To be near unto God - pagina 207

unbounded love. Everytliing must go for God even as you have to look for everything to God. But even this broad admission did not satisfy Jesus.

He

did not say:

Thou

shalt love

the

Lord thy God in everyi;hing. He has carefully distinguished between the heart, the soul, the mind and the strength. And did you do well to ignore this? There was a purpose in this distinction. Our Lord has deemed this distinction to be necessary for the whole church. It wa^ his will that ministers of the Word should bind this love for God severally with the heart, the soul, the mind and the strength upon the conscience of believers. It was his will that every child of God should continually examine himself, whether he practiced his love for God this same four-

m

fold way.

True godliness would have rooted more deeply and more firmly in the life of the church, if both preaching and self-examination had been applied more seriousl}' to the cultivation of this full, warm love for God, and if it had derived more vital strength from the keeping of this first and great commandment. No holier power can animate us than love, and in all love the love for

God

wears the crown. Love, therefore, is the of perfection, provided it is not volatilized into a vague conception of ideal love without rule or object. Everything noble and exalted in love that can be idealized and celebrated in song, is only real, when it is a love that first loves God and for his sake one's neighbor. Attention is at once arrested by the fact that in commending love for God, Jesus gives the heart the first mention, and not the soul. We

bond

203

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