1 John 5 is exactly the opposite view to rationalism on every point. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” There is obedience to a commandment, the proof of love; “and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” There is a new nature, and the world not educated, but overcome. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” There is faith on a perfect external revealed object, the only means of obtaining the victory. At the end of 1 John 3 you will find, as in Rom. 8, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost given, carefully distinguished from the spirit or conscience within. Christianity is a deliverance sent by God to form the spirit according to a new life on an object supremely blessed without, so as to take out of self, and fix the heart on that supreme object of blessedness. The rationalist's system is a rejection of it for the spirit or fallen nature of man to form itself by heathenism and Christianity as pretty nearly on a par; the latter being reduced by him to within a shade of the level of the former.