^ P. J. Maclagan, The Gospel View of Things, 175. a J. M. Jones, TJie Cup of Cold Water, 142.
I JOHN IV. 8 343
must hold ourselves remote, and yet be near at hand, and when the lull comes, the only sentence the man can bear — and at first he may receive it with unbelief and partial scorn — is, " God is love." It does not seem like it. No, it does not. I feel inclined to deny it. I do not wonder; your grief is exceeding great; but — God is love. Who says so ? I do. On what authority ? My own experience; I have dug a grave as deep as you, and I thought just as you are thinking now ; I said there are a thousand happy families, and one of the children might have been taken, but I had only one. That was a thousand strokes in one laceration, and I, brother in grief, fellow-mason in tears, I say, God-is-love.^
^ I was at Doulton's wonderful art works the other day, and saw one superb specimen of art — an illustration of a dream of Dante's. I was admiring the figure of Beatrice — the exquisite workmanship, the pose and grace of the figure. " Ah," said the gentleman who was showing it to me, " that has to be fired three times yet ; those colours must be made permanent." ^
(/ 5. God's love is a sufficient guarantee for the future. — Our immortality is a necessity to God. Love cannot let us die. Man is God's child. Therefore God has set His heart upon him, and visited him every day. In the house of the rich man there are many treasures — rare books, costly pictures, splendid marbles, shining gems ; but the little child who bears his image and like- ness, and who looks up into his face with smiling love, and who answers to his affections with tender heart, is the dearest jewel of them all. And there is no man or woman who would not see the great house blotted out by fire, and every treasure absolutely destroyed rather than that harm should come to one hair of that golden head. In the great house of God there are many treasures and jewels — stars and planets, suns and moons ; but above them all God values His human child.
The sole hope of man is God. The sole hope of retaining God is in the absoluteness and the universality of the Divine love. His righteousness must be the righteousness of love. His wrath must be the holy wrath of love. His retribution must be the recompense of love. They are all determined, limited, described, if God is love, by love. If God is an eternal being, and if God is
» J. Paikcr, The City Ttmple Pulpit, iii. 239. « J. M. Jones, The Gup of Cold Water, 165.
344 GOD
love, then the love of God is nothing less than an eternal thing. If God is universal and in communication with every human soul, then, when you bring these things together, it yields the truth that the eternal love of God extends eternally to every saint and sinner of the human race. There is no other issue, if it is true that God is love. The love of the Eternal for every human soul is an eternally enduring love. Its universality in space and time means its eternal endurableness, not only for poor and rich, for white and black, but for every sinner as well as for every saint, for the child who is the prodigal in the far country as well as for the brother obedient in the home. The door of hope is never closed by the Father's hand.
Yea God is love ! and this I trust,
Though summer is over and sweetness done.
That all my lilies are safe, in the dust,
As they were in the glow of the great, glad sun.
Yea God is love, and love is might!
Mighty as surely to keep as to make ;
And the sleepers, sleeping in death's dark night,
In the resurrection of life shall wake.
^ In Watts' picture entitled " Love Triumphant," Time and Death have companioned together throughout the ages ; and they are at length overthrown and lie prostrate at the feet of Love. They appear as two vague figures wrapped in clouds ; the man half recumbent, the woman lying prone on the ground ; time in the form of the woman illumined with a bright light; death in the form of a man overshadowed by his own form, and knowing nothing of the secrets that are hidden in his stern keeping. Love appears as a mystic angel with hands outstretched and mighty wings lifted upwards, and a waving robe blown across his body by a strong wind, and clouds of glory round about him, mounting into the empyrean.^
^ The manifestation of unselfish affection, or even the expres- sion of it, is a token of a higher nature in man and a presage of immortality. Where there is a love stronger than death there must be a soul stronger also.^
1 II. Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 258.
^ John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 7.
Love Casting Out Fear.
Literature.
Ainger (A.), Sermons in the Temple Church, 101.