course of this present evil world; ̈“ the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience." Nor were the

effects confined to the immediate descendants of our sinning progenitor. They are universal. Death has passed upon all men, for all have sinned. All are, by nature the children of wrath." (Ephes. ii.)

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Do you ask, if God is love, why did he thus permit his creatures to fall and incur so much misery?" I answer that "God giveth not account of his matters." Upon points where Scripture is silent, it becomes us to be silent also, and to adore. At the same time, there is abundance of proof, as to this argument, to show that God is love, and that this attribute even then gloriously triumphed, when it seemed to be obscured; and that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Who can for a moment doubt, but that together with his own image, in which God created man, he also communicated to this last and best of his works those higher qualities of the heart and understanding, and in the highest degree, which depend upon, and flow from free-will. God made man upright, free to stand or fall. He listened to the suggestions of the Tempter. He fell, because he sinned. He fell because he abused the power

which God had given him to stand. Let not Almighty God be made the author of sin. Let not a God of love be converted, in our foolish imaginations, into a God of hate. As well may we perversely argue that He has endued us with a knowledge of good and evil, in order that we might choose evil rather than good as well may we argue that in the wonderful mechanism of our bodies, we are to behold only a provision for so much misery, so many instruments of pain and torture, rather than of health and enjoyment.

It is in overruling the dire effects of man's voluntary transgression, and in converting them into a greater blessing, that God is vindicated and exalted as a God of love. "Herein, therefore, is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him." Had the Almighty interfered in the first instance with man's free will, by preventing his listening to the seductions of the flesh and the devil, it had no doubt been mercy, but infinitely falling below that transcendant display of his love in applying no less a remedy for the evil than the death of his only begotten Son. This we are called upon to consider. "Herein is manifested the love of God." As though the sacred writer

had said, Here is a display worthy of a God of love: herein is this essential attribute most gloriously manifested: here he is exalted above all blessing and praise-in that "he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." It was an act worthy of the same God who created the world, to interpose to save it. Love created, love saved, and restored. God created all things by his Son Jesus Christ. All things shall again be renewed, restored, and harmonized by the same divine person. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works."

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True it is, that God's essential Justice was also such, as to require a satisfaction for sin; a proper, plenary, although vicarious sacrifice; and that no less than his only begotten Son, "the brightness of his own glory, the express image of his own person." A God of love, my brethren, must not be confounded with a God of Justice. In the affair of man's salvation, each attribute holds its proper place, at the same time that they both infinitely harmonize with, and set off each other. God is love, for the very reason that he is also just for the very reason that his love triumphed over his justice, when a due satisfaction had first been made. When we

behold his throne established in righteousness; Justice accepting satisfaction at the intercession of Mercy-then we properly say that "God is love," without imputing weakness to an infinitely wise and perfect being, which we should be guilty of doing, were we to forget that God, though merciful, is also " righteous and just to forgive us our sins."

Nor was the love of God in Christ Jesus the effect of any sudden emotion, a change and transition from relentless hate and aversion, to that of love and reconciliation. How can so harsh a supposition be reconciled with the text, or with that further declaration of St. John, namely, that God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son for its redemption? No, he loved his children, and he loved them from eternity. Our restoration by Christ Jesus was in the mind or counsel of God for innumerable ages before the fall of man required the execution of this scheme of benevolence. This is a truth, not more agreeable to our proper ideas of God's essential love and foreknowledge, than it is to the doctrine of Scripture. St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, has these words: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." The formularies of our Church recognize the same doctrine, (Art. XVII.)

II. It remains for me, in the Second place, briefly to apply and enforce the preceding remarks. What then is the practical conclusion to be drawn from this great and glorious doctrine? It is this, " Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." The words are striking and deserve attention. We might have expected the conclusion to have run thus, "We ought also and in like manner to love God."

4

This, however, is supposed, and

is afterwards expressed in words, "We love him because he first loved us." How is our love to

God shown to be genuine,

accept at our hands?

and such as He will

Only by the love we

show to the brethren; as appears from the verse following: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who