lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.

What I have just said will help you, I think, to understand another
royal text about eternal life.

For now' we may understand why it is written, that this is life
eternal, to know the true and only God, and Jesus Christ whom he has
sent. For if eternal life be God's life, we must know God, and God's
character, to know what eternal life is like: and if no man has seen
God at any time, and God's life can only be seen in the life of
Christ, then we must know Christ, and Christ's life, to know God and
God's life; that the saying may be fulfilled in us, God hath given to
us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

One other royal text, did I say? We may understand many, perhaps
all, the texts which speak of life, and eternal life, if we will look
at them in this way. We may see why St. Paul says that to be
spiritually minded is life; and that the life of Jesus may be
manifested in men: and how the sin of the old heathen lay in this,
that they were alienated from the life of God. We may understand how
Christ's commandment is everlasting life; how the water which he
gives, can spring up within a man's heart to everlasting life--all
such texts we may, and shall, understand more and more, if we will
bear in mind that everlasting life is the life of God and of Christ,
a life of love; a life of perfect, active, self-sacrificing goodness,
which is the one only true life for all rational beings, whether on
earth or in heaven.

In heaven, my friends, as well as on earth. Form your own notions,
as you will, about angels, and saints in heaven, for every one must