oving;
and so they lost the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of Love.
And therefore they did not love each other, but lived in hatred and
suspicion, and selfishness, and darkness. They were but heathen.
But if even they ought to have known that God was Love, how much
more we? For we know of a deed of God's love, such as those poor
heathen never dreamed of. God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son to die for it. Then God showed what His eternal
life was--a life of love: then God showed what our eternal life is--
to know Him who is Love, and Jesus Christ, whom He sent to show
forth His love: then God showed that it is the duty and in the
power of every man to live the life of God, the life of Love; for He
sent forth into the world His Spirit, the Spirit of Love, to fill
with love the heart of every man and woman who sees that Love is the
image of God, and longs to be loving, and therefore longs to be like
God; as it is written, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled:' for righteousness is
keeping Christ's commandment, and Christ's commandment is, that we
love one another. And to those who long to do that, God's Spirit
will come to fill them with love; and where the Spirit of God is,
there is also the Father, and there is also the Son; for God's
substance cannot be divided, as the Athanasian creed tells us (and
blessed and cheering words they are); and he who hath the Holy
Spirit of Love with him hath both the Father and the Son; as it is
written: 'If a man love Me, my Father will love him, and we will
come unto him, and make our abode with him.'

And then, if we have God abiding with us, and filling us with His
Eternal Life, what more do we need for life, or death, or eternity,
or eternities of eternities? For we shall live in and with and by
God, who can never die or change, an everlasting life of love,
whereof St. Paul says, that though prophecies shall fail, and
tongues shall cease, and knowledge shall vanish away, because all
that we know now is but in part, and all that we see now is through
a glass darkly, yet Love shall never fail, but abide for ever and
ever.

SERMON XVI. GOD'S OFFSPRING

Galatians iv. 7. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son;
and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

I say, writes St. Paul, in the epistle which you heard read just
now, 'that the heir, as long as he is a child, differs n