These are but specimens of a whole cycle of Scripture statements which in every form of necessary implication, and of direct statement, set forth the principle that he who is born again of the Spirit, and he only, is a son of God.

Nothing in all this contradicts the belief that all men are the children of God, inasmuch as they are shaped by His divine hand and He has breathed into their nostrils the breath of life.  They who hold that sonship is obtained on the condition which these passages seem to assert, do also rejoice to believe and to preach that the Father’s love broods over every human heart as the dovelike Spirit over the primeval chaos.  They rejoice to proclaim that Christ has come that all, that each, may receive the adoption of sons.  They do not feel that their message to, nor their hope for, the world is less blessed, less wide, because while they call on all to come and take the things that are freely given to them of God, they believe that those only who do come and take possess the blessing.  Every man may become a son and heir of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

But notwithstanding all the mercies that belong to us all, notwithstanding the divine beneficence, which, like the air and the light, pervades all nature, and underlies all our lives, notwithstanding the universal adaptation and intention of Christ’s work, notwithstanding the wooing of His tender voice and the unceasing beckoning of His love, it still remains true that there are men in the world, created by God, loved and cared for by Him, for whom Christ died, who might be, but are not, sons of God.

Fatherhood! what does that word itself teach us?  It speaks of the communication of a life, and the reciprocity of love.  It rests upon a divine act, and it involves a human emotion.  It involves that the father and the child shall have kindred life—­the father bestowing and the child possessing a life which is derived; and because derived, kindred; and because kindred, unfolding itself in likeness to the father that gave it.  And it requires that between the father’s heart and the child’s heart there shall pass, in blessed interchange and quick correspondence, answering love, flashing backwards and forwards, like the lightning that touches the earth and rises from it again.  A simple appeal to your own consciousness will decide if that be the condition of all men.  Are you, my brother, conscious of anything within you higher than the common life that belongs to you because you are an immortal soul?  Can you say, ’From God’s hand I have received the granting and implantation of a new and better life?’ Is your claim verified by this, that you are kindred with God in holy affections, in like purposes, loving what He loves, hating what He hates, doing what He wills, accepting what He sends, longing for Himself, and blessed in His presence?  Is your sonship proved by the depth and sincerity, the simplicity and power, of your throbbing heart of love to your Father in