There are two great principles in God's nature owned of all saints- holiness and love. One is the necessity of His nature, imperative in virtue of that nature on all that approach Him; the other is its energy. God is love; He is not loving, but love. He is this in the essential fountain of His being. 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 energy of His being. In the exercise of it, He gathers to Himself for the eternal blessedness of those who are gathered. Its display is in Christ, and Christ Himself is the great power and center of it. 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.- J. N. D.