strange and mad things, terrible and pitiable things will happen, as
they have happened ever since the day when the first man disobeyed
the commandment of the Lord. But man cannot conquer the Lord; the
Lord will conquer man. He will teach men by their neighbours' sins.
He will teach them by their own sins. He will chastise them by sore
judgments. He will make fearful examples of wilful and conceited
sinners; and those who seem to escape him in this life, shall not
escape him in the life to come. But he is trying for ever every
man's work by fire; and against that fire no lie will stand. He
will burn up the stubble and chaff, and leave only the pure wheat
for the use of future generations. His purpose will stand. His
word will never return to him void, but will prosper always where he
sends it. He has made the round world so sure that it cannot be
moved either by man or by worse than man. His everlasting laws will
take effect in spite of all opposition, and bring the world and man
along the path, and to the end, which he purposed for them in the
day when God made the heavens and the earth, and in that even
greater day, when he said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness,' and man arose upright, and knew that he was not as the
beasts, and asked who he was, and where? feeling with the hardly
opened eyes of his spirit after that Lord from whom he came, and to
whom he shall return, as many as have eternal life, in the day when
Christ the Lord of life shall have destroyed death, and put all
enemies under his feet, and given up the kingdom to God, even the
Father, that God may be all in all.



SERMON II. THE LIKENESS OF GOD