l
transform us in some measure into His own likeness. John is an example
of that for us. It was a true instinct that made the old painters always
represent him as like the Master that he sat beside, even in face. Where
did John get his style from? He got it by much meditating upon Christ's
words. The disciple caught the method of the Master's speech, and to
some extent the manner of the Master's vision.

And so he himself stands before us as an instance of the possibility,
even on earth, of this calm, almost passive process, and most blessed
and holiest method of getting like the Master, by simple gazing, which
is the gaze of love and longing.

But, dear brethren, the law of our lives forbids that that should be the
only way in which we grow like Christ. 'First the blade, then the ear,
then the full corn in the ear,' was never meant to be the exhaustive,
all-comprehensive statement of the method of Christian progress. You and
I are not vegetables; and the Parable of the Seed is only one side of
the truth about the method of Christian growth. The very word 'purify'
speaks to us of another condition; it implies impurity, it implies a
process which is more than contemplation, it implies the reversal of
existing conditions, and not merely the growth upwards to unattained
conditions.

And so growth is not all that Christian men need; they need excision,
they need casting out of what is in them; they need change as well as
growth. 'Purifying' they need because they are impure, and growth is
only half the secret of Christian progress.

Then there is the other consideration, viz., if there is to be this
purifying it must be done by myself. 'Ah!' you say, 'done by yourself?
That is not evangelical teaching.' Well, let us see. Take two or three
verses out of this Epistle which at first sight seem to be contradictory
of this. Take the very first that bears on the subject:--'The blood of
Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin' (i. 7). 'If we confess
our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness' (i. 9). 'He that abideth in Him sinneth
not' (iii. 6). 'This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our
faith' (v. 4).

Now if you put all these passages together, and think about the general
effect of them, it comes to this: that our best way of cleansing
ourselves is by keeping firm hold of Jesus Christ and of the cleansing
powers that lie in Him. To take a very ho