it? 'l'ho fact remains that they have thonght it their business to act as cruides to the world, nnd have thought it necessary to publish many volumes of their gpinions, and yot have never directly told the world what they think of Christ. That ract remains; and alongside of it the truth remains, 'Every spirit which confesseth not ,Jesus is not of God'" (F. Ferguson). Of tho Cerinthian Gnosticism, which set aside the Incarnation, John says that it was the presence of anticbrist. So early had the an r,ounced opposition to Christ commenced; it still exists under other specious forms. The most radical opposition is that which is directed against the central fact of the Incarnation, which would reduce Christ to the position of a mere human teacher. III. SucoEBB IN APPLYING THE TEST, 1. The/act of victory. '' Ye are of Gr,d, my little children, and have overcome them." This is another occasion on which the apostle is so affectionate as to call them his little children. He thinks of something which was greatly to their honour. They had overcome the false prophets. We are not told the wiles which were used by these prophets. They pretended to be under Divine inspiration. Very probably they pretended to work miracles. We do not know that they held out the inducement of false pleasures. Whatever the wiles were, in vain were they tried on those to whom John is now writing. They held tenaciously to the fact of the Incarnation, and to its blessed import. Nay, we can understand that they succeeded in separating from their communion all who were not in sympathy with the Incarnation, who for the fact put some fanciful idea. "They went out from us," it is said of these prophets in eh. ii. 19, which, taken in connection with what is said here, gives us an impression of their moral defeat. There needed to be no recourse to the disciplinary power of excommunication; they went out when they could no longer endure the power of the truth. 2. The ground of victory. "Because greater is he that is in you than be that is in the world." The Divine Person is left undefined. We naturally think of Christ in the Spirit. For the victory lies in discrimination ; and John's conception of their qualification is their having an anointing from the Holy One. As qualified in the same way, Christ had to fight. He was brought into.conflict with him that is in the world, All attempts were made to delude him, to lead him to abandon the Father's cause; but he conquered. " Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out." .A.s the hour approaches, he announces his victory for the encouragement of his followers: "Be of good cheer; I have conquered the world." John's friends conquered too, because greater was he that was in them than he that was in the false prophets, and in the world to which properly these belonged, though they had once been connected with the communion of Christians. Christ is in us by his Spirit, to unmask all designs on us, to expose all fallacies, to disclose all the beauties of truth. He that is in the world has great power of delusion; but we can think of it as vanquished, nnd we can think of the victory as sure for us in the power of his Spirit which is within us as our equipment. Therefore let us be of good cheer. 3. The manner of victory. (1) Discrimination in respect of the false prophets. "They are of the world : therefore speak they as of the world, and the world heareth them." How are false prophets to be known? They are the birth of a worldly state of society, they give utterance to worldly sentiment, they gain worldly applause. As for the Incarnation, it is remote from their thoughts; it is too high for their low origin; it is too self-abasing, too self-restraining. Let a field be sought where looser sentiment may be uttered, or where there m,ly be a grim handling of abuses and unrealities and failings, and, if there is only sufficient vis in the teacher, certain men will loudly applaud. (2) Discrimination in respect of the true prophets. "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he who is not of GoJ heareth us not." How are truo prophets to be known ? They may be said to be the birth of a quickened Uhurch; they are hero represented as the birth of God. They teacl1 about God, and they set forth the Incarnation as the grandest manifestation of what God is-as tho fact of facts nnd tho truth of truths. He that is in the school of God, and seeks to advance in the knowledge or God, is attrc,cte,I to them; while be who is not yet born of God is repelled from them. "I have set thee.," says God to Jeremiah, " for a tower and a fortres8 among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way." Marking of the discriminat-ion. "By this we know the spirit of truth, and the 8 pirit of error." We are to understand the principle laid down. By it we discriminate between the spirit of truth resting on the true teachers, aud the spirit of wandering Lm~ K 130 THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN. [on. 1v. 1-21.
resting on the false toacbe"!· There 'is implied the test of the Incariet!on, According as teachers aro attracted to 1t do t-hey come into the light of God; according as they 11re repelled from it do they wander themselves, and lead away othel'I!, into the darkness.-R. F.