God loves the world—with a love full of tenderness and pity and mercy; and yet with a love that is lofty, noble, and severe. God's love for us makes Him impatient of our sin. He forgives it, but on condition that we receive from Him the will and the strength to forsake it. He listens to the prayer of the basest of men for pardon, but he requires all men to become saints. The eternal blessedness which He makes our inheritance through Christ, is the final transfiguration of a nature which has become like God in righteousness and true holiness; and it is by patient continuance in well-doing that we must seek for glory, honour, and immortality.

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