CHAPTER III.

OUR FATHER.

He hath loved us from everlasting, and it is thus in the Person and in the prayer of His Blessed Son that He reveals afresh the old, old love. That love is from everlasting, and though He the Great Father dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto, though no human eye can penetrate the veil which hides His glory and His majesty from us, yet He hath revealed Himself in His nature, and that nature St. John describes when he says God is love.' All God's utterances are the utterances of that nature. He cannot speak apart from that love. His very judgments after the love has been violated, tried to its last extent, are the outcome of love. What He said through Jeremiah (xxxi. 3), I have loved thee with an everlasting love,' and what follows, with lovingkind'ness have I drawn thee,' He has been ever saying and is ever saying to individual souls. And so it has been said by some one that the love of the creature is the passion of the Creator. Thus, then, in this word 'Father' we see the old and eternal love of God, the personal love of God; and He who hath taught us thus to speak to Him hath opened

afresh the mine which a cold and dead world would have closed. All reserve is put aside. We are encouraged to approach Him by the assurance that He waiteth to be gracious, that He desireth to be entreated, that He goeth full to the heart of His children by the power of His great love.

He tells us of that mystery hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes; that mystery which startled angels when they were permitted to see into some of its depths, and which took form and shape in the Person of the Divine Son-His everlasting love. He tells us that that plea will never be made in vain, Thou art our Father. He hath loved thee from everlasting and with lovingkindness hath He drawn thee. It is the kiss to the prodigal, the promise of new life to the sick, of quietness and rest to those who choose the good part, it is the unfolding of God as He is to the faithful: God in Himself; the Personal 'I;' Who would have thought this? and yet it is this, the revelation of the Son, which makes all plain. O my God, all is clear to me now. In all my wanderings. in all my deadness, coldness, weariness of Thee, Thou hast loved me, borne with me: Thou hast been my Father. Sweet word! which speaks to me of the changeless love that stoops to my feebleness and welcomes me after my many wanderings to Thy home again.

God Who upholds all with the breath of His life, God Who if for an instant He withdrew His Presence would destroy all (Is. xl. 22-23), yet finds rest in the heart of a child; because He is not God only, but is our Father.

He tells us here our high aim and end, what we are saved, what we are lost.

Then to know that love and all that that love designs for us brings shame at having done anything to violate it. The piercing thought in the prodigal's soul was 'I have sinned 'against Heaven and in thy sight.' Father, how much hast thou loved me and how base has been my return of that love. And then came the thought of home; what he had done to defeat the eternal purpose of his father and the end of his being, and then followed the trust in that love which was his only hope, 'I will arise and go,' and he went. So to know this love is to be sure that we can gain it. It gives meaning to the Lord's appeal; how could He appeal thus? Come to Me and I will give 'you rest. It takes you out of the habit of generalizing, of being lost as it were in the crowd of human life, you see that you individually are the object of His love. That you were once a thought in the mind of God; that you are a thought now; amid the countless myriads who live and have lived or shall live, you, individually, are a thought in His mind: In "Thy book were all my members written;' the life you now live is known to Him; a life was mapped out for you by Him, how have you traced it? Have you disappointed God? It takes you out of the accidents of time, of place, of people; you know nothing of circumstances apart from Him. If in them you have not fulfilled the intentions of God, that is the question.

Thus, and only thus do we know Him. Thus and only thus can we describe Him. No man

hath seen God at any time, the only Begotten of the Father, He hath revealed Him. The love of the Saviour hath revealed to us some of the depths of the love of the Father. He hath told what a Father He is. Of the Father's willingness to accept penitents, the Father's delight in the sons of men, the Father's eternal election of souls because those souls were the thought of His great love, the Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom, the Father's open ear, watchful eye, tender care, and yearning for the words of prayer, were all revealed by the Blessed Son.

We cannot describe Him. No man hath seen God at any time; no form, no fashion, no ideal can approach Him. 'Such knowledge is 'too wonderful for me, I cannot attain unto it.' 'Whither shall I go from Thy Presence?' The blind man can tell you what sight would be to him; the dying man could tell you what it is to die; you can describe a picture, a scene, but God who hath known? Canst thou by search'ing find out God?' He hath described Himself as Love, vast boundless, eternal love, the great source of all the highest and noblest virtues-from Whom all good things come. And the description takes definite shape in the word 'Father.' We see that we souls are the object of that Love. That He finds rest in man and could find none in the beasts that perish. All are the creatures of His will; we the children of His love, and we alone.

I have loved Thee. Each soul turns to God at the sound Father,' and recognizes that he or she is the subject of that love. And we see the reason of our being, the mystery of the

Incarnation, of the Passion of Jesus, the Love of the Holy Ghost, Church, Sacraments, the necessity of reconciliation; the hope of the saints, and the discipline of the soul, all are plain to us; we see what we are, and why we are made for God, living to God, eternally loved by God.

We are the creatures of His love.

'Let us make man:' there is the Divine consultation; and not make him only as all creation was made, but in our image and likeness. Like unto Himself; and He breathed into man the breath of life and 'Man became a living soul. And then comes the restoration of that likeness by the Passion of Jesus and the sanctification of the Holy Ghost. But what concerns us now is the predestination of man declared in the love of the Father. This will account for that wonderful yearning, pleading with souls which is ever heard through the Book of God. That Book tells us of Himself, and in that Book we read of the pleadings of God. Why? Are we essential to Him? Could He not do without us? Why went He forth, if we may venture to say so, out of His loneliness to create souls who should weary Him with their ingratitude, who should straightway seek other affections and other ways but His? Why did He bear with man, and why cause the Eternal Son to be the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, to bear the contradictions spoken against Himself, to utter at last that piteous cry, 'How often would I, Ye will not come to Me,' Father, forgive them"? Why does the gentle Spirit come to the soul, and often and often as He is resisted, yet as often return again; stands as