S^igjai ^^■*in''yi>'';'-r:.^Kr' ■•■■■■ mnv. ->?S->: PRINCETON, N. J. Division Section Shelf... Number Life vol. ii., 359, 3G0. iv. 2, 3.] FIRST EPISTLE OF ST JOHN. 47 This may be pretty writing, though false and illogical writing is rarely even that; but a little consideration will show that this new starting point is not even a plausible substitute for the old belief (l) We question simple believers in the first instance. We ask them what is the great religious power in Christianity for themselves, and for others like-minded ? What makes people pure, good, self-denying, nurses of the sick, missionaries to the heathen ? They will tell us that the power lies, not in any doketic idea of a Christ-life which was never lived, but in ** the conviction that that idea was really and perfectly incarnated in an actual career," ^ of which we have a record literally and absolutely true in all essential particulars. When we turn to the past of the Church, we find that as it is with these persons, so it has ever been with the saints. For instance, we hear St. Paul speaking of his whole life. He tells us that " whether we went out of our- selves it was unto God, or whether we be sober, it is for you ; " that is to say, such a life has two aspects, one God-ward, one man-ward. Its God-ward aspect is a noble insanity, its man-ward aspect a noble sanity ; the first with its beautiful enthusiasm, the second with its saving common sense. What is the source of this ? ^^ For the love of Christ constraineth us," — forces the whole stream of fife to flow between these two banks without the deviations of selfishness — ** because we thus judge, that He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but to Him who for their sakes died and rose again." ^ It was the real unselfish life of a real unselfish Man which ' Much use has here been made of a truly remarkable article in the Spectator, Jan. 31st, 1885. 2-2 Cor. V. 13-15. 48 THE POLEMICAL ELEMENT IN THE made such a life as that of St. Paul a possibility. Or we may think of the first begimiing of St. John's love for our Lord. When he turned to the past, he remembered one bright day about ten in the morning, when the real Jesus turned to him and to another with a real look, and said WMth a human voice, " what seek ye ? " and then — '' come, and ye shall see." ^ It was ' the real living love that won the only kind of love which could enable the old man to write as he did in this Epistle so many years afterwards — "we love because He first loved us." ^ (2) We address ourselves next to those who look at Christ simply as an ideal. We venture to put to them a definite question. You believe that there is no solid basis for the history of the man Jesus ; that His life as an historical reality is lost in a dazzling mist of legend and adoration. Has the idea of a Christ, divorced from all accompaniment of authentic fact, unfixed in a definite historical form, uncontinued in an abiding existence, been operative or inoperative for yourselves ? Has it been a practical power and motive, or an occasional and evanescent sentiment? There can be no doubt about the answer. It is not a make- belief but a belief which gives purity and power. It is not an ideal of Jesus but the blood of Jesus which cleanseth us from all sin. There are other lessons of abiding practical importance to be drawn from the polemical elements in St. John's Epistle. These, however, we can only buefly indicate because we wish to leave an undivided impression of that which seems to be St. John's chief object con- troversiaUy. There were Gnostics in Asia Minor for * John i. 43. I John iv 79. iv. 2, 3.] FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHiV. 49 whom the mere knowledge of certain supposed sph-itual truths was all in all, as there are those amongst our- selves who care for little but what are called clear views. For such St. John writes — " and hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His command- ments." ^ There were heretics in and about Ephesus who conceived that the special favour of God, or the illumination which they obtained by junction with the sect to which they had '^ gone out " from the Church, neutralised the poison of sin, and made innocuous for them that which might have been deadly for others. They suffered, as they thought, no more contamination by it, than " gold by lying upon the dunghill " (to use a favourite metaphor of their own), St. John utters a principle which cleaves through every fallacy in every age, which says or insinuates that sin subjective can in any case cease to be sin objective. ^' Whosoever com- mitteth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. All unrighteousness is sin."^ Possibly within the Church itself, certainly among the sectarians without it, there was a disposition to lessen the glory of the Incarnation, by looking upon the Atonement as narrow and partial in its aim. St. John's unhesitating statement is that " He is the propitiation for the whole world." Thus does the eagle of the Church ever fix his gaze above the clouds of error, upon the Sun of universal truth. Above all, over and through his negation of temporary and local errors about the person of Christ, St. John leads the Church in all ages to the" true Christ, Cerinthus, in a form which seems to us eccentric and revolting, proclaimed a Jesus not born of a virgin, temporarily endowed with the sovereign power of the ' I John ii. 3. ^ I John ni. 4, v. 17. 4 50 THE POLEMICAL ELEMENT IN THE Christ, deprived of Him before his passion and resur- rection, while the Christ remained spiritual and im- passible. He taught a commonplace Jesus. At the beginning of his Epistle and Gospel, John " wings his soul, and leads his readers onward and upward." He is like a man who stands upon the shore and looks upon town and coast and bay. Then another takes the man off with him far to sea. All that he surveyed before is now lost to him ; and as he gazes ever ocean- ward, he does not stay his eye upon any intervening object, but lets it range over the infinite azure. So the Apostle leads us above all creation, and transports us to the ages before it ; makes us raise our eyes, not suffering us to find any end in the stretch above, since end is none.^ That ^'in the beginning," "from the beginning," of the Epistle and Gospel, includes nothing short of the eternal God. The doketics of many shades proclaimed an ideological, a misty Christ. " Every spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ as in flesh having come is of God, and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God." ^' Many deceivers have gone out into the world, they who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh." ^ Such a Christ of mist as these words warn us against is again shaped by more powerful intellects and touched with tenderer lights. But the shadowy Christ of George Eliot and of Mill is equally arraigned by the hand of St. John. Each believer may well think within himself— I must die, and that, it may be, very soon ; I must be alone with God, and my own soul ; with that which I am, and have been ; with my memories, and w^ith my sins. In that ' Every one who reads Creek should refer to the magnificent pas- sag:-, S.Joaiin. Cliiysos., jii Joanu.. Il0'i:il. ii. 4. ^ I John iv. 2 ; 2 John v. 7. See notes on the passages. IV. 2, 30 FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN. $1 hour the weird desolate language of the Psalmist will find its realisation : " lover and friend hast thou put from me, and mine acquaintance are — darkness:' ^ Then we want, and then we may find, a real Saviour. Then we shall know that if we have only a doketic Christ, we shall indeed be alone— for '' except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." ^ NOTE. The two following extracts, in addition to what has been already said in this discourse, will supply the reader with that which it is most necessary for him to know upon the heresies of Asia Minor. I. " Two principal heresies upon the nature of Christ then prevailed, each diametrically opposite to the other, as well as to the Catholic faith. One was the heresy of the Doketse, which destroyed the verity of the Human Nature in Christ ; the other was the heresy of the Ebionites, who denied the Divine Nature, and the eternal Generation, and inclined to press the observation of the ceremonial law. Ancient writers allow these as heresies of the first century ; all admit that they were powerful in the age of Ignatius. Hence Theodoret {Prooem.) divided the books of these heresies into two categories. In the first he included those who put forward the idea of a second Creator, and asserted that the Lord had appeared illusively. In the second he placed those who maintained that the Lord was merely a man. Of the first, Jerome observed {Adv. Lucijer. xxiji.) ' that while the Apostles yet remained upon the earth, while the blocd of Christ was almost smoking upon ' Psalm IviiJ. l8. ^ John vj. 53. 52 THE POLEMICAL ELEMENT IN THE the sod of Judaea, some asserted that the body of the Lord was a phantom.' Of the second, the same writer remarked that ' St. John, at the invitation of the bishops of Asia Minor, wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus and other heretics — and especially against the dogma of the Ebionites then rising into existence, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary.' Epiphanius notes that these heresies were mainly of Asia Minor {(prjfxl 8e ev TTj 'Acria), Hceres. Ivi." (Pearson, Vindic. Ignat.y ii., c. i., p. 351b 2. ^' Two of these sects or schools are very ancient, and seem to have been referred to by St. John. The first is that of the Naassenians or Ophites. The antiquity of this sect is guaranteed to us by the author of the Pkilosophumena, who represents them as the real founders of Gnosticism. *' Later," he says, " they were called Gnostics, pretending that they only knew the depths." (To this allusion is made Apoc. ii. 24, which would identify these sectaries with the Balaamites and Nicolaitans.) The second of these great heresies of Asia Minor is the doketic. The publication of the Philosophujnena has furnished us with much more precise information about their tenets. We need not say much about the divine emanation — the fall of souls into matter, their corporeal captivity, their final rehabilitation (these are merely the ordinary Gnostic ideas). But we may follow what they assert about the Saviour and His manifestation in the world. They admit in Him the only Son of the Father (6 ixovo^evi]^ 7rat9 avwOev alcovio^), who descended to the reign of shadows and the Virgin's wonb, where He clothed Himself in a gross, human material body. But this was a vestment of no integrally personal and permanent chiracter; it was, indeed, a sort of masquerade, an iv. 2, 3.] FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN. 53 artifice or fiction imagined to deceive the pi'ince of this world. The Saviour at His baptism received a second birth, and clad Himself with a subtler texture of body, formed in the bosom of the waters — if that can be termed a body which was but a fantastic texture woven or framed upon the model of His earthly body. During the hours of the Passion, the flesh formed in Mary's womb, and it alone, was nailed to the tree. The great Archon or Demiurgus, whose work that flesh was, was played upon and deceived, in pouring His wrath only upon the work of His hands. For the soul, or spiritual substance, which had been wounded in the flesh of the Saviour, extricated itself from this as from an unmeet and hateful vesture ; and itself contributing to nailing it to the cross, triumphed by that very flesh over principalities and powers. It did not, however, remain naked, but clad in the subtler form which it had assumied in its baptismal second birth {Philosoph., viii. 10). What is remarkable in this theory is, first, the admission of the reality of the terrestrial body, formed in the Virgin's womb, and then nailed to the cross. The negation is only of the real and permanent union of this body with the heavenly spirit which inhabits it. We shall, further, note the importance which it attaches to the Saviour's baptism, and the part played by water, as if an intermediate element between flesh and spirit. This may bear upon I John v. 8." [This passage is from a Dissertation — les Trois Tcmoins Celestes, in a collection of religious and literary papers by French scholars (Tom. ii., Sept. 18^8, pp. 388-392). The author, since deceased, was the Abbe Le Hir, M. Renan's instructor in Hebrew at Saint Sulpice, and pronounced by his pupil one of the first of European Hebraists and scientific theologians.] DISCOURSE IV. THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL IN HIS EPISTLE, " He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend." — Prov. xxii. II. 6 defxiXios. ... 6 5evT€pos adircjieipos, — Apoc. xxi. 19. "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. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son 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. This is the true God and eternal life." — I John v. 18-20. MUCH has been said in the last few 3^ears of a series of subtle and delicate experiments in sound. Means have been devised of doing for the ear something analogous to that which glasses do for another sense, and of making the results palpable by a system of notation. We are told that every tree for instance, according to its foliage, its position, and the direction of the winds, has its own prevalent note or tone, which can be marked down, and its tunbre made first visible by this notation, and then audible. So is it with the souls of the saints of God, and chiefly of the Apostles. Each has its own note, the prevalent ke}^ on which its peculiar music is set. Or we may employ another image which possibly has St. John's own authority. Each of the twelve has his own emblem among the twelve vast and precious foundation V. 18-20.] THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL. 55 Stones which underHe the whole wall of the Church. St. John may thus differ from St. Peter, as the sap- phire's azure differs from the jasper's strength and radiance. Each is beautiful, but with its own charac- teristic tint of beauty.^ We propose to examine the peculiarities of St. John's spiritual nature which may be traced in this Epistle. We try to form some conception of the key on which it is set, of the colour which it reflects in the light of heaven, of the image of a soul which it presents. In this attempt we cannot be deceived. St. John is so transparently honest ; he takes such a deep, almost terribly severe view of truth. We find him using an ex- pression about truth which is perhaps without a parallel in any other writer. " If we say that we have fellow- ship with Him and walk in darkness we lie, and are not doing the trutJir ^ The truth then for him is some- thing co-extensive with our whole nature and whole life. Truth is not only to be spoken — that is but a fragmentary manifestation of it. It is to be done. It would have been for him the darkest of lies to have put forth a spiritual commentary on his Gospel which was not realised in himself. In the Epistle, no doubt, he uses the first person singular sparingly, modestly in- cluding himself in the simple we of Christian association. Yet we are as sure of the perfect accuracy of the picture of his soul, of the music in his heart which he makes visible and audible in his letter, as we are that he heard the voice of many waters, and saw the city coming down from God out of heaven ; as sure, as if at the close of this fifth chapter he had added with the * Apoc. xxi. 19, 20. '^ I John i. 6, cf. John iii. 21. It is characteristic of St. John's style Uiat doing a lie is found in Apoc. xxi. 27, xxii. 15. 56 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL triumphant emphasis of truth, in his simple and stately way, '' I John heard these things and saw them." ^ He closes this letter with a threefold affirmation of certain primary postulates of the Christian Hfe ; of its purity, 2 of its privilege^ of its Presence,^ — " we know," '' we know," *' we know." In each case the plural might be exchanged for the singular. He says " ive know/' because he is sure " / know." In studying the Epistles of St. John we may well ask what we see and hear therein of St. John's cha- racter, (i) as a sacred writer, (2) as a saintly soul. I. We consider first the indications in the Epistle of the Apostle's character as a sacred writer. For help in this direction we do not turn with much satisfaction to essays or annotations pervaded by the modern spirit. The textual criticism of minute scholar- ship is no doubt much, but it is not all. Aorists are made for man, not man for the aorist. He indeed who has not traced every fibre of the sacred text with grammar and lexicon cannot quite honestly claim to be an expositor of it. But in the case of a book like Scripture this, after all, is but an important preliminary. The frigid subtlety of the commentator who always seems to have the questions for a divinity examination before his eyes, fails in the glow and elevation neces- sary to bring us into communion with the spirit of St. John. Led by such guides, the Apostle passes under our review as a third-rate writer of a magnificent language in decadence, not as the greatest of theologians » Apoc. xxii. 8. ^ Ibid. 19. * I John V. 18. ■• ?;/ce(, ' has come, — and is here." — Ibid. 20. V. 18-20.] IN HIS EPISTIE. 