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 loving; 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.