the petitions in this great prayer of
Paul's, each of which, as we have had occasion to see in former sermons,
rises above, and is a consequence of the preceding, and leads on to,
and is a cause or occasion of the subsequent one.

The two former petitions have been for inward strength communicated by a
Divine Spirit, in order that Christ may dwell in our hearts, and so we
may be rooted and grounded in love. The result of these desires being
realised in our hearts is here set forth in two clauses which are
substantially equivalent in meaning. 'To comprehend' may be taken as
meaning nearly the same as 'to know,' only that perhaps the former
expresses an act more purely intellectual. And, as we shall see in our
next sermon, 'the breadth and length and depth and height' are the
unmeasurable dimensions of the love which in the second clause is
described as 'passing knowledge.' I purpose to deal with these measures
in a separate discourse, and, therefore, omit them from consideration
now.

We have, then, mainly two thoughts here, the one, that only the loving
heart in which Christ dwells can know the love of Christ; and the other
that even that heart can _not_ know the love of Christ. The paradox is
intentional, but it is intelligible. Let me deal then, as well as I can,
with these two great thoughts.

I. First, we have this thought that only the loving heart can know
Christ's love.

Now the Bible uses that word _know_ to express two different things; one
which we call mere intellectual perception; or to put it into plainer
words, mere head knowledge such as a man may have about any subject of
study, and the other a deep and living experience which is possession
before it is knowledge, and knowledge because it is possession.

Now the former of these two, the knowledge which is merely the work of
the understanding, is, of course, independent of love. A man may know
all about Christ and His love without one spark of love in his heart.
And there are thousands of people who, as far as the mere intellectual
understanding is concerned, know as much about Jesus Christ and His love
as the saint who is closest to the Throne, and yet have not one trace of
love to Christ in them. That is the kind of people that a widely
diffused Christianity and a habit of hearing sermons produce. There are
plenty of them, and some of us among them, who, as far as their heads
are concerned, know quite as much of Jesus Christ and His love as any of