Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/239

 a jealous God. Viewed as a passion with attaches itself to humanity, and which is sometimes productive of the most frightful results, it is difficult to see, speaking in human language, how it can be attributed, to a Being whose essential quality is love. But let us not be hasty in our judgment, especially upon such actions as are predicated of the Supreme Being; but endeavour, by an attentive consideration of the divine jealousy, to learn its true and proper meaning. Love is the very essence of the Deity, and the jealousy of Deity may be considered as nothing else than a divine fervency, which requires for its own infinite love and goodness, a return of the affections in man, to which it is entitled, and for the good of which all its labour is exercised.

If human jealousy, stripped of its frequent frightful results, be calmly examined, what is it on the part of man but a vigilant watchfulness, lest the object on which its affections are placed be lost to it?

Now the Lord is the true and proper object of love. He is, at the same time, the head, or husband of his Church; for it is written, "Thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name, the God of the whole earth shall He be called." As the Church is thus dear to him, and every member, as a church in its least form, stands in close relationship to him, and cannot live without him, for in him we live, and move, and have our being; so the divine jealousy, unlike that of man, seeks only for the good of its object, because, unless the heart be towards God, it cannot be filled with his love; and unless it be filled with his love, it cannot live. The love of God is the life of man, and to be separated from that love is to be separated from