god's love the source of ours. 1 John iv. 19. We love Him, because He first loved us.
THERE is, as there ought to be, a great and visi- ble difference between the Lord's people and others. But no one of them has any ground for glorying in himself: for, to every one of them may that question be applied, " Who made thee to differ ? and what hast thou which thou hast not received ?" Verily, whatever attainments any man may have made, he must say, with the Apostle Paul, " By the grace of God I am what I am." To this effect St. John speaks in the words before us ; in which we are taught to trace the love which the saints bear to their God, not to any superior qualities in their own nature, but to God's free and sovereign grace : " We love Him, because He first loved us."
Now, this being a truth indispensably necessary to be known and felt, I will endeavour to point out —
I. Its doctrinal use —
Our love to God springing from, and being founded on, God's love to us, it is,
1. An indispensable evidence of his love to us —
[Supposing a person to affirm that God loves him as one of his peculiar people, I ask, What evidence have you of that fact? Your mere assertion is not sufficient to satisfy my mind: nor should a mere persuasion of it be sufficient to satisfy your mind. If God has really loved you, wherein has he manifested that love ? What has he done for you ? Has he revealed himself to you as reconciled in the Son of his love? Has he poured out his Spirit upon you, as " a Spirit of adoption, enabling you to call him Abba, Father?" And has he enabled you to surrender up yourself to him in all holy obedience to his will? In a word, Has he brought you to " love him," and to serve him in truth ? If, in " his loving-kindness, he has drawn you" to himself, then you may be satisfied that " he has loved you with an everlasting love a :" but without this evidence, your persuasion, how confident soever it may be, is a fatal delusion. The Jews of old affirmed that God was their
a Jer. xxxi. 3. vol. xx. L L