57 and masters of the spiritual life — with whatever defects of literary style, at once the Plato of the twelve in one region, and the Aristotle in the other ; the first by his *4ofty inspiration," the second by his "judicious utilitarianism." The deepest thought of the Church ' has been brooding for seventeen centuries over these pregnant and many-sided words, so many of which are the very words of Christ. To separate ourselves from this vast and beautiful commentary is to place ourselves out of the atmosphere in which we can best feel the influence of St. John. Let us read Chrysostom's description of the style and thought of the author of the fourth Gospel. ''The son of thunder, the loved of Christ, the pillar of the Churches, who leaned on Jesus' bosom, makes his entrance. He plays no drama, he covers his head with no mask. Yet he wears array of inimitable beauty. For he comes having his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, and his loins girt, not with fleece dyed in purple, or bedroppcd with gold, but woven through and through with, and composed of, the truth itself He will now appear before us, not drama- tically, for with him there is no theatrical effect or fiction, but with his head bared he tells the bare truth. All these things he will speak with absolute accuracy, being the friend of the King Himself — aye, having the King speaking within him, and hearing all things from Him which He heareth from the Father ; as He saith — 'you I have called friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father, I have made known unto you.' Wherefore, as if we all at once saw one stooping down from yonder heaven, and promising to tell us truly of things there, we should all flock to listen to him, so let us now dispose ourselves. For it is from 58 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL up there that this man speaks down to us. And the fisherman is not carried away by the whirling current of his own exuberant verbosity ; but all that he utters is with the steadfast accuracy of truth, and as if he stood upon a rock he budges not. All time is his witness. Seest thou the boldness, and the great authority of his words ! how he utters nothing by way of doubtful conjecture, but all demonstratively, as if passing sentence. Very lofty is this Apostle, and full of dogmas, and lingers over them more than over other things ! "^ This admirable passage, with its fresh and noble enthusiasm, nowhere reminds us of the glacial subtleties of the schools. It is the utterance of an expositor who spoke the language in which his master wrote, and breathed the same spiritual atmo- sphere. It is scarcely less true of the Epistle than of the Gospel of St. John. Here also ^' he is full of dogmas," here again he is the theologian of the Church. But we are not to estimate the amount of dogma merely by the number of words in which it is expressed. Dogma, indeed, is not really composed of isolated texts — as pollen showered from conifers and germs scattered from mosses, acci- dentally brought together and compacted, are found upon chemical analysis to make up certain lumps of coal. It is primary and structural. The Divinity and Incarnation of Jesus pervade the First Epistle. Its whole structure is Trinitarian? It contains two of ' 5. Joann. Chrysost, in Johan., Homil. iii., Tom. viii., 25, 36, Edit. Migne. 2 Huther, while rejecting with all impartial critics the interpolation (; John V. 7), writes thus: "when we embrace in one survey the contents of the Epistle as a whole, it is certainly easy to aciapt the conception of the three Heavenly witnesses to one place after another in the document. But it dops pot fpllow that t-he mention of it just V, 18-20.] IN HIS E PIS TIE. 59 the three great three-word dogmatic utterances of the New Testament about the nature of God (the first being in the fourth Gospel) — '^ God is Spirit," *' God is light/' " God is love." The chief dogmatic state- ments of the Atonement are found in these few chapters. ^'The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin." ^' We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." *^ He is the propitiation for the whole world." " God loved us, and sent His Son the propitiation for our sins." Where the Apostle passes on to deal with the spiritual life, he once more " is full of dogmas," i.e., of eternal self-evidenced oracular sentences, spoken as if ^' down from heaven," or by one " whose foot is upon a rock," — apparently identical propositions, all-inclusive, the dogmas of moral and spiritual life, as those upon the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, are of strictly theological truth. A further characteristic of St. John as a sacred writer in his Epistle is, that he appears to indicate throughout the moral and spiritual conditions which were necessary for receiving the Gospel with which he endowed the Church as the life of their life. These conditions are three. The first is spiritiiality^ submission to the teach- ing of the Spirit, that they may know by it the meaning of the words of Jesus — the "anointing" of the Holy Ghost, which is ever ^' teaching all things " that He said.^ The second condition is purity^ at least, the continuing effort after self-purification which is incum- bent even upon those who have received the great pardon.^ This involves the following in life's daily here would be in its right place." {Handbuch uber der drei Briefe des Johannes. Dr. J. E. Huther.) * I John ii. 20. ^ I John i. 7, iii. 3, 6o THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL walk of the One perfect life-walk,' the imitation of that which is supremely good,^ ^' incarnated in an actual earthly career." All must be purity, or effort after purity, on the side of those who would read aright the Gospel of the immaculate Lamb of God. The third condition for such readers is love — charity. When he comes to deal fully with that great theme, the eagle of God wheels far out of sight. In the depths of His Eternal Being, *' God is love." ^ Then this truth comes closer to us as believers. It stands completely and for ever manifested in its work in us,^ because " God hath sent" (a mission in the past, but with abiding conse- quences/ '* His Son, His only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live through Him." Yet again, he rises higher from the manifestation of this love to the eternal and essential principle in which it stands present for ever. " In this is the love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and once for all sent His Son a propitiation for our sins."^ Then follows the manifesta- tion of our love. *^ If God so loved us, we also are bound to love one another." Do we think it strange that St. John does not first draw the lesson — '' if God so loved us, we also are bound to love God " ? It has been in his heart all along, but he utters it in his own way, in the solemn pathetic question — " he that loveth ' I John ii. 6. ^ " Imitate not that which is evil, but that which is good " (3 John 12). A comparison of this verse with John xxi. 24 would lead to the supposition that the writer of the letter is quoting the Gospel, and assumes an intimate knowledge of it on the part of Caius, See Discourse XVII. Part ii. of this vol. ' See note A at the end of this discourse. * I John iv. 9. * a.vi(TTa\KiV. V. 18-20.] IN HIS EPISTIE. 6i not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen how can he love ? " ^ Yet once more he sums up the creed in a few short words. " We have believed the. love that God hath in us." ^ Truly and deeply has it been said that this creed of the heart, suffused with the softest tints and sweetest colours, goes to the root of all heresies upon the Incarnation, whether in St. John's time or later. That God should give up His Son by sending Him forth in humanity; that the Word made flesh should humble Himself to the death upon the cross, the Sinless offer Himself for sinners, this is what heresy cannot bring itself to understand. It is the excess of such love which makes it incredible. "We have believed the love" is the whole faith of a Christian man. It is St. John's creed in three words.^ Such are the chief characteristics of St. John as a sacred writer, which may be traced in his Epistle. These characteristics of the author imply corresponding characteristics of the man. He who states with such inevitable precision, with such noble and self-contained enthusiasm, the great dogmas of the Christian faith, the great laws of the Christian life, must himself have entirely believed them. He who insists upon these conditions in the readers of his Gospel, must himself have aimed at, and possessed, spirituality, purity, and love. II. We proceed to look at the First Epistle as a picture of the soul of its author. (i) His was a life free from the dominion of wilful and habitual sin of any kind. " Whosover is born of * I John iv. 20. * I John iv. 16. * ir€TriaTfVKafj.ev Tr)i> dydirrjv, I John iv. 1 6. 62 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL God doth not commit sin, and he cannot continue sinning." *' Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." A man so entirely true, if conscious to himself of any reigning sin, dare not have dehberately written these words. (2) But if St. John's was a hfe free from subjection to any form of the power of sin, he shows us that sanctity is not sinlessness, in language which it is alike unwise and unsafe to attempt to explain away, ^* If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." "If we say that we have not sinned and are not sinners, we make Him a liar." But so long as we do not fall back into darkness, the blood of Jesus is ever purifying us from all sin. This he has written that the fulness of the Christian life may be realised in believers ; that each step of their walk may follow the blessed foot- prints of the most holy life ; that each successive act of a consecrated existence may be free from sin.-^ And yet, if any fail in some such single act,^ if he swerve, for a moment, from the " true tenour " of the course which he is shaping, there is no reason to despair. Beautiful humility of this pure and lofty soul ! How tenderly, with what lowly graciousness he places himself among ' those who have and who need an Advocate. ^' Mark John's humility," cries St. Augustine; '^he says not ^ ye have,* nor 'ye have me,^ nor even ^ ye have Christ.' But he puts forward Christ, not himself; and he says 1 For the aor. conj. in this place as distinguished from the pres. conj. cf. John v. 20, 23, vi. 28, 29, 30. Professor Westcott's refined scholarship corrects the error of many commentators, " that the Apostle is simply warning us not to draw encouragement for license from the doctrine of forgiveness." The tense is decisive against this, the thought is of the single oci not of the siate. *idv Tis afjidpTT], I John ii. I. V. I8-20.] IN HIS EPISTIE. 63 ^we have/ not ^ ye have/ thus placing himself in the rank of sinners." ^ Nor does St. John cover himself under the subterfuges by which men at different times have tried to get rid of a truth so humiliating to spiritual pride — sometimes by asserting that they so stand accepted in Christ that no sin is accounted to them for such ; sometimes by pleading personal exemp- tion for themselves as believers. This Epistle stands alone in the New Testament in being addressed to two generations — one of which after conversion had grown old in a Christian atmosphere, whilst the other had been educated from the cradle under the influences of the Christian Church. It is therefore natural that such a letter should give pro- minence to the constant need of pardon. It certainly does not speak so much of the great initial pardon,^ as of the continuing pardons needed by human frailty. In dwelling upon pardon once given, upon sanctification once begun, men are possibly apt to forget the pardon that is daily wanting, the purification that is never to cease. We are to walk daily from pardon to pardon, from purification to purification. Yesterday's surrender of self to Christ may grow ineffectual if it be not re- newed to-day. This is sometimes said to be a humilia- ting view of the Christian life. Perhaps so — but it is the view of the Church, which places in its offices a daily confession of sin ; of St. John in this Epistle ; nay, of Him who teaches us, after our prayers for bread day by day, to pray for a daily forgiveness. This may be more humiliating, but it is safer teaching than that which proclaims a pardon to be appropriated in a moment for all sins past, present, and to come. ' /// Epist. Johann., Tract, I. * Z John ii, 12, is, of course, an important exception. 64 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL This humility may be traced incidentally in other regions of the Christian life. Thus he speaks of the possibility at least of his being among those who might "shrink with shame from Christ in His coming." He does not disdain to write as if, in hours of spiritual depression, there were tests by which he too might need to lull and " persuade his heart before God." ^ (3) St. John again has a boundless faith in prayer. It is the key put into the child's hand by which he may let himself into the house, and come into his Father's presence when he will, at any hour of the night or day. And prayer made according to the conditions which God has laid down is never quite lost. The particular thing asked for may not indeed be given ; but the substance of the request, the holier wish, the better purpose underlying its weakness and imperfection, never fails to be granted. ^ (4) All but superficial readers must perceive that in the writings and character of St. John there is from time to time a tonic and wholesome severity. Art and modern literature have agreed to bestow upon the Apostle of love the features of a languid and inert tenderness. It is forgotten that St. John was the son of thunder; that he could once wish to bring down fire from heaven; and that the natural character is trans- figured not inverted by grace. The Apostle uses great plainness of speech. For him a lie is a lie, and dark- ness is never courteously called light. He abhors and shudders at those heresies which rob the soul first of Christ, and then of God. ^ Those who undermine the 1 I John iii. 19, 20. ^ See Prof. Westcott's v^aluable note on i John v. 15. The very things literally asked for would be ra. alTTjOtyra, not ra alrri/jiaTa. ^ 2 John II. V. I8-20.] IN HIS EPISTLE, 65 Incarnation are for him not interesting and original speculators, but " lying prophets." He underlines his warnings against such men with his roughest and blackest pencil mark. ^' Whoso sayeth to him 'good speed' hath fellowship with his ivorks, those wicked works " ^ — for such heresy is not simply one work, but a series of works. The schismatic prelate or pretender Diotrephes may *' babble ; " but his babblings are wicked words for all that, and are in truth the '' works which he is doing." The influence of every great Christian teacher lasts long beyond the day of his death. *It is felt in a general tone and spirit, in a special appropriation of certain parts of the creed, in a peculiar method of the Christian life. This influence is very discernible in the remains of two disciples of St. John, ^ Ignatius and Polycarp. In writing to the Ephesians, Ignatius does not indeed explicitly refer to St. John's Epistle, as he does to that of St. Paul to the Ephesians. But he draws in a few bold lines a picture of the Christian life which is imbued with the very spirit of St. John. The character which the Apostle loved was quiet and real ; w^e feel that his heart is not with " him that sayeth." ^ So Ignatius writes — *' it is better to keep silence, and yet to be^ than to talk and not to be. It is good to teach if ' he that sayeth doeth.' He who has gotten to himself the w^ord of Jesus truly is able to hear the silence of Jesus also, so that he may act through that which he speaks, and be hiown through- the things wherein he is silent. Let us therefore do all things as in His presence who dwelleth in us, that we may 1 3 John 10. ' Mart. Ignat, i. 5. Hieron^ de Script. Eccles., xvii. b Xiyuv, I John ii. 4, 6, 9. 66 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL be His temple, and that He may be in us our God." This is the very spirit of St. John. We feel in it at once his severe common sense and his glorious mysticism. We must add that the influence of St. John may be traced in matters which are often considered alien to his simple and spiritual piety. It seems that Episcopacy was consolidated and extended under his fostering care. The language of his disciple Ignatius, upon the necessit}^ of union with the Episcopate is, after all conceivable deductions, of startling strength. A few decades could not possibly have removed Ignatius so far from the lines marked out to him by St. John as he must have advanced, if this teaching upon Church government was a new departure. And with this con- ception of Church government we must associate other matters also. The immediate successors of St. John, who had learned from his lips, held deep sacramental views. The Eucharist is '^ the bread of God, the bread of heaven, the bread of life, the flesh of Christ." Again Ignatius cries — " desire to use one Eucharist, for one is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup unto oneness of His blood, one altar, as one Bishop, with the Presbytery and deacons."^ Hints are not wanting that sweetness and life in public worship derived inspiration from the same quarter. The language of Ignatius is deeply tinged with his passion for music. ^ The beautiful story, how he set * Ignat Epist. ad Ephes., xv., cf. I John ii. I4, iv. 9, 17, iii. 2. ' S. Ignat. Epist. ad Philad., iv. ; cf. Epist. ad Swyrn, vii. ; Epist. ad Ephes., xx. ^ The most elaborate passage in the Ignatian remains is probably this. "Let your Presbytery be fitted together harmoniously with the Bishop as chords with the cithara. Hereby in your symphonious love Jesus Christ is sung in concord. Taking your part man by man become one choir, that being barmonidusly atcordant in your like- V. I8-20.] IN HIS EPISTLE. 