re and the soul, would enable all who had not
suppressed it and lost the knowledge of it, to recognise at once
and adore the illuminated image of Him manifested and moving
before them in the person of the Son; the faint gleams of Divine
qualities yet left within their souls would spontaneously blend
with the full splendors irradiating the form of the inspired and
immaculate Christ. Thus they would enter into a new and
intensified communion with God, and experience an unparalleled
depth of peace and joy, an inspired assurance of eternal life. But
those who, by worldliness and wickedness, had obscured and
destroyed all their natural knowledge of God and their affinities
to him, being without the inward preparation and susceptibility
for the Divine which the Savior embodied and manifested, would not
be able to receive it, and thus would pass an infallible sentence
upon themselves. "When the Comforter is come, he will convict the
world of sin, because they believe not on me." "He that believeth
on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not is
condemned already, in that he loveth darkness rather than light."
"Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error: he
that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not
us." "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?"
The idea is, that such a denial must be caused by inward
depravity, could only spring from an evil character.

In the ground thought just presented we may find the explanation
of the seemingly obscure and confused use of terms in the
following instances, and learn to understand more fully John's
idea of the effect of spiritual contact with Christ. "He that
doeth righteousness is born of God." "He that believeth Jesus to
be the Christ is born of God." "He that denieth the Son, the same
hath not the Father." "He that hath the Son hath life." These
passages all become perspicuous and concordant in view of John's
conception of the inward unity of

35 Philo, vol. i. p. 106.

truth, or the universal oneness of the Divine life, in God, in
Christ, in all souls that partake of it. A character in harmony
with the character of God will, by virtue of its inherent light
and affinity, recognise the kindred attributes or characteristics
of God, wherever manifested. He who perceives and embraces the
Divinity in the character of Christ proves thereby that he was
prepared to receive it by kindred qualities residing in himself,
pro