n the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen."

SERMON III. THE PURIFYING HOPE

Eversley, 1869. Windsor Castle, 1869.

1 John iii. 2. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

Let us consider this noble text, and see something, at least, of what it
has to tell us. It is, like all God's messages, all God's laws, ay, like
God's world in which we live and breathe, at once beautiful and awful;
full of life-giving hope; but full, too, of chastening fear. Hope for
the glorious future which it opens to poor human beings like us; fear,
lest so great a promise being left us, we should fall short of it by our
own fault. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us,
that we should be called the sons of God.

There is the root and beginning of all Christianity,--of all true
religion. We are the sons of God, and the infinite, absolute, eternal
Being who made this world, and all worlds, is our Father. We are the
children of God. It is not for us to say who are not God's children.
That is God's concern, not ours. All that we have to do with, is the
awful and blessed fact that we are. We were baptised into God's kingdom,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Let us
believe the Gospel and good news which baptism brings us, and say each of
us;--Not for our own goodness and deserving; not for our own faith or
assurance; not for anything which we have thought, felt, or done, but
simply out of the free grace and love of God, seeking out us unconscious
infants, we are children of God. "Beloved now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." It doth not yet appear
what the next life will be like, or what we shall be like in it. That
there will be a next life,--that death does not end all for us, the New
Testament tells us. Yea, our own hearts and reasons tell us. That
sentiment of immortality, that instinct that the death of our body will
not, cannot destroy our souls, or ourselves--all men have had that,
except a few; and it is a question whether they had it not once, and have
only lost it by giving way to their brute animal nature. But be that as
it may, it concerns us, I think