of Christianity, but belong to the whole community, and to each
member of the body.

The next thing to note, I think, is how these two great terms,
'beloved of God' and 'saints,' cover almost the whole ground of the
Christian life. They are connected with each other very closely, as I
shall have occasion to show presently, but in the meantime it may be
sufficient to mark how the one carries us deep into the heart of God
and the other extends over the whole ground of our relation to Him.
The one is a statement of a universal prerogative, the other an
enforcement of a universal obligation. Let us look, then, at these
two points, the universal privilege and the universal obligation of
the Christian life.

I. The universal privilege of the Christian life.

'Beloved of God.' Now we are so familiar with the juxtaposition of
the two ideas, 'love' and 'God,' that we cease to feel the
wonderfulness of their union. But until Jesus Christ had done His
work no man believed that the two thoughts could be brought together.

Does God love any one? We think the question too plain to need to be
put, and the answer instinctive. But it is not by any means
instinctive, and the fact is that until Christ answered it for us,
the world stood dumb before the question that its own heart raised,
and when tortured spirits asked, 'Is there care in heaven, and is
there love?' there was 'no voice, nor answer, nor any that regarded.'
Think of the facts of life; think of the facts of nature. Think of
sorrows and miseries and pains, and sins, and wasted lives and
storms, and tempests, and diseases, and convulsions; and let us feel
how true the grim saying is, that

'Nature, red in tooth and claw,
With rapine, shrieks against the creed'

that God is love.

And think of what the world has worshipped, and of all the varieties
of monstrosity, not the less monstrous because sometimes beautiful,
before which men have bowed. Cruel, lustful, rapacious, capricious,
selfish, indifferent deities they have adored. And then, 'God hath
established,' proved, demonstrated 'His love to us in that while we
were yet sinners Christ died for us.'

Oh, brethren, do not let us kick down the ladder by which we have
climbed; or, in the name of a loving God, put away the Christian
teaching which has begotten the conception in humanity of a God that
loves. There are men to-day who would never have come within sight
of that sunlight truth, even as a glimmering star