67 down, immediately after a vision, the melody to which he had heard the angels chanting, and caused it to be used in his church at Antioch, attests the impression of enthusiasm and care for sacred song which was associated with the memory of Ignatius.^ Nor can we be surprised at these features of Ephesian Christianity, when we remember who was the founder of those Churches. He was the writer of three books. These books come to us with a continuous living interpre- tation of more than seventeen centuries of historical Christianity. From the fourth Gospel in large measure has arisen the sacramental instinct, from the Apocalypse the aesthetic instinct, which has been certainly exag- gerated both in the East and West. The third and sixth chapters of St. John's Gospel permeate every baptismal and eucharistic office. Given an inspired book which represents the worship of the redeemed as one of perfect majesty and beauty, men may well in the presence of noble churches and stately liturgies, adopt the words of our great English Christian poet — " things which shed upon the outward frame Of worship glory and grace — which who shall blame That ever look'd to heaven for final rest?" The third book in this group of writings supplies the sweet and quiet spirituality which is the foundation of every regenerate nature. Such is the image of the soul which is presented to us by St. John himself. It is based upon a firm conviction of the nature of God, of the Divinity, the Incarnation, mindedness, having received in unity the chromatic music of God (xp^fj-a Qeov AajSoVres), ye may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ unto the Father." — Ep/sL ad Ephes., iv. The same mage is differently applied, Epist, ad Philad,^ i. 1 The story is giveti by Socrates. (^Hist.y vi. 8.) 68 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL the Atonement of our Lord. It is spiritual. It is pure, or being purified. The highest theological truth — " God is Love " — supremely realised in the Holy Trinity, supremely manifested in the sending forth of God's only Son, becomes the law of its common social life, made visible in gentle patience, in giving and forgiving.^ Such a life will be free from the degradation of habitual sin. Yet it is at best an imperfect representa- tion of the one perfect life.^ It needs unceasing purifi- cation by the blood of Jesus, the continual advocacy of One who is sinless. Such a nature, however full of charity, v/ill not be weakly indulgent to vital error or to ambitious schism ; ^ for it knows the value of truth and unit3^ It feels the sweetness of a calm conscience, and of a simple belief in the efficacy of prayer. Over every such life — over all the grief that may be, all the temptation that must be — is the purifying hope of a great Advent, the ennobling assurance of a perfect victory, the knowledge that if we continue true to the principle of our new birth we are safe. And our safety is, not that we keep ourselves, but that we are kept by arms which are as soft as love, and as strong as eternity.* These Epistles are full of instruction and of comfort for us, just because they are written in an atmosphere of the Church which, in one respect at least, resembles our own. There is in them no reference whatever to a continuance of miraculous powers, to raptures, or to extraordinary phenomena. All in them which is super- natural continues even to this day, in the possession of an inspired record, in sacramental grace, in the * I John iv. 7, 12. * I John ii. 6, 9, i. 7-10, ii, I, 2. * I John i. 7, ii. 2, iv. 3, 6 ; 2 John 7-II ; 3 John 9, 10. * I John ill. 19, V. 14, 15, iv. 2, 3, v. 4, 5, 18. V. 18-20.] IN niS EPISTLE. 69 pardon and holiness, the peace and strength of believers. The apocryphal "Acts of John" contain some fragments of real beauty almost lost in questionable stories and prolix declamation. It is probably not literally true that when St. John in early life wished to make himself a hom.e, his Lord said to him, '' I have need of thee, John ; " that that thriUing voice once came to him, wafted over the still darkened sea — " John, hadst thou not been Mine, I would have suffered thee to marry." ^ But the Epistle shows us much more effectually that he had a pure heart and virgin will. It is scarcely probable that the son of Zebedee ever drained a cup of hemlock with impunity ; but he bore within him an effectual charm against the poison of sin.^ We of this nineteenth century may smile when we read that he possessed the power of turning leaves into gold, of transmuting pebbles into jewels, of fusing shattered gems into one ; but he carried with him wherever he went that most excellent gift of charity, which makes the commonest things of earth radiant with beauty.^ ' These sentences do not go so far as the mischievous and anti- scriptural legend of later ascetic heretics, who marred the beauty and the purpose of the miracle at Cana, by asserting that John was the bridegroom, and that our Lord took him away from his bride. Acta Joliannis, XXI. Act. Apost. Apoc, Tisch., 275). ^ This legend no doubt arose from the promise — "if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them " (Mark xvi. 18). " Virus fidens sorbuit." Adam of St. Victor, Seq. XXXIIL •"Aurum hie de frondibus, Gemmas de silicibus, Fractis de fragminibus, Fecit firmas." — Ibid. There is something interesting in the persistency of legends about St. John's power over gems, when connected with the passage, flashing all over with the light of precious stones, whose exquisite disposition is the wonder of lapidaries. Apoc. xxi. 18, 22. 70 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL He may not actually have praised his Master during his last hour in words which seem to us not quite unworthy even of such lips — " Thou art the only Lord, the root of immortality, the fountain of incorruption. Thou who madest our rough wild nature soft and quiet, who deliveredst me from the imagination of the moment, and didst keep me safe within the guard of that which abideth for ever." But such thoughts in life or death were never far from him for whom Christ was the Word and the Life ; who knew that w^hile " the world passeth away and the lust thereof, he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." ^ May we so look upon this image of the Apostle's soul in his Epistle that we may reflect something of its brightness ! May w^e be able to think, as we turn to this threefold assertion of knowledge — "/ know something of the security of this keeping.^ / know something of the sweetness of being in the Church, that isle of light surrounded by a darkened world.^ / know something of the beauty of the perfect human life recorded by St. John, something of the continued presence of the Son of God, something of the new sense which He gives, that we may know Him who is the Very God.* Blessed exchange not to be vaunted loudly, but spoken reverently in our own hearts — the exchange of we, for L There is much divinity in these pronouns.^ * See note B at the end of the Discourse. ' I John V. i8. ■ Ibid. V. 19. * Ibid. V. 20. * Said by Luther of Psalm xxii. I* V. 18-20.] iTV HIS EPISTLE, 71 NOTES. Note A. I John iv. 8, 9, 10. Modern theological schools of a Calvinistic bias have tended to overlook the conception of the nature of God as essential or substantive Love, and to consider love only as nia?t(fested in redemption. Socinianising inter- preters understand the proposition to mean that God is simply and exclusively benevolent. (On the inadequacy of this, see Butler, Anal., Part I., ch. iii., and Dissertation II. of the Nature of Virtue.) The highest Christian thought has ever recog- nised that the proposition ' God is Love ' necessarily involves the august truth that God ii sole is not solitary. (" Credimur et confitemur omnipotentem Trinitatem — unum Deum solum non solitariujn.'" Concil. Tolet., vi. i.) ** Let it not be sup- posed," said St. Bernard, "that I here accoun-t Love as an attribute or accident, but as the Divine essence — no new doctrine, seeing that St. John saith 'God is love.' It may rightly be said both thatZoz'e is God, and that love is the gift of God, For Love gives love ; the essential Love gives that which is accidental. When Love signifies the Giver, it is the name of His essence ; when it signifies His gift, it is the name of a quality or attribute" (^S*. Bernard., de dil. Deo, xii.). "This is nobly said. God is love. Thus love is the eternal law whereby all things were created and are governed — where- with He who is the law of all things is unto Himself His own law, and that a law of love — wherewith He bindeth His Trinity into Unity." {Tkomassi?i. Dogni, TkeoL^ lib. iii., 23.) Note B. 7] p'l^a TY]^ aOavavlas Ka\ fj irrjyr) rrj^ d(f)dapaLas' 6 rrju eprjfiov koX dypi(io6(7crav (f)v(nv T]pa>v rjpepov kcu rjai'xiov TTOirjcras, 6 tt]s TrpocrKalpov (fiavTaaios pvcrdpevo^ p.e Kai els ttjv «et pivovcrav (Ppovprjaas {Acta jfohannis, 21). These sentences are surely not without fresh- ness and power. One other passage is worth translating, because it seems to have just that imaginative cast which makes the Greek Liturgies, like so much else that is Greek, stand midway betweeti the Hast arid West; atid because it 72 THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL. apparently refers to St. John's Gospel. " Jesus ! Thou who hast woven this coronal with Thy plaiting, who hast blended these many flowers into the flower of Thy presence, not blown through by the winds of any storm ; Thou who hast scattered thickly abroad the seed of these words of Thine" — [Acta Johaniiis^ 17}. PART II. SOME GENERAL RULES FOR THE INTER- PRETATION OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN. I. Subject Matter. (l) 'T^HE Epistle is to be read through with constant J. reference to the G"o5/>^/. In \Nh2ii precise form the former is related to the latter (whether as a preface or as an appendix, as a spiritual commentary or an encycUcal) critics may decide. But there is a vital and constant connection. The two documents not only touch each other in thought, but interpenetrate each other ; and the Epistle is constantly suggesting questions which the Gospel only can answer, e.g., I John i. I, cf. John i. 1-14 ; i John v. 9, " witness of men," cf. John i. 15-36, 41, 45. 49, "i- 2, 27-36, iv. 29-42, vi. 62>, 69, vii. 46, ix. 38, xi. 27, xviii. 38, xix. 5, 6, XX. 28. (2) Such eloquence of style as St. John possesses is real rather than verbal. The interpreter must look not only at the words themselves, but at that which precedes and follows ; above all he must fix his attention not only upon the verbal expression of the thought, but upon the thought itself. For the formal connecting link is not rarely omitted, and must be supplied by the devout and candid diJi^^cnce of the reader. The *' root 76 GENERAL RULES FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF below the stream ' can only be traced by our bending over the water until it becomes translucent to us. E,g. I John i. 7, 8. Ver. 7, " the root below the stream " is a question of this kind^ which naturally arises from reading ver. 6 — '' must it be said that the sons of light need a constant cleansing by the blood of Jesus, which implies a constant guilt " ? Some such thought is the latent root of connection. The answer is supplied by the following verse. [" It is so " for] " if we say that we have no sin," etc. Cf. also iii. 16, 17, xiv. 8, 9, 10, II, V. 3 (ad. fin.), 4. II. Language. I. Tenses. In the New Testament generally tenses are employed very much in the same sense, and with the same general accuracy, as in other Greek authors. The so- called "enallage temporum^" or perpetual and convenient Hebraism, has been proved by the greatest Hebrew scholars to be no Hebraism at all. But it is one of the simple secrets of St. John's quiet thoughtful power, that he uses tenses with the most rigorous precision. (a) The Present of continuing uninterrupted action, e.g., i. 8, ii. 6, iii. 7, 8, 9. Hence the so-called suhstantized participle with article has in St. John the sense of the continuous and con- stitutive temper and conduct of any man, the principle of his moral and spiritual life — e.g., 6 Xe'ycov, he who is ever vaunting, ii. 4 ; 7ra9 o fiiocov, every one the abiding principle of whose life is hatred, iii. 15 ; Tra? o ayaTTcbv, every one the abiding principle of whose life is love, iv. 7. The Infin. Present is generally used to express an action now in course of performing or continued in itself THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST JOHN. 77 or in its results, ox frequently repeated — e.g., i John ii. 6, iii. 8, 9, V. 18. (Winer, Gr. of N. T. Diction^ Part 3, xliv., 348. {b) IheAorisf. This tense is generally used either of a thing occur- ring only once, which does not admit, or at least does not require, the notion of continuance and perpetuity ; or of something which is brief and as it were only momentary in duration (Stallbaum, Plat. Enthyd., p. 140). This limitation or isolation of the predicated action is most accurately indicated by the usual form of this tense in Greek. The aorist verb is encased between the augment e- past time, and the adjunct (t- future time, i.e., the act is fixed off within certain limits of previous and consequent time (Donaldson, Gr. Gr.y 427, B. 2). The aorist is used with most significant accuracy in the Epistle of St. John, e.g.y ii. 6, 1 1, 2"^, iv. 10, V. 18. {c) The Perfect. The Perfect denotes action absolutely past which lasts bn in its effects. ''The idea of completeness conveyed by the aorist must be distinguished from that of a state consequent on an act, which is the meaning of the perfect" (Donaldson, Gr. Gr., 419). Careful observation of this principle is the key to some of the chief difficulties of the Epistle (iii. 9, v. 4, 18). (2) The form of accessional parallelism is to be carefully noticed. The second member is always in advance of the first; and a third is occasionally intro- duced in advance of the second, denoting the highest point to which the thought is thrown up by the tide of thought, e.g., I John ii. 4, 5, 6, v. 1 1, v. 27. (3) The preparatory touch upon the chord which announces a theme to be amplified afcerwards, — e.g.y 78 GENERAL RULES FOR INTERPRETATION. ii. 29, iii. 9— iv. 7, v. 3, 4; iii. 21 — v. 14, ii. 20, iii. 24, iv. 3, V. 6, 8, ii. 13, 14, iv. 4— v. 4, 5. (4) One secret of St. John's simple and solemn rhetoric consists in an impressive change in the order in which a leading word is used, e.g., I John ii. 24, iv. 20. These principles carefully applied will be the best commentary upon the letter of the Apostle, to whom not only when his subject is — "De Deo Deum verum Alpha et Omega, Patrem rerum " ; but when he unfolds the principles of our spiritual life, we may apply Adam of St. Victor's powerful and untranslatable Hne, " Solers scribit idiota." %^ ^^ ^"^ 3 -^ j= J3 *J « i2 >, O C -p .2 T3 ^ h£ ^- - "1 ^ ^ c:"! ^ o ^ 'to' ^ l2 "S S ^ 2 >> O 0) 'tj ^ ^ O >-: -^ '^ > bX) (U > _^ ., . . - ,, f -So ^ 2 -^ •- -c .S 5 1 S 3 -" O (U T3 .y ^ '^ ■;:; ^ V j:^'0 . rt *" ,C •- a ^ >>f, ^S c^ ^-^ c (U ^ -o c — > o 9 > a, ^ to ij 3 "rt > OS ^ ^ O a O S^ < ^ '^ ^-^ -^ ■"3 "O r- > ,— I _C ^ ^ ^ -= ^ :^ i ^ ^ S -^ ■ — . (/5 ij "^ ^ s *^ tn aj tfi p t; f r; "^1 (u ••-' . — , Cl JJ U I >,^ ^ ^ o (U 05 j^ ^ ^ ^ "-^ V) r- -^ "^ E ^ ^ O >i^ ^ J3 t« 3 S w .2 73 ^iS 42 ^ >:; fe 5^ t^ "^ B > '? 'o .-e- ^ '-' 3 O K - tS" ? ? ^ ?._ b -©--a -§ « .2 k2- §• « 3 DISCOURSE I. ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF ST. JOHNS GOSPEL. "Of the Word of Life."— i John i, I. IN the opening verses of this Epistle we have a sentence whose ample and prolonged prelude has but one parallel in St. John's writings.^ It is, as an old divine says, " prefaced and brought in with more magnificent ceremony than any passage in Scripture." The very emotion and enthusiasm with which it is written, and the sublimity of the exordium as a whole, tends to make the highest sense also the most natural sense. Of what or of whom does St. John speak in the phrase ''concerning the Lord of Life/' or ''the Lord who is the Life " ? The neuter " that which " is used for the masculine — " He who " — according to St. John's practice of employing the neuter comprehensively when a collective whole is to be expressed. The phrase " from the beginning," taken by itself, might no doubt be employed to signify the beginning of Christianity, or of the ministry of Christ. But even viewing it as entirely isolated from its context of language and circumstance, it has a greater claim to be looked upon as from eternity or from the begiiining of the creation. * See the noble and enthusiastic preface to the washing of the disciples' feet (John xiii. I, 2, 3). i. I.] ANALYSIS OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. 8i Other considerations are decisive in favour of the last interpretation. (i) We have already adverted to the lofty and trans- cendental tone of the whole passage, elevating as it does each clause by the irresistible upward tendency of the whole sentence. The climax and resting place cannot stop short of the bosom of God. (2) But again, we must also bear in mind that the Epistle is every- where to be read with the Gospel before us, and the language of the Epistle to be connected with that of the Gospel. The prooemium of the Epistle is the subjective version of the objective historical point of view which we find at the close of the preface to the Gospel. