having found a friend where he had deserved an enemy. The old man more and more sees this forgiveness as coming from the very nature of Him who was in the beginning. All the successive revelations of God discover to him the same unchangeable Will. In that he rests. The revelation of what God has done leads him to what He is. It is a delightful vision of a calm, clear old age. We need not desire to have it in this earth. The old Apostle must have entered far more fully into its joys himself, when his eyes were closed on the earth.

III. And now he comes to a class which we know better than either of these, though perhaps it may not have the same charm for us as either. I write to you, young men.' We take it for granted that he is going to speak of hard, tough fighting, when he introduces these young men. How strange that he should add, 'for ye have overcome the wicked one!' 'Overcome!' we say; they cannot be much 'like us, then. We are at best but able to keep ourselves 'from being overcome; and that by no means always. And yet I am confident he would not have wished us, any of us, not to receive his writing as addressed to ourselves. I am confident he would have been greatly grieved if any one of the young men of Ephesus had said,—' Yes! 'that applies to me; I can take it home to myself, but my 'neighbour here has no part or lot in it.' I believe that just as he told all the children to believe that their sins were forgiven for Christ's Name's sake, so he meant all the young men to understand that the Evil One had been overcome for them in the same mighty Name. That is the meaning of our Lord's Temptation. It was a victory over the power of evil, not for Himself only, but for those whose

nature He had taken. 'Man,' He said, 'shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.' He would not tempt God by casting Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, that we might not tempt God by casting ourselves from any position that is given to us. He said, 'Get thee behind me, Satan; thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only,' that we might be sure we owe no worship to the Devil; that we might know he is not our master; that we might mock and defy him. St. John, therefore, could say to these young men, in the midst of all the toil and war of the world, 'Ye have overcome the Evil One. Treat him

6

as one that is overcome. Refuse him homage, and he will 'flee from you.' And this is a truth, which we, too, must lay fast hold of; however strange and incredible it may sometimes appear to us. We must say, fearlessly, 'The Devil is not the king of the world, though he may feign 'to be so. The good God is the King; whatever sets itself against Him will be found weak and contemptible ' at last.'

6

IV. There is, however, a danger even in these blessed and necessary testimonies, if others are not joined to them; they must not be qualified, that we cannot afford,—that would have been unworthy of our Apostle's truthfulness,— but another aspect of them may be needful that this aspect may be clearer, and that we may be delivered from any false impressions which the first may have produced on our weak eyesight. You will observe that the Apostle travels over the same ground again, not fearing the charge of repeating himself, if he can make his position more evident. • I have written to you, little children,'—not now, because your sins are forgiven, but because ye have known the

Father.' Christians have often exulted in the thought that their sins were forgiven, till an incredible conceit has taken possession of them, and the very belief that their sins are blotted out, has led them to commit fresh sins. Therefore he tells these children that the blessedness of being forgiven was, that it brought them to trust in a Father, and be acquainted with a Father; that it gave them confidence to approach Him and have fellowship with Him. This is not merely the correction of a possible (and a too probable) error. It is the enlargement and full illustration of the doctrine he had declared before. It shows how the forgiveness of the family is the foundation of the forgiveness of the individual. To draw nigh to God by that name of Father,―to understand how He thinks, feels, acts as a Father, this is, indeed, the privilege of children.

The reason for writing to the fathers is the same as before; that deep-grounded knowledge of Him that was from the beginning, excludes false and self-conceited notions; nothing can be added to it which can make it more perfect. But the address to the young men undergoes a very important alteration: 'I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.' He gives them credit for strength. It belongs to their age. They have it even if they are misusing it; they have it, priding themselves on it, and require to be taught their weakness. But this is the secret of their strength. The Word of God abideth in them. It is not their own power which is struggling against all the temptations to evil within them and around them. It is the Word of God who is the source of all light and wisdom and power in

even if they are

man; it is the Word who took flesh and dwelt among them that He might overcome the Evil Spirit. These young men are engaged with a conquered enemy, but with ɔne who will seek to persuade them that he is almighty. Only while they give up their own strength and depend upon that living Word who is sustaining them at every moment, will they be able to prove that they are not the slaves of the enemy.

All young men of this day, all that are now struggling against their own enemies and God's, have a right to this same confidence. It is only dangerous when it becomes confidence in themselves. It is only dangerous when they forget that Christ's victory in the wilderness was not the end but only the beginning of the conflict in which He was engaged for the deliverance of them and the glory of God

11.11.44.2.

13 Nov 142

LECTURE VIII.

THE WORLD AND THE FATHER.

1 JOHN II. 15-18.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever

You remember the words of which I spoke to you last Sunday, 'I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong.' I think it is especially for these young men that St. John designs the precept, Love not the world,' which I have just read to you. But we shall not understand that precept, nor the reason of it, nor the place which it holds in Christian ethics, if we do not recollect also what he has said to the children.

We talk of sons going out into the world. Hitherto they have been dwelling in the house of their father. Day by day they have had experience of his care and government. They have had experience of it when they have been right, and when they have been wrong; when they have done the things which he commanded them, and when they have disobeyed him; when they have confessed their faults,