aggravates his condemnation, and lays a heavier burden upon his soul.
The truth that the measure of light is the measure of guilt has many
aspects. It turns a face of alleviation to the dark places of the
earth; but just in the measure that it lightens the condemnation of
the heathen, it adds weight to the condemnation of you men and women
who are bathed in the light of Christianity, and all your days have
had it streaming in upon you. The measure of the guilt is the
brightness of the light. No shadows are so black as those which the
intense sunshine of the tropics casts. And you and I live in the very
tropical regions of divine revelation, and 'if we turn away from Him
that spoke on earth and speaketh from heaven, of how much sorer
punishment, think you, shall we be thought worthy' than those who
live away out in the glimmering twilight of an unevangelised
paganism, or who stood by the side of Jesus Christ when they had only
His earthly life to teach them?

III. The ignorance which is sin is the manifestation of hatred.

Our Lord has sorrowfully contemplated the not knowing God, which in
the blaze of His light can only come from wilful closing of the eyes,
and is therefore the very sin of sins. But that, sad as it is, is not
all which has to be said about that blindness of unbelief in Him. It
indicates a rooted alienation of heart and mind and will from God,
and is, in fact, the manifestation of an unconscious but real hatred.
It is an awful saying, and one which the lips 'into which grace was
poured' could not pronounce without a sigh. But it is our wisdom to
listen to what it was His mercy to say.

Observe our Lord's identification of Himself with the Father, so as
that the feelings with which men regard Him are, _ipso facto_, the