1 Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World, 45.
I JOHN IV. 19 371
when the goodness was diminished the love would diminish too. If God had loved us second and not first, or had the cause of the love been in us, that cause might have altered, and the supposed eftect, namely. His love, would have altered too ; but now, what- ever may be the believer's condition to-day, however he may have wandered, and however much he may be groaning under a sense of sin, the Lord declares, " I do earnestly remember him still."
Strictly speaking, the words of the Apostle only declare the priority of the Divine love towards us over ours towards Him. But we may fairly give it a wider meaning, and say — first of all, before creation and time, away back in the abysmal depths of an everlasting and changeless heart, changeless in the sense that its love was eternal, but not changeless in the sense that love could have no place within it — first of all things was God's love ; last to be discovered because most ancient of all. The foundation is disclosed last when you come to dig, and the essence is grasped last in the process of analysis. So one of the old psalms, with wondrous depth of truth, traces up everything to this, " For his mercy endureth for ever." Therefore, there was time ; therefore, there were creatures — "He made great lights, for his mercy endureth for ever." Therefore, there were judgments — "He smote great kings . . . for his mercy endureth for ever." And so we may pass through all the works of the Divine energy, and say, " He first loved us."
% We may say of the silvered sea that it shines because the moon sheds upon it its silvery light. We may say of the full- orbed moon that she shines in soft beauty because she reflects the glory of the far-absent sun. But of the sun we can only say that it shines because it shines. We know of no eternal sources from which it draws its glory. So it is with the great heart of God. He loves, because He loves. " He first loved us." ^
^ If you look on the buds on the trees in the spring-time you will see they are all covered over with a gummy hard case, which keeps them from opening out. Well, there was a little bud like this and its little heart was dark and cold and uncom- fortable. But one day the sunshine came streaming upon it, and it felt the hard case melt away from round it, and as the light grew brighter and warmer the case all melted away and the bud opened out into a beautiful blossom, and the fine, rich sunbeam
1 W. E. Burrougha.
372 THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION
found its way right into the little bud's heart, then, when the bud saw the light it smiled and said, " See ! see ! — I have made the sun ! " " Nay, nay, my child," said a little sunbeam passing by, " you didn't make the sun — it was the sun which made you. It was the sun which nourished you and cherished you, and opened your leaves and touched your heart. You should love the sun because the sun first loved you." ^
3. The love of God begets love in us. — One thing may be first and another second, and yet the first may not be the cause of the second, there may be no actual link between the two : but here we have it unmistakably, " We love, hecause he first loved us " ; which signifies not merely that this is the motive of which we are conscious in our love, but that this is the force, the Divine power, which created love in us.
^ The meeting-point of God and man is love. Love, in other words, is, for the poet, the supreme principle both of morality and of religion. Love, once for all, solves that contradiction between them which, both in theory and in practice, has embarrassed the world for so many ages. Love is the sublimest conception attain- able by man ; a life inspired by it is the most perfect form of goodness he can conceive ; therefore, love is, at the same moment, man's moral ideal, and the very essence of Godhood. A life actu- ated by love is Divine, whatever other limitations it may have . . . God is Himself the source and fulness of love.
'Tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe. All's one gift.
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst Thou — so
wilt Thou! So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown — And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in ! ^
*|[ It is with love exactly as with life. You know that there has been a controversy in the field of science about the origin of life, which has raged for a considerable part of this century, and has only lately been settled. One school said that life was born of itself; the other that life must come from a Life without. One school, to take an illustration that makes it plainer, took an