ese attributes, not in
the light of _speculation_, but in the light of _facts_. He has given
us His own character in all its delicacy of colouring in the history
of Christ. Love, Mercy, Tenderness, Purity--these are no mere names
when we see them brought out in the human actions of our Master.
Holiness is only a shadow to our minds, till it receives shape and
substance in the life of Christ. All this character of holiness is
intelligible to us in Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time, the
only begotten of the Father He hath declared Him."

There is a third light in which God's holiness is shown to us, and
that is in the sternness with which He recoils from guilt. When Christ
died for man, I know what God's love means; and when Jesus wept human
tears over Jerusalem, I know what God's compassion means; and when the
stern denunciations of Jesus rung in the Pharisees' ears, I can
comprehend what God's indignation is; and when Jesus stood calm before
His murderers, I have a conception of what serenity is. Brethren,
revelation opens to us a scene beyond the grave, when this shall be
exhibited in full operation. There will be an everlasting banishment
from God's presence of that impurity on which the last efforts have
been tried in vain. It will be a carrying out of this sentence by a
law that cannot be reversed--"Depart from me, ye cursed." But it is
quite a mistake to suppose that this is only a matter of revelation.
Traces of it we have now on this side the sepulchre. Human life is
full of God's recoil from sin. In the writhings of a heart which has
been made to possess its own iniquities--in the dark spot which guilt
leaves upon the conscience, rising up at times in a man's gayest
moments, as if it will not come out--in the restlessness and the
feverishness which follow the efforts of the man who has indulged
habits of sin too long,--in all these there is a law repelling
wickedness from the presence of the Most High,--which proclaims that
God is holy.

Brethren, it is in these that the greatness of God consists--Eternal
in Time--Unlimited in Space--Unchangeable--Pure in character--His
serenity and His vastness arise from His own perfections.

We are to consider, in the second place, the greatness of man.

1. The nature of that greatness.
2. The persons who are great.

Now, this is brought before us in the text in this one fact, that man
has been made a habitation of the