THE SAFETY OF HOPE.

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'that is not what he hopes for; he is expecting quite a 'different reward from that.' Then, the sooner you tell him what reward is prepared for him—what reward he may be sure of, if he does not refuse to desire it, the better. That is the way to cure him of his delusions. Yes! and whatever experienced people may say to the contrary, that is the way to meet the inmost longing of his heart. He may not be conscious of it; he may think he wishes for a stone, but in very deed what he wishes for is bread. The hope that is springing immortal in his heart—the hope that he has been unable to quench, though he has tried to quench it, at many a sweet and many a bitter water, is the hope of being himself better; of some day casting his slough; of some day rising up a real man. You answer what he means, though not perhaps what he says, when you tell him of this hope which maketh not ashamed, when you tell him that he may and shall find all in God which he has failed to find in the world or in himself.

No doubt men exclaimed then, as they may exclaim now, "What! you would invite transgressors-people who have broken God's law-to hope! How audacious!' St. John anticipates the objection: Every one that doeth sin transgresseth also the law. And sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. And every one that abideth in Him sinneth not. He that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.' As if he had said, 'If I want to 'hinder transgression, that is the breach of law, I must get ' rid of sin, for that leads to all breaches of law; that is the departure from God's eternal law. Well! Christ was 'manifested for this very end; that He might deliver us

'from sin, from the very root of transgression; from the ' inward disease of which my transgression is the outward symptom. 'And in Him is no sin.' When, therefore, 'I bid men hope to see Him, I bid them hope to be free 'from the principle which issues in the offences that the 'law condemns. Not to see Him, not to know Him is 'the cause of sin. cipation from it.'

To see Him, to know Him, is the eman

Christ the Righteous.'
What he is saying is

A very deep and wide-spreading principle, which St. John enunciates in the most fearless manner. At first it sounds alarming to be told that 'Every one that sinneth hath not seen Him, nor known Him.' For he said before,' If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' And again, If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus But he is not contradicting himself. that sin and the sight or knowledge of Christ are antagonistic. The act of sin is the act of shutting our eyes to the true Lord and Deliverer; if we had kept our eyes open, if we had seen and confessed Him, we should not have sinned. This is a truth, and it is an universal truth. It cuts away the pretences of those who call themselves Christians or believers, and make that an excuse for committing sins, because they say God does not treat sins in them as He does in other people. St. John destroys lies and blasphemies of this kind. He affirms once for all, that a man is not a believer, not a Christian, who does any unrighteous and foul acts. But he in nowise hinders any man whatsoever from confessing his sin and betaking himself once more to that hope in God which makes pure.

There is no part of Christian Ethics more profoundly

important than this; none on which we are more liable to make mistakes. I have tried to follow St. John step by step, and not to put my own foolish thoughts and interpretations between you and him. I cannot tell you how many of these foolish thoughts and interpretations his words have laid bare in me, and I trust have scattered. If I did not know how much I am inclined every day to doubt whether I have a right to call God my Father, I should never have found how necessary that faith is to you and to all men; if I had not learnt in myself how hard it is to hope, and how much impurity follows from the loss of hope, I should never have had courage to press it upon you and upon all as at once the divinest privilege and the most sacred duty.

LECTURE XII.

THE DEVIL AND HIS WORKS.

1 JOHN III. 7-11.

Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him : and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

I HAVE spoken to you already of the teachers who boasted that they had a knowledge of divine mysteries to which vulgar Christians could make no pretensions. They were the initiated; the rest were novices. Simple people, the little children of the flock, were likely to be much staggered by such lofty words. Their humility made them think that they deserved the contemptuous treatment which was bestowed on them; they could not tell that the others might not have the profound insight for which they gave themselves credit. The old Apostle speaks to them with a confidence which they felt he at least had a right to assume. 'Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.' Knowledge, you are told, is the thing to be chiefly de

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'sired. Even so. Knowledge of the Righteous One; knowledge of Him who makes us righteous. And doing 'righteousness—sincere, just, truthful acts,—are the results ' and signs of this knowledge. They show whether we 'have this knowledge or are without it.' He comes back to the test which these self-exalting doctors wished to get rid of; the severest test; the most levelling test. But by coming back to it, he vindicates a higher knowledge for the humblest disciples than that which those who refused to be reckoned among mere disciples could claim for themselves. The knowledge of Christ, as the standard of all righteousness, he declares to be the heritage of them all; a knowledge involving practice, and advancing as it advances.

He has told them what will make them righteous; fellowship or intercourse with a Righteous Lord of their spirits. He goes on to tell them how they become sinful; viz. by holding intercourse with an unrighteous spirit, by submitting to him as their Lord. He that committeth sin is of the Devil, for the Devil sinneth from the beginning.' The word Diabolos' means Accuser or Slanderer. 6 What he says, giving his words their most literal sense, is, that one who sins or goes astray from God does so by listening to the voice of a spirit who accuses or slanders God. I have often been told by persons whose learning I respect, that this is the doctrine of an old Jew, which we in the nineteenth century have long outlived. They speak, no doubt, for themselves; they mean that there are no facts in their own experience, to which this doctrine of the old Jew corresponds. If it were so with me, I should be silent. For I have found so much in my own mind which his teaching has explained, which I could not have