t~e Chr~~t, the Sayiour ?f the wor~d. M<'re in~llectual po:wer, senatorial position, h1erarch1c11) 11ut,honty, _fail to perceive and r<'ce1ye that which more simple minds embr11ce ,nth oompar11t1ve ease. He opem the kmgdom of heaven. He reveals the Fat.her by the confession of his own Sonship and the character which he everywhere assigns to God. The grandest conceptions of all religious thought date from the lan- guage of this Gospel, with its Epistle. God is Spirit; God is Light; God is Love. The incarn11te Word is the Baptizer with the Spirit. He offers living water to the thirsty and hnng bread to the hungry, and the blood (which is his life) to man, tbat man may live, and not die, for ever, Dy a series of selected signs he is demonstrated to have all power, all righteousness, all judgment, all sustenance, in his hands, He claims identity with the eternal light, and proves that he can pour such light upon those who are blind even from birth. He can give light and also eyesight. His self-revelations are continually stimulated by the antagonism and carnal mis- understanding of hie hearers. He claims to be the Shepherd of Israel, but a Shepherd who would lay down his life that he might resume it in the interest of the widespread flock, the vast multitude whom the Father gives to him, and who come to him for eternal life akin to his own. He grapples with death itself, and declares that he is the Resurrection and the Life. Dead souls and dead bodies in their graves should hear his voice, and live. The antagonism to these claims becomes a furious madness, and, while he is binding those who receive him into a compact fellowship which will survive his departure and transcend life and death, while he is promising the Paraclete and sur- rounding them with a new glory, his own people are plotting his death. Nothing short of death, the full extremity of human humiliation, aggravated by the malice of the devil, can give adequate or absolute expression to the intensity of his love to the men who,e nature he has assumed. From this he shrinks as a man, but to this he volunt.arily and majestically yields. At every stage of the humiliating process and aggravated curse of his death he comes forth with some more convincing proof of his Divine mission, that he was empowered to destroy death; and glorify himself in it and through it. His treacherous disciples are vanquished; his captors fall at his feet; his judges are either baffled by his silence or his answers ; he condemns his jl!dg,e; he transforms his crown of thorns by the cruelty of its infliction and his patient endurance into a crown of glory, and his cross into a throne. Death fails with him. He proves that it can have no dominion over him, and he takes possession of his kingdom. He creates a new heaven and a new earth out of this sinning and dying world; by the reve- lation he makes of his spiritual and glorined body, and of the relation between the two worlds, he satisfies love, he removes doubt, he hallows work by the ineffable sweet- ness of his eternal presence with those who believe on him. "The Spirit, the water, and the blood agree in one" signification, appeasing the conscience, cleansiug the heart, end inspiring the whole nature of man. "These things are written that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God, and, believing, that ye may have life."
XL REFEBENOEB TO LITERATURE AND TEXT, Numerous references are made in the foregoing pages and in the course of the Exposition to the literature of the Fourth GospeL My_ obligations~ my predecessors are eo various and abundant that they defy enumeration. Illustnous scholars have contended on opposite sides in this "battle-field of the New Testament." Many of these are most honourably distinguished for their learning, reverence, candour, and ingenuity. To their extensive research, suggestive criticism, and various interpretatiou I am greatly indebted, and humbly desire to do justice. . A list of the principal works and treatises on the authorship of the Gospel may be found in Dr. ◊.ulpar R. Gregory'e appendix to hie English translation of Luthardt'e work entitled 'St. John the Author of the Fourth Goepel,' and a select list of com- mentariCl!I on St. John's Gospel is placed at the commencemeut of the second volume of the Rev. F. Crombie's translation of Meyer'e 'Commeutary on St. John.' These valuable lists were completed in 1875, since which time many notable dissertations have been published; e.g. Albrecht Thoma's remarkable work entitled 'Die Geuesis des JohannB11-Evangeliu.ms, ein Bcitrag zu seiner Auslegung, Geschichte und Kritik: ' TJIB no~PBr, AGCOilDTNn TO R'l'. ,JOHN. clxi