Knowing God,--that is theology; being known of Him,--that is religion. Both theology and religion have their influence on conduct. It is a great thing to know that one knows God. There is power in a rational creed. But, after all, the profoundest impulse for conduct is to know that beneath all your ignorance of God is His knowledge of you; that before you loved Him, He loved you, that antecedent to your response to Him was His invitation to you. Thus it is that a man looks out into each new day and asks: "What is to hold me to-day to my duty?" Well, first of all, everything I may learn ought to help me. It is all God's truth, and, as I get a grasp on truth and stand on its firm ground, my conduct is steadier and assured. But, after all, the deeper safety lies in this other confession, that I am known of God; that I {194} am not merely an explorer, searching for truth, but guided and controlled as ever under the great taskmaster's eye; known of Him, with my ignorance of Him held within His knowledge of me, until the time comes when at last I shall know even as also I am known. {195} LXXVIII FREEDOM IN THE TRUTH _John_ viii. 32. "The truth shall make you free;"--that is one of the greatest announcements of a universal principle which even Jesus Christ ever made. But the Jews began to ask of him: "How can one be a disciple of your truth and yet be free? Is not that discipleship only another name for bondage? We are free already. We are in bondage to no man. Why then should we enter into the servitude of obedience to your truth?" And to this Jesus seems to answer: "That depends upon what it is to be free. It is a question of your definition of liberty. You seem to believe that to be free one must have no authority or leadership or master. But I say unto you that there is no such liberty. You must be the servant of something. You must be under the authority of your law, or your superstition, or your God, or yourself. Freedom on any other terms is not freedom, it is lawlessness. {196} Indeed it may be more like slavery than freedom."