CHAPTER 7 EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT 1 John 2:1 Of the Incarnation of the Word, of the whole previous strain of solemn oracular annunciation, there are two great objects. Rightly understood, it at once stimulates and soothes; it supplies inducements to holiness, and yet quiets the accusing heart. (1... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 8 MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT 1 John 2:2 LET us now consider the universal and ineradicable wants of man. Such a consideration is substantially unaffected by speculation as to the theory of man's origin. Whether the first men are to be looked for by the banks of... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 9 THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK A PERSONAL INFLUENCE 1 John 2:6 THIS verse is one of those in reading which we may easily fall into the fallacy of mistaking familiarity for knowledge. Let us bring out its meaning with accuracy. St. John's hatred of unreality, of lying in every for... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 10 THE WORLD WHICH WE MUST NOT LOVE 1 John 2:15 An adequate development of words so compressed and pregnant as these would require a separate treatise, or series of treatises. But if we succeed in grasping St. John's conception of the world, we shall have a key that will open to us this c... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 11 USE AND ABUSE OF THE SENSE OF THE VANITY OF THE WORLD 1 John 2:17 The connection of the passage in which these words occur is not difficult to trace for those who are used to follow those "roots below the stream," those real rather than verbal links latent in the substance of St. John's... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 12 KNOWING ALL THINGS 1 John 2:20 THERE is little of the form of logical argument to which Western readers are habituated in the writings of St. John, steeped as his mind was in Hebraic influences. The inferential "therefore" is not to be found in this Epistle. Yet the diligent reader or... [ Continue Reading ]