the world's mood at the time, as 
 regards God and his worship ; throws himself into it ; 
 controlling or inflaming it, as he may see cause, so as to 
 turn it to his own account. And then he contrives to 
 bring under his sway prophets or teachers ; not always 
 consciously false ; often meaning to be true ; able men ; 
 holy men ; men of God and of prayer ; pre-eminently 
 so it may be. And bringing into contact the world 
 which he has doctored and the doctors whom he has 
 tutored, he adjusts them skilfully to one another. He 
 causes his teachers, perhaps insensibly, to draw much 
 of their inspiration from the particular world which, 
 as to its religious bias, he has influenced with an eye 
 to their teaching. And so " they are of the world ; 
 therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth 
 them." 
 
 Numberless instances and illustrations might be 
 brought forward here ; reaching from the grossest cor- 
 ruptions that have ever disgraced the name of religion, 
 to the most reflned forms of ingenious speculation that 
 have ever imposed on the fancy of the most devout en- 
 thusiast, or the feelings of the most amiable. They 
 might all, I believe, be explained on the principle now 
 
THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHEIST IN THE WORLD. 97 
 
 suggested. There is one in the world who is great ; 
 great in a religious point of view ; great in his power 
 and skill to master and manage, from age to age, the 
 world's ever-changing fits and fashions of religiousness ; 
 great in the strange and terrible command he often 
 wields over the most gifted, and even the most godly, of 
 the prophets or teachers who have to deal with them. 
 
 Thus, if the world, at his instigation, wants a golden 
 calf, there is an Aaron, under his influence, ready to 
 provide one. If the people, moved by him, will have 
 smooth things spoken to them, he has prophets of smooth 
 things prepared for them. If men are growing weary of 
 the old wine ; and he will be but too glad to make them 
 more weary of it, and help them also to excuses for their 
 weariness ; it shall go hard but he will mix plenty of new 
 wine for their use. It is not he who has to take up the 
 complaint ; — nor his agents either ; — " We have piped 
 unto you, and ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto 
 you, and ye have not lamented." He is in and among the 
 crowd of those to whom "the children in the market- 
 place are to cry." And " the children who are to cry " 
 are his ministers. He can prepare the crowd to hear, 
 and move the children to cry, according to his good plea- 
 sure ; so that there shall be flock for pastor and pastor 
 for flock ; people for priest and priest for people ; the 
 times for the teaching and the teaching for the times ; 
 all in perfect harmony. Yes ; he that is in the world is 
 great ; great in his ability to make the world, — the 
 world in the church, — what he would have it to be ; 
 great in his ability to find and fit and fashion ministers 
 VOL. II. H 
 
98 THE SPIKIT OF CHRIST IN US : 
 
 and agents, who, being of the world, as regards its religi- 
 ous tastes and tendencies, w411 "speak of the world," 
 and whom, therefore, the " world will hear." 
 
 There is, indeed, a power or law of action and reac- 
 tion between the world and its prophets — the world in 
 the church and its false prophets, — which, as indicating 
 the gTcatness of him who is in the world, deserves very 
 careful notice. The world in the church, I repeat. For 
 I have nothing to do now, — John here takes nothing to 
 do, — with the world outside of the church, the world of 
 those who do not even profess to be religious ; his sole con- 
 cern is with the church, and the spirits in the church 
 that are to be tried, and the parties that are to try them. 
 Satan, the spirit of antichrist, has within the church a 
 world of his own, — a world in which he is, and is great. 
 And he is great in it, very much through his making 
 skilful and sagacious use of this law of action and reac- 
 tion, between what the world craves and what its false 
 prophets give. 
 
 Do you suppose that if you have "itching ears," 
 there will not be found preachers who, catching perhaps 
 unconsciously the contagion from you, will feed and 
 foster the disease ? If you incline to a gospel explaining 
 away the atonement, and reducing the incarnation to a 
 mere glorifying of humanity in the mass, instead of its 
 being the redemption, by substitution, of individual men, 
 — a gosjoel of that vague sort will soon be forthcoming. If, 
 in any chiu'ch or congregation, there springs up a crav- 
 ing for excitement, a demand for novelty, which the old 
 preaching of the cross fails to satisfy ; if a certain restless 
 
THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST IN THE WORLD. 99 
 
 prurience of spiritual taste begins to manifest itself ; if 
 a cry or a sigh for gifts and miracles, for signs and won- 
 ders, is lieard ; all experience, all history, proves that 
 it will not be long before men appear who, carried away 
 themselves and led off their feet by the strong tide, will 
 prove apt and able agents in encouraging others to try 
 the virtue of its flowing waves. It is not that they 
 purposely or dishonestly accommodate their teaching 
 and prophesying to the spirit that may be abroad in 
 their world. They drink it in themselves ; it intoxi- 
 cates their own souls. " They are of the world : there- 
 fore speak they of the world, and the world heareth 
 them." Truly great is he that is in the world ; great in 
 adapting the world and its prophets very perfectly to 
 one another. 
 
 II. But " greater is he that is in you, little children," 
 for he is the Lord God Almighty. He is strong ; and he 
 " strengthens you with might by his Spirit in the inner 
 man ; Christ dwelling in your heart by faith ; and you 
 being rooted and grounded in love." He is strong ; and 
 he makes you strong ; strong in holding fast the form of 
 sound words, and contending earnestly for the faith once 
 delivered unto the saints ; strong in cleaving to the 
 truth as it is in Jesus; strong in your real, personal, 
 close, and loving acquaintance with him, " whom to 
 know is life eternal." He who is in you is God ; God 
 abiding in you ; giving you the Spirit. He is in you ; 
 not merely on your side, at your right hand, around you ; 
 but within you. He is working in you ; so working in 
 you as to secure your safe triumph, in this great fight of 
 
100 THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN US : 
 
 truth against error, over the world and him who is in it. 
 And his working in you is of the same sort as is the 
 working of his great antagonist in and among those with 
 whom he is so busy. 
 
 He makes you, who are of God, to be men of quick 
 understanding in the fear of the Lord ; quick to appre- 
 hend what they who are of God are moved by him to 
 speak. He takes these two things : the mind or heart 
 of the learner or inquirer who is of God, and what is 
 spoken by the apostle or teacher who also is of God. He 
 adapts them to one another, brings them together, welds 
 them into one. So he insures that what we who are of 
 God speak, however it may be received by the world, 
 shall prove acceptable to you who know God and are of 
 God. He imparts to you, in whom he is, a certain 
 spiritual tact or taste, — call it spiritual intelligence, 
 spirit-ual insight, spiritual discernment, — by means of 
 which he enables you to recognise, in what you hear or 
 read or remember, the very truth of the true and living 
 God, sanctifying and saving to your own souls. He 
 brings out in you, palpably to your own consciousness, 
 the marvellous correspondence that there is between the 
 heart with which he is inwardly dealing and the word 
 or doctrine which, through the teaching of men of God, 
 he is outwardly presenting. He is in you ; — breaking 
 your heart in deep conviction of sin, and then healing 
 the broken heart, oh ! how tenderly, by the sprinkling 
 of atoning blood. He is in you ; — causing the command- 
 ment so to come home to you that you die, helplessly 
 condemned, under the righteous sentence of the law. 
 
THE SPIEIT OF ANTICHRIST IN THE WOELD. 101 
 
 and then bringing near to you, oil ! how lovingly, the 
 life-giving assurance that "there is now no condemnation 
 to them that are in Christ Jesus." He is in you ; — caus- 
 ing you to see and feel that instead of " being rich and 
 having need of nothing, you are poor, and wretched, and 
 miserable, and blind, and naked," and then pressing 
 upon you, oh ! how gi^aciously, the Lord's affectionate 
 counsel to buy of him "freely," without money and 
 without price, " gold tried in the fire, that you may be 
 rich ; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and 
 that the shame of your nakedness do not appear ; and 
 to anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see." 
 He is in you ; — forming you for Christ and forming 
 Christ in you. He is in you ; — fitting your whole inner 
 man for Christ, and fitting Christ into your whole inner 
 man. He is in you ; — so as to cause to spring up from 
 the very depths of your spirit a sense of intimate oneness, 
 not to be broken, between you and Christ, — between 
 your highest faculty of belief and thought, and his 
 doctrine, which now " you know to be of God." AVhat 
 precisely the bond of this oneness may be, — in what 
 exactly it consists, — you may not be able to define. 
 Probably, at bottom, it is the recognition in your heart 
 now, as in Christ's doctrine always, of the high and holy 
 sovereignty of God ; his just supremacy. It is the joint 
 owning, in your heart and in Christ's doctrine, of the 
 great truth — "The Lord reigneth." But be it what it 
 may, you feel it. And the feeling of it is yom- assured 
 confidence and satisfying rest. 
 
 I cannot now pursue the subject further. Let me 
 
102 THE SPirJT OF CHRIST IN US : 
 
 simply, in closing, exhort you to consider well in what 
 it is that your security lies, when you are called to try 
 the spirits — what it is that alone can give you certain 
 and decisive victory over the false prophets. It is God 
 being in you ; abiding in you ; giving you the Spirit. 
 The spirit of antichrist is in the world ; in the church's 
 world ; in the worldly materials of which, in too large a 
 measure, the church is composed. "Many false pro- 
 phets are gone out into the world." The spirit of error, 
 as well as the spirit of truth, is abroad ; and it may be 
 that sifting, trying, critical days are at hand. What is 
 to be your protection ? How are you to be prepared ? 
 Let me warn you that it is not head knowledge that will 
 do ; not logic, or rhetoric, or philosophy, or theology ; 
 not creeds, or catechisms, or confessions ; not early 
 training in the soundest manual ; not familiarity with 
 the ablest and most orthodox writings ; not skill in 
 argument and debate ; — no ; nothing will do but God 
 being in you ; in your heart, your heart of hearts ; God 
 in Christ dwelling in you ; God giving you the Spirit. 
 An experimental assurance alone will keep you safe. 
 But that will keep you safe. For as he that is not of 
 God will not hear us who speak as being of God, — so he 
 that knoweth God will not hear the false prophets. So 
 the Good Shepherd himself assures us. He " goeth before 
 the sheep, and they follow him, for they know his voice ; 
 and a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from 
 him, for they know not the voice of strangers." " My 
 sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow 
 
 i 
 
THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHKIST IN THE WORLD. 103 
 
 me : and I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall 
 never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my 
 hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than 
 all ; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's 
 hand. I and my Father are one." 
 
104 LOVE IS OF GOD 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 ULTIMATE CONDITION" OF THE DIVINE 
 FELLOWSHIP— LOVE. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 LOVE IS OF GOD— GOD IS LOVE. 
 
 " Beloved, let us love one another : for love is of God ; and every one 
 that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not 
 knoweth not God ; for God is love. In this was manifested the 
 love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten 
 Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is 
 love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his 
 Son to be the propitiation for our sins." — 1 John iv. 7-10. 
 
 Light, Righteousness, Love ; — these are the three condi- 
 tions or elements of that fellowship with the Father and 
 with his Son Jesus Christ in which John would have us 
 to he joint partakers with himself and the other apostles 
 (i. 3). Of the three, Light and Righteousness have been 
 the heads, or leading thoughts, of the two previous parts 
 of this Exposition (iii.-xvii. and xviii.-xxx.) Love is the 
 ruling idea in the third part (xxxi.-xxxiv.) ; love being 
 the end to which the others are means ; the consumma- 
 tion of the fellowship being in love. Hence there has 
 been some anticipation of this last theme, Love, in the 
 two preceding ones, Light and Righteousness ; especially 
 
 i 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 105 
 
 in the latter. For the righteousness meant being chiefly 
 subjective ; denoting singleness of eye, uprightness, 
 honesty of purpose, a guileless spirit, truth in the inward 
 parts ; — necessarily refers to the matters about which it 
 is objectively exercised, — the manner of dealing with 
 God in light, and with our fellowmen in love, which it 
 prompts and regulates. Hence that second part, having 
 Eighteousness for its key-note, carries on the line of 
 thought begun in the first part under the idea of Light, 
 and encroaches on the line of thought in the third, which 
 brings out the crowning aspect of the whole in Love. 
 Still it is manifestly Love that is now purely and simply 
 the reigning principle. 
 
 " Beloved, let us love one another." The distinction 
 of the personal pronouns is here dropped. It was proper 
 when the trying of the spirits by a sort of doctrinal test 
 was the matter in hand. John must then speak of him- 
 self and his fellow-teachers in the first person, and to us 
 in the second. Now, however, when love is the test, all 
 are one. It is the trial of the spirits that still is on hand, 
 in pursuance of the intimation formerly given (iii. 24) : — 
 " Hereby we know that God abideth in us, by the spirit 
 which he hath given us." That intimation is connected 
 with the double commandment in the previous verse (23), 
 " that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus 
 Christ, and love one another, as he has given us com- 
 mandment." The question is about assurance ; our "as- 
 suring our hearts before God ; " our " having confidence 
 toward God ;" our " having boldness in the day of judg- 
 
106 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 ment" (iii. 19, 21; and iv. 17). The indispensable con- 
 dition of this confidence is righteousness, or " our own 
 hearts not condemning us " of insincerity or guile (iii. 20, 
 21). But though that is an essential preliminary, it is 
 not itself the ground or warrant of the confidence. The 
 real ground or warrant is " our abiding in God and his 
 abiding in us " (iii. 24). But how is this mutual abiding 
 of us in God and of God in us to be ascertained and 
 verified, to the satisfaction of our own consciousness, as 
 a trustworthy ground and warrant of assured confidence 
 before God ? On our part there is " the keeping of his 
 commandments ;" his double " commandment, to believe 
 on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one an- 
 other in obedience to him." On his part, there is " his 
 giving us the Spirit." And the last is tested by the first. 
 His giving us the Spirit is not to be lightly taken for 
 granted. There must be a trial ; and the trial is in 
 accordance with the twofold commandment, to believe 
 and to love. It is first a trial turning upon the confes- 
 sion or denial that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (iv. 
 1-6). It is next a trial turning on the possession or the 
 want of love (iv. 7-12). And the result of the trial is 
 announced : " Hereby laiow we that we dweU in him, 
 and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit " 
 (iv. 13) ; — almost in the same terms in which the trial 
 is, as it were, instituted : " Hereby we know that he 
 abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us " 
 (iii. 24). 
 
 Thus it plainly appears that these two things, — 
 righteousness in owning the true doctrine concerning 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 107 
 
 Christ and righteousness in mutual brotherly love, — are 
 closely bound together. And thus, by a natural and sim- 
 ple transition, the discourse passes from the first of these 
 topics to the second : " Beloved, let us love one another." 
 
 This exhortation is here enforced both positively and 
 negatively ; — positively, by the statement that " love is 
 of God," and therefore " every one that loveth is born of 
 God, and knoweth God" (ver. 7) ; — negatively, by the 
 opposite statement : " he that loveth not knoweth not 
 God ; for God is love " (ver. 8). 
 
 I. " Love is of God." This does not mean merely 
 that love comes from God, and has its source in God ; 
 that he is the author or creator of it. All created things 
 are of God, for by him all things were made, and on him 
 they all depend. But love is not a created thing. No 
 doubt, in the heart even of an unfallen intelligence, it 
 may be said to be created, inasmuch as the being in 
 whose heart it dwells is himself created. And in the 
 heart of a fallen man it is in that sense a new creation ; 
 for he himself must be created anew or born again if 
 he is to love. Still, the love to which he is created anew 
 or born again is not itself created. It is not of God, as 
 made by him ; as a new thing called into existence by 
 the fiat of his word. 
 
 In this respect love differs from light. It is not 
 asserted of love as of light : And God said. Let there be 
 love, and there was love. In a higher sense than that, 
 I apprehend, it is true that love, wherever it exists, is of 
 God. It is communicated, not created ; begotten, one 
 
108 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 might say, not made. It is a divine property, a divine 
 affection. And it is of its essence to be communicative 
 and begetting ; to communicate itself, and, as it were, 
 beget its own likeness. " Love is of God." It is not 
 merely of God, as every good gift is of God. It is of 
 God, as being liis own property, his own affection, his 
 own love. It is, wherever it is found, the very love 
 wherewith God loveth. If it is found in me, it is my 
 loving witli the very love with which God loves ; it is 
 my loving with a divine love, — a love that is thus em- 
 phatically of God. Hence the sufficiency and certainty 
 of the test : " Every one that loveth is born of God, and 
 knoweth God." 
 
 1. None but one born of God can thus love, with the 
 love which, in this sense, is of God ; therefore one who 
 so loves must needs be one who is born of God. This is 
 almost self-evident. If the love in question is not, like 
 any of the constituent parts of the created universe, 
 whether of matter or of mind, a thing made, called 
 into being out of nothing, — or a thing made over again, 
 formed out of chaos into order, — but part and parcel of 
 the Divine Being himself, of his very essence, — tlien its 
 existence in me cannot be explained on any other sup- 
 position than tliat of my being born of him ; born of him 
 too in a very close and intimate manner ; in a manner 
 implying that I become " partaker of his nature ;" " his 
 seed abiding in me." I doubt, therefore, if this love 
 formed an element in that image of God in Avhich man 
 ^vas originally created. I take it to be something more. 
 It is communicated, — it is of God in such a sense that it 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 109 
 
 can be communicated, — not by creation, but only by 
 generation. It is not as a creature that I can have it, in 
 virtue of any mere creative fiat or let it be. I can have 
 it only as a Son, — adopted ? — nay, not adopted only, but 
 begotten. ]\Iany excellent endowments I may have as a 
 mere creature ; endowments reflecting the likeness of 
 God's own attributes ; intelligence resembling his ; a 
 sense of right and wrong resembling his ; benevolence 
 and kindliness resembling his. As to these, God has 
 merely, in creating me, or creating me anew, to speak 
 and it is done. But this love is something quite pecu- 
 liar. It is something, as I take it, different from the 
 love enjoined in the " royal law," — " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself." It is the very love with which 
 the Father loves, the love manifested in his not sparing 
 his beloved Son. It is the very love with which the 
 Son loves, the love proved by his laying down his life 
 for us. That is i\\Q love, the love of the " new command- 
 ment," which is here in question. Eespecting that love I 
 think it may be said that God alone is originally capable 
 of it. Others are capable of it, only in so far as God com- 
 municates himself to them ; not by a process of mere 
 creative power ; but by begetting them into participa- 
 tion with himself in his own very life. 
 
 There is one thus eternally begotten ; begotten be- 
 fore all worlds ; the eternal Son of the everlasting Father. 
 He is " God of God ; very God of very God ; light of 
 light ;" nay, rather, love of love. He is the manifesta- 
 tion of this love which is of God ; — " In this was mani- 
 fested the love of God toward us, because that God sent 
 
110 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live 
 through him." It shines forth in him ; not through 
 him, or by him, merely ; but in him. God sent his Son 
 to manifest this love. How ? Evidently by his showing 
 that he shared it ; approving himself to be born of God 
 by himself loving with the love which is of God. God 
 sent his only begotten Son into the Avorld to give us a 
 specimen, an illustration, — perhaps the only possible 
 perfect specimen, the only possible perfect illustration, 
 — of " the love which is of God." None but his only 
 begotten Son could be sent to manifest it ; for none 
 but he could fully feel it. No created being, not the 
 highest of the elect and unfallen angels, even when per- 
 fected by their trial, could adequately feel it. And 
 therefore none of them could manifest it. But the only 
 begotten Son, dwelling from everlasting in the Father's 
 bosom, of one nature with the Father, loves with " the 
 love which is of God." Therefore he is sent to manifest 
 that love. He is sent to manifest a love essentially 
 different from any love of which we are naturally capable, 
 or of which we can naturally form any conception, — a 
 love peculiarly and distinctively divine. 
 
 Now, as it is his being the only begotten Son of the 
 Father that qualifies him for being sent to manifest the 
 love which is thus "of God," inasmuch as it is that 
 which ensures his feeling it, — it is that alone which 
 makes him capable of it ; so it is only your bemg in the 
 Son, being born of God by the Spirit, that can make 
 you capable of this love which is of God, and can ensure 
 your feeling it. None can love with that love which is 
 
GOD IS LOVE. Ill 
 
 of God, — none can love as God loves, — save only first 
 his only begotten Son, whom on that very account he 
 sends to manifest this love, and then you who in him re- 
 ceive the adoption of sons, and are begotten by the Spirit 
 into participation with the Son in his filial oneness 
 and sympathy with the Father. Therefore, if we love 
 one another with that love which is of God, — if we love 
 as God loves, — we must be born of God. "VVe must have 
 become his children, his sons ; begotten of him in time, 
 through believing imion with the Son who is begotten 
 of him from eternity ; the Spirit making us, as thus 
 born of God, in the only begotten Son, really " par- 
 takers," in respect of this love, " of the divine nature." 
 
 2. Being born of God implies knowing God. This 
 consideration still further explains and illustrates the 
 point before us : — " Every one that loveth is born of 
 God, and knoweth God." He loves with God's own love, 
 because, being born of God, he knows God. He knows 
 God, as none but one born of God can know him. It is 
 a knowledge of God altogether peculiar ; belonging ex- 
 clusively to the relation constituted by, and realised in, 
 your being born of God. It is a kind of knowledge of God 
 of which, as I think, one who is simply a creature of God's 
 hand, — a subject of his moral administration, — however 
 intelligent and however informed, is not really capable. 
 He is not in a condition — he lacks the capacity — to take 
 it in. He must be a child, a son, born of God, if he is 
 to have it. For, in a word, it is the very knowledge of 
 God which his Son has ; his only begotten Son, whom 
 he sent into the world to manifest his love. He, being 
 
112 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 of God, as his only begotten Son, knows God ; he, and 
 he alone. " ISTo man hath seen God at any time ; the 
 only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of tlie Father, 
 he hath declared him" (Jolm i. 18). " No man knoweth 
 the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
 shall reveal him" (Matt. xi. 27). It is as his only be- 
 gotten Son that Jesus knows God. And it is as born of 
 God that you know God ; know him even as his only 
 begotten Son knows him. He, as the only begotten Son, 
 knows God ; he knows the love whicli is of God, — of 
 what sort it is ; he has himself, from everlasting, been 
 the object of it ; he has been ever experiencing it. All 
 that is in the great heart of God the Father, the only 
 begotten Son knows intimately ; and experimentally, if I 
 may dare to say so. With a fihal knowledge he knows 
 God. With filial insight and filial sympatliy, he knows 
 all the overflowing of that love which is of God as 
 it gushes forth in deep, full flood, from everlasting, first 
 towards himseK, and then through him towards the 
 family of man ; according to his own glorious word — 
 " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways. 
 When he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I 
 was with him as one brought up with him ; and I was 
 daily his delight, rejoicing always before him ; rejoicing 
 in the habitable parts of his earth ; and my delights 
 were with the sons of men" (Prov. viii. 22-31). 
 
 Now it is with the same knowledge with which he, 
 as the only begotten Son, knows God, that you, as born 
 of God, know him ; with a knowledge the same in kind, 
 however far short it may come in measure or degree. 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 113 
 
 Yours, like his, is a filial knowledge ; implying filial 
 insight and filial sympathy. Your being born of God 
 makes yon capable of this knowledge, and places you in 
 the only position in which you can have it. Born of 
 God, you occupy the very filial position that he who is the 
 only begotten Son occupies ; you have the very filial heart 
 that he has. You are born of the very Spirit of which 
 lie, in your nature, was born. You have in you the very 
 Spirit that dwelt, not by measure, in him. Thus, born 
 of God, you are one with him who is his only begotten 
 Son. To you as to him, to you in him, God is known, 
 — and the love which is of God is known, — by close per- 
 sonal acquaintance ; by blessed personal experience. 
 How God loves ; how it is the manner of God to love ; 
 what sort of love his is ; love going out of seK ; love 
 sacrificing self ; love imparting and communicating self ; 
 love unsought and unbought ; unconditional and unre- 
 served ; — what kind of being, in respect of love, God is ; 
 you who are born of God know, even as the only be- 
 gotten Son knows. Therefore you can love with that 
 " love which is of God," even as he loves with that love 
 which is of God. He and you alone can so love ; for he 
 that loves as God loves must needs be one who " is born 
 of God and knoweth God." 
 
 II. The opposite statement follows as a matter of 
 cs)urse : — " He that loveth not knoweth not God ; for 
 God is love." The connecting link here is all-important ; 
 it is "knowing God;" all turns on that. Every one 
 that loveth knoweth God — he that loveth not knoweth 
 not God ; these are the antagonist statements. The 
 VOL. IL T 
 
114 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 stress of tlie contrast is made to rest on knowing or 
 not knowing God ; he who loveth knoweth God, being- 
 born of him ; " he who loveth not, knoweth not God ; 
 for God is love." 
 
 "God is love;" — therefore, not to love is not to 
 know God. That is a very clear and simple inference. 
 But why this change ? Why is it said, on the first or 
 positive side of the dilemma, "Love is of God ;" and on 
 the second or negative side of it, " God is love ?" Simply 
 because the question now turns on knowing God ; not 
 anything of God, but God himself To love Avith the 
 love which is of God, is to know God ; not to love thus, 
 is not to know God ; for God is love. In this view, the 
 proposition, " God is love," really applies to both of the 
 alternative ways of putting the case ; the positive and 
 the negative alike. It assigns the reason why it may be 
 said, on the one hand, "Every one that loveth is born 
 of God, and knoweth God ; " and why it may also be 
 said, on the other hand, " He that loveth not knoweth 
 not God." 
 
 " God is love." It is a necessity of his nature, it is 
 his very nature, to love. He cannot exist without loving. 
 He cannot but love. He is, he has ever been, love. 
 From all eternity, from before all worlds, God is love. 
 Love never is or can be, never was or could be, absent 
 from his being. He never is or can be God, — he never 
 was or could be God, — without being also love ; without 
 loving. I say without loving ; actually loving. 
 
 For this love, which is thus identified with his very 
 being, is not dormant or quiescent ; potential merely ; 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 115 
 
 in posse, and not in esse. Love in God never is, never 
 has been, like a latent germ, needing outward influences 
 to make it spring up ; or like a slumbering power, wait- 
 ing for occasions to call it forth. If it were so, it could 
 not truly be said that in himseK, in his very manner of 
 being, " God is love." It is, it has ever been, active, 
 forthgoing, self-manifesting, self-communicating. It is, 
 it has ever been, in exercise. Before creation it is so. 
 In the bosom of the everlasting Father is his eternal, only 
 begotten Son ; and with the Father and the Son is the 
 Holy Ghost. So " God is love " before all creation ; 
 love in exercise ; love not possible merely but actual ; 
 love forthgoing and communicative of itself ; from the 
 Father, the fountain of deity, to the Son ; from the 
 Father and the Son to the Holy Ghost. In creation, 
 this love is seen forthgoing and communicative in a new 
 way towards new objects. The love which from ever- 
 lasting has been in exercise evermore within the mys- 
 terious circle of the Three-One God ; which especially 
 has been evermore passing from the Father to his only- 
 begotten Son ; now seeks and finds new means of mani- 
 festing itself among created beings. It is still really the 
 same love. For all creation is the manifestation of God's 
 love to his only begotten Son, He " made all things by 
 him and for him." He has " appointed him to be heir of 
 all things." Specially when that wondrous council was 
 held in heaven from whence issued the decree, " Let us 
 make man i n^ur image, after our likeness," this love 
 was manifested. The only begotten Son is to be the 
 first born among many brethren. Not however by 
 
116 LOVE IS OF GOD : 
 
 creation merely is that end to be reached ; another 
 manifestation of this same love mnst intervene. Created 
 innocence is not enough to secure the issue on which 
 God's heart of love is set; for created innocence may 
 and does give way. Sin enters, and death by sin ; all 
 sin, and all are doomed. Still " God is love ; " the same 
 love as ever. And " in this now is manifested the love 
 of God towards us, because that God sent his only be- 
 gotten Son into the world, that we might live through 
 him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that 
 he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for 
 our sins." 
 
 It is, I say, the same love still ; the love which from 
 everlasting goes forth from God to his only begotten 
 Son dwelling in his bosom, the love w^hich in the 
 beginning of creation goes forth in God's making all 
 things by and for his only begotten Son, and especially 
 making godlike men to be his brethren ; it is the very 
 same love that goes forth in God's sending his only be- 
 gotten Son into the world that we might live through 
 him ; sending his son to be the propitiation for our sins. 
 It is wondrous love ; love passing knowledge ; love of 
 which God alone is capable ; love proper to his great 
 heart alone. It is not such love as we may feel to him ; 
 for "herein is love, not that we have loved him, but 
 that he has loved us." He has loved us with the very 
 love which is his own essential nature ; which has been 
 going forth from everlasting, self-manifesting, self-com- 
 municating, from the Father to his only begotten Son, 
 by the Spirit ; and has been going forth in time, 
 through his only begotten Son, by the same Spirit, to 
 
GOD IS LOVE. 117 
 
 the world of creation at first, and now also to the world 
 that is to be saved. 
 
 This is its crowning glory ; the saving mission from 
 God of his only begotten Son. It is consummated in 
 our " living through him," through his " being the pro- 
 pitiation for our sins." For now, effectual atonement 
 being made for our guilt, — our redemption and recon- 
 ciliation being righteously and therefore surely effected 
 by his being the propitiation for our sins, — we, living 
 through him, are his brethren indeed. The love where- 
 with God loves liim dwells in us. God loves us even as 
 he loves him. And so at last the love which, from all 
 eternity, it is of the very nature of God's essential being 
 to feel and exercise, finds its full fruition in the " mighty 
 multitude of all kindreds, and peoples, and nations, and 
 tongues, who stand before the throne and give glory to him 
 who sitteth thereon and to the Lamb for ever and ever." 
 
 If this is anything like a true account of the sense 
 in which, and the effect to which, it is said that " God 
 is love," the statement becomes almost axiomatic, — " He 
 that loveth not knoweth not God." The fact of his not 
 loving plainly proves that he knows not God ; and his 
 not knowing God explains and accounts for the fact of 
 his not loving. How indeed can he know God ; know 
 him as being love ? To know God thus, as being love, 
 implies some measure of congeniality, sympathy, and 
 fellowship. I cannot so know him if there is still a 
 great gulf between him and me ; between his heart and 
 my heart ; his nature and my nature. There must be 
 community of heart and nature between him and me ; 
 I must be "born of God." 
 
118 LOVE IS OF GOD — GOD IS LOVE. 
 
 "We thus come back to the previous positive 
 declaration : " Love is of God ; and he that loveth 
 is born of God and knoweth God." And we see 
 what manner of love it is that must be the test of 
 our being born of God, how it is that we are to love 
 one another. We are to love with the love which is of 
 God, — the love which is his nature. We are to love as 
 he loves ; to love all whom he loves ; and to love them 
 with his own love. 
 
 First and chiefly, we are to love, as he loves his 
 only begotten Son. Our thus loving him is one primary 
 criterion and touchstone of our being born of God. So 
 he himself intimates when he says to the Jews, — "If 
 God were your Father ye would love me" (John viii. 42). 
 There would be this feature of family resemblance, this 
 comnmnity of heart and nature, between him whom you 
 claim as your Father and you who say you are his 
 children, that you would love me because he loves me, 
 and love me as he loves me ; — love me as sent by him 
 to be the Saviour of the world. Hence the force of 
 that awful apostolic denunciation ; " If any man love 
 not the Lord Jesus Christ, let liim be anathema maran- 
 atha." 
 
 Then we are to love, as God loves it, and because 
 God loves it, the world which he sent his Son to save. 
 We are to love thus one another ; with what intensity 
 of longing, like God's own longing and yearning, for 
 one another's salvation, that all may turn and live ; and 
 with what intensity of delight in all who are really in 
 Christ, who " live through him," and live so as to be in- 
 deed our brethren and liis, — ours because they are his ! 
 
LOVE GOING FORTH, ETC. 119 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 LOVE GOING FORTH TOWARDS WHAT IS SEEN. 
 
 " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent 
 his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so 
 loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen 
 God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and 
 liis love is perfected in us." — 1 John iv. 10-12. 
 
 Theke is very close and compressed reasoning here. The 
 steps in the process, — the links in the chain, — are not 
 all patent or obvious on the surface ; some intermediate 
 bonds of connection need to be supplied. Thus, the as- 
 sertion (ver. 12), " No man hath seen God at any time," 
 seems intended to answer by anticipation a question that 
 might be put, as to the omission of love to God in the 
 preceding verse (ver. 11). Otherwise it is, so far as one 
 can see, irrelevant. " Beloved, if God so loved us, we 
 ought also to love" — God; — that is what we might 
 naturally expect to be the logical inference ; but it is 
 not so ; it is " we ought also to love one another." And 
 why ? " Because no man hath seen God at any time." 
 Therefore, love to one another is made the test of " God 
 dwelling in us." And it is so, all the rather, because it 
 is " the perfecting of his love in us " (ver. 12). 
 
 Two general principles are here indicated as regards 
 this divine love ; I. It must have a visible object ; or, 
 in other words, it must be real and practical, and not 
 
120 LOVE GOING FORTH 
 
 merely ideal and sentimental. II. It is thus not only 
 proved but perfected ; it has its free course and is con- 
 summated. 
 
 I. Love, if it is to be a sufl&cient and satisfactory test 
 of our "knowing God and being born of God," must 
 have a visible object ; — it cannot otherwise be verified 
 to our own consciousness as real. In a sense, it may be 
 said even of God's own love, the love which is his nature, 
 that it thus verifies as well as manifests itself. It goes 
 forth towards created beings ; — it seeks created beings 
 towards whom it may go forth. A visible created uni- 
 verse is its object : and so also, in a peculiar manner and 
 degree, is a visible new created church. Only in its 
 exercise towards such objects can its true character, — 
 its communicative and self-sacrificing character, — be 
 thoroughly brought out. 
 
 It exists, no doubt, and is in exercise, before all 
 creation, the first creation as well as the new. In the 
 mystery of the Trinity, in the ineffable fellowship of the 
 three persons in the one divine essence, from ever- 
 lasting, " God is love." There is love ; — felt love ; — in- 
 conceivable mutual complacency ; — love in exercise, 
 mutually interchanging and reciprocating endearments ; 
 — there is such love implied in the very nature of God 
 as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In particular, from 
 before all worlds, the Father thus, in the Spirit, loves the 
 Son, " dwelling in his bosom." But it is love, however 
 exercised, that is restmg and not giving ; it is the re- 
 pose rather than the activity of love. If it is to be 
 manifested as a love that gives, that is active, that actu- 
 
TOWARDS WHAT IS SEEX. 121 
 
 ally magnifies or benefits its object, it would seem that 
 there must be creation. 
 
 Indeed it is only in creation that the Son himself 
 can become practically the object of this love. If God, 
 because of his love to him, has " appointed him to be 
 heir of all things," the " all things " of which he is to be 
 " heir " must be made ; made by him and for him. There 
 must be " goings forth " on his part from the Father ; 
 there must be, on the Father's part, " the bringing in of 
 the first begotten into the world." Then, and only then, 
 when he appears as " ^^tc beginning of the creation of 
 God," " the first born of every creature," is the Son in a 
 position in which he can receive gifts from the Father, or 
 in which he can have bestowed on him the inheritance of 
 all things. The Father's love to him may now take the 
 form of bountifulness, liberality, lavish giving ; it may now 
 express itself in deeds. And, overflowing from him to the 
 creatures called into being by his hand and for his sake, 
 — especially to those who, being made in God's image, 
 can know his nature, — this divine love finds vent in those 
 tender mercies which are over all his works. So, in the 
 beginning of the creation, God in his Son loved the goodly 
 universe of which his Son had become the head ; with a 
 love to him and to it that could never weary of bestow- 
 ing favours. So, when this earth was made, — " in whose 
 habitable parts" the Son as "the eternal Wisdom re- 
 joiced," — and when this race of ours was formed, " tho 
 sons of men, with whom were his delights," — " God saw 
 everything that he had made, and behold it was very 
 good." His love then filled our cup of innocent and pure 
 
122 LOVE GOING rOETH 
 
 happiness to tlie brim, if only we had been content to 
 hold it straight. 
 
 Thus, for a season, one quality of the love which is 
 God's nature, — which God is, — its simple bountifulness, 
 — its being " ready to distribute, willing to communi- 
 cate," — had room to expatiate, and if I may dare to say 
 so, to indulge and enjoy itself, in the teemmg earth, and 
 in man, its godlike proprietor and lord, for whom he 
 bade it bring forth all its fulness. 
 
 But there is a quality of this love for w^hich that first 
 creation provided no outlet ; a quality more wonderful 
 than all its bountifulness ; the quality for whose exercise 
 the fall gave occasion. To creatures innocent and pure, 
 God, for the love he has to his Son, by whom and for 
 whom they are made, may give all sorts of good things, 
 — the good things with which earth is stored, — and better 
 things still if they will but obey his word. To guilty 
 creatures alone can he " give his Son to be the propitia- 
 tion for their sins." 
 
 Still, however, it is now as always to the visible 
 creation, to what he sees and whom he sees, that God's 
 love goes forth in exercise. The objects of it are seen. 
 
 Seen ! And how seen ? Can it be said now, " God 
 saw everything that he had made, and behold it was 
 very good"? To bless and benefit a world and a race 
 seen by him in that light, might be almost said to be 
 self-gratification, rather than self-sacrifice. But it comes 
 to be self-sacrifice when its objects are seen to be cor- 
 rupt and vile ; guilty and deserving only of wrath ; pol- 
 luted and unclean ; with nothmg to attract, but every- 
 
TOWAEDS WHAT IS SEEN. 123 
 
 tiling to repel ; alike unloving and unlovely. To con- 
 tinue to love creatures thus seen ; — not only so, but to 
 love them Avith a love that does not spare his own Son, 
 — a love that, when law and justice demand a victim, 
 will rather that he should be the victim than they ; — 
 that is a manner of love implying something else and 
 something more than bountifulness. And that is God's 
 manner of love to those whom he now sees, — to " the 
 world lying in wickedness." 
 
 Now our " loving him whom we have not seen," never 
 could be a test of our having in us this " love which is 
 of God." If the thing to be proved is the identity, in 
 kind or nature, of our love and God's love : — its being 
 with the very same love with which he loves that we 
 also love ; — that never can be proved by an appeal to 
 our love to him. It must turn upon the consideration of 
 his love to the world, and the likeness of our love to that. 
 
 Mark here only one point of difference between God's 
 love to us and any love we may have to him ; look at 
 the object in either case. On our part, when we love 
 God, the object is the all-good, the all-amiable. Nay, 
 more. It is the God who "first loved us." When he 
 loves us, he loves the evil, the unamiable. And he loves 
 us with a love which does not grudge the surrender of 
 his own beloved Son to our state and our doom, that we 
 in his Son may become acceptable and well-pleasing in 
 his eyes. Even if, therefore, our love to God were all 
 that could be desired, all that could be looked for, — all 
 that our knowledge of his glorious excellency and our 
 experience of the riches of his grace might well be ex- 
 
124 LOVE GOING FOimi 
 
 pected to call forth, — still it would not suffice for proof 
 that our love is God's love ; that we love with the love 
 which is of God ; that we love as he loves. 
 
 This accordingly seems to me to be the true sense 
 and import of that statement of the apostle, often mis- 
 understood, which, however, when rightly apprehended is 
 very suggestive : " Herein is love, not that w^e loved God, 
 but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the pro- 
 pitiation for our sins." One is apt to think that there is 
 here a disavowal or denial of our love to God altogether ; 
 in which case the reference must be to our unconverted 
 state. Or else it must be such a disparagement of our 
 love to God, even in our converted state, as would 
 represent it to be nothing, in comparison with his love 
 to us. Both of these thoughts are no doubt true. But I 
 am persuaded that there is a deeper meaning in the 
 statement ; more appropriate to the context ; more to 
 the purpose of the argument. It is assumed that we 
 love God. And much is made of that, as we may soon 
 see, in what follows. But it is not our loving God, 
 however sincerely and warmly, that can prove our love 
 to be the same with his. Were we loving him even as 
 the angels love him, were we loving him even as the 
 Son loves him, that w^ould not suffice. It would still be 
 love on our part of a very different sort from that love 
 of his ; having a very different kind of object, and act- 
 ing in a very different w^ay. The Son himself proved 
 his oneness with the Father, in respect of the love now 
 in question, by his voluntarily coming to seek and to 
 save the lost. The angels prove theirs by the "joy that 
 
TOWARDS WHAT IS SEEN. 125 
 
 there is among them over one sinner that repenteth," 
 and by their being " all ministering spiiits, sent forth to 
 minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." 
 
 " Herein then is love," " the love which is of Gocl," 
 the love whose re23roduction in us is to be tested ; — " not 
 that we have loved God," — which, thanks to his grace, 
 we do ; not by that, even though it were all that it 
 ought to be, which, alas ! it is far from being ; — " but 
 that he loved us ; " that he loved us when we were yet 
 sinners ; that he saw us then, and pitied us, and " sent 
 his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." That is the 
 model, the exemplar, the pattern, of the love which is to 
 test, our being " born of God." 
 
 Two things are thus apparent. In the first place, 
 this love in us, if it is to verify itself as being God's 
 very love, must be love, not to the unseen, but to the 
 seen ; to a world that is seen ; to men and women in it 
 that are seen ; to one another, to our brethren, to our 
 fellow-men, as seen. And, moreover, it must be love to 
 them, seen by us as God sees them. The objects of love 
 must be the same to us as to God ; and seen to be the 
 same ; seen in the same light ; from the same point of 
 view. " No man hath seen God at any time ;" but God 
 has always seen, and always sees, every man ; he has 
 seen, and sees you. And, seeing you such as you are, he 
 has loved you. Do you love your brother, your neigh- 
 bour ; seeing him, I do not say as God sees Mm, but as 
 God has seen and sees you when he loves you ? There 
 must be identity in the object of this common love, 
 God's and yours ; you and he must love the same 
 
126 LOVE GOING FORTH 
 
 object ; the same person. But that is not all. He is, 
 both to God and to you, visible ; he is seen. And as 
 seen by God and by yon he must be the same ; the same 
 in your eyes, in your judgment, in your esteem, as he is 
 in God's. Or, as I have hinted, it may serve the same 
 purpose, and be more profitable, to put the matter thus : 
 he must be seen by you as you are seen by God when 
 he loveth you. He must be the same in your eyes, in 
 your judgment, in your esteem, as you are in God's. 
 That will do as well. 
 
 Who is it who is the object of your love ? One seen, 
 of course. But is he seen by you with God's eye, or 
 with the world's eye, or with the eye of your own 
 natural prepossession, your own natural liking ? I am 
 far from saying that this last kind of love is always 
 necessarily wrong. But it is not " the love which is of 
 God ;" which identifies you as "born of God, and know- 
 ing God." Is he to you what he is to God ? He must 
 be either one whom God with most intense compassion 
 pities, and yearns in his inmost bowels to save ; or one 
 whom God welcomes and embraces, not because he is 
 naturally amiable, but because in him tlie Son of his 
 love sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied. In 
 either view, is he the same to you that he is to God ? 
 
 But I must press the question further. Does what 
 you see in your feUow-men cool or quench your love to 
 them, more than what God sees in them cools or quenches 
 his love to them ? All that is unattractive, aU that is 
 nnamiable, all that is repelling in them is seen by him 
 as well as by you ; seen by him infinitely better than 
 
TOWAEDS WHAT IS SEEK 127 
 
 by you. Does it affect him as it affects you ? Does it 
 hinder him from loving them, as it seems to hinder you ? 
 Still further I must press the question. Is it the same 
 thincj, or the same sort of thing, seen in them, which draws 
 God's love to them, that commends them also to your 
 love ? What is that ? Either it is the misery, be it 
 splendid or squalid, of a doomed soul, or it is the broken 
 heart of a child of God. These call forth the love of 
 God ; these alone ; these always. Do they always call 
 forth yours ? Wherever a sinner still in his sin is seen, 
 does your heart go forth towards him in earnest longing 
 and striving for his salvation, as does the heart of God ? 
 When the poor prodigal returns, and is clasped in for- 
 giving arms, is your sympathy with the lo"VTJig father or 
 with the jealous brother? Or, to bring the question 
 home again to your personal experience, is it because 
 you see other men as God sees you that you love them ? 
 You see them, too many of them, alas ! in the same state 
 and of the same character that were yours when God 
 seeing you loved you ; polluted, as you were polluted ; 
 perishing, as you were perishing. Do you love them on 
 that account, as on that account God loved you, when 
 he had pity upon you ? Again, you see them, some of 
 them, like yourselves now, by his grace, dear in God's 
 sight as his ransomed and saved ones. Do you love 
 them on that account, as on that account God loves you? 
 For, secondly, this love in us must be the same with 
 God's love, in respect of its character, as well as in 
 respect of its objects. It must be what we have seen that 
 that love is, communicative and self-sacrificing. Our 
 
128 LOVE GOING i'ORTH 
 
 love to God cannot be of that nature. We cannot im- 
 part anything of ours to him ; we cannot sacrifice any- 
 thing of ours for him ; he is beyond tlie reach of any 
 loving of&ces of that sort from us. " He is our Lord ; 
 our goodness reacheth not to him." If our love is his 
 love, it must be proved to be so by its going forth in 
 active service, not to him whom we cannot see, but to 
 those whom we do see ; God's creatures, to whom his 
 own love goes forth ; the love manifested in creation's 
 bounties, the love manifested in redemption's grace, — 
 in his " sending his Son to be the propitiation for our 
 sins." 
 
