." Let us seek the grace of a cheerful
heart, an even temper, sweetness, gentleness, and brightness of mind, as
walking in His light, and by His grace. Let us pray Him to give us the
spirit of ever-abundant, ever-springing love, which overpowers and sweeps
away the vexations of life by its own richness and strength, and which
above all things unites us to Him who is the fountain and the centre of
all mercy, lovingkindness, and joy.

[1] For Christmas Day.

[2] 2 Cor. iv. 6.

[3] Phil. ii. 6-7. 1 Pet. i. 8, 9.

SERMON XVIII.

Ignorance of Evil.

"_And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to
know good and evil._"--Gen. iii. 22.

It is plain that the temptation under which man fell in paradise was
this, an ambitious curiosity after knowledge which was not allowed him:
next came the desire of the eyes and the flesh, but the forbidden tree
was called the tree of _knowledge_; the Tempter _promised_ knowledge;
and after the fall Almighty God pronounced, as in the text, that man
had gained it. "Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to _know_ good
and evil."

You see it is said, "man is become _as one of Us_, to know good and
evil," because God does know evil as well as good. This is His
wonderful incommunicable attribute; and man sought to share in what God
was, but he could not without ceasing to be what God was also, holy and
perfect. It is the incommunicable attribute of God to know evil
without experiencing it. But man, when he would be as God, could only
attain the shadow of a likeness which as yet he had not, by losing the
substance which he had already. He shared in God's knowledge by losing
His image. God knows evil and is pure from it--man plunged into evil
and so knew it.

Our happiness as well as duty lies in not going beyond our measure--in
being contented with what we are--with what God makes us. They who
seek after forbidden knowledge, of whatever kind, will find they have
lost their place in the scale of beings in so doing, and are cast out
of the great circle of God's family.

It is, I say, God's incommunicable attribute, as He did not create, so
not to experience sin--and as He permits it, so also to know it; to
permit it without creating it, to know it without experiencing it--a
wonderful and incomprehensible attribute truly, yet involved, perhaps,
in the very circumstance that He permits it. For He is every where and
in all, and nothing exists excep