What a God some Christians have! A God who does not know them or care for them in particular; a God who can not or does not interfere on their behalf; a God who can do no good or harm, except as the laws of nature bring it about in the course of cause and effect; a God not to be reckoned with--a dummy, a figurehead; a God named "Father" who leaves them mere orphans; a God who can not fulfill his promises, whose love we have to buy with good works and service; a God who bids us go through the motion and mock performance of prayer, when it is understood that it can have no vestige of effect anywhere, except on the one who offers it; a God unfaithful, untrustworthy, malicious; a God who, if he [198] were a man, would not pass for a gentleman! No wonder they do no more for him! The wonder is they do as much as they do. How densely, deeply ignorant we are of him, because we "know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" no, nor yet his goodness, love, faithfulness; his dread holiness, on the one hand, and his tender compassion and grace, on the other. For to know him aright is eternal life: to know him is to love him, and to love him is to serve him, and to serve him is peace past all understanding and joy unspeakable and full of glory. "O, taste and see that Jehovah is good; blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him."

[TAG 198-199]