smallest, the loftiest and the lowest of us, the purest and the
foulest of us, we all come into the same order. It is a question of
classification. 'The Scripture hath concluded all under sin,' that is
to say, has shut all men up as in a prison. You remember in the
French Revolution, all manner of people were huddled indiscriminately
into the same dungeon of the Paris prisons. You would find a princess
and some daughter of shame from the gutters; a boor from the country
and a landlord, a count, a marquis, a _savant_, a philosopher
and an illiterate workman, all together in the dungeons. They kept up
the distinctions of society and of class with a ghastly mockery, even
to the very moment when the tumbrils came for them. And so here are
we all, in some sense inclosed within the solemn cells of this great
prison-house, and whether we be wise or foolish, we are prisoners,
whether we have titles or not, we are prisoners. You may be a
student, but you are a sinner: you may be a rich Manchester merchant,
but you are a sinner; you may be a man of rank, but you are a sinner.
Naaman went to Elisha and was very much offended because Elisha
treated him as a leper who happened to be a nobleman. He wanted to be
treated as a nobleman who happened to be a leper. And that is the way
with a great many of us; we do not like to be driven into one class
with all the crowd of evildoers. But, my friend, 'there is no
difference.' 'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.'

II. Again, there is no difference in the fact of God's love to us.

God does not love men because of what they are, therefore He does not
cease to love them because of what they are. His love to the sons of
men is not drawn out by their goodness, their morality, their
obedience, but it wells up from the depths of His own heart, because
'it is His nature and property,' and if I may so say, He cannot help