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168 gently guarded against; often have they brought down Divine to mere human truth; the very essence of the truth, that which constitutes it Divine truth, is generally evaporated by these inaccurate substitutions. The true meaning will be cleared by attending as well to the context, as to St. John's method of teaching. St. John, namely, is warning Christians against seducing teachers (c. i. 26.), who separated truth from holiness, who said that they "knew ," and yet "kept not His commandments" (c. ii. 4.); said that they "abode in Him," and yet did not "walk as He walked" (v. 6.); denied that Jesus was the, (v. 22.) Against these he warns his flock, to "abide" in , as they had been taught (vv. 27. 8.); and then proceeds (c. iii.) to set forth the connection between Christian truth and holiness. Our present title, (he tells them,) of of  (v. 1.); our future hopes of seeing Him as He is, and so being made like to Him (v. 2.); the very object of His coming, "to take away sin" (v. 5.);—shew us 's will, that we should "purify ourselves, as He is pure:" all other doctrine is but deceit: "little children, let no man deceive you:"  and the devil, children of  and children of the devil, sin and righteousness, are incompatible, and mutually opposed: there can be no union between  and Belial, or the servants and services of either; there is no other way of "being righteous," than by "doing righteousness." (v. 7.) This, then, was St. John's great subject, the necessity of personal holiness and purity; and this he expresses (as is his wont) in abstract, absolute propositions, not looking upon truth, as it is imperfectly realized in us, whether to good or to evil, but as it is in itself, and as it will be, in the final separation of the evil from the good, when each shall, without any remaining obstacle, whether of the hindrances of sin, or of the strivings of 's, become wholly, what they now are predominantly. "He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning." "Whosoever is born of doth not commit sin." "In this the children of are manifest, and the children of the devil." And so St. John returns to his first warning: "Whosoever doeth not righteousness, is not of ." It is manifest, then, that we are here to look, not for any abstract