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higher than themselves, which men, not in one country but in all countries, have spoken of. There are but two ways; one was Hume's way, that of supposing that all the deepest and most earnest thoughts of the most earnest men in the world pointed to nothing. The other is to suppose that they pointed to some Person, whom they could not reach; that all their confused guesses were calls to Him to make Himself known; that He Himself had awakened those calls; that He was testifying to men of Himself; that He was purposing to testify to them fully of Himself. Between Atheism, in its most direct and absolute form, and the conviction that God is manifesting Himself, and that His testimony to us is above all human testimonyis the ground and strength of all human testimony-I believe we shall soon find that there is no alternative. Those who have put forth the doctrine of Positivism in our day are driving us to this discovery. We owe them infinite thanks for it. They are bringing the battle to a point. It will be fought out, not as it has been in former ages of the world, with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, but with burning and fuel of fire. Everything will be involved in it. Wit, letters, science, humanity will for a time be glorified, as if they were substitutes for God. Then they will go down into the unfathomable pit of Atheism. Or they will be seen to have derived their greatness and glory from the God who so loved the world as to give His Son for it; they will rise to a new life e; humanity will have that excellence in the Son of Man which men have fancied they could win for it by casting off His yoke. The earth will come forth a bride adorned for her husband, shining with the radiance of her Creator and her King.

'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.'

As there has been much talk among us about external testimonies and the weight that is to be assigned to them, so there has been much talk about an inward witness, which some might claim and others not. Here St. John speaks of this inward witness very emphatically,' He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." In fact, he could not understand any witness to a man which was not a witness to a man in himself. A mere vision presented to the eyes, if it was the clearest possible, was nothing, unless it signified something to him who used the eyes; unless it entered into his heart and conscience. But St. John never for an instant sanctions the vanity and self-glorification of those who say that Christ is for them and not for the world. If they believe in the Son of God, they believe in a Christ for mankind. The inward witness is of such a one. And if they believe not in a Christ for mankind, a Christ who has reconciled God and Man, St. John is very broad and simple in his assertions respecting them: They make God a liar.' They deny the revelation He has made of Himself in the Baptism and the Death of Jesus; they deny the witness which the Spirit and the water and the blood are together bearing respecting Him.

Good men-some of them men whom I honour and revere-want to get rid of all outward testimonies of God's love, of the water and the blood, and to dwell exclu

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sively on what they call the internal testimony of the Spirit. I do not undervalue their doctrine as a counterweight to much that is coarse, sensual, external, in the language of Churchmen; I think God has appointed it, as a protest against our idolatries. But I do not admit for an instant that they are wiser than St. John, or that they know as well as he did what the witness of the Spirit is. I find them continually setting aside His witness by confounding Him with the thoughts which He inspires in them; with the spirits to which His witness is borne. I think they must do this, and must become very exclusive, and also very often the victims of casual impressions, of nervous ecstasies or depressions, if they are not willing to receive God's testimony to others as well as themselves. This is the blessing of the Water and the Blood.' They speak of a gift, a gift of eternal life to Mankind; a gift not bestowed upon those who are conscious of it, but upon all, in that Son who died for all and lives for all.

The words which follow contain the only possible limitation of this gift, and they are in very truth not a limitation but an expansion of it, 'He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.' We have no life, we can have no life in ourselves. The Spirit does not witness to us of a miserable, partial, selfish, new life, which is given to us because we are Christians or believers, or have certain rare emotions. He testifies to us of a Universal and Everlasting Life which dwells in the Son of God; which we may enjoy, if we do not desire to be separated from the great family in heaven and earth that is named in Him.

LECTURE XVIII.

THE NATURE OF PRAYER-VENIAL AND MORTAL SINS.

1 JOHN V. 13-17.

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

WE are approaching the conclusion of the Epistle; the words, These things have I written,' indicate that St. John is about to give an explanation of its general purpose, if not a summary of its contents. Thus much is obvious on the first reading of them. His object was not to make proselytes of those who lay outside the Christian Church. He addressed himself to those who believed on the name of the Son of God.' They were baptized into that Name; they publicly confessed that Name; it was the Name which drew on them the charge of blasphemy from Jewish rulers and scribes; it was the Name, when associated with the person of Jesus the Crucified, which excited the contempt or hostility of the worshippers of the Greek divinities. All

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acts of united worship among the disciples, all their sufferings, recalled this Name.

But if they had no need to be convinced of its worth or its power, what good was an Apostolical Epistle to do them? St. John makes answer: That ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.' You will wonder at the last clause. It sounds as if he proposed to convert them to a faith which they were possessed of already. Before you determine that it is actually so empty of meaning, consider the first clause. That, at all events, is not a commonplace. 'Ye have eternal life.' Not 'ye may have it; sometime hence 'this unspeakable blessing may be bestowed on you, or ' on such of you as deserve it.' But, it is yours now. The 'gift has been assured to you.' I think many Christians of his day and of ours would rather be startled by the strangeness than by the simplicity of this assertion; would deem it very unlike the notions which they had associated with their traditional faith.

Yet it cannot be said that St. John is introducing a new doctrine at the close of his letter. In the first verses of it he adopted the very language which we meet with here. The Eternal Life is said to have been manifested that they might partake of it and that so their joy might be full. There has been no inconsistency in any of the sentences which followed that early sentence. All have represented Eternal Life as shown forth in Jesus Christ, as given to men in Jesus Christ. All have been signifying that to believe in Christ is to believe in one who has the Eternal Life of God, that Life which is intended for man who is made in the image of God, that life the loss of which is