SERMON XXII. PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY ON THE SUNDAY AFTER EASTER, 1842. 1 JOHN V. 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. On this day our thoughts still connect themselves with the great and joyful event we celebrated last Sunday. The Resurrection is for eternity, and it is meet that we should not be content to give it a mere thought and pass by, but should rather renew the sound of it upon our lips and the joy of it in our hearts both weekly, as we do, throughout the year, and now especially on the first return of its weekly memorial. And as last Sunday we could not but regard it almost exclusively in the Person of Him Who deigned to die that He might be its first-fruit, so to-day, when we repeat our memorial, as string answers to string at a just interval, in beginning again the reckoning of our days; to-day, I say, it is natural that we should turn our minds to the New Creation of which He is the Beginning, and remark the terms in which it is described in Holy Writ. The Gospel for the day leads us to consider this with reference to the whole constitution of the Church, and the powers entrusted to its rulers, and the first lesson at morning service indicates the awful sanction, by which those powers are guarded against intrusion. But the Epistle seems more directly to relate to the Individual Believer. Such indeed is clearly its primary meaning, and in this way it may be well now to consider it, though its general propositions may be extended by inevitable consequence to the Church. The sense of the text, with which it commences, appears to run on from the former verse, thus far at least, that these words account for what was stated in those. This is the Love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous. FOR whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh (or rather, as the Greek, that overcame) the world, even our faith. And the Apostle is clearly making this truth a ground of exhortation, tending to the general object of his Epistle, That ye sin not. His argument is this: "Ye have in you that which hath overcome sin, and is of power to overcome to the end, therefore it is not grievous that ye are required to go on and conquer." He writes throughout to the truly faithful, and takes chiefly into view the bright and heavenly side of things as God gives them to us rather than as we make them. And this is a real and true view of things, this is what our privileges really are, and we create a falsehood when we make them less. God is true, though every man were a liar, but He will indeed be glorified in His Saints, and one day will declare His victories in them, to the shame of those who are harnessed and carry the bow, but turn back in the day of battle. There is a passage in the Epistle to the Galatians in which the same argument is put in different words, and there is the more reason for referring to it because it is sometimes explained in a sense directly contrary to that which it really conveys: This I say a Rom. iii. 4. b 2 Thess. i. 10. c Psalm lxxviii. 9. then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. A av Oéλnte. θέλητε. : Whose invention is it that Christians must here take the worse alternative? Text and context, letter and spirit, the passage itself, and the whole tenor of the New Testament, as well as the promises of the Old, contradict this monstrous position. It is true we cannot possibly do ἳ ἂν θέλωμεν, 'whatever we have an inclination to do.' For we have opposite principles at work in us, which contradict one another, and cannot both be followed. But what then? Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Is not this the same thing as, And His commandments are not grievous; for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world? Let us not deceive ourselves, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reape. It is much safer to find out the real view given of our state in Holy Writ, though it may bear hard upon us as we are, than to make one to suit our low d Gal. v. 16, 17. See note t, p. 220. e Gal. vi. 7. and worldly practice, and put contempt upon God, that we may keep hold of mammon. Let it be granted, as the result of our sad experience, that we cannot do all we would in the service of God, or do it as we would. Still let us not force that meaning upon words that were meant to teach us something higher, and more encouraging, and more awful. Now there are some ways of desiring knowledge according to which it seems fixed and determined that we are not to have any satisfaction. Curiosity indeed defeats itself, and we cannot conceive it satisfied, except at some instant of gratification, for it will ever be prying into whatsoever is withheld from it. But besides this, there is another way of seeking which the system of revelation and of providence seems expressly calculated to baffle; the seeking a security for ourselves short of a simple trust in God; and another, the seeking an exact knowledge of how little we may do for Him. We are taught how we ought to walk and to please God, we are taught by Whose strength we may be enabled to do it, and we are taught that that strength will never fail us. But whether each one of us shall |