be the crime of those, whose preaching, whose creeds, whose conduct, give the lie to the fact recorded in my text, "God is love!" The very class to which I have referred will tell us, that the grand doctrine that God is the God of eternal justice, will not allow Him to be a God of love; and some will go so far as to use impious language and say, "If God is sovereign among the inhabitants of the earth and heaven, He is a tyrant.' I would have such to beware of fostering blasphemyblasphemy which Satan himself would not dare to utter. It is truly awful.

But notwithstanding all the cavils of mortals, and notwithstanding all this hue and cry (and this because they want to deify themselves and dethrone the Deity), it is a sound and efficacious doctrine, that a God who is a God of love, must love all His perfections and attributes alike, or He would not be a God of love. A God all mercy, as one of our poets sings, would be a God unjust; but a God all love, is not a God unjust, for He loves His justice as much as He loves His truth, His truth as much as His condescension, His condescension as much as His mercy—all are in holy harmony in the perfections of Deity, and all centre in love.

Glance over this short statement in as cursory a manner as we can, that our hearts may be warmed therewith.

The fact shall first be contemplated; then the evidence be brought forward; and then the witnesses be summoned to give their testimony.

I.-First of all, as to the fact that God is love. Repeatedly is this asserted both in this chapter and elsewhere. I wish my hearers to bear in mind that the very essence of self-existent Deity is here set forth. In His own glorious self-existence, as the Divine, eternal, incomprehensible Jehovah, all that appertains to His justice, to His holiness, to His power as well as to His providence, and His gracious care of His people, all centres in this one point-love; love, fixes upon the persons constituting His family, justice demands satisfaction, and love says to justice, "Thou shalt be satisficd." His love of justice is as great as His love of mercy, so justice says, "I am satisfied, if love has provided the satisfaction." Then the law puts forth its claim, being a transcript of the Divine mind, and says, "I must have a Divine Surety," therefore, "God is love," for the giving of His onlybegotten Son to bear our transgressions was an emanation of love. Moreover if the demands of justice be met (and love devised the plan that satisfies them), there came forward "the accuser of the brethren,' the awful disturber of the soul called the tempter. He holds them as his prey, but love says, "I shall rescue them from the enemy," and love is able to do it. The whole scheme, the whole plan God Himself has revealed in this one fact, that His own essence is love. He dwells in that essence, and nothing can alter or change that essence, however persons may attempt to oppose and deny it, unless it can be proved that the capricious mind of carnal free-will is stronger than love Divine, and has reversed God's order. The great evil which brings men to reject that one fact, is that they want to create love at first; that, instead of reading that text as it stands, "We love Him because He first loved us," they would read it, "We love Him, therefore He will love us." I cannot bear to have my Bible garbled in that manner. We must take it as it stands. The general cry is that Divine love, the love of Jehovah, depends upon the love of the creature ;

whereas the fact is, all the love which the creature can have for God is an emanation of His own, proceeding from Himself, and, therefore, I am told is the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. The Divine essence being thus set forth constitutes happiness. In other words, it is love. All in heaven inhale the love of God as the very atmosphere they breathe. It is the element they live in. All the happiness they enjoy proceeds from His love. All the glory He communicates is an emanation from His own love.

Whilst we dwell upon the Divine essence, and the self-existence of the Deity, what a contrast is exhibited between the self-existent Jehovah and poor fallen man, of whom we are told in express terms, that "the carnal inind is enmity against God!" I ask, is it possible to fix upon a greater contrast, a more perfect contrast, than that which exists between love and enmity? The creature is declared to be enmity-not merely at enmity in mind, but nothing less than enmity itself against God; therefore it is said, “The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." Now mark what constitutes the quarrel between Jehovah and His poor fallen creatures. Jehovah's essence is love; man's essence, in his fallen state, is enmity. He is, therefore, at war with God. What can conquer Him? Not the terrors of the law, not the vengeance of judgment, not the flames of hell. None of these ever conquered a poor sinner's enmity against God. What is it then? Nothing less than God's own essence. It is love that conquers him. He may be conquered by vengeance to be driven to eternal banishment, but to obtain pardon and life eternal, he can only be conquered by love. Then it follows from these premises that this conquering means nothing more nor less than this-that it is Jehovah come down to take possession of the sinner's heart, it is love entering in where nothing but enmity existed before; it is love claiming the property and rescuing it from the hands of the adversary, from the terrible tyrant of the soul.

