June 13

My Beloved is tntne, and I am His. — Song of S. ii. l6.

God enters into loving relations with me, and it is only when I June 18.

am melted and encouraged by the perception and reception of

these relations that there comes the answering throb in my heart. The mirror

in our spirit has the other one reflected upon it; then it flings back its own

reflection to the parent glass. God comes first with the love that He pours

over us poor creatures; and when” we have known and believed the love

that God hath to us,” then, and only then, do we throb back the reflected,

aye, the kindred, kindred love. For love is the same thing in the Divine

heart and in my heart. In the other bonds that unite men to what is man’s

corresponds to what is God’s. My faith corresponds to His faithfulness. My

dependence corresponds to His sufficiency. My weak clinging answers to

His strong grasp; my obedience to His commanding. But my love not

only corresponds to, as the concave does to the convex, but it assimilates

to, and is the UkeHest thing in the creature to the infinitude of the Creator.

And so there is a parallel, wonderful and blessed, between the giving love

which says, “I will be to them a God,” and the recipient love which

responds, “We are to Thee a people.”

Remember, too, that not only is there this general resemblance, but that our love manifests itself to God — I was going to say, just as God’s love manifests itself to us, though, of course, there are differences that I do not need to touch upon here, in the act of self-surrender. He gave Himself to us. Ay! and we may use another form of speech still more emphatic, and say. He gave up Himself For, surely, difficult as it may be for us to keep our footing in those lofty heights where the atmosphere is so rare, the gift of Jesus Christ was surrender; when the Father spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all!

Not only is there this mutual possession, but each half, when cleft and analysed, reveals the necessity for a similar reciprocity. For God’s giving of Himself to us is nothing to us without our taking of God for ours; and, in like manner, our giving of ourselves to God would be all incomplete unless, in His strange love. He stooped from amidst the praises of Israel to accept the poor gifts that we bring.