in the heart of every man upon whom the gospel has been brought to bear with power.  “Know ye not,” says the Apostle, “that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.”  And again in the Epistle to the Ephesians—­“In Christ ye are builded for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”  There is something in these expressions which refuses to be explained away.  They leave us but one conclusion, and that is—­that in all those who have become Christ’s by faith, God personally and locally has taken up His dwelling-place.

There is a second meaning attached in Scripture to the expression God dwells in man.  According to the first meaning, we understand it in the most plain and literal sense the words are capable of conveying.  According to the second, we understand His dwelling in a figurative sense, implying this—­that He gives an acquaintance with Himself to man.  So, for instance, when Judas asked, “Lord, how is it, that Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us and not to the world?” Our Redeemer’s reply was this—­“If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him.”  In the question it was asked how God would manifest Himself to His servants.  In the answer it was shown how He would make His abode with them.  And if the answer be any reply to the question at all, what follows is this—­that God making His abode or dwelling in the heart is the same thing exactly as God’s manifesting himself to the heart.

Brethren, in these two things the greatness of man consists.  One is to have God so dwelling in us as to impart His character to us; and the other is to have God so dwelling in us that we recognise His presence, and know that we are His and He is ours.  They are two things perfectly distinct To have God in us, this is salvation; to know that God is in us, this is assurance.

Lastly, we inquire as to the persons who are truly great.  And these the Holy Scripture has divided into two classes—­those who are humble and those who are contrite in heart.  Or rather, it will be observed that it is the same class of character under different circumstances.  Humbleness is the frame of mind of those who are in a state of innocence, contrition of those who are in a state of repentant guilt.  Brethren, let not the expression innocence be misunderstood.  Innocence in its true and highest sense never existed but once upon this earth.  Innocence cannot be the religion of man now.  But yet there are those who have walked with God from youth, not quenching the spirit which He gave them, and who are therefore comparatively innocent beings.  All they have to do is to go on, whereas the guilty man has to stop and turn back before he can go on.  Repentance with them is the gentle work of every day, not the work of one distinct and miserable part of life.  They are those whom the Lord calls just men which