2. Nicodemus and Christ, in express terms, recognized the validity of this standard. Said the ruler to Christ, "We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him."--_John_ III. 2. In these words, he both recognized the validity of the standard, and the fact that its requirements had been met. But decisively emphatic are the words of our Saviour: "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father."--_John_ XV. 24. As if he had said, "While I appeared among them simply as a man, I had no right to claim from them a belief in my mission; but when I had given them adequate and ample evidence of my heavenly character, when, in a word, I had by my works satisfied all the rational demands for evidence which they could make, then no excuse remained for their rejection of me." The doctrine of this treatise, that man may know the truth, and know God, is one which will never be too largely reflected upon by the human mind, or too fully illustrated in human thought. In no better strain can we bring our work to a close than by offering some reflections on those words of Jesus Christ which have formed the title of our book. "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, 'If ye continue in my word, _then_ are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'"--_John_ VIII. 31, 32. Throughout all the acts of Christ, as recorded in John and especially during the last days of his life, there may be traced the marks of a super-human effort to express to the Jews, in the most skilful manner, the nature and purport of his mission. He appeared to them a man; and yet it would seem as if the Godhead in him struggled with language to overcome its infirmities, and express with perfectest skill his extraordinary character and work. But "he came unto his own, and his own received him not." Being then such, even the Divine Man, Jesus Christ possessed in his own right _an absolute and exhaustive metaphysic_. We study out some laws in some of their applications; he knew all laws in all their applications. In these his last days he was engaged in making the most profound and highly philosophical revelations to his followers that one being ever made to another. Or does the reader prefer to call them religious? Very well: for here Religion and Philosophy are identical. Being engaged in such a labor, it is certain that no merely human teacher ever used words with the careful balancing, the skilful selection, the certain exactitude, that Jesus did. Hence in the most emphatic sense may it be said, that, whether he used figurative or literal language, he meant just what he said. The terms used in the text quoted are literal terms, and undoubtedly the passage is to be taken in its most literal signification. In these words then, in this passage of