[Sidenote: St. John's universal patriarchate.]
For about a third of a century St. John continued to exercise a kind of universal patriarchate over the Church, being regarded, we cannot doubt, with almost unbounded reverence and affection by all its members, and perhaps first presenting that idea of one visible earthly head of the Church, which afterwards found its expression in the popedom.
[Sidenote: St. John's writings close the Canon.]
The Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of St. John, written as they were at a long interval after the rest of the New Testament, and closing the Canon of Sacred Scripture, may be usefully referred to, as giving us some idea of the appearance of the Church when its government and theology were finally settled.
[Sidenote: How his Gospel differs from the other three.]
St. John's Gospel differs from those of the other three Evangelists in having been written for men who from their infancy had grown up in the Faith of Christ, and who { 52} were thus more ready to enter into and profit by deep sacramental doctrine; whilst at the same time the dangerous heresies which were beguiling souls from the truth, called for more detailed and dogmatic teaching than had at first been needed. [Sidenote: Dwells on our Lord's Divinity,] Hence in place of an account of our Lord's Human Birth, St. John sets forth His Eternal Godhead and wonderful Incarnation, leaving no space for unbelief or cavil, when he proclaims for the instruction of the Church, that "the Word was God," and yet that He also "was made Flesh." [Sidenote: and on the two Sacraments.] Again, the last Gospel does not bring before us the Institution of the two great Sacraments of the Christian Covenant; though it, and it alone, does record the teaching of our Blessed Lord Himself with regard to the New Birth in Holy Baptism, and the constant Nourishment of the renewed life in the Holy Eucharist.
[Sidenote: The Epistles correct heresies.]
Having established the Faith in His Gospel, St. John in his Epistles sternly censures heresy and schism, thus witnessing to the end of time that the charity of the Church must never lead her to countenance false doctrine.
[Sidenote: The Apocalypse sets forth Discipline and Worship.]