Love

WHEREVER there is union to Christ, there is love. This is the essential principle. Whatever else there be, if there be not love, it profits nothing, it proves nothing. Love to God and our neighbor is the essence of piety. It is the body, the basis, the staple element; and if the great commandment and the nest greatest be absent, whatever else there be, there is not Christianity.
Have you got it? To Christ’s question, “Lovest thou me?” is it your answer, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” Then, if you love Jesus, you will love Him whose express image Jesus is. To God in Christ your soul will be attached in gratitude submission, and complacency. You will not wish Him less holy, less righteous, less true. Awed by His glorious majesty, and melted by His ineffable mercy, all that is dust and ashes in you will be humbled, and all that is filial will be inflamed. If nothingness and sin bid you be silent, the sight of your Saviour gone back to the bosom of His God and your God, will awakes a cry of relenting tenderness, and adoring astonishment. Boldest when you are most debased. From the foot of the Cross, the view of a reconciled God elicits the cry, Abba, Father; and you love Him who first loved you: and feeling it sweet to be accepted of God on any ground, feel that to be accepted in His own well-beloved Son is sweet indeed.