s well as an
atheistic pantheism, and as long as we retain clearly in our minds the
consciousness of the personal distinction between God and His child, so
as that the child can turn round and say, 'I love Thee' and God can look
down and say, 'I bless thee'; then all identification and mutual
indwelling and impartation from Him of Himself are possible, and are
held forth as the aim and end of Christian life.

Of course in a mere abstract and philosophical sense the Infinite cannot
be contained by the finite; and attributes which express infinity, like
omnipresence and omniscience and omnipotence and so on, indicate things
in God that we can know but little about, and that cannot be
communicated. But those are not the divinest things in God. 'God is
love.' Do you believe that that saying unveils the deepest things in
Him? God is light, 'and in Him is no darkness at all.' Do you believe
that His light and His love are nearer the centre than these attributes
of power and infinitude? If we believe that, then we can come back to my
text and say, 'The love, which is Thee, can come into me; the light,
which is Thee, can pour itself into my darkness; the holiness, which is
Thee, can enter into my impurity. The heaven of heavens cannot contain
Thee. Thou dwellest in the humble and in the contrite heart.'

So, dear brethren, the old legends about mighty forms that contracted
their stature and bowed their divine heads to enter into some poor man's
hut, and sit there, are simple Christian realities. And instead of
puzzling ourselves with metaphysical difficulties which are mere
shadows, and the work of the understanding or the spawn of words, let us
listen to the Christ when He says, 'We will come unto him and make our
abode with him' and believe that it was no impossibility which fired the
Apostle's hope when he prayed, and in praying prophesied, that we might
be filled with all the fulness of God.

Then there is another difficulty that rises before our minds; and
Christian men say, 'How is it possible, in this region of imperfection,
compassed with infirmity and sin as we are, that such hopes should be
realised for us here?' Well, I would rather answer that question by
retorting and saying: 'How is it possible that such a prayer should have
come from inspired lips unless the thing that Paul was asking might be?'
Did he waste his breath when he thus prayed? Are we not as Christian men
bound, instead of measuring our expectations