against those who profess to know Christ, but refuse obedience to his precepts, but surely not more severe than the case demands. Such he says, are liars, although it may be, they are not conscious to themselves of practising deceit. Their ignorance of the truth is such, that they cannot ask, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" They have no suspicion, that in their supposed faith there is any thing wrong or unsound. Far from it. They imagine all to be right, and say to their souls, Peace, peace! Meanwhile the awful day is at hand, in which every man's work will be tried, of what sort it is. The overflowing showers, and great hailstones, are about to fall upon every fabric built upon the sand, and the stormy wind threatens to rend the ill-constructed dwelling. Surely the foundation thereof shall be discovered in that day, when the walls daubed with untempered mortar, shall yield before the blast, involving in their ruin the destruction of the unwise occupants, to whom it is now said, in reference to that day of unwelcome knowledge, And ye shall know that I am the Lord." (Ezek. xiii. 8, &c.)

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5. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.

The beloved John is fond of contrasting together the state of the believer and the unbeliever; and this mode of instruction by contrast, is well calculated to fix the truth upon our minds and in our hearts. Again he turns from the mere professor, to the sincere disciple of Jesus, and enlarges upon the affirmation which he made in a former verse. His test of faith is still the same. It consists in keeping the word of Christ; in

having respect to the statutes of his kingdom of grace. And now he adds, that the love of God is perfected in those who are thus obedient to his Son. The original purpose of the Father's love is accomplished, in the restoration of his alienated children from the death of sin to a new life of righteousness. The eternal counsel of mercy is fulfilled, as far as it is to be perfected in this earth. The future glory prepared for the saints, and the riches of their inheritance when fully revealed, will indeed manifest a perfection of the love of God, differing from that to which the apostle now adverts. It is in the world to come that the consummation of the purpose of love will be fully displayed, and in comparison of that final manifestation of the great love wherewith the Father hath loved us, the present accomplishment of his gracious decrees may to our dull apprehensions appear imperfect. But we should remember, that "all his ways are perfect," and rejoice in the Apostle's assurance, that in the care of every individual soul brought into subjection to Christ, the love of God is perfected in regard to that soul. The decree of salvation is in fact accomplished, although to our feeble sense, the salvation may appear to linger, and to tarry, and even to be encircled with many a cloud of doubt. The apostle's words are indeed full of rich consolation to the saints, who, it may be, doubt whether or not they are saints, but who possess the inward testimony that they cast themselves as humble suppliants at the feet of Jesus, saying to him, Lord save us, or we perish." For is it not a thought imbued with peace, that the Father accounts his work of love to be perfected in us, when we submit ourselves to Jesus by a true faith? That upon our obedience to the command of Christ to repent, and believe the Gospel, the Father

beholds the completion of his gracious counsel on our behalf? How far from perfect does the work of our coming to Jesus appear to ourselves? We fear oftentimes some flaw in our mode of coming to him. We bey from the heart the doctrines delivered to us, but still we tremble, because the work is scarcely as we think begun, and days and months and years of trial lay before us, threatening it may be to destroy this work of faith, which we have only commenced in the name of Christ. But "the Lord's thoughts are not as our thoughts," nor his knowledge such as ours. In the rough ill-shapen seed he discovers the well-proportioned plant; in the opening bud, the future flower and fruit. Let the soul be ingrafted into Christ by the power of a true faith, which is the gift of God, and what remains, but that the work of faith be carried on with power? The vegetation of that newly engrafted branch may appear indeed at times to exhibit only faint marks of life, but eventually the divine sap will put forth its latent virtue, and under the culture of the heavenly husbandman, the weak and trembling believer, in his own eyes of stinted and imperfect growth, shall be evinced to be a branch of righteousness, a plant of the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Happy thought! that when we hope the good work of grace is begun in us, the Father sees it to be finished. That when we implore him to number us with his chosen, and to write our names in his book of life, he is then accomplishing in us the good pleasure of his will, and causing his love to be perfected

in us.

The com

Hereby know we that we are in Him." pletion in us, of the love of God, is the testimony to our own souls, that we are in Christ. The developement in

our hearts of the original counsel of God's grace, gives evidence that he has united us to his Son by his Holy Spirit. For except we are in Christ, as the branch is in the vine, from whence arises that sap of divine grace by which our souls are quickened and renewed from the death of sin, to a new life of holiness? We find within us living waters, even a well of water springing up into everlasting life." And from whence is this experience, except we are in Him who is the fountain of life, and in whom are found all the fresh springs of his saints? Do we love God by nature, and do we by nature delight in his law? We know that it is not so. And can we come to Christ except by the drawing of the Father? The Lord himself assures us that we cannot. But we love God, we delight in his law in the inward man; we have come to Jesus for salvation; and we cling to him as our Lord and our God; Christ is in us as the hope of glory. Then the inference is plain : 'Hereby know we that we are in Him." It is grace and not nature which disposes us to love our God: grace removes the heart of stone, and gives us in its stead the heart of flesh, and there inscribes the law of love. Grace inclines us to come to Jesus, that we may have life. And the same grace keeps us ever looking to Jesus as the finisher of our faith. We dare not impute the carrying on of the work of faith in our hearts, to any natural principles. We dare not suppose that in that Adam in whom all die, we have also strength to live. The believer is taught a different lesson. It is to union with Jesus that he refers his spiritual life. And deeply convinced of his natural alienation from God, he exclaims, when conscious that the love of God is shed abroad in his heart, "hereby know we that we are in Him." The love I feel to my reconciled God and

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Father, is an evidence that I am in Christ; for that love is a divine gift which is peculiar to the members of the Lord's mystical body. Oh, my Father, increase that gift of love, increase in my soul all the manifestations of the presence of thy Spirit; and in their abundance I know more and more clearly that I am in him; in Jesus; accepted in the beloved; "complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power.",

may

6. He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.

It seems as though the apostle had reference to false or doubtful professors of the faith of Christ, whenever he ushers in the declaration of his sentiments, with the preliminary," he that saith," or as before, in chap. i. 6, 8, 9; ii. 4, 6, with the words, "if we say," &c. It would appear that he often had in his mind those who say they have faith, but concerning whom it is at best extremely doubtful whether they are not deceived in this matter. And it is evidently a main object of the writer, all through this epistle, to detect false professors of faith, whilst at the same time he most carefully avoids the fatal, and, alas too common error, of breaking the bruised reed, or quenching the smoking flax. For the apostle's zeal in exposing hypocrisy and self-deception, does not at any time lead him to risk an attack upon the easily-wounded conscience of the trembling believer, who upon any charge of deceit, is ready to plead guilty, and to write bitter things against himself. There are too many teachers who seem to take part with Satan, the accuser of the brethren, in his hateful and terrible work of infixing the fiery darts of fear, and a misgiving