Transcribed from the 1872 Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyeredition .
A PLEA
FOR
The British and Foreign Bible Society.
A SERMON
PREACHED INST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL,
ON TUESDAY, APRIL30, 1872.
BY
C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D.
MASTER OF THE TEMPLE,
AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THEQUEEN.
PUBLISHED BYREQUEST.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER.
1872.
1 John i. 5. iv. 16.
“God is Light.” “God isLove.”
Round these two centres revolvesthe Theology of St. John.
He is named “the Divine,” the Theologian; and thisis his scheme of Theology, his system of Divinity; not anenumeration of doctrines, not an enunciation of Articles, notCalvinism, not Arminianism, not Romanism, and not Protestantism;but just these two principles, higher and deeper than anyquestion which divides parties or distinguishes sects: the first,“God is Light,” and the second, “God isLove.”
We are not saying, God forbid! that two brief maxims, one ametaphor, the other an abstraction, in such sense comprehendTheology as that there shall be no need of express declarationsof fact, or of definite revelations of truth, beside or beyond,within or above, them. Nor are we saying—this, too,would be ignorance, as much as irreverence—that this veryp. 4Epistle ofSt. John is destitute of method or system or logical coherence;consists only of a few platitudes and a few tautologies, theamiable feeblenesses of a pious old age, encouraging thescoffer’s notion that there is nothing in religion but whatcomes naturally to every man, whether to originate, to utter, tojudge, or to refuse. Of St. John’s writings, moreperhaps than of any part of Holy Scripture, is the Divine sayingtrue, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise andprudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Thatwhich to the self-sufficient critic is a simplicity bordering onthe puerile, is to the experienced Christian rather a profoundmystery, of which the Holy Spirit of God keeps the key.
(1) “God is Light.” “In Him isno darkness at all.” He is the Light of truth, andthe Light of holiness, and the Light of direction, and the Lightof comfort. Where He, who is the Light, shines not, orshines only in some dim reflection—of Nature, or reason, orconscience, or tradition; not directly, not personally, not inChrist as the Saviour, not in the Holy Ghost as theComforter—there is darkness; darkness four-fold, like thelight—the darkness of ignorance, and the darkness ofcorruption, and the darkness of error, and the darkness ofmisery. “God is Light,”—and the purposeof