In a word, to be perfect, even as their Father in heaven is perfect.  To do justly, because God is just, faithful, and true, rewarding every man according to his works, and no partial accepter of persons; so that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted by Him.

To love mercy, because God loves mercy; to be merciful, because our Father in heaven is merciful; because He willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live; because God came to seek and to save that which is lost, and is good to the unthankful and the evil; and because God so loved sinful man, that when man hated God, God’s answer to man’s hate, God’s vengeance upon man’s rebellion, was, to send His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And to walk humbly with your God, because—­and what shall I say now?  Does God walk humbly?  Can there be humility in God?  Can God obey?  And yet it must be so.  If, as is most certain from Holy Scripture, man, as far as he is what man ought to be, is the image and glory of God; if man’s justice ought to be a copy of God’s justice, and man’s mercy a copy of God’s mercy, and all which is good in man a copy of something good in God:  if, as is most certain, all good on earth is God’s likeness, and only good because it is God’s likeness, and is given by God’s Spirit,—­then our walking humbly with God, if it be good, must be a copy of something in God.  But of what?

That, my friends, is a question which can never be answered but by those who believe in the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost.  It is too solemn and great a matter to be spoken of hastily at the end of a sermon.  I will tell you what little I seem to see of it next Sunday, with awe and trembling, as one who enters upon holy ground.  But this I will tell you, to bear in mind meanwhile, that if you wish to know or to do what is right, you must firmly believe and bear in mind this,—­that God’s justice is exactly like what would be just in you and me, without any difference whatsoever:  that God’s mercy is exactly like what would be merciful in you and me; and that, as I hope to show you next Sunday, God’s humility, wonderful as it may seem, is exactly like what would be humble in you and me.  For I warn you, that if you do not believe this, you will be tempted to forget God’s righteousness, and to invent a righteousness of your own, which is no righteousness at all, but unrighteousness.  For there can be but one righteousness—­mind what I say—­only one righteousness, as there can be only one truth, and only one reason.  Forget that, and you will be tempted to invent for yourselves a false justice, which is dishonest and partial; a false mercy, which is cruel; a false humility, which is vain and self-conceited; and you will be tempted also, as men of all religions and denominations have