III.
Love in its Insight.
Is God knowable ? No, answers the agnostic ; God may exist, but we cannot know Him, for we cannot see Him, and knowledge is of the senses. Yes, answers the Apostle John ; for the deepest knowledge is not of the senses, but of the heart; the deepest knowledge is through the operation of the affections, the choices, the will. We may choose, be affectioned toward, will, what is utterly impalpable to sense ; and these things are more real than anything that can be perceived by the senses. By this organ, then, by the organ of love, a man may know God, whom the organs of sense can never find. The man with the retort and the microscope knows not God ; but the man with a right heart, ? W, Ws.rd, The Life 0/ Cardinal Newman, ii, 348,
324 THE BOND OF BROTHERHOOD
a loving heart, knows Him : " for love is of God ; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God."
^ Love is the clue to the knowledge of God, Men grub and toil in dust and mud, they explore the depths of the ocean, and sweep the breadths of heaven : they analyse all things, and, baffled at last, they say : " Here is law ; where is God ? There is no God in the world." Now, is this wise ? Is it thus we come to know men ? God is not among the gases ! Why seek ye the living among the dead ? You cannot by searching find out God. " God is not any one of these things, nor the sum of all, nor the mere maker of all " — God is love, and he that loveth, to the extent that he loveth, knoweth God.
The sun can mirror his glorious face In the dew-drop on the sod; And the humblest human heart reflect The light and love of God.^
^ Standing the other day on the topmost ridge of Leith Hill, and looking where I had been told to look, through a small gap in the South Downs, more than thirty miles away, I could dimly perceive the shining sea. It was little more than a bright speck on the horizon, but I knew that if I made towards it that gap would open and let me through, and I could sail round the whole world upon the bosom of the deep represented by that shimmer- ing patch of silver. It is not a perfect figure, but it does some- thing to illustrate the mode or approach to perfect knowledge of God. Where love is, God stands revealed, small and restricted though our capacity for Him may be. But that shining spot is not a cloud, not a delusion ; it is the real thing ; follow it up and you shall see.^
^ A child has very few notions in regard to his mother, ex- ly pressible or inexpressible, — not nearly as many as he will have later on. The faculties whose business it is to manufacture ideas are not yet fairly at work in him. But he knows his mother a great deal better than any psychological expert from the university knows her or can know her unless he gets into some other relation toward her than that of an expert. Thinking goes round and never gets there ; love makes a cross cut and arrives.^
^ J. M. Gibbon, The Gospel of Fatherhood, 27.
* K. J. Campbell, in Th^ Christian Commonwealth, xxx. 533.
' C. H. Parkhurst, The Stmny Side of Christianity, 116.
God.
3as
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have Won Souk, 429.
Barton (G. A.), The Boots of Christian Teaching, 15.
Campbell (R. J.), A Truth for To-day, 53.
Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 206, 218.
Cooper (T. J.), Love's Unveiling, 1.
Deshon (G.), Sermons for the Ecclesiastical Year, 254.
Drummond (J.), Spiritual Religion, 115.
Fowler (G. H.), Things Old and New, 29.
Fraser (J.), University Sermons, 288.
Gibbon (J. M.), The Gospel of Fatherhood, I, 33.
lUingworth (J. R.), Sermons Preached in a College Chapel, 130.
Jeflfs (H.), The Art of Exposition, 243.
Jones (J. M.), The Cup of Cold Water, 155.
Lewis (E. W.), Some Views of Modern Theology, 83.
Macfarland (C. S.), The Infinite Affection, 23.
Maclagan (P. J.), The Gospel View of Things, 165.
McLean (A.), Where the Book Speaks, 200.
Macleod (D.), The Sunday Home Service, 9.
Mauro (P.), Love and Light, 3.
Moore (A. L.), God is Love, 1.
Moule (H. C. G.), Christ is All, 149.
„ „ From Sunday to Sunday, 123.
Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, iii. 233. Pearse (M. G.), Short Talks for the Times, 1, 10. Suiitb (W. C), Sermons, 1. Stockdale (F. B.), The Divine Oppoiiunity, 25. Story (R. H.), Creed and Conduct, 156. Westcott (B. F.), Historic Faith, 29. Wheeler (W. C), Sermons and Addresses, 125. Wilberforce (B.), Feeling after Him, 105.
„ „ Speaking Good of His Name, 197.
Examiner, Aug. 20, 1903, p. 180 (Jowett).
3^
Gob.
God is love. — i John iv. 8.
1. It is significant that we have these words not from Jesus but from John. Jesus did not say in so many words, " God is love." He taught by the inductive method. He said, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." John looked at Him, leaned on His breast, stood beside His cross, gazed into His empty tomb, listened to His words when He had risen from the dead, and said " God is love." He knew, because he had seen Christ. This knowledge of Christ's character is the primary source of John's knowledge of God. He leaned on Jesus' bosom and learned His spirit, and in after years he thought of that spirit as a manifestation of the very life of God. Then he sought for a name for it, and there was no name good enough. He thought of Him who went about doing good ; of His self-denial and poverty for man's sake ; of His com- passion on the multitude ; of His sympathy for the bereaved ; of His kindness towards the outcast; of His tears at the grave of Lazarus ; of His message of forgiveness to the sin-stricken ; of His words such as never man spake ; of His washing His disciples' feet ; of His death in pity for human sin ; of His resurrection into immortality and glory, John thought of all this as setting forth the life of God in its fundamental meanings. He knew what spirit was in Jesus ; he knew by what word to characterize His life. He knew that whatever of God's life was manifest through Jesus of Nazareth was eternally true of the Almighty Father, and he told it all in three sublime and immortal words, " God is love."