Page:Jesus of Nazareth the story of His life simply told (1917).djvu/408

 "If the love that is born of creatures be so welcome, so cheering, so gladdening and so soul-inspiring, what are we to say, what, indeed, can we say of the love of Him who is not a creature at all, however perfect and however exquisite, but the Infinite and the Uncreated? What is all earthly affection compared with the fierce, consuming fire of divine love burning in the sacred heart of the world's Redeemer? In fact, but for this love we never could have been. It was His love, and His love only, and not the thought of any interest or advantage that He could expect to derive from our existence, that determined Him to call us from the hollow womb of nothingness into a state of actual being. Behold, 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on thee' (Jeremias xxxi. 3).

"To any one who at all realizes the majesty and unapproachable glory of God, on the one hand, and the ineffable tenderness and depth of His love on the other, there is something positively intoxicating in the thought. Who would ever fear, or doubt, or hesitate, or despair, if he were really and indeed intimately conscious to himself that the loving arms of Omnipotence are wound about him all the day long, and that nothing in heaven or on earth can possibly approach to injure or molest him without permission from that divine Lover whose love is infinite, and whose power is commensurate with His love? To be fully sensible of all this is to be calm and happy, and to share in some measure in the felicity of the saints.

"There are two wondrous faculties in the love God bears towards men which can never be sufficiently realized, and which we should, therefore, frequently call to mind and ponder over. First, its intensity, and secondly, its essentially personal character. Like a true, warm-hearted lover He is never weary of expressing His love, and, as it were, whispering into our ears fresh assurances of His enduring attachment. At one time in the most explicit terms, and at others by figures and symbols. He seeks to enforce the same sweet truth upon us, and to persuade us more and more fully of the depths of that charity which the apostle tells us 'surpasseth all understanding' (Eph. iii. 19). 'Fear not,' He exclaims, 'for I have redeemed thee and called thee by thy name; thou art mine (Is. xliii. 1). 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love (Is. xxxi. 3). And in what measure and with what strength? He answers the query Himself: 'As the Father loved Me, so I have loved you."