. Now just notice how far God's religion is from both. It does not
say, `Ye shall be as gods;' but, `This Man receiveth sinners': not,
`Hath God said?' but, `Thus saith the Lord.' Turn to the other side,
and instead of your compassionate goddess, it offers you Jesus, the
God-man, able to succour them that are tempted, in that He Himself hath
suffered being tempted. Infallibility, too, it offers you, but not
resident in a man, nor in a body of men. It resides in a book, which is
not the word of man, but the Word of God, and effective only when it is
interpreted and applied by the living Spirit, whose guidance may be had
by the weakest and poorest child that will ask God for Him."

"We are not in church, my dear Mr Raymond!" said Miss Newton, shrugging
her shoulders. "If you preach over the hour, Mrs Desborough will be
sending Caesar to show you the clock."

"I have not exceeded it yet, I think," said Mr Raymond.

"Well, I wish you would talk to Eliza Wilkinson instead of me. She says
she has been--is `converted' the word? I am ill up in Methodist terms.
And ever since she is converted, or was converted, she does not commit
sin. I wish you would talk to her."

"I am not fit to talk to such a seraph. I am a sinner."

"Oh, but I think there is some distinction, which I do not properly
understand. She does not wilfully sin; and as to those little things
which everybody does, that are not quite right, you know,--well, they
don't count for anything. She is a child of God, she says, and
therefore He will not be hard upon her for little nothings. Is that
your creed, Mr Raymond?"

"Do you know the true name of that creed, Miss Theresa?"

"Dear, no! I understand nothing about it."

Mr Raymond's voice was very solemn: "`So hast thou also them that hold
the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, _which thing I hate_.' `Turning the
grace of our God into lasciviousness.' Antinomianism is the name of it.
It has existed in the Church of God from a date, you see, earlier than
the close of the inspired canon. Essentially the same thing survives in
the Popish Church, under the name of mortal and venial sins; and it
creeps sooner or later into every denomination, in its robes of an angel
of light. But it belongs to the darkness. Sin! Do we know the meaning
of that awful word? I believe none but God knows rightly what sin is.
But he who does not know something of what sin is can have very poor
ideas of the Christ who save