od: and St. Paul says, they ought to have known what God
was like; that He was Love; for St. Paul told them He left not
Himself without witness, in that He sent them rain and fruitful
seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. That was, in
St. Paul's eyes, God's plainest witness of Himself--the sign that
God was Love, making His sun shine on the just and on the unjust,
and good to the unthankful and the evil--in one word, perfect,
because He is perfect Love. But they preferred to be selfish,
covetous, envious, revengeful, delighting to indulge themselves in
filthy pleasures, to oppress and defraud each other. Do you?

For you can, I can, every baptized man can take his choice between
the selfish life of the heathens and the loving life of God: we may
either keep to the old pattern of man, which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lusts; or we may put on the new pattern of man, which
is after God's likeness, and founded upon righteousness and truthful
holiness.

Every baptized man may choose. For he is not only bound to live the
life of God: every man, as the old heathen philosophers knew, is
bound to live it: but more. The baptized man _can_ live it: that
is the good news of his baptism. _You can_ live the life of God,
for you know what the life of God is--it is the life of Jesus
Christ. _You can_ live the life of God, for the Spirit of God is
with you, to cleanse your soul and life, day by day, till they are
like the soul and life of Christ.

Then you will be, as the apostle says, 'a partaker of a divine
nature.' Then--and it is an awful thing to say--a thing past hope,
past belief, but I must say it--for it is in the Bible, it is the
word of the Blessed Lord Himself, and of His beloved apostle, St.
John: 'If a man love Me, he will keep my commandments, and my
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode
with him.' 'And this is His commandment,' says St. John, 'That we
should love one another.' 'God is Love, and he who dwelleth in Love
dwelleth in God, and God in him.'

God is Love. As I told you just now, the heathens of old might have
known that, if they had chosen to open their eyes and see. But they
would not see. They were dark, cruel, and unloving, and therefore
they fancied that God was dark, cruel, and unloving also. They did
not love Love, and therefore they did not love God, for God is Love.
And therefore they did not love loving: they did not enjoy l