^ Young Scott, the son of Dr. Scott of Greenock, is with us. He is a highly gifted man. May the mighty God bless him, and strengthen him for the work that he may be called to ! He preached last night in Dundee. There was one thing which he said upon the universality of the love of God to sinners which I shall repeat to you. When God was manifested in Christ, in the man Christ Jesus, that man fulfilled the whole law, of which the second great division is, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. If there had been any single man upon earth whom He did not love as Himself, He would have been a breaker of the law. But He fulfilled the whole law, and loved every man, as He loved Himself — ay and more ; and as He thus fulfilled the law, He said, " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father " ; that is to say, My love to men is the very image of My Father's love to them.^
2. The love of God finds its free expression in Christ. — " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." His love had been given to men since the creation, but men shut their hearts and contracted their lives, and the love of God had no free course. When Christ came God was glorified in Him.
^ J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart, 64.
- Letters of Thomas Ershine of Linlathen (1800-1840), i. 143.
I JOHN IV. 8 337
^ Eobert Browning has an exquisite little poem which he calls " One Word More." The idea of the poem is this. One of the greatest, perhaps the greatest Italian artist, who is already a painter, feels that there is more in him than painting can express, and from sheer necessity he takes to sculpture. Not that he gives up painting ; but he adds sculpture to it, in order to relieve his own soul, that he might put into marble what he could not put on the canvas. Browning compares himself to that artist in address- ing the wife whom he loved with such adoring self-abandonment. He had addressed her in verse, but what verse could express the love that was his ? And he longs for some other art than poetry to tell the one word more that was in him. And so here. God had served man, created a perfect home for man — served his intellect, quickened it by the problems which He had set him to solve ; but He still needed the " one word more " to tell all that was in Him. None of these things could tell His love — tell the depth of it ; the necessity that man was to Him.^
Why comes this fragrance on the summer breeze, The blended tribute of ten thousand flowers.
To me, a frequent wanderer 'mid the trees That form these gay, though solitary bowers ?
One answer is around, beneath, above ;
The echo of the voice, that God is Love !
Why bursts such melody from tree and bush, The overflowing of each songster's heart,
So filling mine, that it can scarcely hush Awhile to listen, but would take its part ?
'Tis but one song I hear where'er I rove,
Though countless be the notes, that God is Love !
Why leaps the streamlet down the mountain's side. Hastening so swiftly to the vale beneath,
To cheer the shepherd's thirsty flock, or glide Where the hot sun has left a faded wreath,
Or, rippling, aid the music of the grove?
Its own glad voice replies, that God is Love!
In starry heavens, at the midnight hour. In ever-varying hues at morning's dawn.
In the fair bow athwart the falling shower, In forest, river, lake, rock, hill, and lawn.
One truth is written : all conspire to prove,
What grace of old reveal'd, that God is Love !
1 J. M. Jones, The Cup of Cold Water, 148. JAS.-JUDE — 2 2
338 GOD
Nor less this pulse of health, far glancing eye, And heart so moved with beauty, perfume, song,
This spirit, soaring through a gorgeous sky, Or diving ocean's coral caves among.
Fleeter than darting fish or startled dove;
All, all declare the same, that God is Love I
Is it a fallen world on which I gaze ?
Am I as deeply fallen as the rest, Yet joys partaking, past my utmost praise,
Instead of wandering forlorn, unblest ? It is as if an unseen spirit strove To grave upon my heart, that God is Love !
Yet would'st thou see, my soul, this truth display'd In characters which wondering angels read
And read, adoring ; go, imploring aid
To gaze with faith, behold the Saviour bleed !
Thy God, in human form ! 0, what can prove.
If this suffice thee not, that God is Love?
Cling to His cross; and let thy ceaseless prayer Be, that thy grasp may fail not ! and, ere long.
Thou shalt ascend to that fair Temple, where In strains ecstatic an innumerous throng
Of saints and seraphs, round the Throne above.
Proclaim for evermore, that God is Love ! ^
3. In Christ love stooped to infinite sacrifice. — Nowhere else but on the Cross could it fully utter itself. In Christ the Divine love comes to us, and, mounting, towers far above any conception of love the world has ever known before. The friend dies for the foe, the pure for the impure, the Creator for the creature. Up and up it mounts, until the highest peak is reached that human life off'crs footing to. The Divine love plants itself upon the cruel cross, returning love for hatred, a prayer for a blow, a crown for a cross, and with bleeding body and breaking heart the God-Man gives Himself for us. If the cross of Jesus speaks at all it speaks in tones of love. In Genesis God works for His innocent child ; in Christ He suffers for a guilty one. If the gift is love what can the giver be ? No one but a God of love could send the loving Christ.