forget Him; the life of our souls He will not keep up: therefore,
for the sake of our spirits, even more than of our bodies, we must
live by faith. If we wish to be loving, pure, wise, manly, noble,
we must ask those excellent gifts of God, who is Himself infinite
love, and purity, wisdom and nobleness. If we wish for everlasting
life, from whom can we obtain it but from God, who is the boundless,
eternal, life itself? If we wish for forgiveness for our faults and
failings, where are we to get it but from God, who is boundless love
and pity, and who has revealed to us His boundless love and pity in
the form of a man, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world?

And to go a step further; it is by faith in Christ we must live--in
Christ, a man like ourselves, yet God blessed for ever. For it is a
certain truth, that men cannot believe in God or trust in Him unless
they can think of Him as a man. This was the reason why the poor
heathen made themselves idols in the form of men, that they might
have something like themselves to worship; and those among them who
would not worship idols almost always ended in fancying that God was
either a mere notion, or else a mere part of this world, or else
that He sat up in heaven neither knowing nor caring what happened
upon earth. But we, to whom God has given the glorious news of His
Gospel, have the very Person to worship whom all the heathen were
searching after and could not find,--one who is "very God," infinite
in love, wisdom, and strength, and yet "very man," made in all
points like ourselves, but without sin; so that we have not a High
Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but one who is able to help those who are tempted, because He was
tempted Himself like us, and overcame by the strength of His own
perfect will, of His own perfect faith. By trusting in Him, and
acknowledging Him in every thought and action of our lives, we shall