the effect of all men's sin, and more than that, that men are God's
children; that they have a right to believe that they are so, because
they are so. For, He says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not like
Adam's offence. It is not less than it, narrower than it, as some
folks say. It is not that by Adam's sin all became sinners, and by
Jesus Christ's salvation an elect few out of them shall be made
righteous. If you will think a moment, you will see that it cannot
be so. For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and the devil. But
if, as some think, sin and death and the devil have destroyed and
sent to hell by far the greater part of mankind, then they have
conquered Christ, and not Christ them. Mankind belonged to Christ at
first. Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and then
Christ came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do is
to redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them,
then the devil has had the best of the battle. He, and not Christ,
is the conqueror. If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, and
all that you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock,
which has had the best of it, you or the thief? If Christ's
redemption is meant for only a few, or even a great many elect souls
out of all the millions of mankind, which has had the best of it,
Christ, the master of the sheep, or the devil, the robber and
destroyer of them? Be sure, my friends, Christ is stronger than
that; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider than
that. How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know.
St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; but
that we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever,
finding it deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams could
ever picture it. But this, he says, we do know, that we have gained
more than Adam lost. For if by one man's offence many were made
sinners, much more shall they who receive abundance of grace and of