LECTURE XVII.

THE WITNESSES.

1 JOHN V. 6—12.

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This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth], the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

ST. JOHN told his Ephesian flock that faith in Jesus as the Christ the Son of God would give them a victory over the world. What world did they suppose him to mean? They were dwelling in the midst of a rich commercial city. Many of them might be engaged in commerce themselves. A system of thoughts, notions, habits, were connected with their commercial dealings; that system of thoughts, notions, habits characterised the commercial world. They were living in a city which had been colonized by Greeks, the most accomplished, subtle, imaginative of all people. A whole system of thoughts connecting the outward visible

THE EPHESIAN WORLD.

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world and its doings, with the worship of beautiful beings whose forms could be represented in marble, and worshipped in splendid temples, had established itself in Asia Minor, had partly superseded the older faiths of that region, partly adopted them into itself. This system of thoughts and feelings with all the ceremonial, and modes of life in which it had expressed itself, surrounded these Ephesians continually; they were born into it; this was a Pagan religious world. But there were trading with these Asiatic Greeks, settled in the heart of their city, a portion of the family of Abraham. They had brought with them their traditions, which were so unlike those of other people; they had their own synagogues, differing in all respects, outward and inward, from the Greek Temples; they believed there was one Temple, and only one, in which acceptable sacrifices could be offered to the true God. Those Jews formed a world within the other world, a world which touched that at a great many points, and yet was hostile to it. Many members of the Ephesian Church had actually belonged to that world; all were exposed to its influence and its persecutions. Once more; the rich commercial city of Ephesus had bowed down to a city that was not commercial at all, to a city on the banks of the Tiber, which starting from small beginnings had at last embraced the countries which the Greeks had acquired and civilized, the countries in which Jews had established themselves, Greece itself, Judæa itself, within its vast dominion. Rome had introduced laws, institutions, maxims of government, of which Greeks and Asiatics felt the power, though they were conscious of having some kinds of wisdom which their masters wanted. Rome had a religion nomi

nally resembling that of the Greeks, really different from it, seeing that it was inseparably connected with the State and its order. Rome had thus built up a world empire, and also a world within each city which it reorganised. Governors, magistrates, municipal officers, gave a new tone to every society it vanquished. They did not destroy the old local habits, but they grafted upon them new habits such as belonged to a race which believed that its destiny was to subdue all nations to itself.

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Now St. John's disciples of course understood him to say, 'You know that the various tempers, and tone of thinking in all these worlds are not what you have learnt; that they contradict those old commandments which you heard 'from the beginning, and that new commandment which 'Jesus proclaimed; that all equally set at nought that name by which you are called. And over each of them, ' over all of them you can have a victory, if you believe 'Jesus to be the Son of God. You can be free from the world if you are bound to Him.' This, I say, he must have meant whatever else he may have meant: in this sense his earliest readers will have understood him, if they merely regarded his words as admonitions and encouragements to themselves. But you will feel, I am sure, that this is not the only way in which we can read the words. That Ephesian commercial world has passed away; that Greek world with its idolatries has passed away; that Jewish world has passed away; that Roman world has passed away. Each has left wonderful traces of itself behind; but its forms, habits, thoughts, are obsolete. And the faith that Jesus is the Christ, is the Son of God, has established a dominion in all the countries in whic

THE GOSPEL POWER.

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these worlds had so mighty an influence;—in countries which they did not reach, which were not dreamed of when they were in their glory. This faith has, by some means or other, in some very remarkable sense, actually overcome these worlds. And then the question arises, By what means?-in what sense has it overcome the world? If we can get these questions answered, we may be able to answer others which are at least as important to us. What is it that is still to be overcome? Can it be overcome for us by any power which St. John makes known to us?

You will wonder, I dare say, at the words of St. John which follow these respecting the victory over the world, the words with which the passage I am to consider this morning begins,- This is He which came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit which beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.' 'What has this to do with the battle between the Gospel ' and the world? If he had told us of the purity of the 'moral code of Christianity, of the simplicity of its worship, 'of its superiority on these grounds to the other religions of the earth,—we might, you will be inclined to say, have ' understood him; that might have accounted for some of 'the strange events which have happened since his day. 'But what can we learn from these incomprehensible ex6 pressions about water and blood?'

I confess that this language of the Apostle satisfies my intellect as well as my conscience much better than that language about Christianity, and its moral code, and its pure worship, which is so much more popular, and, in the judgment of some, so much more philosophical. Supposing a better code of morals and a purer worship has established

itself in the world, I want to know how. That is the fact to be explained; I must not take the fact as if it were the explanation. It cannot be assumed that men are naturally inclined to a worship and a code of morals which restrain and counteract their natural inclinations; to say so, sounds like a great paradox. And if you introduce a divine power, and say, 'God has done that for men which they could not have done for themselves,' I may be well inclined to accept the statement; I may admit that you have found the only possible solution of the puzzle. But since God has clearly not uttered a simple decree that men shall have a different worship and obey a purer code now than in the days of old; since no such decree could have effected that purpose, so long as we are constituted as God has constituted us; since there has been clearly a process at work, a process which has acted upon the minds and consciences of men ;—I am driven again to ask, What has that process been? What testimonies have been borne to the minds and consciences of men which they have confessed by receiving the message of the Gospel?

In replying to this question, St. John does not, you perceive, introduce the word Christianity at all. No such word is found in the New Testament. Surely we may be most thankful for the omission. For what a vague phrase it is! How continually it stands for a hundred different meanings, or does duty for a meaning that is absent altogether! It is not Christianity of which the beloved Apostle and all the Apostles speak to us; it is Christ. It is not a collection of notions, habits, practices; it is a Person. 'Jesus is the Christ'-that is the proclamation which was made by fishermen and tentmakers in the ears of a denying