the venture.  That even the power to make the experiment is given from above; and that the experience is not merely subjective, but an universal law which has had its supreme vindication in history,—­these are two facts which we learn afterwards.  The converse process, which begins with a critical examination of documents, cannot establish what we really want to know, however strong the evidence may be.  In this sense, and in this only, are Tennyson’s words true, that “nothing worthy proving can be proven, nor yet disproven.”

Faith, thus defined, is hardly distinguishable from that mixture of admiration, hope, and love by which Wordsworth says that we live.  Love especially is intimately connected with faith.  And as the Christian life is to be considered as, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of His members with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God.  So intimate is this union, that hatred towards any human being cannot exist in the same heart as love to God.  The mystical union is indeed rather a bond between Christ and the Church, and between man and man as members of Christ, than between Christ and individual souls.  Our Lord’s prayer is “that they all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us.”  The personal relation between the soul and Christ is not to be denied; but it can only be enjoyed when the person has “come to himself” as a member of a body.  This involves an inward transit from the false isolated self to the larger life of sympathy and love which alone makes us persons.  Those who are thus living according to their true nature are rewarded with an intense unshakeable conviction which makes them independent of external evidences.  Like the blind man who was healed, they can say, “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.”  The words “we know” are repeated again and again in the first Epistle, with an emphasis which leaves no room for doubt that the evangelist was willing to throw the main weight of his belief on this inner assurance, and to attribute it without hesitation to the promised presence of the Comforter.  We must observe, however, that this knowledge or illumination is progressive.  This is proved by the passages already quoted about the work of the Holy Spirit.  It is also implied by the words, “This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”  Eternal life is not [Greek:  gnosis], knowledge as a possession, but the state of acquiring knowledge ([Greek:  hina gignoskosin]).  It is significant, I think, that St. John, who is so fond of the verb “to know,” never uses the substantive [Greek:  gnosis].