ever the appropriate occasion is furnished, shines by spontaneous diffusion. Love, therefore, is not a thing which rests upon something else, and which can be analyzed into antecedent elements; but is rather a life, a permanence, something essential, something which exists by itself, and does not rest on any other basis. And thus, being a life or nature, it acts itself out as a nature, without thinking or asking why it does it ;—just as a man breathes, or thinks, or remembers, or imagines, without reflecting or asking why he does it.

4. We have already said that love necessarily has its object. The object of pure love (and we regard this as an important remark) is existence; all percipient and sentient existence whatever. So that love, in distinction from every appearance and modification of affection which is not true or pure love, may be defined to be a desire for the good or happiness of everything which exists. And, in accordance with this view, everything which has a being, from the highest to the lowest, whatever its position, whatever its character, the whole infinity of percipient and sentient existence, simply because it has such an existence, is the appropriate object of pure love.

This is a great truth, and one which, it must be admitted, is difficult to be realized by those who have not an instinct of perception and of affirmation in their own purified hearts. Those who are the subjects of this exalted feeling sincerely desire the happiness of all those, whoever or whatever they may be, who are capable of enjoying happiness, while, at the same time, it may be so, that they disapprove and perhaps even hate their character; and, accordingly, they love the evil as well as the good, sinners as well as saints.

Another characteristic of holy love is, that it is attractive; that is to say, its beauty is so divine, that, by its

own nature, it arrests the attention, and draws all things to itself that are capable of perceiving its beauty. It is not necessary for it to use efforts to produce this effect. This remarkable power is an essential power; something inherent in it. It has it, because it cannot be without it. Even natural beauty has something of this power. The flower that blooms by the wayside, the star that shines in the evening sky, attracts the eye of the beholder, and commands his attention. The power exists, though it may be difficult to explain it. And, if this power is possessed by natural beauty, still more is it possessed by moral beauty. He, therefore, who possesses the highest of moral elements, that of pure love, operating by that attractive power which is eternal as the love from which it springs, must and will be loved in return, whether he be God, angel, or man. All that is necessary is, that this moral beauty be clearly perceived, which, however, is never done, and is not possible to be done, when the mind is darkened by sin.

He

We have a striking illustration of the nature of pure love in the case of the Saviour. He loved sinners." came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." It was not for angels, but for erring men, that he died. He bowed his head upon the cross for those that persecuted him, reviled him, slew him. He loved men, not because they were good, for such they were not, and certainly not because they were evil, because evil can never be the foundation of love, but because they were existences, percipient and moral existences. He saw them created with the elements of an eternal being, but destitute, in their fallen state, of those attributes which would make that being a happy one. He saw them destitute of truth which they might possess, of holiness to which they were strangers, the enemies

of God when they might be his friends, the heirs of hell when they might be the heirs of heaven. He loved them, therefore, not because they were good, but because they had a sentient, and especially because they had a moral, existence. It was their existence and not their merit; it was what they were capable of being, and not what they were, which brought him down from heaven.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE SCRIPTURE DECLARATION THAT GOD IS LOVE."

Of the infinity of God. Something more needed. God love by essence. The subject argued from the relations he sustains.— Argued also from the rectitude or right of things. Argument from the happiness of God. Other views.

HAVING made, in the preceding chapter, some general statements in regard to the nature of love, we now proceed to consider it as existing in God. We must understand the relations of this principle to God, in other words, we must understand what God's love is, before we can understand the union of God and man in love. And in doing this our attention is first arrested by the declaration of the Scriptures, -a declaration which is worthy of the particular notice of Christians, that "God is love." It would be difficult to find a parallel form of expression. It is not anywhere said of God, so far as we recollect, that he is omniscience, or that he is omnipresence. It is true that the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence are essential to him as an infinite existence; but it should always be remembered that God is something more than infinity. There must be something beyond and above infinity, which shall baptize it with the character of goodness; otherwise there is no God. "God is LOVE."

2. God is love by essence. That is to say, love is forever and unchangeably essential to his existence as

God. He was not at first, as some may be led to suppose, a mere percipient being, having all knowledge, who formed conjecturally an idea of love, came to the conclusion that it was a good and desirable thing, and then added it as an accessory to his original existence. On the contrary, God always had a heart; always had a true and effective sensibility, operating, by an eternal law of action, in the line of right and goodness. And if, by universal consent, the heart takes the precedence of the head, if no greatness of intellect can elevate and save a man who has evil and depraved affections, — then God cannot be what he is, the infinitely desirable and infinitely good, without love as the central and leading element, the basis and the completion of his character. 3. The mere statement carries conviction in itself. But this is not all. We argue the matter also from the relations of things. God, considered as the Infinite, or I AM, Sustains a fixed and necessary relation to everything which is. His relation to space is realized and fulfilled in his omnipresence. His relation to duration finds its expression and fulfilment in his eternity. His relation, as an infinite and perfect being, to objects of knowledge, is realized and fulfilled in his omniscience. His relation to percipient and sentient beings, to all beings that are susceptible of happiness, is corresponded to and completed by his love; or, what is the same thing, by his desire of their happiness. So that it may be said, that he is present to and envelopes time by his eternity, space by his omnipresence, all things knowable by his omniscience, and all percipient and sentient existences by his LOVE. And as there can be no God without eternity, no God without omniscience and omnipresence, so, still more truly and emphatically, there can be no God without love. Take away love, and then, in dis