 And here, in point of fact, is the real j)ractical test. 
 Love, when its exclusive object is unseen, is sometimes 
 apt to become ideal, shadowy, and merely sentimental. 
 Even when God himself is, or is imagined to be, its 
 object, it has not unfrequently taken that form and 
 aspect. Meditative musing on the nature of God, the 
 rapt gaze of solitary contemplation, the fixed eye of 
 secluded devotion, filling itself with great thoughts of 
 the divine majesty, excellency, and beauty, has had the 
 effect of begetting in the soul a certain mingled emotion 
 of solemn awe and melting tenderness, which is apt to 
 pass for divine love. It is akin to the feeling which the 
 hero or the victim of an affecting tale may call forth ; 
 though deeper far and more intense. In real life, in 
 church history, this kinship has been but too terribly 
 exemplified. Love to God has been spiritualised and 
 sublimated, as it were, into a passion ; such a passion 
 as may, and must, end in one of two ways ; either in a 
 
TOWAKDS WHAT IS SEEN. 129 
 
 sort of mystical and rapturous absorption of the human 
 in the divine, or in a still more dangerous substitution 
 of the human for the di\dne. 
 
 But, short of that extreme, there are tendencies 
 against which sensitive natures, of an emotional and 
 impulsive character, must be on their guard. There is 
 the tendency to put imagination in the room of reality. 
 For instance, it is -far easier to smile or weep over a 
 narrative that must consist of the sa}T.ngs and doings of 
 unseen, because imaginary, actors and sufferers, than to 
 go out among the real parties in life's drama, and meet 
 in close contact their actual cases. Hence the meaning, 
 in another view of it, of this solemn intunatiou, brought 
 in at this stage, and in this connection : " No man hath 
 seen God at any time." There is, there can be, no safe 
 way of proving that we are born of God and know God, 
 except our loving what is seen. No love to the unseen 
 can suffice ; nay, love to the unseen alone may almost 
 be made too much of; it may become deceptive and de- 
 lusive, or unwholesome and unsafe. Our love, if it is 
 to be God's very love in us, must be love like his, to 
 what is seen by both alike ; to real, actual, living men, 
 seen by us as by him. In that channel, our love to the 
 unseen may always safely run. For — 
 
 II. In this human love, in our thus loving one 
 another, the divine love has its consummation or perfec- 
 tion. " If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and 
 his love is perfected in us." 
 
 It is a very solemn position which we are thus 
 called to occupy. " In us God's love is to be perfected." 
 VOL. II. K 
 
130 LOVE GOING FORTH 
 
 We are to be the means of its being perfected ; the in- 
 struments and agents in effecting that result. Not only 
 so. In us it takes end ; in us it is finished. Nothing 
 beyond us remains; no chance, no opportunity, of any 
 manifestation of God's love, that can be at all available 
 for the world lying in wickedness. That love has 
 reached us, and it should, through us, reach the whole 
 world. If not, it cannot otherwise avail. " His love is 
 perfected in us." 
 
 There is indeed another sense in which these words 
 may be understood. They may mean that God's love, 
 — the love which is of God, — the love which is his very 
 nature, — reproduces itself in us perfectly, only when, 
 with his own very love, we love one another. That is 
 true. But the inspired meaning here is, I think, some- 
 what deeper. It seems to indicate that our love to one 
 another, if it is indeed of the same sort ^dth his love to 
 us, the love manifested in his sending his Son to save 
 us, is really on his part the last act, the crowning or 
 final exercise, of his love. It is as if he told us that his 
 love was exhausted in begetting or reproducing itself in 
 us. And it may weU be so. No higher instance of love 
 is possible than his sending his Son ; no stronger sort of 
 love can be imagined. And if that very love passes 
 from him to us ; having the same objects and cherishmg 
 towards them the same affection ; if we love one another 
 as God loves us ; is not his love perfected in us ? AVhat 
 more can be done to let it have "its perfect work"? 
 
 Ah, then, what responsibility is ours ! Wliat an 
 office or duty is laid upon us ! To perfect, to complete, 
 
TOWAEDS WHAT IS SEEN". 131 
 
 the manifestation of God's love for the saving of the 
 world ! Through us, his love, — the very love manifested 
 in his sending his Son to be the propitiation for our 
 sins, — is to pass on to our fellow-men. We are, as it 
 were, in his stead. ISTay, he is himseK in us. He who 
 is love dwelleth in us ; he who dwelleth in us is love. 
 It is not so much we who love, as God who loveth in us. 
 It is his own very love that has now in us its full ex- 
 pression, if we love as he is love. It is ours to see to it 
 that it is and shall be so. 
 
 The subject is not ended; but I pause, and offer 
 some practical inferences that may well be pondered. 
 
 1. Very plainly the love to one another here en- 
 joined is of such a sort that none but a child of God can 
 be capable of it, or can feel it. None other, in fact, can 
 comprehend what it is. We must first be ourselves the 
 receivers of it, before we can be the dispensers or trans- 
 mitters of it ; before it can have its perfect work in us 
 towards others. We must be taught by the Spirit to 
 know what we are, as seen by God, when we are the 
 objects of his love ; what we are, in his sight, when he 
 loves us with a saving love. We must be made by the 
 Spirit experimentally to feel what manner of love it is 
 that, instead of being repelled, is attracted, by our un- 
 loveliness; that instead of smiting us, lays the stroke 
 on his own beloved Son ; that now, in him, lavishes on 
 us all saving benefits and blessings. This then clearly 
 is our first concern ; to see to it that this love of God is 
 really ours; embraced by us; apprehended and appro- 
 priated by us ; enjoyed by us richly. 
 
132 LOVE GOING FOETH 
 
 2. This love whicli is of God, when perfected in ns, 
 must contemplate its objects in the same light in which 
 they are seen by God, It is comparatively easy to love 
 the loveable, — to love them that love us. If we look 
 only at men's amiable qualities, if we surround our- 
 selves with a cu'cle of friends, — all decent, worthy, and 
 upright, — if, shutting our eyes to what they are before 
 him who searches the heart, and judging according to 
 the outward appearance, we perceive only what is fair 
 and charming in their winning ways; if, in a word, 
 keeping out of view their spiritual state and character, 
 we dwell exclusively on their natural gifts and graces ; 
 — if it is thus that we love them, our love is not God's 
 love perfected in us. For to be God's love perfected in 
 us, our love must see its objects as God's love sees its 
 objects. What we see in them of guilt and sin, of 
 enmity against God and insubordination to his law, 
 must be offensive to us as it is to him. Men estranged 
 from God, whatever may be their other excellences, must 
 be to us what they are to God. Then, and only then, 
 can we test the identity of our love with God's love. 
 Then, and only then, can we have some idea of what it 
 is to love those whom God loves, with his own very 
 love ; his love, not of indifference to evil or complacency 
 in evil, but of deep compassion to the evil-doer and 
 earnest longing that he may be saved. 
 
 Hence the Lord says, "Love your enemies, do good 
 to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully 
 use you and persecute you." In that way, and only in 
 
TOWAEDS WHAT IS SEEN. 133 
 
 that way, can we prove ourselves, by our family likeness, 
 to be the children of our heavenly Father. So are we 
 perfect, in this way of loving; according to the com- 
 mand: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father 
 which is in heaven is perfect," 
 
 For it is not absolute or general perfection that is 
 here meant ; perfection in the wide and universal sense 
 of that term. The command, so understood, would be 
 irrelevant as well as impracticable. It is perfection or 
 completeness, — thorough simplicity and uprightness, — 
 as regards the particular grace referred to ; according to 
 a use of the Avord very common in the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. The perfection indicated is the perfection 
 of honesty or righteousness in loving our " seen," as God 
 loves his " seen ; " loving our enemies with the very love 
 with which our Heavenly Father loved us when we 
 were his. 
 
134 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING: 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING ; GOD 
 IN US AND WE IN GOD. 
 
 " Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in ns, because be bath 
 given us of bis Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the 
 Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever 
 shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelletb in him, 
 and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that 
 God bath to us. God is love ; and he that dwelletb in love dwell- 
 etb in God, and God in him." — 1 John iv. 13-16. 
 
 The statement, " Hereby know we that we dwell in him, 
 and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit," 
 carries us back to a previous statement (iii. 24), " Hereby 
 we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he 
 hath given us." We are thus reminded of the scope and 
 design of the whole passage. The question is about the 
 mutual indwelling of God in us and of us in God ; and 
 more particularly about his abiding in us. How are we 
 to know this ? By the Spirit which he hath given us, 
 is the answer. But that raises another question. Every 
 spirit is not to be believed ; there must be a trial of the 
 spirits. By what test or tests are they to be tried? 
 How is the Spmt that is of God to be distinguished 
 from the spirit of antichrist ? First, by his confessing in 
 us that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (ver. 2-6) ; and 
 secondly, by our loving with the love wliich is of God 
 
GOD IN US AND WE IN GOD. 135 
 
 (ver. 7-12). And now, connecting the two, John brings 
 us back substantially to the original statement, as to 
 our knowing that we dwell in God, and God in us, be- 
 cause he hath given us of his Spirit. Tor the two tests 
 are now brought closely together, and shown to be not 
 so much two as one ; — or at least not two independent 
 tests, each separately valid in itself, but so intimately 
 related to one another that they mutually involve one 
 another, and thus combine together to make up one 
 cogent and irrefragable proof. It is this virtual unity 
 of the two tests that forms the theme or subject of the 
 verses now before us. 
 
 I. The first of the two tests is recapitulated : " We 
 have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to 
 be the Saviour of the world ; whosoever shall confess 
 that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and 
 he in God" (ver. 14, 15). There is a slight difference 
 here from the language of the second verse ; and the 
 difference is evidently designed. It is intended to im- 
 pregnate, if I may so speak, and vivify the truth con- 
 fessed, with the love whose origin and nature John has 
 been unfolding. The two ideas, — his being "sent" to 
 be " the Saviour of the world," and " his being the Son," 
 — are evidently suggested by what has been said of that 
 divine love in the intermediate verses (ver. 9, 10). 
 
 It is interesting, in this view, to trace the growth 
 and development of the thought. The confession wliich 
 is to be the sign of its being the Spirit that is of God, 
 or the Spirit of truth, that we receive, is first put as if 
 it were the mere acknowleds^ment of a bare historical 
 
136 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING: 
 
 fact. It is mncli more by implication ; but, so far as 
 the actual expression goes, it is not anything more. 
 But see to what fulness of warm gushing life it has now 
 attained. And how ? It has been passing through an 
 atmosphere of love, and has thus got to be impressed 
 with a certain teeming warmth and quickening power. 
 What is to be confessed, when we first look at it and lay 
 it aside, might seem to be, so far as the mere wording of 
 it is concerned, scarcely more significant and affecting 
 than the notice of a birth, or any other common fact, of 
 which we read in old annals, or in the current news of 
 the day. Now, when we take it uj) to look at it again, 
 after it has been steeped in the rich dew of heaven's 
 love, it glows and is instinct with meaning. "Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh ;" come to be "the Saviour 
 of the world;" come as "the Son, whom the Father 
 hath sent ;" — that is the full confession now. 
 
 Hence the real reason of that first test, and of its 
 being so closely interwoven with the other. How should 
 the confession of a mere matter of fact be so certain a 
 token of God's "giving us of his Spirit," and of his 
 "dwelling in us ?" For it is a simple matter of fact, to 
 be known and ascertained like other ordinary facts in 
 history ; to be received on the very same ground and 
 warrant of historical evidence and testimony. The apostle 
 admits as much, both before (i. 1-3) and now (iv. 14). 
 You have our testimony for it ; and our testimony may 
 be relied on ; — " That which we have seen and heard 
 declare we unto you ;" — "We have seen and do testify" 
 what we ask you to confess. The question therefore 
 
GOD IN US AND WE IN GOD. lo7 
 
 recurs : How sliould my confessing a mere and simple 
 matter of fact, — especially considering tliat, however 
 wonderful it may be, I have it attested to me by suffi- 
 cient evidence, prove that " God giveth me of liis Spirit," 
 and so " dwelleth in me ?" 
 
 The answer must be found in the character of the 
 fact or truth confessed ; or in the aspect in which it is 
 presented, or presents itself to me. What is it in itself ? 
 What is it to me ? If it is a fact or truth of a merely 
 historical sort, and is so apprehended by me, my admis- 
 sion and avowal of it will be no proof or presumption of 
 God's having "given me of his Spirit, and dwelling in 
 me," — any more than my admission and avowal of any 
 well-attested event that ever happened in the world. 
 That may be my case ; if so, it is a sad one. It may be 
 to me a mere fact or truth of history ; not only in its 
 original form, naked and bald, " Jesus Christ is come in 
 the flesh ; " but even in the more warm and living sub- 
 stance which it takes, when it is, as it were, clothed 
 upon with the love which is from heaven. For what- 
 ever can be stated in words about that love, and the 
 measure and the manifestation of it, can all be compre- 
 hended by the natural understanding. I can put it all 
 in propositions intelligible enough to myself and others ; 
 and I can honestly accept these propositions, and con- 
 fess my acceptance of them. But it may be head-work 
 and not heart-work with me after all. So long as it is 
 so, it is my work merely ; the work of my own mind, 
 not of the Spirit. For his work is mainly in the heart. 
 It is spirit dealing with spirit ; not mere intellect deal- 
 
138 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING : 
 
 ing with intellect. It is God's Spirit dealing intimately 
 and lovingly with my spirit, and that too upon a special 
 theme ; a specific subject ; " Jesus Christ come in the 
 flesh," as " the very Son of God, sent by the Father to be 
 the Saviour of the world." 
 
 Now if God thus communes with me, his Spirit with 
 my spirit ; — not mind with mind merely, but heart with 
 heart ; — upon this special theme or subject ; if the fact 
 of " Jesus Christ having come in the flesh" thus starts 
 from the page of history, and fixes and rivets itself in 
 my inner man, becoming part and parcel of my most 
 inward experience ; if, in short, the truth comes home 
 to me, as not simply a historical event, but, as it were, 
 a honey-filled bee, full fraught with all the love that is 
 in the Father's heart of hearts and is poured out in the 
 saving mission of his Son ; — if I take this in, and let this 
 heaven-laden bee pierce me, and fill the wound it makes 
 with what itself is full of ; — love, this love of God ; — 
 then I have something to confess, wliich may well be an 
 evidence of " God's having given me of his Spirit, and 
 so dwelling in me." Yes ! I may humbly appropriate 
 the Lord's words to Peter ; " Blessed art thou, Simon 
 Barjona ; for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, 
 but my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 II. The second test is thus in large measure antici- 
 pated, and all but swallowed up, in the first. The con- 
 fession of truth is now seen to be identical with the 
 sense and experience of love : " We have known and 
 believed the love that God hath to us. God is love ; 
 and he that dwelleth in love dweUeth in God, and God 
 
GOD IN US AND WE IN GOD. 139 
 
 in liim" (ver. 16.) "We have known and believed." 
 This is quite John's manner ; to unite in one know- 
 ledge and faith ; we have intelligently believed ; we 
 have believingly understood. We have thus known 
 and believed " the love that God hath to us ; " — or 
 rather, "the love which God hath in us."* For the 
 expression is very peculiar and emphatical ; and, as used 
 here, can scarcely mean anything else than that his 
 love to us has become his love in us ; and that we have 
 known and believed it as such. Of course it is his love 
 to us ; but it is his love to us, transferred, as it were, or 
 transplanted, from the gospel, where it is a matter of 
 revelation from without, to our own hearts, where it 
 becomes a moving principle and power from within. 
 There, in the gospel, it is his love manifested to us ; 
 here, in our hearts, it is his love actually existing in 
 us ; — not merely felt by us as his love to us ; but felt 
 by us as his love in us ; — in us, so truly and literally in 
 us, that we become the conscious storekeepers or deposi- 
 tories of it, as it were, and the dispensers of it to others 
 who are as much its objects as we are ourselves. The 
 love of God, having us for its objects, passes from God's 
 
 * This is the literal rendering in the verse before lis (16), as it is 
 also in a previous verse (9). There perhaps it can be more easily 
 explained than here as meaning merely God's love to us ; though even 
 there more may be implied. In both verses an indefinite mode of 
 rendering the phrase may be adopted — "his love in regard to us," or 
 "with respect to us." But that is not satisfactory in either case ; 
 certainly not in that now in question. Wliat we are said to have 
 known and believed is God's love ; his manner of loving. And we 
 know and believe it as having it, in some real sense, in us. 
 
140 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING : 
 
 outer record into our inner life. It enters into us ; it 
 finds access to tlie innermost recesses of our moral and 
 spiritual being ; it is therefore now " the love which 
 God has in us." He pours into us, he puts and plants 
 in us, his own love. He has it in us ; his own very 
 love ; reproduced by himself in us ; communicated, if 
 one may dare to say so, by himself, from his own heart 
 to ours. It is the love of which we ourselves, in the 
 first instance, are the objects ; of which it was our first 
 relief and joy, when we were convinced of sin, to find 
 ourselves the objects. It is the love of which, when aU 
 but despairing, we laid trembling hold, and of which we 
 are still fain to lay hold continually ; — not love to the 
 holy, the pure, the penitent, the believing, the chosen ; 
 but love to the world as such, of which we are part ; 
 love to men as sinners, "of whom I am chief." But 
 that love is in us now. " God has it in us." It is not 
 merely that we have it in us, as a ground of confidence for 
 ourselves ; God has it in us as on his behalf a treasury 
 of love available for others. It is in us, — not merely 
 as what we ourselves grasp and count to be all our 
 salvation, but as what springs up in us, and is outgoing 
 towards others ; bemg thus God's own very love, 
 dwelling and working in our whole inner man. That, 
 I am persuaded, and nothing short of that, is the great 
 thought involved in these wondrous words, "we have 
 known and believed the love that God hath in us." 
 Not only have we known and believed his love, so as to 
 apprehend and appropriate it, as it comes from without 
 and from above ; — not only so as to take it and make it 
 
GOD IN US AND WE IN GOD. 141 
 
 available for our own spiritual life and comfort ; but 
 also, and especially, so as to imbibe it ; — to drink it 
 into tlie very essence of our renovated natm-e, our 
 renewed selves. In us who know it and believe it, 
 God has his own love in actual existence and in active 
 exercise. 
 
 Herein lies that community of nature between God 
 and us which the Spirit works or effects. Love is God's 
 nature ; " God is love" (ver. 16). Again that great 
 truth is here proclaimed. And, as it would seem, it is 
 now proclaimed again for the purpose of bringing out 
 what it is of God that we can share with him ; that he 
 can " have in us." Much there is about God that must 
 continue always altogether incommunicable to us ; much 
 that must remain for ever outward and objective to us, 
 and never can become inward and subjective in us. All 
 that pertains to him as lawgiver, ruler, judge, — all that 
 he is as, seated on the throne of his high majesty and 
 universal empii-e, he carries on the government of the 
 universe, — is and must be exclusively his own ; it is 
 only in a very secondary sense, and in a very subordi- 
 nate capacity, that we can have any of his authority 
 delegated to us when, besides dealing with us as his 
 subjects, he uses us as his ministers. But it would 
 seem to be otherwise with his holiness and Ms love. 
 Paul speaks of our being made " partakers of his holi- 
 ness ;" — John speaks of "the love he has in us." The 
 two indeed are one, for his holiness is loving and his 
 love is holy. His holy love therefore is not incom- 
 municable ; it passes from him to us. Not only are 
 
142 LOVE THE MEANS OF MUTUAL INDWELLING : 
 
 we its objects ; more than that ; it begets itself anew, 
 if one may say so, in us. It is God's very love, his holy 
 love, in us, and it is to be known and believed, — to be 
 felt and manifested, — by us accordingly. 
 
 What is this but our " dwelling in love" (ver. 16) — 
 in God's own love ? Love ; the holy love of God ; of 
 the Father sending the Son to be the Saviour of the 
 world ; is now the habitual home of our hearts. We 
 remain ; we abide ; we stay in it. We would not quit 
 it, or let it go ; we cannot, for it alone is our peace. 
 Away from that love ; that holy love ; that love with all 
 its holiness ; reaching us and saving us, the most worldly 
 of the world, the very chief of sinners ; what hope, 
 what health, can we have ? Neither can we quit it, or 
 let it go, as a principle of life and activity, going out 
 from ourselves to others. If it is to be God's love to 
 us, known and believed by us, for our own jDcace and 
 comfort and holy spiritual quickening ; it m.ust be 
 God's love in us, his own love, which " he has in us," 
 known and believed by us for outward use, as well as 
 for inward assurance and rest. Only in so far as we 
 constantly realise this love of God, both as the love he 
 has to us and as the love he has in us, do we really 
 dwell in love. But dwelling thus in this love, we do 
 indeed dwell in God. For God is this love ; and as 
 such he dwelleth in us. In respect of this love, of 
 which we are now both the grateful receivers and the 
 glad transmitters, there is a blessed oneness between 
 God and us. He dwells in this love ; for he is love ; 
 and we now dwell in this love also. It becomes our 
 
GOD IN US AND WE IN GOD. 143 
 
 nature, as it is his, thus to love. Therefore this love is 
 the bond of union between him and us ; — the meeting- 
 place, the habitation, the home, in which we dwell 
 together ; he in us and we in him. This love, this holy 
 love, is that which God and we may have in common. 
 And therefore it is the element or quality in respect of 
 which there may be mutual indwelling of us in God and 
 of God in us. 
 
 Hence the two tests of God's " giving us of his 
 Spirit and dwelling in us," coalesce, as it were, and 
 become essentially one. To confess, on the testimony 
 of the apostles as eyewitnesses, that the Father sent the 
 Son to be the Saviour of the world (ver. 14) ; that Jesus 
 is the Son of God (ver. 15) ; and to know and believe 
 the love that God has to us and in us (ver. 16) ; is really 
 one and the same thing. For the confession is not the 
 cold assent of the understanding to a formal article in a 
 creed. It is the warm and cordial embracing of the 
 Father's love, incarnate in the Son whom he sends to be 
 the Saviour of the world. It is the letting into our 
 hearts of the love which is God's nature ; for God is 
 love. It is our dwelling with Hm in love. For, as 
 Paul teaches, in entire and perfect harmony with John ; 
 — " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any- 
 thing, nor uncircumcision availeth anything, but faith 
 which worlvcth by love ; " faith confessing Christ ; 
 faith knowiuCT and believing the love that God has in 
 us ; faith loving as it sees and feels that God himself 
 loves. 
 
144 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THE BOLDNESS OF PERFECTED LOVE. 
 
 " Herein is our love made perfect, that we may liave boldness in the 
 day of judgment : because as he is, so are we in this world. There 
 is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear 
 hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We 
 love [liim], because he first loved us. — 1 John iv. 17-19. 
 
 The leading idea here is " boldness in the day of judg- 
 ment ;" not boldness prospectively when the day comes, 
 but present boldness in the view of it now. It is much 
 the same thing as we have in a previous section of the 
 epistle (iii. 19-21), "our assuring our hearts before God;" 
 " our having confidence toward God." This boldness is 
 connected with the perfecting of love ; " Herein is our 
 love made perfect ; " or as in the margin, " Herein is 
 love with us made perfect,* that we may have boldness 
 in the day of judgment," Love then, or the love be- 
 
 * The exact literal rendering is, " Herein is pei'fected the love with 
 us." In the twelfth verse, the expression is different, "His love is 
 perfected in us." There, I think, it must be the perfection or com- 
 pleteness of his love to us, as realised by us in our consciousness and 
 experience, that is meant. In that verse (12) the participle is used : 
 " His love is in us as a perfected thing, a consummated fact." Here 
 (ver. 17) it is the verb that is used, and so used as to denote a work or 
 process brought to a full or final issue ; the perfecting of the love with 
 us, as a treaty or transaction of some sort. 
 
 The textual rendering, indeed, of the 17th verse : "Herein is our 
 love made perfect," is apt to mislead in another way, by suggesting the 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 145 
 
 fore indicated is perfected with us ; and the perfecting 
 of this love with us is bound up with our having bold- 
 ness in the day of judgment. The bond or connecting 
 link is our oneness with Christ ; our " being in this 
 world " as he is now. 
 
 What is perfected is love ; not love indefinitely ; 
 but the love which is God's nature, and which comes 
 out in the saving gift of his Son. It is to be perfected 
 as " love with us." It is not merely, as in the twelfth 
 verse, to be perfected in us, as love to us ; it is to be 
 perfected in us, as "love with us." It is God's love so 
 shared by him with us as to constitute a love relation- 
 ship, or love-fellowship, between him and us. Tliis is 
 indispensable to our having boldness in the prospect of 
 
 idea that we have here the counterpart of the statement in the 12th verse : 
 " This love is perfected in us." There it is God's love that is said to be 
 perfected, liis love to us ; here we are apt to suppose that it is our love that 
 is made perfect, oiu- love to God. But the subject of our love to God has 
 not yet come up for consideration ; it does not really come up till the 20th 
 verse. For, by consent of the best critics, the pronoun ' ' him " is to be 
 omitted in the 19th verse, as not having been in the original ; so that the 
 assertion is there quite general : ' ' We love, because he first loved us. ' 
 How much better this suits the scope of the apostle's reasoning, my 
 exposition of the verse may partly show. Again, if we adopt the tex 
 tual rendering of the 17th verse : " Herein is our love made perfect," 
 we miss the emphatic article " the," or " this ;" "the love," or " this 
 love ;" referring to a love previously spoken of. And "our love" is 
 an awkward and unwarrantable substitute for " love with us," or "the 
 love with us," — "this love with us." On every ground the marginal 
 translation is to be preferred, or the still more literal one which 1 have 
 suggested above : "Herein is perfected this love with us." And let it 
 be borne in mind, as I have stated, that the preposition is not the same 
 in the two verses, the 12th and the I7th. In the 12th it is iv ij/juv ; in 
 the 17th fled' i]fj,Qi>. 
 
 VOL. XL L 
 
146 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 the day of judgment. And it is realised tlirough oneness 
 with Christ, through our "being as he is;" not as he 
 was before he came into the world ; — nor merely as he 
 was in the world ; — but as he is now. It is our " being 
 as he is," that connects in us, in our consciousness 
 and experience, the perfecting of God's love with us, 
 and our having boldness to face the final account 
 (ver. 17). 
 
 The boldness must be very complete ; for it must 
 exclude whatever is incompatible with the ground on 
 which it rests. Now, it rests on love ; on God's love 
 shared with us. But love shared between the lover and 
 the loved, in a mutual fellowship of love, excludes or 
 " casts out fear." It must do so, for " fear hath torment." 
 A relationship or fellowship based on fear is of course 
 quite conceivable ; but it has torment. It cannot, there- 
 fore consist with a relationship or fellowship of love. 
 " He that feareth is not made perfect in love ; " in this 
 love ; the love, or covenant of love, here spoken of or 
 referred to (ver. 18). But "we love." We may not 
 be made perfect in love, — the love or loving treaty in 
 question. But we do love ; and our love is a reality ; 
 it may be relied on as a reality ; for it is love springing 
 out of his love to us ; it is his own very love in us. 
 " We love, because he first loved us." 
 
 Having offered these exegetical explanations, I now 
 take up the topics suggested in their order. 
 
 I. (ver. 17.) "Herein is our love" — God's love with us 
 — " made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day 
 of judgment : because as he is, so are we in this world." 
 
PEEFECTED LOVE. 147 
 
 The perfecting of " God's love with us," so that we may- 
 have boldness in the day of judgment, depends on our 
 being as Christ is, — and that too " in this world." We 
 are in this world, not as he was when he was in it, but 
 as he is now. 
 
 In a very eminent and emphatic sense, God's love 
 with him is now made perfect ; in a sense in which that 
 could not be said of liim as he was when in this world. 
 The Father's covenant of love with him, as "Jesus 
 Christ come in the flesh " — " the Son sent by him to be 
 the propitiation for our sins " — is now perfectly ratified, 
 so that he may have boldness in the view of any day of 
 judgment. 
 
 That, I repeat, could scarcely be said of him as he 
 was when in this world. Personally, no doubt, he was 
 then the object of the Father's love ; and that divine 
 love, as communicated and shared with him, in his 
 human nature and earthly condition, was absolutely per- 
 fect. Personally, therefore, he might have boldness, — he 
 had nothing to fear, — in any judicial reckoning. But 
 consider him as " sent to be the propitiation for our sins." 
 
 Oh, what a cloud comes in. between him and his 
 Father's love ! What a cloud, — charged with fiery 
 wrath, about to burst on his devoted head ! And what 
 trembling is there in the prospect of that judicial 
 reckoning with him for our transgTcssion of the law 
 which he has to stand ! It was not then altogether a 
 fellowship of love with him on the part of God. The 
 things that passed between God and him, as he hung on 
 the accursed tree, were not all love-tokens and love- 
 
148 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 caresses ! Love was with him still, divine love, even 
 then and there ; love, if possible, more than ever, for 
 the very death he was dying, in fulfilment of the divine 
 purpose of salvation. But something else was with him 
 too ; something that for a season terribly shaded that 
 love. Divme justice was with him ; justice inexorably 
 demanding, in the interests of law and government, the 
 stern execution of the penal sentence. And that must 
 first be perfected ; that must have its perfect work ; 
 before the love can be made perfect. He feels, he 
 affects, no boldness in meeting that day of judgment. 
 He knows its terror ; he shrinks ; he cries ; he " is 
 crucified through weakness." For us to be as he then 
 was, would give us little boldness in view of the day of 
 judgment awaiting us. 
 
 But to be as he is now ! Ah, that is a very different 
 matter ! Now that his dark agony is over, and all his 
 groans are past ; now that there is no more present 
 with him, on the part of God, any wrath at all, but only 
 perfect love ; now that, no longer bearing condemnation, 
 but accepted for his righteousness' sake, he has boldness 
 to set any day of judgment at defiance ; now that the 
 Father need have no other dealings with him any more 
 for ever but only dealings of perfect love ; now that, 
 being raised from the dead, he dieth no more ; death, 
 judicial death, having no more dominion over him ! 
 May this privilege indeed be ours ? Nay, it is ; " we 
 are as he is." "Wlien and where? Now, "in this 
 world." It is not the blessedness of the future state ; 
 it is blessedness to be got here and now. Do you ask 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 149 
 
 how ? Look to Jesus ; to " Jesus Christ come in the 
 flesh ;" " the Son sent by the Father to be the propitia- 
 tion for your sins." How was it possible for him, when 
 he took that position, to be as he now is ? On one only 
 condition. He must consent first to be as you are, in 
 the full sense and to the full extent of enduring and 
 exhausting all the pains and penalties which your being 
 as you are entails on you. Not otherwise could he 
 come to be as he is now. And not otherwise can you 
 come to be as he is now ; not otherwise than by first 
 consenting to be as he was then ; to die as he died ; to 
 be " crucified with him." Is this a hard preliminary ? 
 Nay, it is altogether reasonable as well as necessary ; it 
 is eminently gracious. It is his own free gift of him- 
 self to you ; of himself as the propitiation for your sins. 
 
 I take your death as mine, he cries ; the death which 
 as sinners you deserve to die. I die that death in your 
 stead. You cannot die that death yourselves and ever 
 live again. But I can. " I am he that liveth and was 
 dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." How much 
 better is it for you to make my death yours than to die 
 eternally yourselves ! 
 
 Can you refuse to be as he then was, in the exercise 
 of realising, appropriating, uniting faith ; " knowing the 
 fellowship of his sufferings?" — especially when you 
 consider how this not only secures your never again 
 being, as you naturally are, under condemnation ; but 
 secures also your being as he now is. God's love is with 
 you ; as truly " perfected with you," as it is with him. 
 You may have the same boldness that he might have in 
 
150 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 facing any day of judgment. To you, as to him, death 
 as the wages of sin is really past. There is no more 
 any judicial reckoning with you on God's part, — no 
 more with you than with him ; but only dealings of 
 love, — of love made perfect, — love having free course, — 
 love unfettered and unrestrained. So you have boldness 
 as regards the day of judgment. 
 
 II. This love with us, thus perfected, is inconsistent 
 with fear. It founds or establishes a love-relationship, 
 a love-fellowship, with which fear cannot co-exist : — 
 " There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out 
 fear : because fear hath torment ; he that feareth is not 
 made perfect in love." 
 
 The love here meant is not our love to God ; neither 
 is it, strictly speaking, God's love to us, or our apprehen- 
 sion of it. In a sense, it may be said to be the mutual 
 love that subsists between God and us, when, " as Christ 
 is, so are we, in this world." Or, still more exactly, it 
 may be understood as denoting the terms of loving 
 agTcement, — of good understanding and endearment, — on 
 which God would have us to be with him, in virtue of 
 "his love with us being made perfect." The great 
 practical truth tauglit is that our faith, when we " con- 
 fess that Jesus is the Son of God" (ver. 15), and when 
 " we have known and believed the love that God hath 
 to us" (ver. 16), brings us into a position, as regards 
 God, in which there is not only no occasion, but no 
 room, for fear. 
 
 Love and fear are diametrically opposite principles ; 
 and they imply opposite modes of treatment on the part 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 151 
 
 of God towards us, and opposite relations on our part 
 towards him. If God deals with us in the way of strict 
 law and righteous judgment, then the footing on which 
 we are with him is one simply of fear. His fear is with 
 us ; not his love. And it is so with us that, however it 
 may he lulled for a time, it will one day be perfected, or 
 have its perfect work, in " a fearful looldng for of judg- 
 ment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the 
 adversary." If, again, God deals with us in the way of 
 rich and free grace, then the footing on which we are 
 with him is one of love. He no longer holds over us 
 the threat of punishment ; the fear of it is not with us 
 any more. It cannot be, for this fear hath torment. 
 
 Mark the reason here assigned for fear being cast 
 out ; it hath torment ; the torment of anticipated judg- 
 ment ; for that is exactly what is meant. It echoes the 
 voice of the demons : — " Art thou come to torment us 
 before the tune ?" But we with whom " God's love is 
 perfected," have boldness in reference to the day of 
 judgment; not torment, but boldness. Therefore " there 
 is no fear in that love," thus perfected ; for fear intro- 
 duces an element the reverse of what a state of loving 
 fellowship implies. Hence "he that feareth is not 
 made perfect in that love ; " he does not fully realise 
 the standing or position which it gives him ; he does 
 not enter completely into the faith and fellowship of 
 " God's love with us," as a love that " is made perfect." 
 
 Here let us consider, first, the evil and danger of 
 confounding these two opposite footings, of fear and of 
 love, on which we may be with God; and, secondly. 
 
152 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 the careful provision which God has made for keeping 
 them separate. 
 
 1. I take the case of one who is stiU in the relation 
 to God in which fear reigns ; who yet, at the same time, 
 assumes that, even in his case, there may be something 
 of the opposite relation, of which love is the exponent 
 and expression. He is still under wi^ath ; he has no 
 real boldness as regards the day of judgment ; he is 
 subject to the power of the fear which has torment. 
 But he has a notion that God's love may yet somehow 
 be with him after all ; he has a dream of mercy ; he 
 welcomes the idea of indulgence and impunity ; it abates 
 his torment. It does not really bring him into the 
 region of love, but it mitigates fear. Is that a good thing 
 for him ? Were it not better far that he should be left, 
 naked and shelterless, to the full experience of all the 
 torment which fear has ? He might thus be shut up to 
 try " a more excellent way." 
 
 But I take, with John, the opposite case. I suppose 
 that you are within the realm and domain of love. 
 Love ; the love which is God's very nature ; the love 
 " manifested in his sending his only begotten Son into 
 the world that you might live through him ;" that love 
 is the atmosphere of the region in which now you dwell. 
 You are on loving terms with God ; his love being with 
 you ; and being " made perfect with you." Nay ; not 
 quite made perfect. It should be so, but it is not so. For 
 you let into your heart something of what is proper to 
 the opposite relation ; your being on the old terms with 
 God to which fear belongs. And the practical effect of 
 
PEKFECTED LOVE 153 
 
 this is very disastrous. Not to dwell upon its sure 
 tendency to mar your peace and joy, — it thoroughly 
 cramps your free walk with God in light ; it has a sad 
 bearing on your manner of serving God. For no two 
 things can be more opposite than service rendered 
 on the footing of love, and service rendered on the 
 footing of fear. Not only are the motives different ; 
 the kinds of service which they prompt are different. 
 If I am under the influence of the fear which has 
 torment, and so far as I am under its influence, I am 
 inevitably inclined to evasion and compromise. I must 
 do some things and leave some things undone ; my 
 conscience, moved by fear, will not otherwise let me 
 alone. But I sail as near the wind as possible, if only I 
 may keep barely on the safe side of the law. I venture 
 on occasional omissions of duty and compliances with 
 temptation ; stealthily, as it were, " snatching a trem- 
 bling joy." The service is all task-work, slave-work. As 
 such I grudge it always, and get off from it when I can 
 on any plea. That is my way with God under the 
 torment of fear. It should be otherwise when I move 
 in the sphere, and breathe the air, of love ; of divine 
 love ; " God's love with me made perfect." There 
 should be no guile in my spirit now ; no inclination to 
 unfair dealing any more. Alas ! is it so ? Is it always 
 so with me ? Even if I have some sense and experience 
 of the new and better footing of love on which it is my 
 privilege to be with my God, am I not too often visited 
 with questionings and misgivings proper only to the 
 old footing of fear? Do I not find myself ever and 
 
154 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 anon, asking, Must I positively renounce this ? — may I 
 not, for once, venture upon that ? And does not all 
 such asking indicate something of the old servile mind ? 
 What uneasiness is there in such a way of living with 
 God, and what unfaithfulness too ! What " unstead- 
 fastness and perfidiousness in his covenant" of love ! 
 Surely it is true that he who in any measure thus acts 
 from mere fear, under the pressure of felt necessity, is 
 not " made perfect in love." 
 
 2. But why should it be so ? God would not have 
 it so. His will is that there should be a sharp line of 
 separation between the tM^o incompatible relations ; that 
 of love and that of fear. He would shut you up, com- 
 pletely and exclusively, into one or other of them. 
 
 Are you in that relation to which fear is appropriate? 
 Then let it be fear alone ; fear in the view of the judg- 
 ment-day. By all means let fear operate alone ; un- 
 mitigated, unrelieved, by any vague notion of mercy ; 
 any dream of love. That is the way in which it should 
 operate. So operating, let it deter you from crime ; let it 
 impel you to duty. Or, better far, let it drive you to des- 
 pair ; to despair of yourselves ; not, God forbid, of him ! 
 You have nothing to do with love as you are, and continu- 
 ing as you are ; — you have to do only with fear. that 
 it were, in the first instance, perfect fear ! — fear, pure and 
 simple, casting out, I say not love, but the idle imagina- 
 tion of love ! Yes ; it is yours to fear ; and only to 
 fear ! Would to God that your fear had torment enough, 
 not merely to set you on doing some things and avoid- 
 ing some things, to soothe it or set it to sleep ; but to set 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 155 
 
 you on crying, with the deep voice of true conviction : 
 "Who shall dehver me?" "What must I do to be 
 saved ?" 
 
 Are you, on the other hand, in the relation of which 
 love, divine love, is the characteristic ? Is it not a rela- 
 tion of love in which full provision is made, if you will 
 only realise it, for the entire and absolute casting out of 
 all fear ? I call upon you so to realise it. Have you, 
 in very truth, " known and believed the love that God 
 hath in you"? Have you considered this love, its 
 nature, its manifestation, its effect and issue ? Have 
 you asked yourself, my brother ! this simple, but very 
 serious, question: On what footing does this loving 
 God; this God whose very nature is love, and whose 
 love is with me and in me ; mine in actual possession ; 
 mine in all its fulness ; — on what footing does he intend 
 and wish me to be with him ? Ah ! is it a footing that 
 will still admit of the miserable suspicions and subter- 
 fuges of one driven by a tormenting dread of the lash ? 
 Is it not rather a footing that precludes them aU ? Not 
 a vestige of the old state of liability to judgment re- 
 mains, if " as Christ is, so you now are in this world." 
 Not a vestige of the old grudging and guileful frame of 
 mind, congenial to that state, should remain. Not for 
 your own comfort merely, but for your single-eyed, and 
 simple-minded, and honest-hearted walking with God, 
 and serving of God, — I beseech you to let his perfect love 
 cast out your slavish fear. For fear hath torment ; it is 
 torture; and your God and Father is not a torturing 
 inquisitor. 
 
156 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 III. That it may be so; that "this love with you" 
 may be so "perfected" as to "cast out fear;" see that 
 you love with a love that springs out of God's love, and 
 is of the same sort. "We love," says the apostle, on 
 behaK of himself and you who believe through his 
 word ; passing now from God's love to ours ; " we love, 
 because he first loved us."* 
 
 " We love." We can take home to ourselves personally 
 and individually what has been said abstractly of love 
 casting out fear. For we love, and do not fear. " He 
 that feareth is not made perfect in love;" he does not 
 perfectly realise the love relationship, the love-fellowship, 
 the love-state, as it were, which God's " love with us made 
 perfect," involves. But that is not our case ; " we love." 
 
 " We love." It is the first time John has ventured 
 to say so in this passage. Here first he brings in ex- 
 pressly our subjective experience or consciousness, as 
 bearing upon the assured footing of love on which we 
 are to be with God. Hitherto, it has all turned on God's 
 love ; manifested by him ; known and believed by us ; 
 communicated to us ; present with us ; and as present 
 with us, made perfect; so perfect as to cast out fear. 
 Now, it is our love that is asserted ; — " We love." For 
 this must be the issue. It is idle to imagine that any- 
 thing of the loving relationship and fellowship of which 
 John speaks can be ours, unless we can say with him, 
 humbly, but with some measure of confidence; "We 
 love." And it is no light thing to say so. It is signi- 
 cant of much. 
 
 " We love." It is not merely that we have a natural 
 
 * See note at tlie begiuuiiig of tliis discourse, page 145.. 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 157 
 
 faculty of loving, and exercise it by letting it go forth 
 on things and persons naturally attractive to us. But 
 we have now a divine faculty of loving ; we love with 
 the love which is of God ; which is God's very nature. 
 We love with a love that goes forth towards things and 
 persons, as they are attractive, not to us, but to him. In 
 particular, as regards our life with God, our walk mth God, 
 our fellowship with God, our service of God, our obedience 
 to God ; as regards all that pertains to the relation that 
 is to subsist between hini and us ; " we love." Not 
 fear, but love, is now, on our part as well as on his part, 
 the ruling principle and living spirit of it aU. 
 
 " We love." And in loving, we do but reciprocate 
 God's love ; and respond to it. " We love, because he 
 first loved us." For our love would be but a poor and 
 sorry thing unless it were linked on to God's love, as 
 the consequence, or as it were the continuation of it, — 
 the reflection or reproduction of it. Always, it must be 
 ultimately, in the last resort, God's love on which we 
 fall back. "God first loved us." This wondrous 
 economy of love, in virtue of which he would have us to 
 be on such a loving footing with him as to have fear 
 utterly cast out, originates in him, and is all his own. 
 If we love at all with the love which is of God, it is 
 only because "we have known and believed the love 
 which he hath to us." For it is " faith alone that worketh 
 by love;" — to that principle we are brought back. If 
 we are to realise, in our experience, the relationship and 
 fellowship of love, as one in which there is no fear, it 
 must be by faith. Therefore I call on you to believe ; 
 
158 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 to believe always ; to believe more and more. Believe 
 in God as first loving you ; — yes, I say, as first loving 
 you. Be very sure that that must be first ; not your 
 loving; but God's loving you. You cannot really know 
 what love is until you believe in God as first loving 
 you. You must first lay open your whole hearts to the 
 free, frank acceptance of the love with which he first 
 loveth you, — as the plant opens its bosom to the rain 
 and sunshine of heaven. Then, from that love with 
 which God first loveth you, — known, believed, accepted, 
 embraced,' — there will spring up love in you ; such love as 
 w^ill make your whole intercourse with God an inter- 
 course altogether loving, and not fearful at all; such 
 love as will cordially welcome the assurance that God 
 means you to be to him, — not trembling, disaffected 
 slaves, — but loving, loyal, and confiding sons. 
 
