^ The love of God is as various as the world which God hath made, and there is no state of mind and no circumstances of life to which that love will not fit its gift. The Christian, the longer he lives, the more sure he becomes that God has loved him from the very first ; that not even his own many sins have quenched that unquenchable fire ; that not even when his own heart was coldest and his thoughts most far from heaven, did God forget the creature that He had made ; that even into grievous sin and even into strange hardness of heart did God's unwearied love pursue him and will pursue him yet. And so, when the Christian thinks of himself, he knows that he may fall ; but when he thinks of God it seems impossible that God should let him. And in this
1 W. W. How, Plain Words, ii. 214.
EPHESIANS III. 19 203
thought he lives a more heavenly life, he cherishes a surer hope, he is more cheerful, he is more joyous every day. For he knows that God loves him, and while this is present to his mind, he cannot go wilfully away. He is God's son ; how can he quit his own Father ?
Our human sight is short and dim. We cannot always look on beyond the present to God's sure purpose to give us His bless- ing. But all the more ought we to write it down as with a pen of iron on our own souls, that whatever else we read in the life of Christ, we read first of all, and above all, and through all, the assurance of the all-searching love of God. If the life be careless, bring back the mind to that ; if the heart be unhappy or discon- tented, compel the thoughts to that; if the habits of our daily walk cause us many a conflict between conscience and inclination, anchor the will on that. For most certainly it cannot fail. God's love never can, and never did, and never will.^
II.
The Fulness of God.
1. " Filled unto (E.V., not witJi, as in A.V.) all the fulness of God." This suggests the idea not of a completed work but of a process, and of a growing process, as if more and more of that great fulness might pass into a man. Suppose a number of vessels, according to the old illustration about degrees of glory in Heaven ; they are each full, but the quantity that one contains is much less than that which the other may hold. Add to the illustration that the vessels can grow, and that filling makes them grow; as a shrunken bladder when you pass gas into it will expand and round itself out, and all the creases will be smoothed away. So the Apostle's idea here is that a process of filling goes on which may satisfy the desires of the moment, because it fills us up to the then capacities of our spirits, but which, in the very process of so filling and satisfying, makes those spirits capable of containing larger measures of His fulness, which therefore flow into it.
Is this wide world not large enough to fill thee, Nor Nature, nor that deep man's Nature, Art ? Are they too thin, too weak and poor to still thee. Thou little heart? 1 Archbishop Temple.
204 OUR HIGH CALLING
Dusfc art thou, and to dust again returnest, A spark of fire within a beating clod, Should that be infinite for which thou burnest? Must it be God?i
^ There are plants which we sometimes see in our northern latitudes, but which are native to the more generous soil and the warmer skies of southern lands. In their true home they grow to | a greater height, their leaves are larger, their blossoms more ^ luxuriant and of a colour more intense ; the power of the life of the plant is more fully expressed. And as the visible plant is the more or less adequate translation into stem and leaf and flower of its invisible life, so the whole created universe is the more or less adequate translation of the invisible thought and power and good- ness of God. He stands apart from it. His personal life is not involved in its immense processes of development ; but the forces by which it moves through pain and conflict and tempest towards its consummate perfection are a revelation of His " eternal power and Godhead." For the Divine idea to reach its complete ex- pression, an expression adequate to the energy of the Divine life, we ourselves must reach a large and harmonious perfection. As yet we are like plants growing in an alien soil and under alien skies. And the measures of strength and grace which are possible to us even in this mortal life are not attained. The Divine power which is working in us is obstructed. But a larger knowledge of the love of Christ will increase the fervour of every devout and generous affection ; it will exalt every form of spiritual energy ; it will deepen our spiritual joy; it will add strength to every element of righteousness ; and will thus advance us towards that ideal perfection which will be the complete expression of the Divine power and grace, and which Paul describes as the " fulness of God." 2