language,—­the words of the text for example, not as describing what we are when we are full of sin; nor yet as mere exaggerated language, which must be brought down to the level of our present reality.  Let us consider it as containing the words of truth and soberness; not one jot or one tittle needs to be abated; it must not be lowered to us, but we rather raised to it.  It is a truth, it is the word of God, it is the seal of our assurance:  it is that which good men of old would have welcomed with the deepest joy; which, to good men now is a source of comfort unspeakable.  For it tells us that God has done for us, is doing, will do, all that we need; it tells us that the price of our redemption has been paid, the kingdom of heaven has been set open, the power to walk as God’s children has been given:  that so far as God is concerned we are redeemed, we are saved, we are sanctified; it is but our own fault merely that we are not all of these actually and surely.

This is not a little matter to be persuaded of; if it be true, as I fear it is, that too many of us do not love God, is it not quite as true that we cannot believe that God loves us?  Have we any thing like a distinct sense of the words of St. John, “We love God because he first loved us?” We believe in the love of our earthly friends; those who have so lately left their homes have no manner of doubt that their parents are interested in their welfare, though absent; that they will often think of them; and that, as far as it is possible at a distance from them, they are watching over their good, and anxious to promote it.  The very name home implies all this; it implies that it is a place where those live who love us; and I do not question that the consciousness of possessing this love does, amidst all your faults and forgetfulnesses, rise not unfrequently within your minds, and restrain you from making yourselves altogether unworthy of it.  Now, I say, that the words of the text, and hundreds of similar passages, are our assurance, if we would but believe them, that we have another home and another parent, by whom we are loved constantly and earnestly, who has done far more for us than our earthly parents can do.  I grant that it is hard to believe this really; so infinite is the distance between God and us, that we cannot fancy that he cares for us; he may make laws for a world, or for a system, but what can he think or feel for us?  It is, indeed, a thought absolutely overpowering to the mind; it may well seem incredible to us, judging either from our own littleness or our own forgetfulness; so hard as we find it to think enough of those to whom we are most nearly bound, how can the Most High.  God think of us?  But if there be any one particle of truth in Christianity, we are warranted in saying that God does love us; strange as it may seem, He, whom neither word nor thought of created being can compass; He, who made us and ten thousand worlds, loves each one of us individually; “the very hairs of our heads are all numbered.”  He so loved us, that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for us; and St. Paul well asks, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, will he not also with him freely give us all things?”