Follow this a little further and see the essence of the Deity in all His attributes and perfections concentrated in love itself, also the substance of covenant relationship. When we speak of Deity we must not merely speak of Jehovah as existing in three-fold description of personality, but in His covenant relationship; and when I speak of covenant relationship, I beg you to understand I do not mean a covenant merely with His people, but for His people with each of the personalities in Deity. So that all the arrangements of the covenant between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost proclaim the love of each. Thus the love of the Father made choice of the Church, and formed His covenant with her Head; the love of the Son betrothed His Church, received her as His bride and espoused her as His own beloved from everlasting, as it is written by the prophet Hosea, "I will betroth thee unto me for ever, yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies;" the love of the Holy Spirit registered all the names of the redeemed in the Lamb's Book of Life, thereby pledging Himself, in the fulness of time, to take possession of all their hearts with the love of the Spirit. Thus the Lord Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit, stand mutually engaged in the great business of the sinner's salvation and redemption. I beg you not to lose sight of the fact of a mutual pledge, each to the other, in love, Until the Father can cease to love the Son, He will not withhold His reward; till the Son can cease to love the

Father, He will not withdraw the bond of love engaged in for their redemption; and until the Spirit ceases to love the Father and the Son, and be one with them, the registration in the Book of Life cannot be blotted out, nor can omission be made of any sinner whose name is written there. So, when we look at the first acts of love as manifested and exhibited by the God whom we worship and serve, and behold all the covenanted transactions, the ancient settlements, the fixed decrees, the predestined purposes and arrangements in grace, settled upon the Church, it is all concentrated in the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Love wrote down all God's purposes. Love engaged in all the stipulations they contained and that Jesus Christ performed. Love put forth all the decrees, and all the adaptations to purposes. Love counted the family of God the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. Tell me no more about the religion of terror. Tell me no more about a religion to frighten people by the thunders of Mount Sinai, by threatenings, by alarms, of utter destruction, tell me not of a religion that terrifies them to drive them to God. It never succeeds; it never accomplishes the bringing of one soul to Christ. The poet was quite correct when he said,

"Law and terrors do but harden,

All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon,
Soon dissolves a heart of stone."

Oh, no, love constitutes the bonds of salvation for us to God as our covenanted Father. Love shines forth at every step of redemption work. It is proclaimed in every principle of the gospel, and in every precept. It is enjoyed in every privilege; and it is opened to our view more especially in the prospect of the consummation of all things, when the whole family of God, rich in unchanging love, shall be perfect in the realms of glory.

But there is another point to which I invite your attention. It is that love constitutes the tie of the distinct personalities of Deity.

Here you must allow me to relate an anecdote, because there are but few, comparatively speaking, in the present day who believe the doctrine of the Trinity. The anecdote is founded upon a fact which took place at my own house. Upon the application of a stranger, who introduced himself as a preacher, for some assistance, I took the liberty of asking a little about his principles, which he was very careful to try to conceal. But at length he let out that he believed in universal redemption. I immediately replied, "Then, Sir, I can have nothing to do with you, because you are an Arian." Upon which he appeared somewhat angry, and declared himself as sound a Trinitarian as any man in the world. I said, "No, it is impossible, if you believe in universal redemption." He believed both, he declared. I said, "Before I part with you, I hope to bring you to relinquish one of the two, you cannot believe them both." After protesting that he did, I said, "Now, in believing the doctrine of the Trinity I presume you believe that Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit, distinct in Personality, are one not only in Divine essence, but one in all their attributes." "Most certainly," he did. "Then," I said, "you believe that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit distinct in personality are one in love." "Decidedly," he did. Now," I said, "how does this accord with your universal redemption scheme? for you tell me that the second Person in the glorious Trinity, so loved Cain, Ahah, Jezebel, Judas, and Demas, as

to shed His precious blood for them, so as to give up His life for them. Will you tell me that the Father so loved them as to adopt them? That the Holy Spirit so loved them as to regenerate them?" I had nothing but silence for an answer. I could get no reply. I then said, "Mark what universal redemption drives you to; it drives you to set the Persons of the Trinity quarreling with each other. The Father is viewed by the Son, upon such an hypothesis, with jealousy, because He would not love all He died for; the Son is viewed with disapprobation and despair by the Holy Ghost, because He died for those He could not sanctify; and the Holy Ghost is viewed with disapprobation and despair by the Son, because He would not sanctify those for whom the Son died."

