It may be, however, that the reader feels disposed, at the very outset, to inquire how he is to know his place amongst the "us" of our precious thesis. This, truly, is a most momentous question. Our eternal weal or woe hangs upon the answer. How, then, are we to know that God is for us? In reply to this most weighty question, we shall seek, by God's grace, to furnish the reader with five substantial proofs that God is for us, in all our need, our guilt, our misery, and our danger--for us, spite of all that we are, and all that we have done--for us, although there is no reason whatever, so far as we are concerned, why He should be for us, but every reason why He should be against us. The first grand proof which we shall adduce is-- THE GIFT OF HIS SON. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John iii. 16.) Now, we are glad, for various reasons, to commence our series of proofs with these memorable words. In the first place, they meet a difficulty which may suggest itself to the mind of an anxious reader--a difficulty based upon the fact that the sentence culled from Rom. viii. 31 evidently applies primarily to believers, and only to such, as does the entire epistle and every one of the epistles. But, blessed be God, no such difficulty can be started in reference to the all-embracing, and encouraging words of Him who spake as never man spake. When we have from the lips of our blessed Lord Himself, the eternal Son of God, such words as these, "God so loved _the world_," we have no ground whatever for questioning their application to each and all who come under the comprehensive word "world." Before any one can prove that the free love of God does not apply to him, he must first prove that he does not form a part of the world, but that he belongs to some other sphere of being. If indeed, our Lord had said, "God so loved a certain portion of the world," call it what you please, then verily it would be absolutely necessary to prove that we belong to that particular portion or class, ere we could attempt to apply His words to ourselves. If He had said that God so loved the predestinated, the elect, or the called, then we must seek to know our place amongst the number of such, before we can take home to ourselves the precious assurance of the love of God, as proved by the gift of His Son.