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learnt from Him not to think of the Godhead as selfwilled power or sovereignty. They thought of a Father and a Son. They could not see the Will of the Father except in the submission of the Son. They could not dwell on the submission of the Son without finding its ground and root in the Will of the Father. They were Jews; they had a greater horror of dividing the Godhead, of setting up two gods, than any of their countrymen had. But it was precisely this belief in the Unity of the Father and the Son which kept them from dividing the Godhead. If they had reverenced and loved Jesus as they reverenced and loved Him, and had not believed that He was one with the Father, they would have worshipped two gods, or they would have set a man above God.

St. John perceived that the preachers of a new Christ were guiding their disciples back into the old idolatry. The heathen gods each expressed some conception which men had formed of the Divine Being; some relation which they had seen must exist between them and Him, or some quality which they supposed must belong to Him, because they found it in themselves. The Name of God which the Christian Church proclaimed was, the Apostle believed, that Name which the heathens had been seeking after. It was the full revelation of Him Whom they had divided. If that Name were forgotten, Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva might not return in their old forms, but there would come in a multitude of vague conceptions and notions that would be far less real and personal than the demigods they displaced.

Therefore he says, in the next verse, 'Let that, therefore, abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If

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that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.' They had heard from the beginning that God had sent forth His Son made of a woman, that they might be the sons of God in Him. They had heard from the beginning that God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son, that they might be able to cry to God as their Father. This was the groundwork of the Apostolical teaching. Those who accepted it as true, those to whose consciences it came as a word sent to them from Heaven, were baptized. They might come from the East or the West, they might be Jews or Greeks, they might be rich or poor, they might be freemen or bondsmen. This baptism was for all nations. The Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit embraced all. Each man had a right to say, 'It is put upon 'me. I am sealed with it. The God in Whom I am living, ' and moving, and having my being, has written His Name upon me, has made me a partaker of His life and blessedness.' Therefore St. John says, 'I do not tell you something different from that which I told you at the first. All I say is, do not forget that. Let it dwell in 'you. Let it enter more and more deeply into you.'

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What would be the result? The two blessings which men want most; perseverance and growth. They would continue in the Father and the Son. The spirit wants a home and a dwelling-place as much as the body. It as truly abides in a person or friend whom it trusts, as a body abides in a house. But the more it abides, the more it expands. It discovers more to trust, more to love in Him to Whom it is attached. It grows wider as it knows more of Him. St. John says to them, 'Abide in Him, Who has

'united you to Himself, Who has died your death, that you might share His life; then every day will reveal to you more of that Father from Whom He came, Whose perfect image He is. It will not be dry, hard knowledge; it will be the knowledge you acquire of the home in which you have • been brought up; it will be the knowledge you acquire of the brother upon whom you are leaning daily for succour ' and support; of a parent whose character is coming forth 'to you more and more through His affection to you and His care of you. You will continue in the Son and the 'Father. You are united to them already. God has esta'blished bonds between you and Him which cannot be broken. • You will find how blessed these bonds are. You will learn 'more of their nature. You will see how all outward events, sorrowful and joyful, how all your inward struggles may be means of fastening them more closely about you. The thought of some other Christ, who is not a brother of man, who is not a Son, who exults in his power not in his • obedience, will become utterly loathsome and intolerable 'to you. You will cry out in your hearts, "How long, O "Lord, faithful and true, wilt Thou suffer these false Christs, 'these oppressors of the earth, these counterfeits of Thy 'loving power, to deceive men by their lies, and to trample upon them with their cruelties?" And every judgment upon the nations, every fresh morning that rises upon the earth out of the dark night, every tempest that sweeps the air, will be an answer from the throne of God Himself. 'Wait a little; I come to scatter all who divide and rend in 'pieces my heritage. I come to establish the throne of 'Him Who is the Prince of righteousness and peace.'

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This is but one part—a small part—of the promise,' Ye

THE PROMISE.

shall abide in the Son and in the Father.'

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How can I even

dream what is the length and breadth of it?

How could I

express in words what I have seen among poor bed-ridden men and women of that which they were learning, as they kept up a continual trust in Jesus Christ their Lord, and so rose more and more into an apprehension of His Father and their Father? How could I guess at the glimpses which were afforded them of a love which passes knowledge, a love which comprehends all men and all things within its grasp? One can only judge of what was passing within them by the patience, hope, gentleness, self-sacrifice, which they shed forth around them. These were tokens, not to be mistaken, that they were drinking into a divine life; that it was the life of Him Who bore the Cross and denied Himself; that it was the life of that Father Whom He trusted, and Who dwelt in Him.

For St. John goes on, And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.' In my second Lecture I dwelt on these words, eternal life. I endeavoured to make you see that the life which Christ manifested, the life of perfect truth, justice, charity, cannot belong to time; that it would be the greatest absurdity to measure it by hours and days and years. Our consciences and reasons utterly repudiate such a contradiction. How, then, shall we speak of it? St. John supplies us with the word. He calls it the eternal life. If it is the life of God, it must be that; if it is not the life of God, we deny his first proposition, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to set forth the life of God. What St. John would have us feel is, that there can be no promise to compare with this; that we should share the eternal life, the life of God-every

other must look pale and paltry beside it. This might appear a self-evident proposition, and yet there is none which we are so apt to set at nought in practice. We often speak as if people were to be paid for being good; not as if the being good were itself God's highest gift and blessing. Such an opinion comes from our not thinking of God Himself as the good and the true Being, or else from our not thinking that He has made us capable of entering into His goodness and knowing His truth. The Bible from first to last is proclaiming that it is possible to know Him and to be like Him, that this is the end which men are to desire and expect, and that they cannot be content with any lower end. 'When I awake up

after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it,' says the Psalmist. St. John is unfolding to us the meaning of that verse, and is telling us in Whom it is that we may see God's likeness; Who is opening the eyes of our spirit that we may see it.

'These things,' he continues, 'have I written to you concerning them that seduce you.' He had written to them. concerning the Father and the Son, because the new teachers were drawing them from their allegiance to Jesus, Who had glorified His Father, and had set up Christs, who came in their own name, and sought their own glory. He had written to them about that which they had heard from the beginning, because these teachers said that their early lessons were obsolete, and that grown men must discard them. He had written to them of their abiding in their family fellowship, because these teachers, under pretence of giving them sublimer lore, would have led them to separate themselves from each other,

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