 I close with two practical observations. 
 
 1, There is surely much here, in this glorious de- 
 scription of the fellowship of love which God desires to 
 have with us, and desires us to have with him, that 
 should encourage earnest though anxious souls. I can 
 conceive indeed that some may be inclined to question 
 this. They may feel as if the view now given of the 
 position which God would have them to occupy places 
 it beyond their reach ; high above their utmost aspira- 
 tions. It may seem to them a perfection quite unattain- 
 able ; an ideal that they can never dream of realising. 
 If something far short of it, — some far more ordinary 
 and commonplace walk and service, — will not suffice or 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 159 
 
 be accepted, it is all over, they may be saying, with 
 them. But let me ask, — In what spirit are you saying 
 so? Is it with regret? Is it with a feeling of disap- 
 pointment ? Would you be upon this footing with God 
 if you could? I must assume that you w^ould; that 
 you see it to be above all things desirable ; that you 
 really long and pray to be to God all that you now 
 perceive he would have you to be. Then, if so, I 
 beseech you to remember that this whole business of the 
 adjustment of your relation to God as one of perfect 
 love, is his and not yours. It is not you that have to 
 go to him ; he comes to you. It is not you who have to 
 get up, by a pamful process of inward working, love in 
 yourselves ; it is he who " first loveth you." It is with 
 his love you have to do, and not with your own. And 
 his love is not far to seek, — or long to w^ait for. It is 
 with you; embodied, enshrined, impersonated, in the 
 Son of his love, sent by him to be the propitiation for 
 your sin. Look to him ; believe on him ; consent to be 
 now, in this world, as he is. And remember that " the 
 righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, 
 Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? 
 (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) or, "Wlio 
 shall descend into the deep ? (that is, to bring up Christ 
 again from the dead). But what saith it ? The word is 
 nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart : that 
 is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou 
 slialt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
 believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from 
 the dead, thou shalt be saved." 
 
160 THE BOLDNESS OF 
 
 2. Let sinners be warned against presumptuous con- 
 fidence with reference to the day of judgment. What- 
 ever may be our boldness, if " as he is, so are we in this 
 world," it does not spring from any questioning of the 
 certainty, or any abating of the alarm, of that great and 
 dreadful day. On the contrary, we have reached that 
 boldness in a way that gives us an insight we never can 
 forget into the reality and intensity of the pains of hell. 
 "We know the terror of the Lord ;" we know it by our 
 " being crucified with Christ." What we see of it in the 
 cross, — in Jesus hanging there, — bearing guilt, — bearing 
 wrath; — what we feel of it in ourselves, when we take 
 his death of condemnation as ours ; — deepens our sense 
 of God's love in saving us from it, — and fills us ever- 
 more with sensitive apprehension at the very thought 
 of our being again "castaways." And knowing thus 
 this terror of the Lord, we would fain " persuade men." 
 Snatched ourselves as brands from the burning, — going 
 softly all our days in the remembrance of our narrow 
 escape, our most seasonable deliverance, — we cannot 
 contemplate unmoved their going down into the pit. 
 We beseech them to lay no flattering unction to their 
 souls, as if judgment were not both absolutely certain 
 and inconceivably terrible. We bid them fix their eyes 
 on Jesus suffering judicially on the accursed tree, and 
 hear his voice : — " If these things be done in the green 
 tree, what shall be done in the dry?" 
 
 "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as 
 though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in 
 Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." For " it is 
 
PERFECTED LOVE. 161 
 
 a fearful tiling to fall into the hands of the living 
 God." Who shall be able to "stand before the 
 face of him that sitteth on the throne," and brave 
 "the wrath of the Lamb, when the great day of his 
 wrath is come?" "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and 
 ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but 
 a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
 him." 
 
 VOL. IL M 
 
162 THE OBJECTS OF OUK LOVE 
 
 XXXV, 
 
 THE OBJECTS OF OUR LOVE— THE CHILDEEN OF 
 GOD AND GOD HIMSELF. 
 
 " If a man say, I love God, and liateth his brother, he is a liar : for he 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love 
 God whom he hath not seen ? And this commandment have we 
 from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. Whoso- 
 ever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God : and every 
 one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of 
 him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we 
 love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of 
 God, that we keep his commandments." — 1 John iv. 20, 21 — v. 
 1-3. 
 
 The apostle has just announced the law of love : " We 
 love, because he first loved us." He has still in his 
 mind the twofold test of God's giving us his Spirit ; — 
 our "believing on the name of his Son Jesus Christ," 
 and our "loving one another" (iii. 23). The Spirit in 
 us confesses, — we by the Spirit confess, — that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh ; that he is the Son of God. 
 It is a confession implying the believing recognition of aU 
 God's love to us in him. It implies therefore also the per- 
 fecting of God's love with us, so as to exclude fear, and in- 
 sure our loving as he has first loved us. We respond to 
 his love and reciprocate it ; it reproduces itseK in us. And 
 it does so, as love going forth to the seen, not the un- 
 
god's children and himself. 163 
 
 seen ; otherwise it would not be our loving with God's 
 very love to us ; it would not be our loving because God 
 first loved us. 
 
 I. " We love, because he first loved us." Whom do 
 we thus love ? " Him who first loved us," we say. 
 And we say well. But let us beware. Our saying so 
 may be deceptive ; in saying it we may lie ; not perhaps 
 deliberately, but deceiving ourselves. There is less risk 
 when the question is made to turn upon loving our 
 brother; for we cannot so readily say falsely or mis- 
 takenly that we love the visible, as we can say falsely 
 or mistakenly that we love the' invisible. Hence the 
 reasonableness of this test : " If a man say, I love God, 
 and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that loveth 
 not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love 
 God whom he hath not seen ?" (iv. 20). 
 
 But it may be asked : Wherein precisely consists the 
 impossibility ? Is it merely that it is easier and more 
 natural to love one whom we see than one whom we 
 have not seen ; that the first is a lower attainment, more 
 within our reach, while the other is more transcendental, 
 spiritual, and sublime ; so that if we cannot acquire the 
 terrestrial virtue of loving our brother whom we have 
 seen, it is vain for us to aspire to the heavenly elevation 
 of loving God whom we have not seen ? Nay, to put 
 the matter on that footing is to degrade the grace of 
 brotherly love, and wholly to destroy and overthrow the 
 apostle's noble argument. It is by no means clear that 
 our seeing or not seeing the object of the affection makes 
 any real or serious difference as regards our faculty or 
 
164 THE OBJECTS OF OUR LOVE : 
 
 capacity of loving. There is no reason why one whom 
 we have never seen, whom we have known only by re- 
 port and fame, or by his friendly offices towards us, should 
 not draw our hearts out towards him more even than 
 the most familiar friend whom we see every day. Nay, 
 in this very case it must be so. The unseen God, known 
 only through the discoveries of himself which he makes 
 to us in his word, and the communications of himself 
 which he shares with us by his Spirit, must command 
 our affections more than the best of created beings our 
 eyes can ever light on, if the due order of the two great 
 commandments is to be observed. Nor will it do to 
 hold that our loving our brother is in the least degree 
 more easy or more natural than our loving God ; as if, 
 beginning with loving our brother, because he, being 
 nearest us, is the most palpably manifest object of our 
 regard, we might through that means hope to find our 
 love rising to the more remote and less palpably manifest 
 object, even God. No. This love of our brother is not 
 a natural attainment, but a divine gift or qualification, 
 and therefore has this testing-place assigned to it here. 
 Consider again what it is for us to " love because God 
 first loved us." It is loving as he first loved us ; loving 
 with the very same sort of love. But the only person 
 whom I can love with that sort of love with which God 
 has loved me is my brother. It is vain for me to say, 
 in this view, that I love God. I cannot love God, in 
 the sense and on the ground required, otherwise than 
 through the intervention of my brother. 
 
 For the unseen God cannot possibly be to me the 
 
god's children and himself. 165 
 
 object of the kind of love with which he first loved me. 
 That is surely love, not to the unseen, but to the seen. 
 It was when he saw me in my original state, like " an 
 unpitied child, cast out in the open field, to the loathing 
 of its person, in that day that it was born," that he first 
 loved me. "When I passed by thee, and saw thee 
 polluted in thine o-wti blood, I said unto thee, when thou 
 wast in thy blood, Live ; yea I said unto thee, when 
 thou wast in thy blood. Live." To me, if I am the con- 
 scious object of that love, it must ever seem so mar- 
 vellous as to be all but incredible, that, seeing me as I 
 was, he should have so loved me ; nay more, that, seeing 
 me as I am, under all his gracious dealing with me, he 
 should so love me still. It is because he is God and not 
 man. Well may I, whom, thus seeing me, he so loves, 
 love him warmly, gratefully, in return. It appears 
 almost natural that I should spontaneously love him ; 
 I feel almost as if I could not help it. But how apt is 
 such a frame of mind, especially in a highly sensitive 
 and excitable temperament, to grow into a sort of vague, 
 dreamy, mystical or sentimental pietism, such as may 
 be really little better than a refined form of solitary self- 
 indulgence ! At all events, it is not the love wherewith 
 he has first loved me ; — it is not my loving as he has 
 loved me. If I am so to love, I must love, not the un- 
 seen, but the seen. My love must go forth toward those 
 whom I see, as God saw me when he first loved me. 
 And my love must be what his love is ; no idle senti- 
 ment or barren sympathy, but a love that seeks them, 
 and bears long with them, and knocks, and waits, and 
 
1G6 THE OBJECTS OF OUE LOVE : 
 
 longs, and prays, for their salvation ; a love that gives 
 freely, and without upbraiding ; a love self-sacrificing, 
 self-denying ; a love that will lay down life itseK to save 
 them. And when they become by grace, what by grace 
 I am, I must love them, as God loves me, for what I see 
 in them ; — yes, and in spite of what I see in them too. 
 I may still see many things about them to offend me. 
 But what does God see about me ? Do I not try my 
 loving Father's patience far more than any brother can 
 ever try mine ? But still he first loveth me. He is ever 
 first in loving me ; notwithstanding my being often last 
 in loving him. And shall I not be loving my brother, 
 first loving him, and that continually ? Sliall I withhold 
 my love until he is all in my eyes that I would like him 
 to be ? How would it be with me if God so postponed 
 his love to me ? Surely, " if I say I love God, and thus 
 hate my brother, I am a liar ;" what I profess is an im- 
 possibility. Let me rather give heed to his own an- 
 nouncement of his will : " This commandment have we 
 from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also" 
 (iv. 21). 
 
 II. This commandment of God still further explains 
 the importance attached to our loving our brother, as a 
 sign of the Spirit being given to us. And it does so in 
 two ways. 
 
 In the first place, I may be apt to think that this 
 setting of me upon loving my brother, as the test of my 
 " loving, because God has first loved me," disparages the 
 prior claim which God has on me, that I should love 
 him. But it is not so. For I am now told that it is his 
 
god's children and himself. 167 
 
 special good pleasure that tlie love I have to him should, 
 as it were, expend itself upon my brother. I need have 
 no fear therefore of my love to my brother on earth in- 
 terfering with my love to my Father in heaven ; or 
 being imagined to be a substitute for it. There is indeed 
 a spurious sort of brotherly love ; a vague philanthropy ; 
 which is sometimes put in the place of what God is 
 entitled to claim. People substitute a certain easy con- 
 stitutional good nature, instead of piety towards God ; 
 and even quote the loving apostle as an authority for 
 doing so. They little know the heart of the man they 
 quote, or the real spirit of his writings. Whatever im- 
 portance he assigns to your loving your brother, it is to 
 your loving hun, because God has first loved you ; loving 
 him with the very love with which God has first loved 
 you. And more than that. He appeals to the express 
 commandment of God requiring you in this way to 
 manifest and prove your love to him. 
 
 For, secondly, love to God is not ignored, or set 
 aside. On the contrary, the very reason why loving 
 your brother is insisted on so peremptorily is, that it is 
 loving your brother in obedience to God, and out of love 
 to God. In loving your brother, you keep God's com- 
 mandment ; and you keep it under a very solemn 
 appeal, as it were, from him to you. 
 
 Let us hear his voice. You " say that you love me." 
 You have good cause to love me, and I give you credit 
 for loving me. But first, I have to remind you generally, 
 that if " you love because I have first loved you," your 
 love, like mine, must flow out upon visible objects ; on 
 
168 THE OBJECTS OF OUK LOVE: 
 
 your brethren, such as they are seen in the world and 
 in the church. And next, I tell you that this is my 
 commandment : — If you love me, and as you love me, 
 love your brother. I do not ask that your love to me, 
 which I willingly accept, should manifest itself in any 
 other way than that. 
 
 Ah ! what a constant tendency is there in my heart 
 to think that I can love God otherwise, and manifest 
 my love to him otherwise, than in the way of loving my 
 brother, and loving him simply at God's command. I 
 would fain try to lavish upon God directly proofs of my 
 affection, such as, if he were man and not God, might 
 please him. I would fain make him the object of im- 
 mediate familiar and affectionate acts and offices of 
 endearment ; as if I might return and reciprocate his 
 love, as I would that of an equal. But he checks me. 
 " He is my Lord ; my goodness reacheth not to him." 
 It is not thus that you can really act out the very love 
 with which I have first loved you. To do so, you must 
 deal as I do with the seen, not the unseen. Nay more. 
 It is not thus that I would have you to act out the very 
 love with which I have first loved you, assuming that 
 you return and reciprocate it to the fuU. For this is 
 my commandment to you, that loving me you love your 
 brother also. It is my commandment now, and will be 
 the criterion, the test of my judgment in the great day. 
 For, hear the words of my beloved Son, who is then to 
 sit on the throne of judgment : " Verily I say unto you, 
 inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 these my brethren, ye have done it unto me ;" — " Verily 
 
god's children and himself. 169 
 
 I say unto you, inasmucli as ye did it not to one of the 
 least of these, ye did it not to me." 
 
 III. There is yet another view of the connection 
 between love to the brethren and love to God suggested 
 in the next verse, which seems to bring out the real 
 explanation and ultimate principle of John's teaching 
 as to what we may call the law of divine love : — " Who- 
 soever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God : 
 and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him 
 also that is begotten of him " (v. 1). 
 
 Let the precise point of the argument be once more 
 observed. It is that God's love to us should work in us 
 love to our brother ; and that in fact its working in us 
 love to our brother is a better test of our knowing and 
 believing it, than our professing any amount of love to 
 God himself. It is so, first, because it is only in loving 
 our brother whom we see, not in loving God whom we 
 do not see, that we can exercise the very love wherewith 
 God has first loved us. It is so, secondly, because in 
 loving our brother we are obeying the commandment of 
 him whom we profess to love ; and so proving our love. 
 And it is so, thirdly, because in loving our brother we 
 love one who is begotten of God ; and we love him as 
 begotten of God ; on the ground of his filial relationship 
 to him who first loved us, and on account of whose first 
 love to us we love. 
 
 My brother whom I love, let it be noted, is now 
 viewed as a believer, a child of God. He was not always 
 so, when I loved him with a brother's yearning j^ity 
 and a brother's desire to save him, any more than I was 
 
170 THE OBJECTS OF OUE LOVE : 
 
 always so, when God loved me with, a Father's yearning 
 pity and a Father's desire to save me. But he is so now ; 
 and I love him as such. Wliy ? Because he is born or 
 "begotten of God." I, as begotten of God, love him, as 
 begotten of God. The bond of love is our being both of 
 us begotten of God, and it is a bond which God owns 
 and sanctions ; for the essence of it is love to himself. 
 It is love to him, but it is love to him in a special aspect 
 or character ; as a Father — as one who begets. Is not 
 that, however, the very aspect, the very character, in 
 which he best loves to be loved ? Is he not from the 
 beginning bent on being loved as a Father, as one be- 
 getting ? Is it not in that aspect and character, as a 
 Father, as one begetting, that he would be known and 
 loved, when, "bringing in the first begotten into the 
 world, he says. Let all the angels of God worship him?" 
 Is it otherwise than as a Father, as one begetting, that 
 he would be known and loved, when a voice from heaven 
 proclaims, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased?" He cares not to receive honour or worship 
 or affection at our hands, unless it is rendered to him as 
 a Father begetting ; as the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Yes ; he cries : If you would love me, as 
 I choose to be loved, you must love me as a Father be- 
 getting. And the only sure proof of your so loving me, 
 is your loving him who is begotten of me. 
 
 First and primarily that must imply your loving 
 Jesus, the Christ, who alone is my only begotten, well- 
 beloved Son. Hear him ; — worship him ; — if you would 
 love me ; — love me as the eternal Father begetting him 
 
god's children and himself. 171 
 
 from everlasting ; love me as sending him to save, and 
 raising him from the dead with this acknowledgment, 
 " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." But 
 now in him I am begetting others to be my sons ; so 
 begetting them by the power of my Spirit, as to make 
 them one with him who is my only begotten Son, that 
 he may be " the first-born among many brethren." One 
 after another, I am thus begetting cliildren to myself 
 And every one of them is to me what my only begotten 
 Son is. Can you say that he is so to you ? He will be 
 so, if you love me ; — " For every one that loveth him 
 that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him" 
 (v. 1). 
 
 It is at this point exactly that these two affections, 
 or rather these two modes of the same afiectiou of love, 
 — our loving because God first loved us, — loving God as 
 our Father and men as our brethren, — come to be welded, 
 as it were, together ; and the mode of reasoning seems 
 to be reversed. For whereas before, our loving our bro- 
 ther is made the proof of our loving God in obedience to 
 his commandment, now the matter is put in the very 
 opposite way : " By this we know that we love the 
 children of God, when we love God " (v. 2). 
 
 It is a seasonable and salutary turn that is here given 
 to the train of thought. It ushers in a new subject. 
 But first, it fitly finishes off the present one. It is a 
 useful closing caution. Much stress has been laid upon 
 your loving your brother ; loving him as you see him ; 
 loving him because God commands you ; loving him 
 as begotten of God. But your love to your brethren 
 
172 THE OBJECTS OF OUR LOYE. 
 
 needs to he carefully watched. Is it really love to tliem, 
 as brethren, as children of God ? Is it love to them with 
 a view to their being children of God ? Is it love to 
 them because they are children of God ? For it may be 
 on other grounds and for other reasons that you love 
 them. It may be a love of mere natural sentmieut and 
 affection ; a love merely human ; having little or nothing 
 in common with the love with which God first loved 
 you. To be trustworthy at aU, as a test of God's giving 
 you of his Spirit, and so dwelling in you, it must be love 
 having in it the element of godliness ; love having re- 
 spect to God ; love to them because God loves them and 
 you love God. "By this we know that we love the 
 children of God," as the children of God, when we love 
 them because "we love God, and keep his command- 
 ments " (v. 2). 
 
god's commandments not geievous. ]73 
 
 PART FOUETH. 
 
 THE DIVIKE FELLOWSHIP OF LIGHT, EIGHT- 
 EOUSNESS, AND LOVE, OYEECOMING THE 
 WOELD AND ITS PEINCE. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 LOVE TO GOD KEEPING HIS COMMANDMENTS AND 
 NOT FINDING THEM GRIEVOUS. 
 
 " By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love 
 God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, 
 that we keep his commandments : and his commandments are not 
 grievous." — 1 John v. 2, 3. 
 
 The three elements or conditions of the " fellowship with 
 the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ," in which 
 John would have us to be joint partakers with himself 
 and his fellow apostles ; — Light, the primary ; Eighteous- 
 ness, the intermediate ; Love, the ultimate one ; — having 
 been considered ; — we enter, as it seems to me, on a 
 fourth section of this great treatise, in which the divine 
 fellowship regarded as complete is viewed in its relation 
 to the conflict that is ever going on between God and 
 the world — between the Holy and True One and the 
 father of lies. The position of one enjoying fellowship 
 with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ in light, 
 righteousness, and love, demands on the one hand very 
 
174 god's commandments 
 
 thorougli loyalty, and on the other hand ensures very 
 thorough victory ; loyalty as regards God and his law ; 
 victory as regards the wicked one and the system, or state 
 of society, which he organises and influences, — the world 
 lying in him. 
 
 Hence the fitness or propriety of the introductory 
 text in this part of the Epistle being one that enforces 
 not only obedience, but obedience so thoroughly loving 
 and loyal as to be divested of all the feeling of irksome- 
 ness that is apt to embitter a state of subjection and 
 subordination. 
 
 For the assertion, — "his commandments are not 
 grievous," — is not an incidental remark merely ; it is of 
 the essence of the apostle's argument. If the test of 
 God's giving us of his Spirit, and so dwelling in us (iii. 
 24, and iv. 13), is to be pre-eminently our loving our 
 brother (iv. 7 and 20, etc.), it concerns us much that our 
 love to our brother should be itself thoroughly tried and 
 proved. Is it love to our fellow-men as seen by us in 
 the same light in which God sees them and us when he 
 loveth us ? (iv. 20). Is it moreover a love that has re- 
 spect to God (iv. 21) ; that loves the begotten for the 
 begetter's sake (v. 1) ; that loves the children for the 
 relation in which they stand to the Father ; out of love 
 to the Father himself, and in obedience to him ? (v. 2). 
 This last condition is what really connects our loving 
 them with our loving him. And it does so, in virtue of 
 a general law or principle ■!'—" His commandments are 
 not grievous." 
 
NOT GRIEVOUS. l75 
 
 The statement is not absolute but relative. It points 
 out, not what the commandments of God are in them- 
 selves, but what they are to us, in our sense and appre- 
 hension of them. It may indeed be most truly said of 
 them, considered in themselves, that they are not griev- 
 ous ; on the contrary, they are all most reasonable, 
 equitable, and beneficent. Nothing that God orders us 
 to do, nothing that he requires us to suffer, can fairly be 
 called grievous. But to me they are too often very 
 grievous. I feel them to be irksome and heavy. Yes ! 
 That is the exact word. They are heavy, weighty, bur- 
 densome. 
 
 That is my fault, you say. Be it so. Let us ask 
 how it comes to be so ; and let us ask also how it may 
 cease to be so. 
 
 But first, let us fix it, as a first principle, in our 
 understandings and hearts, that no keeping of God's 
 commandments will suffice to meet the condition or re- 
 qunement now in question, that is a keeping of them as 
 grievous. They are not kept at all, in the sense of the 
 identification, — " this is the love of God, that we keep 
 his commandments," — if they are kept by us as grievous ; 
 if in keeping them we feel them to be grievous. Under 
 this conviction, let us look into this matter of the griev- 
 ousness of God's commandments, and the way of delivery 
 from any sense or suspicion of their being grievous. 
 
 1. Beginning at the lowest stage, it is not difficult 
 to see how God's commandments must be grievous to 
 me, if I am bent on giving full scope to the movements 
 of my inner man which are opposed to them. I cannot 
 
176 god's commandments 
 
 shake off the sense of their being binding on me ; and 
 binding on me under the sanction of terrible responsi- 
 bilities. Let me drown conviction as I may in pleasure's 
 bowl, or stifle it in the dm and whirl of worldly business, 
 conscience will not let me take my ease ; I cannot get 
 rid of God's commandments. They haunt and harass 
 me ; they disturb and trouble me ; they are grievous ; 
 often beyond expression grievous. How shall I ever 
 shake off' the feeling of their grievousness ? 
 
 2. Shall it be by keeping them scrupulously, accord- 
 ing to the strictest letter of the law ? I become a pains- 
 taking Pharisee ; a rigid and exact observer of all the 
 commandments. They shall not be grievous to me any 
 more, on account of my wiKul opposition to them. But 
 alas ! they are grievous still. I may reduce them to a 
 minimum of obligation, and stretch my keeping of them 
 to a maximum of fulfilment. I may make the least I 
 can of them, by turning their living spirit into outward 
 formal acts ; and I may make the most of myseK and 
 my obedience, in the way of exaggerating my sacrifices 
 and services. Still God's commandments are gi'ievous 
 to me. My religion, such as it is, is a mere burden and 
 oppression. I would shake it off" if my conscience would 
 allow me. 
 
 3. But my conscience will not allow me. It works 
 in me deeper and deeper ; carrying into the innermost 
 recesses of my spiritual nature, not the letter only, but 
 the spirit also of God's commandments. And now, their 
 grievousness comes out in a new and most distressing 
 experience. For now, not only is my conscience con- 
 
NOT GRIEVOUS. 177 
 
 vinced, but my will is renewed, witli reference to these 
 commandments of God. Both of these results or effects 
 are of the Spirit. They are \vrought simultaneously, 
 and in harmony with one another ; they act and react 
 on one another. My conscience, quickened by the 
 Spmt, sensitively apprehends a spirituality in God's 
 commandments, — my heart, reconciled by the Spirit, 
 lovingly owns an excellency and beauty in them, — un- 
 perceived and unfelt before. I' become alive in my con- 
 science to the imperative necessity of real sj)iritual con- 
 formity in my spirit to the holy and loving spirit of the 
 law ; and that precisely when I am smitten in my heart 
 of hearts with love to it, because it is so spiritually holy 
 and loving. And what follows? If the work of the 
 Spirit goes on, I sink deeper and deeper, as under a 
 heavy burden, growing always heavier. There is an in- 
 creasingly oppressive sense, in my conscience, not only 
 of obligation unfulfilled, but of new guilt contracted. 
 There is an increasingly despairing feeling, in my heart, 
 of the opposition of my nature to the commandments of 
 God's law which I love. My very love to the command- 
 ments of God, — my very " delight in the law after the 
 inner man," — brings out now more than ever the feeling 
 0^ grievousness. Oh, how grievous to me are these com- 
 mandments of my God, which I so heartily approve and 
 love, but which, alas, I more and more helplessly com- 
 plain that I cannot satisfy and keep ! (Eom. vii. 21-25.) 
 4. But "there is now no condemnation to them 
 which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the Spirit." (Eom. viii. 1.) The element of 
 VOL. II. N 
 
178 god's commandments 
 
 grievousness is extracted from God's commandments, 
 only through my believing consciousness and experience 
 of that gi-eat life-giving truth. 
 
 How complete is the provision thus made for eradi- 
 cating every root of bitterness that might make us feel 
 God's commandments to be grievous ! 
 
 Tiliere is, first, a removal of the curse, or the condemna- 
 tion, and a complete restoration of our right standing with 
 God. The element of grievousness arising out of the 
 law's righteous sentence of wrath is removed, in a way 
 that completely divests the very sentence itself of all its 
 grievousness. I cannot rebel against the judgment, how- 
 ever terrible, ^\'hich the righteous law, with its broken 
 commands, entails on me; I cannot complain of it as 
 grievous when, embracing the cross, I am one with him 
 who there on my behalf endured and exhausted it. Nor 
 can the demand of perfect compliance with the spirit of 
 all the commandments, as the only condition of life, 
 grieve me now, when I see it so fully met on my behalf 
 by the obedience unto death of God's own beloved Son. 
 
 Then, secondly, there is the renewal of my whole 
 moral nature, bringing it back to its original conformity 
 to the nature of God, as that nature is expressed and 
 manifested in his commandments. This also is essential 
 to the removal of the feeling of grievousness. If I am 
 a spiritual man as regards the commandments of God, 
 then, — apart from the feeling of the utter hopelessness 
 of my ever being justified, in the only way in which I 
 now care to be justified, in terms of the law, fuUy vindi- 
 cated and satisfied, — there is the other feeling of the 
 
NOT GEIEVOUS. 179 
 
 utter hopelessness of my ever being sanctified, after the 
 fashion of the only sort of holiness that can now content 
 me, the holy loving law of the holy loving God. But 
 here too my case is met. In Christ Jesus my Lord I 
 have not only justifying righteousness but renewing 
 grace. The grievousness of a felt discrepancy between 
 my nature and God's commandments, between my spirit 
 and theirs, need not continue. There may still be a vast 
 difference in degree ; but there need be no difference in 
 kind. My moral nature and that of God are now one, 
 if I am renewed after his image. May not the grievous- 
 ness of his commandments now cease for ever ? 
 
 5. An ominous fact here looms out from across the 
 gulf that separates the primeval paradise from our pre- 
 sent world. Before the fall, in the garden of Eden, 
 God's commandment was felt to be grievous ; the only 
 commandment which he saw fit formally to give. The 
 reptile insinuation — "Yea, hath God said ye shall not?" 
 — found entrance into the ear, the mind, the heart, of 
 righteous innocence, created after the image of God. To 
 Eve, to Adam, yet unfallen, — with the divine likeness 
 in which they were made still enth'e, — the command- 
 ment of God came to be grievous. What are we to 
 make of that ? 
 
 It was the devil's fault. Be it so ; let him bear the 
 blame. But what of his own sin and fall, the sin and 
 fall of himself and all his host ? There was no tempter 
 admitted into their abode. There were no outward cir- 
 cumstances to explain the rise of any feeling of griev- 
 ousness in their breasts. Yet to them, still unfallen, the 
 
180 god's commandments 
 
 commandment of God was grievous. Wliat shall we 
 say to these thmgs ? How do they affect us ? 
 
 Ah ! do they not serve to bring out a new and most 
 blessed view of the gospel method of salvation ? John 
 says expressly and absolutely, without qualification or 
 reserve, that " God's commandments are not grievous." 
 He says this Avitli reference to himself and all believers. 
 His meaning must be, that he and they are in such a 
 state, and of such a mind, as to preclude the possibility 
 of God's commandments ever being, or ever becoming, 
 grievous either to him or to them. And what does that 
 imply ? 
 
 If the plan of gi^ace made provision only for our 
 being restored, in respect of position and nature, to what 
 our first parents were before they fell, — if we were to be 
 even as the angels were, — however thoroughly that end 
 might be accomplished, it would not afford any adequate 
 security against God's commandments being felt to be 
 grievous. For, in fact, the risk to be obviated, the evil 
 to be remedied and guarded against, is not that God's 
 commandments in detail are grievous, some more so and 
 some less, but that his commandments as a whole are 
 grievous. The grievance is that he commands us at all. 
 Even when the thing commanded is most easy and 
 pleasant, most manifestly right and good, its being com- 
 manded may make it grievous. Tliat was the case in 
 heaven, when the commandment to " worship the Son" 
 turned out to be grievous to so many of the yet unfallen 
 angels. It was the case also in paradise, Avhen the com- 
 mandment not to eat of the forbidden tree became griev- 
 
NOT GRIEVOUS. 181 
 
 ous to our first parents. It might be tlie case again, in 
 paradise restored, in heaven gained, if we who are 
 redeemed and renewed were to be merely such, in posi- 
 tion and in nature, as the angels were in heaven, and 
 our first parents were in paradise, before they fell.* 
 
 The real seat of the mischief is not reached imless 
 the very possibility of our ever feeling it grievous to be 
 commanded is thoroughly, conclusively, and effectually, 
 precluded and barred. And what potent spell, what re- 
 sistless charm, is to secure that blessed result ? AVhat 
 but the spell, the charm of love ? And what love ? 
 What but the love Avhich is God's very essence, mani- 
 fested in a way altogether new and inconceivable before- 
 hand; in a way in wliich, but for the entrance of sin 
 and evil into his moral creation, it never could have 
 been manifested ? Yes. That love of God, manifested 
 in his sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, 
 — known and believed by us, — bringing us into a perfect 
 love-relationship to him and working in us love of the 
 very same sort with itself, — that love of him who is 
 love, thus manifested to us, apprehended by us, and re- 
 produced in us, — that love it is, and that alone, which 
 puts finally and for ever away out of our hearts every 
 shred and vestige of the old spirit, the old leaven, 
 which, — ^jealous of restraint and aspiring to independ- 
 ence, — counts it a grievance to be commanded. This is 
 that new tiling under the sun for which sin or moral evil 
 gave occasion, and for which that alone could give 
 occasion. This is God's method of overcoming evil with 
 
 * See " Lect\;res on the Fatherhood of God;" especially Appendix I. 
 
182 god's commandments 
 
 sood ; higher good than could ever otherwise have been 
 reached. This is the triumph of love ; reconciling man's 
 proud soul to dependence and obedience ; expelling the 
 last lin£rerin(T feeling of soreness because he is under 
 authority ; the last lingering feeling of desire to be his 
 own master, or to rule himself. 
 
 Ah ! if that love has its free course in me ; if I 
 know it and believe it ; if I enter cordially into that 
 perfect relationship and fellowship of love for which it 
 makes provision, and consent to be on that footing of 
 perfect love with God on which he would have me to 
 be ; if now, in consequence, all servile fear is clean 
 gone out of me, and only filial reverence and affection 
 reign within me ; how can it ever, at any time, seem to 
 me grievous that this God should command me ? 
 
 Grievous ! my redeeming God, my loving Father, 
 the loving Father of my Lord ! Grievous that thou 
 shouldst command me ! Grievous that I should be 
 under thee ! Grievous that I am not independent of 
 thee ; left to choose for myself, instead of having thee 
 to choose for for me ; left free to do my own will, and 
 not thine ! ISTay I will not, I cannot any more take 
 exception to thy rightful rule over me, thou loving 
 God and Father who so lovingly makest me thine own ! 
 No, nor to any instance of its exercise, be the instance 
 what it may. Whatever thou commandest, in the line 
 of doing or of suffering, shall please me now, simply 
 because thou commandest it. I dare not promise that 
 there shall be no groans, and tears, and cries, in the 
 doing or the suffering of it. There were gi'oans, and 
 
NOT GKIEVOUS. 183 
 
 tears, and cries, in the doing and suffering of thy will, 
 when the doer and sufferer of it was thine own beloved 
 Son. But to this I will seek to attain, thy grace helping 
 me, that to me now, as one with him, not one of thy 
 commandments shall ever be more grievous than was 
 that " commandment" to him, in obedience to which 
 " he laid down his life for the sheep." 
 
 That was his loving us, with a true brother's love, 
 because " he loved God and kept his commandments." 
 That also was his "overcoming the world," and the 
 world's prince. Thus he proved his love to God, by 
 keeping his commandments ; keeping them as not 
 finding any of them to be grievous. Not grievous to 
 him was the commandment to save his people by dying 
 in their stead. ISTot grievous to him was the command- 
 ment to encounter Satan on their behalf, and win for 
 them the victory over Satan's world. 
 
 And now what is his word to you ? Is it not a 
 word giving you the assurance that you in him wiU find 
 God's commandments no more grievous to you than 
 they were to him ? Yes ! Once more hear his voice : 
 " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
 learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye 
 shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, 
 and my burden is light." All ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden ; ye who are painfully seeking to fulfil 
 the letter of God's law and finding it very hard ; work- 
 ing laboriously at religion as at a weary task ; feeling 
 God's service to be a very drudgery and weariness of 
 
184 god's commandments 
 
 the flesh ; — or ye who, smitten with a sense of the 
 beauty of holiness, the spirituality of the commandment, 
 and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, are desperately 
 striving to get rid of indwelling corruption, and bring 
 your whole inner man into subjection to God and to 
 godliness ; — " aU ye who labour and are heavy laden," 
 not succeeding, not attaining, not able to rise above the 
 feeling of its being, after all, a heavy load that is imposed 
 upon you in the keeping of God's commandments, — 
 " Come unto me ; I will give you rest." 
 
 But how ? " Take my yoke upon you." " For my 
 yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 
 
 Thy yoke, blessed Jesus, easy ! Thy burden 
 light ! The yoke thou didst take on thyself when thou 
 didst consent to sei^ve and obey, even to the laying 
 down of thy life for us, — was that easy ? The burden 
 thou hadst to bear when, aU thy life long and in thy 
 death, thou hadst, in obedience to the Father, and as 
 his servant, to carry our sicknesses, our sorrows, our 
 sins, — was that light ? Is it that yoke of thine that 
 thou invitest us to take upon us ? Is it that burden of 
 thine that thou callest us to bear ? And is it in the 
 taking upon us of that yoke of thine, and in the bearing 
 of that burden of thine, that thou assurest us we shall 
 find rest unto our souls ? 
 
 Even so. Thus and not otherwise will I give you 
 rest when you come to me, — " Take my yoke upon 
 you." But that it may be really my yoke that you 
 take upon you, — " Learn of me ; for I am meek and 
 lowly in heart." Learn of me my own meekness and 
 
NOT GEIEVOUS. 185 
 
 lowliness of heart. Learn of me, coming to me, abiding 
 in me, growing up into me, getting it from me and in 
 me, — learn of me tliat meek, lowly, hearty love and 
 loyalty to my Father, — having in it no element at all 
 of the servile, for all in it is filial, — which makes the 
 hardest yoke easy, the heaviest burden light. For it is 
 thus that, in the consciousness of unbroken filial one- 
 ness with hmi who lays on me the yoke and the burden, 
 I can lift up to him the eye of quiet resignation and 
 reliance, and say, — " Father, glorify thy name ; " " Father, 
 not my will but thine be done;" "Father, into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit." Thy commandments are 
 not grievous to me, for "by keeping them I abide in 
 thy love" (John xv. 10). 
 
186 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 FILIAL FAITH OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 
 
 ' ' For whatsoever is born of God overcometli the world : and this is 
 the victory that overcometli the world, even our faith. Who is 
 he that overcometh the world, hut he that believeth that Jesus is 
 the Son of God ?" — 1 John v. 4, 5. 
 
 Here again the apostle brings in "tlie world ;" and lie 
 does so in the very midst of a singularly high estimate 
 of the believer's standing and character. He has placed 
 him in a relation of close intimacy with God, and of 
 serious responsibility as regards the special duty which 
 that implies. For what is brotherly love, as John 
 describes it ? It is our letting the very love with wdiich 
 God has loved us go forth, through us, to all men ; and 
 our embracing all who accept that love as brethren in 
 the Lord. John has associated this exercise of love on 
 our part, not only with God's exercise of love to us, but 
 with our obligation of loving obedience to God. That 
 loving obedience, if it is to be the obedience of persons 
 accepting and transmitting the love of God, must be 
 uncomplaining and ungrudging. It must be obedience 
 counting none of God's commandments grievous ; be- 
 cause it owns freely God's absolute right to command, 
 and therefore confesses that nothing which he commands 
 can be wrong. 
 
OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 187 
 
 But the world comes in ; and it must be somehow 
 disposed of, and got rid of. It must be disposed of, and 
 got rid of, in its bearing on our position and our duty 
 as now brought out. In this view I ask you to con- 
 sider — I. "What the world is, and how it is that the 
 only way of dealing Avith it is to overcome it. And 
 II. How the world is to be overcome by the new birth 
 and through faith. 
 
 I. The indefiniteness, — the sort of unsatisfactory 
 vagueness, — that is sometimes felt to attach to the scrip- 
 tural idea of the world, is here somewhat obviated by 
 the connection or train of thought, in which it occurs. 
 The fact (ver. 4), that " whatsoever is born of God over- 
 cometh the world," is given apparently as the reason 
 why to such a one (ver. 3) " the commandments of God 
 are not grievous." The world, therefore, it might seem, 
 must be characterised by an impression or feeling to the 
 opposite effect ; — that the commandments of God are 
 grievous. "Wherever that impression or feeling prevails, 
 there is the world. Of course, there are other character- 
 istic features by which the world may be recognised and 
 identified ; some of which are brought out elsewhere in 
 this epistle, as well as in other books of the New Testa- 
 ment. For the most part, indeed, when the world is 
 spoken of in any passage of scripture as the antagonist 
 of God, — of his kingdom, his cause, his people, his law, 
 — there is, in the passage itself, some clue to guide or 
 help us to a right apprehension of what particular aspect 
 of the world is meant. And it might serve to give point 
 and precision to the teaching of any scriptm'al text on 
 
188 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 the subject of the world, — its relation to us as beKevers 
 and our attitude towards it, — if instead of contenting 
 ourselves with a general notion of it, as a system or 
 society somehow opposed to godliness, we fastened on 
 the exact sort of opposition which the text in question 
 may be fitted to suggest. As to our present text, for 
 instance, we can have little difficulty. What is the 
 world which faith overcomes ? It is whatever system 
 or way of life, whatever society or companionship of 
 men, tends to make us feel God's commandments, or 
 any of them, to be grievous. 
 
 Here then, at all events, we have no mere vague 
 denunciation of some formidable, but somewhat dim and 
 shado\vy enemy ; but a definition sufiiciently intelligible, 
 and sufficiently precise and practical. Ponder it for a 
 little, and apply it as a test. What is the world to you ? 
 It is whatever, it is whoever, is apt to make you feel 
 God's commandments to be grievous. That is a search- 
 ing test, if faitfuUy applied by one deeply conscious of 
 that carnal nature in himself, even in his renewed self, 
 which is ever ready to prompt or to welcome the sugges- 
 tion. That carnal nature in you is not necessarily the 
 world ; but all that ministers to it is the world. The 
 natural disposition in you to count the commandments 
 of God grievous is very strong. Do you feel its strength? 
 Are you sensitively alive to its continual and powerful 
 worldng ? Does it vex and distress you ? If so, and in 
 proportion as it is so, you are in a position to discern 
 this mark by which the world may be known ; whether 
 as an order of things, or as a fellowship of men. 
 
OVERCOMING THE WOELD. 189 
 
 There is an order, or, if you will, a disorder, of 
 tilings ; a way of occupying the mind, amusing the 
 fancy, gratifying the taste, stimulating the passions, 
 warming the imagination, interesting the heart ; which, 
 if you are spiritual, and honest in your s]3irituality, you 
 must feel, when you try it by this touchstone, to be the 
 world. Ask yourself, at the close of an hour or two, or 
 half an hour, spent in reading, or in musing, or in walk- 
 ing abroad, or at table, or at any sort of work, or recrea- 
 tion, or elegant accomplishment that you like : — Has the 
 occupation left you less inclined than you were before 
 to comply with a call of duty, to submit to a sacrifice of 
 inclination, to engage in prayer, to go forth on an errand 
 of pious love ? Are you more disposed than otherwise 
 you might have been to feel any such demand upon you 
 to be a sort of interruption, and as such to be somewhat 
 irksome ? I am not concerned to maintain that abso- 
 lutely and always this is of itself proof positive that 
 what you have been occupied about is the world. But 
 this I say ; it is at least a very strong presumption. 
 And when you find that upon your being occupied in 
 the same way a second time, or a third, the effect is 
 much the same, the presumption rises into certainty. 
 "Whatever it may be as regards others, so far as you are 
 concerned, to all practical intents and purposes, that is 
 the world. So also, in the matter of your intercourse 
 with men, this rule of judgment will often help you to 
 separate the precious from the vile. Who are they from 
 whose company, however otherwise pleasant and profit- 
 able, you come, a little, just a very little, more apt than 
 
190 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 is your wont, to think that God is pressing rather hard 
 upon you, or upon some other child of God whose case 
 you pity? You are tempted slightly to lose patience 
 and temper. You may be at a loss to explain how this 
 comes about ; for you cannot perhaps lay your finger 
 on anything particular in what has been going on that 
 may explain it. But you feel it ; and that should be 
 enough for you. Do not hesitate to acknowledge that 
 such meetings and companionships are to be regarded 
 and treated by you as the world. Let it be fixed in 
 your minds as a great truth, that the world to be over- 
 come comprehends all that you come in contact with 
 which has any tendency to awaken in you the feeling 
 that " God's conunandments are grievous." 
 
 If this is a true account of the world, as here pre- 
 sented to us, it must be very evident that it is a world 
 to be " overcome." "We cannot deal with it, if we would 
 avoid its deleterious and deadly influence, in any other 
 way. We cannot escape from it, or put it aside. As 
 regards some of its forms and manifestations we may do 
 so. AAHiere we have freedom of choice, we may shun its 
 occupations and companionships. And when these are 
 of such a nature in themselves, or have such influence 
 upon us, — or upon any brother whom we are called to 
 love, — as to foster the impression of God's command- 
 ments being grievous, we are bound to shun them. "VVe 
 are under no obligation whatever to frequent the theatre, 
 the ball-room, the race-course ; to court the friendship 
 of dissolute hunters after pleasure or frivolous votaries 
 of fashion ; to expose ourselves to the contamination of 
 
OVEKCOMING THE WORLD. 191 
 
 unprofitable reading and discourse. So far we may and 
 must " come out and be separate, and touch not the 
 unclean thing, if we would be the sons and daughters of 
 the Lord God Almighty." But we do not thus get rid 
 of the world. It still presses hard upon us, with its 
 suggestions from every side that the service of God is 
 not perfect freedom. All the ongoings and arrangements 
 of its necessary business, even the customary usages of the 
 home circle itself, are but too ready to convey impres- 
 sions to that effect. Nay, in the loneliest desert, — in the 
 remotest cell hermit ever dwelt in, — we cannot shut out 
 airy voices whispering in the ear that something we have 
 to do or bear is hard ; we cannot lay an arrest on ideal 
 fascinations shedding a gloom on the cloister's austere 
 devotion, or on the real trials of life. No ; the world 
 cannot be shunned. Neither can it be conciliated. "\Ve 
 cannot make any compromise with it. The only effec- 
 tual, the only possible way is to overcome it. 
 
