authority of the four Gospels were certified for us. Then He was
further promised as the witness in the disciples to Jesus Christ.
And, finally, in the immediately preceding context, we have His
office of 'convincing,' or convicting, 'the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment.' And now we come to that gracious and
gentle work which that divine Spirit is declared by Christ to do, not
only for that little group gathered round Him then, but for all those
who trust themselves to His guidance. He is to be the 'Spirit of
truth' to all the ages, who in simple verity will help true hearts to
know and love the truth. There are three things in the words before
us--first, the avowed incompleteness of Christ's own teaching;
second, the completeness of the truth into which the Spirit of truth
guides; and, last, the unity of these two.

I. First, then, we have here the avowed incompleteness of Christ's
own teaching.

'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now.' Now in an earlier portion of these great discourses, we have
our Lord asserting that '_all_ things whatsoever He had heard of the
Father He had made known' unto His servants. How do these two
representations harmonise? Is it possible to make them agree? Surely,
yes. There is a difference between the germ and the unfolded flower.
There is a difference between principles and the complete development
of these. I suppose you may say that all Euclid is in the axioms and
definitions. I suppose you may also say that when you have learned
the axioms and definitions, there are many things yet to be said, of
which you have not grown to the apprehension. And so our Lord, as far
as His frankness was concerned, and as far as the fundamental and
seminal principles of all religious truth were concerned, had even