As much as to say: You were God’s _children_ all along: but now you are more; you are God’s sons. You have arrived at man’s estate; you are men in body and in mind; you are to be men in spirit, men in life. You are to look up to the great God who made heaven and earth, and know, glorious thought! that He is as truly your Father as the men whose earthly sons you call yourselves. And if you do this, He will give you the Spirit of adoption, and you shall be able to call Him Father with your hearts, as well as with your lips; you shall know and feel that He is your Father; that He has been loving, watching, educating, leading you home to Him all the while that you were wandering in ignorance of Him, in childish self-will, and greediness after pleasure and amusement. He will give you His Spirit to make you behave like His sons, to obey Him of your own free will, from love, and gratitude, and honour, and filial reverence. He will make you love what He loves, and hate what He hates. He will give you clear consciences and free hearts, to fear nothing on earth or in heaven, but the shame and ingratitude of disobeying your Father. The Spirit of adoption, by which you look up to God as your Father, is your right. He has given it to you, and nothing but your own want of faith, and wilful turning back to cowardly superstition, and to the wilful sins which go before superstition, and come after it, can take it from you. So said St. Paul to the Romans and the Galatians, and so I have a right, ay, and a bounden duty, to say to every man and woman in this church this day. For, my dear friends, if you ask me, what has this to do with us? Has it not everything to do with us? Whether we are leading good lives, or middling lives, or utterly bad worthless lives, has it not everything to do with us? Who is there here who has not at times said to himself: “God so holy, and pure, and glorious; while I am so unjust, and unclean, and mean! And God so great and powerful; while I am so small and weak! What shall I do? Does not God hate and despise me? Will He not take from me all which I love best? Will He not hurl me into endless torment when I die? How can I escape from Him? Wretched man that I am, I cannot escape from Him! How, then, can I turn away His hate? How can I make Him change His mind? How can I soothe Him and appease Him? What shall I do to escape hell-fire?”