But God’s infinite power too often means, in the minds of men, only some abstract notion of boundless bodily strength.  God’s omniscience too often means, only some physical fancy of innumerable telescopic or microscopic eyes.  God’s infinite wisdom too often means, only some abstract notion of boundless acuteness of brain.  And lastly—­I am sorry to have to say it, but it must be said,—­God’s infinite majesty too often means, in the minds of some superstitious people, mere pride, and obstinacy, and cruelty, as of the blind will of some enormous animal which does what it chooses, whether right or wrong.

If the mystery of the Cross contradict any of these carnal or material notions, so much the more glory to the mystery of the Cross.  One spiritual infinite, one spiritual absolute, it does not contradict:  and that is the infinite and absolute goodness of God.

Let all the rest remain a mystery, so long as the mystery of the Cross gives us faith for all the rest.

Faith, I say.  The mystery of evil, of sorrow, of death, the Gospel does not pretend to solve:  but it tells us that the mystery is proved to be soluble.  For God Himself has taken on Himself the task of solving it; and has proved by His own act, that if there be evil in the world, it is none of His; for He hates it, and fights against it, and has fought against it to the death.

It simply says—­Have faith in God.  Ask no more of Him—­Why hast Thou made me thus?  Ask no more—­Why do the wicked prosper on the earth?  Ask no more—­Whence pain and death, war and famine, earthquake and tempest, and all the ills to which flesh is heir?

All fruitless questionings, all peevish repinings, are precluded henceforth by the passion and death of Christ.

Dost thou suffer?  Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God.  Dost thou sympathize with thy fellow-men?  Thou canst not sympathize more than the Son of God.  Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them, even at the price of thine own blood?  Thou canst not long more ardently than the Son of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them and thee.  What if the end be not yet?  What if evil still endure?  What if the medicine have not yet conquered the disease?  Have patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ’s Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart.  For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it.  Whatsoever else is doubtful, this at least is sure,—­that good must conquer, because God is good; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.

SERMON II.  THE PERFECT LOVE.

1 JOHN IV. 10.

   Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent
   His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.