 And the manner of overcoming it must be peculiar. 
 It must be such as thoroughly to meet and obviate that 
 tendency to minister to a rebellious frame of mind which 
 constitutes the chief characteristic, and mdeed the very 
 essence, of what is here called the world. 
 
 II. Two explanations accordingly, of this overcoming 
 of the world are given ; the one having reference to the 
 original source, the other to the continued following out, 
 of the victory (ver. 4). 
 
 1. "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the 
 world." So the victory begins ; tliat is its seed or germ. 
 And as to its seed or germ, it is complete ; potentially 
 
J 
 
 192 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 complete, though not so in actual result, fully and in 
 detail. Being born or begotten of God implies the over- 
 coming of the world. Por whatever is born of God neces- 
 sarily, ipso facto, overcomes the world. The statement is 
 very wide ; and it seems evidently to imply that there is 
 positively no other way of overcoming the world except 
 by our being born or begotten of God ; that God himself 
 could not enable us to do this otherwise. There is that 
 in our being born or begotten of God which secures, and 
 which alone can secure, our overcoming the world. 
 And what can that be but the begetting in us of a frame 
 of mind which cuts up by the roots the whole strength 
 of the world's hold over us ; — the idea, namely, of God's 
 commandments being grievous ? 
 
 Consider, in this view, what it is to be born or be- 
 gotten of God. It is more than being created, or even 
 created anew. It is not our being made anew, or made 
 over again ; as if the simple fiat of omnipotence went 
 forth : Let what has made itself corrupt be re-made, pure 
 as at the first. That would not be besrettinsr on God's 
 part, or being begotten on ours. The new birth is indeed 
 a new creation ; but it is something more ; at least it is a 
 new creation of a very special sort. Christ's birth was 
 a creation. In his birth there was created for him a 
 body, a holy humanity, in the Virgin's womb. But the 
 angel said, " That holy thing which shall be born of thee 
 shall be called the Son of God." He was to be called 
 the Son of God in a higher sense than any sense in 
 which the first man might have been so called; and that 
 with reference even, — nay with reference especially, — 
 
OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 193 
 
 to his human nature and condition. He was made man, 
 not by a mere creative act as Adam was ; but by genera- 
 tion ; being " conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost." 
 So also in us the new creation is a new birth. When 
 the Holy Ghost makes us new creatures, we are "be- 
 gotten of God ;" "his seed is in us," — the divine germ 
 of a new nature and a new life. 
 
 Tliis, let it be noted also, is something more than 
 God's consenting to reckon us his children, by a gi-acious 
 act of adoption. It is his making us really, in our very 
 nature, his children. It is not merely that he takes us 
 to be on a new footing with him, as I might take a 
 houseless orphan to be to me as a son. Literally and 
 tridy he begets us as children to himseK. The house- 
 less orphan whom I desire to have for my son may never 
 be really a son to me. I may fail in all my attempts to 
 make him, in any true or valid sense, my son. He will 
 be my servant, because he cannot help it ; he will render 
 to me punctual, and even punctilious, obedience. But 
 alas ! it is not such obedience as I care for. I see too 
 clearly that he often looks on me still as a hard master, 
 and feels my commandments to be grievous. No such 
 disappointment can await the Almighty Father. He 
 begets by his Spirit those whom he adopts in his Son. 
 They are begotten of God ; begotten by the agency of 
 his Spirit, as his incarnate Son was ; begotten, to be to 
 him what he is ; to feel towards him as he feels. That 
 ensures their overcoming whatever might tempt them to 
 count God's commandments grievous ; or, in other words, 
 their overcoming the world. 
 VOL. IL 
 
194 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 " Look unto Jesus." Was ever any servant of God, 
 — for such he was, — placed in circumstances more likely 
 to make the commandments of God be felt as grievous 
 — such commandments especially as he had to fulfil? 
 Go with him through all his experience in the world. 
 The commandments of God laid on him ; the things he 
 had to do, the things he had to suffer ; were surely capable 
 of being represented to him as grievous, and regarded by 
 him as grievous. They were so represented to him by the 
 world and its prince. Were they so regarded by him ? 
 And if not, why not? Because he was "begotten of 
 God ; " begotten of God, not merely as to his divine 
 nature, but as to his human nature also ; as " God mani- 
 fest in the flesh;" "Jesus Christ come in the flesh;" 
 " the man Christ Jesus." In respect of his manhood, as 
 well as his Godhead, he is the only begotten Son of 
 God; occupying a son's place in the heart of God; 
 having a son's affection towards God in his own heart. 
 Therefore no commandment of God, whatever tears and 
 groans and cries it might extort from his feeble flesh, 
 could ever be grievous to his filial spirit. So, in virtue 
 of his being born of God, he overcame the world. 
 
 And so also we in virtue of our being born of God, 
 overcome the world ; the world which is ever insinuat- 
 ing that the commandments of God are grievous ; that 
 the things he requires us to do, and the things he re- 
 quires us to suffer, are hard. We never can withstand 
 these insinuations of the world, fitting in so well into our 
 own carnal disposition, unless we stand in a filial rela- 
 tion to God, and are possessed of a filial frame of mind 
 
OVERCOMING THE WOELD, 195 
 
 — a filial heart — towards him ; being not only adopted 
 by him, but begotten of him. But being his children 
 indeed; standing to him in the relation of sons, and 
 having our whole inner man renewed into harmony and 
 correspondence with that relation ; being to him all that 
 his only begotten Son is, and feeling towards him as his 
 only begotten Son feels ; we have such personal know- 
 ledge of him as our Father, such loving acquaintance 
 with him, such insight into his character and plans, such 
 cordial sympathy with him in the great work which he 
 is carrying on in the earth, as must convince us that 
 nothing he can demand of us as his ministers and 
 servants, nothing he can lay upon us, can be anything 
 else than what we ought to welcome in the words and 
 in the spirit of Jesus : " I delight to do thy will, my 
 God; yea, thy law is within my heart." 
 
 2. This implies faith; and faith in constant and 
 lively exercise. Our overcoming the world is not an 
 achievement completed at once, and once for all, in our 
 being begotten of God. It is a life-long business ; a pro- 
 longed and continuous triumph in a prolonged and con- 
 tinuous strife. We are to be always anew, all our days, 
 overcoming the world ; " and this is the victory that 
 overcometh the world, even our faith." Our being born 
 of God does indeed give us the victory ; it puts us in the 
 right position, and endows us with the needful power, 
 for overcoming the world. But we have still before us 
 the work of actually, from day to day, all our lifelong, 
 in point of fact, overcoming the world. And it is by 
 faith that we do so. Our being born of God is the 
 
196 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 source of tlie victory ; our faitli is the realisation of it, 
 or the acting of it out. Our being born of God fits and 
 qualifies us for overcoming the world ; our faith really 
 overcomes it. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to harmonise these two things ; our 
 being " born of God and so overcoming the world," and 
 "the victory which overcometh the world being our 
 faith." For our being born of God, which is the secret 
 of our overcoming the world, is itself intimately con- 
 nected with faith ; it originates faith and culminates in 
 faith ; its immediate outgoing in activity is faith. And 
 therefore faith, continually exercised, constantly acting, 
 is the instrument of victory. ISTor is it merely faith ap- 
 prehending a past event in our moral history — an ac- 
 complished change in our spiritual condition, our being 
 "born of God." It is faith exercised upon a present 
 object; not looking back or looking in, but looking out ; 
 " looking unto Jesus." For " who is he that overcometh 
 the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son 
 of God?" Jesus is the ever-present object of this ever- 
 acting faith ; Jesus considered as the Son of God. For 
 it is the sonship of Jesus that our faith grasps, embraces, 
 and appropriates. And it is because it does so that it is 
 " the victory which overcometh the world." Who is he 
 who is at any given moment, and with reference to any 
 given trial or temptation, really overcoming the world ? 
 Is it not he who, at that very moment, and with special 
 reference to that very trial or temptation, is " believing 
 that Jesus is the Son of God ; " so believing as to be one 
 with him in his being so ; of one mind and of one heart. 
 
OVEKCOMING THE WORLD. 197 
 
 then and there, as to the precise matter in hand or the 
 particular question raised ; of one mind and heart with 
 Jesus the Son of God ; judging the case as he, the Son 
 of God, would have judged it ; feeling as he, the Son of 
 God, would have felt ; acting as in the circumstances 
 he, the Son of God, would have acted ? 
 
 Jesus himself had to overcome, and did overcome, the 
 world. How ? Was it not by faith ? — by faith in his own 
 sonship, or rather faith in God as his Father — faith ever 
 intensely and vividly realising it as a truth that God was 
 his Father ? It was as the Son of God that he looked 
 out upon the world ; from his Father's point of view. 
 It was as the Son of God that he met the world's 
 attractions ; the consciousness of his Father's loye 
 stripped them in his eyes of all their charms. It was 
 as the Son of God that he was tempted ; trust in his 
 Father's faithfulness kept him without sin. It was as 
 the Son of God that he suffered, and suffered willingly, 
 that his Father might be glorified. Into his pure, calm, 
 filial spmt, there never did, there never could, enter the 
 very faintest shadow of a suspicion that anything his 
 Father ordered or ordained could be otherwise than just, 
 and right, and good. Therefore the world had no hold 
 over him ; " the prince of the world had nothing in him." 
 There was not in him any latent or lurking element of 
 possible impatience under the yoke, to which the world 
 might appeal, and by means of which, persuading him 
 that God's way was harsh, the world might subdue him. 
 For though be became the servant of the Father, he was 
 still the Son ; and therefore in serving the Father, being 
 
198 FILIAL FAITH 
 
 still tlie Son, he overcame the world. So we also, be- 
 lieving that Jesus is the Son of God, and being ourselves 
 sons of God in him, may find that in this way we can 
 overcome the world. At all events, we may be very 
 sure that there is no other " victory that overcometh the 
 world" but only "this faith;" this filial faith in God 
 our Father ; giving the lie to all the world's aspersions 
 on his character, and all the world's complaints against 
 his government and law. 
 
 child of God, wouldest thou overcome the world ? 
 Is it thine earnest, anxious, longing desire so to over- 
 come the world that it shall never have power any more 
 to make thee feel any one of thy God's commandments 
 to be grievous ? Is it a distress to thee that such a 
 feeling still prevails so much and so often m thy secret 
 soul — that thy walk before God, thy fellowship with 
 God, thy service of God, are all so marred, tainted, 
 cramped, and hindered, by the ever-recurring suggestion 
 that this or that thing required of thee is hard ? Yes ; 
 it is hard to cut off a right hand and pluck out a right 
 eye ; hard to deny self and take up the cross ; hard to 
 crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts ; hard to 
 go forth unto Christ without the camp bearing his 
 reproach ; hard to forego a seemingly harmless pleasure ; 
 hard to part with one dearly beloved ; hard to bear 
 excruciating pain ; hard to die by premature decay ; 
 hard to lay down life for a brother ! Ah ! is it a grief to 
 thee, a sore mortification and disappointment, that thou 
 art so easily moved by the world; — for it is thy love 
 of the world, or the world's power over thee, that moves 
 
OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 199 
 
 thee ; — thus to think, thus to feel, if not even thus to 
 speak ? Here, and only here, is the remedy. Believe, 
 be always helievmg, that Jesus, so called because he 
 saves his people from their sius, is the Son of God ; that 
 it is as the Son of God that he saves thee ; and that he 
 saves thee so as to make thee a son ; being himself the 
 first-born among many brethren. Eise to the full height 
 of that great position. Realise its greatness ; the great- 
 ness of its freedom ; " the glorious liberty of the sons of 
 God." That is " the victory which overcometh the world," 
 even such "faith" as that. 
 
200 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 THE THREE WITNESSES AND THEIR AGREEMENT. 
 
 " This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Clirist ; not by 
 water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that 
 beareth witness, because the Spiiit is truth. . . . And there 
 are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the 
 blood : and these three agree in one."* — 1 John v. 6 and 8. 
 
 The "faith" wliich is "the victory that overcometh the 
 world" has for its object Jesus, viewed as the Son of 
 God ; for " who is he that overcometh the world, but he 
 that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" This 
 faith, however, does not simply contemplate Jesus as 
 the Son of God ; dwelling exclusively either on his 
 original and eternal sonship, or on that sonship as 
 manifested in his human nature. It has to deal with 
 his work as well as with his person. It has to deal with 
 him as "come;" "come in the flesh;" "come into the 
 world." And in particular, it has to deal with two 
 accessories or accompaniments of his coming ; two dis- 
 tinguishing facts or features characteristic of the manner 
 of his coming and its design. He came, he is come, 
 through the medium, or in the element, not of water only, 
 
 * I acquiesce of course in the rejection of the 7th verse, and of the 
 words "in earth" in the 8th verse, as not in the original. I need not 
 argue the point, for it is now all but universally admitted by iatelligent 
 critics. 
 
AND THEIK AGEEEMENT. 201 
 
 but of blood also. So coming lie is " Jesus tbe Clirist ;" 
 the anointed Saviour ; and it is our faith in liim as the 
 Son of God so come, — as Jesus Christ coming by or with 
 water and blood, — which is the victory that overcometli 
 the world. " He is come by water and blood ; " not " by 
 water only," as his forerunner came, " but by water and 
 blood ;" — himseK undergoing a baptism of blood as well 
 as of water, and so having blood and water available 
 for those who are one with him. 
 
 This was conclusively indicated when on the cross 
 his side was pierced, and "forthwith came thereout 
 blood and water" (John xix. 34). Then he was seen 
 coming by water and by blood. And tlie fact was 
 verified on the spot. " He that saw it bare record, and 
 his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, 
 that ye might believe" (ver. 35). So John writes in his 
 Gospel, very emphatically giving us his testimony, as an 
 eyewitness, for a ground of our faith. 
 
 Here, in his epistle, he points to testimony still 
 higher ; not human, but divine ; testimony, not to the 
 mere matter of fact which he saw, but to its spiritual 
 significancy and power, that we may so believe as by 
 our faith to overcome the world ; — " it is the Spirit that 
 beareth witness." And of the Spirit as bearing witness, 
 not only may it be said that " his record is true and he 
 knoweth that he saith true." He is truth itself ; " he 
 is himself truth," and he guides into all truth. This is 
 a greater witness than John could be ; for the Spirit 
 attests, not the outward historical occurrence merely, 
 but its inward meaninfj: and saving virtue. 
 
202 THE THEEE WITNESSES 
 
 But even tlie Spirit can thus Lear witness onlj by 
 associating with himself two other witnesses. These are 
 " the water and the blood;" the very water and the very 
 blood by which " Jesus Christ came." Bearing witness 
 that he so " cometh by water and blood/' the Spirit 
 makes the water and the blood themselves witnesses 
 along with him ; — so that " there are three that bear 
 witness, the Spirit, the water, and the blood : and these 
 three agree in one" (ver. 8). 
 
 Two topics here suggest themselves for inquiry, — I. 
 The manner of this threefold testimony ; and II. Its 
 harmony and completeness. 
 
 I. Let the manner of this threefold testimony be 
 considered. Let the witnesses be, as it were, called in 
 court ; first the single witness indicated in the sixth 
 verse — the Spirit ; and then the other two pointed out 
 in the eighth — the water and the blood. 
 
 In the first place, " the Spirit beareth witness." He 
 is the first and principal witness : pre-eminently, the 
 witness-bearer. That he is a fitting witness cannot be 
 doubted ; the only question is, how does he give his 
 testimony? For he does not appear visibly; he does 
 not speak audibly ; we neither " see his shape at any 
 time, nor hear his voice," And yet it is to us that he 
 testifies ; and he testifies to us personally, as the living 
 Spirit to living men, present with us here and now. 
 How then does he make his presence known? And 
 how does he make the purport of his testimony under- 
 stood ? We are called in this matter to take evidence 
 and decide a cause; and, strange to say, the first and 
 
AND THEIR AGREEMENT. 203 
 
 principal witness cited is one wliom we neither see nor 
 hear. 
 
 But there may be evidence of his presence as satis- 
 factory as sight; and there are modes of conveying 
 testimony as intelhgible and unequivocal as spoken 
 language. The Spirit may announce his presence by 
 " a rushing mighty noise," or by his swift descent, like 
 a dove, from on high. By lambent flames, "cloven 
 tongues as of fire," resting or flickering over the heads 
 of an assembled company; by new and strange languages 
 proceeding from their mouths ; by some evidently super- 
 natural work wrought; by some supernatural gift, or 
 endowment, or power imparted; or by moral miracles 
 of converting and quickening grace, as indisputable as 
 any of these ; the presence of the Spirit may be ascer- 
 tained. And if now having him actually with us, we 
 inquire what as a witness he has to say — then, in the 
 inseparable connection which is to be observed between 
 these signs of his ^^resence and certain facts or state- 
 ments otherwise known to us, we may obtain a silent 
 indeed, but a sufficiently explicit reply. We have the 
 word spoken at first, and then written, by holy men of 
 old as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And the 
 Spirit, by whose inspiration that word was originally 
 given, may significantly acknowledge it now as his own, 
 by accompanying tokens of his influence not to be mis- 
 taken. He may, as it were, in our presence and to our 
 satisfaction, before whom he is cited as a witness, homo- 
 logate what he dictated ages ago; and so ex]3ressly 
 signify, by some unquestionable demonstration of his 
 
204 THE THEEE WITNESSES 
 
 power, liis actual concurrence now in what was said or 
 written then, as to make it strictly and directly his 
 testimony to us personally ; and his testimony brought 
 down to the present hour. Thus, in the word, we have 
 the deposition of the Spirit as first and principal witness 
 in this great cause ; we have the j)recise matter of his 
 testimony. And we have it, not merely as the written 
 report of former evidence, but as evidence emitted 
 anew by him to us now. 
 
 This is especially important. The appeal is clearly 
 made, not to the Spirit as having borne witness formerly, 
 and left his testimony on record ; but to the Spirit as 
 bearing witness now. For the witness in this case is 
 not, as in other and ordinary cases, one who dies or goes 
 out of the way. In such cases, we must content our- 
 selves with the notes of the deposition, the report or 
 record of the testimony, as given by him and taken 
 down at the time. Here, the witness is ever living and 
 ever accessible. He is not afar off; he is always at 
 hand ; to verify his own evidence. ISTor can he be at a 
 loss for ways and means of doing so. He is indeed de- 
 termined, so to speak, to preserve his incognito and keep 
 himself concealed. But he is almighty, the Spirit of 
 power, having command over all the moving forces of 
 the world, — the world both of matter and of mind. 
 Therefore he can give intimation of his presence by 
 works peculiarly his own. And these works now he 
 may so connect with words spoken or written of old, as 
 to make us feel, — not only that he then suggested the 
 words as his, — but that he is addressing them to us now 
 
AND THEIK AGKEEMENT. 205 
 
 as his ; not only that he did once hear witness, hut that 
 he is now hearing witness, and that this is his testimony. 
 Thus the Spirit hears present witness through his own 
 inspired word. 
 
 And now, secondly, in the course of giving this testi- 
 mony — in liis very manner of giving it, the Spirit as- 
 sociates with himseK other two witnesses, "the water 
 and the hlood." And these, like the first, are present 
 witnesses. The Spuit, in hearing witness, " takes of 
 what is Christ's and shows it unto us." He points to 
 the son of God, Jesus Christ come in the flesh; and 
 especially to his coming " by water and hlood." 
 
 But how, it may he asked, can the water and the 
 hlood he hrought forward as witnesses now? They 
 might hear silent testimony at the time when they 
 flowed from the smitten side of Jesus on the cross, and 
 they to whom the Spirit was then hearing witness might 
 see, through his teaching, — as the dying thief did, — in 
 the pure water and the precious blood, a confirmation of 
 the truth concerning Christ, that in him there is not 
 only renewal of nature, but redemption also, and remis- 
 sion of sins. But the water and the blood are not acces- 
 sible to us now. The water was spilt on the ground ; 
 and the earth opened her mouth to receive the blood. 
 We would seek in vain, where the cross stood, for any 
 traces of the drops that then fell beside it ; and even if 
 some of these drops had been preserved and handed 
 down to us, they would have been but dead relics, such 
 as superstition loves to dote upon, — not living witnesses, 
 such as the living spirit may associate in witness-bearing 
 
206 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 with himself. The water then and the blood are removed 
 out of the way ; we have them no more within our reach. 
 We have indeed sacramental signs and seals of them, in 
 the water of baptism and the wine of communion. But 
 these elements are really as dead as are the water and the 
 blood which they represent. There cannot be more life 
 in the water of baptism, than there is now in the water 
 that came from the Saviour's side ; nor in the wine of 
 communion than in the blood. But the water and the 
 blood are, as to the matter of them, irrecoverably lost. 
 Still therefore the question remams — How do they now 
 give present living evidence along with the living 
 Spirit ? 
 
 The real explanation is to be found in this considera- 
 tion, that though the event itself, — the flowing of water 
 and blood from the pierced side, — was of brief dura- 
 tion and soon passed away, the relation in which it 
 stands to heaven and earth is permanent and perpetual. 
 For it is the relation in which it stands to heaven and 
 earth, to the divine government and to our human inte- 
 rests, which alone gives to the event, or to any circum- 
 stance connected with the event, its significancy as a 
 testimony. The death of Christ, as a mere fact, occupied 
 but a point of time in the lapse of eternal ages ; but in 
 its bearing upon the designs of God and the destinies of 
 man, — and it is that alone which renders it important, — 
 it has properly no date at all. " From before the founda- 
 tion of the world," Jesus is "the Lamb slain;" he is the 
 Lamb slain, to the close of all things. Whatever there- 
 fore took place or was going on at Christ's death, we are 
 
AND THEIR AGEEEMENT, 207 
 
 to regard as taking place and going on now. Viewed as 
 mere incidents of a historical transaction, the water and 
 the blood flowed once, and have long ceased to flow ; biit 
 then, viewed merely in that light, they tell us nothing, they 
 bear witness to nothing, beyond the bare fact of a human 
 being having died. It is only when they are viewed in 
 their relation to God and to man, that the water and the 
 blood have a tale to tell — a testimony to give. And con- 
 sidered in that light, they must be held as having flowed 
 from the beginning, and as continuing to the end to flow. 
 Hence their testimony is inseparable from that of 
 the Spirit. For it is not in or by themselves, but only 
 in and with and by the Spirit, that the water and the 
 blood are or can be witnesses at all. Only through the 
 Spirit have the wounds of Jesus an intelligible voice and 
 utterance to convince and move the soul. For in truth 
 it may be emphatically said of the water and the blood, 
 and of any testimony they may bear, " It is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." The water and 
 the blood carnally apprehended, regarded and understood 
 after the flesh, are not witnesses at all; at least not 
 witnesses of any heavenly transaction, or of any divine 
 and spiritual truth ; and of course not witnesses of the 
 bearing of any such transaction or any such truth on the 
 highest spiritual and heavenly interests of men. But 
 " spiritually discerned," the water and the blood, — the 
 water for purification and the blood for atonement, — 
 like all the words and works of Jesus, are " spirit and 
 life" (John vi. 63). And thus the whole truth concern- 
 ing Christ and his death attested by the Spirit, — and 
 
208 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 by the water and the blood associated with the Spirit 
 and rendered significant and saving by him, — becomes 
 the source of spiritual life and strength to every one 
 who believes that " Jesus is the Son of God," and 
 enables him therefore "to overcome the world." For 
 " this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our 
 faith;" that faith of oiu-s which grasps the threefold 
 testimony of the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Here 
 is Jesus Christ coming by water and blood; very 
 specially by blood ; " not by water only, but by water 
 and blood." And the Spirit, with the water and the 
 blood, and by means of them as joint-witnesses with 
 himseK, testifies to him as " coming by water and blood" 
 and as, in virtue of his so coming, giving us the victory 
 over the world. Not otherwise than by taking the water 
 and the blood as joint-witnesses with himself, can the 
 Spirit commend to us Jesus Christ, as triumphing in his 
 own person, and causing us who are one with him to 
 triumph, over sin, and the guilt of sin, and the power of 
 sin ; — over all that makes God's service a bondage to us 
 and his commandments grievous ; over what constitutes 
 the essence of the world which we have to overcome if 
 we would walk as children with our Father in heaven. 
 
 II. Such being the nature of this threefold testi- 
 mony, let us look now at its harmony : " These three 
 agree in one." This may perhaps be best brought out 
 by putting the supposition of a partial reception of the 
 testimony in different aspects; and showing how, in 
 every case, the partial reception, if fairly followed out, 
 requires and demands the acceptance of the whole, and 
 must lead the earnest soul to that result. 
 
AND THEIR AGEEEMENT. 209 
 
 1. There are some who seem to acquiesce in the 
 testimony of the Spirit, hut without liaving respect eitlier 
 to the water or to the hlood. To this extent at least 
 they may go, that tliey admit the reality of those super- 
 natural works by which the Spii'it of old bore witness to 
 the word, and generally they admit the authority of the 
 word as attested by the Spirit to be the word of God. 
 They aclvnowledge, in a sort of vague and general way, 
 that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour 
 of the world. He is declared and proved to be so by 
 the Spirit of truth, and they do not question what the 
 Spirit says. Theirs is a kind of indefinite, blind, stupid 
 reliance on something — one knows not what — that the 
 Spirit says in the Scriptures about Christ. But do they 
 really receive the testimony, even of the Spirit alone, in 
 any sense consistent with fairness or intelligence ? 
 "What would be thought of such conduct in reference to 
 temporal things ? Take a somewhat analogous instance. 
 
 I come to you with information to give you, on a 
 point deeply aifecting your welfare. I hold in my hands 
 a document which I assure you is of urgent consequence 
 to you, — seeming you against the hazard of loss — 
 putting you in the way of great gain. And how do you 
 receive me ? You take the document out of my hands, 
 with many formal compliments and thanks, and many 
 professions of personal respect for me. You will prize 
 it very highly, pay it all due attention, and seek to 
 profit by it. But I have much to say to you regarding 
 the document and its contents. I seek to prolong the 
 conversation with you upon the document. I wish to 
 VOL. II. P 
 
210 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 press upon your regard certain parts of it which I am 
 willing to open up to you ; and in particular I am most 
 anxious to help you in turning its discoveries to good prac- 
 tical account. You listen impatiently; for I weary you. 
 Is it not enough that you take the document as I desire 
 you, and really intend not to neglect it ? So, getting rid 
 of me, you retain my paper. You treat it with con- 
 siderable deference ; you duly look into it ; you find in 
 it some hints that you may follow, some dii-ections with 
 which you can comply ; and if you do stumble at a few 
 dark things in it, this is no more than might have been 
 anticipated beforehand. At aU events, you are in pos- 
 session of the deed, which you have been told is — some- 
 how or other — to secure to you safety and victory. 
 
 Is it thus that we are treating the blessed Spirit of 
 God ? We receive his testimony ; that is, we take the 
 Bible at his hands, and on the whole admit as true what 
 he told the world about Christ when he inspired the 
 Bible. But we do not suffer him to bear witness to us 
 now. If we did, he would not indeed give evidence now 
 by such signs as of old ; but he would give evidence by 
 tokens no less satisfactory, because no less divine. In 
 particular, the Spirit would bear witness, not generally 
 and vaguely to Christ coming as a Saviour, but specially 
 to his coming by water and blood. This he would do 
 by his divine agency, ajDpealing to our whole inner man, 
 and working there, with and by the word. 
 
 Allow the Holy Ghost to have full scope and free 
 course in testifying to you now. Give the Spirit his 
 own place; let him follow out his own plan. What 
 
AND THEIE AGEEEMENT. 211 
 
 plan ? you ask. Ah ! is he not already giving you some 
 hint of his plan ? He would have you let him keep 
 hold of you, when he has begun to deal with you — to 
 deal with your conscience in the way of conviction — 
 with your heart in the way of persuasion. Does Felix 
 tremble ? Is Agrippa almost persuaded ? Tlie Spirit is 
 testifying of Christ. Are you beginning to suspect that 
 there may be more in the gospel than you once thought ; 
 that you may require to go deeper into religion ; that 
 the vague kind of confidence you have been cherishing, 
 and the loose sort of piety you have been cultivating, 
 will scarcely sufl&ce much longer ; that you need some- 
 thing more distinct, — a more thorough search into what 
 is the real state of the case as between your God and 
 you — a more thorough settlement of the footing on 
 which you are to be with him — a far more thorouglily 
 decided walk? Have you misgivings now as to those 
 generalities in doctrine and those formalities in duty 
 which used to content you? Do not doubt that the 
 Spirit is testifying to you of Christ, and do not resist or 
 grieve him. Let him carry on his own work in his own 
 way — the way in which he has already begun it. And 
 he will soon make you right glad to welcome Jesus 
 Christ " coming by water and blood;" having in himself 
 and in his cross precious blood to atone for all guilt, as 
 well as pure water to cleanse from all pollution. 
 
 2. You may lean to the water as bearing witness — 
 rather than to the blood. The influence of the gospel in 
 purifying the heart and life may be that feature by 
 which mainly it approves itseK to your mind. You 
 
212 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 recognise tlie necessity of being renewed to holiness or 
 virtue, and therefore you can apprehend and appreciate 
 the testimony of the water by which Jesus Christ came ; 
 — Ids requiring and providing for that result. But this 
 purifying virtue in Christ, or in tlie gospel of Christ, 
 you view very much apart from his blood of atonement 
 — so that the change of heart towards God becomes to 
 you, not only the chief part, but almost the whole of 
 personal religion. You may not set altogether aside the 
 blood ; but practically you may be placing little reliance 
 upon it and feeling little need of it. In that case, you 
 set little value on the testimony of the blood ; to the 
 water and the Spirit you give all the preference. 
 
 Then, let me say again, give these two witnesses fair 
 scope ; let their testimony be fully carried out. In 
 other words, follow out your own convictions. You see 
 now in some degree, and feel, what alone can satisfy 
 your God ; what he is really entitled to claim and to 
 expect at your hands. The law has come home to you 
 — to your conscience and heart — in the full extent of 
 its obligations, as binding you to perfect love, and mak- 
 ing even a sin of thought exceeding sinful. That law 
 approves itself as infinitely excellent ; altogether rea- 
 sonable ; " holy, and just, and good." You perceive 
 now that to this law you must become willingly subject, 
 that you must be brought into that state in which it 
 shall be your meat to do the will of God, even as it was 
 Christ's. Under these impressions, having now a vivid 
 perception of what holiness really is, you may set about 
 being holy, in right earnest and with all your might. 
 
AXD THEIR AGREEMENT. 213 
 
 Do you succeed? Xay, tlie very effort defeats itself; 
 the struggle sinks you deeper in conscious guilt, and 
 helpless subjection to the evil that is in you. The cor- 
 ruption of your nature is provoked and stimulated ; you 
 feel yourself paralysed, enchained, imprisoned. And 
 while this new discovery of the " desperate wickedness 
 of the heart," — this sad proof that you are so very far 
 from being what God would have you to be, — grieves 
 you to the quick, the distress is aggravated by the con- 
 sciousness of utter inability, the bitter impression that 
 it is almost useless to think of being godly at all. For in 
 this state even the assurance of the Spirit's supernatural 
 aid avails you nothing. It is not help in obeying that 
 you need ; the very principle of obedience is wanting, 
 and it seems hopeless to think of ever attaining it. 
 
 Hopeless, except only in one direction Let the 
 Spirit not only undertake to assist you, as with purifying 
 water, in your work of holiness ; but let him also, and 
 first of all, bear witness to Christ as coming not by 
 purifying water only, but also by atoning blood. Let 
 the blood itself give testimony ; and your case is pre- 
 cisely met. For what is it that lies at the bottom of 
 such experience as Paul describes in the passage of his 
 writings to which I have been alluding? (Eom. vii.) 
 Is it not the unsettled controversy between your God and 
 you ? But the precious blood of Jesus — his perfect obe- 
 dience unto death — meets your case. It furnishes the 
 very element you need ; for it furnishes the element of 
 instant and complete reconciliation to your God. It 
 cancels your guilt ; it sets you free from condemnation ; 
 
214 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 it seals your peace. And now the heart, so crushed and 
 depressed before, springs up as with elastic rebound, 
 and wings its eagle flight to heaven, while the feet run 
 in the way of God's commandments. 
 
 3. In another manner, the reverse of the former, this 
 blessed harmony of the divine testimony may be dis- 
 turbed. Instead of a preference for the water apart 
 from the blood, there may be a leaning to the blood, to 
 the omission of the water ; as if Christ came [not both 
 by water and by blood, but by blood only. The idea of 
 an expiation of guilt may commend itself to the minds 
 of conscious offenders, who feel their sin and fear the 
 wrath of God. They may welcome the blood which 
 testifies of sin atoned for, and God pacified and recon- 
 ciled. They may be inclined to acquiesce in the testi- 
 mony of the spirit and the blood, as if the gospel were 
 intended simply to pacify the troubled conscience and 
 set sinful men at their ease. 
 
 But here again, I say as before — Give heed fairly to 
 the testimony of the Spirit and the blood ; and it will 
 be found to require for its completion the testimony of 
 the water. You are open to the impression of the blood ; 
 you see and feel the reasonableness and the reality of 
 the atonement made by blood for your sin. But if the 
 Spirit is at all bearing witness with the blood, it must 
 be a spiritual view of the necessity and the meaning of 
 that atonement that he is causing you to take. You 
 cannot, if the Spirit is witnessing along with it, regard 
 it as an expedient for soothing the personally vindictive 
 feelings of an offended God, and purchasing his indul- 
 
AND THEIR AGREEMENT. 215 
 
 gence for your frailties ; a mere provision for averting 
 judgment and giving you security and quiet. No. You 
 take a spiritual view of the shedding of the blood of 
 Christ — as on the one hand vindicating the righteous- 
 ness and manifesting the love of God ; and on the other 
 hand laying a foundation for a holy and loving walk 
 with him. The blood, if you rightly receive its testi- 
 mony along with that of the Spirit, speaks, not of God 
 weakly persuaded to be indulgent and sinners allowed 
 to escape unpunished ; but of God righteously justifying 
 believing men, and on the footing of a righteous justifi- 
 cation freely restoring them to his favour. Its very end 
 is to bring men near to God ; and so far from setting 
 them free from the obligation of being washed, this is 
 its highest value, that it secures their being "washed," 
 so as to be " sanctified as well as justified, in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 
 
 Thus in these three instances it may be seen that 
 every attempt to give undue prominence to one of the 
 witnesses, to the comparative slighting of the others, 
 necessarily implies an unfair treatment of the testimony 
 even of the very witness that is preferred. If the Spirit 
 alone is viewed as bearing witness, — then his testimony 
 is frittered down till it is nothing more than a sort of 
 vague intimation of there being a revelation and a plan 
 of salvation, without any distinct reference either to 
 what the revelation contains or to what the plan of sal- 
 vation is. If again the water is selected, and the sanc- 
 tifying and purifying virtue of the gospel is chiefly 
 commended, — there is danger lest a low standard of 
 
216 THE THREE WITNESSES 
 
 holiness be set up, such as may be consistent with a 
 conscience still iinpacified and a heart still unreconciled. 
 And if, once more, the blood is the witness on whose 
 testimony Ave dwell, — we are led to misconceive alto- 
 gether both the design and the ef&cacy of the atonement ; 
 making it a mere scheme of accommodation, instead of 
 a glorious plan for upholding the divine righteousness 
 and more than restoring the primeval dignity of man. 
 " There are three that bear witness ;" and it is only when 
 all the three are received Avith equal faith, that they are 
 found to " agree in one." 
 
 4. But there is one other case to AAdiich I must briefly 
 advert. The water and the blood may be received as 
 bearing witness, without a due regard to the testimony 
 of the living Spirit. The gospel may be understood in 
 its full and comprehensive import, and may approve 
 itself to the conscience and the heart. Christ may be 
 known as coming both by Avater and by blood ; the 
 minister alike of renewal and of redemption ; of purify- 
 ing as AveU as of pardoning grace. But Avhat, you ask, 
 what is all that to me ? Christ is set forth crucified be- 
 fore you, and from him all blessings freely floAv. The 
 plan of saving mercy, as it comes from heaven is com- 
 plete ; Christ coming both by Avater and blood is the 
 very Saviour you need. But you have difliculty about 
 his really saving you ; about the application of his com- 
 plete salvation to you ; about your want of faith to lay 
 hold of him and of it. 
 
 Beware here of the temptation of the spirit of evil • 
 receive rather the testimony of the Spirit of truth. These 
 
AND THEIR AGREEMENT. 217 
 
 thouglits and misgivings, — so dishonourable to God, 
 whose purpose of free love they impede — so injurious to 
 you, whose return to God they arrest, — are from the 
 father of lies. Eesist them, as of the devil ; for they 
 are false as he is himself. He may give them some air 
 of plausibility, in order that if possible he may confuse 
 more and more the question of your relation to God and 
 the footing on which you are to be Avith God, so as to 
 make you give up the care of your salvation as hopeless. 
 But you must see that they are contrary to the plain 
 testimony of the water and the blood ; for surely these 
 witnesses, — the water and the blood, — do most emphati- 
 cally speak to you of the fulness of God's grace, and the 
 ample foundation he has laid at once for your peace and 
 for your holiness. 
 
 And even when you are tempted to yield to the 
 surmises of Satan, are you not conscious of other 
 thoughts? Is it not sometimes borne in upon your 
 mind that this hesitating and halting unbelief is but an 
 unworthy way of meeting such overtures as God is 
 making, and that you might at least make the trial, and 
 venture your soul on his faithful promises ? 
 
 It is the Spirit that thus bears witness ; and " the 
 Spirit is truth." Put the matter to an experimental 
 test ; commit yourself to Christ, of whom the Spirit 
 testifies, as having water from his smitten side to wash, 
 and blood — precious blood — to take away aU guilt. For 
 it is in this way of actual trial that you will have the 
 witness of the Spirit, which is the witness of God. In 
 the peace which flows from the settlement of his contro- 
 
218 THE THREE WITNESSES, ETC. 
 
 versy with you and your justification in his sight ; in 
 the glad relief which a simple acceptance of his mercy 
 imparts ; in the sense of his love shed abroad in your 
 hearts ; in the growing clearness of your views of his 
 character, and the growing enlargement and elevation of 
 your soul for his service ; in the laymg aside of all 
 reserve on your part, as all reserve is laid aside on his ; 
 in the entrusting of your whole way — in darkness and 
 distress — to him, and the surrender of your whole soul 
 and body and spirit into his hands ; — you will under- 
 stand, with increasing clearness, the consenting testimony 
 of the three witnesses, the Spmt, the water, and the 
 blood. And through faith in that testimony you will 
 overcome the world. For no commandment of God will 
 ever be grievous to you, if it comes to you in the power 
 of the Spirit, and through the double channel of the 
 water and the blood. 
 
THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD. 219 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD TO AND IN 
 BELIEVERS. 
 
 " If we receive the wituess [testimony] of men, the witness [testimony] 
 of God is greater : for this is the witness [testimony] of God which 
 he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God 
 hath the witness [testimony] in himself : he that believeth not God 
 hath made him a liar ; because he believeth not the record [testi- 
 mony] that God gave [hath testified] of his Son. " — 1 John v. 9, 10. * 
 
 The question is still aboiit faith ; the faith which is the 
 victory that overcometh the world (ver. 4, 5). For that 
 is the particular function here ascribed to faith ; that is 
 the light in which faith is to be regarded. Doubtless, 
 gospel faith is the same, in whatever light, and with 
 reference to whatever function, it is contemplated ; it 
 has always the same object, and the same ground or 
 warrant. But the manner of its exercise may not be 
 the same. And therefore it is to be noted that it is not 
 faith as justifying ; nor faith simply as working gene- 
 rally by love ; but faith specially as overcoming the 
 world ; that is spoken of in this passage. It is as " the 
 victory that overcometh the world," that faith is com- 
 mended or extolled. 
 
 * It is much to be regretted that in these verses our Translators 
 should have so unwarrantably, and to the utter obscuring of the sense, 
 sacrificed exactness to variety ; using four different English words for 
 one and the same verb, with its cognate noun, in the original Greek. 
 
220 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 This faith rests on testimony ; as all faith must do. 
 And the testimony on which it rests is sufficient to 
 sustain it ; for it is divine : — " If we receive the testi- 
 mony of men, the testimony of God is greater : for this 
 is the testunony of God which he hath testified of his 
 Son" (ver. 9). Human testimony is a trustworthy 
 ground of faith ; we rely on it every day, and act 
 accordingly. That is assumed as admitted. But we 
 have what is far better and stronger than human testi- 
 mony ; we have " the testimony of God." Men are 
 fallible and frail ; the Psalmist " said in his haste, All 
 men are liars." Still we receive their testimony ; and 
 we cannot help it ; we must come to a dead-lock or 
 stand-still, if we do not. ' How much more confidently 
 may we receive the testimony of him who can neither 
 deceive nor be deceived ; who knows all things and is 
 truth itself To reject his testimony, and refuse to 
 proceed on the faith of it, while we receive and act upon 
 the testimony of men, is inconsistency and utter folly. 
 
 But what is the testimony of God, and how is it given ? 
 
 First, what is his testimony ? That is not expressly 
 stated in this verse ; it is left to be inferred. But it is 
 not difficult to say what it is ; whether we look back on 
 the preceding context or forwards to that which follows. 
 Of course, it is the preceding context that must chiefly 
 guide us ; but the two very much agree. As it stands 
 in the preceding context, it is that " Jesus Christ is the 
 Son of God, coming by water and blood." As it stands 
 in the following context, it is that "God hath given 
 us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 
 
TO AND IN BELIEVERS. 221 
 
 Secondly, How is his testimony given ? As to that, 
 this ninth verse says nothing. But it plainly connects 
 the preceding and following contexts. John evidently 
 means to say that he has been describing, and that he is 
 going on to describe still further, this testifying, on 
 God's part, of his Son, with special reference to the 
 manner of it. 
 
 For he draws at this point a broad Kne of distinction. 
 In what goes before, he has been speaking of God's tes- 
 timony from without, or to us ; in what follows, he is to 
 speak of God's testimony within, or in us. It is the. 
 testimony of God in both cases ; his bearing witness of 
 his Son ; and it is to be received as such. But whereas 
 it has been put in the former passage as operating on 
 us, — it is now to be put as ascertained, apprehended, 
 and felt, by us and in us : — " He that believeth on the 
 Son of God hath the testimony in himself : he that 
 believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he 
 believeth not the testimony that God hath testified of," 
 or about, " his Son" (ver. 10). 
 
 "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the 
 testimony in himself" ; the testimony, that is, of God ; 
 for it is upon the wan-ant of "the testimony of God 
 which he has testified about his Son," that he believes 
 on the Son of God. But in his so believing, that testi- 
 mony of God becomes to him a matter of inward con- 
 sciousness. He has it within him ; in himself. It is 
 not now merely God testifying to us of his Son, but God 
 testifying in us of his Son ; causing us to know experi- 
 mentally the truth of w^hat he testifies. We find, by 
 
222 THE WITNESS OK TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 actual trial and experience, that tlie Son is exactly what 
 the Father has been testifying him to be : " the Son of 
 God, Jesus Christ, coming by water and blood." Thus 
 the inward verifies the outward. 
 
 It is as if a friend should introduce to me his son, 
 with a high testimony to his personal excellency and 
 rank, as well as to his power and willingness to assist 
 me in an emergency, and be of service to me all my 
 days. I believe the testimony, and on the faith of it 
 welcome the new-comer to my home and heart. He 
 soon approves himself to me as all that his father said I 
 would find him to be. Then I have the testimony in a 
 sense, in me, in myself. So far the analogy may hold 
 and be helpful. But, like all earthly analogies of what 
 is divine, it is imperfect. It is only in a sense somewhat 
 vague and loose that, in the case supposed, I can be 
 said to have the testimony of my friend about his son in 
 me. For it is not really my friend testifying in me, as 
 something distinct from his testifying to me ; it is I 
 myseK who am proving and verifying his testimony. In 
 this case, also, it is that, no doubt ; that at least. But is 
 it not something more ? For the testifier is God ; and 
 he of whom he testifies is his own Son. Literally, there- 
 fore, and in the strictest and fullest sense, I can have 
 God's testimony in me ; I can have God himself testify- 
 ing in me. And I can have him testifying in me, not of 
 Ms Son offered and given to me, as " coming by water 
 and by blood ;" but of his Son, so coming by water and 
 by blood, and now dwelling in my heart ; " Christ in 
 me, the liope of glory." This is something quite different 
 
, TO AND IN BELIEVERS. 223 
 
 from our owti consciousness apprehending the truth, and 
 feeling the reality, of what God testifies of his Son. It 
 is rather like what Paul indicates when he says : " The 
 Spirit itself beareth witness," or testifies, "with our Spirit, 
 that we are the children of God : and if children, then 
 heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ : if so 
 be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified 
 together." 
 
