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LECTURE XV.

THE PERFECTED LOVE.

1 JOHN IV. 14-21.

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

THE question presented itself to us in the last Lecture, When St. John bade the disciples at Ephesus love one another, did he mean that the world beyond their circle was to be excluded from their love?' I was not in haste to answer this question. I contented myself with hinting that the exercise of love is most difficult towards those with

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whom we are most in contact.

not leave us long in suspense.

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St. John, however, does
We have seen,' he says,

' and do testify, that the Father sent the Son (to be) a Saviour of the world.' That is the truth which became evident to the little band of disciples while they were showing love one to another; that is the witness which they were bearing;

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD.

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they existed only to bear it. The blessing which they were inheriting was a blessing for the world. He who was the ground of their fellowship, the author and finisher of their faith, was the Saviour of the world.

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Let us consider this testimony of theirs more attentively. The name Saviour' was not with them, if it is with us, a technical name, a name out of which the life had departed; a Saviour was one who saves,-saves from actual misery and bondage. What actual misery or bondage had they been saved from? Is it not a misery that men of the same flesh and blood should be living as if they had nothing in common, nothing to bind them to each other, as if each stood in the other's way? They had been saved from this misery; they had found a common interest, a common Lord. They had looked upon God as far off from them, in the hours when they felt most they could not live without Him; they had found Him sometimes fearfully near, when they wished they could drive Him to an infinite distance. They had been saved from the thought that God and they were separated; they had been saved from the wish that He should be separated from them. The name God with us had become the dearest of all names to them. And yet the reverence for God, as the perfect Goodness, as the great enemy of all that was not good in them and the universe, had become immeasurably deeper than it had ever been. Why? Because the Father had sent the Son; because they had believed that He who was with them, their helper and deliverer, was the Son of God; the Son in whom that Being of absolute goodness delighted; because they had learnt to call Him, in Christ, their Father. This was salvation; what more did they want?

They did want something more; but it was implied in what they had already seen and felt. Their Lord was the Lord of the world; they had a right to tell the world so ; they had no right to suppress the proclamation. For this end had the Father sent the Son, not simply to gather a little body out of the world which should have His love and not the world's love in it, which should obey Him and not the world; but by that means to save the world. Strange as the message sounded in other ears and in their own, He was the Saviour of that world which treated them as aliens and outcasts. Its curse was their curse. Its members were divided from each other. The Father had sent the Son to save them from that division. He was the head of every man; the centre of human beings. The majority regarded God as afar from them; even though their consciences told them that it was death to be away from Him; they dreaded lest He should approach them; lest that should be their death. The Father sent the Son to save the world from this death; in the Son He reconciled the world unto Himself.

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Supposing St. John had not been at liberty to use this language; supposing he had been obliged to tell the Ephesians, The Father has sent the Son to be your Saviour, not to be the Saviour of the world,' think what the effect would have been on the testimony which they bore in the world! The very word testimony would have been inapplicable. They might have argued with men to convince them that Christians were right and they were wrong, that Christians were happy and they were miserable; but they could not have testified, 'We have found the King to whom all in heaven and earth owe homage; we can tell you what He is.'

THE PRIVILEGE OF CHURCHMEN.

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They might have spoken of a scheme of salvation, and explained most learnedly how different parts of it fitted into each other. They could not have testified as St. John does in the next verse: 'Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God.' That is the message of a man who believes, as St. Paul told the Athenians-men given to idolatry, frivolous men,-that 'God is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.' For he added, ' Certain of your own poets have said, We also are His offspring.' If they believed Jesus to be the Son of God, the barrier which divided them from Him in whom they were living and being—the barrier of ignorance, discord, hatred, was broken down; they were brought into the proper state of men; 'God dwelt in them, and they in God.' If they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, the dream of the poet was found to be a true dream. They were the offspring of God; God had created and chosen them in His only-begotten Son; they could call Him their Father.

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Was there, then, no blessing, no privilege, in the condition of Christ's flock? Might they just as well have been still a portion of the denying world? St. John shall answer, not I: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.' This was the blessing, this was the privilege. The infinite misery of the denying world was, that it did not know and believe the love that God had to it; that it believed Him to have no love to it; that it refused all communion with love. That neither the belief of the Church or the unbelief of the world, affected the nature and being of God in the least, he affirms in the next clause, where he repeats the sentence I spoke of in the

last Lecture: God is love.' This is not an accident of His character, but its essence; not an aspect which it wears at certain times or to some fortunate persons, but that which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, that which has no respect of persons. But here is the difference: 'He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.' By dwelling in love, that love which Christ had manifested, by entering with heart and soul into it, by permitting it to govern them, they dwelt in God and God in them; they became partakers of His nature instead of aliens from Him, at one with Him instead of at war with Him.

I have spoken of a strange contradiction which there is in 'men's minds when they think of God. They feel as if it would be a dreadful thing to lose Him, and yet as if it would be a more dreadful thing to be brought near Him, to be in His open presence. If you consider how you have spoken yourselves, how you have heard others speak of the day of Judgment, you will understand what I mean. We complain that the world is not at all what it ought to be; that there is tyranny and injustice in high places; that there is not merely misery here and there, but a predominance of misery; that sickness and death seem as if they were stronger than health and life; that truth and honesty are often despised by those who pass with the highest reputation, even with a reputation for religion; that even men, whom we are bound to think sincere and good in the main, have much alloy mixed with their gold. We cry in our hearts, if not with our lips, 'When will the Lord of the 'earth set these things right? When will He put down 'those who abuse His Name and His power to the sanction ' of foul deeds? When will He restore peace, and drive

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