This quality is implied in the very name we give Him, for God means good. Deus optimus maximus, God best and greatest, was the style of God among the very heathen.

By this title He proclaimed Himself to Moses :-" The LORD, the God, gracious and merciful, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth" (Exod. xxxiv. 6). The mouths of His saints are full of the praises of His goodness:-"Thou art good and doest good" (Ps. cxix. 68). "O give thanks unto God for He is good, and His mercy endureth for ever" (Ps. passim). "How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty" (Zech. ix. 17). "The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all His works" (Ps. cxix. 68). "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord" (Ps. xxxiii. 5).

The very fact of the creation of sensitive, intelligent beings is an evidence of benevolence; for God was under no necessity to create; and God had no need of creatures. for Himself; they could add nothing to Him. When we say that they were made for His glory, it does not mean that God takes the satisfaction that vain-glorious people do in the flattering applause of their dependents. It is of God's goodness that He condescends to be pleased with the imperfect prayers with which we sully His great and glorious Name; but for that He would despise our admiration and laudations with infinitely more reason than wise men despise the applause of fools. The only reason which can be assigned for creation is, that God might communicate His own felicity. Observe, too, the multiplied capacity for happiness which He has given to His creatures, so that in a healthy existence every act and every emotion is pleasurable.

To this benevolence we give different names, according to its object. The bounties of His Providence are ascribed to His goodness; His kindness to the miserable is called

compassion, to the unworthy grace, to the criminal mercy. St John sums it up in the three words, "God is love." God's infinite being is infinite love.

Oh! let us see the blessed meaning of this when it is applied to ourselves.

God's love is infinite. This does not merely mean that we have a little love for others, God has very much, so much that we cannot measure it; it means more than this. We have seen that God is wholly everywhere, so that He is present to me and to my fellow-man on the other side of the world; to an angel on one side of the universe, and to another on the opposite side of the universe, at the same time; and that He can, and does, give to each the whole and undivided attention of His Divine mind always. Similarly it follows, from the infinity of His Being, and the consequent infinity of His attributes, that He gives the whole love of His Divine heart to each of His creatures.

Even our poor experience of love will help us to understand this. The bride loves the bridegroom with all her heart, but when her first-born is laid in her bosom, a new love is born in her heart still deeper and more tender; and yet the love of her child does not make her love her hus-band less, but more; and as other children are born to her,. her maternal heart expands, and finds an equal love for all.

Think of God's love thus :-God had lived from all eternity in the perfect bliss of His triune Being, when at length His love overflowed in creation. Think of the first angel, the bright and beautiful first-born of creatures. The love of bridegroom for bride, of the mother for her child, are faint and feeble shadows of the creative, protective, love of God for His creatures. As the successive hosts of angels were called into being, God loved each as much as the first created one. When He created man He had still an infinite love to bestow upon him. He loved man with a very

special love; he loved him as the being whose nature the only begotten Son would take upon Him, uniting the manhood with the Godhead in the person of Christ. He loved each man with the same love wherewith He loved the first man—Adam, “which was the son of God” (Luke iii. 38). "I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (Jer. xxxi. 3). But Adam sinned and fell, and so we were born “children of wrath." Yes, and Christ died and redeemed us, and so we became again "sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty," children not now in Adam, "which was the son of God," but in the second Adam, "which is the only begotten Son of God." God loves us now in Christ.

Let me apply this to myself. Oh! what a glorious conclusion do these considerations lead me to. That God gives to me, even to me! the undivided fulness of His infinite love; loves me as if I were the first created of His creatures; as if there were no other creature; as if God and I were alone-heart to heart in the universe. "O God, Thou art my God." "My soul hangeth upon Thee!" "He loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20). How little do I love God with corresponding love! He is regarding me every moment, giving the whole attention. of His Divine mind to me; and I, how seldom do I ever think of Him. He is sustaining my life, providing for me, making all things work together for good to me. He has been long-suffering with me in spite of my wasted life and my many sins. His Holy Spirit is even now within me, helping me to draw nearer to Him. He loves me with an infinite love. Oh! how cold and ungrateful am I !

O God, forgive me all my sins-my sins against Thy love -and make me to love Thee as I ought.

CHAPTER V.

GOD'S PROVIDENCE-CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE BEING— IMMENSITY AND UBIQUITY-STILLNESS AND ACTIVITY -CONTEMPLATION AND PROVIDENCE-INCOMPREHEN

SIBLENESS.

WHEN God made matter He did not give it an independent existence, so that it now stands by itself, and would stand though God should-if it were possible-cease to exist.

When God had formed the world out of matter, He did not wind it up like a clock, and leave it to go by itself.

God keeps all things in existence from moment to moment by a conscious exercise of His will; and if He were to suspend the action of His will for an instant, in that instant everything would fall back into nothingness again. "He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 17). "Upholding all things by the word of His power" (Heb. i. 3).

God also rules or controls everything-what it does and what is done to it—at every moment.

He combines all things according to His will. "He maketh all things work together-for good to them that love Him" (Rom. viii. 28).

That God is, and made the world, but does not sustain and govern it, is the creed of the Theist, not of the Christian.

The doctrine that God sustains and governs everything, always, is what we call the Providence of God.

A man can combine two or three things or persons in

harmonious action, making each do its own work, and each help the other, and all unite to produce some common result. A man can combine and regulate a greater or less number of things in proportion as He is more or less skilful. God "makes all things work together,” because He is infinitely wise and powerful. He makes all things work harmoniously together, so that each does its own work, and each helps the other, and all together effect His will. And because God is infinitely good, He makes all things work together for the highest good of each creature at every moment.

Think of yourself, for example. God can, and does, make all the universe combine to further your highest good at every moment, just as if everything had been made for your sake, and all other interests were made subservient to yours.

And yet because God is infinite, He can, and does make the whole universe combine to further the highest good of your neighbour, and all other interests subservient to his.

Nay, further, since from all eternity God had you in His Divine mind, and gave His whole attention to you continually, from all eternity He made all successive creatures with an eye to you, and directed the whole course of human history with an eye to the place which you would occupy in it when He should, in the fulness of time, create you. And thus wonderful view of the Divine Providence—from all eternity He has made and governed everything so that all should work together for the highest good of every one of His creatures, at every instant of time, and no one person, however insignificant, be sacrificed to any other.

CONTRASTS IN THE BEING OF GOD.

Let us take up another line of thought, and try to rise to