The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 627

THE LOVE WHICH WITHERS

587

His human love requires that he more and more

neighbor's needs.

make the salvation of others the only object of And since love so works in him, he imagines that

ignore himself, and his existence.

must so work in God. Unconsciously he applies to God the same human conception of love and finally he fancies that the love of God rises higher and higher as His grace becomes more universal. When one may say that there can be no sinner so wicked and it

;

dishonorable but divine Love will eventually receive

him

in perfect

and another, " You are right, altho I would make Judas and those like him an exception," then the former appears the more plausible. He alone who includes even Judas among the blessed has the most worthy idea of the Love of God. The least doubt about it disparages that Love. And the measure of that disparagement is determined by his estimate both of the numbers of the blessed and of the lost. felicity,

The

point at issue

tion of love

is

is

the Being of God.

applied to God, then

all

If

the

men must

human

has no right to be anything in relation to the creature. confess that of

all

beings God

is

the Source, to

conception of creaturely love can

concep-

be saved, and

whom

not be applied,

But

God we

if

therefore the for then

He

would cease from being the Supreme Being, then the whole objection becomes invalid. For then we ignore our own ideas concerning this mystery, and acknowledge that they can not but lead us astray. We also distrust the teachings of others, knowing that no more their heart than our own can teach us anything in this respect. And, from the nature of the case, we are made to see that on this subject God alone can enlighten us. Hence either we must deny that there is a revelation concerning divine Love, so that therefore we can neither deny nor confirm anything concerning it; or we must confess that the Scripture offers us such revelation, and then must also acknowledge as true all

that Scripture teaches regarding

We

it.

do not deny that we ourselves feel the antagonizing

influ-

ence of the doctrine, and we confess that it does not at all agree with our creaturely conception of love. Neither skeptic nor Arminian need remind us of it. We are much too human and free

and untrammeled to deny it. But we absolutely deny our own heart and feelings the right to decide this matter, or even to have any voice

in

it,

and claim that we and our opponents should unre-

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