 An indispensable condition of this inward testifying 
 of God in us, — our having in us his testimony, — is our 
 believing on his Son : — " He that believeth on the Son 
 of God," and he alone, " hath the testimony in himself," 
 Evidently it must be so. For it is our believing on his 
 Son that brings God into these hearts of ours, in which 
 he is to testify of his Son in us more and more. 
 And just as evidently, this believing on his Son, which 
 thus leads to our having the testimony within us, must 
 rest on the testimony from without. It is our believing 
 on his Son, on the ground and warrant of his testifying 
 to us of his Son, that opens the way for our having him 
 testifying in us of his Son. And so we are brought back 
 to this, that we are to believe on the Son of God, not 
 because God testifies of him in us, but because he testi- 
 fies of him to us. Is not that, however, warrant enough ? 
 Is it not sufficient of itself to win faith the most confid- 
 ing, since it is the testimony of him who is the truth ? 
 Does it not make unbelief inexcusable ? For refus- 
 ing to believe, on the strength of the outward testi- 
 mony alone, even without the inward, is simply giving 
 God the lie : — " He that believeth not God hath made 
 
224 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD ^ 
 
 liim a liar ; because lie Lelieveth not tlie testimony tliat 
 God liatli testified of his Son." 
 
 Thus, I. The ground and reward or fruit of faith ; 
 and II. The sin of unbelief ; are to be viewed in the 
 light of its being God's testimony and not man's that is 
 to be believed. 
 
 I. Faith stands here between two divine testimonies, 
 or two modes of the one divine testimony ; it is the effect 
 of the first, and the cause or means of the second. 
 
 In the first place, as an effect, faith flows from the 
 threefold testimony of " the Spirit, the water, and the 
 blood ;" which is the primary testimony of God, from 
 without or from above. You who believe on the Son of 
 God believe on him as witnessed or attested by God ; you 
 beheve on him because it is really God who has testified 
 or testifies of him. And the testimony of God, upon 
 which you believe on him, is substantially of the same 
 sort as the testimony of men, to which you are accus- 
 tomed to give credit. That is implied in what is said : 
 " If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of 
 God is greater." For it is indeed the testimony of God 
 that you are to receive, — " the testimony which he hath 
 testified of his Son." It is testimony to you ; not in 
 you. It may be in some sense and to some extent in 
 you, in so far as it enlists on its behalf, or is fitted to 
 enlist, your inward convictions, tastes, and tendencies. 
 But as long as it is testimony, not received and admitted, 
 but claiming to be received and admitted, it is testimony 
 to you. And it is upon that testimony that your faith 
 must lay hold and lean. 
 
TO AND IN BELIEVERS. 225 
 
 I have said tliat this testimony of God to you may, 
 in some sense and to some extent, be in you ; — it may be 
 testimony appealing to certain inward instincts or prin- 
 ciples of your nature. It is so in the present instance. 
 For in fact, the testimony of God as to his Son which is 
 here compared with the testimony of men, and preferred 
 to it, is altogether and exclusively of an internal nature ; 
 it is God dealing with your whole inner man, through the 
 threefold testimony of the Spirit, the water, and the blood. 
 There is no reference to what are called the external 
 evidences of Christianity ; the historical proofs of the 
 gospel. The Spirit, the water, and the blood, are not 
 represented as testifying through the medium of outward 
 events or signs ; authenticated, as these usually are, 
 by the evidence, — not of mere tradition, transmitting 
 hearsay at second hand, — ^but of competent witnesses, 
 leaving on record what they actually saw and heard. 
 That would be the testimony of men. We have that, — 
 God be praised we have it most abundantly ; — and* we 
 do well to receive it, and on the strength of it to accept 
 the Bible as a divine revelation and the Gospel as a 
 divine message. But the testimony of God is greater ; 
 not only because it is the testimony of God and not of 
 men, but because, being his, it adapts and addresses 
 itself to the inner man in us ; to the whole inner man ; 
 to all our sensibilities and susceptibilities of conscience, 
 emotion, will. 
 
 For in this testifying or witness-bearing, the Spirit, hav- 
 ing the water and the blood associated with him, makes a 
 direct appeal to the moral sense and feeling within us. He 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
226 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 does SO altogether apart from all the logical arguments 
 and historical demonstrations which may be bronght to 
 confirm our belief in Christianity. These are valuable 
 in their place. But the direct and immediate testimony 
 of God, in the threefold witness-bearing of the Spirit, the 
 water, and the blood, is largely independent and irre- 
 spective of them. It is a very straightforward dealing 
 of the Spirit with us ; of the Spirit testifying along with, 
 and by means of, the water and the blood. It is the 
 Spirit pressing home upon us Christ ; making us feel 
 our need of Christ ; showing us Christ's suitableness 
 and sufficiency for us. In particular, it is the Spirit 
 bringing near to us Jesus, as the Son of God, eager to make 
 us one with him in his sonship, and for that very end 
 coming by water and blood ; so that neither sin's defile- 
 ment nor sin's condemnation may stand in the way of 
 our being partakers of liis filial relation to the Father. 
 He is come by water to purify, and by blood to atone, 
 that we may be sons of God in him. That is the testi- 
 mony of God to us, here and now. Is it not so ? Wlio is 
 there among us to whom the Spirit is not thus, more or 
 less sensibly, bearing witness along with the water and 
 the blood, here and now ? 
 
 Ah ! let me assume that I address some spiritually 
 awakened and spiritually exercised soul. Has your sin, 
 brother, found you out ? Is the Spirit convincing you of 
 its exceeding sinfulness ? Are you in earnest longing 
 for purity and peace ? Have you been made to feel that 
 you do really need for your Saviour one who can place 
 you on a very different footing with your God and 
 
TO AND m BELIEVERS. 227 
 
 Fatlier in lieaven from that on which you naturally are, 
 and create in you very different dispositions towards him 
 from those which you naturally cherish ? And is there 
 dawning upon you more and more brightly, the appre- 
 hension that Jesus, as God's own Son, coming by water 
 and by blood, is just such a Saviour, and that if he were 
 but yours all would be well ? Is not this the testimony 
 of Grod to you, warranting and requiring you to believe 
 on his Son, so coming, as really yours, — "loving you 
 and giving himself for you ?" Is it not far greater and 
 better than any human testimony ? What need have 
 you of my assurance, or any man's assurance, to build 
 your faith on ? Here is God's threefold testimony ; the 
 Spirit commending to you, all vile and guilty as you are, 
 God's own Son as come by water and by blood, to sanc- 
 tify and save. Having this testimony, you may well 
 " believe on the Son of God." Yes. " Believing because 
 of the Lord's own w^ord," approving itself to your spirit- 
 ually quickened soul, you may say, as the Samaritans 
 said to the woman, " Now we believe, not because of thy 
 saying ; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that 
 this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world?" 
 
 And now, secondly, thus believing, you may look for 
 a new and additional testimony of God ; not to you, but 
 most truly and fully in you. For this simple honest 
 faith, the effect or fruit of one mode of the divine testi- 
 mony, becomes the cause or means of another. That 
 other is not outward at all, but altogether inward ; not 
 to you, but in you : — " He that believeth on the Son of 
 God hath the testimony in himself." 
 
228 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 Understand well, and keep ever in mind, that having 
 the testimony of God in you is not the preliminary to 
 your believing on the Son of God, but the result or 
 consequence of your doing so. Do not imagine that you 
 are to have any knowledge or experience of this inward 
 testimony of God before you believe on his Son ; as if 
 it were to be a ground" of your believing, or a help to 
 your believing. It is a sort of knowledge or experience 
 which can never go before faith, but must always follow 
 it. Tor, in truth, it is nothing more than faith in exer- 
 cise ; faith unfolding and developing its energy ; faith 
 acting out its purpose ; faith realising more and more 
 its object and itself. 
 
 In fact, as to its substance, this testimony of God in 
 you is identically the same as his testimony to you. It 
 is the same threefold testimony of the Spirit, the water, 
 and the blood. Only now the Spirit has won for him- 
 self, and for the water and the blood, a place Avithin 
 your consciousness ; deep down in your inmost soul, as 
 no longer merely appealed to and assailed by this testi- 
 mony, but cordially acquiescing in it. That, however, 
 makes a vast difference indeed. It is the difference be- 
 tween Christ " standing at the door and knocking," and 
 Christ, "when you hear his voice and open to him, coming 
 in to sup with you and you with him." The testimony 
 is the same ; the testifiers are the same. But your be- 
 lieving acquiescence, I repeat, makes all the difference. 
 The testifiers, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, — are 
 now, all three of them, in you ; witnessing not to, but 
 from, the far back recess of your willing mind and con- 
 
TO AND IN BELIEVERS. 229 
 
 senting heart. Their testimony, — which is God's, and 
 therefore far better than man's, — is in you now ; not as 
 a stream forcing its way, as it were, into the depths of 
 your spiritual experience ; but as "a well of water" 
 divinely opened in these depths, and " springing up into 
 everlasting life." 
 
 For the real and blessed explanation of the whole 
 matter is simple enough. He to whom the threefold 
 testimony of the Spirit, the water, and the blood relates, 
 is liimself in you now ; not given to you, with ample 
 warrant for your embracing him ; but in you, as em- 
 braced by you ; in you, as the very Son of God, coming 
 by water and blood. Thus, believing on the Son of 
 God, you have the testimony of God in you. The Spirit 
 is testifying in you, with the water and the blood ; not 
 now in order to wiri your assent and consent, but with 
 your assent and consent already won. And that being 
 so, there is no limit to the gracious assurance and 
 enlargement to be looked for from your thus having the 
 testimony of God in you. For now, not only your 
 conviction, but your cordial choice also, goes along with 
 the divine testimony, and is all in the line of it. You 
 make fuU proof of it ; or rather you suffer the Spirit 
 MmseK .to make full proof of it in you. He does so by 
 "taking of what is Christ's and showing it more and 
 more to you." He gives you an ever-increasing clear- 
 ness and intensity of insight into Jesus being the Son 
 of God ; and into his coming, as the Christ, by water 
 and blood. So believing, you have the testimony in 
 yourselves ; God testifyuig in you by the Spirit, the 
 
230 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 water, and the blood ; — the Sphit testifying in you of 
 the Son of God coming by water and by blood. 
 
 Let me ask you, in all faithfulness, do you believe 
 in the Son of God, on God's own testimony to you about 
 him and not man's ? Then, what do you know of this 
 testimony of God in you ? " It is the spirit that testi- 
 fieth." What do you know of his testifying, not merely in 
 his striving with you, but in his dwelling in you, and 
 revealing in you God's own Son, Jesus Christ, coming 
 by water and blood ? What, first, of the blood by 
 which he comes ? Is God by his Spirit giving you, — 
 not only a sight of your need of it as a sinner, and its 
 sufficiency for you as for all sinners, — ^but a sense of its 
 actual efficacy in your case, as bringing you personally 
 near to God, on the footing of your personal guilt being 
 atoned for, and yourselves being personally reconciled ? 
 What, secondly, of the water, by which, as well as by 
 blood, he comes ? Is God by his Spirit giving you real 
 personal experience of Christ's being the purifier and 
 sanctifier, in your being " holy, as he is holy?" What, 
 thirdly, of the sonship, of its being God's own Son who 
 comes by water and by blood ? Is God by his Spirit 
 giving you an apprehension of your adoption as sons, 
 and moving you to cry, as sons, Abba, Father ? 
 
 These, unquestionably, are the three kinds of experi- 
 ence in the line of which your having the testimony of 
 God in you will make itself known and felt. And if 
 you believe on the Son of God, you will have some 
 growing practical acquaintance with aU the three. The 
 blood ; — does it really first pierce and then pacify your 
 
TO AND IN BELIEVEES. 231 
 
 conscience — pierce and pacify it evermore, constantly, 
 day by day, more and more every day ? The foimtain 
 filled with that blood ; — do you bathe your guilty souls 
 in it every morning, every night ? Do you feel it ever 
 opening your wounds more painfully, and more sensibly 
 pouring itself, as oil and balm, into the very wounds it 
 opens ? The water ; — are you consciously coming more 
 and more under its power ? Is the holiness of Christ 
 filling your soul, fixing your eye, drawing your heart ? 
 Is your loathing of sin growing more intense ? Do you 
 welcome and value Christ as the minister of purity, 
 even more than as the minister of peace, and rejoice in 
 his blood purging your conscience from dead works, 
 mainly because it thus sets you free to serve the living 
 God? The sonship of him who comes by water and 
 blood ; — are you entering into that ? He is come by 
 water and by blood, not only to make you one with 
 himself in his atoning death and in his holy life, but to 
 make you sons of God in him. Are you realising that ? 
 Are you entering into the position which, as the Son of 
 God, he occupies ; and into his mind and heart, as the 
 Son of God ? Thus, and only thus, " he that believeth 
 on the Son of God hath the testimony in himself." 
 
 II. Over against the power or virtue or efficacy of 
 faith, turning God's testimony to us into his testimony 
 in us, John places in very emphatic contrast the exceed- 
 ing sinfulness of the sin of unbelief: "He that believeth 
 not God hath made him a liar." The two opposite 
 ways of dealing with the testimony of God are here 
 sharply distinguished. Either you believe his testi- 
 
232 THE "WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD 
 
 mouy to you, and so honour Mm that he himself gives 
 you an inward, experimental confirmation of it ; you 
 taste and see that God is good ; you prove him, and see 
 if he does not open the windows of heaven and pom- 
 down on you a blessing ; you open your mouth wide 
 and he fills it ; giviag you peace of conscience, purity 
 of heart, filial liberty, enlargement, assurance, love. 
 Or else, you disbelieve his testimony, and so, by your 
 unbelief, not only hinder him from testifying in you, 
 but dishonour him by virtually giving him the lie when 
 he testifies to you. 
 
 And let it be well observed that it is the very same 
 testimony of God to you in both cases, whether you 
 receive it or disbelieve it. You may not shelter your 
 unljelief under the excuse or apology that you have not 
 proof or evidence enough. In particular, you may not 
 plead that you have not the inward testimony. Neither 
 had we, when we believed, may be the reply of those 
 who deal otherwise than you deal with the testimony 
 from without and from above. You have the same 
 gi'ound or warrant for believing that we had ; the sure 
 word of the true and faithful God. We were not asked 
 to believe on the ground and warrant of any inward 
 testimony of God in us ; any witnessing of the Spirit 
 with our spirits to our being the sons of God. It was 
 not as being the sons of God ; it was not as having any 
 title to be the sons of God, or any consciousness of our 
 being the sons of God ; that we believed. It was 
 simply as hearing the word or testimony of God, com- 
 mending to us powerfully and persuasively, by his 
 
TO AND IN BELIEVERS. 233 
 
 Spirit, Jesus Christ his Son coming by water and blood ; 
 coming to save, with a complete and full salvation, 
 sinners, — and of sinners us, the chief. That was all 
 that our faith had to grasp ; all that it had to lay hold 
 of and lean on. We found it sufficient ; we tested it, 
 and it has stood the test. Why should not you ? "Why 
 should you wait for anything else, or anything more? 
 We had not any inward sign, we had not any inward 
 experience, on which to build our belief. We had 
 simply God speaking to us ; to our understandings, our 
 consciences, our hearts ; testifying to us concerning our 
 sin, and the sufficiency for us of his Son, coming by 
 water and by blood to save. You have the same. You 
 have all that we had. You have God, in his Son whom 
 he sent to be the propitiation for your sins ; you have 
 God, in his Son coming by water and by blood ; you 
 have God, in his Son to whom he points, hanging on the 
 cross, pierced by you, while out of his side come water 
 and blood to wash and heal you ; you have God, in his 
 Son thus set forth crucified before your eyes ; you have 
 this God thus testifying to you ; assuring you ; swear- 
 ing to you ; — and beseeching you — oh ! how impoii^u- 
 nately and affectionately ! — to give him credit when he 
 testifies to you, and assures you, and swears to you : — 
 " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in 
 the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from 
 Ids wickedness and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
 ways ; for why will ye die, house of Israel ?" 
 
 Will you still refuse to give Inm credit ? WOl you 
 still dare to question his sincerity, his being in earnest, 
 
234 THE WITNESS OR TESTIMONY OF GOD. 
 
 when he thus pleads with you ? Will you not believe 
 that he means what he says, when he tells you that, in 
 his Son coming by water and by blood, he is waiting to 
 be gTacious ? Do him not so great injustice as to treat 
 him in a way in which you would not venture to treat 
 an honourable man. You receive the testimony of such 
 a man. Is not the testimony of God greater ? Is he 
 not entitled to be believed on his simj)le word, much 
 more on Ids solemn oath ? Is he not one whom you can 
 trust, so far at least as to make trial of his faithfulness ? 
 Ah! let there be an end of doubt, hesitancy, halting, 
 delay. All that is most insulting to him ; for it is really 
 making him a liar. Do not commit so great a sin ; do 
 not shut your eyes to its greatness. Consider well how 
 it is not with mere facts of history or the dead letter of 
 books of evidence that you are dealing, but with the 
 true and living God himself. Alleged facts you might 
 question, books of evidence you might criticise, without 
 offence to the recorders of the facts or the writers of the 
 books. But here is God, the God of truth, commending 
 to you his Son from heaven, and summoning you, on the 
 warrant and assurance of his truth, to believe on his Son. 
 Your refusal to do so is a personal affront ; it cannot 
 but be construed as giving him the lie. — " making him a 
 liar." 
 
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 235 
 
 XL. 
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY — ETERNAL 
 LIFE GOD'S GIFT IN HIS SON. 
 
 ' ' And this is the record [testimony], that God hath given to us eternal 
 life ; and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life ; 
 and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." — 1 John v. 
 11, 12. 
 
 These two verses close what John has to say about the 
 faith which overcometh the world, and they explain and 
 apply the statement " He that believeth on the Son of 
 God hath the testimony in himseK" (ver. 10). It is the 
 testimony of God that the believer has in himself ; but 
 he has it as not now God testifying to him, but God 
 testifyiag in him. It is no longer objective and outward 
 merely ; it becomes subjective and inward. When it is 
 believed or received, it enters into, and, as it were, passes 
 through the receiving mind ; effects a lodgment for itself 
 behind, far back, deep down, in the innermost soul ; and 
 makes itself known and felt there, not as an external 
 fact or proposition, but as an internal power or principle 
 of activity. But what is it that gives this testimony of 
 God its ability so to change its position ? Is it not its 
 having in it, not truth merely, but life ? It is not mere 
 truth-telling, it is life-giving also; — for "this is the 
 testimony, that God hath given to us eternal life, and 
 
236 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 tliis life is in his Sou" (ver. 11). Therefore the receiv- 
 ing of it is not merely being convinced, as by evidence 
 or authority from without or from above, but being 
 quickened by a mighty agency and influence within. It 
 is, in short, not merely truth admitted into the inner man, 
 but life communicated to the inner man. It must there- 
 fore be inward ; intimately and intensely inward ; — 
 " He that hath the Son hath life ; and he that hath 
 not the Son of God hath not life " (ver. 12). 
 
 The testimony of God is first, that he bestows on 
 us life as a gift ; " he hath given to us eternal life ;" and 
 then secondly, that " this life is in his Son." He gives 
 us therefore this eternal hfe when he gives us his Son. 
 
 Consider in what sense and manner this eternal life 
 is in his Son. It is in him, as being possessed by him as 
 his own ; he has it in himself In his incarnate state he 
 has it thus ; not as God only, but as man also, as " Jesus 
 Christ come in the flesh." Let us hear his own words : 
 " As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given 
 to the Son to have life in himself" (John v. 26). That 
 cannot surely be the life which, as the Son of God, he 
 has from everlasting. It must be hfe belonging to him 
 as man ; life of which his human nature, as well as his 
 divine nature, is capable. And yet it is strangely iden- 
 tified with the Father's own life. It is connected with 
 it and compared to it. And it is connected with it and 
 compared to it, in respect of what might be thought to be 
 the highest and most peculiar property of the everlasting 
 God, his incommunicable attribute of self-existence. 
 
 What can this mean ? Is it really self-existence 
 
ETERXAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 237 
 
 that our Lord claims for himself as "the man Christ 
 Jesus/' — for his manhood as well as his Godhead ? That 
 can scarcely be his meaning ; for he speaks of this life 
 as derived. It is not his origmally, like the life which 
 he has with the Father and the Holy Ghost from ever- 
 lasting to everlasting. It is his by the Father's gift. 
 It is life having necessarily, in that view, a beginning, 
 though it may know no end. It is not therefore self- 
 existence ; it cannot be. And yet it must be something 
 not quite unlike that manner of life which self-existence 
 impUes, and not far from being akin to it. 
 
 For the statement respecting the Father liimself, that 
 he hath " life in himself," may have reference here, not 
 to the abstract nature of his life as being underived and 
 self-subsistent, but rather to the manner of its exercise. 
 The Father lives, not simply as existing ; but as existing 
 ever consciously and actively, realising and enjoying 
 existence, if one may dare to say so ; thinking, feeling, 
 doing. His life is thought, feeling, action. And what, 
 under that aspect of it, must be held to be one chief 
 characteristic of his life ? A\liat but this — that he does 
 not adapt himself to tilings without, or draw from things 
 without the grounds and reasons of his procedure ; of 
 his thinking, feehng, acting, in any case or instance, 
 thus and not otherwise ; that these are always found 
 within his own holy mind and heart ; that so he " has 
 his life in himself?" Is not that, in truth, the perfection 
 of the Father's " eternal life ?" Is it not thus that it is 
 essentially eternal ? It is not moved or moulded by 
 what is " seen and temporal." It is determined by his 
 own indweUing purpose, which is " unseen and eternal." 
 
238 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 But, it may be asked, is any creature cajDaLle of a 
 life like that? Can any creature, in that sense, have 
 life in himself? Not certainly as a creature living apart 
 from the Creator, or separate from the Creator. As- 
 suredly fallen man has no such life. He does not live 
 a life that is independent, as to its ongoings, of things 
 without. Is he not, on the contrary, in large measure 
 the creature and the child of circumstances ? What, in 
 fact, is his life but a struggle to accommodate himself to 
 the state of matters that he finds pressing upon him, all 
 around him, in the world ? Selfish he may be to the 
 heart's core ; consulting only for his own ease and plea- 
 sure. Or, in his pliilosophy, he may affect to rise above 
 external influences, to bid defiance to all foreign forces, 
 and consult no will but his own. It is all in vain. 
 With all his selfishness, and all his philosophy, he can- 
 not shake himself free from subjection to things seen and 
 temporal. He cannot be, in that respect, " as God." It 
 would not be good for him if he could ; not at least un- 
 less he was so united and allied to God as to be really 
 and thoroughly one in mind and heart with God. 
 
 But was not that the case with the Son of God on 
 the earth, " the man Christ Jesus ?" He was united and 
 allied to God as no other man ever was or could be. In 
 him the human nature was perfectly one in character 
 with the divine. He therefore, while living always as 
 self-moved and self-regulated, — altogether independently 
 of things without, — never could live otherwise than as 
 the Father liveth. Therefore it was possible for him, as 
 Son of man as well as Son of God, to have " life in him- 
 
ETERNAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 239 
 
 self " by tlie Father's gift, exactly as " the Father hath 
 life in liimself." 
 
 Look at Jesus Christ come in the flesh ; the Father's 
 own Son given to be the Saviour of the world. AVliat was 
 his life ? Was it not all from within ? He was not in- 
 sensible to things without ; they deeply and powerfully 
 affected him ; he felt them keenly. But his life ; his 
 real life ; the life he lived by purpose and determination, 
 — ^by ultunate choice of will ; was not outwardly dic- 
 tated, but inwardly originated. He had it in himself. 
 Take a testing instance, — his saying, " Not my will, but 
 thine be done." " My will ! " That was the effect of an 
 impression from without ; it was the outer world and its 
 prince pressing him very closely ; it was the horror of the 
 cross brought to bear upon him very vehemently. And 
 he had in him sensibilities and susceptibilities that laid 
 liis inner man very open to the pressure. His very 
 holiness, his holy love to God and holy hatred of sin, 
 made the thought of his being forsaken of God and 
 enduring the penal curse inconceivably terrible. " Father, 
 let the cup pass," is what his will would be if it were 
 moved from without. But no. Even in his worst straits 
 he will not yield altogether, — ^he will not yield at all, — 
 to his will being moved from without. He will give 
 utterance indeed to what his will as so moved would be, if 
 he were to yield to it. Thanks that for our sakes he does 
 so ! But it is not as if he were yielding to it. " If it be 
 possible" is still the qualification. And then he falls 
 back upon his real inmost self ; his real inner life : — 
 " Nevertheless, Father, not my will, but tliine be done." 
 
240 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 That is surely something like "having life in him- 
 self;" having power to pass over, or pass through, the 
 will which outward circumstances of suffering or tempta- 
 tion would prompt ; to get far back, far down, within ; 
 and to find and feel there an inw^ard impulse overbearing 
 the impression from without and moving the real inward 
 choice ; — " Not my will, but thine be done." 
 
 Is this " eternal life ?" Is it " the eternal life which 
 is in the Son?" Is it the power, or privilege, or pre- 
 rogative of living from within himself, because it is 
 living from within the Father, in whose bosom he dwells ; 
 from within the Father's nature, with which his own is 
 always in harmony ; from within the Father's will, to 
 which his own is always thoroughly conformed ? It is 
 a life quite compatible with the obligation of subjection 
 to authoritative rule or law ; and that too in the utmost 
 severity of penal infliction, as well as in the strictest 
 bond of holy requirement. It was so in Jesus as "made 
 under the law." He still had this life in himself, even 
 when he took our death as his own. If it had not been 
 so ; — if his life had been not from within but from with- 
 out ; — if he had been one who lived according to the 
 stress and strain of the external world ; — he never would 
 have taken our death as his own. But " having life in 
 himself," as one with the Father, he " finished the work 
 which the Father gave him to do." 
 
 Now therefore, in an emment and blessed sense, this 
 life is in the Son for us. There is in him for us such a 
 life as even the death of criminality and condemnation 
 which for us he takes as his own cannot destroy. It 
 
ETEENAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 241 
 
 would be ruin to us, — tliat death ; but it is not ruin to 
 Mm. If the sentence takes effect upon us, it is without 
 our choice, and against our consent ; we cannot walk up to 
 it as " ]iaving life in ourselves," or as moved from witliin 
 ourselves to bear it, as the Father is necessarily moved 
 from within himself to inflict it. But Jesus can, and does 
 (John X. 17, 18). Even in dying for us he has therefore 
 " life in himself" " Eternal life is thus in the Son" as 
 " sent by the Father to be the propitiation for our sins." 
 And this hfe is something more than his surviving 
 the endurance of our death. It is a living apprehension 
 and appropriation for us of the Father's hfe. For it is 
 " as the Father hath life in himself, that he," on our be- 
 half and as our head and representative, "has life in 
 himself." In that capacity he shares the Father's hfe ; 
 his manner of living is the same as the Father's. It is 
 not a life of shifts and expedients ; a life contingent and 
 conditional on the chances of time and tide ; a life of 
 afterthoughts, altering the course to suit every current, 
 — setting the sails to every change in the fickle wind. 
 It is a calm, serene purpose ; working itself out steadily 
 "without variableness or shadow of turning." It is 
 living for that for which God lives ; living therefore as 
 God lives. Is not that the eternal life of which God testi- 
 fies as being in his Son ? It is in his Son alone ; and in 
 him inalienably. It is in him in such a sense that he 
 cannot part with it or give it away. "We do not receive 
 this eternal life of God from his Son ; we share it with 
 him. The Father's testimony is that the eternal life 
 which he gives us is in his Son. 
 VOL. II. K 
 
242 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 Here let me remind you that it is the Spirit who 
 bears this testimony on the Father's behalf ; the Spirit, 
 with the water and the blood by which Jesus Christ 
 came. The Father's gift of eternal life to you is in his 
 Son ; that is the testimony. And it is the Spirit that 
 bears the testimony ; the Spirit who takes of what is 
 Christ's and shows it to you ; the Spirit making you 
 Christ's and Christ yours ; the Spirit making you par- 
 takers of Christ's own very life, — " the eternal life which 
 is in the Son." Because he lives, you live ; as he lives, 
 you live. In him the Father gave, has given, and is 
 giving you, " eternal life ; " life that, in and with Christ, 
 can undergo and survive the death of guilt and wrath ; 
 life that, in and with Christ, can in a sense become 
 identical in character with God's own life ; sharing, in 
 a measure, its inward, self-moving energy, and its inde- 
 pendence of thmgs without. For that, and nothing 
 short of that, is the eternal life that he gives ; the life 
 that is in his Son. So he is testifying to us ; — testify- 
 ing to us by his Spirit ; — by his Spirit striving with us, 
 and shutting us up into Christ. This eternal life in his 
 Son is his gift to us ; already bestowed ; assured to us 
 by his own testimony ; awaiting our acceptance ; ours 
 if we will but have it to be ours, — if we will have him 
 in whom it is ours. 
 
 Therefore " he that hath the Son hath life." If only 
 he has the Son, he has the very life which is in the Son. 
 Thus the way is made plain and simple ; God the Father 
 has made it so. Very wonderfully has he made it so. 
 The end is very high. It is our Living as God lives. It 
 
ETERNAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 243 
 
 is our living as God lives, from within ; not as acted 
 upon, but as acting ; and that from some inward motive, 
 or impulse, or principle, common to both, to God and to us. 
 And the common motive or impulse or principle, — that 
 which is common to God and to us as regards tliis eternal 
 life, — what is it? Is it not Christ? Is it not Christ 
 having in him this life ? God in Christ ; we in Christ ; — 
 is it not thus that God and we meet in a common life ? 
 
 1. Hence, in the first place, an essential preliminary or 
 condition of this life, — nay one chief part of it so far as 
 we are concerned, — is the abolishing of death. No one 
 can have this life ; a life self-possessed and seK-con- 
 tained, being a life God-possessed and God-contained ; 
 who is not consciously and believingly right with him- 
 self, because right with God ; right in law and judgment ; 
 on a right footing ; unimpeached and uncondemned. 
 The conscience must be pacified and the heart reconciled. 
 With a sense of sin upon the conscience and enmity in 
 the heart, it is impossible for me to have anything like 
 that free and independent life, in and with himself, 
 which God means me to have, as his gift to me. If he 
 is to give me that life of his, he must first give me 
 deliverance from this death of mine, — from my conscious 
 guilt and felt liability to wnrath, — and the consequent 
 dread, discomfort, and dislike, with which that life of 
 his is wholly incompatible. And so he does ; for if I have 
 the Son, I have life, in the sense and to the effect of 
 complete and final deliverance from death. I pass from 
 death to life. 
 
 2. But, secondly, the life to which I pass is sometliing 
 
244 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTniONY. 
 
 more than the undoing of my death ; the reversal of the 
 sentence and destruction of the power of my death. It 
 is a new endowment ; it is the imparting to me of a new 
 power, or privilege, or capacity; it is the accession or 
 addition of a new faculty of life, over and above any I 
 ever naturally possessed, or ever could have got for my- 
 self, even though the blight of sin's guilt and curse had 
 never come upon me. 
 
 For he whom I have is the Son ; and I ha^^e him, if 
 I have liim at all, as the Son. I have him, not merely 
 as he is set before me in his relation to sinners, and to 
 me, of sinners the chief ; himself made sin for me and 
 making me righteous in his righteousness. I must indeed 
 first have him in that character and capacity. But I 
 have him also as the Son, in his filial relation to the 
 Father ; as the Son to whom " the Father hath given to 
 have life in himself." I speak not of what he was to the 
 Father from before all worlds, in the past eternity, ere 
 he came into this world : it is not the life he then had 
 that the Father gives me. I speak of him as he has 
 been since his incarnation, and as he will continue to be 
 all through the eternity that is to come. When I have 
 him, I have him thus ; as he now is and ever will be. 
 I have the Son ; and in him I have the very life which 
 the Father has given him. 
 
 And that life is "life eternal;" it is "having life in 
 himseK." It is having life in himself because it is 
 having life in God his Father. For he and the Father 
 are one; and their life is one. Whatever constitutes 
 the Father's life ; whatever the everlasting Father may 
 
ETERNAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 245 
 
 be said to live in, or to live for ; that is the life of the 
 Son. And it is the life which you have, if you have the 
 Son. It is your having life in yourself. It is so most 
 emphatically when it is viewed in contrast with any life 
 you may be supposed, or may suppose yourself, to have 
 when you have not the Son, 
 
 AVhat is your life out of Christ ? Wliat is your life 
 in your unconverted state; when you are unrenewed 
 and unreconciled ? Is it anything like your having life 
 in yourselves ? Is it independent of tilings without ? 
 Take it in any sense you choose. Take it secularly, as 
 the life you live in the world. What keeps you alive, 
 alert, interested ; — not dull and drowsy, as you too often 
 are, but lively ? Is it an inherent inward principle of 
 activity ? Or are you conscious that you depend almost 
 entirely on outward stimulants, — outward means of oc- 
 cupation or excitement, — outward events or news or com- 
 pany, — for what you can really reckon the life of the day ; 
 and that without these you flag and droop, and for the 
 time are as good as dead ? You can bestir yourself on 
 occasion. You can be roused to sentimental interest or 
 energetic exertion, bodily or mental, when some appliance 
 from without is brought to bear upon you. But when 
 you are left to yourself and your own inward resources, 
 what stagnation is apt to come upon you ! Or take the 
 life you live religiously, in the sense of your trust and 
 hope before God! What is it? What is it that ministers 
 to your cpiiet and peace ? Is it an indwelling and abid- 
 ing assurance — an outgoing and outflowing affection? 
 Or is it an observance of formal rites and a compliance 
 
246 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 with devout customs ? Is it as beiucr alone with God, 
 or is it as one of a company, — lost in a crowd or admitted 
 into a coterie, — that you feel yourself to be safe enough 
 and comfortable enough ? Certainly, if you are out of 
 Christ, — if you have not the Son, — your life, in either 
 view of it, whatever real vitality you have, is contingent 
 upon things without ; bound up, more or less, wdth what 
 passes away and is not eternal. For the world, the 
 religious as well as the secular world, passes away ; and 
 any life to which it ministers must be fleeting and not 
 eternal. 
 
 But now, if you have the Son, how different is your 
 life ! First and chiefly, in a spiritual sense, how is it that 
 you now live ? A\^iat is the seat, what the source, of 
 your life ; your confidence ; your fellowship ; your wor- 
 ship ; your joy in God ? Is it not Christ in you ? Having 
 him as the Son, you are complete in him. You have his 
 life, the life which he has with God, communicated to 
 you and shared with you. Your life, in the sense of your 
 standing with God and your relation to God, is identical 
 with his. Having the Son, you have the Son's life, as 
 being sons yourselves. And now, therefore, the ruhng, 
 active, moving principle of your life is identical with 
 his. You live for that for which he, as the Son, lived and 
 lives. And what was, what is that ? Not certainly any- 
 thing out of himself, save only God. He lived here on 
 earth, not for things external, any more than he lived by 
 things external. He drew no inspiration from without 
 himself. He owned no rule without or outside of him- 
 self. He said, " Lo, I come ; to do thy will, God. Yea 
 
ETEKNAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 247 
 
 thy law is witliin my heart." He, being the Son, walked 
 abroad as the Son on his Father's earth " having life in 
 himself," because he lived with the Father and for the 
 Father ; the Father living in him and giving him without 
 measure the Spirit. That was his life. And you have 
 it as yours, if you have the Son himself as yours. You 
 also walk abroad on this earth, which is your Father's, 
 having your Father's love abiding in you, as it abode in 
 him ; receiving, as he did, the Spirit, 
 
 If then you realise your position, — if really and truly, 
 consciously and constantly, you " have the Son ; " — if you 
 have him as yours, your o^\^l very portion and possession, 
 yours now, to hold, to grasp, to identify with yourself ; 
 — if you thus have the Son and his sonship, what ought 
 to be your port and bearing towards things without — 
 "tilings seen and temporal?" Are you still to be the 
 sport of circumstances, swayed to and fro by accidents, 
 dependent on chances and contingencies, leaning on 
 props that an hour may overthrow, fain to snatch a 
 trembling joy from the brief and troubled sunshine of a 
 wintry noon? Nay rather, having the Son, live as 
 having in you " life eternal ; " life that can defy the vicis- 
 situdes, as it will outlast the limits, of time ; life standing, 
 not in the world's or the church's fleeting forms, but in 
 the favour, love, fellowship ; in the law, commandments, 
 ordinances ; of the everlasting Father, " his Father and 
 your Father, his God and your God." 
 
 Let a few words of practical application be allowed. 
 
 1. "He that hath the Son hath life;" he has this life, 
 and no other. Hence a searching question : — Are you 
 
248 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 willing upon that condition to have the Son ? You may 
 be willing to have the Son, and along with him, and 
 through him, some sort of life. You would have him as 
 providing for you life, in the sense of mere safety from 
 death; securing your ultimate impunity in the day of 
 judgment. But you cannot have him thus ; for "he 
 that hath the Son hath life" — "eternal life"; the life 
 meant when it is said, " as the Father hath life in him- 
 self, so hath he given to the Son to have in himseK." If 
 you have the Son at all, you must have him in all the 
 fulness of his filial oneness with the Father ; for that is 
 his life : that alone is " life eternal." 
 
 2. " He that hath not the Son of God hath not life ;" 
 he has not this life. Eternal life, in a sense, he has — 
 life without end ; and after death, life without change. 
 Life also in himself it will then be in a very terrible 
 sense : for then all external accessories and alleviations 
 are gone ; the world is not. But the soul not having the 
 Son is. It continues to exist, and that for ever. It lives, 
 with nothing out of itself to lean on, or look to ! There 
 is no congenial earthly system or sphere around to miti- 
 gate its pain; no Saviour waiting to be gracious; no 
 Holy Spirit striving any more ! For him there is, and 
 that for ever, eternal death, instead of eternal life. It 
 must be so because he has not the Son. 
 
 3. Eternal life is the gift of God — his present gift ; 
 his present gift to all — to all unreservedly — to all uncon- 
 ditionally. It is the life that is in his Son ; the life 
 which his Son lives now, and lives for evermore. This, 
 and nothing short of this, is God's gift. It is a gift ; a 
 
ETEENAL LIFE GIVEN IN THE SON. 249 
 
 mere gift ; a free gratuitous gift. It is not a prize ; " tlie 
 prize of your high calling of God in Clirist." That is tlie 
 consummation of this life ; for which you have to wait 
 and work, — to wrestle in the fight and run the race that 
 is set before you. But the life itself, in the full sense of 
 its being not only deliverance from the criminal's curse 
 through the Son bemg made a curse for you, but also 
 oneness with the Son, as in his atoning death and justi- 
 fying resurrection, so also in his filial oneness with the 
 Father, — this life is God's gift — his gift now; not to be 
 waited for; not to be worked for; not to be paid for; 
 but to be accepted and appropriated by faith alone. He 
 gives freely this eternal life. 
 
 4. Still he gives it only as life in his Son. He 
 cannot separate this life from his Son ; it is so precious, 
 so divine. It is a filial life, and therefore it is in his 
 Son. And it cannot be otherwise. You must have the 
 Son if you would have it. But is that a painful or an irk- 
 some condition? Is it any objection — can you feel it to 
 be any objection — that God insists on giving you his 
 Son? Not a boon — a benefit — a blessing through his 
 Son, but that Son himself, his own very Son, Jesus 
 whom he loveth ? Would you indeed have it otherwise ? 
 AVould you rather not have the Son himseK, if only you 
 could get the good of his coming between you and 
 eternal death ? Oh, be not so ungrateful ! Eefuse not 
 to receive and embrace him whom the Father is bringinff 
 near to you now. Obey the Father's gi'acious command 
 and caU ; " This is my beloved Son, hear him." 
 
250 ETEENAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 XLI. 
 
 ETEENAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH CONFIDENCE 
 IN PEAYER. 
 
 " These things have I wi'itten unto you that believe on the name of the 
 Son of God ; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, [and that 
 ye may believe on the name of the Son of God]. And this is the 
 confidence [boldness] that we have in him, that, if we ask anything 
 according to his will, he heareth us : and if we know that he hear 
 us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that 
 we desired of him." — 1 John v. 13-15.* 
 
 This would seem to be the beginning of the end of the 
 epistle. Whether the "these things" which "I have 
 written unto you" are simply the things contained in 
 the immediately preceding context, or must be held to 
 reach further back, is not material. John is evidently 
 summing up ; he is pointing his discourse or argument 
 to its close. And he points it very clearly and cogently. 
 He puts very strongly the final end he has in view. It 
 is that you may " know" certain things. Over and over 
 
 * I incline to the opinion of those who reject the last clause of the 
 13th verse, "and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. " 
 On the whole, the authority of manuscrijits seems to be against it. The 
 words come in, moreover, awkwardly, and with no real addition to the 
 sense of the passage. And I can see how the introduction of them 
 into certain manuscripts, through the fault of transcribers, is more 
 easily accounted for than the omission of them from any manuscripts, 
 if they had been genuine. That, as I think, is usually a good test. 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER. 251 
 
 again lie uses that word " know ; " not less than six or 
 seven times in the course of about as many verses. 
 The knowledge meant is evidently of a high order, in a 
 spiritual point of view ; not speculative and intellectual 
 merely, but experimental and practical. It is not 
 simply faith, although it- is connected with faith, as 
 flowing from it, and involved in it. Still it is something 
 more than faith. It is, if one may say so, faith realised ; 
 faith proved inwardly or subjectively, by being acted 
 out and acted upon outwardly or objectively; the be- 
 liever ascertaining, by actual trial and experience, the 
 truth and trustworthiness of his belief. It is not now 
 with us — we think, we are persuaded, we hope; but 
 " we know." 
 
 Now one thing which you are thus believingly to 
 know is " that you have eternal life." And you are to 
 know this, not in the way of a mere reflex ascertaining 
 of it, but in the way of a direct acting of it out ; for 
 " this is the boldness that we have in him, that, if we 
 ask anything accordmg to 'his will, he heareth us : and 
 if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we 
 know that we have the petitions that we desired of 
 him." It is thus, in the actual use of it, that you are to 
 know your havmg eternal life. In plain terms, the out- 
 going or forthcoming of our boldness, as having eternal 
 life, is in prayer. Prayer is the exercise or expression 
 of it ; as it has been said before to be : — " Whatsoever 
 we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his com- 
 mandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his 
 sight" (iii. 22). 
 
252 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 I. There is, however, as it might seem, a qualifica- 
 tion here which is not there ; " according to his will," 
 What that means it is important to see. It cannot well 
 mean that before asldug anything we must know cer- 
 tainly that what we ask is according to his will. This 
 would really preclude us, in ordinary circumstances, 
 from asking anything, or at least from asking anything 
 definite and precise. I say in ordinary circumstances. 
 For we may be situated as Daniel was, when, upon an 
 interpretation of Jeremiah's prophecy, he was infallibly 
 led by inspiration to the conclusion that the period of 
 the Babylonian captivity was expired, or expiring, and 
 that Israel's restoration was certainly due. Without 
 claiming, or having any right to claim, inspiration or 
 infallibility, men have considered themselves entitled, 
 on some extraordinary occasions, to ask certain things 
 to be done by God in his providence, in the full 
 assurance that they were according to his will. That 
 there may be such instances of confidence in asking, 
 upon a clear and certain conviction beforehand tliat 
 what is asked is according to God's will, — confidence, 
 not given by fresh insph-ation, but reached by faith in 
 exercise upon inspiration previously recorded, — may be 
 admitted. But these exceptional cases can scarcely be 
 held to meet the apostle's broad and general statement 
 as to the efficacy of all believing prayer. Nor will it do 
 to make this seeming qualification, "according to his 
 will," a mere tag or appendix to all prayer and every 
 prayer; as meaning simply that whatever we ask, we 
 are to ask Avith this, proviso, expressed or understood. 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PEAYEE. 253 
 
 " if it be according to tliy will." ISTo doubt, when we 
 pray for anything which implies that God should order 
 his providence one way rather than another, — thus and 
 not otherwise ; — and we can hardly pray for anything 
 specific or definite which does not imply that; — we 
 must, if we would not be guilty of presumption or 
 impiety, virtually attach always the reservation which 
 that formula implies. But this is so evidently indis- 
 pensable, as a condition of all genuine and reverential 
 j)rayer, that it could hardly be needful for John to state 
 it. He must surely be pointing to some higher function 
 of the prayer of faith. 
 