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us;" so St. John begins his sentence in the Gospel with a statement of an historical fact. But he proceeds, "and'we delightedly beheld His glory;" that is a state- ment of the personal impression attested by his own consciousness and that of other witnesses. But let us note carefully that in the Epistle, which is in subjective relation to the Gospel, this process is exactly reversed. The Apostle begins with the personal im- pression ; pauses to affirm the reality of the many proofs in the realm of fact of that which produced this impression through the senses upon the concep- tions and emotions of those who were brought into contact with the Saviour ; and then returns to the subjective impression from which he had originally started. (3) Much of the language in this passage is inconsistent with our understanding by the Word the first announcement of the Gospel preaching. One might of course speak of hearing the commencement of the Gospel message, but surely not of seeing and handling it. (4) It is a noteworthy fact that the Gospel 6 82 ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF and the Apocalypse begin with the mention of the personal Word. This may well lead us to expect that Logos should be used in the same sense in the prooemium of the great Epistle by the same author. We conclude then that when St. John here speaks of the Word of Life, he refers to something higher again than the preaching of life, and that he has in view both the manifestation of the life which has taken place in our humanity, and Him who is personally at once the Word and the Life.^ The prooemium may be thus paraphrased. " That which in all its collective influence was from the beginning as understood by Moses, by Solomon, and Micah ; ^ which we have first and above all heard in divinely human utterances, but which we have also seen with these very eyes ; which we gazed upon with the full and entranced sight that dehghts in the object contemplated ; ^ and which these hands handled reverentially at His bidding.'' I speak all this concerning the Word who is also the Life." Tracts and sheets are often printed in our day with anthologies of texts which are supposed to contain ' The phrase probably means the Logos, the Personal ** Word who is at once both the Word and the Life." For the double genitive, the second almost appositional to the first, conf. John ii. 21, xi. 13. This interpretation would seem to be that of Chrysostom. " If then the Word is the Life; and if this Christ who is at once the Word and the Life became flesh ; then the Life became flesh." (/« Joan. Evaitg. V.) 2 Qen. i. I ; Prov. viii. 23 ; Micah v. 2. ' Cf. John vi. 36, 40. The word is applied by the angel to the disciples gazing on the Ascension, Acts i, ii. The Transfiguration may be here referred to. Such an incident as that in John vii. 37 attests a vivid delighted remembrance of the Savic urs very attitude. * Luke xxiv. 39 ; John xx, 27. i. I.] S7\ JOHN'S GOSPEL. 83 the very essence of the Gospel. But the sweetest scents, it is said, are not distilled exclusively from flowers, for the flower is but an exhalation. The seeds, the leaf, the stem, the very bark should be macerated, because they contain the odoriferous substance in minute sacs. So the purest Christian doctrine is distilled, not only from a few exquisite flowers in a textual anthology, but from the whole substance, so to speak, of the message. Now it will be observed that at the begin- ning of the Epistle which accompanied the fourth Gospel, our attention is directed not to a sentiment, but to a fact and to a Person. In the collections of texts to which reference has been made, we should probably never find two brief passages which may not unjustly be considered to concentrate the essence of the scheme of salvation more nearly than any others. *'The Word was made flesh." " Concerning the Word of Life (and that Life was once manifested, and we have seen and consequently are witnesses and announce to you from Him who sent us that Life, that eternal Life whose it is to have been in eternal relation with the Father, and manifested to us) ; That which we have seen and heard declare we from Him who sent us unto you, to the end that you too may have fellowship with us." It would be disrespectful to the theologian of the New Testament to pass by the great dogmatic term never, so far as we are told, applied by our Lord to Himself, but with which St. John begins each of his three principal writings — The Word.-^ Such mountains of erudition have been heaped over this term that it has become difficult to discover the ' Gospel i. 1-14; I John i. I ; Apoc. i. 9. ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF buried thought. The Apostle adopted a word which was ah-eady in use in various quarters simply because if, from the nature of the case necessarily inadequate/ it was yet more suitable than any other. He also, as profound ancient thinkers conceived, looked into the depths of the human mind, into the first principles of that which is the chief distinction of man from the lower creation — language. The human word, these thinkers taught, is twofold ; inner and outer — now as the manifestation to the mind itself of unuttered thought, now as a part of language uttered to others. The word as signifying unuttered thought, the mould in which it exists in the mind, illustrates the eternal re- lation of the Father to the Son. The word as signifying uttered thought illustrates the relation as conveyed to man by the Incarnation. *' No man hath seen God at &ny time; the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father He interpreted Him." For the theologian of the Church Jesus is thus the Word ; because He had His being from the Father in a way which presents some analogy to the human word, which is sometimes the inner vesture, sometimes the outward utterance of thought — sometimes the human thought in that language without which man cannot think, sometimes the speech whereby the speaker interprets it to others. Christ is the Word Whom out of the fulness of His thought and being the Father has ' " He hath a name written which no one knoweth but He Himself, — and His name is called The Word of God" (Apoc. xix. 12, 13). Gibbons' adroit italics may here be noted. "The Logos, taught in the school of Alexandria before Christ 1 00— revealed to the Apostle St. John, Anno Domini, 97 " {Decline and Fall, ch. xxi.). Just so very probably — though whether St. John ever read a page of Philo or Plato we have no means of knowing i. I.] ST. JOHNS GOSPEL. 85 eternally inspoken and outspoken into personal ex- istence/ One too well knows that such teaching as this runs the risk of appearing uselessly subtle and technical, but its practical value will appear upon reflection. Be- cause it gives us possession of the point of view from which St. John himself surveys, and from which he would have the Church contemplate, the history of the life of our Lord. And indeed for that life the theology of the Word, i.e.y of the Incarnation, is simply necessary. For we must agree with M. Renan so far at least as this, that a great life, even as the world counts greatness, is an organic whole with an underlying vitalising idea ; which must be construed as such, and cannot be adequately rendered by a mere narration of facts. Without this unifying principle the facts will be not only incoherent but inconsistent. There must be a point of view from which we can embrace the ^ The following table may be found useful :-^ THE WORD IN ST. JOHN IS OPPOSED. (A) To the Gnostic Word, (A) Uncreated and Eternal. created and temporal as " In the beginning was the Word." (B) To the Platonic Word, (B) Personal and Divine. ideal and abstract as '• The Word was God." "He"— "His." (C) To the Judaistic and Phi- (C) Creative and First Cause. Ionic Word — the type ^^ " All things were made and idea of God in by Him." creation .... (D) To the Dualistic Word — (D) Unique and Universally limitedly and partially ^g Creative. "Without Him instrumental in creation . was not anything made that hath been made." (E) To the Dokctic Word— (E) Real and Permanent. "The impalpable and visionary Word became flesh." 86 ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF life as one. The great test here, as in art, is the formation of a living, consistent, unmutilated whole. ^ Thus a general point of view (if we are to use modern language easily capable of being misunderstood we must say a theory) is wanted of the Person, the work, the character of Christ. The synoptical Evangelists had furnished the Church with the narrative of His earthly origin. St. John in his Gospel and Epistle, under the guidance of the Spirit, endowed it with the theory of His Person. Other points of view have been adopted, from the heresies of the early ages to the speculations of our own. All but St. John's have failed to co-ordinate the elements of the problem. The earlier attempts essayed to read the history upon the assumption that He was merely human or merely divine. They tried in their weary round to unhumanise or undeify the God-Man, to degrade the perfect Deity, to mutilate the perfect Humanity — to present to the adoration of mankind a something neither entirely human nor entirely divine, but an impossible mixture of the two. The truth on these momentous subjects was fused under the fires of controversy. The last centuries have produced theories less subtle and metaphysical, but bolder and more blasphemous. Some have looked upon Him as a pretender or an enthusiast. But the depth and sobriety of His teaching upon ground where we are able to test it — the texture of circumstantial word and work which will bear to be inspected under any microscope or cross-examined by any prosecutor — have almost shamed such blasphemy into respectful silence. Others of later date admit with patronising admiration that ' Vie de Jestts, Int. 4. i. I.] 6-7: JOHN'S GOSPEL. 87 the martyr of Calvary is a saint of transcendent ex- cellence. But if He who called Himself Son of God was not much more than saint, He was something less. Indeed He would have been something of three cha- racters ; saint, visionary, pretender — at moments the Son of God in His elevated devotion, at other times condescending to something of the practice of the charlatan, His unparalleled presumption only excused by His unparalleled success. Now the point of view taken by St. John is the only one which is possible or consistent — the only one which reconciles the humiliation and the glory recorded in the Gospels, which harmonises the otherwise insoluble contradictions that beset His Person and His work. One after another, to the question, *^ what think ye of Christ ? " answers are attempted, sometimes angry, sometimes sorrowful, always confused. The frank respectful bewilderment of the better Socinianism, the gay brilliance of French romance, the heavy insolence of German criticism, have woven their revolting or perplexed christologies. The Church still points with a confidence, which only deepens as the ages pass, to the enunciation of the theory of the Saviour's Person by St. John — in his Gospel, ^' The Word was made flesh " — in his Epistle, ^^ concerning the Word of Life." DISCOURSE II. ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. "That which we have heard." — I John i. I. OUR argument so far has been that St. John's Gospel is dominated by a central idea and by a theory which harmonises the great and many-sided Hfe which it contains, and which is repeated again at the beginning of the Epistle in a form analogous to that in which it had been cast in the prooemium of the Gospel — allowing for the difference between a history and a document of a more subjective character moulded upon that histc-ry. There is one objection to the accuracy, almost to the veracity, of a life written from such a theory or point of view. It may disdain to be shackled by the bondage of facts. It may become an essay in which possibilities and speculations are mistaken for actual events, and history is superseded by metaphysics. It may de- generate into a romance or prose-poem ; if the subject is religious, into a mystic effusion. In the case of the fourth Gospel the cycles in which the narrative moves, the unveiling as of the progress of a drama, are thought by some to confirm the suspicion awakened by the point of view given in its prooemium, and in the opening of the Epistle. The Gospel, it is said, is ideological. To us it appears that those who have entered most deerly into the spirit of St. John will most deeply feel the 1. I.] ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. 89 significance of the two words which we place at the head of this discourse — '' which we have heard," ''which we have seen with our very eyes," (which we contemplated with entranced gaze) " which our hands have handled." More truly than any other, St. John could say of this letter in the words of an American poet : ■"This is not a book— It is I ! " In one so true, so simple, so profound, so oracular, there is a special reason for this prolonged appeal to the senses, and for the place which is assigned to each. In the fact that hearing stands first, there is a reference to one characteristic of that Gospel to which the Epistle throughout refers. Beyond the synoptical Evangelists, St. John records the words of Jesus. The position which hearing holds in the sentence, above and prior to sight and handling, indicates the reverential estimation in which the Apostle held his Master's teaching.^ The expression places us on solid historical ground, because it is a moral demonstration that one like St. John would not have dared to invent whole discourses and place them in the lips of Jesus. Thus in the ^^ive have heard^^ there is a guarantee of the sincerity of the report of the discourses, which forms so large a proportion of the narrative that it practically guarantees the whole Gospel. On this accusation of ideology against St. John's Gospel, let us make a further remark founded upon the Epistle. ^ The appeal to the senses of seeing and hearing is a trait common to all the group of St. John's writings (John i. 14, xix. 35 ; I John i. I, 2, iv. 14; Apoc. i. 2). The true reading («:d7(b 'Iwdvvrfs 6 aKouojv KoX ^Xeiruv ravra. Apoc. xxi. 8, where hearing sisiiC^ before seeing) is indicative of John's style. 90 ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL It is said that the Gospel systematically subordinates chronological order and historical sequence of facts to the necessity imposed by the theory of the Word which stands in the forefront of the Epistle and Gospel. But mystic ideology, indifference to historical vera- city as compared with adherence to a conception or theory, is absolutely inconsistent with that strong, simple, severe appeal to the validity of the historical principle of belief upon sufficient evidence which per- vades St. John's writings. His Gospel is a tissue woven of many Hnes of evidence. "Witness" stands in almost every page of that Gospel, and indeed is found there nearly as often as in the whole of the rest of the New Testament. The word occurs tett times in five short verses of the Epistle.^ There is no possibility of mis- taking this prolixity of reiteration in a writer so simple and so sincere as our Apostle. The theologian is an historian. He has no intention of sacrificing history to dogma, and no necessity for doing so. His theory, and that alone, harmonises his facts. His facts have passed in the domain of human history, and have had that evidence of witness which proves that they did so. A few of the stories of the earliest ages of Chris- tianity have ever been repeated, and rightly so, as affording the most beautiful illustrations of St. John's character, the most simple and truthful idea of the impression left by his character and his work. His tender love for souls, his deathless desire to promote mutual love among his people, are enshrined in two anecdotes which the Church has never forgotten. It has scarcely been noticed that a tradition of not much ^ I John V. 6.12. i.I.] HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. 91 later date (at least as old as TertuUian, born a.d. 90) credits St. John with a stern reverence for the accuracy of kistorical truth, and tells us what, in the estimation of those who were near him in time, the Apostle thought of the lawfulness of ideological religious romance. It was said that a presbyter of Asia Minor confessed that he was the author of certain apocryphal Acts of Paul andThecla — probably the same strange but unquestion- ably very ancient document with the same title which is still preserved. The man's motive does not seem to have been selfish. His work was apparently the composition of an ardent and romantic nature passion- ately attracted by a saint so wonderful as St. Paul.