And here, let us for a moment look upon the bright, as well as the dark side of this subject.  For if God’s exhaustive knowledge of the human heart waken dread in one of its aspects, it starts infinite hope in another.  If that Being has gone down into these depths of human depravity, and seen it with a more abhorring glance than could ever shoot from a finite eye, and yet has returned with a cordial offer to forgive it all, and a hearty proffer to cleanse it all away, then we can lift up the eye in adoration and in hope.  There has been an infinite forbearance and condescension.  The worst has been seen, and that too by the holiest of Beings, and yet eternal glory is offered to us!  God knows, from personal examination, the worthlessness of human character, with a thoroughness and intensity of knowledge of which man has no conception; and yet, in the light of this knowledge, in the very flame of this intuition, He has devised a plan of mercy and redemption.  Do not think, then, because of your present ignorance of your guilt and corruption, that the incarnation and death of the Son of God was unnecessary, and that that costly blood of atonement which you are treading under foot wet the rocks of Calvary for a peccadillo.  Could you, but for a moment only, know yourself altogether and exhaustively, as the Author of this Redemption knows you, you would cry out, in the words of a far holier man than you are, “I am undone.”  If you could but see guilt as God sees it, you would also see with Him that nothing but an infinite Passion can expiate it.  If you could but fathom the human heart as God fathoms it, you would know as He knows, that nothing less than regeneration can purify its fountains of uncleanness, and cleanse it from its ingrain corruption.

Thus have we seen that God knows man altogether,—­that He knows all that man knows of himself, and all that man might but does not yet know of himself.  The Searcher of hearts knows all the thoughts that we have thought upon, all the reflections that we have reflected upon, all the experience that we have ourselves analyzed and inspected.  And He also knows that far larger part of our life which we have not yet subjected to the scrutiny of self-examination,—­all those thoughts, feelings, desires, and motives, innumerable as they are, of which we took no heed at the time of their origin and existence, and which we suppose, perhaps, we shall hear no more of again.  Whither then shall we go from God’s spirit? or whither shall we flee from His presence and His knowledge?  If we ascend up into heaven, He is there, and knows us perfectly.  If we make our bed in hell, behold He is there, and reads the secret thoughts and feelings of our heart.  The darkness hideth not from Him; our ignorance does not affect His knowledge; the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to Him.