as any of Christ's servants in days gone by. May it not be that we modern Christians have not seldom practically forgotten the fact that the true Life of man comes from Him alone Whose Name we bear? May it not be that we trust to our own energy, or common sense, for a power and for results which faith and love must receive from the pierced Hands of an Invisible Saviour? "Because I live, ye shall live also." We rely wholly on His Death for the pardon of our sins, and we do well. But He has more to give us than this. We must not rest content with half His Gospel. If He died for our sins, He "was raised again for our justification." a "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His Life." b Let us be up and doing. Let us look to the sources of our true outfit for the eternal world, and let us make the most of them. Our immortality is certain. But what sort of immortality is it to be? That is a question before which all else that concerns us fades away into insignificance. It can only be satisfactorily answered by the soul which hastens to draw water from the Wells of salvation; which, having heard the pardoning words, "Thy sins, which were many, are forgiven thee," a kneels on, in persevering love, at the feet of the Divine Master; receives from Him the invigorating Gift which is needful for the Life Eternal; and, as the closing scene draws nigh, knows more and more clearly the truth of the gracious promise, "Because I live, thou shalt live also."

a Rom. iv. 25.
c Isa. xii. 3.

b Ibid. v. 10.
d St. Luke vii. 47.

SERMON XXVI.

THE VICTORY OF EASTER.

I ST. JOHN V. 4.

That which is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

THE

HE leading idea of Easter is Victory: victory over death; victory over sin, which is the cause of death; victory won by the Great Conqueror rising from His grave, and by His servants, who, at an immeasurable distance, tread in His footsteps here, and will reign with Him hereafter. Hence the selection of the passage of Holy Scripture before us as the Epistle for the First Sunday after Easter. The phrase, "overcometh the world," repeated as it is, after St. John's manner, not less than three times within the compass of two verses, opens to our view a subject in harmony with the season; while it also suggests considerations which the welcome presence of some of the highest representatives of the Law in this Cathedral renders appropriate to-day."

a Preached before the Judges, the Lord Mayor, and the Corporation of London.

I.

And here the first point to be decided is the precise meaning of the expression, "the world." Perhaps we feel that a certain haziness and indefiniteness attaches to it. And it is therefore to the purpose to observe that the word is used in the New Testament, and especially in St. John's writings, in three distinct senses.

a

By "the world" is meant, first of all, this visible Universe, or at least this particular globe on which we live. The Greeks called the Universe, Cosmos, on account of the beauty of order which is observable throughout it; but our word "world," in ordinary language, is restricted generally to the planet which is our home. And when our Lord, referring to the literal sun, says, that a man who walks by daylight stumbles not, because he seeth the "light of this world," He means by "world" this earthly abode of man. When, in His great Intercessory Prayer, He glances back at "the glory which I had with Thee before the Cosmos was," He means the visible order of things, the created Universe. When St. John says, that if all the unrecorded things which Jesus did were to be written every one,-he, the Evangelist, supposes that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written," it is plain that, whether he is thinking of the planet or the Universe, he is at any rate thinking of physical nature. He is thinking of surface, and space, and cubic feet; in short, of the material Cosmos. It is needless to say that the "world" in this sense is not a thing to overcome, any more than is the sea or the atmosphere. In this sense the "world" suggests no moral cona St. John xi. 9. b Ibid. xvii. 5. c Ibid. xxi. 25.

demnation, nothing of the nature of a moral estimate or judgment of any kind. And we have only not to abuse it, but to make it subserve His glory Who made it and us. It is a palace in which we men pass our lives; such is our Creator's will and bounty. It is a visible revelation, as His Apostle has told us, of the invisible order and beauty of His Uncreated Life. Our duties towards it, are study, if possible; in any case, reverent sympathy and admiration. For it is our Maker's handiwork, and "the works of the Lord are great," whether in the material or moral world; "sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is worthy to be praised and had in honour;" although it is "His Righteousness," the necessary moral qualities of His Nature,-which "endureth for ever."

"b

By the "world" again is meant, as in our every-day language, so in the speech of the New Testament, the sumtotal of all living men; human life in its completeness. It is the "world" in this sense into which our Lord "came," so Holy Scripture speaks, at His Incarnation. Into the material Universe, He Who being Divine was already present with all His works, could not come by anything of the nature of a local transfer of His Presence. When visibly present among men He spoke of Himself as "the Son of Man Which is in heaven;" that is, as being also the Eternal Son of God. But into the world of collective human life He could and did come, by taking our nature upon Him; by being, as St. Paul speaks, "born of a woman, and made under the law;"d by robing Himself in a created Form, and so entering into and subjecting Himself to the conditions of human society and life. In this sense our Lord says, "I came forth from the Father,

a Rom. i. 20.

c St. John iii. 13.

b Ps. cxi. 2, 3. d Gal. iv. 4.

and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father; "a and Martha confesses at Bethany, "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, Which should come into the world." Every man, St. John says, who comes into this world is lightened by the true Light of it, at least in respect of his reason. And when we are told that God "loved the world," that Christ is "the Saviour of the world," and "the Light of the world," and "the Bread Which giveth life unto the world;" that He will judge the world,h and that He desires that the world should believe in His being sent from heaven; the "world" clearly means the whole human family. The Almighty and Everlasting God hateth nothing that He has made, as He originally made it; and as it exists in His creative thought; and humanity, despite its corruptions and its crimes, is the object of His love and condescensions. This human world, too, by and of itself, is no more a thing to overcome than is the material Universe: the great human family, of which we all are members, is not an enemy towards which we owe no other duties than war and victory. Misanthropy is not a Christian virtue; man, as man, is entitled to our best respect, care, affection, enthusiasm: "Honour all men;"k "Do good unto all men ;"1 "Be patient towards all men ; ;"m -these are the Apostolic rules of duty to the world in the sense of collective humanity. It cannot therefore be the world in this sense to which the text refers.

;'

There is a third sense of the word "world," to which our Lord introduces us by saying that "this is the con