^ The tradition went on to assert that St. John without hesitation degraded this clerical romance-writer from his ministry. But the offence of the Asiatic presbyter would have been light indeed compared with that of ' That the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" are of high antiquity there can be no rationaldoubt. Tertullian writes : " But if those who read St. Paul's writings rashl}^ use the example of Thecla, to give licence to women to teach and baptize publicly, let them know that a presbyter of Asia Minor, who put together that piece, crowning it with the authority of a Pauline title, convicted by his own confession of doing this from love of St. Paul, was deprived of his orders." (Tertullian, De Bapiismo, xvii.) On which St. Jerome remarks — " We therefore relegate to the class of apocryphal writings, the TreptoSos of Paul and Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptized lion. For how could it be that the sole real companion of the Apostle " (Luke) "while so well acquainted with the rest of the history, should have known nothing of this? And further, Tertullian, who touched so nearly upon those times, records that a certain presbyter in Asia Minor, convicted before John of being the author of that book, and con- fessing that as a aiTovbaaTrjs of the Apostle Paul he had done this from loving devotion to that great memory, was deposed from his ministry." (St. Hieron., de Soipt Eccles., VII.) See the mass of authority for the antiquity of this document, which gives a consider- able degree of prolability to the statement about St. John, in Ada Apost. Apoc, Edit. Tischeiidorf. — Prolcg. xxi., xxvi. 92 ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL the mendacious Evangelist, who could have deliberately fabricated discourses and narrated miracles which he dared to attribute to the Incarnate Son of God. The guilt of publishing to the Church apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla would have paled before the crimson sin of forging a Gospel. These considerations upon St. John's prolonged and circumstantial claim to personal acquaintance with the Word made flesh, confirmed by every avenue of com- munication between man and man — and first in order by the hearing of that sweet yet awful teaching — point to the fourth Gospel again and again. And the simple assertion — " that which we have heard " — accounts for one characteristic of the fourth Gospel which would otherwise be a perplexing enigma — its dramatic vivid- ness and consistency. This dramatic truth of St. John's narrative, manifested in various developments, deserves careful consideration. There are three notes in the fourth Gospel which indicate either a consummate dramatic instinct or a most faithful record, (i) The delineation o^ individual characters. The Evangelist tells us with no unmeaning distinction, that Jesus " knew all men, and knew what is in man ! " ^ For some persons take an apparently profound view of human nature in the abstract. They pass for being sages so long as they confine themselves to sounding generalizations, but they are convicted on the field of fife and experience. They claim to know what is in man ; but they know it vaguely, as one might be in possession of the outlines of a map, yet totally ignorant of most places within its limits. Others, who mostly aficct to be keen men of the world, refrain from * John iii. 24, 25. i.i.] HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. 93 generalizations ; but they have an insight, which at times is startHng, into the characters of the individual men who cross their path. There is a sense in which they superficially seem to know all men, but their knowledge after all is capricious and limited. One class affects to know men, but does not even affect to know man ; the other class knows something about man, but is lost in the infinite variety of the world of real men. Our Lord knew both — both the abstract ulti- mate principles of human nature and the subtle distinc- tions which mark off every human character from every other. Of this peculiar knowledge he who was brought into the most intimate communion with the Great Teacher was made in some degree a partaker in the course of His earthly ministry. With how few touches yet how clearly are delineated the Baptist, Nathanael, the Samaritan woman, the blind man, Philip, Thomas, Martha and Mary, Pilate ! (2) More particularly the appropriateness and consistency of the language used by the various persons introduced in the narrative is, in the case of a writer like St. John, a multiplied proof of historical veracity.^ For instance, of St. Thomas ' Those who are perplexed by the identity in style and turn of language between the Epistle and the discourse of our Lord in St. John's Gospel may be referred to the writer's remarks in The Speaker's Comnmiiary (N. T. iv. . 286-89). It should be added that the Epp. to the Seven Churches (Apoc. ii., iii.)— especially to Sardis- interweave sayings of Jesus recorded by the Synoptical evangelists {e.g., "as a thief," Apoc. iii. 3, cf. Mark xiii. ZT, "book of life," Apoc. iii. 5, cf. Luke x. 20; "confessing a name," Apoc. iii. 5, cf. Matt. X. 32; "He that hath an ear," Apoc. iii. 6, 13, 22, and 11. 7, II, 17, 29. This phrase, found in each of the seven Epp., occurs nowhere in the fourth Gospel, but constantly in the Synoptics. Cf. Matt. X. 27, xi. IS, xiii. 19, 43 ; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke viii. 8, xiv. 35 ; cf. also "giving power over the nations " (Apoc. ii. 26— with the conception in Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29, 30. If the author of the 94 ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL only one single sentence, containing seven words, is preserved,^ outside the memorable narrative in the twentieth chapter ; yet how unmistakably does that brief sentence indicate the same character — tender, impetuous, loving, yet ever inclined to take the darker view of things because from the very excess of its affection it cannot believe in that which it most desires, and demands accumulated and convincing proof of its own happiness. Further, the language of our Lord which St. John preserves is both morally and intel- lectually a marvellous witness to the proof of his assertion here in the outset of his Epistle. This may be exemplified by an illustration from modern literature. Victor Hugo, in his Le'gende des Slides, has in one passage only placed in our Lord's lips a few words which are not found in the Evangelist.^ Every one will at once feel that these words ring hollow, that there is in them something exaggerated and facti- tious — and ///rt/ although the dramatist had the advantage of having a type of style already constructed for him. People talk as if the representation in detail of a perfect character were a comparatively easy performance. Yet every such representation shows some flaw when fourth Gospel was also the author of the Apocalypse, his choice of the style which he attributes to the Saviour was at least decided by no lack of knowledge of the Synoptical type of expression, and by no incapacity to use it with freedom and power. ' John xi. i6. ^ " Qui me suit, aux anges est pareil. Quand un homme a marche tout le jour an soleil Dans un chemin sans puits et sans hotellerie, S'il ne croit pas quand vient le soir il pleure, il crie, II est las; sur la terre il tombe haletant. S'il croit en moi, qu'il prie, il pent au meme instant. Continuer sa route avec des forces triples."' (Le Christ el le Tombeau.) Tom. i. 44, i. I.] HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. 95 closely inspected. For instance, a character in which Shakespeare so evidently delighted as Buckingham, whose end is so noble and martyr-like, is thus described, when on his trial, by a sympathising witness : " 'How did he bear himself?' ' When he was bought again to the bar, to hear, His knell rung out, his judgment, he was struck With such an agony, he sweat extremel}'-, And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty ; But he ftll to himself again, and sweetly In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.'"* Our argument comes to this point. Here is one man of all but the highest rank in dramatic genius, who utterly fails to invent even one sentence which could possibly be taken for an utterance of our Lord. Here is another, the most transcendent in the same order whom the human race has ever known, who tacitly confesses the impossibility of representing a character which shall be " one entire and perfect chrysolite," without speck or flaw. Take yet another instance. Sir Walter Scott appeals for " the fair licence due to the author of a fictitious composition ; " and admits that he ^' cannot pretend to the observation of complete accuracy even in outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners."^ But St. John was evidently a man of no such pretensions as these kings of the human imagination — no Scott or Victor Hugo, much less a Shakespeare. How then ^ King Henry VIII., Act 2, Sc. I. Contrast again our Lord before the council with St. Paul before that tribunal. In the case of one of the chief of saints there is the touch of human infirmity, the "something spoken in choler, ill and hasty," the angry and contemptuous "whited wall" — the confession of hasty inconsiderate- ness {ovK rjdeiv — oTt earlv dpxi-^p^i>s) which led to a violation of a precept of t.ie law (Exod, xxii. 28). - Preface to Ivanhoe, 96 ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL — except on the assumption of his being a faithful reporter, of his recording words actually spoken, and witnessing incidents which he had seen with his very eyes and contemplated with loving and admiring rever- ence — can we account for his having given us long successions of sentences, continuous discourses in which we trace a certain unity and adaptation ; ^ and a character which stands alone among all recorded in history or conceived in fiction, by presenting to us an excellence faultless in every detail? We assert that the one answer to this question is boldly given us by St. John in the forefront of his Epistle — " That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes — concerning the Word who is the Life — declare we unto you." St. John's mode of writing history may profitably be contrasted with that of one who in his own line was a great master, as it has been ably criticised by a dis- tinguished statesman. Voltaire's historical masterpiece is a portion of the life of Maria Theresa, which is un- ' How the great sayings were accurately collected has not been the question before us in this discourse. But it presents little difti- culty. It is not absurd to suppose (if we are required to postulate no divine assistance) that notes may have been taken in some form by certain members of the company of disciples. The profoundly thoughtful remark of Irenaeus upon his own unfailing recollection of early lessons from Polycarp, would apply with indefinitely greater force to such a pupil as John, of such a teacher as Jesus. " I can thoroughly recollect things so far back better than those which have lately occurred ; for lessons which have grown with us since boyhood are compacted into a unity with the very soul itself." {ttj \pvxv ^^ovprai aiT-f) Euscb., V. 29. But above all, whatever subordinate agency may have been employed in the preservation of those precious words, every Christian reverently acknowledges the fulfilment of the Saviour's promise — "The Comforter, the H0I3' Ghost, He ehall teach j'ou all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whaidotivcr I have baid unto you '" (John xiv. 26). i. I.] HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL. 97 questionably written from a partly ideological point of view. For, those who have patience to go back to the " sources," and to compare Voltaire's narrative with them, will see the process by which a literary master has produced his effect. The writer works as if he were composing a classical tragedy restricted to the unities of time and place. The three days of the coronation and of the successive votes are brought into one effect, of which we are made to feel that it is due to a magic inspiration of Maria Theresa. Yet, as the great historical critic to whom we refer proceeds to demonstrate, a different charm, very much more real because it comes from truth, may be found in literal historical accuracy without this academic rouge. Writers more conscientious than Voltaire would not have assumed that Maria Theresa was degraded by a husband who was inferior to her. They would not have substituted some pretty and pretentious phrases for the genuine emotion not quite veiled under the official Latin of the Queen. '' However high a thing art may be, reality, truth, which is the work of God, is higher ! " ^ It is this conviction, this entire intense adhesion to truth, this childlike ingenuousness which has made St. John as an historian attain the higher region which is usually reached by genius alone — which has given us narratives and passages whose ideal beauty or awe is so transcendent or solemn, whose pictorial grandeur or pathos is so inexhaust- ible, whose philosophical depth is so unfathomable.^ He stands with spell-bound delight before his work ' Due de Broglie. Revue des deux Mondes. 15 Jan. 1882. Coxe, House of Austria, vol. iii., chr.p. xcix., p, 415, sqq. John xiii. 30, xi. 35, xlx. 5, xxii. 29-35. 98 ST. fOHN'S GOSPEL without the disappointment which ever attends upon men of genius ; because that work is not drawn from himself, because he can say three words — which we have heardy which we have seen with our eyes, which we have gazed uDon. NOTES. Ch. i. 2, 4. Ver. 2. USy weJ] ** The nominative plural first person is not always of majesty but often of modesty^ when we share our privilege and dignity with others" {Grotzus). The context must decide what shade of meaning is to be read into the text, e.g., here it is the we of modesty, as also (very tenderly and beautifully) in ii. i, 2, v. 5. It rises into majesty with the majestic, " we announce." Ver. 4. '■' These things y^ Not even they^/Zc'WJ/^T^ with the Church and with the Father and with the Son is so much in the Apostle's intention here as the record in the Gospel. JVe write unto youi] In days when men's minds were still freshly full of the privilege of free access to the Scriptures, these words suggested (and they naturally enough do so still) the use of the written word, and the guilt of the Church or of individuals in neglecting it. This has been well expressed by an old divine, " That which is able to give us full joy must not be deficient in anything which conduceth to our happi- ness ; but the holy Scriptures give fulness of joy, and there- fore the way to happiness is perfectly laid down in them. The major of this syllogism is so clear, that it needs no probation ; for who can or will deny, that full joy is only to be had in a state of bliss ? The 7ninor is plain from this scripture, and may thus be drawn forth. That which the Apostle^ aimed at in, may doubtless be attained to by, their writings ; for they being inspired of God, it is no other than the end that God purposed in inspiring which they had in writing ; and either God Himself is wanting in the means which He hath designed for this end, or these writings contain in them what will yield fulness of joy, and to that end bring us to a state of blessed- ness. " How odious is the profaneness of those Christians who i. I.] HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL, 99 neglect the holy Scriptures, and give themselves to reading other books ! How many precious hours do many spend, and that not only on work days, but holy days, in foolish romances, fabulous histories, lascivious poems ! And why this, but that they may be cheered and delighted, when as full joy is only to be had in these holy books. Alas, the joy you find in those writings is perhaps pernicious, such as tickleth your lust, and promoteth contemplative wickedness. At the best it is but vain, such as only pleaseth the fancy and affecteth the wit ; whereas these holy writings (to use David's expression, Psalm xix. 8), are * right, rejoicing the heart.' Again, are there not many who more set by Plutarch's morals, Seneca's epistles, and suchlike books, than they do by the holy Scriptures ? It is true, there are excellent truths in those moral writings of the heathen, but yet they are far short of these sacred books. Those may comfort against outward trouble, but not against inward fears ; they may rejoice the mind, but cannot quiet the conscience ; they may kindle some flashy sparkles of joy, but they cannot warm the soul with a lasting fire of solid consola- tion. And truly, if ever God give you a spiritual ear to judge of things aright, you will then acknowledge there are no bells like to those of Aaron, no harp like to that of David, no trumpet like to that of Isaiah, no pipes like to those of the Apostles." {First Epistle of St. John, unfolded and applied by Nathaniel Hardy, D.D., Dean of Rochester, about 1660.) o £ w *^ > .'£, w X. K *^ O C ^ < > c -^ XI ■= ^ ■B -5 tn bjo n) 6 bo 75 »^ 'o -a bO cd oj -M .^ .;^ (U s ffi ■" ^ ^ ^ ."ti C P» r- ^ C d ^ o ^' o ■" C 3 O >t3 r" 1) tfl tn •is > •-< 3 3 ^ (U O i:^ t_ "T^ 3 ^C 3 -O ^-r.-^ o •^ 4j ^ j:: .ii^TD tn ^ 3 b/D b/j_2 C ;i3 en ^ ;^ ;::: ot « ^J-i 3 in 'in O t«-4 +J O <<-• r ^K ^-o ^ t;.Q-c ■^ > '-i: ^ o - > E tn 1) ^ ^ i) (u c; ^ J- c x; o b£) b/) O -w C/5 ■^ ^ S^'C) m ■^ -^-> ^ ,». en •S 3^0^ -s .:2 -^ g u.' ^^^^^ l> ,„ (U .tJ o :t3 ^ ^ ^2 •— '-i-»iU-rl •I-(T-itn '-' X <*- -rH XiO(n!>'TD*ji-4(n "^ X <*- .S .^ 3 tn t) O) tn > 0) re .p .i2 S :; ^ ° H bC fS tn X3 3 —4 •re . > 3 OS X W ^ be o -^ - .2 S &.S tn tn X) 3 - 3:^3 .2 rt "^ ^ c/) ^ ^ ■■2^ ^ bC x: -; ^ '^ 5 ^ u ••■>-> 3 Xi OJ -o t1 rrt 0) 3 tn 3 S"-5 o •--31 1 tn r E^-a 3C3 tT 3 E S .e - 3.E '•§E tn ,rt ^ 3 —' 3 3 3 Ki 3 *j - 03 tn TO ^ ■r) ^ •'-' (U ^ 3 . j:: C (U in g" "" ir. in .2 s u , ifl rt I- ^ •- o c c o c c •> r= c k o >^^Sf H1;!^ !:; ^ ^ ffi.^^^ c c S -n o :t: 5 u | g g ^ rt 3 i; P C 5 J5u;-5 'Si o5 c c .5-0 E o -G ^ C > ^ .0 .0 ,0 r: tn •• .2 'o ti j5 ^ s (fl ■>- c: ;; ■!-» —i Q P .. >. o" _ C CO % CO c-b 1 1: 3 c 5) - S ^ -n ^ <" „ ^ Si *- i: ^ 5» o r^ W ifi c c o O CS .2 ^ c ^"^ §-£ CJ ^ ^ o ■• o -r -^ li* c ^ r^ (u > " t^ c O CI o rt D W (- r- "^ C 3 :5 * o .<2 P - a S-^ > tfi c3 re U E.2 ? == A P »- o G u ■^ '" -^ 2 u C OT G .?