1. Love, then, is the final and fullest expression of spiritual force ; but it is not love as a mere emotion. Hence it is inde- pendent of all reciprocity. It is a principle of beneficence, and, being a principle, is not subject to spasm or caprice. It holds on through all weathers and through all moods. This is the characteristic of a principle as distinguished from a policy. A policy changes with changing conditions ; a principle holds on undeviatingly, admitting of no change. Look at the principle of honesty. It does not relax under one set of conditions and stiffen under another. It does not fluctuate with the temperature or become keener with the thermometer at 80° than at 100°. A man of business integrity does not wrong others because they wrong him. He has no preferential creditors, and is not more honest to his butcher than to his tailor. In like manner, love, as a principle of conduct, is absolutely superior to all circumstances.
^ Love. What shall we call it ? The root of roots, the seed of seeds, the sap of saps, the juice of juices. Love is first and last. When I have love, I have everything : without love I am nothing. Love is all faith, all hope. Love is like the earth — everything comes out of her, everything returns to her again. She is the mother and nurse of all the graces. What love is, it is hard to say : for those who have it, needless to tell ; for those who have it not, impossible.^
2. Its example, as its inspiration, is in Christ. — Christ's love is like no other love ; it goes down to those that are outside the
1 W. E. Griffis, 2 E,, -^y^ Barbour, Thoughts, 1.
2 PETER I. 5-7 189
pale of loveliness. Human love can seek only her own, can love only that which is like herself. Man seeks fellowship with him that has a kindred soul. He goes out to meet the heart that is already in sympathy with his heart, he gives back to his brother what his brother has given to him. But Divine love transcends the limits of its own sympathies. It seeks those that are not yet brethren ; it goes forth to make brotherhood. It keeps not on the plain of its own being ; it descends into the valleys to seek and to save that which is lost. It travels down into the depths to bring up that which as yet has no affinity to itself. It follows the prodigals afar off, it searches out the lepers amid the tombs, it gathers in the outcasts from the highways and the hedges; it seeks those who are not beautiful, that it may endow them with its beauty.
^ Paul says that this element in his Lord's character passes knowledge (Eph. iii. 19), and he is never weary of exalting it. To no element in the character of Jesus does he refer so frequently, and to none does he ascribe so great importance in the work of redemption. In his thought the love of Jesus was nothing less than the love of God. To see it and know it was to see and know the very love of the invisible Father. Thus he says that God commends His love toward us in that Christ died (Eom. v. 8), and that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Eom. viii. 39). That is to say, in dying for the ungodly, Christ manifested the love of God for men. In Jesus, and especially in the last act of His life, we have an historical visible embodiment of the love of God the invisible.
This love is measured by the fact that Jesus laid down His life for the ungodly (Eom. v. 8), and this measure is too great for any human love. The utmost that human love attains unto is to die for the righteous and good (Eom. v. 7). The love of Jesus transcends the utmost of human love, in that Jesus died for the ungodly. Thus it was the cross which taught Paul that in the love of Jesus we see the very love of God. It shows the Divine character of His love, because it exhibits it as pure self-sacrifice. Jesus gave Himself in contrast to aught that He possessed. He gave Himself to suffer the utmost of pain and shame ; and He gave Himself thus for His enemies. This love is none other than the love of God. Hence Paul thinks of this as the perfect standard of love for the kingdom of heaven (Eph. v. 2, 25, 29). It is the ideal beyond which the human mind cannot rise. And because this love is manifested in a supreme act of sacrifice in
190 THE UNFOLDING OF CHARACTER
behalf of each man, it becomes the all-controlling motive in life (Gal. ii. 20 ; Eom. viii. 37).i
^ There are many who are drawn to Christ by His love — drawn to Him, not because they are conscious either of moral weakness which His love is eager to strengthen, or of sin which His love is willing to forgive, or of unintelligible cravings which His love is able to satisfy — but by the love itself. They are drawn to Him as if by the force of moral and spiritual gravitation. Children, especially — if I may judge from my own observation — are drawn to Christ in this way. Whether the opinion is sound which is held by very many persons just now, that in nearly all cases it is the love of Christ that originates religious thought and life, seems to me very doubtful. That the opinion should be a common one is explicable ; for whatever may have first awakened religious earnestness, there must be an apprehension of the love of Christ before it is possible to have faith in Him ; but this is no proof that the truths and facts which created the religious solicitude were superfluous. And yet it is certain that if we could preach about the love of Christ with the ardour, the exultation, and the rapture which it ought to inspire, there would be some- thing contagious in our faith and joy ; if we could preach about it with a tenderness like that which He Himself manifested to the weak and the sorrowful and the sinful, the hearts of men would be melted by it.^