 " If we ask anything according to his will," — may 
 not this mean, " If we ask anything as we believe that 
 he wills it?" We ask it as he wills it. In asking it, 
 we put ourselves in the same position with him in 
 willing it. He and we look at it from the same point 
 of view. "We who ask identify ourselves with him who 
 wills. Wliatever we ask, we ask as from within tha 
 circle of his will ; we being one in our asking with him 
 in his willing. 
 
 This may seem too high a position for us to occupy 
 or aim at ; too divine a stand-point ; that we in asldng, 
 and God in willing, should be at one. And yet is it not 
 the only fair, the only possible, alternative or antithesis 
 to what is the only notion of prayer which the natural 
 man can take in, the notion of bending God's will to his ? 
 For that, unquestionably, is what, when he prays, the 
 natural man desires. 
 
 The priests of Baal, when, in answer to Elijah's 
 
254 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 challenge, " they cried aloud and cut themselves after 
 their manner," sought by their fierce and bloody impor- 
 tunity to bend the object of their mad worship to their 
 purpose, and make him subservient to their pleasure. The 
 sailors in the ship with Jonah, when they called every 
 man upon his god, simply thought that they might be 
 " heard for their much speaking." The instinct of phy- 
 sical pain in acute disease, or of natural affection in an 
 anxious crisis, or of blank despair in sudden peril, may 
 wring from unaccustomed lips a defiant or an abject 
 appeal to the Pailer over all. It is an unknown God 
 who is invoked, on the mere chance that he may be got 
 to do their bidding. The heathen view of prayer, like 
 the heathen view of sacrifice, proceeds upon that notion 
 of subjecting God's determination to men's desire ; the 
 prayer and the sacrifice being both alike intended to 
 work upon the divine mind so as to change it into 
 accordance with that of the worshipper. The idea is 
 that God needs to be appeased, and that he may be per- 
 suaded ; that he needs to be appeased by sacrifice, so 
 that wrath may give place to pity ; and that he may 
 be persuaded by prayer to act otherwise than his inner 
 nature might prompt, in compliance with solicitations, 
 or in deference to pressure, from without. 
 
 But a right spiritual apprehension of God, as " hav- 
 ing in himself eternal life," and " giving us that eternal 
 life in his Son," places both sacrifice and prayer in an 
 entirely different light. Eternal life must necessarily, in 
 its nature as well as in its duration, be independent of 
 time, and consequently also of time's changes and con- 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER. 255 
 
 tin^rencies, its influences and motives. As it is in God 
 himself, it is self-moved, self-originated, self-inspired. 
 He has witliiu himself the grounds and reasons of all 
 his proceedings. In so far as it is communicable 
 to us through his Son and in his Son, it must possess 
 substantially the same character of self containedness, 
 if I may use such a term, or independence of things 
 without. Only, in our case, this life of ours is " hid 
 with Christ in God." It is his life in us. 
 
 How then does God himself — having life, this 
 eternal life, in hunself — stand related to prayer, or to 
 sacrifice and prayer together? Both must be from 
 within himself. They are alike and equally means of 
 his own appointment or ordination. Sacrifice, the 
 atoning sacrifice of his Son for us, is his own way of 
 opening up communication between himself and us. 
 Prayer, our prayer to him in his Son's name, is his own 
 way of carrying on and carrying out the communication. 
 He, having eternal life in himself, moved from within 
 himself, giyes to us this eternal life in his Son. And 
 all the fruit or benefit of it he is pleased to give through 
 prayer. For the eternal life which is now, in a sense, 
 common to him and us, comes out in prayer. "We 
 meet in prayer, he and we together. And we meet, be 
 it said with reverence, on the footing of our joint pos- 
 session, in a measure, of the same eternal life ; life in 
 ourselves ; he and we thus meet together. 
 
 Thus prayer, as it is here introduced, becomes a very 
 solemn, because a very confidential, deahng with God. 
 It is asking. But it is asking upon the ground of a very 
 
256 ETEKNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 close union and thorough identity between God and us, 
 as regards the life to which the asking has respect, and 
 of which it is the acting out. In plain terms, it is our 
 asking as one in interest, in sympathy, in character, in 
 end and aim — one, in short, in life or manner of living, 
 with him whom we ask ; through his giving us eternal 
 life ; that life being in his Son, and being indeed the 
 very life itself of his Son. 
 
 This is not, however, to be regarded as of the essence 
 of prayer, so that none may appeal to the throne of 
 grace without it. God forbid that I should restrict the 
 efficacy of prayer, however and whenever it is offered, 
 out of a smitten conscience and broken heart. Not 
 merely as a sinner out of Christ, but as a believer in 
 Christ, I find my need, daily and hourly, of that liberty 
 of access, as it were from without, to my God and 
 Eather, which I have in and with him who has taught 
 me so to approach him. 
 
 But it is a somewhat different attitude that I am 
 here called to assume ; different, and yet after all the 
 same. I pray as having eternal life ; the very eternal 
 life which God gives, and which is in his son Jesus 
 Christ. What sort of prayer does that mean ? Are we 
 not, in offering it, brought into the position of offering 
 the prayer from the very same stand-point, if one may 
 say so, on which God himself stands, when he answers 
 the prayer ? We offer our prayer as " having eternal 
 life ; " — God's own eternal life, made over to us as ours 
 in his Son. And that is the ground of the confidence 
 which we have, " that if we ask anything according to 
 his will, he heareth us." 
 
.CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER. 257 
 
 II. Hence we are to " know that we have eternal 
 life " through our thus asking, in this confidence ; for 
 " if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we 
 know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." 
 We are to know our privilege in the using of it ; we 
 are to know our position by taking advantage of it. We 
 receive, in the Son, as the Father's gift, a new life. In 
 its nature and manner of acting, it is analogous to the 
 Father's own life, and indeed, in some sense, identical 
 with it. The identity manifests itself in this confidence 
 of prayer. In so far as my prayer is the working out of 
 that identity, it must be confident, confiding, free, and 
 bold. It must be real and actual conversation with God 
 within his own holy place ; in his own inmost chamber ; 
 upon the matter, whatever it is, that is the subject of 
 my prayer. I get in now within the veil. I am a 
 dweller in the secret place of the Most High. I am, as 
 it were, behind the scenes of his great providential 
 drama — his great economy of grace and judgment. I 
 am with him ; one with him ; one with him in sym- 
 pathy of mind and heart as to the eternal principles ancl 
 laws upon which the whole plan of his moral adminis- 
 tration proceeds. From that point of view I consider 
 the question at issue ; the question to which my prayer 
 relates ; and my prayer regarding it is framed accord- 
 ingly. It is a setting forth of the matter, as, in all its 
 aspects, it presents itself to me. It is a spreading of it 
 out before God, as it appears to me; — to me, however, 
 as having God's gift to me of eternal life in his Son. 
 For the case is now under my eye, not as it miglit pre- 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 sent itself to me, judging after the flesh, looking at 
 things in the light of merely natural predilections and 
 opinions ; — but as it presents itself to me, judging 
 spiritually ; looking at things in the light of the eternal 
 life which God gives me in his Son. Whatever I so ask 
 must be according to his will ; and therefore I may 
 have absolute confidence that I have it. 
 
 I may possibly see my way, upon this footing, to ask 
 altogether unconditionally. I may so realise God's 
 giving me eternal life in his Son, — and so clearly and 
 unmistakeably and assuredly perceive how, in the view 
 of that eternal life, the event at issue might best be 
 ordered, — as to have the utmost boldness in preferring a 
 specific request, absolutely and without qualification. 
 Eminent saints of God have felt themselves entitled, — 
 and have warrantably felt themselves entitled, — espe- 
 cially in critical emergencies, to be thus precise and 
 peremptory ; — all the more if a brotherhood of them con- 
 ferred and consulted together, under the guidance of 
 God's word, as apj)lied by the Spirit's help to his 
 providence. All of them being led by the Spirit to the 
 same conclusion, finding that the case presented itself to 
 them all in the same aspect, and being of one mind as 
 to what would best subserve the ends of the eternal life 
 which they all have in common as God's gift in his Son ; 
 — they may have considered themselves at liberty to 
 condescend with great assurance upon the particular 
 step which they would have God to take. And there- 
 fore they might unhesitatingly ask him to take it, and 
 fearlessly reckon on his taking it. I suppose that this 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PEAYER. 259 
 
 is partly the Lord's meaning in that remarkable promise : 
 — " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any- 
 thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of 
 my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 Even in such a case, however, the prayer is not mere 
 importunate solicitation, as from without; it partakes 
 more of the nature of confidential conversation, within 
 the circle of God's house and family. To adopt a homely 
 phrase, it is as if, using the liberty of trusted children, 
 we were telling our Father how the case under con- 
 sideration strikes us ; how it strikes us when we are 
 looking at it — or trying to look at it — from his point 
 of view ; lookmg at it in the light of that " eternal life 
 which he gives us in his Son." 
 
 And what does it really matter, in such intercourse 
 as this, on such a footing as this, with the only wise 
 God, if we should ordinarily count it safer and more 
 becoming to ask conditionally; under the reservation 
 and with the qualification of deference and submission 
 to his better judgment? Our asking anything thus 
 conditionally, if only we ask in the spirit of the eternal 
 life which we have in his Son, is very eminently "accord- 
 ing to his will." He cannot but approve of it. Nor does 
 it in the least detract from our confidence in asking. 
 
 There is room indeed here for different degrees, not 
 of our confidence in asking, but of the conditionality or 
 unconditionality, if I may say so, with which we ask. 
 (3ur confidence in asking is the same ; the only difler- 
 ence is as to our making up our mind what to ask. As 
 to that, we mav well have some hesitation for the most 
 
260 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 part in "being very definite and positive. Even when 
 we lionestly and truly ask as having eternal life given 
 to us by God in his Son, we may be at a loss. Nay, the 
 more we so ask, the more may we be at a loss. We try 
 to look at the matter at issue as God looks at it ; not 
 under the influence of things without, and the considera- 
 tions which they might suggest; but under the rule, 
 and in the light, of that higher life which he lias in 
 himself We seek to judge as God judges ; in the view, 
 not of temporal interests merely, but of eternal issues. 
 Well may we pause and be very cautious ; well may 
 there be a certain reserve in any judgment we form, and 
 a certain reservation in any prayer we frame upon that 
 judgment ; well may there be some dubiety — not as to 
 our having what we ask — but as to what we are to ask ; 
 what we would have God to do. 
 
 But what then ? Is this confidence in prayer a de- 
 lusion, a sort of juggle ? I am told that in virtue of the 
 eternal life which God gives me in his Son, I may have 
 whatever I choose to ask. And in the same breath I 
 am told that this very eternal life, which I thus have, 
 may hinder me, for the most part, from ever asking 
 almost anything definitely and positively. Is this not 
 a kind of double-dealing ? Is it not patting me off as 
 with the Barmecide's empty feast, or the visionary 
 mirage of the desert ? Nay, it is far otherwise. 
 
 - Let us consider practically our real position ; let us 
 take a specific instance. 
 
 Our brother Lazarus is sick ; and the sickness 
 seems to be unto death. What are we to ask ? What 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PllAYEE. 261 
 
 is to be our petition, find what our request ? If we 
 have respect simply to life temporal; if we take ac- 
 count merely of such considerations as this present 
 earthly scene suggests; we cannot hesitate a moment. 
 Looking at the case from a human stand-point, we need 
 no time for deliberation. The instinct of natural affec- 
 tion will prompt, — and many reasons of Christian ex- 
 pediency will occur to enforce, — the loud wailing cry to 
 the Lord to sj)are so precious and useful a life. But we 
 feel that, as admitted to a participation with the Son in 
 the eternal life of God, we have a higher standing and 
 a weightier responsibility in this matter of prayer. We 
 are lifted up to the very footstool on which the throne 
 of the hearer of prayer itself rests ; and from thence we 
 look at the question, as he looks at it. Finding our- 
 selves thus placed, our first impulse may be to shrink 
 and hang back altogether. We refuse even to attempt 
 to form a judgment, and to frame the judgment into a 
 prayer, however guarded. But that is not his will ; nor 
 on second thouq'hts is it our wish. It is indeed a sinra- 
 larly high and holy position, in respect of insight and 
 sympathy, that we are called to occupy in fellowship 
 with God. But we are to occupy it boldly, and with all 
 confidence. And now from that position we apply our 
 mind, as it were, along with him, to the determination 
 of what is best to be done ; and we express our mind 
 freely to him all along as we do so. We talk the whole 
 affair over with him ; conversing about it without re- 
 serve. We reason, we expostulate, we plead. We 
 spread out before him all the views and considerations. 
 
262 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 of whatever sort, that seem to us to have any bearing 
 on the case; not excluding those suggested by warm 
 natural affection and urgent earthly interests, but not 
 limiting our regard to these. We say whatever occurs 
 to us, — whatever it is in our heart to say. 
 
 What though in all this close and confidential deal- 
 ing with God we should not be able to say positively 
 what is best ? Is it not a blessed intercourse notwith- 
 standing ? We may be reduced to utter straits : " Now 
 is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?" In our 
 anguish of spirit, distracted between conflicting motives ; 
 altogether at a loss to decide what we would have God 
 to do ; driven out of reasoning and speech ; we may be 
 reduced to groaning and weeping ; to " strong crying and 
 tears." What then ? Is our confidence in prayer gone ? 
 Nay, it was when Jesus " in the days of his flesh made 
 supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that 
 was able to save him from death," that he had the most 
 complete assurance of his being "heard in that he feared." 
 And it is when " we know not what to pray for as we 
 ought, that the Spirit, helping our infirmities, maketh 
 intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered." 
 Our unutterable groanings the blessed Spirit takes as his 
 ov n, turning them into prayers ; prayers very specially 
 acceptable to the hearer of prayer. For " he who 
 searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of the 
 Spirit when he" thus " maketh intercession for the saints." 
 His domg so is " according to the will of God." 
 
 Let us look then at the light which John's teaching 
 in these verses casts on the privilege and duty of prayer. 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PRAYEE. 263 
 
 1. In the first place, let us consider what prayer is, 
 as thus viewed, in all the fulness and variety of its con- 
 fident assurance. It is not simj^ly petitioning ; it is not 
 monotonous reiteration ; the incessant sending up to 
 heaven again and again of the same appeal ; — the same 
 demand for some specific deliverance, some precise and 
 definite benefit, that may seem to us indispensable, that 
 we feel as if we could not do without. It is a far more 
 confidential dealing with God than that. It is our be- 
 comino; " the men of his secret." It is our getting into 
 the inmost chamber of his house, and consulting with 
 him there ; seeking to know his mind ; ready to make 
 his mind ours. I say it is consulting with God. And 
 the consultation may and must be full and free. It will 
 embrace as its topics whatever can be of interest to him 
 or to us ; to him primarily, to us as under him. Hence, 
 everywhere and always, and with reference to everything, 
 we must be thus consulting with God ; not only upon 
 cases of difficulty or distress, but upon all sorts of cases ; 
 common cases, everyday cases ; little cases, as well as 
 cases of rare and grave emergency. 
 
 Prayer of this kind may be short, like the Lord's 
 strong cry of agony in the garden ; it maybe silent, like his 
 groaning and weeping at Bethany. But it may be long, 
 ever so long, without falling under the Lord's censure 
 of the long prayers of the Pharisees. In such prayer he 
 himself often spent the whole long night. He was at 
 home then and there with his Father; consultmg with 
 him about many things ; about all things bearing on his 
 Father's glory and his own work ; laying his own views 
 
264 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 aud feelings and wishes unreservedly before his Father ; 
 and reverently learning his. 
 
 Brethren, pray thus without ceasing. " In everything, 
 by such prayer and supphcation, make your requests 
 known to God." Carry everything ; literally everything ; 
 everything that befalls you, or seems likely to befall you ; 
 every choice you have to make ; whatever you have to 
 say or do ; every care, every duty, every trial, every glad 
 relief; carry everything to God. Converse with God 
 about it. Turn it over, as between God and you, in 
 every possible way. Look at it from every possible point 
 of view. Do not be in haste to make up your mind as 
 to what is best; as to what you should definitely ask. 
 Eather prolong the blessed interview. The very sus- 
 pending of your judgment, as the consultation goes on, 
 may make the interview more blessed. And the issue 
 will be the clear, calm " peace of God keeping your hearts 
 and minds through Jesus Christ your Lord;" "the single 
 eye, making the whole body full of light." 
 
 2. Then, secondly, let us consider how close and 
 intimate is the connection between life and prayer ; 
 between God's giving us eternal life in his Son, and our 
 asking thus confidently and confidentially. The two are 
 really one; the eternal life is realised and acted out in 
 this asking. The life is prayer; and prayer is the life. 
 It is as partakers of the life which the Father has in him- 
 self, and which, by his gift, the Son also has in himself, 
 that we ask and pray. The essential characteristic of that 
 life is its self-containedness, if I may repeat the phrase ; 
 its independence of things without ; its drawing from 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER. 265 
 
 within itself the motives of all its voluntary determina- 
 tions. So the Father lives ; not moved by impulses and 
 influences of a temporal sort from without ; but purpos- 
 ing and decreeing, willing and acting, always from him- 
 self and for himself. So the Son also lives, not as God 
 merely, but as "the man Christ Jesus;" being, as to his 
 manhood as well as his Godhead, in an intimate sense 
 one with the Father ; one in purpose and decree, in will 
 and action ; one in mind and heart. So also in a measure 
 we, having the Son, live. Our real life is apart from the 
 contingencies and accidents of time, being " hid with 
 Christ in God." It is as so living, living that hidden 
 life, that we ask and pray. 
 
 What harmony, what concord and agreement, what 
 entire oneness, between God and us, does this imply ! 
 It is oneness of opinion, sentiment, feeling, desire ; first, 
 on the great fundamental question, What is life ? — ^life 
 worthy of the name, — life worth the living ; and then, 
 in subordination to that, upon every question which can 
 touch that life. We form the same idea of life that God 
 has, and that Christ has; the same idea of what it is 
 worth while to live for. And it is under that idea, fixed 
 and fastened deep in our inmost spirit, that we ask and 
 pray. We settle in the Spirit with ourselves, — as well 
 as with Christ and with God, — what is the only true, 
 the only perfect, the only desirable life, for beings pos- 
 sessed of a divine faculty of intelligence, and destined to 
 a divine immortality. Having that life, we commune 
 with the living One, as our Father in Christ, upon all 
 the great eternal aims and hopes which it contains, and 
 
266 ETERNAL LIFE CONNECTED WITH 
 
 all the small temporal casualties by which, for a season, 
 these aims and hopes maybe environed and beset. Such 
 communing about eternity, and about time as related to 
 eternity, is prayer ; the prayer which acts out " the 
 eternal life which we have as God's gift m his Son." 
 
 3. In the third place, let us consider how very holy 
 this life is, and how very holy therefore must be the 
 prayer which acts it out. It is indeed our being " par- 
 takers of God's holiness." For such living fellowship 
 and communion as is implied in the life and the prayer, 
 sensitively shrinks from all unholy handling. Sense 
 may not mar it ; sin may not pollute it ; the touch of 
 earth's vanity or man's corruption breaks its sacred 
 spell, and dissolves its peaceful charm. For the charm 
 of this life of prayer is peace ; the peace of God ; the 
 peace of conscious sympathy with the God of peace. But 
 aU earthliness, worldliness, and selfishness, — all diversity 
 of judgment or feeling on any point between us and him 
 whose eternal life we share, — in a word, all unholiness, — 
 disturbs that peace. No unsanctified bosom can be its 
 dwelling-place on earth, for its dwelling-place in heaven 
 is the holy bosom of God. Therefore, " as he who hath 
 called us is holy, let us also be holy." 
 
 4. For, in the fourth place, this faculty of praying 
 as having eternal life, is itself to be sought by prayer. 
 The life is God's gift in Christ, to be appropriated by 
 faith ; the Spirit shutting us up into Christ, and making 
 us one with Christ. The prayer is in the Sj)irit and of 
 the Spirit. It is the Spirit making intercession for us, 
 with us, in us. It is the Spirit of his Son sent forth by 
 
CONFIDENCE IN PKAYEE. 267 
 
 God into our heals, crying, Abba, Fatlier. But tlie 
 Spirit is given in answer to prayer. Therefore let us 
 ask, seek, knock, that we may receive the Spirit; that 
 he may dwell in us ; that he may move us, as having 
 eternal life in the Son, to pray, as the Son himself was 
 wont to pray, in the Spirit. So moved, we may be 
 praying confidently, as the Son prayed, in all sorts of 
 ways ; not only in prolonged midnight meditations, but 
 in brief ejaculations as occasion calls; in hasty utter- 
 ances ; or when utterance fails, in sighs and tears and 
 groans. For we have all boldness to be ever praying, 
 after whatever sort of prayer may suit the times and 
 seasons of our praying. Let us pray that we may receive 
 the Spirit thus to embolden us always to pray ; — to " ask 
 according to his will," even as the Spirit " maketh inter- 
 cession for the saints, according to the will of God." 
 
268 PRAYER FOR A BEOTHER'S SIN : 
 
 XLII. 
 
 PRAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN, BUT NOT FOR A 
 SIN UNTO DEATH. 
 
 " If any man see liis brother sin a sin wliich is not unto death, he shall 
 ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. 
 There is a sin unto death : I do not say that he shall pray for it. 
 All unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin [not] unto death." — 
 1 John v. 16, 17.* 
 
 John assumes that one chief use which you will be dis- 
 posed to make of your right and power to pray will be 
 to pray for others. He puts a case. You see your brother 
 sinning. He is "your brother." This does not neces- 
 sarily imply that he v.dio sins is a true brother in the 
 Lord. It has been already made manifest more than 
 once in this epistle, that the relation of brotherhood, in 
 the apostle's sense of the term, is of much wider reach 
 and range. It arises not so much out of the character 
 and standing of him whom you call your brother, as out 
 of the nature of the affection with which you regard 
 him. True, your brother, in the highest point of view, 
 is he who, being really to God a son, is really to you on 
 
 * I incline to read this 17tli verse without the negative in the last 
 clause. The sense of the entire passage is not materially affected, 
 whether we keep in or leave out the "not." But the authority of manu- 
 scripts is rather against it. And certainly the omission of it makes the 
 meaning more plain and pointed. (See page 283.) 
 
NOT FOR A SIN UNTO DEATH. 269 
 
 that account a brother. But whoever he may be whom 
 you love with a brotherly love ; with a love that treats 
 him as a brother ; not as a mere instrument to be used 
 or companion to be enjoyed for a day, but as one having 
 an immortal soul to be saved for eternity; every one so 
 loved by you is your brother. When he sins, his sin 
 vexes you as the sin of a brother. You cannot look on 
 and see him sinning with indifference or amusement or 
 contempt, as if he were a stranger, or a helot, or a dog. 
 It is your brother whom you see sinning. And therefore 
 you speak to him as to a brother about his sin; not 
 harshly, with sharp reproach, or cutting sarcasm, or cold 
 magisterial severity. With a brother's voice, coming 
 out of the depths of a brother's bosom, you earnestly ex- 
 postulate and affectionately plead with him. Alas ! he 
 turns to you a deaf ear, and you have no power to open 
 it. But another ear is open to you, the ear of your 
 Father in heaven ; and he can open your brother's ear. 
 To your Father in heaven you go. You deal with him 
 about your sinning brother's case. You ask that life may 
 be given to him ; the " eternal life " which the sin he is 
 committing justly forfeits. You grow importunate in 
 asking ; your importunity being in proportion to the 
 truth and warmth of your brotherly love ; you feel almost 
 as if you could converse with God about nothing else. 
 And you do converse with God about it, — oh, how 
 pathetically ! In all this you do well ; using the liberty 
 you have, as receiving " eternal life in his Son," to " ask 
 anything, knowing that he hears you." 
 
 But is there no risk of excess or of error ? IMay you 
 
270 PEAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 not be too onesided in looking at the case yourself, and 
 in representing it to God? May you not be so con- 
 cerned about tlie one terrible aspect of it, — its bearing 
 on your brother's doom, — as to shut out the other aspect 
 of it, which ought never to be lost sight of, its bearing 
 on the Father's throne ; — on the holy and righteous 
 sovereignty of his government and law ? May not your 
 sympathy with your sinning brother overbear somewhat 
 your sympathy with him against whom he is sinning ? 
 May you not thus be led to overstep the limits of 
 warrantable confidence, — so as to ask that life may be 
 given to him, on any terms, at any cost, in any way, 
 irrespectively altogether of what, in your calmer mo- 
 mentvS, you would yourself recognise as the paramount 
 claims of the Most High ? Thus your prayer for your 
 sinning brother may slide insensibly into an apologetic 
 pleading for indulgence to his sin. You may be 
 tempted to represent as excusable what God regards as 
 inexcusable ; and to feel as if, whatever your brother's 
 criminality may be, there may still be favour shown to 
 him notwithstanding. It is to guard you against such 
 a frame of mind that the solemn warnincj is ^iven : " If 
 a man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, 
 he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin 
 not unto death. There is a sin unto death : I do not 
 say that he shall pray for it." 
 
 I am persuaded that it is in the line of this train of 
 thought that the solution of the difficult problem here 
 suggested is to be sought. The whole analogy of the 
 faith, as well as the bearinq- of the context, favours this 
 
NOT FOR A SIN UNTO DEATIL 271 
 
 view. If I am right in this persuasion, some important 
 consequences would seem to follow. 
 
 In the first place, there is no warrant in this text 
 for the doctrine which Eome seeks to draw from it as 
 to the distinction, in themselves, — in their own nature 
 or in their accompanying aggravations, — between venial 
 and mortal sins. Let the distinction he admitted as 
 otherwise proved, it is nothing to the purpose here. A 
 Eomanist, in his anxious prayer for his sinning brother, 
 may be tempted to put his sin into the wrong category, 
 and to speak of it to God as venial, whereas it is really 
 mortal. It is a temptation of the same sort that besets 
 me ; I admit it to be so. He, praying according to his 
 creed which allows the distinction, is admonished, pre- 
 cisely as I who deny it am admonished. We are both 
 warned against askmg God to regard as venial what, in 
 the view of his righteous judgment and holy supremacy, 
 is and must be mortal. But this text itself does not 
 decide between us. And if it appears from all the rest 
 of Scripture that the Eomanist's idea is not only un- 
 proved but disproved, the circumstance that this text 
 might possibly be interpreted in consistency with his 
 idea avails him nothing ; since it turns out that it can 
 be equally well, or even much better, interpreted in 
 consistency with mine. 
 
 Secondly, there is no occasion to be solicitous in 
 attempting to identify any particular sin, or any parti- 
 cular manner of sinning, as what is here said to be 
 " unto death." The attempt, as all experience shows, is 
 as vain as it is presumptuous. And yet, in spite of 
 
272 PRAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 all experience, the attempt is ever renewed. Morbid 
 minds, or minds in a morbid state, become sensitive on 
 the point ; but without warrant or reason. Even if 
 there were " a sin unto death" that might be ascertain- 
 able in a man's own consciousness, the mention of it 
 would not be to the purpose here, unless it were ascer- 
 tainable also in the judgment of his neighbour or his 
 brother. For the question is as to your praying for me. 
 Even if I myself could know that I had sinned the sin 
 unto death, how could you know that I had ? However 
 it might affect my praying for myself, how could it 
 affect your praying for me ? And as you have no right 
 to judge me to that effect, so neither have I any right 
 to judge myself Let it be settled and fixed as a great 
 truth, according to this and many other passages of 
 Scripture, that there cannot be any such thing as my 
 sinning a sin unto death, in such a sense as might warrant 
 me, from my fear of my having committed it, to cease 
 to pray for myself; — far less warrant you, from an 
 opinion on your part that I have committed it, to cease 
 to pray for me. 
 
 For, thirdty, the real and only object of the apostle 
 is to put in a caveat and lodge a protest against the 
 intrusion into the sacred province of confidential prayer, 
 especially when it is prayer for a sinning brother, of a 
 tendency which is too natural and too apt to prevail, 
 even in one having the eternal life which the Father 
 gives in his Son ; the tendency, I mean, to subordinate 
 the divine claims to considerations of human expe- 
 diency or human pity. It is the same tendency which. 
 
NOT FOE A SIN UNTO DEATH. 273 
 
 "when tlie case is our own, is apt to bias and mislead us. 
 Let us trace its working. 
 
 1. It is of course strongest in the unrenewed mind 
 and unreconciled heart. Wliile imder their dominion, 
 we cannot be expected to consult for God at all ; we 
 consult only for ourselves. In forming a notion as to 
 how God may, and as we think, ought to deal with us, 
 we take little or no account of what may be due to him, 
 to the honour of his holy name and the glorious majesty 
 of his throne and law. We pay little or no regard to 
 what the principles of his righteous moral administra- 
 tion and the interests of his loyal subjects may require. 
 We think only of our own relief and safety ; our own 
 convenience and accommodation. And hence we see 
 no difficulty in our slight offences being overlook^ 
 and our infirmities indulged, upon our making certain 
 formal submissions, and going through some routine of 
 service. Thus w^e accept the serpent's lie : " Ye shall 
 not surely die ; " no sin of ours being, in our view, if all 
 extenuating circumstances are taken into account, " a 
 sin unto death." 
 
 2. It shoidd be otherwise with us now ; now that 
 " having the Son we have life." We surely ought to be, 
 as the Son is, on the Father's side ; one in interest 
 and sympathy with him ; ready to give him the pre- 
 eminence in all things, and to subordinate even what 
 most pertains to our own welfare to the glorifying of his 
 name and the doing of his Avill. We may be thankful 
 that this does not entail on us the sufferinu' and sacrifice 
 which it entailed on him, when he, in the matter of the 
 
 VOL. 11. T 
 
274 PKAYEK FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 cup given him to drink, submitted his own will to the 
 Father's. Well may we be thankful that, through his 
 taking our death as his and our having his life as ours, 
 we may have the same mind that was in him, without 
 its bringing such pain on us. Nay, for us, our putting 
 God and his claims first, and putting ourselves and our 
 concerns second, is in fact the secret of our safety and 
 our rest. 
 
 All the more on that account is it reasonable to 
 expect that in whatever we ask of God for ourselves, in 
 our closest communing with him about our own affairs, 
 whether temporal or spiritual, we should allow this 
 principle to have full scope. But is it so ? Alas ! the 
 old selfish spirit is ever apt to come back and come out 
 a^ain. It comes out, perhaps almost unconsciously, in 
 our secret pleading that something in us or about us 
 may be spared which God has doomed to destruction ; 
 be it some unmortified lust in the heart, or some doubt- 
 ful practice of worldly conformity in the life. If indeed 
 we are honestly communing with God about it, — placing 
 his honour first and our case only second, — we can be at 
 no loss what to ask. "We can ask but one thing ; the 
 grace of instant decision to deal with what offends, as we 
 know that God would have it dealt with. Are we asking 
 that — asking it in faith — and acting accordingly ? Or 
 are we still irresolute, putting in a plea for some slight 
 indulgence, some short delay ; as if, after all, the evil 
 were not so very serious, nor the danger of tolerating it 
 for a little longer so very great ? Brother, let me 
 solemnly and affectionately warn you, — or rather, let the 
 
NOT FOR A SIN UNTO DEATH. 275 
 
 beloved apostle warn you : — " All unrighteousness is 
 sin : and there is a sin unto death." 
 
 3. In intercessory prayer, the tendency of which I 
 speak operates powerfully and painfully. A rude and 
 vulgar notion prevails amongst those who reject the 
 gospel which we embrace, that we who embrace it, 
 hugging ourselves in our own security, have a sort of 
 pleasure in consigning all outside of our circle to in- 
 evitable and everlasting ruin. Alas ! they know not, 
 either the weakness of our filial faith, or the strength, if 
 not of our brotherly love, yet of our natural affection. 
 The temptation is all the other way. It is all in the 
 direction of our tampering and taking liberties with the 
 sovereign authority and grace of God, in accommodation 
 to the weakness, and even the wickedness, of men. We 
 do not say, abstractly and absolutely, that there is not a 
 sin unto death ; but we fondly hope that our brother's 
 sin may not be held to be so. It is not hoping that he 
 may repent of it. Such hope cannot well be too strong ; 
 nor can our asking in terms of it be too confident. But 
 here lies the danger. Our asking that he may repent of 
 it, if his repenting of it is delayed, is apt, — oh, how apt ! 
 — apt i'n proportion as we love him, to slide unawares 
 into our virtually asting that, though not repented of, 
 it may be overlooked ; that at least it may not be reck- 
 oned to him as " a sin unto death." 
 
 It is often a very terrible test of our loyalty to God 
 our Father, and our allegiance to his crown and his com- 
 mandments, that is in such a case to be applied. 
 
 4. Take an extreme instance. One whom ycu loved 
 
276 PRAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 with truest brotherly love, with, most intense longing to 
 welcome him as a brother in Christ to your heart, has 
 gone without affording you that joy ; he has died, giving 
 no sign. He was lovely, amiable, pleasant. You and 
 he were one in kin ; still more one in kind and in kind- 
 ness. But he has passed away, continuing to the last 
 in a course of life scarcely, if at all, reconcilable with 
 even the profession of godhness. What is your tempta- 
 tion in such a case ? Ah, it is a very awful one ! It is 
 to prefer his interest to the gospel of God and the law of 
 God. It is to tliink that, culpable as he may have been, 
 his culpability may not have proved fatal. It is to 
 cherish the fond imagination that, in spite of the law 
 which he has broken and the gospel which he has re- 
 jected, he may still, on the ground of qualities which 
 won your admiration, or sufferings which moved your 
 compassion, find some measure of mercy in the end. 
 
 It is very tender ground on which I tread ; I know 
 it ; experunentally I know it. Far, very far, be it from 
 me, to insist on your judging a departed brother, however 
 he may have sinned, and continued in his sin to the 
 last. He is in the hands of God. Leave him there 
 without questioning. Think of the old rhyming adage — 
 
 ' ' Between the stirrup and tlie ground, 
 Mercy I sought, mercy I fomid. " 
 
 Think too of the more authentic instance of the thief on 
 the cross ; by all means think of that, and take what 
 comfort you can from that. But beware ! Sorely, — oh, 
 how sorely ! — are you tempted first to wish that there 
 were some room for such as he was, — even continuiug 
 
NOT FOE A SIN UNTO DEATH. 277 
 
 still the same, — within the holy city of the most high 
 God ; and then to hope that there may he. It is, I 
 repeat, a very sore temptation. Many a brokenhearted 
 mourner in Zion has felt it ; you and I have felt it ; and 
 we have felt that, under the influence of it, we have 
 been beginning to underrate the need of regeneration, 
 and conversion, and a living faith, and a holy wallc ; to 
 dream of men who gave no evidence here of anything 
 like such grace, being possibly safe without it hereafter. 
 And what next ? We become insensibly more tolerant 
 than we were of sin in ourselves ; less alive to the 
 necessity of immediate repentance and faith ; more in- 
 clined to temporise and compromise ; to look at things 
 not from God's point of view but from our own ; as if he 
 had not "given to us his own eternal life in his Son." 
 
 Let us see to it above all thmgs, — though it may 
 cost us often many a struggle and many a tear, — that 
 we do not suffer our firm faith in God, and our lovino- 
 loyalty to him, to fall a sacrifice to the fond relentings 
 of our own weak hearts. Whatever may be its bearing 
 on the fate of any brother, let us, for God's sake and our 
 own, for God's honour and our own salvation, accept it 
 as a great and solemn fact, that " all unrighteousness is 
 sin, and that there is a sin unto death." 
 
 5. You do not pray for the dead ; you do not think 
 it lawful. It is in the indulgence of a trembling hope 
 concernmg them that the temptation of which I speak 
 besets you. But the same temptation besets you also 
 when you pray for the living. It is the temptation to 
 wish that, in its application to the sin which you see 
 
278 PEAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 your brother sinning, God's holy law were not so very 
 uncompromising, nor his righteous judgment so very un- 
 relenting, as they are declared to be. No doubt you ask 
 that your brother may receive grace to repent of his sin. 
 But what if he should not ? You have a sort of reserved 
 notion that, even in that case and upon that supposition, 
 there may be some chance of safety for him. That is 
 the temptation. And it is often a most severe and stern 
 trial of your faith to resist it ; to ask life for your sinning 
 brother ; but to ask it evermore under the deep convic- 
 tion that " all unrighteousness is sin, and that there is a 
 sin unto death." 
 
 Let us see, once for all, what the apostle's solemn 
 statement really implies. 
 
 In the first place, let it be very specially noted that 
 this is the one only limitation which John puts upon 
 the liberty of intercessory prayer. And let us mark 
 well where the limitation applies. ^It does not really 
 touch our privilege of asking life for our brother, in the 
 true and full sense of life ; — the eternal life which God 
 gives, and which is in his Son. "We may not ask for him 
 this life, if we ask it for him as sinning, and contem- 
 plated by us as possibly sinning unto death. And for the 
 best of all reasons we may not thus ask ; for it is asking 
 what, even with God, is an impossibility. But, short of 
 that impossibility, there is no restriction laid on our ask- 
 ing ; we may ask life for him, to the utmost of our heart's 
 desire. We may use the utmost freedom in asking life for 
 him, provided only we do not ask it for him as sinning, 
 and continuing to sin, unto death. Be his sin ever so 
 
NOT FOR A SIN UNTO DEATH. 279 
 
 lieinous, let it be the sin of a whole long lifetime of un- 
 godliness, we may ask life for him, in the line of his 
 repenting and believing the gospel, provided only, I 
 repeat, that we do not ask it as if life could be given 
 him in any other way. 
 
 I know that a question may be raised even here, as 
 to the extent to which we may absolutely and uncondi- 
 tionally ask for our sinning brother faith and repentance, 
 and having asked, may positively know that " we have 
 the petition that we have desired of God." I know that 
 there are difficulties in the direction now indicated. 
 They are difficulties connected with that decree of elec- 
 tion which alone secures the salvation of any sinner ; — 
 but they are difficulties which we may conceive of as 
 possibly hindering the salvation of some sinner for whom 
 we pray. They are difficulties, however, which do not 
 touch sucli intercessory prayer more than they touch any 
 other sort of prayer ; — and indeed all prayer, generally 
 and universally. The decree of election can no more 
 hinder my praying confidently for my sinning brother, 
 than it can hinder my praying confidently for my sinning 
 self. In either case, it is one of " the secret things belong- 
 ing to the Lord our God," not one of " the revealed things 
 belonging to us and to our children." At all events, this 
 text has nothing to do with that. It imposes no re- 
 striction on our prayer arising out of God's eternal pur- 
 pose. The only restriction which it does impose is one 
 rendered necessary by our own infirmity, and the temp- 
 tation to which it exposes us. We are not to ask, what 
 we are tempted to ask, that our brother, continuing in 
 
280 PEAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN : 
 
 sin, may yet be saved ; that wliile still sinning unto 
 death, he may nevertheless somehow live. But under 
 that reservation, reasonable surely, and necessary, we 
 have all liberty, so far as tliis text is concerned ; — and 
 it is the only text in all the Bible that can by any pos- 
 sibility be supposed to fetter or abridge our liberty ; — 
 we have all liberty, I say, to ask life for our brother. 
 It is a wide charter, altogether broad and free. 
 
 But, secondly, there is an obvious practical applica- 
 tion suggested by the reservation. If we ask life for our 
 brother, knowing that he cannot have it while sinning 
 unto death ; or, in other words, that he cannot have it 
 otherwise than in the way of believing and repenting ; 
 our prayer for him, if sincere, must imply our personal 
 dealing with him with a view to his believing and re- 
 penting. *If what we asked for him were simply life, — 
 life in any sense and on any terms, — we might let him 
 alone. Having asked, we might think that we could do 
 nothing more to help in bringing about the desired re- 
 sult. But it is not so ; it is far otherwise. "We may take 
 part along with him whom we ask, the hearer of prayer, 
 in what we ask him to do ; we must take part along 
 with him, if our asking is real and earnest. To ask God 
 to give life to our sinning brother while we ourselves 
 "suffer sin upon him" — not warning him even with 
 tears ; — sm, the very sin that is hurrying him on to 
 death ; — what mockery ! — how insulting to our God, and 
 oh, how cruel to our poor brother himself ! 
 
 Finally, in the thii'd place, let our conviction be clear, 
 strong, and deep, that "all unrighteousness is sin, and 
 
NOT FOR A SIN UXTO DEATH. 281 
 
 that there is a sin unto death." Let us see that there is 
 no faltering, no liesitancy as to that great fact or truth. 
 Upon both the parts of this solemn declaration let our 
 faith be firm, and let our trumpet give no uncertain 
 sound. It is at this point that a stand is to be resolutely 
 made aminst all antinomian license in religion ; for it is 
 at this point that the enemy has always pressed the 
 church most hardly, and alas ! the church has too often 
 shown herself weak. The knowing ones who corrupted 
 the gospel in John's own day undermined the citadel at 
 this very point. They held and taught that unright- 
 eousness, unholiness, uncleanness — which would be sin 
 in any one else — might be no sin in the spiritual man. 
 It could only defile the body. And what of that, the 
 body being perishable ? It could not touch the essence 
 of the living and immortal soul. Sin therefore, even 
 when persevered in to the end, might yet be not unto 
 death. John does not reason with these wicked men ; 
 it is not a case for reasoning. He meets their vile, foul, 
 base imagination with the stern assertion of law and 
 appeal to conscience : " All unrighteousness is sin, and 
 there is a sin unto death." 
 
 Ever and anon, from age to age, the same abominable 
 devil's creed has troubled and polluted the church of 
 God. Nay, even when the church is undisturbed by it, 
 still, ever and anon, it troubles and pollutes the child of 
 God, in some one or other of its insidious temptations. 
 
 For alas ! alas ! it is but too congenial to the sloth 
 and selfishness and sensuality that still prevail too much 
 within him. Ah me ! how apt am I to cherish the secret, 
 
282 PRAYER FOR A BROTHER'S SIN. 
 
 lialf-imconscious notion, that tliis or that infirmity be- 
 setting me, or besetting my mucli-loved brother, — infir- 
 mity which, if I saw it attaching to any one else, I would 
 not scruple for a moment to denounce as sin, — may 
 somehow in my case, or in my brother's, be more mildly 
 characterised and more gently dealt with ! How apt am 
 I to hope that this or that little secret sin which I feel 
 cleaving still to me, or see cleaving still to my brother, 
 may after all, and in the long run, not prove fatal ! All, 
 if there be but the faintest taint of this damnable heresy 
 lurking in your inner man, how can you be prosecuting, 
 with anything like earnestness, the work of your own 
 personal sanctification, or seeking, with anything like 
 faithfulness, the sanctification of your brother ; — asking 
 God to give you life, or to give him life ? Be very sure 
 that if you would be safe yourself, and if you would 
 save him, you need to shun, as you would a pestilential 
 blast, or the very breath of hell, whatever tends, however 
 remotely, to confound the everlasting distinctions of right 
 and wrong, or shake the foundations of truth and virtue 
 which are the very pillars of the universe and of the 
 throne of God. It is a " word which doth eat as a can- 
 ker." Beware, and again I say beware, of scepticism on 
 the great eternal principles of moral duty — of the moral 
 law. " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked." " The 
 unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." 
 " All unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin unto 
 death." 
 
THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOD, ETC. 283 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOD KEEPING HIM- 
 SELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 
 
 "All unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin [not] unto death. "We 
 know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not ; but he that is 
 begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth 
 him not." — 1 John v. 17, 18. 
 
