(2) " And ye see me no more." We are often like His disciples among these deep mysteries — we cannot tell what He saith. And yet the Holy Spirit makes the meaning as clear as it can be made to mortals. We are to lose the earthly vision that we 'may gain the heavenly. We are to lose the vision after the flesh that we may win the vision after the Spirit. Even in the highways of earthly love this may be understood — the more excellent glory of the spiritual love. " Love," says our greatest poet, " is not time's fool," and perhaps the finest love-line in our language was written by another poet, hardly less great, to his wife : —
To you who are seventy-seven.
III.
Judgment.
" He will convict the world in respect of judgment." We miss the note of judgment in our day. Our convictions do not start from a sense that we are convicted. We want to be convinced by evidence where we should be convicted by the Spirit. This is an element that has dropped out of our view of the Cross, and therefore out of much Christian life ; Christ crucified, we think, took the pain of sin but not its penalty, its sorrow but not its curse. We have of late done justice to the idea of sacrifice in connexion with the Cross ; but in the same proportion we have lost the idea of judgment. We have revived the ethical idea of the Kingdom of God, but we have not grasped the idea, which fills both Old Testament and New Testament, that it could be set
ST. JOHN XVI. S-ii 237
up only by a decisive act of holy judgment upon the kingdom of the world. The Cross was indeed the Divine sacrifice, but sacrifice is not a final idea without judgment. It is not an end in itself, — except to the ascetics, — it is a means. But judgment is an end, it is final in its nature, because it is the actual vindica- tion of holiness and the establishment of righteousness, and beyond holiness and its victory we cannot go.
1. He ivill conviTice the world that there is judgment in the earth. — It is evident that if by the enlightening operation of the Holy Spirit sin is known, and righteousness is known, the ground is then laid for judgment, because judgment is only the just, and proper, and true estimate of righteous men and wicked men. The \J Holy Spirit, therefore, convinces the world of judgment — that is to say. He brings out in prominent and living characters the whole idea of judgment ; of there being a division in the world ; of there being two kinds of people in the world, good and bad, righteous and wicked.
^ There stands up everywhere in Scripture the pillar of fire and of cloud, and it comes between the camp of Israel and the camp of the Egyptians, and gives light by night to the one, but cloud and darkness to the other. The Gospel is especially penetrated by this idea of judgment; it declares the enmity of the world to God, and distinguishes between the world and those who are not of the world; it separates the followers of Christ from the world ; it announces that Christ will manifest Himself to His disciples and not unto the world. It says, " Woe unto the world because of offences " ; it says that " we cannot serve two masters " ; that we cannot have the treasure of our heart in earth and in heaven at the same time. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Himself described as the Judge who thus separates between the righteous and the wicked, who places the sheep on the right hand, and the goats on the left ; " Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner ; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." ^
(1) Judgment is yet to come. — It is very hard on the lower planes of life to convince the world of judgment, to persuade men ^^ that there is an infallible reckoning for all transgression, that no sin can be permanently concealed, that in the end thl^ hidden things of darkness will come to light, and will receive their just
^ J. B. Mozley, Sermons, Parochial arid Occasional, 1 64.
238 THE SPIRIT AND THE WORLD
reward. It is hard to bring this home even in the case of offences that come within the province of criminal law. A man will commit a murder and believe that he will never be found out, that the blood will not speak. He will cover over the body with sand, not thinking that one day the skeleton arm will push itself through and appeal to the sky. And yet the vast majority of people have been so convinced of judgment in the realm of criminal law that they never put themselves within its reach. How are they convinced of judgment ? There is only one way. They are convinced by the judgment of an actual transgressor, by the manifested sin of a criminal. People read in the newspapers day by day of the strange ways in which the dead are avenged, and they are convinced of judgment. And yet there is always an obstinate remnant that fixes its eyes on the crimes not yet expiated, and thinks that it may sin and escape.