esire, as the height of all
felicity and the power for all goodness, to walk all the day long in
the light of His countenance, till the day come when we shall receive
the crown of our perfecting in that we shall be 'ever with the Lord.'

The recognition of this triumphant sovereignty of love over all these
real and supposed antagonists makes us, too, lords over them, and
delivers us from the temptations which some of them present us to
separate ourselves from the love of God. They all become our servants
and helpers, uniting us to that love. So we are set free from the
dread of death and from the distractions incident to life. So we are
delivered from superstitious dread of an unseen world, and from
craven fear of men. So we are emancipated from absorption in the
present and from careful thought for the future. So we are at home
everywhere, and every corner of the universe is to us one of the many
mansions of our Father's house. 'All things are yours, ... and ye are
Christ's; and Christ is God's.'

I do not forget the closing words of this great text. I have not
ventured to include them in our present subject, because they would
have introduced another wide region of thought to be laid down on our
already too narrow canvas.

But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by
our Apostle to be 'in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Love illimitable,
all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a
course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours
itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make
it, a vague, nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic
half-made universe, but all gathered in that great Light which rules
the day--even in Him who said: 'I am the Light of the world.' In
Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be
imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are
gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all that are in the
house. 'God _so_ loved the world'--not merely _so much_, but in _such
a fashion_--'that'--that what? Many people would leap at once from
the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life
for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal
love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between that universal love
and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two
conditions, one on God's part, one on man's. God's love reaches its
end, n