Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-10-12
GOES LOVE.

| The power of the Gospel is in its rev.
elation of Gods love for man. Onlv as
we understand this can we really un-
derstand the Gospel. Only as we be-
lieve and appreciate this can we appreci-
ate or believe the glad tidings ourselves,
or explain them to the minds and hearts
of others.
And yet there is widely prevalent
half unconscious skepticism in regard
| to what the Bible seems to teach con-
corning Gods love for man. Not that
the fact of such love is questioned. Ev-
cry one sees that with no appropriate
ness whatever could God be called our
Father II He did not bear some measure
of parental love toward His human chill
dren. But when the depth and strength
and tenderness of His affection for us
are portrayed; when Gethsemane and
| Calvary are interpreted and shown to
have been the fruit and expression of 4
| love toward us which no conception of
ours can grasp, then, though there may
be no expressed unbelief, yet too often
is the language deemed more or less ex-
aggerated and untrue. 1t seems almost
incredible that such an infinite being as
| God should really cherish toward such
| puny and unworthy creatures as we
such feelings of personal interest and
personal affection. This globe on
which we live, that seems to us so vast,
is but the merest atom in the universe
of suns and systems. And can it be
that that Infinite One who upholds i'm
mensity as in the hollow of II s hand
can it be that He feels such tender in
terest, such fathomlesS love, such a
personal sympathy for the human ami
malcule that inhabit this terraqueous
drop that we call our globe?
This has long been one of the most
plausible arguments of infdelity against
the whole system of Christianity. Dan
iel Webster said that this objection
did more than all others to shake his
faith in the Gospel. That Gospel, we
are told, assigns TO man a most prepos-
ferrous importance. 1t represents him
as receiving from the Most High de-
gree of attention and regard which his
actual insigniticance in tie universe pro-
nounces absurdly incredible.
Now there are different WAYS of meet
! ing such pernicious unbelief in regard
to Gods love for man. We may direct
the doubter's attention to the familiar
fact that love is not wont to determine
Its amount or expression by the merit
of its object. Does mother love her
| child only because it deserves her love?
Does she give it only so much regard
and affection as its evident importance
in the universe justly claims for it? Or
are the fact and the strength of her love
determined by her own maternal heart?
We all know that it is not her child,
but herself, that gives TO her love its
| depth and fervor; not the babes deserts
or Importance, but the alliectionateness
of the mothers own nature. The love
of the human parent is the shadow and
type of that which our Heavenly Father
bears toward His children. He loves
us as He does, not because we are
worthy of His love, but because He
himself is so infinitely loving not ac-
cording to our importance in the uni
verse, but according to the infinite ten
derness and affectionateness of His own
parental nature.
Or we may point the doubter to what
God himself has told us concerning His
love for man. These wonderful facts
and declarations of Scripture in which
this love is revealed may indeed seem
almost or, to the skeptic, even absolute
ly incredible. But il is only because
we have such low and inadequate
conception of the real character of God.
80 righteous Father said the Savior,
" the world hath not known Theer' 1t
was sadly true then, and it is sadly true
still. Even Gods own forgiven and
loyal children have but little compre-
hension Of His real character. If we
did know Him; if we could see what
God really is in the infinite glory and
beauty of His character, we should see
nothing incredible, nothing even Mt all
wonderful, in what are now the most
startling revelations of Scripture con-
corning His love for man. They would
seem perfectly natural, perfectly appro-
pirate. We should recognize them at
once as just what ought to be, Just
what might reasonably have been ex-
pected of such a being as God is.
Yes, it is one of the grandest facts with
race that just in proportion as we come
to know Gods real character just in the
same proportion will all incredibleness
and even all the wonderfulness of the
incarnation and crucifixion disappear,
for we shall see that it is Just like God,
just what might have been expected of
Him, that He should thus come to suf-
fer and die in shame and agony for the
eternal welfare and bliss of His enc
mics.
But whether or not we can see the
appropriateness of the Scripture reve-
lations concerning Gods love for man,
those revelations are here. They shine
down upon us like stars in the spiritual
armament. They are golden tints of
the infinite brightness and glory of our
eternal future. Reason as well as Script
ure commands us to accept them with
grateful joy; to feast upon them as
upon angels food" to make them
serve as spiritual stairway on which.
with ever-incrcasing confidence and
love, we may rise to truer and richer
acquaintance with our Father in Heav-
(rLsul.e.o