The third condition for such readers is love--_charity_. When he comes to deal fully with that great theme, the eagle of God wheels far out of sight. In the depths of His Eternal Being, "God is love."[99] Then this truth comes closer to us as believers. It stands completely and for ever _manifested_ in its work _in us_,[100] because "God _hath sent_" (a mission in the past, but with abiding consequences)[101] "His Son, His only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live through Him." Yet again, he rises higher from the _manifestation_ of this love to the eternal and essential principle in which it stands present for ever. "In this _is_ the love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and once for all sent His Son a propitiation for our sins."[102] Then follows the manifestation of _our_ love. "If God so loved us, we also are bound to love one another." Do we think it strange that St. John does not first draw the lesson--"if God so loved us, we also are bound to love God"? It has been in his heart all along, but he utters it in his own way, in the solemn pathetic question--"he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen how can he love?"[103] Yet once more he sums up the creed in a few short words. "We have believed the love that God hath in us."[104] Truly and deeply has it been said that this creed of the heart, suffused with the softest tints and sweetest colours, goes to the root of all heresies upon the Incarnation, whether in St. John's time or later. That God should give up His Son by sending Him forth in humanity; that the Word made flesh should humble Himself to the death upon the cross, the Sinless offer Himself for sinners, this is what heresy cannot bring itself to understand. It is the excess of such love which makes it incredible. "We have believed the love" is the whole faith of a Christian man. It is St. John's creed in three words.[105] Such are the chief characteristics of St. John as a sacred writer, which may be traced in his Epistle. These characteristics of the author imply corresponding characteristics of the man. He who states with such inevitable precision, with such noble and self-contained enthusiasm, the great dogmas of the Christian faith, the great laws of the Christian life, must himself have entirely believed them. He who insists upon these conditions in the readers of his Gospel, must himself have aimed at, and possessed, spirituality, purity, and love. II. We proceed to look at the First Epistle as a picture of the soul of its author. (1) His was a life free from the dominion of wilful and habitual sin of any kind. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, and he cannot continue sinning." "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." A man so entirely true, if conscious to himself of any reigning sin, dare not have deliberately written these words.