- ii b 'J 'E 3 11 3r « -a -a -a i; o « -I ^ -S 'W ^ DISCOURSE III. EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT, '•My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." — I John ii. I, 2. OF the Incarnation of the Word, of the whole previous strain of solemn oracular annunciation, there are two great objects. Rightly understood it at once stimulates and soothes ; it supplies induce- ments to holiness, and yet quiets the accusing heart, (i) It urges to a pervading holiness in each recurring circumstance of Hfe.^ "That ye may not sin" is the bold universal language of the morality of God. Men only understand moral teaching when it comes with a series of monographs on the virtues, sobriety, chastity, and the rest. Christianity does not overlook these, but it comes first with all-inclusive principles. The morality of man is like the sculptor working line by line and part by part, partially and successively. The morality of God is like nature, and works in every part of the flower and tree with a sort of ubiquitous presence. "These things write we unto 3^ou." No dead letter — • a living spirit infuses the lines ; there is a deathless principle behind the words which will vitalize and ' Observe in the Greek the /xt; d;ua/3T7?re, which refers to single acts, not to a continuous state — " that ye may not sin." ii. 1,2.] EXTENT OF THE ATOAEMENT. 103 permeate all isolated relations and developments of conduct. '' These things write we unto you that ye may not sin." (2) But further, this announcement also soothes. There may be isolated acts of sin against the whole tenor of the higher and nobler life. There may be, God forbid !— but it may be — some glaring act of in- consistency. In this case the Apostle uses a form of expression which includes himself, " we have," and yet points to Christ, not to himself, " we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ" — and that in view of His being One who is perfectly and simply righteous ; '^ and He is the propitiation for our sins." Then, as if suddenly fired by a great thought, St. John's view broadens over the whole world beyond the limits of the comparatively little group of believers whom his words at that time could reach. The Incar- nation and Atonement have been before his soul. The Catholic Church is the correlative of the first, humanity of the second. The Paraclete whom he beheld is ever in relation with, ever turned towards the Father.^ His propitiation is, and He is it. It was not simply a fact in history which works on with unexhaustible force. As the Advocate is ever turned towards the Father, so the propitiation lives on with unexhausted Hfe. His intercession is not verbal, temporary, interrupted. The Church, in her best days, never prayed — " Jesus, pray for me ! " It is interpretative, continuous, unbroken. In time it is eternally valid, eternally present. In • I John ii. 2. As a translation, "towards" seems too pedantic ; 3xt TT/sos is ad-versus rather than apud^ and with the accusative signifies either the direction of motion, or the relation between two objects. (Donaldson, Greek Grammar, 524). We may fittingly call the preposition here ■npb% pictorial. I04 THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. space it extends as far as human need, and therefore takes in every place. '' Not for our sins only," but for men universally, '' for the whole world." ^ It is implied then in this passage, that Christ was intended as a propitiation for the whole world ; and that He is fitted for satisfying all human wants. (l) Christ was intended for the whole world. Let us see the Divine intention in one incident of the crucifixion. In that are mingling lines of glory and of humiliation. The King of humanity appears with a scarlet camp-mantle flung contemptuously over His shoulders ; but to the eye of faith it is the purple of empire. He is crowned with the acanthus wreath-; but the wreath of mockery is the ro3^alty of our race. He is crucified between two thieves ; but His cross is a Judgment-Throne, and at His right hand and His left are the two separated worlds of belief and unbelief. All the Evangelists tell us that a superscription, a title of accusation, was written over His cross ; two of them add that it was written over Him " in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew" (or in Hebrew, Greek, Latin). In Hebrew — the sacred tongue of patriarchs and seers, of the nation all whose members were in idea and destination those of whom God said, "My prophets." In Greek — the " musical and golden tongue which gave a soul to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy;" the language of a ' The various meanings of Kbaaos are fully traced below on I John ii. 17. There is one point in which the notions of Koa/xos and al(Lv intersect. But they may be thus distinguished. The first signifies the world projected in space, the second in time. The supposition that the form of expression at the close of our verse is elliptical, and to be filled up by the repetition of "for the sins of the whole world" "is not justified by usage, and weakens the force of the passage." (Epistles of St. John, Westcott, p. 44.) ii.1,2.] EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. 105 people whose mission it was to give a principle of fer- mentation to all races of mankind, susceptible of those subtle and largely indefinable influences which are called collectively Progress. In Latin — the dialect of a people originally the strongest of all the sons of men. The three languages represent the three races and their ideas — revelation, art, literature; progress, war, and jurisprudence. Beneath the title is the thorn-crowned head of the ideal King of humanity. Wherever these three tendencies of the human race exist, wherever annunciation can be made in human language, wherever there is a heart to sin, a tongue to speak, an eye to read, the cross has a message. The superscription, ^' written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin," is the historical symbol translated into its dogmatic form by St. John — " He is the propitiation ^ for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." ' As to doctrine. There are three "grand circles" or "families of images " whereby Scripture approaches from different quarters, or surveys from different sides, the benefits of our Lord's meritorious death. These are represented by, are summed up in, three words — diroXvTpucTLS, KaraWayrj, i\aa/x6s. The last is found in the text and in iv. 10 ; nowhere else precisely in that form in the New Testament. '' IXaa/xos (expiation or propitiation) and dTroXvTpcocris (redemption) is fundamentally one single benefit, i.e., the restitution of the lost sinner. ' Air oXvTpua IS is in respect of enemies ; KaraWayt] in respect of God. And here again the words IXaafi. and KaraXX. differ. Propitiation takes away offences as against God. Reconciliation has two sides. It takes away (a) God's indignation against us, 2 Cor. v. 18, 19; (d) our alienatioti from God, 2 Cor. v. 20." (Bengel on Rom. iii. 24. Whoever would rightly understand all that we can know on these great words must study New Testament Synonyms, Archbp. Trench, pp. 276-82.) DISCOURSE IV. MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT. "For the whole world." — I John ii. 2. LET us now consider the universal and ineradicable wants of man. Such a consideration is substantially unaffected by speculation as to the theory of man's origin. Whether the first men are to be looked for by the banks of some icy river feebly shaping their arrowheads of flint, or in godlike and glorious progenitors beside the streams of Eden ; whether our ancestors were the result of an inconceivably ancient evolution, or called into existence by a creative act, or sprung from some lower creature elevated in the fulness of time by a majestic inspiration, — at least, as a matter of fact, man has other and deeper wants than those of the back and stomach. Man as he is has five spiritual instincts. How they came to be there, let it be repeated, is not the question. It is the fact of their existence, not the mode of their genesiSy with which we are now concerned. (l) There is almost, if not quite, without exception the instinct which may be generally described as the instinct of the Divine. In the wonderful address where St. Paul so fully recognises the influence of geographical circumstance and of climate, he speaks of God "having piade out of one blood every nation of men to seek ii. 2.] MISSIONARY APPLICATION. 107 after their Lord, if haply at least " (as might be expected) ^' they would feel for Him"^ — like men in darkness groping towards the light. (2) There is the instinct of prayer, the " testimony of the soul naturally Christian." The little child at our knees meets us half way in the first touching lessons in the science of prayer. In danger, when the vessel seems to be sinking in a storm, it is ever as it was in the days of Jonah, when '' the mariners cried every man unto his God." ^ (3) There is the instinct of immortality, the desire that our conscious existence should continue beyond death. " Who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, These thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather swallow'd up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night ? " (4) There is the instinct of morality, call it con- science or what we will. The lowest, most sordid, most materialised languages are never quite without witness to this nobler instinct. Though such languages have lien among the pots, yet their wings are as the wings of a dove that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. The most impoverished voca- bularies have words of moral judgment, ^' good " or "bad;" of praise or blame, "truth and lie;" above all, those august words which recognise a law paramount to all other laws, 'M must," "I ought." (5) There is the instinct oi sacrifice^ which, if not absolutely universal, is at least all but so — the sense of impurity and un- worthiness, which says by the very fact of bringing a victim. ^' I am not worthy to come alone ; may my guilt be transferred to the representative which I immolate." * Acts xvii. 27. ^ Jonah i. 5. io8 MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT (i) Thus then man seeks after God. Philosophy unaided does not succeed in finding Him. The theistic systems marshal their syllogisms; they prove, but do not convince. The pantheistic systems glitter before man's eye; but when he grasps them in his feverish hand, and brushes off the mystic gold dust from the moth's wings, a death's-head mocks him. St. John has found the essence of the whole question stripped from it all its plausible disguises, and characterises Mahommedan and Judaistic Deism in a few words. Nay, the philosophical deism of Christian countries comes within the scope of his terrible proposition. '* Deo erexit Voltairius," was the philosopher's in- scription over the porch of a church ; but Voltaire had not in any true sense a God to whom he could dedicate it. For St. John tells us — "whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." ^ Other words there are in his Second Epistle whose full import seems to have been generally overlooked, but which are of solemn significance to those who go out from the camp of Christianity with the idea of finding a more refined morality and a more ethereal spiritualism. " Whosoever goeth forward and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ " ; whosoever WTites progress on his standard, and goes forward beyond the lines of Christ, loses natural as well as supernatural religion — " he hath not God."^ (2) Man wants to pray. Poor disinherited child, what master of requests shall he find ? Who shall interpret his broken language to God, God's infinite language to him ? (3) Man yearns for the assurance of immortal life. This can best be given by one specimen of manhood risen from the ' I Jolin ii. 28. " 2 John 9. ii.2.] OF THE ATONEMENT, 109 grave, one traveller come back from the undiscovered bourne with the breath of eternity on His cheek and its light in His eye ; one like Jonah, Himself the living sign and proof that He has been down in the great deeps. (4) Man needs a morality to instruct and elevate conscience. Such a morality must possess these characteristics. It must be authoritative, resting upon an absolute will; its teacher must say, not "I think," or " I conclude/' but — " verily, verily I say unto you." It must be unmixed with baser and more questionable elements. It must be pervasive, laying the strong grasp of its purity on the whole domain of thought and feeling as well as of action. It must be exemplified. It must present to us a series of pictures, of object-lessons in which we may see it illustrated. Finally, this morality must be spiritual. It must come to man, not like the Jewish Talmud with its seventy thousand precepts which few indeed can ever learn, but with a compendious and condensed, yet all-embracing brevity — wdth words that are spirit and life. (5) As man knows duty more thoroughly, the instinct of sacrifice will speak with an ever-increasing intensity. *' My heart is overwhelmed by the infinite purity of this law. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I ; let me find God and be reconciled to Him." When the old Latin spoke of propitiation he thought of some- thing which brought near {prope) ; his inner thought was — '^ let God come near to me, that I may be near to God." These five ultimate spiritual wants, these five ineradicable spiritual instincts, He must meet, of whom a master of spiritual truth like St. John can say with his plenitude of insight — " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." We shall better understand the fulness of St. John's no MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT thought if we proceed to consider that this fitness in Christ for meeting the spiritual wants of humanity is exclusive. Three great religions of the world are more or less Missionary. Hinduism, which embraces at least a hundred and ninety millions of souls, is certainly not in any sense missionary. For Hinduism transplanted from its ancient shrines and local superstitions dies Hke a flower without roots. But Judaism at times has strung itself to a kind of exertion almost inconsistent with its leading idea. The very word ^' proselyte " attests the unnatural fervour to which it had worked itself up in our Lord's time. The Pharisee was a missionary sent out by pride and consecrated by self-will. *^Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him tenfold more the child of hell than yourselves."^ Bouddhism has had enormous missionary success from one point of view. Not long ago it was said that it outnumbered Christendom. But it is to be observed that it finds adherents among people of onlyone type of thought and character.^ Outside these races it is and must ever be, non-existent. We may ex- cept the fanciful perversion of a few idle people in London, Calcutta, or Ceylon, captivated for a season or two by ' Matt, xxiii. 15. * Bouddhism, it is now said, appears to be on the wane, and the period for its disappearance gradually approaching, according to the Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford. In his opinion this creed is *'one of rapidly increasing disintegration and. decline," and "as a form of popular religion Bouddhism is gradually losing its vitality and hold on the vast populations once loyal to its rule." He computes the number of Bouddhistsat 100,000,000; not 400,000,000 as hitherto estimated ; and places Christianity numerically at the head of all religions. Next Confucianism, thirdly Hinduism ; then Bouddhism, and last Mohammedanism. He affirms that the capacity of Bouddhism for resistance must give way before the " mighly forces which are destined to sweep the earth." ii 2.] OF THE ATONEMENT, III '' the light of Asia." We may except also a very few more remarkable cases where the esoteric principle or Bouddhism commends itself to certain profound thinkers stricken with the dreary disease of modern sentiment. Mohammedanism has also, in a limited degree, proved itself a missionary religion, not only by the sword. In British India it counts millions of adherents, and it is still making some progress in India. In other ages whole Christian populations (but belonging to heretical and debased forms of Christianity) have gone over to Mohammedanism. Let us be just to it.^ It once ele- vated the pagan Arabs. Even now it elevates the Negro above his fetisch. But it must ever remain a religion for stationary races, with its sterile God and its poor literality, the dead book pressing upon it with a weight of lead. Its merits are these — it inculcates a lofty if sterile Theism ; it fulfils the pledge conveyed in the word Moslem, by inspiring a calm if frigid resignation to destiny ; it teaches the duty of prayer with a strange im- pressiveness. But whole realms of thought and feehng are crushed out by its bloody and lustful grasp. It is without purity, without tenderness, and without humility. Thus then we come back again with a truer insight to the exclusive fitness of Christ to meet the wants of mankind. Others beside the Incarnate Lord have obtained from a portion of their fellow-men some measure or passionate enthusiasm. Each people has a hero during this Hfe, call him demigod, or what we will. But such men are idolised by one race alone. The very qualities * That modern English writers have been more than just to Mohammed is proved overv^rhehningly by the living Missionary who knows Mohammedanism h&^i.— Mohammed and Mohammedans. Dr. Koello. 