I think that is a fair, straightforward argument. I want such a Christianity as will give a tie of union between the Personalities of the Deity; a Christianity in which the Father shall feel the tie of His love to the Son into whose hands He has given all things, for the Father loveth the Son; a Christianity in which the Son should feel the tie of love to the Father, and fulfil the bond into which they have together engaged for the ransoming, rescuing, and the saving of His whole Church; a Christianity in which the Holy Ghost should feel the tie of love to the Father and the Son-that all the Father chose, and all the Son redeemed, He would, in the fulness of His time, regenerate, transplant, and train up for the enjoyment of eternal glory. Something worthy of God in this! The other is only fit for the devil and his angels, and his antichristian devotees.

Oh, how delightful and refreshing is the fact that the Christianity I dwell in, and which is my security, I may say for time and eternity, lays in the love which Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have for each other. So long as the Father continues to love the Son, He cannot reject a soul that is in union with Him, a member of the mystical body of the Son of God, for Christ has said, "Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." The Father, then, must cease to love Christ before He can cease to love one of those in union with Christ. So long as the Son holds this solemn responsibility, and has this love to the Father, according to the bond of His covenant engagements, so long is He sure to go on with His calling work, with His quickening work, with His conquering saving work, saying, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." While the Holy Ghost, finding them out scattered all over the world, shedding abroad the Father's love in their hearts, and testifying the love of Jesus Christ in their experience, proves His own love to the Son and to the Father in the operations of grace that He carries on in them. Then "God is love;" and if you will only admit this one grand fact it will follow that everything appertaining to His salvation is as sure as love can make it.

Now allow me to give you a simile about the question in point. If the promise of a privilege or a pleasure were depending upon some individual, highly esteemed by us, who, we were sure had full power to accomplish what he had intimated his intention of doing, you would say, "It all depends upon his love to me." If his love to me is hollow and deceptive, it will come to nothing, but if it is really love, I am sure that he will perform what he says. The best security we have among mortals is real affection. Shall it not be our security with God? Will you have a contingency where God has put none? Why make

love a mutable thing? Shall He withdraw His love? No; not for one moment-"I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

II. Let us look, in the second place, a little into the evidence, Perhaps you will say we have had evidence from witnesses already. Very well; but we must give proofs and illustrations.

The first evidence, then, that I find is, in the economy of salvation. We have seen it in its covenant origin and the covenant union of all the Persons of the Deity, the tie of affection and love; that the love of God includes all the attributes and perfections of His nature. Now in the excellent economy of salvation we find the evidence that God is love; therefore says Isaiah, "Thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption." What then is the economy of salvation? If I might epitomize it, I should give it another name, and call it the charter of love, a charter that can never be destroyed, a charter that ensures the best interests of the entire election of grace, a charter which couples the glory of Jehovah with the eternal happiness of the creature. You cannot find this in any other charter. I am a thorough chartist you may say. So I am in this spiritual sense : and in this only-not of the modern Infidels. I do not like that they should have the best words who put them to the vilest of uses; therefore I accept this best of chartism-that which the King of glory has everlastingly settled and determined in His own heavenly charter, that salvation shall be His own gift which cannot be withdrawn, shall be bestowed in a way suitable to the ruined creature that is to receive it, and in such a manner as to exalt the glory and honour of the Divine perfections in unity.

Now love is at the bottom of all this; therefore I rely upon the charter which we have; inasmuch as the love of God is manifested towards us, because He sent His own Son that we might live through Him. If this love were contingent, if it were a passing thing, if it were uncertain, not abiding, all might be a failure. But in this charter I find Jehovah's love is so fixed upon the justice and holiness of His own nature, that, in His method of saving sinners he will have them all fully satisfied. I read that solemn text, and I know that God "will by no means clear the guilty," and then ask, how love itself can get over the difficulty? There will be many to whom that would be a difficulty. "God will by no means clear the guilty," and "every mouth shall be stopped and all the world must become guilty before God." Then how is God, even in the excellence of His love, to clear the guilty? His love of justice is such that He will not clear them while guilty; His love of His law is such that He will not clear the guilty while an iota is unpaid; but His love of sinners is such that He has accepted a satisfaction, a Substitute, a Surety. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God has sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." He sent Him as an act of love, on purpose that the elect family of God might have life in Him. I beseech you to mark how He did it. By a transfer of the rebellion and sin of all the election of God to the Person of Christ. He, as an act of love, receives the transfer, accepts the communication, allows all to lay upon Him. As it is written, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Consequently, when the guilt of our iniquity is transferred to our Surety, our guilt is cleared. Love fixes upon Him