are ye ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto you ;" but " God hath shined into your hearts to give it unto you." Be thankful for this distinguishing mercy: and seek to " grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." St. Paul, after preaching the Gospel twenty years, " accounted not himself yet awhile to have attained, but still desired to " know Christ in the power of his resurrection, and in the fellowship of his sufferings." Do ye then press forward, and emulate the angels who are incessantly " desiring to look into these things." Make not the love of God a matter for speculation, but for admiration and praise. It is that which will be the subject of your songs in the eternal world ; let it therefore now inflame your souls with gratitude, and animate you to unremitting diligence in the service of your God. Strive to exercise love to him, seeing that he has shewn such love to you.]
1 John iv. 16. God is love.
THE character of Jehovah is drawn in a great variety of expressions in Holy Writ : He is repre- sented as great and good, and just and merciful, and by every other attribute that is worthy of his Divine Majesty. But, in the words before us, which are twice repeated in this chapter, all his perfections are concentrated in one abstract idea, as if they were all but one, and that one was " love." Now, there is no light in which men so rarely conceive of the Deity as this. In truth, it is more as an object of terror than of love that he is viewed at all, especially by the generality ; the desire of their hearts being, for the most part, like that of the Jews of old, " Make the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." Let us, however, collect our minds for the contemplation of the subject before us, whilst I endeavour to exhibit God in the character which is here ascribed to him, and to shew you that " he is wholly and altogether love." He is so, I. In the perfections of his nature —
What shall we sav of his wisdom ?