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OUTWARD AND INWARD ASSURANCES.

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I ought to believe. I hope

'And hereby,' he adds, ' we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.' This verse, like the last, seems to break down the barrier which separates the Apostle's world from ours. How often we hear persons say, 'Well, I hope I believe as 'I am holding the truth. But there is great uncertainty. 'Some people think one thing, some another. I should like 'to have some security. I wish I knew some one who 'could tell me, That is the opinion you should hold, that

is the opinion you should reject; that is the thing you 'should do, that is the thing you should not do.' Those who speak thus generally ask for some external dictator who shall relieve them of their responsibility. There are others who are craving for an inward assurance. They want to be able, as the hymn says, to read their title clear to mansions in the skies;' to have some authentic token that they shall be blessed hereafter.

These anxieties which are at work now, have been at work always, though they may have presented themselves in different aspects. St. John addresses himself to them, and turns them to the most practical account. You want to know that you are of the truth? Ask the God of truth to keep you from loving in word and tongue, and not in deed and in truth. You want to assure your hearts respecting your relation to God? Ask the God of love Himself to dwell in you, and to direct your thoughts and acts according to His will. You will not need dictators to tell you what the truth is, if the Source of all truth is leading you into it. You will not need assurances about a future heaven, if you have heaven within you now.

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our

heart, and knoweth all things.' What tricks that we have all practised upon ourselves does this sentence lay bare! What webs of theological and ethical sophistry does it cut through! A man wants some comfortable assurance that he is right with God. And yet his heart is not right with itself. There is uneasiness and bitterness in his conscience. He feels that he has not been loving in deed and truth, but only in word and tongue. His heart tells him so. 'Well,' says the Apostle, 'you must be right with that heart, if you 'wish to be right with God. You are not at peace with 'yourself, because you know that you are wrong. Do you really think God does not know you are wrong? What is 'this verdict of your heart but His verdict? Can you get 'Him to reverse it, if it is, as you feel it is, a true verdict?'

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The argument is very plain, the doctrine indisputable. And yet by practically admitting it, by accepting it as the rule of our lives, what trouble, what a multitude of complicated calculations, what infinite distress, we shall save ourselves! At first, perhaps, it begets a kind of despair. 'Whatever my heart says, God says first, and with greater 'emphasis. He knows more against me than I know against myself. How terrible to encounter His scrutiny! 'Hills and mountains, fall on me, and hide me from Him!' But look again. God is greater than my heart, and knoweth 'all things. He knows what has set me wrong, as I do 'not know it. He can set me right, though I cannot set myself right.' This is the comfort of not merely believing in a conscience, but in a God who speaks through my conscience; this is the comfort of not thinking that it is my lawgiver, but that He is my lawgiver; this is the comfort of being able to say to Him who is my Judge,

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DOING AND BELIEVING.

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Search me, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

And so we are brought to peace with the adversary who is within us. When we turn round to the light from which

us;

we have been turning away, our heart no longer condemns it tells us we are right. And if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God.' We can look cheerfully up to Him who has reconciled us to Himself, and wishes us to be at one with Him. We can be sure that His will is the right will, the blessed will, and that to be in subjection to it is our right and our blessedness. Or, as St. John expresses it more fully and satisfactorily, And whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.' I have endeavoured before to explain that phrase, 'keep His commandments.' What we have heard to-day has thrown further light upon it. To keep God's commandments is to remember what that law is which He has established for the universe; what the law of His own mind, of His own life, is. When we submit to that law, His life acts upon our life. 'He dwells in us, and so we are able to do the things that 'He would have us to do," the things that are pleasing in "His sight."

As St. John says,

But a question might still occur to some person who had been used to hear the doing or keeping of the commandments set in opposition to faith in Christ, 'All you want us, then, ' is to do right. You do not care so much what we believe.' Nay, he says, 'If you ask me what God's first command'ment is, I should say, that we should believe in the name of 'His Son Jesus Christ. For have not I told you that the

perfect law of God, because the perfect life of God, is set 'forth in Him; specially in His death? Have I not said 'that there we see Love, and how inseparable it is from the 'giving up of self? How, then, can we keep God's com'mandment, how can we come under His law so completely, as by acknowledging this Son as the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person; by trusting ' in Him as our elder brother and Mediator and Advocate ? For by doing so we are able to keep that commandment which He Himself gave us, which He gave us because 'He had fulfilled it and embodied it in His life, that we 'should love one another.'

Thus we arrive at the two counter-signs to those of the devilish birth with which we began. Doing righteousness and loving the brethren are the signs of the heavenly birth. They denote the adopted child of God; because they denote the only-begotten Son of God. He was perfectly righteous, for He perfectly trusted His Father, and would not glorify Himself. He perfectly loved men. That love came forth in the sacrifice of Himself. But this sacrifice set forth, as nothing else could, the character, the righteousness of God. When we come into this region, all the seeming contradiction between Righteousness and Love disappears. They must be one if the Father is one with the Son; they must be one if the Son is the perfect image of the Father; they must be one if the Son is He in whose image Man is created.

I reserve the last verse for the next Lecture. It might be a very beautiful conclusion to the subject which we have been considering to-day. I think it is still more important as an introduction to the subject of the fourth chapter.

LECTURE XIV.

SPIRITUAL POWERS IN OLD TIMES AND IN MODERN TIMES.

1 JOHN III. 24; AND IV. 1–9.

"And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

WE are again reminded, by the first of these verses, that the expression, Abide in me, is characteristic of St. John, and that we could not change it for any more formal or artificial phrase without enfeebling, perhaps destroying, the truth which he is imparting to us. If I call your attention very often to these peculiarities in his language, it is partly