One question and one warning in conclusion; and that question is this.

Do we take part in this great ministry of love? Is our voice heard in the full music of the prayers of intercession that are ever going up to the Throne, and bringing down the gift of life? Do we pray for others?

In one sense all who know true affection and the sweetness of true prayer do pray for others. We have never loved with supreme affection any for whom we have not interceded, whose names we have not baptized in the fountain of prayer. Prayer takes up a tablet from the hand of love written over with names; that tablet death itself can only break when the heart has turned Sadducee.

Jesus (we sometimes think) gives one strange proof of the love which yet passeth knowledge. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus;" "when He had heard therefore" [O that strange therefore!] "that Lazarus was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was." Ah! sometimes not two days, but two years, and sometimes evermore, He seems to remain. When the income dwindles with the dwindling span of life; when the best beloved must leave us for many years, and carries away our sunshine with him; when the life of a husband is in danger--then we pray; "O Father, for Jesu's sake spare that precious life; enable me to provide for these helpless ones; bless these children in their going out and coming in, and let me see them once again before the night cometh, and my hands are folded for the long rest." Yes, but have we prayed at our Communion "because of that Holy Sacrament in it, and with it," that He would give them the grace which they need--the life which shall save them from sin unto death? Round us, close to us in our homes, there are cold hands, hearts that beat feebly. Let us fulfil St. John's teaching, by praying to Him who is the life that He would chafe those cold hands with His hand of love, and quicken those dying hearts by contact with that wounded heart which is a heart of fire.

NOTES
Ch. v. 3-17.

Ver. 3. This section should begin with the words "And His commandments are not heavy"--and should not be separated from what follows, because they give one reason of the victory whereof he proceeds to speak. "His commandments are not heavy, for all that is born of God conquereth the world." What a picture of the sweetness of a life of service! What a gentle smile must have been on the old man's face as he said, "His commandments are not grievous!"

Vers. 7, 8. This passage with its apparent obscurity, and famous interpolation, demands some additional notice. As to criticism and interpretation.

(1) Critically. Since the publication of J. J. Griesbach's celebrated work (Diatribe in locum 1 John v. 7, 8, Tom. ii., N.T. Halle: 1806), first German, and latterly English, opinion has become absolutely unanimous in agreeing with Griesbach that "the words included between brackets are spurious, and should therefore be eliminated from the Sacred Text." Even the famous Roman Catholic scholar, Scholts, in his great critical edition of the New Testament, in two volumes (Bonn: 1836), boldly dropped the disputed passage from the text. The interpolated passage has certainly no support in any uncial manuscript, or ancient version, or Greek Father of the four first centuries. (2) As to interpretation, the faith has lost nothing by the honesty of her wisest defenders. The whole of the genuine passage is intensely Trinitarian. The interpolation is nothing but an exposition written into the text. The three genuine witnesses do really point to the Three Witnesses in Heaven. Bengel's saying expresses the permanent feeling of Christendom, which no criticism can do away with: "This trine array of witnesses on earth is supported by, and has above and beneath it the Trinity, which is Heavenly, archetypal, fundamental, everlasting." The whole context recognizes three special works of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. "This is the witness of God," i.e. of the Father (ver. 9); "this is He that came by water and blood," i.e. the Son (ver. 6); "it is the Spirit that witnesseth," i.e. the Holy Ghost (ibid.).

A fuller examination of this passage, from a polemical point of view, will be found in the third of the introductory discourses. It will be well, however, to indicate here the immediate controversial reference in the Spirit, the water, and the blood. There is abundant proof that the popular heretical philosophy of Asia Minor struck Christianity precisely in three vital places. It denied--

(1) The Incarnation--consequently
(2) The Redemption--consequently
(3) The Sacraments.

But the mention of the water and the blood in connection with the Person of the Son Incarnate and Crucified established exactly these three points. Narrated as it was by an eye-witness, it established:--

(1) The reality of the Incarnation--consequently

(2) The reality of Redemption--for the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin (1 John i. 7)--consequently

(3) The reality of Sacraments.

We have articulate evidence of the denial of the two sacraments by the Docetic idealists of Asia Minor. The Philosophumena tells us of the view of baptism held by one of their principal sects. "According to them the promise of the laver of regeneration is nothing more than the introduction into the 'unfading pleasure' of him that is washed (as they say) with living water, and anointed with 'chrism that speaketh not.'" [346] The testimony of Ignatius is express as to the other sacrament. "From Eucharist and prayer they abstain on account of not confessing that the Eucharist is flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins." ["Water and blood" should be noted in Heb. ix. 19. Water is not mentioned in Exod. xxiv. 6.]--(Ep. ad Smyrn. vii.)

[337] Mr. Matthew Arnold.

[338] This is true as a general rule; but there were exceptions.

[339] See Ps. xv. Cf. Ps. xxiv. 3-7.
[340] 1 John v. 15.
[341] 1 John v. 14, 18.
[342] Vv. 14, 15.

[343] Historical and Critical Commentary on Leviticus. By M. M. Kalisch. Part 1. Theology of the Past and Future, 431, 438.

[344] This is denied by De Wette (Ueber die Religion, Vorlesungen, 106).

[345] The form of expression indicates not necessarily the very things asked, but the spiritual essence and substance.

[346] He gar epangelia tou loutrou ouk alle tis esti kat' autous, he to eisagagein eis ten amaranton hedonen ton louomenon kat' autous zont hudati kai chriomenon alalo chrismati.--(Philosoph., p. 140, de Naassenis.)