2. There are some attributes of God that need no proof. Some features of the Divine character are so universally conspicuous as to be self-evidencing. Think, for example, of God's power. If we believe in God at all we need no argument to convince us of His power. The mighty forces that engirdle us all cry aloud of that. The chambers of the deep, the chariot of the sun, are
1 L. A. Banks. 2 A. Maclaren.
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stamped with it. The devastating march of the winter's storm, and, none the less, the timely calling of all the summer's beauty out of the bare earth — these things, and a thousand other things like these, teach us the power of God. We would not need the Cross if all that had to be proved was the Divine omnipotence. Or take the wisdom of God. Is any argument needed to assure us in general of that ? Day unto day uttereth speech of it, and night unto night showeth forth its glory. Our bodies, so fearfully and so wonderfully made ; our senses, linking us so strangely to the world without ; our thought, so swift, so incom- prehensible ; and all the constancy of nature, and all the harmony of part with part, and all the obedience of the starry worlds, and all the perfections of the wayside weeds, — these things, and a multitude of things like these, speak to the thinking mind of the wisdom of the God with whom we have to do. That wisdom needs no formal proof. It is self-evidencing. We would not need the Cross if all that had to be proved was the wisdom of God.
3. But that God is a God of love has to be proved to men. For — ■ (1) Man does not naturally believe it. As a matter of fact, he is indisposed to believe it, he is disposed to doubt it. The great object of the great enemy of souls is to induce scepticism on this point, and not so much intellectual scepticism, as a practical habit of unbelief in it. Men, as a matter of fact, are disposed to listen to the malignant aspersions of God which are whispered into their ears by the great foe of God and man, and to take an altogether false and misleading view of the Divine character. A certain latent suspicion of God is at the root of human sin : a considerable number of persons do not think of God's love towards them at all ; and some of those who do think of it cannot bring themselves to believe that His love is a personal affection and is directed towards specific objects, that God regards each of us severally, just as though there were not another intelligent creature in the world for Him to regard.
TJ Comparative mythology has taught a great many lessons, and amongst others this, that, apart from the direct or indirect influences of Christianity, there is no creed to be found in which the belief in a God of love, and in the love of God, is unfalteringly proclaimed, to say nothing of being set as the very climax of the whole revelation. If this were the place, one could pass in
3i2 GOD'S OWN LOVE
review men's thoughts about God, and ask you to look at all that assemblage of beings before whom mankind has bowed down. What would you find ? G-ods cruel, gods careless, gods capricious, gods lustful, gods mighty, gods mysterious, gods pitying (with a contempt mingled with the pity) their sorrows and follies, but in all the pantheons there is not a loving god.1
(2) It is not self-evident in Nature. There are things in nature which make it hard to believe in the love of God. One is the tremendous struggle for existence that is ceaselessly waged among all living things. Man fights with man, and beast with beast; bird fights with bird, and fish with fish. To the seeing eye the world is all a battlefield, and every living creature in it is in arms, and fighting for its life. The watchword of nature is not peace, but war. The calmest summer evening, to him who knows old nature's story, is only calm as the battlefield is calm where multitudes lie dead. Under that outward peace, which often, like a mantle, seems to enwrap the world, by night and day, on sea and land, the bloodiest of wars is being waged, creature, merciless and venomous, preying upon creature. For right to live, for room to grow, for food to eat, in grim and fearful silence the awful war goes on.
^[ There may be some rarer spirits who, like Browning, can reason from the presence of power in Nature to the presence of love.
In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence That his love, there too, was the nobler dower. For the loving worm within its clod, Were diviner than a loveless god Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.2
(3) The experiences of life do not prove it. There are the problems of human pain and sorrow and bereavement. Is it not very hard to reconcile these darker shadows with the light of heavenly love? What is the meaning of the suffering that seemed to fall so causelessly on her you loved ? Can God be love, and never move a finger to ease your little child when he is screaming day and night in fearful agony? When in the