Our evidence of the genuineness and value of the Epistle is in part external. But there is an internal evidence just as valuable as the external. By internal evidence I mean the spiritual value of the Epistle itself, the appeal that it makes to our Christian sympathies and affections, and the power it has to stir and arouse and warn. There is a spirit in the sacred writings which is very different from that of secular literature. Take the first chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter and read it through; if you are a Christian, you will feel that the Holy Spirit appeals to you through that first chapter as clearly and indubitably as it appeals to you through any other chapter of the New Testament. There is a power here, an elevation, an illumination, that are manifestly the work of the Spirit of God; and I confess that, for my part, I should greatly feel the loss of the Second Epistle of Peter, if it should be taken from us. I do not think the question whether the Second Epistle of Peter is genuine or not is one upon which the whole New Testament stands or falls.

Still

I think there was a divine will guiding the formation of the canon, and that the church was inspired as to which portions of the ancient writings to accept. I believe most firmly in the inspiration and genuineness of this Second Epistle of Peter, but I believe it not so much upon the external evidence as I believe it upon the internal evidence, the power it has to touch my heart and speak to me as by the very voice of the Holy Spirit.

It has been said that the apostle Paul is the apostle of faith, that the apostle John is the apostle of love, and that the apostle Peter is the apostle of hope. Let us read these Epistles in the light of that general remark.

Hopefulness is the most characteristic thing about them. You cannot read these two Epistles without feeling something of their broad and noble hopefulness.

Peter was a man of sanguine temperament; a man who found it easy to believe; and a man who, as he believed most heartily in the facts of Christianity, had a most unwavering faith in the triumph of Christianity. Read the first chapter of the First Epistle of Peter in the light of this remark. You will notice that Peter based his hopes on historical facts. He takes us back to the suffering and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; then he takes us forward to the future, and the certainty that the Lord Jesus Christ will come again. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. So he bids us to be pure, even in the midst of darkness and persecution, for the day of the Lord draweth nigh.

You remember that Jesus told Peter to strengthen his brethren. Obedience to that command led to the writing of these First and Second Epistles. Peter would strengthen his brethren, to undergo the trials and persecutions with which they are beset here in this present life, with the assurance that there is laid up for them a crown of glory, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. There is a spirit of cheer, there is a spirit of brightness, a spirit of hope in the Epistles of Peter, which differences them from all the other Epistles of the New Testament. Peter's own soul is full of hope and brightness and cheer, and he expresses that innermost nature of his in both the First and the Second Epistles.

X

THE EPISTLES OF JOHN

THE First Epistle of John can hardly be distinguished from a doctrinal and practical treatise. There is not address to it. There are no salutations at the end of it. No author's name is connected with it. One might almost think it was intended as a general exposition of Christian truth; and yet you find, here and there through the work, expressions like this, "I write unto you, little children," which seem to indicate that, in the author's mind, it was an Epistle. Although we do not know the names of the churches to which it was first sent, it is quite possible that it was sent to them by some messenger who assured them of its authorship; so that the name John did not need to be appended to it or mentioned at its beginning. This, in fact, is characteristic of all John's writing. It is always

anonymous.

The two other Epistles of John do not mention the author's name. He calls himself "the elder" in them. That word "elder" may not mean "officer of the church," but may be used simply in the sense of “an elderly person," as Paul called himself "Paul, the aged." And in the Gospel, you remember that there is no mention at all of John's name. The "disciple whom Jesus loved" is the nearest he comes to it; so that, although this is an Epistle of John, it is not necessary at all that we should connect our faith in its genuineness with any ability on our part to show the

apostle's name connected with it, either in the Epistle itself, or traditionally, when it was first delivered.

The characteristics of the Epistle are the characteristics of John's other writings. There are so many common features of the Gospel, of these three Epistles, and of the Apocalypse, the style of thought in them all is so peculiar, so unlike that of any other of the New Testament writings, that the simplest and easiest hypothesis is that all are the work of the apostle John. Any other hypothesis at once meets with so many difficulties, so many contradictions, that we have to give it up. The universal voice of the tradition of the church ascribes this First Epistle to John; and I think we need pay very little attention to the skeptical objections of some modern critics, for they evidently originate in a carping spirit that no evidence whatever would satisfy. The Gospel according to John is the first of the two main writings, and this Epistle is the second; in other words, the Gospel was written before the Epistle. I do not mean to say that the Gospel is the earliest of John's writings, because the Apocalypse, I believe, is the earliest. The Apocalypse, or book of Revelation, was written thirty years before the Gospel; while the Epistle was written in the very latest period of the apostle's life. I doubt whether we can put the date of it earlier than the year 96 or 97, at the very close of the first century, long after Paul and Peter had suffered martyrdom, and long after the other books of the New Testament had been written. Quite an interval appears between the writings we have studied heretofore, all of which were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Gospel of John

with the Epistle which immediately follows it. The relation of the Epistle to the Gospel is an interesting one. In both of them the great subject is Christ, the everlasting Word of the Father, the revelation of God to man. And yet the aspect in which Christ is regarded is different in the Gospel from that in which he is regarded in the Epistle. The Epistle seems to be an application of the truth that is laid down in the Gospel. In the Gospel, John is a historian; in the Epistle, John is a theologian. Or, if you choose to put it another way, in the Gospel John gives us the historical basis. He represents Christ as coming from God, becoming incarnate in humanity, and living his life before us. Thus he lays the foundation of the Gospel in historical fact. Humanity is incorporated and absolutelly united with the Deity, but it is in the person of Christ; the union of Christ's followers with God is an incident and consequence, but not the main thing that is treated.

This union of Christ's followers with God is the subject of the Epistle. In the Epistle we have the result of the union of deity with humanity, in the life of the church. As the Gospel shows us God incarnated in Christ, the starting-point, so, in the Epistle, we have humanity brought into fellowship with God by union with Christ. As the Gospel sets before us God in Christ, so the Epistle sets before us the church in Christ. In the Gospel we have the great doctrinal fact set before us; in the Epistle we have the ethical consequence of that fact. In the Gospel we have God in Christ; in the Epistle we have Christ in the church. So it is very natural that the Epistle should follow the