affirming that the most unequivocal mark of a divine ordination on the part of teachers, is the desire that they manifest to advance their hearers in the knowledge of Christ, and to promote their more perfect understanding in the mysteries of that kingdom of God, which consists "not in meat and drink," i. e. in things external, ceremonial, or civil, but "in righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost." And this they have at heart, as it regards all learners in the school of Christ, in order that their joy in the Lord may be more full, and their peace in the Lord more fully established and uninterrupted; the end of such increased spiritual joy and peace being, as they know from Scripture testimony, and from the experience of their own souls, an increase of spiritual strength, a more vigorous life of faith, and a more energetic manifestation of those peculiar graces of the Spirit, which in their exercise redound to the glory of God. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." So we read: and upon a conviction of the truth of this assertion, the spiritual labourers in the vineyard of the Lord, cease not to present to the view of the faithful, those objects which in their believing contemplation do most substantially rejoice the soul, and those considerations, by the help of which faith is enabled to cast her sure and stedfast anchor within the veil.

Amongst this class of teachers, so graciously provided by our Lord for the furtherance of his people's joy, all who have spiritual discernment will acknowledge the apostle John to have been eminently skilled, as "a workman needing not to be ashamed;" and that his mode of teaching is admirably calculated to effect the object he had in view; even the full joy of the followers of Jesus. This proposed end of his instructions he opens

to us in the fourth verse of the first chapter of this epistle. He explicitly declares his object in these memorable words: "These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." His intention, then, is obvious. He knew that faith-saving faith, might in very many cases exist where there was no corresponding joy; or at least no such joy, and above all, no such " fulness of joy," as in every case it ought to produce. And such a state of things he desired to remedy, being aware that it neither promoted the glory of God, nor the edification of the Church.

He would have believers " rooted and grounded" in the doctrine of the love of God; (not of their love to God, but of God's love to them) that being fully satisfied as to the reality of the "great love wherewith God hath loved them," a corresponding joy might possess their hearts; -a joy which should confirm the soul, and strengthen it against the power of sin. In the opening verse of the second chapter of this epistle, the apostle gives as a further reason for the consolatory instruction he is imparting to the churches, that he desires their establishment in holiness. He says, 'These things write I unto you, that ye sin not." And he knew that sin would be most effectually restrained in its baneful operation, by the counteracting influence of the love of God shed abroad in the heart.

The apostle had realized in his own experience the efficacy of deep and clear views of that love of Christ which passeth knowledge. He could say feelingly and experimentally, "We love him because he first loved us;" and hence his anxiety that others should also walk with him in that clear light of truth, which had been vouchsafed to his own favoured spirit. He knew also, with a brother apostle, that if by an act of special

grace on the part of the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, he had been in a peculiar manner admitted into joyful fellowship with the Triune Jehovah, this was for the consolation and salvation of the church, (2 Cor. i. 3—6.) and that his rich possessions of faith and love, dispensed to him from above by the Author of every good and perfect gift, had been bestowed, "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

In the title prefixed to the first of the three epistles which bear the name of the beloved disciple, the word general is added. And hence we learn that the apostle wrote for believers of every name and place, without distinction of particular churches; so that his doctrine was of universal application, and his precepts the common property of all the saints, whether they were saints at Corinth or at Rome, the beloved of God at Ephesus, or in any other place. This we know to be also true of every one of the epistles, not entitled general epistles, but written to particular churches: for take from the universal church the writings of the great apostle of the gentiles, and what do we do, but threaten the destruction of that edifice, which is the pillar and stay of the truth.

Nevertheless, the word general, found in the title of this Epistle of John, at once decides a point which some of the ignorant as well as crafty opponents of the faith may be disposed to dispute, in cases where the apostolic address is apparently more circumscribed. But let us not imagine, (for this would be an error of an equally pernicious kind, although not entertained with any premeditated hostility,) that the apostle John wrote only for the universal church existing in his own time, and not for their successors in the faith, even for us, whom

it has pleased the Lord our God to call, in a far distant age, and in a land, it may be, unknown to the inspired writer. Most assuredly the apostolic writings are the common heritage of the saints in every age and every clime. To us are these oracles of God committed; for us they were indited. And if John, and Paul, and Peter were in some respects ignorant of the individuals for whom they wrote; if it was not permitted them to see, through the vista of future years, the congregations of the saints, assembling in the uttermost parts of the habitable earth, there was yet a mind foreknowing our existence, a divine intelligence at work, inditing to the inspired penman every thought, and sentiment, and word of truth, as applicable to our state, our circumstances, our condition. And could it be otherwise? For is not our condition now, as believers in the Lord, precisely the same in all essential points with that of the first Christians? In external circumstances we may differ widely from them. We may live under different forms of temporal dominion, under different forms of ecclesiastical polity. Our civil institutions may be very dissimilar to theirs; our language, our customs, and our manners unlike. But as Christians, we possess the same faith with them, for there is but one faith; the same baptism, for there is only one; the same hope, for we are called in one hope of our calling. (Eph. iv. 4, 5.) We have also to contend with the very same enemies who have before tried the patience of our predecessors in the faith; we have the same law of sin to combat, the same world to overcome. We have need therefore of the same joy that they needed; and the fulness of joy which the beloved disciple desired that all the churches of his day should possess, it is expedient that we also should obtain. It is as necessary for us as for them;

as much for our growth in grace, as for theirs, that we too should behold "the manner of love wherewith the Father hath loved us"; that we also should contemplate that love of Christ which passeth knowledge; and so, with unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, "become changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord."