There are two great principles in God's nature—holiness and love. One is the necessity of that nature, imperative in all that approach Him; the other in its energy. God is holy: God is—not loving—but, love. We make Him a judge by sin, for He is holy and has authority; but He is love, and none, has made Him such. If there be love anywhere else, it is of God; for God is love. This is the blessed, active energy of His being. In the exercise of this, He gathers to Himself, for the eternal blessedness of those who are gathered. Its display is in Christ, and Christ Himself is its great power and center. His counsels as to this are the glory of his grace: His applying them to sinners, and the means He employs for it, are the riches of His grace.
He who is goodness and light can dispel evil and darkness, according to the perfectness of divine wisdom, by the display of Himself, in such sort that no one but must see they are opposite to what He does display, if the mind has them before it; yet he who enjoys the goodness and light has no need to turn to their opposites to know light is light and goodness good.