112 MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT which procure them an apotheosis are precisely those which prove how narrow the type is which they repre- sent ; how far they are from speaking to all humanity. A national type is a narrow and exclusive type. No European, unless effeminated and enfeebled, could really love an Asiatic Messiah. But Christ is loved everywhere. No race or kindred is exempt from the sweet contagion produced by the universal appeal of the universal Saviour. From all languages spoken by the lips of man, hymns of adoration are offered to Him. We read in England the Confessions of St. Augus- tine. Those words still quiver with the emotions of penitence and praise ; still breathe the breath of life. Those ardent affections, those yearnings of personal love to Christ, which filled the heart of Augustine fifteen centuries ago, under the blue sky of Africa, touch us even now under this grey heaven in the fierce hurry of our modern life. But they have in them equally the possibility of touching the Shanar of Tinnevelly, the Negro — even the Bushman, or the native of Terra del Fuego. By a homage of such diversity and such extent we recognise a universal Saviour for the universal wants of universal man, the fitting pro- pitiation for the whole world. Towards the close of this Epistle St. John oracularly utters three great canons of universal Christian con- sciousness — "we know," "we know," "we know." Of these three canons the second is — ''we know that we are from God, and the world lieth wholly in the wicked one." " A characteristic Johannic exaggeration " ! some critic has exclaimed; yet surely even in Christian lands where men lie outside the influences of the Divine sock;ty, we have only to read the Police-reports to justify the Apostle. In volumes of travels, again, in the ii.2.] OF THE ATONEMENT. 113 pages of Darwin and Baker, from missionary records in places where the earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations, we are told of deeds of lust and blood which almost make us blush to bear the same form with creatures so degraded. Yet the very same mis- sionary records bear witness that in every race which the Gospel proclamation has reached, however low it may be placed in the scale of the ethnologist ; deep under the ruins of the fall are the spiritual instincts, the affections which have for their object the infinite God, and for their career the illimitable ages. The shadow of sin is broad indeed. But in the evening light of God's love the shadow of the cross is projected further still into the infinite beyond. Missionary success is therefore sure, if it be slow. The reason is given by St. John. *' He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world." NOTES. Ch. i. 5 to ii. 2. Ver. 5. The Word, the Life, the Light, are connected in the first chapter as in John i. 3, 4, 5. Upon earth, behind all life is light ; in the spiritual world, behind all light is life. Da7'kness.'\ The schoolmen well said that there is a four- fold darkness — of nature, of ignorance, of misery, of sin. The symbol of light applied to God must designate perfect good- ness and beauty, combined with blissful consciousness of it, and transparent luminous clearness of wisdom. Ver. 7. The blood of Jesus His Sort] Sc. poured forth. This word (the Blood) denotes more vividly and effectively than any other could do three great realities of the Chris- tian belief— the reality of the Manhood of Jesus, the reality of His sufferings, the reality of His sacrifice. It is dogma ; but dogma made pictorial, pathetic, almost passionate. It may be noted that much current thought and feeling 8 114 MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT around us is just at the opposite extreme. It is a semi- doketism which is manifested in two different forms, (i) Whilst it need not be denied that there are hymns which are pervaded by an ensanguined materialism, and which are calculated to wound reverence, as well as taste ; it is clear that much criticism on hymns and sermons, where the " Blood of Jesus " is at all appealed to, has an ultra-refinement which is unscriptural and rationalistic. It is out of touch with St. Paul (Col. i. 14-20), with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. ix. 14) (a passage strikingly like this verse), with St. Peter (i Pet. i. 19), with St. John in this Epistle, with the redeemed in heaven (Apoc. v. 9). (2) A good deal of feeling against representations in sacred art seems to have its origin in this sort of unconscious semi-doketism. It appears to be thought that when representation supersedes symbolisfn. Christian thought and feeling necessarily lose everything and gain nothing. But surely it ought to be remembered that for a being like man there are two worlds, one of ideas, the other of facts ; one of philosophy, the other of history. The one is filled with things which are conceived, the other with things which are done. One contents itself with a shadowy symbol, the other is not satisfied except by a concrete representation. So we venture respectfully to think that the image of the dead Christ is not foreign to Scripture or Scriptural thought ; simply because, as a fact, He died. Calvary, the tree, the v/ounds, were not ideal. The crucifixion was not a symbol for dainty and refined abstract theorists. The form of the Crucified was not veiled by silver mists and crowned with roses. He who realises the meaning of the " Blood of Jesus," and is consistent, will not be severe upon the expression of the same thought in another form. " Note that which Estius hath upon the blood of his Son, that in them there is a confutation of three heresies at once : the Manichees, who deny the truth of Christ's human nature, since, as Alexander said of his wound, claniat Die esse hommem, it proclaimeth me a man, we may say of His blood, for had He not been man He could not have bled, have died ; the Ebionites, who den}^ Him to be God, since, being God's natural Son, He must needs be of the same essence with Him- self; and the Nestorians, who make two persons, which, if fi.2.] OF THE ATONEMENT, 1 15 true, the blood of Christ the man could not have been called the blood of Christ the Son of God." "That which I conceive here chiefly to be taken notice of is, that our Apostle contents not himself to say the blood of Jesus Christ, but he addeth His Son, to intimate to us how this blood became available to our cleansing, to wit, as it was the blood not merely of the Son of Mary, the Son of David, the Son of Man, but of Him who was also the Son of God." ** Behold, O sinner, the exceeding love of thy Saviour, who, that He might cleanse thee when polluted in thy blood, was pleased to shed His own blood. Indeed, the pouring out of Christ's blood was a super-excellent work of charity ; hence it is that these two are joined together; and when the Scrip- ture speaketh of His love, it presently annexeth His sufferings. We read, that when Christ wept for Lazarus, John xi. 36, the standers by said, "See how He loved him." Surely if His tears, much more His blood, proclaimeth His affection towards us. The Jews were the scribes, the nails were the pens. His body the white paper, and His blood the red ink ; and the characters were love, exceeding love, and these so fairly written that he which runs may read them. I shut up this with that of devout Bernard, Behold and look upon the rose of His bloody passion, how His redness bespeaketh His flaming love, there being, as it were, a contention betwixt His passion and affection : this, that it might be hotter ; that, that it might be redder. Nor had His sufferings been so red with blood had not His heart been inflamed with love. Oh let us beholding magnify, magnifying admire, and admiring praise Him for His inestimable goodness, saying with the holy Apostle (Rev. i. 5), * Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His blood, be honour and glory for ever.' " — Dean Hardy (pp. 'jj, 78.) Observe on this verse its unison of thought and feeling with Apoc. i. 5, xxii. 14. Chap. ii. I. We have an Advocate'] literally Paraclete. One called in to aid him whose cause is to be tried or petition considered. The word is used only by St. John, four times in the Gospel, of the Holy Ghost ; ^ once here of Christ. " And now, O thou drooping sinner, let me bespeak thee in ^ John xiv. 16, 26, XV. 26, xvi. 7, n6 MISSIONAJ^Y APPLICATION. St. Austin's ^ language : Thou committest thy cause to an eloquent lawyer, and art safe; how canst thou miscarry, when thou hast the Word to be thy advocate ? Let me put this question to thee : If, when thou sinnest, thou hadst all the angels, saints, confessors, martyrs, in those celestial mansions to beg thy pardon, dost thou think they would not speed ? I tell thee, one word out of Christ's mouth is more worth than all their conjoined entreaties. When, therefore, thy daily infirmities discourage thee, or particular falls affright thee, imagine with thyself that thou heardst thy advocate pleading for thee in these or the like expressions : O My loving Father, look upon the face of Thine Anointed ; behold the hands, and feet, and side of Thy crucified Christ ! I had no sins of My own for which I thus suffered ; no, it was for the sins of this penitent wretch, who in My name sued for pardon ! Father, I am Thy Son, the Son of Thy love, Thy bosom, who plead with Thee ; it is for Thy child, Thy returning penitent child, I plead. That for which I pray is no more than what I paid for ; I have merited pardon for all that come to Me ! Oh let those merits be imputed, and that pardon granted to this poor sinner ! Cheer up, then, thou disconsolate soul, Christ is an advocate for thee, and therefore do not despair, but believe ; and believing, rejoice ; and rejoicing, triumph." — Dean Hardy (pp. 128, 129). In these days, when petitions to Jesus to pray for us have crept into hymns and are creeping into liturgies, it may be well to note that in the remains of the early saints and in the solemn formulas of the Christian Church, Christ is not asked to pray for us, but to hear our prayers. The Son is prayed to ; the Father is prayed to through the Son ; the Son is never prayed to pray to the Father. (See Greg. Nazianz., Oratio xxx., Theologice iv., de Filio. See Thomassin, Dogm. TheoL, lib. ix., cap. 6, Tom. iv. 220, zz"].) Ver. 2. Not for ours onlyJ] This large-hearted after- thought reminds one of St. Paul's ** corrective and ampliative " addition ; of his chivalrous abstinence from exclusiveness in thought or word, when having dictated "Jesus Christ our Lord," his voice falters, and he feels constrained to say — **both theirs, and ours" (i Cor. i. 2). ' Auc:. in loc. O 1) S5f Jf t. -" ., ^ t« -w > C /: jr t/. I- C rt rt -w -c --; O r- a in o o h o -^ ^ _g -C .a 0) t« o Xi > ^K 1l flj ^ a J3 >-,-o I, '-' o 1) -a *^- o 5 ^ S ^ -c ^^;^ ^• * „ O « (U ■« o g c .5 -^ rt S >, 2i -S U5 o S (U ^ tn 7\ P 4-. 3 f> (U , > o . lU (U OT O C ^ f* P .id r- G CJ < 2 .5 S rt -^3 E ir"^ "►T-cOj^PortOo V ^ CL-- -Q E = ^ o oj J^ •" .'-^ Jli -a 3 "^ w c .1=: r- -Q •-.„•: JH 2iSig8.!El::§,-o;;i ^3 'S '< 'g <=) ...^ < b >f?'-S,S S Uj 3- o <=> .Sw o & to -cJ o '^ 5 S =r<:i :: h §: »> *^ ^3 P ? ^ .• 3- '3 DISCOURSE V. THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. *' He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk even as He also walked." — I John ii. 6. THIS verse is one of those in reading which we may easily fall into the fallacy of mistaking familiarity for knowledge. Let us bring out its meaning with accuracy. St. John's hatred of unreality, of lying in every form, leads him to claim in Christians a perfect correspond- ence between the outward profession and the inward life, as well as the visible manifestation of it. *' He that saith " always marks a danger to those who are outwardly in Christian communion. It is the ^' take notice " of a hidden falsity. He whose claim, possibly whose vaunt, is that he abideth in Christ, has con- tracted a moral debt of far-reaching significance. St. John seems to pause for a moment. He points to a picture in a page of the scroll which is beside him — the picture of Christ in the Gospel drawn by himself; not a vague magnificence, a mere harmony of colour, but a likeness of absolute historical truth. Every pilgrim of time in the continuous course of his daily walk, outward and inward, has by the possession of that Gospel contracted an obligation to be walking by the one great life-walk of the Pilgrim of eternity. The very depth and intensity of feeling half hushes the Apostle's i.e.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 19 voice. Instead of the beloved Name which all who love it will easily supply/ St. John uses the reverential He, the pronoun which specially belongs to Christ in the vocabu- larly of the Epistle.^ ^' He that saith he abideth in Him " is bound, even as He once walked, to be ever walking. I. The importance of example in the moral and spiritual life gives emphasis to this canon of St. John. Such an example as can be sufficient for creatures like ourselves should be at once manifested in concrete form and susceptible of ideal application. This was felt by a great but unhappily anti-christian thinker, the exponent of a severe and lofty morality. Mr. Mill fully confesses that there may be an elevating and an ennobling influence in a Divine ideal ; and thus justifies the apparently startling precept — '^be ye there- fore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." ^ But he considered that some more human model was necessary for the moral striven He re- commends novel-readers, when they are charmed or strengthened by some conception of pure manhood or womanhood, to carr}^ that conception with them into their own lives. He would have them ask them- selves in difficult positions, how that strong and lofty man, that tender and unselfish woman, would have behaved in similar circumstances, and so bear about with them a standard of duty at once compendious and ^ " Nomen facile supplent credentes, plenum pectus habentes memoria Domini." — Bejigel. - 'B/feiros in our Epistle belongs to Christ in every place but one where it occurs (l John ii. 6, iii. 3, 5, 7, 16, iv. 17 ; of. John i. 18, ii. 21). It is very much equivalent to our reverent usage of printing the pronoun which refers to Christ with a capital letter. 3 Matt. vi. 45. 120 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK affecting. But to this there is one fatal objection — that such an elaborate process of make-believe is practically impossible. A fantastic morality, if it were possible at all, must be a feeble morality. Surely an authentic example will be greatly more valuable. But example y however precious, is made indefinitely more powerful when it is living example, example crowned by personal influence. So far as the stain of a guilty past can be removed from those who have contracted it ; they are improvable and capable of restoration, chiefly, perhaps almost ex- clusively, b}^ personal influence in some form. When a process of deterioration and decay has set in in any hum.an soul, the germ of a more wholesome growth is introduced in nearly every case, by the transfusion and transplantation of healthier life. We test the soundness or the putrefaction of a soul by its capacity of receiving and assimilating this germ of restoration. A parent is in doubt whether a son is susceptible of renovation, whether he has not become wholly evil. He tries to bring the young man under the personal influence of a friend of noble and sympathetic cha- racter. Has his son any capacity left for being touched by such a character; of admiring its strength on one side, its softness on another ? When he is in contact with it, when he perceives how pure, how self-sacri- ficing, how true and straight it is, is there a glow in his face, a trembling of his voice, a moisture in his eye, a wholesome self-humiliation ? Or does he repel all this with a sneer and a bitter gibe ? Has he that evil attribute which is possessed only by the most deeply corrupt — "they blaspheme, rail at glories."^ The ^ 6^4'as l3\a(7qj7}fj.ouures (2 Peter ii, 10 ; Judc v. 8). "•6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 121 Chaplain of a penitentiary records that among the most degraded of its inmates was one miserable creature. The Matron met her with firmness, but with a good will which no hardness could break down, no insolence overcome. One evening after prayers the Chaplain observed this poor outcast stealthily kissing the shadow of the Matron thrown by her candle upon the wall. He saw that the diseased -nature was beginning to be capable of assimilating new life, that the victory of wholesome personal influence had begun. He found reason for concluding that his judgment was well founded. The law of restoration by living example' through personal influence pervades the whole of our human relations under God's natural and moral government as truly as the principle of mediation. This law also pervades the system of restoration revealed to us by Christianity. It is one of the chief results of the Incarnation itself It begins to act upon us first, when the Gospels become something more to us than a mere history, when we realise in some degree how He walked. But it is not complete until we know that all this is not merely of the past, but of the present; that He is not dead, but hving ; that we may therefore use that little word is about Christ in the lofty sense of St. John—'' even as He /5 pure;" "in Him is no sin;" "even as He is righteous ; " " He is the propitiation for our sins." If this is true, as it undoubtedly is, of all good human influence personal and living, is it not true of the Personal and living Christ in an infinitely higher degree ? If the shadow of Peter overshadowing the sick had some strange efficacy; if handkerchiefs or aprons from the body of Paul wrought upon the sick 122 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK and possessed ; what may be the spiritual result of contact with Christ Himself? Of one of those men specially gifted to raise struggling natures and of others like him, a true poet lately taken from us has sung in one of his most glorious strains. Matthew Arnold likens mankind to a host inexorably bound by divine appointment to march over mountain and desert to the city of God. But they become entangled in the wilderness through which they march, split into mutinous factions, and are in danger of ^' battering on the rocks " for ever in vain, of dying one by one in the waste. Then comes the poet's appeal to the *' Servants of God " : — "Then in the hour of need Of your fainting dispirited race, Ye like angels appear ! Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your wordj Weariness not on your brow. E3^es rekindling, and pra3^ers Follow your steps as ye go. Ye fill up the gaps in our file, Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march — On, to the bound of the waste- On to the City of God." ' If all this be true of the personal influence of good and strong men — true in proportion to their goodness and strength — it must be true of the influence of the Strongest and Best with Whom we are brought into personal relation by prayer and sacraments, and by meditation upon the sacred record which tells us what ' Poems by Matthew Arnold ("Rugby Chapel/' Nov. 1857), vol. ii., pp. 251, 255. ii.6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE, 1 23 His one life-walk was. Strength is not wanting upon His part, for He is able to save to the uttermost. Pity is not wanting ; for to use touching words (attributed to St. Paul in a very ancient apocryphal document), "He alone sympathised with a world that has lost its way."^ Let it not be forgotten that in that of which St. John speaks lies the true answer to an objection, formulated by the great anti-christian writer above quoted, and constantly repeated by others. '* The ideal of Christian moraUty," says Mr. Mill, *Ms negative rather than positive ; passive rather than active ; innocence rather than nobleness ; abstinence from evil, rather than energetic pursuit of good ; in its precepts (as has been well said), * thou shalt not' predominates unduly over * thou shalt.' "^ The answer is this, (i) A true religious system must have a distinct moral code. If not, it would be justly condemned for '^ expressing itself" (in the words of Mr. Mill's own accusation against Christianity elsewhere) "in language most general, and possessing rather the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation." But the necessary formula of precise legislation is, "thou shalt not"; and without this it cannot be precise. (2) But further. To say that Christian legislation is negative, a mere string of " thou shalt nots," is just such a superficial accusation as might be expected from a man who should enter a church upon some rare occasion, and happen to listen to the ten commandments, but fall asleep before he could hear the Epistle and Gospel. The philosopher * 8s if.bvo% ffweTradqaev T\avcjij.hi>} k8(J[xi^. Acta Paul, et Thee. 1 6, Ada. Apost. Apoc. 47. Edit. Tischendorf. 2 On Liberty. John Stuart Mill (chap. iii.). 124 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK of duty, Kant, has told us that the peculiarity of a moral principle, of any proposition which states what duty is, is to convey the meaning of an imperative through the form of an indicative. In his own expres- sive if pedantic language — " its categorical form involves an epitactic meaning." St. John asserts that the Christian " ought to walk even as Christ walked." To every one who receives it, that proposition is there- fore precisely equivalent to a command — ''walk as Christ walked." Is it a negative, passive morality, a mere system of '' thou shalt not," which contains such a precept as that ? Does not the Christian religion in virtue of this alone enforce a great " thou shalt ; " which every man who brings himself within its range will find rising with him in the morning, following him like his shadow all day long, and lying down with him when he goes to rest ? II. It should be clearly understood that in the words ''even as He walked," the Gospel of St. John is both referred to and attested. For surely to point with any degree of moral seriousness to an example, is to presuppose some clear knowledge and definite record of it. No example can be beautiful or instructive when its shape is lost in darkness. It has indeed been said by a deeply religious writer, " that the likeness of the Christian to Christ is to His character, not to the particular form in which it was historically manifested." And this, of course, is in one sense a truism. But how else except by this historical manifestation can we know the character of Christ in any true sense of the word knowledge ? For those who are familiar with the fourth ii.6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 125 Gospel, the term ^' walk " was tenderly significant. For if it was used with a reminiscence of the Old Testament and of the language of our Lord/ to denote the whole continuous activity of the life of any man inward and outward, there was another signification which became entwined with it. St. John had used the word his- torically^ in his Gospel, not without allusion to the Saviour's homelessness on earth, to His itinerant life of beneficence and of teaching.^ Those who first received this Epistle with deepest reverence as the utterance of the Apostle whom they loved, when they came to the precept — '' walk even as He walked" — would ask themselves how did He walk ? What do we know of the great rule of life thus proposed to us ? The Gospel which accompanied this letter, and with which it was in some way closely connected, was a sufficient and definite answer. III. The character of Christ in his Gospel is thus, ac- cording to St. John, the loftiest ideal of purity, peace, self-sacrifice, unbroken communion with God ; the inex- haustible fountain of regulated thoughts, high aims, holy action, constant prayer. We may advert to one aspect of this perfection as delineated in the fourth Gospel — our Lord's way of doing small things, or at least things which in human estimation appear to be small. The fourth chapter of that Gospel contains a mar- vellous record of word aiid work. Let us trace that ' John viii. 12-35. ^oi" Apostolic usage of the word, see Acts i. 21 ; Rom. vi. 4; Ephes. ii. 10; Col. iii. 7. * John vii, I. • "Auibulando docebat," — Brefsihneider, 126 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK record back to its beginning. There are seeds of spiritual life scattered in many hearts which were destined to yield a rich harvest in due time ; there is the account of one sensuous nature, quickened and spiritualised ; there are promises which have been for successive centuries as a river of God to weary natures. All these results issue from three words spoken by a tired traveller, sitting naturally over a well — " give me to drink." We take another instance. There is one passage in St. John's Gospel which divides with the prooemium of his Epistle, the glory of being the loftiest, the most prolonged, the most sustained, in the Apostle's writings. It is the prelude of a work which might have seemed to be of little moment. Yet all the height of a great ideal is over it, like the vault of heaven ; all the power of a Divine purpose is under it, like the strength of the great deep ; all the consciousness of His death, of His ascension, of His coming dominion, of His Divine origin, of His session at God's right hand — all the hoarded love in His heart for His own which were in the world — passes by some mysterious transference into that little incident of tenderness and of humiliation. He sets an everlasting mark upon it, net by a basin of gold crusted with gems, nor by mixing precious scents with the water which He poured out, nor by using linen of the finest tissue, but by the absolute perfection of love and dutiful humility in the spirit and in every detail of the whole action. It is one more of those little chinks through which the whole sun- shine of heaven streams in upon those who have eyes to see.-^ ' John xiii. 1-6. ii. 6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 2^ The underlying secret of this feature of our Lord's character is told by Himself '' My meat is to be ever doing the will of Him that sent Me, and so when the time comes by one great decisive act to finish His work." ^ All along the course of that life-walk there were smaller preludes to the great act which won our redemption — multitudinous daily little perfect epitomes of love and sacrifice, without which the crowning sacrifice would not have been what it was. The plan of our life must, of course, be constructed on a scale as different as the human from the Divine. Yet there is a true sense in which this lesson of the great life may be apphed to us. The apparently small things of fife must not be despised or neglected on account of their smallness, by those who would follow the precept of St. John. Patience and diligence in petty trades, in services called menial, in waiting on the sick and old, in a hundred such works, all come within the sweep of this net, with its lines that look as thin as cobwebs, and which yet for Christian hearts are stronger than fibres of steel — **walk even as He walked." This, too, is our only security. A French poet has told a beautiful tale. Near a river which runs between French and German territory, a blacksmith was at work one snowy night near Christmas time. He was tired out, standing by his forge, and wistfully looking towards his little home, lighted up a short quarter of a mile away, and wife and children waiting for their festal supper, when he should return. It came to the last piece of his work, a rivet which it was difficult to finish properly ; for it was of peculiar shape, intended by the contractor who ^ "Iva TToiu) . . /cat reXetwcrw (John iv. 34). 128 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK employed him to pin the metal work of a bridge which he was constructing over the river. The smith was sorely tempted to fail in giving honest work, to hurry over a job which seemed at once so troublesome and so trifling. But some good angel whispered to the man that he should do his best. He turned to the forge with a sigh, and never rested until the work was as complete as his skill could make it. The poet carries us on for a year or two. War breaks out. A squadron of the blacksmith's countrymen is driven over the bridge in headlong flight. Men, horses, guns, try its solidity. For a moment or two the whole weight of the mass really hangs upon the one rivet. There are times in life when the whole weight of the soul also hangs upon a rivet ; the rivet of sobriety, of purity, of honesty, of command of temper. Possibly we have devoted little or no honest work to it in the years when we should have perfected the work ; and so, in the day of trial, the rivet snaps, and we are lost. There is one word of encouragemient which should be finally spoken for the sake of one class of God's servants. Some are sick, weary, broken, paralysed, it may be slowly dying. What — they sometimes think — have we to do with this precept ? Others who have hope, elasticity, capacity of service, may walk as He walked ; but we can scarcely do so. Such persons should remember what walking in the Christian sense is — all life's activity inward and outward. Let them think of Christ upon His cross. He was fixed to it, nailed hand and foot. Nailed ; yet never — not when He trod upon the waves, not when He moved upward through the air to His throne — never did He walk more truly, ii. 6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 1 29 because He walked in the way of perfect love. It is just whilst looking at the moveless form upon the tree that we may hear most touchingly the great ''thou shalt " — thou shalt walk even as He walked. IV. As there is a literal, so there is a mystical walking as Christ walked. This is an idea which deeply pervades St. Paul's writings. Is it His birth ? We are born again. Is it His life ? We walk with Him in newness of life. Is it His death ? We are crucified with Him. Is it His burial ? We are buried with Him. Is it His resurrection ? We are risen again with Him. Is it His ascension — His very session at God's right hand ? '* He hath raised us up and made us sit together with Him in heavenly places." They know nothing of St. Paul's mind who know nothing of this image of a soul seen in the very dust of death, loved, pardoned, quickened, elevated, crowned, throned. It was this conception at work from the beginning in the general consciousness of Christians which moulded round itself the order of the Christian year. It will illustrate this idea for us if we think of the difference between the outside and the inside of a church. Outside on some high spire we see the light just lingering far up, while the shadows are coldly gathering in the streets below; and we know that it is winter. Again the evening falls warm and golden on the church- yard, and we recognise the touch of summer. But inside it is always God's weather; it is Christ all the year long. Now the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, or circumcised with the knife of the law, manifested to 9 ISO THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK the Gentiles, or manifesting Himself with a glory that breaks through the veil ; now the Man tempted in the wilderness ; now the victim dying on the cross ; now the Victor risen, ascended, sending the Holy Spirit ; now for twenty-five Sundays worshipped as the Ever- lasting Word with the Father and the Holy Ghost. In this mystical following of Christ also, the one perpetual lesson is — ^* he that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." NOTES. Ch. ii. 3-11. Ver. 4. A liar.'] There are many things which the " sayer" says by the language of his life rather than by his lips to others: many things which he says to himself. "We lead ourselves astray" (i. 8). We "say" I have knowledge of Him, while yet we observe not His commandments. Strange that we can lie to the one being who knows the truth thoroughly — self', and having lied, can get the lie believed,— " Like one, "Who having, unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie." Tempest, Act I. So. 2. Ver. 7. FreshJ] There are two quite different words alike translated new in A. V. : one of these is the word used here (Kaii/09); the other (yeos). The first always signifies /z^ze; in quaUty — intellectual, ethical, spiritual novelty — that which is opposed to, which replaces and supersedes, the antiquated, inferior, outworn ; new in the world of thought. (Heb. viii. 13 states this with perfect precision.) It may sometimes not inadequately be rendered yr^j/z ("3^oungly,'' Shakespeare, Coriolafius). The other term {yio^) is simply receiit ; 7iew chronologically in the world of time. TVhi'ch ye heard f}'om the beginning.'] Probably a recog- nition of St. Paul's teaching at Ephesus, and of his Epistle to the Ephesians. ii. 6.] A PERSONAL INFLUENCE, 131 Ver. 8. To many commentators this verse seems almost of insoluble difficulty. Surely, however, the meaning is clear enough for those who will place themselves within the atmo- sphere of St. John's thought. " Again a fresh commandment I am w-riting to you" [this commandment, charity, is no unreal and therefore delusive standard of duty]. Taken as one great " whole " (6) " it is true," matter of observable historical fact, because it is realised in Him w^ho gave the command- ment ; capable of realisation, and even in measure realised in you. [And this can be actually done by Christians, and re- cognised more and more by others], "because the shadow is drifting by from the landscape even of the world, and the light, the very light, enlighteneth by a new ideal and a new example." Ver. 10. Sca7idal.~\ In Greek is the rendering of two Hebrew words, (i) That against which we trip and stumble, a stumbling-block ; (2) A hook or snare. Ver. II. The terrible force of this truly Hebraistic parallelism should be noted. 1. He that hateth his brother is in darkness. 2. ,, „ „ walketh in darkness. 3. ,, „ „ knoweth not where he goeth. 4. ,, ,, ,, darkness has blinded his eyes. The third beat of the parallelism contains an allusion to that Cain among the nations, the Jewish people in our Lord's time. (John xii. 35.) In illustration of the powerful expression, ("darkness has blinded his eyes") the present writer quoted a striking passage from Professor Drummond, w^ho adduces a parallel for the Christian's loss of the spiritual faculty, by the atrophy of organs which takes place in moles, and in the fish in dark caverns. {^Speaker s Conuneiitary, in loc.) But as regards the mole at least, a great observer of Nature entirely denies the alleged atrophy. Mr. Buckland quotes Dr. Lee in a paper, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, where he says, —" the eye of the mole presents us with an instance of an organ which is rudimentary, not by arrest of development, but through disuse, aided perhaps by natural selection." But Mr. Buckland asserts that "the same great Wisdom who made the mole's teeth the most beautiful set of insectivorous teeth among 132 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK, animals, also made its eye fit for the work it has to do. The mole has been designed to prey upon earthworms ; they will not come up to the surface to him, so he must go down into the earth to them. For this purpose his eyes are fitted." {Life of F. Buckland, pp. 247, 248). •S e^^ V t : '.a c S 8 X> OJ o c 2 o ^^ ssi-^^' Tj i-^ n; o o rt b;D O ;> n! 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