 The last clause of the seventeentli verse may best be 
 read without the negative. There is, I believe, prepon- 
 derating manuscript authority for so reading it. And, 
 as regards internal evidence, it seems easier to explain, 
 — and this is a good criterion, — how, if not originally in 
 the text, it might creep in, than how, if originally in the 
 text, it could fall out. The insertion of it by copyists, 
 perhaps first as a conjectural marginal reading, can easily 
 be explained by their supposing it necessary to harmonise 
 the statement in the seventeenth verse with that in the 
 verse before, so as to bring in again the idea of the law- 
 fulness of praying for life for them that sin not unto 
 death. This seventeenth verse, however, rather points 
 the thought, not backwards to the sixteenth, but onwards 
 and forwards to the eighteenth. Do not imagine that 
 in praying for a sinning brother, you may overlook the 
 possibility of his sin being unto death. Do not pray for 
 him as if you thought that in accommodation to his case 
 
284 THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOD 
 
 God's law might be relaxed, and he, though sinning so 
 as to deserve to die, and continviing so to sin, might yet 
 not surely die. Beware of that ; for your own sake, as 
 well as for his sake ; for your own sake, even more than 
 for his sake. For you are in danger of being led to 
 tolerate in yourselves what you are inclined to palliate 
 in a brother. You secretly hope that there may be im- 
 punity for him, even though he is continuing in sin. Is 
 there no risk of your being tempted to cherish a similar 
 hope for yourselves ; and so to forget the great truth 
 that " all unrighteousness is sin : and there is a sin unto 
 death?" 
 
 But you may be saying within yourselves, " Who- 
 soever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed 
 remaineth in him : and he cannot sin, because he is 
 born of God" (iii. 9). You, therefore, as born of 
 God, may hold yourselves safe in extenuating sin in a 
 brother, and dei3recating on his behalf its terrible doom. 
 Still beware ! It is true that, as it has been explained, 
 whosoever is born of God does not and cannot sin. 
 " We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not." 
 Yes, we know that. But we know also that his not 
 sinning, however it may be connected with his being 
 born of God, and secured by God's seed, the seed of the 
 divine nature and eternal life, remaining in him, — is not 
 so connected with that fact, or so secured by it, as to 
 preclude the necessity of care and watchfulness. He 
 has " to keep himself ; " and that too in the presence of 
 a formidable enemy. " We know that whosoever is born 
 of God sinneth not." But why not ? Because " he that 
 
KEEPING HIMSELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 285 
 
 is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked 
 one toucheth him not." 
 
 He "keepeth himself." The ])hrase might suggest 
 two ideas : that of keeping, as if restraint were needed ; 
 or that of keeping, as if care and culture were intended. 
 This last is probably to be regarded as the right sense, 
 not however by any means to the exclusion of the other. 
 He has to guard himself a^'ainst the touch of " that 
 wicked one" from without ; and he has carefully to watch 
 and foster the growth of the divine seed withui. His 
 thus keeping liimseK is the effect of his being born of 
 God ; and it is the cause, or means, of his not sinning. 
 Not otherwise than in the way of his keeping himself, 
 can one born of God be safe from sinning. In an 
 important and practical point of view, he must be his 
 own keeper. And his keeping liimself will be earnest, 
 sedulous, anxious, in proportion to the sense he has 
 of the value of what is to be kept, on the one hand, 
 and of its liability to sustain damage, or be lost, on the 
 other. 
 
 I. What is to be kept, child of God ? Yourself ! 
 Not yourself as you are by nature, but yourself as born 
 of God. Consider, first, what is implied in that solemn 
 thought. 
 
 Even as regards the life that now is, you have to 
 keep yourself Self-preservation is both your right and 
 your duty ; your right, wdiich you are to vindicate 
 though your doing so may involve an assailant's death ; 
 your duty, which, whatever you may think about your 
 own worth or value, you are not at liberty to renounce 
 
286 THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOD 
 
 or to neglect. You are not entitled to throw yourself 
 away ; you are bound to keep yourself. And that, not 
 only in the sense of your not literally committing 
 suicide ; for you may abstain from suicide and yet be 
 virtually a self-destroyer. You are bound to keep your- 
 self as one, — whatever you are, and wherever you are, — 
 that is too costly to be cast away, being still, as you are, 
 within the reach of divine grace and eternal life. You 
 have no more right, in any circumstances, or in any 
 mood or frame of mind, to give yourself up to despair, 
 than you have to give yourself up to death. 
 
 But it is as a child of God that you are here said to 
 keep yourself. Consider, I say again, what that means. 
 
 Try for a moment to separate in imagination yourself 
 as the keeper, from yourself as what is to be kept. Look 
 upon yourseK objectively ; as if you were looking at 
 another person. Or, to make this easier, look first at 
 another person, as if he were yourself Suppose your- 
 self your brother's keeper ; keeping him as if he were 
 yourself And, to make the analogy a fair one, suppose 
 yourself to be, under God, his only keeper. And suppose 
 also that you are his keeper in the sense of having most 
 intimate access to his inner man, as well as entire control 
 over his outward actions. 
 
 Well, you keep him ; you, as born of God, keep him, 
 as born of God ; — would that we were all thus keeping 
 one another ! But what sort of keeping will it be ? 
 That will depend on the vividness of the apprehension 
 which you have of your own sonsliip, and of his ; of 
 your being born of God, and his being born of God. He 
 
KEEPING HIMSELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 287 
 
 whom you have to keep is no ordinary piece of goods. 
 He may have been once vile ; a condemned criminal ; 
 and as such, unclean. But " what God has cleansed you 
 cannot call common or unclean." He is very precious 
 now, and very pure. He lias the seed of God abiding 
 in him ; the germ and principle of an absolutely sinless 
 character and life. It is in that view, and upon that 
 supposition, that you have to "keep" him. Your whole 
 treatment of him must be accommodated to that fact. 
 Need I bid you ask yourself what your treatment of him 
 would, or at any rate should be, if you had to keep him 
 as thus "born of God?" 
 
 Now if your keeping yourself is to be at all such as 
 you feel that your keeping of your brother ought to be 
 in the case supposed, it must proceed upon as clear and 
 explicit a recognition of your own standing as, in that 
 case, there would be of his. If you are really to keep 
 yourself, you must distinctly understand, and strongly 
 realise, what it is about you that is to be kept ; what is 
 the character in which, and what the standard by which, 
 and what the end for which, you are to keep yourself 
 
 For instance, I may feel that I have to keep myself 
 as a good worldly man, or a good moral man, or a good 
 man of business, or a good man of society, or a good 
 neighbour and friend ; a good husband, father, brother, 
 son. I can only keep myself, in any of these characters, 
 by first making it thoroughly, inwardly, intensely, my 
 own, and then thoroughly acting it out. It will not do 
 to assume it, or to imagine it ; neither will it do to admit 
 it in any doubtful or hesitating way. If I am to keep 
 
288 THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOD 
 
 myself, I must know and apprehend myself actually to 
 be wliat I mean, by keejjing myself, to continue to be. 
 
 In keeping myself as born of God, this personal and 
 realising faith is especially needful. The secret of my 
 not keeping myself, with enough of watchfulness and 
 prayer, is too often to be found in the want of it. I keep 
 myself, perhaps, with tolerably decent consistency, as a 
 professing member of the church ; I keep myself as an 
 upright, charitable, and correctly religious man. But do 
 I take home to myself the obligation of keeping myself 
 as more than that ? Do I adequately apprehend the fact 
 that I am more than that ; that I am really and truly 
 "born of God?" Do I sufficiently apprehend what that 
 means ? Nothing else will ensure my " keeping myself." 
 
 I do not speak now of assurance, in a doctrinal point 
 of view. No question is raised here as to a believing 
 man being assured, for his own comfort, of his present 
 standing and of his final salvation. The whole strain 
 of John's teaching is practical Whether or not he that 
 is born of God is to sit down and conclude reflexly that 
 he is born of God, is not said. It is not even said that 
 he is to raise the question. All that is said is, that he 
 is to treat himself ; he is to keep himself ; as born of 
 God. He is so to use and deal with himself, as he would 
 use and deal with what is born of God. It is not to any 
 reflex or subjective exercise of faith, ascertaining itself 
 simply for its own confirmation and confidence, that he 
 is called, but to the direct, objective acting out of his 
 faith. And that is all in the line of his practically 
 keeping himself, as he feels that what is born of God 
 ought to be and must be kejpt. 
 
KEEPING HIMSELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 289 
 
 What sort of keeping of oneseK should grow out of 
 such a vivid and realising sense as this implies of what 
 being born of God means, it is not necessary to describe 
 minutely or at large. The working out of the problem 
 may well be left to our own consciences and hearts. 
 The main thing is to secure here, as everywhere, single- 
 ness of eye. Only let us settle it decidedly, firmly, 
 unequivocally, as the deep conviction of our souls, that 
 it is as "born of God" that we are to "keep ourselves." 
 
 Ah ! if we did so, would there be so much careless 
 living among us ; so much unsteadfast walking ; so much 
 indifference to the way in which our customary manner 
 of spending our time and occupying our thoughts tells 
 on our spiritual state? Would there not be more of 
 earnest prayer, of secret fellowship with God, of diligent 
 study of his word, of anxious watchfulness ; more of an 
 eager pressing on to higher attainments in divine insight 
 and S5rmpathy, in holiness and love ? 
 
 For to keep ourselves as born of God, is to aim at 
 exhausting experimentally all that the privilege involves. 
 It is to keep ourselves, as sons and heirs, in the full 
 enjoyment of our Father's love, and in the full view of 
 the many mansions of our Father's house. 
 
 II. This keeping of ourselves, as born of God, will 
 be felt to be the more necessary, when we consider, 
 secondly, how liable that which is to be kept is to suffer 
 damage and be lost. If we are born of God, and if it is 
 in that character that we are to keep ourselves, — let us 
 remember how apt that character is to be marred and 
 injured by the outer world with which we are ever 
 VOL. II. u 
 
290 THE BELIEVER AS BORX OF GOD 
 
 coming in contact ; how apt it is to lose its marked 
 distinctiveness and fresh life in our own souls. 
 
 As born of God, we have to " keep ourselves un- 
 spotted from the world ;" we have to keep ourselves 
 also unspotted from the evil that is in us, as " born in 
 iniquity and conceived in sin," In both views, what is 
 above all things needed is to cherish a deep, abiding, 
 personal, practical persuasion that " all unrighteousness 
 is sin, and that there is a sin unto death." 
 
 The risk of relaxed diligence in " keeping ourselves 
 as born of God" lies mainly in our ceasing, more or less 
 consciously, to regard sin as exceeding sinful, and the 
 doom of sin is inevitably certain. Hence, in order to 
 our keeping ourselves, it is of the utmost consequence, 
 first of all, that we truly and fully apprehend that we 
 are to keep ourselves as being born of God. And it is 
 of equal consequence, secondly, that we truly and fully 
 apprehend the absolute incompatibility of our sinning 
 with our being born of God. Sin from without and 
 from within is ever besettmg us. And the temptation 
 is very strong to begin to think that, in some form or 
 degree, it may not be altogether damaging to our spiritual 
 life, as born of God, or altogether fatal to our heavenly 
 prospects, as having eternal life. The instant such a 
 thought finds harbour in our bosom, all our faithfulness 
 in keeping ourselves is gone. " Wliosoever is born of 
 God keepeth himself," — only when he realises his own 
 sacredness as " born of God;" and when moreover he 
 realises ; — and that too with special reference, not merely 
 to the world with which he is ever in contact, but also 
 
KEEPING HIMSELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 291 
 
 to liimseK and his o\\ti tendencies and liabilities ; — the 
 solemn truth that " all unrighteousness is sin, and that 
 there is a sin unto death." 
 
 There is no room for any question being raised here 
 as to the certainty of his final salvation, or the security 
 for his preservation in grace to the end. That is not 
 the point. Be it that God keeps him, and will keep 
 him, infallibly safe ; — God does so, and can do so, only 
 through his keeping himself And his keeping himself 
 implies a constant sense of his liability, after all, so far 
 as he is himself concerned, to be lost. So Paul kept 
 himself : — " I keep under my body, and bring it into 
 subjection : lest that by any means, when I have preached 
 to others, I myself should be a cast-away." So will every 
 one that is born of God keep himself ; remembering the 
 exhortations, " Let him tliat thinketh he standeth take 
 heed lest he fall ;" " Thou standest by faith ; be not 
 highminded, but fear." 
 
 And this fear, — not slavish fear of an angry God, 
 but fihal fear of a loving Father, — the fear of filial love, 
 — will grow, and will become more and more " fear and 
 trembling." It will do so in proportion as I apprehend, 
 with growing vividness, on the one hand, all the holy 
 blessedness that there is in being born of God, and on 
 the other hand, all that there is in sin ; in any sin ; in 
 every sin ; of deep and deadly malignity, making it the 
 very bane of that blessedness. Thus, with increasing 
 sensitiveness, will I be keeping myself " as born of 
 God, and not sinning." Thus will I be " working out 
 my own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is 
 
292 THE BELIEVER AS BORN OF GOU 
 
 God which worketh in me both to will and to do of his 
 good pleasure." 
 
 I do not now enter on the consideration of the j)ro- 
 niise annexed to this self-keeping : " The wicked one 
 toncheth him not." I prefer to take that promise in 
 connection with what follows. I content myself with 
 one observation on its connection with what precedes. 
 
 " The wicked one " seeks to touch you ; to touch you 
 at the tenderest and most sensitive point, where alone 
 lies your security against sinning ; your being " born of 
 God." For it is only as born of God that you sm not. 
 It is in your filial standing thoroughly realised, and in 
 your filial spirit thoroughly cherished and exercised, that 
 the secret of your not sinning lies. The wicked one 
 knows that right well ; he quite understands it. Full 
 well he knows and understands that if he can get you, 
 be it only for a brief hour or moment, to step off from 
 the platform of your sonship ; — or if he can insinuate 
 into your breast at any time a single unchildlike thought 
 of God ; — he has you at his mercy. And you sin. You 
 listen to his whispered suggestion that this or that com- 
 mandment of God is grievous. You suffer his wily 
 insinuation, — " Yea, hath God said that ye shall not ? " — 
 to poison your ear, to poison your soul. You let in the 
 spirit of bondage again. The light and liberty of your 
 loving cry, "Abba, Father," are gone. Shorn of your 
 strength, you repine, you murmur, you sin. 
 
 Ah, friends ! "keep yourselves." And see to it that 
 you keep yourselves as "born of God." Keep your- 
 
KEEPING HIMSELF SO AS NOT TO SIN. 293 
 
 selves in your conscious sonsliip, and in tlie spirit of it. 
 Then "the wicked one toucheth you not." Be very 
 sure that it is sonship believingly apprehended and 
 realised, — it is the spirit of sonsliip faithfully cherished 
 and exercised, — that is your only real shield and de- 
 fence against the touch of the wicked one. For his 
 touch, — his stinging touch, — is the suggestion of the 
 poor servile thought that God's commandments are 
 grievous. The filial, loving confidence of one keeping 
 himself as a child of God instinctively and indignantly 
 casts away the insinuation. The wicked one therefore 
 cannot touch one living as a son of God. He could not 
 touch, terribly as he tried to touch, the Son of God 
 while he lived on earth ; for never did he live other- 
 wise than as the Son of God. He cannot touch any 
 one to whom God gives " the Spirit of his Son, crying, 
 Abba, Father." For no one can be, at any moment, 
 crying, in the Spirit, Abba, Father, and at the same 
 moment counting any of God's commandments grievous. 
 Therefore, when " he that is begotten of God" keepeth 
 himself as so begotten, " the wicked one toucheth him 
 not." 
 
294 OUR BEING or GOD. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 OUR BEING OF GOD.— THE WORLD LYING IN THE 
 WICKED ONE. 
 
 "And that [tlie] wicked one touch eth him not. AVe know that we are 
 of God, and the whole world lieth in -wickedness" [the wicked 
 one]. — 1 John v. 18, 19. 
 
 Instead of "wickedness," in the nineteenth verse, we may 
 rather read " the wicked one." There is now a general 
 agreement among critics and interpreters to that effect. 
 There is no good reason for any change in this verse 
 from the rendering in the verse before. There it must 
 unavoidably be personal, " the wicked one toucheth him 
 not." It is quite unnecessary and unwarrantable to 
 make it impersonal and abstract here, " the whole world 
 lieth in wickedness." It is the same expression and 
 should be translated in the same way, " the whole world 
 lieth in the wicked one." For the change mars the 
 sense, and destroys the obvious contrast that there is 
 between the child of God, whom that wicked one does 
 not touch, and the world which, so far from being safe 
 from his touch, lies whoUy in him. 
 
 We know this last fact, as knowing ourselves to be 
 of God ; and it is our thus knowing it that mainly con- 
 tributes to our security. 
 
 For that is the precise pomt and purpose of the 
 
THE WORLD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 295 
 
 statement, " the whole world lietli in the wicked one." 
 It is a statement introduced for a purely practical end ; 
 an end or purpose personal to us, as begotten of God, 
 and, in that character, " keeping ourselves." It has no 
 reference to any other persons besides ourselves ; it is 
 strictly applicable, and meant to be applied, to ourselves 
 alone. There is no contrast intended between us and 
 the rest of mankind. There is no emphasis in the 
 "we," — "we are of God," — as in contradistinction to 
 those of our fellow-men who may be classed as "the 
 world." In fact the "we" is not in the original at all. 
 It is supplied, and of course necessarily supplied, in our 
 translation. But its not being expressed in the original 
 is plain proof, as all scholars know, that it is not in- 
 tended to be emphatic, or to suggest any contrast be- 
 tween us and any other body of men. AVe have nothing 
 here to do with any but ourselves ; the text is "waitten 
 solely for our learning, for our warning. It bids us 
 remember that we, being of God, are not of that world 
 which lies wholly in the wicked one. It bids us do 
 so, in order that, being begotten of God, we may so 
 " keep ourselves," as being begotten of God, that the 
 "wicked one shall not touch us." 
 
 Thus the world is here to be viewed rather as a 
 system than as a society; with reference not so much 
 to the question who constitute the world, as to the 
 question what the world is ; what is its character and 
 constitution; what are its arrangements; its habits of 
 thought, feeling, and action; its pursuits, occupations, 
 and pleasures. 
 
296 OUE BEING OF GOD. 
 
 One common feature is brought out, helping us to 
 identify and characterise it. The whole of it " lieth in 
 the wicked one." 
 
 It is a strong expression ; going beyond any of John's 
 previous intimations on this subject. He makes early 
 mention of "the wicked one" (ii. 13, 14). Believers are 
 represented as, in the strength of their mature and 
 vigorous spiritual youth, overcoming, or having over- 
 come, " the wicked one." Thereafter, when " the wicked 
 one" comes up again (iii. 12), he is plainly identified 
 with the devil (iii. 8-10), in respect of his murderous 
 hatred of God and of whatever is born of God ; he kills 
 or seeks to Idll whatever and whoever is of God. Next, 
 he aj^pears as that " spirit of antichrist " which is in the 
 world, as "the spirit that coufesseth not that Jesus 
 Christ is come in the flesh" (iv. 3). Here it is said, not 
 that he is in the world, but that the world lies in him. 
 It lies, and lies wholly, in him. He has got the world 
 into his arms ; the whole world. 
 
 I. " The world lieth in the wicked one." The figure 
 may suggest several different ideas. A stranded vessel 
 lying imbedded in the sand; a lost sheep lying en- 
 gulphed in the treacherous swamp ; a sow contented to 
 lie wallowing in the mire ; a Samson lying bewitched in 
 Delilah's lap ; — these are the images called forth ; and 
 they are all but too appropriate. 
 
 Considered in its origin, this " lying of the world in 
 the wicked one" may be taken in a very literal and per- 
 sonal sense. 
 
 The fall is a fall out of the arms of God into the 
 
THE WORLD LYIXG IN THE WICKED ONE. 297 
 
 embrace of tlie wicked one. He is ready to receive the 
 fallen ; and, in a measure, to break tlieir fall. He has a 
 bed of his own prepared on which the fallen may lie in 
 him. It is shrewdly and plausibly framed. It is like 
 himself. It is the embodiment of his mind and spirit ; 
 the acting out of his very self. It is a couch composed 
 of the very materials he had before woven into the 
 subtle cord of that temptation which drew the unfallen 
 out of God's hold into his. The same elements of un- 
 belief which he turned to such cunning account in his 
 work of seduction, he employs with equal skill in 
 getting the seduced to lie, and to lie quiet, in him. For 
 the most part, he finds this an easy task. The world 
 listens willingly to its seducer, now become its com- 
 forter and guide ; and frames its creed and constitution 
 according to his teaching and under his inspiration. He 
 is its doctor of divinity. Its faith, worshijD, discipline, 
 and government are dictated by him. So " the world 
 lies in him ;" dependent on him and his theology for 
 such assumed license and imaginary peace as it affects 
 to use and to enjoy. 
 
 For the essence of worldliness is at bottom the feel- 
 ing that "God's commandments are grievous;" that his 
 service is hard, and himself austere ; but yet that some- 
 how his indulgence may be largely reckoned upon in 
 the end. It is as " lying in the wicked one," that the 
 world so conceives of God, and acts upon that concep- 
 tion of him. It is as " lying in the wicked one," that it 
 peevishly asks, " Who is the Almighty that we should 
 serve him, and what profit shall we have if we bow 
 
298 OUR BEING OF GOD. 
 
 down unto him ?" — while at the same time it confidently 
 presumes, " The Lord seeth not, the Lord regardeth not." 
 
 II. " The whole world thus lieth in the wicked one ;" 
 he has it all in his embrace. There is nothing in or 
 about the world that is not thus lying in the wicked 
 one ; so lying in the wicked one as to be infected with 
 the contagion of his hard thoughts of God, and his 
 affected bravery in defying God's righteous judgment. 
 
 Take the world at its very best ; all its grossness 
 put away ; no vile lust or passion polluting it ; much 
 pure virtue adorning it ; many pious sentiments coming 
 forth from it, not altogether insincerely. AVhat trace is 
 there here of the wicked one's poisonous touch? What 
 necessity for your being warned to be on your guard 
 against it or him ? 
 
 Nay, but look deeper into the heart of what is so 
 seeming fair. Do you not see, — do you not instinctively 
 feel, — that there is throughout its sphere of influence a 
 sad want of that entire surrender of self to God, that 
 unreserved owning of his sovereignty, — the sovereignty of 
 his throne, his law, his grace, — that full, loyal, loving 
 trust, which alone can baffle Satan's wiles? Instead of 
 that, is there not a hidden fear of coming to too close 
 quarters and too confidential dealings with God ; a dis- 
 position to stand aloof and make terms of compromise ; 
 a willingness to be persuaded that some questionable 
 things may be tolerated and some slight liberties 
 allowed? Is not all this what "lying in the wicked 
 one" may best explain? 
 
 We are not safe unless we realise it as a fact that 
 
THE WOELD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 299 
 
 " the wliole world lietli in tlie wicked one ; " all of it ; 
 the best of it as well as the worst of it. Only thus can 
 we "so keep ourselves that the wicked one shall not 
 touch us." It is a sad fact, but we must realise it. 
 And in the firm and full realisation of it, we must 
 " keep ourselves." 
 
 For it is not with a view to our condemning or judg- 
 ing the world, but only in order to our "keeping our- 
 selves," that we are to have this fact always before our 
 eyes ; it is in order to our so " keeping ourselves that 
 the wicked one shall not touch us." For it is through 
 " the world which is lying in him" that he seeks to 
 "touch us." "We are coming constantly into contact 
 with the world ; we cannot help it ; and yet we are to 
 keep ourselves " unspotted from the world." How 
 better may we hope, through grace, to do so, than by 
 " knowing," in the sense of always and everywhere 
 acting upon the knowledge, that "we are of God, and 
 the whole world Keth in the wicked one ?" 
 
 Let us recognise our own standing in God, and the 
 world's lying in the wicked one. We are of God, born 
 of God ; his sons in his Son Jesus Christ. That is our 
 character and position. It is in that character, and 
 with reference to that position, that we are to " keep 
 ourselves." Let us be ever mindful of our high and 
 holy calling. And that we may be ever mindful of it, 
 let us be ever sensitively alive to the risk of the wicked 
 one's contamination. True, " the wicked one toucheth 
 us not." But " the whole world lieth in him." And 
 the world touches us, for we are in the world. 
 
300 OUE BEING OF GOD. 
 
 All ! does not our danger spring from our practically 
 forgetting tliat the world in which we are " lieth wholly 
 in the wicked one ?" Have not we found it so? We 
 begin to think, or to live as if we thought, that after all 
 the world does not lie absolutely and altogether in the 
 wicked one; that it is not so thoroughly evil as that 
 would imply. We find, or fancy that we find, some of it 
 at least, such as we would not choose to characterise so 
 offensively. The Avorld may be mostly, or for the most 
 part, lying in the wicked one. But sm^ely some excep- 
 tion may be made in favour of this or that about it that 
 looks so harmless and so good. 
 
 child of God, beware. " The wicked one" is 
 " touching you very closely," through " the world that 
 lieth in him," when he gets you thus to plead. The 
 Spirit teaches you a safer and better lesson when he 
 moves you to say : " We know that we are of God, and 
 the whole world" — all of it — " lieth in the wicked one." 
 
 This teaching of John, concerning the world as 
 lying in the wicked one, is in striking accordance Avith 
 that of Paul in two remarkable passages of his Epistle 
 to the Ephesians (ii. 1, vi. 12). One would almost think 
 indeed that John had Paul's teaching in his view. At 
 all events, it may be interesting and useful to notice the 
 parallelism and harmony between the two apostles. 
 
 I. Consider the first of the two passages (Ephes. ii. 
 1) : "You hath he quickened, who were dead in tres- 
 passes and sins ; wherein in time past ye walked accord- 
 ing to the course of this world, according to the prince 
 
THE WORLD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 301 
 
 of tlie power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in 
 the chiklren of disobedience." Writing to the Ephesians 
 as now believers, Paul reminds them of their former walk. 
 It was " according to the course of tliis world." But 
 " the world, the whole world, lieth in the wicked one." 
 Therefore, walking accordmg to the course of this 
 world, they walked according to the wicked one in 
 whom the world lies. How the world lies in him, so 
 that walldng according to the world's course is really 
 walking according to him, is explained in two ways. 
 
 1. He is " the prince of the power of the air." He 
 rules, as a powerful prince, the world's atmosphere ; its 
 moral and spiritual atmosphere; impregnating it with 
 his own venom ; the poisonous vapour of his own dark 
 and godless hell. The air which the world breathes is 
 under his control ; — he is the prince of the power of it ; 
 its powerful prince. It is, as it were, compounded, con- 
 cocted and manufactured by him. Very wisely does he 
 use his power; very cunningly does he compose the air 
 which he would have his subjects and victims to breathe. 
 He mingles in it many good ingredients. For the worst 
 of men he does so ; and indeed he must do so, if he is to 
 make it palatable and seductive even to them. For the 
 lowest company, he must needs prepare an atmosphere 
 with something good in it ; good fellowship at the least, 
 and a large measure of good humour and good feeling. 
 Then, as he rises to higher circles, how does he contrive, 
 in the exercise of his princely power, to make the air 
 that is to intoxicate his votaries, — or lull them to un- 
 suspecting sleep, — all redolent, as it might seem, of good ; 
 
302 OUR BEING OF GOD. 
 
 good sense, good taste, good temper ; good breeding and 
 behaviour ; good habits and good-heartedness ! Many 
 noisome vapours also that might offend he carefully ex- 
 cludes ; so that the inhaling organ perceives nothing but 
 what is pure and simple in what it imbibes and absorbs. 
 But it is the wicked one's air or atmosphere after all ; 
 he is the prince of the power of it. He contrives to 
 have it all pervaded with the latent influence of his 
 own ungodliness ; his godless spirit is in it all through. 
 The whole world is lying in that subtle atmosphere of 
 his ; the air of which he is the powerful prince. 
 
 Have you not felt something of what it is to breathe 
 the air of which the wicked one is thus the powerful 
 prince — to breathe it at the time almost unconsciously, 
 and afterwards to find the fruit of your having breathed 
 it all but inexj^licable ? You come home from a business 
 engagement, or a party of pleasure. You feel an un- 
 wonted indisposition to serious thought; you are less 
 inclined than usual to prayer and meditation : anxious 
 calculations or frivolous fancies, and vain if not vicious 
 imaginations, intrude into the sanctuary of your inner 
 worship ; you are not so much at home as you were 
 before, in your closet-fellowship with your Father in 
 heaven. You are at a loss to account for this. You 
 have not been anywhere, or done anything, in known or 
 conscious opposition to his will. But you have been 
 living in an unwholesome atmosphere. You have been 
 in scenes or societies ; all decent and proper no doubt ; 
 but yet imbued with as thorough a spirit of indifference 
 or alienation as the wicked one would care to inspire. 
 
THE WOELD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 303 
 
 You have forgotten that " the whole world lieth in the 
 wicked one " as " the prince of the power of its air." 
 
 2, Nor is this all. He is "the spirit that now 
 worketh in the children of disobedience." He is not 
 content with exercising his power in concocting and 
 compounding the world's atmosphere ; he is busily mov- 
 ing to and fro, and up and down, in the ranks of those 
 who breathe it. He prepares for them the air he would 
 like them to inhale, making it as soothing and seduc- 
 tive as he can. And then, while they are inhaling it, he 
 deals with them personally; going in and out among 
 them; whispering his suggestions; speaking low into 
 their ears ; insinuating into their hearts such thoughts 
 of God, and of his service, and of his gospel, as fit into 
 the pervading godless spirit of the region into which he 
 has got them to venture. In this view, he very specially 
 works among them as " the children of disobedience." 
 He takes advantage of every rising feeling of distrust 
 and disaffection ; he watches for the first beginnings of 
 discontent. Wherever there is any disposition to count 
 any of God's appointments or commandments grievous, 
 he is at hand ; to fan the flame ; to irritate the sore ; to 
 widen the breach between the lovmg Father and his un- 
 dutiful child, beginning to question and rebel. 
 
 So the whole world doubly, or in a double sense, lies 
 in the wicked one ; inasmuch as he is the prince of the 
 power of its air on the one hand, and inasmuch as, on 
 the other hand, he is ever working in it among the 
 children of disobedience. And in both views, it con- 
 cerns you deeply, as "knowing yourselves to be of God," 
 
304 OUR BEING OF GOD. 
 
 and called to keep yourselves accordingly, to know that 
 " the whole world lieth in the wicked one." Know this, 
 that you may beware of its seductive atmosphere, of 
 which he is the pow^erful prince. Know it, that you 
 may beware of the first rising in you of that insubordi- 
 nate and impatient spirit of which he avails himself so 
 skilfully in his " working among the children of dis- 
 obedience." If you would keep- yourselves, as being of 
 God, so that in respect of your being begotten of God 
 the wicked one may not touch you, you must be ever 
 alive to this double risk; the risk of your forgetting how 
 thoroughly he controls the world's atmosphere ; and the 
 risk also of your forgetting how busily and persuasively 
 he works among the children of disobedience in it. 
 
 Keep yourselves, in both views, xmspotted from the 
 world. Keep yourselves, as born of God, in the atmo- 
 sphere into which your 'new birth introduces you ; the 
 atmosphere of pure light and love; the Father's own 
 light; the Father's own love. And keep yourselves, as 
 " obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according 
 to the former lusts in your ignorance ; but as he which 
 hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of 
 conversation ; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am 
 holy." . 
 
 II, Look now for a little at the second of the two 
 passages in Ephesians (vi. 12) : " We wrestle not against 
 flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, 
 against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against 
 spiritual wickedness in high places." There is a double 
 view here given of the influence which the wicked one. 
 
THE WOELD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 305 
 
 with his principalities and powers, exerts. On the one 
 hand, he " rules the darkness of this world." On the 
 other hand, he is "spiritual wickedness in high places." 
 
 1. He rules the dark world which lies wholly in 
 him ; rules it as the prince of the power of its air, and 
 as the spirit now working in the children of disobe- 
 dience. If he finds you there, he finds you within his 
 own territory ; at once breathing the worldly atmosphere 
 he has mixed ; and open at the same time to his in- 
 fluence as he is busy in his vocation, plying all his wiles 
 among those whom he finds harbouring thoughts of in- 
 subordination. He has an advantage over you on his 
 own ground; you cannot there cope with him; your 
 only safety is in flight. " Come out and be separate." 
 Flee to the stronghold; "the heavenly places." The 
 wicked one's world is not your home. You are not to 
 know it at all ; or to know it only as lying wholly in 
 the wicked one ; to beware of it; to renounce it; to keep 
 yourseK unspotted from it. Your home is in "the 
 heavenly places," in which "you sit with Christ." 
 Abide there, and "the wicked one toucheth you not."* 
 
 2. Nay, but even into " the heavenly places " the 
 wicked one may find access ; and even in " the heavenly 
 places " he may seek to touch you. But he does not, 
 he cannot, really touch you there. He crept indeed 
 
 * " The heavenly places, " or " the heavenlies," is the right ren- 
 dering of the phrase in all the four connections in which it occurs in 
 the Epistle to the Ephesians, where alone it is found : — i. (ii. 9), as the 
 home of blessing ; ii. (i. 20, ii. 6), as the seat of the risen life ; iii. 
 (iii. 10), as the theatre of the Divine drama ; iv. (vi. 12), as the last re- 
 treat in the satanic struggle. 
 
 VOL. IL X 
 
306 OUR BEING OF GOD. 
 
 into Paradise, which was " the heavenly pkces " before 
 the fall; and touched fatally our first parents there. But 
 in "the heavenly places" now, — in your "heavenly 
 places," — you have a defence which they had not. You 
 " sit with Christ in the heavenly places," being " begot- 
 ten of God in his Son." You " know that you are of 
 God," in a sense and to an effect that Adam and Eve, 
 with all their innocence, could not realise. By redemp- 
 tion, by adoption, by regeneration; as bought and be- 
 gotten; you are of God; his own very sons, as Jesus 
 is. The wicked one may come to you in your heaven- 
 lies, as he came to them in theirs. He may come 
 as " spiritual wickedness ; " plying his old wicked 
 spiritual arts of temptation ; suggesting his old doubts 
 of the love and equity and truth of God. But he 
 " touches you not." He could touch you only by ap- 
 pealing to something in you of what he finds in the 
 children of disobedience among whom he works in the 
 world ; something in you of their disobedience, some in- 
 cipient leaning towards insubordination, some aptness to 
 count the commandments of God grievous. 
 
 Is there at any time anything of that spirit in you ? 
 Is there any rising within you of the old feeling of 
 impatience, of suspicion, — in a word, of unbelief ? Ah, 
 then, even " in the heavenlies," you are not safe from the 
 touch of the wicked one. Eemember that you have to 
 "wrestle against liim even in the heavenlies;" to 
 wrestle against him, not only as "ruHng the world's 
 darkness," but as " spiritual wickedness in the heaven- 
 Hes." 
 
THE WOELD LYING IN THE WICKED ONE. 307 
 
 For he comes into the secret place where you 
 dwell with God as his children ; transformed perhaps 
 into an angel of light ; insinuating his old doubts, sur- 
 mises, questionings again ; putting in his old cavils 
 between your Father's loving heart and your simple 
 trust. Let him not, my brother ! let him not succeed 
 in his attempt. Stand against him by faith. Bid him 
 begone. He has no right to be in " your heavenlies," 
 whatever right he may have to "rule in the world's 
 darkness." If you have faith you may cast him out. 
 Keep yourself, as " born of God ; " keep yourself in the 
 vivid realising sense of all that your " sitting with 
 Clirist in the heavenlies" involves. So keep yourseK in 
 the heavenlies, and that wicked one touches you not. 
 
 What shall I say, in closing, to you who are not of 
 God, but of the world ; of the world that is altogether 
 lying in the wicked one ? Ah ! do you not know that 
 the prince of the world is judged ; that for this purpose 
 the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy 
 the works of the devil ? Are you still listening to the 
 gospel of the wicked one : "Ye shall not surely die?" 
 Nay rather, hear another gospel : " God is love ; in this 
 was manifested the love of God towards us, because that 
 God sent his Son into the world that we might live 
 through him." 
 
508 KNOWING THE TRUE ONE 
 
 XLV. 
 
 KNOWING THE TRUE ONE AND BEING IN HIM. 
 
 " And we know that the Sou of God is come, and hath given us an 
 understanding, that we may know him that is true ; and we are in 
 him that is true, [even] in his Son Jesus Christ."* — 1 John v. 20. 
 
 This is the tliird and last " we know/' in tliese closing 
 verses of the epistle (18-20). John insists, in leaving 
 us, upon our being Gnostics, or knowing ones, as the 
 heretics of his day j)rofessed to be ; but in a better and 
 safer sense. They affected to be knowing, in the lofty 
 and transcendental region of abstract speculation about 
 the divine nature ; whereas John would have us to be 
 knowing, in the humbler yet really higher and holier 
 experience of real, direct, personal acquaintanceship and 
 fellowship with the Divine Being, as coming down to 
 us, poor sinners, in his Son, and taking us up, by his 
 Spirit, to be sons and saints in his holy child Jesus. 
 That whosoever is born of God sinneth not, because 
 
 * There is no occasion for the word "even" which our translators 
 have inserted in the last clause of this verse ; it is not in the original, 
 as the italics indicate ; aud it is fitted to mislead. It is apt to suggest 
 the idea that by "him that is true," or "the true one," we are to 
 understand, not God the Father, hut the Son of God. Some accord- 
 ingly have so construed the clause ; but as it seems to me unwar- 
 rantably. For he who is called "the true one" is expressly distin- 
 guished from his Son. " We are in him that is true." How ? Through 
 our being " in his Son Jesus Christ." 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 309 
 
 he keepeth himself so that the wicked one touches 
 him not ; that we are thus of God, in contrast with the 
 world which lies wholly ia the wicked one ; these are 
 the two former " we knows." And now the third " we 
 know" has respect, neither to our standing as being of 
 God, nor to the world's position as lying in the wicked 
 one, but to him who causes or occasions the difference, 
 "the Son of God." 
 
 It would almost seem as if there was a regular syl- 
 logism here ; an argument buUt up in three proposi- 
 tions ; two premises and a conclusion. First there is 
 the major premis, in the general assertion, abstract and 
 impersonal ; " we know " that being born of God im- 
 plies not sinning, inasmuch as " he that is begotten of 
 God keepeth himself, and the wicked one touches him 
 not." Then there is the minor premis, in the assertion, 
 particular and personal ; " we know" that we individually 
 " are of God," and, therefore, separated from " the world 
 that lieth wholly in the wicked one." The strict logical 
 conclusion would be ; therefore " we know" that we do 
 not sin. John, however, puts it somewhat differently, 
 so as to place our not sinning on a surer footing ; more 
 humbling to us ; more glorifying to God ; — " We know 
 that the Son of God is come." 
 
 And yet this is a fair enough inference, and fits well 
 enough into the argument when viewed in its full 
 spiritual import. Nor is it inconsistent with the other. 
 For if he that is born of God sinneth not ; and if we 
 consequently, being of God, sin not, it is all iu virtue of 
 " the Son of God being come ;" come, in the first place, to 
 
310 KNOWING TUE TRUE ONE 
 
 " give US a knowledge of the True One ;" come, secondly, 
 to secure in that way our " being in the True One." 
 
 I, "The Son of God is come, and hath given us 
 understanding, that we may know him that is true," or 
 " the True One." It is God who is to be known ; and 
 he is to be known as " the True One." 
 
 The truth here ascribed to God is not truthfulness, 
 as opposed to falsehood ; but reality, as opposed to fic- 
 tion or imagination. That we may know God, as truly 
 real, as a truly real being, "the Eeal One," — strictly 
 speaking, the only truly Eeal One, — apart from whom 
 all things and persons are shadowy and unreal ; that is, 
 in the first instance, the purpose for which his Son 
 Jesus Christ is come, and " hath given us understandmg " 
 or insight " to know liim that is true." 
 
 The inward working of the Holy Ghost is here as- 
 sumed, or asserted ; that is the " understanding " or in- 
 sight that is meant. Jesus Christ coming as the Son of 
 God has given us, not merely new outer light, but a 
 new inner eye ; otherwise even his coming could not 
 make us know "the True One." His coming indeed 
 may be said to be itself the outer light. His coming 
 forth from the True One in whose bosom he dwells 
 reveals the True One to us. But the discovery would 
 be in vain if his coming did not secure to us, as his gift, 
 "understanding to know" the True One when thus 
 revealed. That is, we may say emphatically, his best 
 gift ; the best fruit of his " being come," and of aU the 
 travail of soul on our behalf which his " being come " 
 mcludes in it. For the worst of our miserable state. 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 311 
 
 from which he is come to save us, is that we have no 
 understanding, — no spiritual sense in us, — by which we 
 can discern and recognise, so as truly to know, him who 
 alone is true. And the best part of his salvation is his 
 giving us that knowledge, not only by revelation from 
 without, but by enlightenment within. 
 
 It is a great thing to know God as he is here named 
 — " the True One ; " to know him as true and real ; no 
 imagination or mere idea, but true and real. That, I say, 
 is a very great thing. It is indeed all in all ; the one 
 thing needful. What is God to me ? Ah, momentous 
 question ! And as searching as it is momentous ! Is 
 he true ? Is he real ? Do I apprehend him to be so ? 
 
 I know my friend when I see him and take him by 
 the hand. I know him as true and real ; no shadow, 
 no myth, no visionary ghost, but verily real. There he 
 is before me, not a wraith such as Highland seer beholds 
 in the misty vapour, — but invested with unmistakeable, 
 palpable reality. Is God thus ever before me ? When- 
 ever I think of my friend, even when he is out of my 
 sight, I think of him as true and real ; as having a real 
 and actual existence ; a real and actual personality. Do 
 I always thus tliink of God ? Do I always thus know 
 him? 
 
 There are two conditions of tliis knowledge. 
 
 In the first place, if I am to know any one as true 
 and real, I must have a distinct and well-defined concep- 
 tion of him in my mind. He must present himself to 
 me as having a certain special individuality of his own, 
 marking him out to me as separate from others. I thus 
 
312 KNOWING THE TKUE ONE 
 
 identify him as true and real. But how confused and 
 incoherent is my conception of God apt to be ! A 
 number of vague notions about him and his ways may 
 be floating hazily, as it were, before me. But they lack 
 unity, and are therefore unreal. A heap or bundle of 
 attributes, such as I can name, enumerate, and define, 
 may be all that I have for my God. If so, it is a heap 
 or bundle of rags. It has no life, no livmg personality, 
 no oneness, no reality, no truth. To know any person 
 as real and true, I must know him as one ; one living 
 personality ; living and true. 
 
 But, secondly, can I so know any one otherwise than 
 by personal intercourse and personal acquaintanceship ? 
 It is i:i that way that I know an actual living friend as 
 true. When our eyes meet and our hands join and our 
 tongues exchange words, I know liim as true and real. 
 I know him better thus, than when he and I communi- 
 cate by letter merely, or by message at second-hand. 
 My knowledge of him has in it a truth and reality, a 
 trro and vivid realisation, that does not belong to the 
 no "don I have of any hero or martyr ; however graphic 
 may be the history, however lifelike the picture, by 
 means of which I am to set him before my mind's eye. 
 
 Now " the Son of God has come, and given us under- 
 standing that we may know the True One ;" that we may 
 truly and really know, — know as a livmg person, — the 
 Father whose Son he is. The very object of his " com- 
 ing and giving us understanding," is to put truth and 
 reality into our knowledge of God. He does so by 
 bringmg God and us personally together. His " coming" 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 313 
 
 provides for that on the part of God ; his " giving us 
 understanding " provides for it on our part. 
 
 It is indeed, I repeat, a great tiling thus to know 
 " him that is true ; " to have a true personal knowledge 
 of him ; such as you have of the friend you converse 
 with every day about everything or anything that turns 
 up ; — or of the father to whom you go every day and 
 every hour for deeper counsel or for a passing embrace. 
 The friend, the father, is a reality ; a real and true 
 friend, a real and true father. You feel him to be so. 
 He is no dead, historical personage, exliibited on the 
 stage of the historical drama. He is to you a real and 
 living person : for there is life and reality in your pre- 
 sent intercourse with him. And it is that there may be 
 this present living intercourse with God as a living per- 
 son, that "the Son of God is come," to make that pos- 
 sible on God's side ; " and hath given us an understand- 
 ing," to make it possible on ours. Only in that way, by 
 his revelation of himseK to us in the Son and by our 
 fellowship with him in the Spirit, can we know " him 
 that is true." Only thus can we know God personally ; 
 as " the True One ; " a real person and not a mere abstrac- 
 tion or generalisation. 
 
 II. Knowing thus " him that is true," we are " in 
 him." But we 'are so, only as being " in his Son Jesus 
 Christ." The apostle's statement thus fits into the 
 Lord's own saying, in his farewell prayer, "I in them 
 and thou in me " (John xvii. 23). Both of them rest on 
 that higher appeal which the Lord makes to his Father : 
 — " As thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they 
 
314 KNOWING THE TEUE ONE 
 
 also may be one in us" (ver. 21). Thou in me, I in 
 them, and so thou in them ; — they in me, I in thee, and 
 so they in thee ; — such is the wondrous reciprocal line 
 or chain between God and us. We are in the True 
 One, as being in his Son Jesus Christ, who is himself in 
 him. We are therefore in the True One as his Son 
 Jesus Christ himself is in him. 
 
