_Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are Gods?_ If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, _and the scripture cannot be broken;_ say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works. Higher authority on this question cannot be quoted than the Son of God himself. While there is much more that could and doubtless ought to be said on that branch of the subject, I must leave it here, because I have still another matter to present to you, on another branch of the subject; and that is, our belief that there is a possibility, through development, through growth, through doing what Jesus admonished his disciples to do--"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect"--that the sons of God, somewhere and some time, may rise to a dignity that the Father and our Elder Brother have already attained unto. IV. The Future Possibilities for Man. Is there any doubt about men being the sons of God? If I thought there was any in your minds, I would like to read to you the words of an authority upon this question. Paul, in speaking of the unknown God to whom the Athenians had erected an altar, said to them: God that made the world and all things therein * * * hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.[A] [Footnote A: Acts 17:24-29.] Why ought they not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, graven by art and man's device? Because the very divinity within them, their own kinship with God, ought to have taught them better than to bow down to images of wood and stone, the creation of man's hands. "Ye are the offspring of God," said the apostle. And David, as quoted a moment ago, said: "I have said: Ye are Gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." Upon which passage, it must be remembered, Jesus fixed the seal of his approval, as shown a moment ago, where he quotes it in controversy with the Jews.