1 John 5:19

Having taught us which sin is unto death and which is not unto death, he then indicates who can sin unto death, and says: one adopted by God can never be afflicted by sin, whether unto death or not unto death. For having once surrendered …

The world is subjected to the perversion which gives birth to sin, and because of that it is prone to the cultivation of evil things.

The fifth middle way is kindness, either in the form of the re-establishment of justice or in that of friendship, which has nothing of malice, but through which a man seeks someone else's good; and here it is necessary that reason be guided. Although the …

We know that we are children of God - By the witness and the fruit of his Spirit, chap. iii, 24. But the whole world - All who have not his Spirit, not only is "touched" by him, but by idolatry, fraud, violence lasciviousness, impiety, all manner of wickedness.

And we know that we are of God,....

IT is remarkable how throughout the whole of John's Epistle he continually uses the word, "know." It has quite refreshed me to carefully read through the Epistle and to observe how, as the clock strikes the same note again and again, John seems to have kept to this monotone—"We know, we know, we know."

world lieth in wickedness--rather, "lieth in the wicked one," as the Greek is translated in 1Jo 5:18;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

IT is remarkable how throughout the whole of John's Epistle he continually uses the word, "know." It has quite refreshed me to carefully read through the Epistle and to observe how, as the clock strikes the same note again and again, John seems to have kept to this monotone—"We know, we know, we know." In this age, when it is fashionable not to know anything, when the professedly learned would hold us in a state of perpetual doubt and our great poet tells us that there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds—and everybody seems to be bewitched with what is called "modern thought"—it is quite cheering to one's ears and delicious to one's heart to hear the bell strike out again and again, "We know, we know, we know"! After all, there is something certain somewhere, some grip for our anchor, some foundation to build our eternal hopes upon—something that can be trusted, something besides cloud and will-o'-the wisps! "We know, we know, we know." Take your pencils and read through this first Epistle of John and underline the word, "know," and you will feel the force of our remark. Look at the second Chapter—"Hereby we do know that we know Him." "He that says I know Him." "Hereby know we that we are in Him." In the 13th verse we read, "Because you have known Him." "I write unto you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from the beginning." "We have an unction from the Holy One and you know all things." "I have not written unto you because you know not the Truth, but because you, knowi t, and that no lie is of the Truth." And so in the third Chapter, verse after verse.

We know that we are of God - Have the fullest proof of the truth of Christianity, and of our own reconciliation to God through the death of his Son. The whole world lieth in wickedness - Εν τῳ πονηρῳ κειται· Lieth in the wicked one - is embraced in the arms of the devil, where it lies fast asleep and carnally secure, deriving its heat and power from its infernal fosterer. What a truly awful state! And do not the actions, tempers, propensities, opinions and maxims of all worldly men prove and illustrate this? “In this short expression,” says Mr. Wesley, “the horrible state of the world is painted in the most lively colors; a comment on which we have in the actions, conversations, contracts, quarrels and friendships of worldly men.” Yes, their Actions are opposed to the law of God; their Conversations shallow, simulous, and false; their Contracts forced, interested, and deceitful; their Quarrels puerile, ridiculous, and ferocious; and their Friendships hollow, insincere, capricious, and fickle: - all, all the effect of their lying in the arms of the wicked one; for thus they become instinct with his own spirit: and because they are of their father the devil, therefore his lusts they will do.

When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church …