Corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded" (Isa. xxviii. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 6). But let us now turn directly to the profound and comprehensive passage which forms the special subject of this paper. In it, most assuredly, we listen to the voice of a Saviour-God--the voice of Him who came down from heaven to reveal God in such a way as He had never been revealed before. It is a marvelously blessed fact that God has been fully revealed in this world--revealed, so that we--the writer and the reader of these lines--may know Him, in all the reality of what He is--know Him, each for himself, with the utmost possible certainty, and have to do with Him, in all the blessed intimacy of personal communion. Reader, think of this! Think, we beseech you, of this amazing privilege. You may know God for yourself, as _your_ Saviour, _your_ Father, _your_ own very God. You may have to do with Him; you may lean upon Him, cling to Him, walk with Him, live and move and have your being in His own most blessed presence, in the bright sunshine of His loving countenance, under His own immediate eye. This is life and peace. It is far more than mere theology or systematic divinity. These things have their value, but, be it remembered, a man may be a profound theologian, an able divine, and yet live and die without God and perish eternally. Solemn, awful, overwhelming thought! A man may go down to hell, into the blackness and darkness of an eternal night, with all the dogmas of theology at his fingers' ends. A man may sit in the professor's chair, stand in the pulpit and at the desk; he may be looked up to as a great teacher and an eloquent preacher: hundreds may sit at his feet and learn, thousands may hang on his lips and be enraptured, and, after all, he himself may descend into the pit, and spend a dismal, miserable eternity in company with the most profane and immoral. Not so, however, with one who knows God as He is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Such a one has gotten life eternal. "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3). It is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.