 Thus our being in the True One rests on very sure 
 ground, since it is in his Son Jesus Christ that we are 
 in him. And it implies a very liigh ideal of what being 
 in the True One means, and what it is. 
 
 1. It is in his Son Jesus Christ that we are in the 
 True One. We are in him, not directly or immediately, 
 but by mediation ; through and in a mediator. It is 
 only thus that we can be in God, as the one only living 
 and true God. It must be so. If the God whom our 
 conscience indicates and owns is indeed true and real ; 
 a real, true, living person ; we cannot dream of being 
 in him, in any sense implying rest and peace, or a re- 
 fuge and home, otherwise than through and in a mediator. 
 
 No doubt, if there are many gods, all alike true, — or 
 aU alike fabulous, though still imagined to be true, — I 
 may find among them one so congenial that I can con- 
 ceive of his drawing me into his embrace, so that I may 
 be in him. Or if the only true God is the universe, or 
 universal being ; all things and persons being but his 
 parts ; and all actions and events the unfoldings of his 
 own seK-consciousness ; — then necessarily I am in him ; 
 or rather I am he and he is I ; — there is no personal dis- 
 tinction between us. Or if God, admitted to be a real. 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 315 
 
 true, and living person, is not known by me as sucli, I 
 may amuse or soothe myself with some name or notion 
 of my being in him, so far as to secure my safety, if I 
 do but say a prayer occasionally, no matter though my 
 saying it is reaUy little better than speaking to vacancy, 
 — addressing idle words to the empty air. 
 
 But let me know God as true ; as a reality. Let me 
 be confronted face to face with God, as no far-off vision, 
 but a real, present, living person. Let my inner sense 
 be quickened ; and let there ilash from heaven a light 
 making clear as day the features of him in whose real 
 presence I stand. Ah ! what cry escapes me ? — " I have 
 heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine 
 eye seeth thee ; w^herefore I abhor myself, and repent in 
 dust and ashes !" 
 
 Now I see clearly ; now I feel deeply ; the full diffi- 
 culty of the case. If God is true and real, my sin is true 
 and real ; and 1, the sinner, am true and real. Guilt is real. 
 Wrath is real. Judgment is real. Punishment is real. 
 Ah ! this knowing of the True One, as the True One, 
 by the spiritual understanding which the Son of God is 
 come to give ! It imparts to aU things in heaven and 
 earth and hell a terrible distinctness ; — an altogether new 
 air of truth ; — an intense, vivid, burning reality ; — such 
 as I cannot long stand without being maddened, if I 
 am to stand alone ; a real sinner before a real God. 
 
 For me to be in him ! How utterly hopeless ! Nay, 
 but let me consider. Who is he who has come to give me 
 understanding thus to know the True One ? The Son 
 of God ; his Son Jesus Christ. It is he who by his 
 
316 KNOWING THE TEUE ONE 
 
 coming makes the True One known as lie really is ; for 
 he is himself " the image of the invisible God." It is he 
 who by his Spirit gives me understanding that I may 
 know the True One. And placing himself between the 
 True One, whom now at last I truly know, and me, whom 
 that knowledge must otherwise utterly appal, — he, the 
 very Son of this True One, his Son Jesus Christ, calls 
 me to himself ; to be one with him ; to be " in him." 
 It is not that he would again hide the True One from 
 me, or hide me from the True One. No. But he makes 
 it possible for me, if I will but consent to be in him, to 
 be " in the True One," as he is himself in the True One. 
 
 For he says, I am a reality ; the real Son of God, 
 really come to you, in your real flesh. As his true and 
 very Son, I give you understanding to know him who is 
 true and very God. And in me you know him, not so 
 as to be a castaway from him ; but so as to be in him, 
 as I am in him. For in me, whatever in you might 
 seem to stand in the way, and did stand in the way, of 
 your being in the True One, is met and obviated. In 
 the Son of God, his Son Jesus Christ, you can be in God, 
 known as the True One, and can have perfect peace. 
 
 Out of Christ, I can have peace only by not knowing 
 truly the True One, not knowing him as he is, — or by 
 keeping away from him among the trees of the garden, 
 and under the veil of some apron of fig-leaves. Satan 
 belies him to me, and I hide or cover myself from him. 
 But there is no need now of guile, or concealment, or 
 disguise ; no room for evasion or compromise. The 
 True One may be truly known, and I, the chief of 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 317 
 
 sinners, may be in him, truly known as the True One, 
 " in his Son Jesus Christ." 
 
 2. If it is thus that in his Son Jesus Christ we are 
 in the True One, it is after a high ideal or model that 
 we are so. Eor our being in the True One in his Son 
 Jesus Christ, must be after the manner of his Son Jesus 
 Christ's being himself in him. "What a manner of beins: 
 in the True One is that ! What truth, what reality is 
 there in it ! 
 
 I would keep fast hold of the apostle's ground- 
 thought or leading idea in this passage ; which is truth, 
 reality, fact. There are other views that may be taken 
 of the Son of God, his Son Jesus Christ, being in the 
 True One, as the type and model, as well as the cause, 
 of our being in the True One in him. But I fix on this 
 one as chiefly relevant here ; " we are in the True One 
 in his Son Jesus Christ ;" and therefore in him as truly 
 as his Son Jesus Christ is in him. How truly then, 
 how really, is his Son Jesus Christ in him ! 
 
 His Son Jesus Christ ! For it is not his Son, as 
 being in him from everlasting, that is here presented to 
 us. It is with his Son as " being come," that we have 
 to do. It is in his Son Jesus Christ as " being come," 
 that we are in the True One. Let us look well and see 
 how his Son Jesus Christ is in the True One ; how, in 
 the days of his flesh, " he is in him that is true !" How 
 truly, reaUy, thoroughly ! How naturally too ! He is 
 in his native element when he is in the True One. 
 
 "Who that ever followed Jesus in his earthly life 
 could for a moment doubt that God was to him a reaHty, 
 
318 KNOWING THE TRUE ONE 
 
 and that his being in God was a reality too ? It was a 
 true God that he served ; and he himself was truly in 
 him. My Father ! he is ever saying ; and so saying it 
 as to show that it is a real and true Father he means ; 
 and that he is really and truly in him, as a real and true 
 Sou. Yes ! his Son Jesus Christ is truly in the True 
 One ; never out of him ; never away from him ; never 
 at home but with him ; never thinking a thought, or 
 feeling an emotion, that he did not think and feel in 
 him ; never speaking a word or doing a work but as 
 having his Father with him. Truly, all through his real 
 and true humiliation, and obedience, and sacrifice, " he 
 is in him that is true ;" in him, with a depth and 
 intensity of real inness, if I may use the word, that the 
 devout study of a lifetime will not suffice to fathom. 
 Nay, the devout study of eternity will not suffice to 
 exhaust the full truth of that ineffable complacency of 
 the Everlasting Father of which his Son Jesus Christ, 
 for his obedience unto the death in our stead even 
 more than for his original relation to him, has become 
 the object. 
 
 Yes ! " I in thee " says Jesus, as he leaves the world 
 and goes to the Father. Oh ! that word "I in thee !" 
 What a word, as spoken then and there ! Who can 
 understand its significancy, its intense reality, its living 
 truth? "I in thee!" 
 
 Can it be that I, a sinner, of sinners the chief, am to 
 be in the True One as his Son Jesus Christ is thus in 
 him ? It must be so, at least in measure, if it is in his 
 Son Jesus Christ that I am to be in the True One. My 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 319 
 
 being in the True One must be after the model and 
 manner of his being in the Tnie One. It must at all 
 events be as real and true as that. To me, as to him, 
 God must be a reality ; and my being in God must be 
 a reality too. 
 
 Is this too high an aim ? Does it seem to be beyond 
 my reach ? Nay, let me look again at the way in which 
 God comes down to me that I may rise to him. " Tliou 
 in me ; I in them," is the language of the Son. So " he 
 that is true," the True One, first condescends to us. He 
 is in the Son, in his Son Jesus Christ ; all his fulness 
 dwells in him bodily ; — " Thou in me." And the Son is 
 in us ; — " I in them." The Holy Spirit takes of what is 
 his and shows it to us ; he forms Christ in us. So the 
 Father, the True One, comes down to us ; he in Christ ; 
 Christ in us. Let Christ then be in us. Let us open 
 our hearts to him. Let us welcome, receive, embrace 
 him ; and the Father in him. Then we are in the Son 
 as the Son is in the Father. " We are in him that is 
 true, in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 Let me make a twofold j)ractical appeal, in two 
 opposite directions. 
 
 1. If you will not know the True One now, by the 
 understanding which the Son of God is come to give ; — 
 know him so as to be in him, in his Son Jesus Christ ; — 
 the day is coming when you must be compelled, by 
 another sort of awakening, to know the True One ; and 
 to know him terribly as a reality — as a real God dealing 
 with a real sinner about real sin ! 
 
 Here, for a little longer, God may be to you as if he 
 
320 KNOWING THE TRUE ONE 
 
 were not. You may live on as you wovild live if he were 
 not ; almost as if, like the fool, you said in your heart, 
 There is no God. You may live as you would live if 
 you believed God to be no real being at all, but a mere 
 creature of the imagination ; like a character in fiction ; 
 an airy nothing. Have you no apprehension that it may 
 be far otherwise soon ? It will not always be possible 
 for you thus to ignore God. For he exists. 
 
 Yes ! He does indeed exist. You may find that 
 out to your cost sooner than you think ; too soon for you. 
 It is a great fact, however little you may make of it, or 
 it may make of you. Were it not better for you to 
 know it now ; to take account of it now ; to accommo- 
 date yourselves to it now ? " It is hard for you to kick 
 against the pricks." The Son of God is come to make 
 God known to you now, in all his glorious reality, as 
 " light " and " love." He gives you understanding now 
 that you may thus "know God." Better surely that, 
 than to go on darkly, as in a dream, until there comes a 
 shock. And lo ! there is God ! No shadow, but too truly 
 real ! And there is the Son of God ; real also ; too truly 
 real ! " Behold he cometh with clouds ; and every eye 
 shall see him ; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail 
 because of him." Yes ! God, and the Son of God, are 
 realities then, when men " hide themselves in the dens 
 and in the rocks of the mountains, and say to the moun- 
 tains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of 
 liim that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of 
 the Lamb. For the gi-eat day of his wrath is come, and 
 who shall be able to stand?" (Pvev. vi. 15-17.) 
 
AND BEING IN HIM. 321 
 
 2. Let me remind you who believe of the main end 
 for which John would have you to " know the True One, 
 and be in him, in his Son Jesus Christ." It is that " you 
 may not sin ;" that you may "keep yourselves so that 
 the wicked one, in whom the whole world lieth, may not 
 touch you." Mark the contrast here. The world lieth 
 wholly in the wicked one ; you are in the True One ; in 
 God truly known, in his Son Jesus Christ. Let that 
 contrast be ever vividly realised by you. It is your 
 great and only security. Look well to it that your being 
 in the True One, in his Son Jesus Christ, is a reality. Let 
 it be a true experience. Be evermore " dwelling in the 
 secret place of the Most High, and abiding under the 
 shadow of the Almighty." " Let him cover thee with 
 his feathers, for under his wings you may trust." Is it 
 not his Son Jesus Christ who thus addresses you — 
 " Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, 
 even the Most High thy habitation, there shall no evil 
 befaU thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy 
 dweUins !" 
 
 VOL, II. 
 
322 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 JESUS THE TRUE GOD AND ETERNAL LIFE 
 AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 
 
 ' ' This is tlie true God and [the] eternal life. Little children, keep 
 yourselves from idols." — 1 John v. 20, 2L 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ is tlie person here meant. Such 
 seems to be the fair inference from the use of the pro- 
 noun "this;" — which naturally and usually indicates 
 the nearest person spoken of in the context ; — and 
 therefore, in this instance, not " him that is true," but 
 " his Son Jesus Christ." 
 
 That inference indeed is so clear, in a merely gram- 
 matical and exegetical point of view, that there would 
 not probably have been any doubt about it, were it not 
 for its implying an assertion of our Lord's supreme divi- 
 nity ; an assertion which no sophistry or special pleading 
 can evade or explain away. It is true that some who 
 strongly hold that doctrine have professed, on critical 
 considerations, to take the same view which the deniers 
 of it take. But there is room for suspecting that they 
 have been half-unconsciously influenced by a sort of chi- 
 valrous desire to concede debatable ground, mther than 
 by a strict regard to the real merits of the question. It 
 is a forced construction only that can get us past " his 
 Son Jesus Christ," so as to send us back to him whose 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 323 
 
 Son he is. Certainly the simple and natural reading of 
 the words is, that " he who is come and hath given us 
 an understanding that we may know him that is true," 
 — he in whom " we are in him that is true," — " his Son 
 Jesus Christ," — is " the true God, and eternal life." 
 
 He is " the true God," and as such he is " eternal 
 life," or rather the eternal life. It is our realisation 
 of him in that character, as " the true God and the eter- 
 nal life," wliich constitutes our best and only security 
 against idolatry, — the idolatry which John exhorts us 
 in his closing admonition to shun ; — " Little children, 
 keep yourselves from idols." 
 
 " Tliis is the true God and the eternal life." First, 
 he is the true God. That may be said of each of the 
 three persons in the Godhead separately, as well as of 
 the " three in one " unitedly, " the Triune." The entire 
 Godhead, in all its reality and fulness, is in each one of 
 the persons ; each therefore is in himself really and verily 
 " the true God." The mystery of the Holy Trinity in- 
 volves this seeming paradox. But there is a peculiar 
 significance in the Son's being thus designated here. He 
 is "the Son of God" who "is come ;" come in the flesh 
 by water and blood ; attested by the Spirit as come by 
 water and blood ; giving us an understanding that we 
 may know the True One, and in him and with him may 
 be in the True One. In that character and capacity, 
 and with a view to these functions, he is declared to be 
 " the true God." Again, secondly, in the same character 
 and capacity, and with a view to the same functions, he 
 is declared to be " eternal life," or " the eternal life." 
 
324 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Eternal life ! How much is there in this little phrase ! 
 It suggests the ever awful idea of endless duration ; ex- 
 istence, if not from everlasting, yet to everlasting ; con- 
 scious existence running on for ever. But that is the 
 least part of its meaning. The manner, rather than the 
 term or duration, of the life is indicated ; not so much 
 the continuance of the life, as its kind, its character, its 
 nature. It is life independent of time and its changes ; 
 of earth and its history ; of the created universe itself. 
 It is the life that God lives as the True One ; in hiiuself, 
 from himself, for or to himself. His Son Jesus Christ 
 is "this eternal life." As being "the true God," he 
 is so. As the true God he is the eternally living one ; 
 in such sense the eternally living one that all who 
 are in Mm are eternally living ones as he is himself. 
 If I am one with him, then as he is " the eternal life," 
 so also am I in him. My own life is not eternal. In 
 a sense, indeed, it is so, as regards its duration, for 
 it is to have no end. But it is not, as to its character, 
 eternal life. On the contrary, it is eternal death. 
 The life which I have naturally is the life of a doomed 
 criminal, sentenced to perpetual servitude ; bound over 
 to penal suffering for the entire period of his existence. 
 Such is the eternal death, of which the eternal life 
 is the opposite. For that is the life which he who 
 dooms the criminal to perpetual servitude has himself ; 
 the very life of him who binds the criminal over to penal 
 suffering for ever. It must be, therefore, as being " the 
 true God," that Jesus Christ is " the eternal life." He 
 is so, and can only be so, as being one with that right- 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 325 
 
 eons Father whose judicial condemnation of us is our 
 eternal death. 
 
 But if so, must not his being " the eternal life " be 
 eternal death to us ? Not so. For if, on the one hand, 
 he is one with " him that is true," being his Son, and 
 therefore, like his Father, "the eternal life," — he 
 is one, on the other hand, with us, as his Son Jesus 
 Christ. He becomes, with us and for us, " the eternal 
 death " which is our portion and characteristic ; — which 
 indeed we are, for it is our very nature. As he shares 
 always his father's eternal life, so he shares once for all 
 our eternal death ; takes it as his ; makes it his own. 
 Yes ; he dies our eternal death, that we may live his 
 eternal life. Not otherwise, even as "the true God," 
 could he be, in any sense that could be available for us, 
 "the eternal life;" not otherwise than by being "made 
 sin " and " made a curse " for us ; which means his taking 
 upon himself as his our " eternal death." 
 
 And let it be well noted that not even his being thus 
 made sin and made a curse for us ; not even his becom- 
 ing our partner and our substitute, in our eternal death ; 
 could have been of any benefit to us, or of any use, but 
 for his being, in that very act and experience, " the true 
 God," and as such " the eternal life." It is his being 
 " the true God " that alone can make that eternal death 
 terminable in his case, which it cannot be in ours. His 
 becoming our eternal death for us must involve him in 
 its terrible endlessness, but for his being still in himself 
 " the true God," and as such " the eternal life." We 
 cannot die the eternal death and yet live ; but he can ; 
 
326 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 because lie is " the true God and the eternal life." There- 
 fore he says, " I am he that liveth and was dead ; and 
 behold I am alive for evermore;" and again he says, 
 " Because I live ye shall live also." 
 
 I have died your eternal death that I may share with 
 you my eternal life. I can share with you this eternal 
 life of mine, for it is as the true God that I have it ; — 
 " I am the true God and the eternal life." It is as the 
 true God that I am the eternal life; as the true God ; 
 truly and verily the Son of " him that is true." For 
 " this eternal life " is to know him and to be in him. I 
 am the eternal life because I know him and am in him ; 
 being, as I am, myseK " the true God." Were I not so, 
 were I anything less than that, — I might tell you about 
 the eternal life ; I might unfold it to you ; I might show 
 you the way to it. But I could not myself be that 
 eternal life to you. I could not say to you, that having 
 me you have the eternal life. But I do say that. I 
 give you the assurance that having me you have the 
 eternal life ; that being in me you are in the eternal life. 
 All that you can imagine of peace, rest, joy ; pure and 
 holy love ; perfect, endless, uninterrupted blessedness 
 and glory ; — and whatever else you may connect with 
 that most pregnant phrase "the eternal life;" — you 
 have it aU when you have me ; you are in it aU when 
 you are in me. For, all that I am to the Father you 
 are to the Father ; all that I have from the Father you 
 have from the Father ; all that the Father is to me the 
 Father is to you. Thus I am, for you and to you, " the 
 true God and the eternal Kfe." 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 327 
 
 This statement about Clirist, — his being "the true 
 God and the eternal life," — has a very intimate connec- 
 tion with what is said of him as being come to give us 
 knowledge of his Father, as the True One, and to secure 
 our being in his Father, as the True One, in virtue of our 
 being in him (ver. 20). And viewed in that light, it ex- 
 plains the earnest, emphatic, and affectionate appeal with 
 which John closes his epistle: — "Little children, keep 
 yourselves from idols" (ver. 21). 
 
 I. He " is come, and hath given us an understanding 
 that we may know him that is true;" and, so coming, 
 he is " the true God and the eternal life." In him the 
 true God becomes really true to us. In his person God 
 stands forth before our eyes as a reality, and is felt in 
 our inmost hearts to be a reality. This is what we need 
 and often crave for ; that the true and living God should 
 be to us, not a notion, but a reality. He is so to us, and 
 is so known by us, in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, 
 because his Son Jesus Christ is "the true God and 
 eternal life." We need not seek elsewhere for what we 
 want. We may " keep ourselves from idols." 
 
 For what is the use of an idol ? What is the design 
 and aim of those who frame or fancy visible images of 
 the invisible God, — grotesque figures, in wood, or stone, 
 or metal ; the heavenly orbs ; deified heroes ; personified 
 divine attributes and influences ? Is it not to bring God 
 more within the range of their actual and sensible appre- 
 hension than otherwise he would be, and so to have him 
 before them as a true and palpable reality ? 
 
328 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 The idols are real, and, in a sense, even living. The 
 hideous, misshapen block before which yonder dark 
 Hindoo bows and worships has for him a certain real 
 life, akin to his own. The beasts so sacred in old Egypt's 
 eyes were real and living emblems of divine powers and 
 qualities of some sort. The suns and stars on wliich 
 rapt Chalda3an gazed had a real and living significancy, 
 as representative of deity. The men and women whom a 
 more earthly superstition turned into gods and goddesses 
 were real and living flesh and blood while on earth, and 
 continued to be to their votaries much the same when 
 they were gone. Even the strange, dreamy, mysterious 
 spiritualities, with which the early heretics and Gnostic 
 corrupters of Christianity peopled the divine fulness ; 
 the divine essences and emanations which they named 
 as in some sense persons ; had for their imaginative 
 minds a living reality that they could grasp and feel. 
 These last were the idols of John's day, within the 
 church ; from which, even more than from grosser idols 
 outside, it concerned him to warn " his little children to 
 keep themselves." They were the forerunners, as his 
 prophetic eye partly saw, of idols still more seductive, 
 with which Christendom was to be ere long tried ; 
 canonised martyrs and saints, with their images and 
 pictures and relics ; and liigh over all, alone in her glory, 
 the blessed Virgin. 
 
 Now all these idolatries, however widely differing in 
 their nature, and in their effects upon their devotees, 
 have this principle in common, that they are all attempts 
 to give actual form and substance, — true and living em- 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 329 
 
 bodiment and realisation, as it were, — to men's concep- 
 tions of deity ; tliose conceptions which otherwise are 
 apt to be so indistinct, indefinite, misty, shadowy, as to 
 be for the most part practically all but uninfluential. 
 They bring what is divine within the range and grasp 
 of humanity. The abstract becomes personal ; the ideal 
 becomes real The infinite takes the clear and sharp 
 outline of a form or a face that can be pictured to the 
 mind's eye at least, if not to that of the body. And 
 what is apt to be little more than a great blank vacancy, 
 becomes instinct with living personality. 
 
 Hence, even for refined natures, the more refined 
 kinds of idol-worship have a strong fascination ; — witness 
 the hold which Mariolatry has over intellects the highest 
 and hearts the tenderest and purest. 
 
 It is indeed the crown and masterpiece of idolatry — 
 this worship of the Virgin. Fairer, holier, more lovely 
 and lovable idol was never formed or fancied. Never 
 idol like her, — the ideal mother of our Lord. 
 
 I say the ideal mother of our Lord. For it is an 
 idealised Mary that is idolised. 
 
 And yet we see and can understand how intensely 
 real, even as thus ideahsed, she is and must be to her 
 believing worshippers. In her they feel that they have 
 a real mother, a real sister, — a true and very woman; 
 with all of woman's warm love and none of woman's 
 weakness. And she has to them divinity about her, 
 being, as they put it, " the mother of God." That Mary, 
 thus ideal and yet real, should be adored and loved, 
 chivalrously and yet devoutly, with human passion rising 
 
330 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 into divine enthusiasm, is so far from seeming to me 
 strange, that I doubt if any of us have not sometimes 
 had some secret sympathy, if not with the superstitious 
 homage, at least with the frame of mind that prompts it. 
 I take this highest instance of the charm that there 
 is in idolatry, because it comes nearest to what John 
 puts as a safeguard against it. The virgin-mother of our 
 Lord is alone in the created universe of God. No other 
 being ever has occupied, or ever can occupy, the same 
 position with her. She stands in a relation to Deity 
 altogether peculiar ; absolutely singular. It is a natural 
 thought that she may be invoked as well as her Son ; 
 nay, that she may be invoked instead of her Son ; as, in 
 fact, a most persuasive pleader with her Son. And she 
 grows to be so very true and real, as a genuine woman, 
 kind and pitying and relenting ; while her divine Son, 
 as well as his heavenly Father, fades away in the dim 
 distance of a sort of undefined and misty majesty ; that 
 knowing her, as it seems, so thoroughly and personally, 
 one is fain to rest in her, and leave all to her, and be 
 satisfied with her as virtually all in all. And it must 
 be so, if we take her as our mediator. For she is not 
 " the true God and eternal life." She is, when thus 
 viewed, simply an idol. Now no idol brings us into 
 communication with God as true and real. We accept 
 the idol as real ; but God, whose image he may profess 
 to be, — between whom and us he ought to mediate, — is 
 as unreal as ever, or more so. The virgin-mother I 
 know ; in her I can lie. But as for the Son and the 
 Father, I look to her to deal with them for me. To me 
 they are but names. 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 331 
 
 Notliing like that can happen when he through whom 
 I am to know God truly, is himself, as his Son Jesus 
 Christ, " the true God and the eternal life." He is as 
 human as is his virgin-mother. He is, as much as she 
 is, a real and living human person ; as truly set before 
 me as such. N"ay, I have him, as a real and living per- 
 son, more clearly and fully, with more of personal indi- 
 viduality, in my mind's eye, than ever I can have her. 
 
 The notices of Mary are few and far between ; vague 
 also and indefinite. We have nothing beyond the 
 merest generalities to give us a notion of what sort of 
 woman she was. But her divine Son, the Son of the 
 Highest, the Son of the True One, his Son Jesus Christ, 
 — is as a living man amongst us, — a real person. He is 
 more truly, vividly, intensely real to us than even his 
 mother Mary. And if more so than she, then more by 
 far than any saints or martyrs that ever were canonised ; 
 any heroes that ever were deified ; any representatives 
 of deity, dead or alive, that ever were worshipped ; any 
 effluxes or emanations of deity that the highest imagina- 
 tion ever invested with the property of personality. 
 Yes ; here is Jesus Christ the Son of God, truly, vividly, 
 intensely real ; a real and living person ; going in and 
 out among us ; one of whom we can really form a truer, 
 fuller, more intimate conception, than we can form of 
 our dearest and most familiar associate and intimate ; 
 whose hand we clasp in ours more really, because more 
 inwardly, than we can clasp the hand of any friend ; 
 with whom we can talk more confidentially than we can 
 with any brother. Here he is. And it is through and 
 
332 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 in him that I am to " know God as the True One." He 
 is to represent God to me ; it is with him that I have 
 directly and immediately to do ; in him I am to know 
 " the True One." 
 
 But does not tliis arrangement really put aside " the 
 True One," and substitute in his stead " his Son Jesus 
 Clirist?" Doubtless he is the best possible or conceiv- 
 able substitute. But still, is it not a substitution ? Does 
 it not tend in the direction of making Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of " the True One," the real and living " True One " 
 to me ; while God, his Father, the absolute and ultimate 
 " True One," becomes to me a dim and far-off vision ? 
 Is there no danger of idolatry here ? Am I not on the 
 point of falling into that sin, by setting him up instead 
 of God ? And is not that equivalent to making him an 
 idol? 
 
 It has been so often ; and it would be so always ; 
 were it not for the great and blessed fact that he is 
 " the true God and the eternal life." But I cannot 
 make an idol of him if I believe that. I cannot worship 
 him in an idolatrous manner, or after an idolatrous 
 fashion, if I really own him as being " the true God and 
 the eternal life," and in that view take in the full mean- 
 ing of his own words : " Whosoever hath seen me hath 
 seen the Father." 
 
 Is it not a blessed thing to know that there can be 
 no idolatry in your closest fellowship with Jesus, if only 
 you bear in mind that he is " the true God and the eter- 
 nal life ?" Your warmest love to him, your most fami- 
 liar intercourse with him, your most affectionate clinging 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 333 
 
 to him, your most tender and trusting embrace of him, 
 never can be idolatry ; — for he is " the true God and the 
 eternal life." You need have no fear of your making 
 too much of him, or making an idol of him ; as you 
 must have in the case of any other being, real or imagi- 
 nary, whom you let in between God and you ; for " he is 
 the true God and the eternal life," You may admii-e 
 others to excess, but you never can admire him to ex- 
 cess ; for " he is the true God and the eternal life." 
 You may be too devoted to others, but you can never be 
 too devoted to him ; for " he is the true God and the 
 eternal life." 
 
 What ease and freedom may this thought impart to 
 all your deahngs with him, as come especially to " give 
 you an understanding that you may know the True 
 One ;" that you may know him as true and real. 
 
 The most perfect of God's creatures, the highest 
 angel, if he had come on such an errand, must have bid 
 you look away from him. You may listen to my voice, 
 he might say ; you may hear what I have to tell you 
 about God. I will do my best to set him before you as 
 a reality, in as lifelike a representation as I can give. 
 But beware of fixing your eyes too much, or indeed at 
 all, on me. You may imagine that I am so like him, as 
 living so near him and seeing so much of him, that when 
 you have formed a clear notion of me you really know 
 him. But it is not so ; it is far otherwise. Your very 
 knowledge of me may mislead you as to him ; tempting 
 you to form inadequate, if not erroneous, conceptions of 
 him ; to enshrine him in my frame and clothe him in 
 
334 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 my vesture ; tlie frame and vesture of a mere creature 
 at the best. 
 
 But no such caution is needed on the part of Jesus ; 
 for he is the true God and the eternal life. Therefore 
 let not Jesus, the Son of God, be a name or a notion to 
 you ; if he is so, much more will God his Father be so. 
 Let him be a true, present, living reality. Be sitting at 
 his feet as really as did Mary of Bethany. Be wel- 
 coming him to your house and table as really as did 
 Zaccheus. Be leaning on his bosom as really as did 
 John. Be grasping his hand, when you are sinking in 
 the stormy sea, as really as did Peter when he cried, 
 Lord, save me, I perish. You may do so with all safety, 
 and with no risk of idolatry ; for he is " the true God 
 and the eternal life," 
 
 II. But not only are we " in his Son Jesus Christ 
 so as to know him that is true," we are to be " in him 
 so as to be in him that is true." In that view also it is 
 all-important thoroughly to apprehend and feel that 
 " he is the true God and the eternal life." For were he 
 not so, we could not really be in the True One by being 
 in him. Nay, our being in him, so far from a help, might 
 be a hindrance. "We might be in the True One through 
 him, but scarcely in him, unless he were himseK " the 
 true God and the eternal life." 
 
 This word "in," be it observed, though small in 
 size, is very great in significancy. It denotes a very 
 close, real, and personal connection ; and indeed almost, 
 as it were, an identification ; — so much so that it may be 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 335 
 
 said to be as impossible for me to be in the Tnie One, and 
 at the same time to be in any one else who is not " the 
 true God and the eternal life/' — as it is for me to serve 
 two masters, to serve God and Mammon. For what is 
 this " inness," if I may so say, when it is spoken of a 
 real and living person to whom I may sustain real and 
 personal relations ? Surely at the very least it implies 
 that I give myself up entirely to him, and become 
 wholly his. I consent to his taking me to be one with 
 himself. It is a real unity, corresponding in its nature 
 and character to the nature and character of him in 
 whom I am ; but still real ; and intimate as real ; so 
 intimate as to be engrossing, absorbing, exclusive. He 
 in whom I am is to me all in all. In a sense, I lose 
 myseK in him. I have no separate standing from him. 
 I see, as it were, through his eyes ; I judge with his 
 understanding ; I make his will my will ; I make him- 
 seK my supreme good, and my chiefest joy. 
 
 Now if, in any such sense, I am in one who is not 
 " the true God and the eternal life," — can that be com- 
 patible with my being also " in him that is true?" 
 
 It is not needful here to suppose that it is an enemy 
 of God in whom I thus am, and with whom I am thus 
 identified. The case is better put when he is supposed 
 to be a friend of God. For then I look to him to deal 
 with God for me. I am in him as being his ; so 
 thoroughly his, that I have nothing of my own ; I 
 myself am not my own. He has made me part and 
 parcel of his own very self. It belongs to him to make 
 terms with God for himseK : — and for me as being in 
 
336 JESUS THE TRUE GOD 
 
 him. He has to do with God ; not I. So it must be 
 with me, if he in whom I am is not " the true God and 
 the eternal life ;" if he and the True One are separate 
 and distinct ; if he and the Father are not one. The 
 higher he is, the nearer he is to God, the more does my 
 " being in him " supersede and supplant my " being in 
 God." 
 
 But Jesus Christ is " the true God and the eternal 
 life." I may be " in him," as much as ever I choose, as 
 much as ever I can ; his own good Spirit helping me ; 
 the more the better. For " in liim I am in the True 
 One." In the Son I am in the Father, even as he is in 
 the Father. And all this is so, because " he is the true 
 God and the eternal life." 
 
 It could not otherwise be so. I could not be in him 
 as I Ions? to be in him, without being not in, but out of, 
 the True One, were he not liimseK " the true God and 
 the eternal life." For how do I long to be in him, if I 
 am at all awakened to a sense of what I am in myself ? 
 How do I long to be in Christ ? How thoroughly would 
 I be hidden, and as it were, swallowed up m him ! A 
 poor, naked, shelterless, child of sin and w^rath, shrink- 
 ing from the presence of " him that is true," — shrinking 
 from the glance of his true eye and the searching 
 scrutiny of his true judgment, — ah ! how fain would I 
 be lost and merged altogether in that holy, righteous, 
 loving Saviour, who has come to answer for me ; to 
 take my place ; to fulfil my righteousness ; to bear my 
 guilt ; to die for me, and yet live, so that I may live in 
 him. Oh ! to be in him ; shut up into him ; lost and 
 
AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 337 
 
 merged altogether, I repeat, in him ; and becanse lost 
 and merged in him, therefore also safe in him. 
 
 Safe ? From whom ? From the Trne One ? Am I 
 to be in his Son Jesus Christ so as to be away from 
 himself ? No. For he in whom I am is " the true God 
 and the eternal life." Therefore, being in him, I am in 
 the True One, " in him that is true." 
 
 I would be in Christ incarnate. I would be in 
 Christ crucified. I must be in Christ both incarnate 
 and crucified. I must be in him as he becomes bone of 
 my bone and flesh of my flesh. I must be in him as 
 dying, yet not " given over to death," but rising again ; 
 the living one ; who, having once died, dieth no more ; 
 who living, though he was dead, liveth for ever. I 
 would be, I must be, thus in Christ. Is it as against 
 God ? Is it as if I were to be out of and away from 
 God the True One ? No ! Emphatically no ! For he 
 in whom I am is himself " the true God and the eternal 
 life." 
 
 " Little children, keep yourselves from idols." And 
 let this be the test or criterion of what an idol is. 
 Whatever worship or fellowship or companionship, — 
 whatever system or society, — whatever work or way, — 
 whatever habit or pursuit or occupation, — is of such a 
 sort in itself, or has such influence over you, that you 
 cannot be in it and at the same time be in God, or that 
 you may be in it and yet not be in God, — as litth; 
 children in a loving Father, — that to you is idolatry, bo 
 the object of your regard what it may. From all siicli 
 VOL. II. z 
 
338 JESUS THE TKUE GOD AGAINST ALL IDOLS. 
 
 idols keep yourselves. And that you may keep your- 
 selves from them all, abide evermore in the Son of God, 
 your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To be in him is 
 3'our only security, — to be always " found in him." For 
 to be in him is to be in the Father, even as he is in the 
 Father. And there can be no idolatry in that. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printea by R. Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
wo R KS 
 
 EGBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D., 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE NEW COLLEGE, AND MINISTER OP FREE 
 
 ST. George's church, Edinburgh. 
 
 In 2 vols, post 8vo., cloth, New Edition, carefidlij revised, 
 frice 10s. 6c/., 
 
 The Book of Genesis 
 
 EXPOUNDED IN A SERIES OF DISCOURSES. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 I. Creation Viewed as Matter of Faith. 
 
 II. The Creation of the AVorkl and Man Viewed on its 
 Heavenly Side. 
 
 III. The Creation of Man Viewed as on the Side of Earth. 
 
 IV. Devotional and Prophetic View of the Creation. 
 V. The First Temptation — Its Subtlety. 
 
 VI. The Fruit of the First Sin — The Eemedial Sentence. 
 VII. The jSTew Dispensation — Contest of Grace and JS'atnre. 
 
DR. CANDLISH ON GENESIS. 
 
 VIII. The Apostate Seed — The Godly Seed — The Univer- 
 sal Corruption. 
 
 IX. The End of the Old World by Water— The New 
 
 World Eeserved unto Fire. 
 
 X. The New World— The Law of Nature. 
 
 XL The New World — The Scheme of Providence. 
 
 XII. The New World— The Election of Grace. 
 
 XIII. The Earth given to Men, and occupied by them. 
 
 XIV. The Call of ALram — His Eaith and its Iniirmity. 
 
 XV. The Inheritance of the Land Promised to Abram. 
 
 XVI. Victory over the Invaders of the Land — Interview 
 with Melchizedek. 
 
 XVII. Justification by Faith. 
 
 XVIII. The Trial of Faith. 
 
 XIX. The Eevival of Faith. 
 
 XX. The Eenewal of the Covenant. 
 
 XXI. The Seal of the Covenant. 
 
 XXIL The Friend of God. 
 
 XXIII. The Godly delivered out of Temptation. 
 
 XXIV. The Impression of the Scene when all is over. 
 XXV. Carnal Policy Defeated. 
 
DR. CANDLISH ON GENESIS. iii 
 
 XXVI. The Separation of tlie SeedBorn after the Flesh 
 from the Seed that is by Promise. 
 
 XXVII. Ishmael and Isaac. 
 
 XXVIII. Abraham's Faith. 
 
 XXIX. Tidings from Home. 
 
 XXX. The Death and Burial of a Princess. 
 
 XXXI. A Marriage Contracted in the Lord. 
 
 XXXII. The Death of Abraham. 
 
 XXXIII. Life and Character of Abraham. 
 
 XXXIV. The Family of Isaac. 
 
 XXXV. Parental Favouritism and Fraternal Feud. 
 XXXVI. The Chosen Family under Isaac. 
 XXXVII. Transmission of the Birthright-Blessing. 
 
 [OYKB. 
 
DR. CANDLISH ON GENESIS. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 XXXYIII. The Beginning of Jacob's Pilgrimage — The 
 Vision. 
 
 XXXIX. The beginning of Jacob's Pilgrimage — The 
 Vow. 
 
 XL. Jacob's Sojourn in Syria — Its General Aspect. 
 
 XLI. Jacob's Sojourn in Syria — Its Spiritual Mean- 
 
 XLII. Jacob's Sojourn in Syria — Retrospect. 
 
 XLIII. Jacob's Sojourn in Syria — The Last Bargain. 
 
 XLIV. The Parting of Laban and Jacob. 
 
 XLV. The Two Armies— The Pear of Man. 
 
 XLVI. Jacob's Trial Analogous to Job's. 
 
 XL VII. The Meeting of Jacob and Esau — Brotherly 
 Eeconciliation. 
 
 XLVIII. Personal Declension — Family Sin and Shame. 
 
 XLIX. Personal and Family Eevival — Mingled Grace 
 and Chastisement. 
 
 L. A N"ew Era — The Beginning of a New Patri- 
 archate. 
 
DR. CANDLISH ON GENESIS. v 
 
 LI. The Mission to Dothan— The Plot— The Sale. 
 
 LII. Sinful Ancestry of " The Holy Seed"— Grief in 
 Canaan — Hope in Egypt. 
 
 LIII. Humiliation and Temptation yet without Sin. 
 
 LIV. The Suffering Saviour^ — The Saved and Lost. 
 
 LV. The End of Humiliation and Beginning of Exalt- 
 ation. 
 
 LVI. Exaltation — Headsliij) over all — For the Church. 
 
 LVIL Conviction of Sin — Your Sin shall find you out. 
 
 LVIII. The Trial and Triumph of Eaith. 
 
 LIX. The Discovery — Man's Extremity God's Oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 LX. A True Brother — A Generous King — A Glad 
 Father. 
 
 LXL Faith Quitting Canaan for Egypt — Canaan left 
 for Judgment. 
 
 LXIL Israel's Welcome in Egypt — To be kept there till 
 the Time comes. 
 
 LXIII. Joseph's Egyptian Policy — Israel's Quiet Eest. 
 
 LXIV. The Dying Saint's Care for the Body as well as 
 the Soul. 
 
vi DR. CANDLISH ON GENESIS. 
 
 LXV. The Blessing on Joseph's Cliildren — Jacob's Dying 
 Faith. 
 
 LXVI. Jacob's Dying Prophecy — Judah's Exalted Lot — 
 Shiloh coming. 
 
 LXYII. Waiting for the Salvation of the Lord. 
 
 LXVIII. Close of Jacob's Dying Prophecy — The Blessing 
 on Joseph. 
 
 LXIX. The Death of Jacob— His Character and History. 
 
 LXX. The Burial of Jacob — The Last Scene in Canaan. 
 
 LXXT. Joseph and his Brethren — The Full Assurance of 
 Peconciliation. 
 
 LXXII. Faith and Hope in Death — Looking from Egypt 
 to Canaan. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK. 
 
DR. CANDLISH'S WORKS— Continued. 
 
 Fourth Edition, fcp. Svo, cloth, 
 
 The Fatherhood of God, 
 
 (CUNNINGHMI LECTURES.) 
 
 Lecture First. — " The Original Eelation of Man to God." 
 
 Lecture Second—" The Fatherhood of God, as manifested in 
 the person of Christ, the Incarnate Word." 
 
 Lecture Third — " The Fatherhood of God, as revealed and 
 known before the Incarnation." 
 
 Lecture Fourth — " The Teaching of our Lord on his own and 
 his Brethren's Sonship." 
 
 Lecture Fifth — " The manner of Entrance into the Eelation ] 
 Adoration as connected with Eegeneration and Justi- 
 fication." 
 
 Lectiu'e Sixth — " The Privileges and Obligations of Sonship." 
 
 In fcp. 8vo, neio Edition {the 3d) careful!?/ revised. 
 
 Life in a Risen Saviour. 
 
 BEING DISCOUKSES ON THE RESURKECTIOJST. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction to the Argument. — Discourses I. II. III. 
 
 The Argument. — Part First. — Discourses IV.-X. , 
 
 Inferences from the denial of the Resurrection. 
 
 The Argument. — Part Second. — Discourses XI.-XXII. 
 The Nature of the Future Body. 
 
 Supplementary Discourses. 
 
 EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK. 
 
viii DR. CANDLISH'S WORKS— Continued. 
 
 Third Edition, crown 8vo, price 7s, Qd. 
 
 Scripture Characters. 
 
 COWTTEITTS. 
 
 I. The Universal Characteristic — " And he died.' 
 II. Eli. 
 
 III. Character of Ahab. 
 lY. Character of Jehoshaphat. 
 V. Character of Herod. 
 YI. Peter. 
 
 YII. Martha and Mary. 
 YIII. The Friendshi^D of Peter and John. 
 IX. Mary Magdalene. 
 
 X. The Spirit of God striving with Man. 
 XI. The Wiclced taken in their own Net. 
 XII. The Case of Pilate. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: ADAM & CHAELES BLACK. 
 
DR. CANDLISWS WORKS— Coiitiimed. ix 
 
 In crown Svo, 'price 7s. 6d. 
 
 The Atonement: 
 Its Reality, Completeness, and Extent. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. The Formularies of tlie Eeformation as distiugiiished, 
 in regard to this subject, from those of the Patristic 
 Church. 
 
 II. The Westminster Standards. 
 
 III. IV. V. VI. The method of scriptural proof — Examina 
 tionof Heh. ix. 13, 14. 
 
 VII., VIII. The dispensation of gracious forbearance. 
 
 IX. The completeness of the Atonement. 
 
 X. The divine faithfulness and human responsibility. 
 
 XI. The office of Faith. 
 
 XII. The nature of Faith. 
 
 XIII., XIV. The warrant of Faith. 
 
 XV. The hypothesis of a postponed Atonement further 
 considered. 
 
 XVI. The source and oricrin of Faith. 
 
 EDINBURGH: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK. 
 
X DR. CANDLISH'S WORKS— Continued. 
 
 ' In crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. 
 
 The Christian's Sacrifice and 
 Service of Praise : 
 
 OK, THE TWO GKEAT COMMANDMENTS, 
 
 BEING 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF THE 12TH CHAPTER OF THE EPISTLE TO 
 THE ROMANS. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Christian in his Eelation to God. 
 
 The Christian in his Eelation to his Fellow-Christians — The 
 
 Church, or Collective Body of Believers. 
 
 The Christian in his Eelation to a Hostile World. 
 
 In croio7i 8vo, price 3s. 6cl. 
 
 Reason and Revelation. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Authority and Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 The infallibility of Holy Scriptures. 
 
 Conscience and the Bible. 
 
 Paul Preaching at Athens — Eeason and Eevelation. 
 
 The Duty of Free Inquiry and Private Judgment. 
 
 EDINBUKGH: ADAM & CHAELES BLACK. 
 
BS2805 .8X21 v.2 
 
 The First epistle of John : expounded in 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00067 3246 
 
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