The conception of infinity and eternity is given us by revelation, but it is not comprehended so that its contents are fully known. The words are known, but their full meaning is not, and no revelation can make them, known to finite intelligences. God dwells in light inaccessible, which is darkness. Revelation opens abysses down which we cannot look. It raises and leaves unsettled as many questions as it solves. The telescope resolves many nebulae, but only to bring more unresolvable ones into the field of vision. Now all this is but one side of the truth. There is a tendency in some minds to underrate what is plain because all is not plain. For some minds the obscure has a fascination, apart altogether from its nature, just because it is obscure. It is a noble emulation to press forward and 'still to be closing up what we know not with what we know.' But neither in science nor in religion shall we make progress if we do not take heed of the opposing errors of thinking that all is seen, and of thinking that what we have is valueless because there are gaps in it. The constellations are none the less bright nor immortal fires, though there be waste places in heaven where nothing but opaque blackness is seen. In these days it is especially needful to insist both on the incompleteness of all our religious knowledge, and to say that-- II. Notwithstanding all obscurity, God has amply revealed Himself. Though God hides Himself, still there comes from heaven the voice--'I have not spoken in secret,' Now these words contain these thoughts-- 1. That whatever darkness there may be, there is none due to the manner of the revelation. God has not spoken in secret, in a corner. There are no arbitrary difficulties made or unnecessary darkness left in His revelation. _We_ have no right to say that He has left difficulties to test our faith. _He_ Himself has never said so. He deals with us in good faith, doing all that can be done to enlighten, regard being had to still loftier considerations, to the freedom of the human will, to the laws which He has Himself imposed on our nature, and the purposes for which we are here. It is very important to grasp this. We have been told as much as _can_ be told. Contrast with such a revelation the cave-muttered oracles of heathenism and their paltering double sense. Be sure that when God speaks, He speaks clearly and to all, and that in Christianity there is no esoteric teaching for a few initiated only, while the multitude are put off with shows. 2. That whatever obscurity there may be, there is none which hides the divine invitation or Him from those who obey it. 'I have never said ... seek ye Me in vain.' Much is obscure if speculative completeness is looked for, but the moral relations of God and man are not obscure.