The herald., 1895-11-18

| Infinite and invisible spirit. to "endure
as seeing Him who is INVISIBLE AL
| though we cannot see the form of the In
| flute Being. We can sea forms of Him in
nature. Stars, seas. clouds. trees. flow.
ers, an ,mals. birds, fishes and forms OF
! his Infinite Life. We see Him in the
highest way in human beings-parents,
| friends. teachers, children. To love
these forms of God is to love God. "lf
| a man loves not his brother whom he
hath seen, how can he love God whom he
hath not SEEM" said John. "He is a
his brother" SAID the same John. God
loves one soul as much as another; for
there is no respect of persons with God.
He loves the ignorant and sinful as much
as he loves the educated and sanity
Christ in his prayer in John states that
the Father loved his disciples as well as
Christ. But the ignorant and sinful DC
not feel that God loves them. 1t is the
thoughtful, moral and spiritual who
know the love of God. The good man
realizes Gods love which the bad man
cannot understand; but God loves Them
botn alike; and, when a man realizes
Gods love to him. he is inspired to love
God. 1--WE love Him because He first
loved u.s."
Our pictures and statues of Christ are
but the imaginations OF artists. We do
not know what was his appearance. His
height. color. form, walk, voice, we know
not. That divine face which inspired
thousands with love for Ills spirit, we
have never seen, and that voice which
thrilled the heart with spiritual life. we
have never beard. 1t follows, then, that
we cannot love the historical Christ, be-
cause we cannot love person that we
have never seen. Even Paul said,
though we have known Christ after the
flesh, vet now henctorth know we nIn no
more" Christ in the text has answered
the question, "how can We love CHRISTI?
We love him, if we kesp his command
ments. If we study and live the gospel.
we grow into a spiritual appreciation Of
his divine spirit. When We study the
gospel and follow Christ's example of liv-
ing his own commandments, we feel in
our souls that spiritual kinship which
m aeks US coheirs with Christ of the love
of God and of the sense OF eternal life.
Some Christians are the Lord, Lord fol-
lowers They claim theS are the only true
followers; but Christ will acknowledge
these hypocri,es in the day of judgment.
They will then learn that it IS the doors
and not thu sayers that Christ acknowi-
edges, and Christ rebuked his disciples
for rebuIkng those who did mighty works
in Christ's name, but did not follow the
di cip!es.
We cannot love the God of Moses. who |
ha rdened Pharoah's hevrt to make an ex- |
ouse for destroying the Egyptians. No |
man could love God VINO has either |
directly OF indirectly consigned millions
to eternal tortures, when be foreKnew and |
fureordained them to he / for his good |
pleasure. No mother can love the God
who has paved hell with infants not
span long. No moral man could worship |
a God at did not promote to heaven |
Socrates, Plato, Scipio Africsnus, the noble .
Gracchi, the pure Virgil. the polite Con-
fucius and the gentle Buddha. No man
could love the i'm m 5ral God of Tetzel, the
satanic God OF Calvin, tee treacherous
God of Luther, the revangeful GOD OF
Wesley. The only God that can be loved +.
by all the human hearl is the God whom 1
Christ loved, worshiped and revealed.
His God had not that barbarous plan of !
salvation which requires lies. trickery,
cruelty, murder and diabolism. Christ !
re N owed those awful features from the
Divine Being and asked men to be recon-
clied to God; for he never preached that
Cd needs to be reconciled to His human !
,reaturss. God was in Christ reconciling
The world unto Himself. He revealed |
ths goodness and justice of God, and re-
moved forever that lie mIsunderstand- |
ing which makes God worse than satan. !
But wonderful to relate, the churches I
which call MIN Lord God, and never ,
keep His communicated sist upon tive |
necessity Of persuading God 1who is love |
to love His own chiidren. If man
undertook to tell loving ana wise father
to love his children, to whom he is de-
voting his life, would not that father feel
that ne was insulted?