om His
throne, and make all true fellowship impossible.

So let me remind you that the religion which does not blend together in
indissoluble union these two, the majesty and the lowliness, the power
and the love, the God inaccessible and the God who has tabernacled with
us in Jesus Christ, is sure to be almost an impotent religion. Deism in
all its forms, the religion which admits a God and denies a revelation;
the religion which, in some vague sense, admits a revelation and denies
an incarnation; the religion which admits an incarnation and denies a
sacrifice; all these have little to say to man as a sinner; little to
say to man as a mourner; little power to move his heart, little power to
infuse strength into his weakness. If once you strike out the thought of
a redeeming Christ from your religion, the temperature will go down
alarmingly, and all will soon be frost bound.

Brethren, there is no real adoration of the loftiness of the King of the
ages, no true apprehension of the majesty of the God incorruptible,
invisible, eternal, until we see Him in the face and in the Cross of
Jesus Christ. The truths of this gospel of our salvation do not in the
smallest degree impinge upon or weaken, but rather heighten, the glory
of God. The brightest glory streams from the Cross. It was when He was
standing within a few hours of it, and had it full in view, that Jesus
Christ broke out into that strange strain of triumph, 'Now is God
glorified.' 'The King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only
God,' is more honoured and glorified in the forgiveness that comes
through Jesus Christ, and in the transforming power which He puts forth
in the Gospel, than in all besides.

III. Lastly, let me draw your attention to the praise which should fill
the lives of those who know these facts.

I said that this Apostle seems always, when he refers to his own
individual conversion, to have been melted into fresh outpourings of
thankfulness and of praise. And that is what ought to be the life of all
of you who call yourselves Christians; a continual warmth of
thankfulness welling up in the heart, and not seldom finding utterance
in the words, but always filling the life.

Not seldom, I say, finding utterance in the words. It is a delicate
thing for a man to speak about himself, and his own religious
experience. Our English reticence, our social habits, and many other
even less worthy hindrances rise in the way; and I should be the la