I do, indeed, desire that we should take the lesson contained in these awful sentences home to ourselves. For I do feel that the danger of the Jews in this case, as in that of which I spoke to you last Sunday, is precisely our danger; that we are likely not to search the Scriptures, because they bear witness of the Word of God, but to turn them into idols, because we have not the Word of God abiding in us. And I feel as if our Lord had laid bare the inmost root of our disease, as He does of the Jewish disease, in the verses which follow: '_I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?_' He begins with asserting this as His distinction, that He seeks His glory from the only God (παρὰ τοῦ μόνου Θεοῦ), not from man. He concludes with asking how they can believe Him, when they seek honour from each other, not from this only God. And who is this only God of whom He sought glory? He has told us before,--the God who loved the world, and gave His Son, that through Him it might be saved. That love He reflected; of that love, in His words and deeds, He testified. No such love was in them. They did not feel their want of it; they did not seek it where it was to be found. They flattered each other; they lived upon each other's praises. And the consequence was, that they did not believe in One who denied Himself, who abjured all praises, who said that He could do nothing but what He saw His Father do. Such a Being was incomprehensible to them. They _could_ not believe in Him. They must take Him to be a blasphemer and a devil. Let us remember it and tremble. When religious men open 'a benefit club of mutual flattery,' and live upon the allowances that are doled out from it, they must deny the Father and the Son.