By this we are not to understand that the creature’s knowledge, in the future state, will be as extensive as that of the Omniscient One; or that it will be as profound and exhaustive as His.  The infinitude of things can be known only by the Infinite Mind; and the creature will forever be making new acquisitions, and never reaching the final limit of truths and facts.  But upon certain moral subjects, the perception of the creature will be like that of his Maker and Judge, so far as the kind or quality of the apprehension is concerned.  Every man in eternity, for illustration, will see sin to be an odious and abominable thing, contrary to the holy nature of God, and awakening in that nature the most holy and awful displeasure.  His knowledge upon this subject will be so identical with that of God, that he will be unable to palliate or excuse his transgressions, as he does in this world.  He will see them precisely as God sees them.  He must know them as God knows them, because he will “know even as he is known.”

II.  In continuing the examination of this solemn subject, we remark as a second and further characteristic of the knowledge which every man will possess in eternity, that he will know himself even as he is known by God.  His knowledge of God we have found to be direct, accurate, and unceasing; his knowledge of his own heart will be so likewise.  This follows from the relation of the two species of cognition to each other.  The true knowledge of God involves the true knowledge of self.  The instant that any one obtains a clear view of the holy nature of his Maker, he obtains a clear view of his own sinful nature.  Philosophers tell us, that our consciousness of God and our consciousness of self mutually involve and imply each other[1]; in other words, that we cannot know God without immediately knowing ourselves, any more than we can know light without knowing darkness, any more than we can have the idea of right without having the idea of wrong.  And it is certainly true that so soon as any being can intelligently say, “God is holy,” he can and must say, “I am holy,” or, “I am unholy,” as the fact may be.  Indeed, the only way in which man can truly know himself is to contrast himself with his Maker; and the most exhaustive self-knowledge and self-consciousness is to be found, not in the schools of secular philosophy but, in the searchings of the Christian heart,—­in the “Confessions” of Augustine; in the labyrinthine windings of Edwards “On the Affections.”  Hence the frequent exhortations in the Bible to look at the character of God, in order that we may know ourselves and be abased by the contrast.  In eternity, therefore, if we must have a clear and constant perception of God’s character, we must necessarily have a distinct and unvarying knowledge of our own.  It is not so here.  Here in this world, man knows himself but “in part.”  Even when he endeavors to look within, prejudice and passion often affect