tho transactions of hie great work. How mysterious the announcement of the liftinrr up of Jesus would seem when it was first made! But ,Jesus, we may be sure, mad; that nnnounceme~t with n vi?w to nil in future _ages who should read of his lifting up on the cross. Nicodemus might not come agam, so Jesus sends him away with as much of essential truth as possible. Let us, too, be deeply thankful for the parallel Jesus draws between the brazen serpent and himself. It makes us see the power residincr in simple faith when that faith goes out to an object of God's own appointment.-Y. " Ver. l6.-'.IY1e love of God in deed and truth. Here the producing cause of the gospel is briefly stated-why men need it, and why God sends it. How God regards the world and what he would do for it are here set before us. I. THE WORLD IB A PEnISHINO WORLD. If th6se believing in the Son of God will not perish, the conclusion is plain that those who remain unbelieving in Christ will perish. 'fhe word might have been, "God so loved the world as to fill it with all manner of things pleasant to eye and ear and taste, comforts various and numberless for the temporal life of mau." But the awful word" perish n is brought in, and so we are forced to think, first of all, not of comforts and blessing3, bat of perils. Drop the word "perish" out of the text, and the profit of all the rest is gone. 'l'he world is a perishing world, and we are perishing in the midst of it, The assumption that man is a perishing being without Christ underlies every page of the Scriptures, and is implied in every doctrine of the gospel. The very fact that there is a gospel is the very proof that the gospel is needed. None but he who made us can have an adequate sense of the ruin of our nature through sin. Only he knows all the glory and perfection of which we are capable without sin; only he can estimate the corresponding shame and corruption when sin has gotten the mastery. God only knows a!l we can enjoy, all we can suffer. II. THE FEELING OF OUR DANGER NEEDS TO BE PRODUCED A.ND INTENSIFIED Dr US. It gets hid<len from our eyes by present comforts and enjoyment. And God knows hO\v indifferent we are, how we trifle with the danger, and style those who would impress us with it fanatical and impertinent. And so we need God's grace opening our eyes to spiritual danger as well as offering to us spiritual salvation, The feeling of danger will never come of itself. 'l'he danger is a spiritual one, and hence only as the Spirit of God takes hold of us shall we feel how real and great the danger is. There will be no fear of our failing to see the danger when once the Holy Spirit gets full control in our life. We are ever to remember that part of his work is pressing home upon us our need of salvation and our debt to a Saviour. III, THE DANGER SEEN, THE SAVIOUR WILL BE WELCOMED. We cannot look to one another for salvation. The perishing cannot help the peri.:5hing. We need a Saviour who does not need to be saved himself. It is a grand thin~ to point, not to a feeble, uncertain earthly friend, but to a heavenly one. When we feel ourselves to be perishing, we shall rejoice in being able to look to such a Saviour. Faith grows gradually and strongly when the peril and the Saviour are continually present to our thoughts. 'l'hen, with salvation ever more and more present to us as a reality, the sense of God's love to the world will be also more and more an inspiring power in our hearts.-Y. Ver. 30.-John and Jesus. We have here- I. A MAN PUTTING SELF IN ITS PROPER PLACE, John is a man ready to say, "I must decrease." If he had not been a mau ready to say it, he would never have got the chance of saying it. Ability to speak in this spirit does not spring up all at once. Much in John's position was very tempting to self. It is easily seen how painful it might have been to hear friends coming to say that the crowds once wont to flock round John were now flocking round Jesus. But John had self well in check and discipline. And we must have the same attainment, or self-humiliation in some shape will assuredly come. The truly humble man never can be hn.miliated. John must ever have borne himself humbly, not forgetting his own sins while so earnest in denouncing the sins of others. We must be willing to accept any kind of decrease that i11 for the world's good and Christ's glory. Put self in the proper place; that is, always keep it out of the first place. II. A MAN PUTTING CHRIST IN HIB PROPER PLACE. The increase of Christ and the decrease of John were all of a piece. John's work was soon done. His message wa.::i 158 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. [oe. xv. 1-o!.
~oon given, and then he could only begin over again. \Vith l\ll hi~ greatness he Wl\8 only one among the company of witnesses, Re did his own work in his own generation, and then passed away. He had his time of inorea..qe--disciples increasing, influence ino1'81lsing, name more widely known; and then Jesus comes on the scene, and there is no room for Jesus and John t.ogether. Dut in his own decrc:-ise John can rejoice, for it is a consequence of the increase of Jesus. The day never came when Jesus had to Jc,ok upon some successor to himself and say, "He must increase, and I must decrease," That is the only satisfactory decrea_qe in any of us which comes by the iucrea90 of Christ. He c.an never have t.oo much a 11thority, never be too much spoken about. .As life goes on, the feeling should deepen that we C.'1.nnot do without him. Ill. A MAN PUTTING HIS FELLOW-MEN IN THEIR PROPER Pl,ACE, One can see II, certain chivalry and noblene.qs in these disciples of John, a certain intention not to desert their master. Dut John intimates that going to Jesus in the right spirit is advance and not apostasy. It is going from a lower school t.o a higher. John can only begin; Jesus must finish. Swearing by human teachers and authorities is a miserable business. It is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus himself who is to lead us into truth. There is no trne getting of understanding unless we understand from Jesus what he wishes, what he claims, what he proposes. fV . .A MAN WHOM JESUS WILL PUT~ HIS TRUE PLACE AT LAST. It is only relatively that John decreases. Ceasing to serve in a way that draws great public attention, he yet goes on with real service just as much. Jesus will glorify in his own way those who glorify him, and it will be the best way. Not a servant of Christ, however obscure his sphere, however self-forgetting his life, slips to the grave without his Master's notice. There is a sense in which we are able to say, and bound to say, "He must increase, and I must increase too."-Y.