Page:A Cloud of Independent Witnesses.djvu/78

This page needs to be proofread.

72 A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

just in the degree and manner in which he loves goodness and truth. And the command to love God above all things is equivalent to this — that man's love for what is good and true must be the great controlling principle of his life.

" Love to God, in this sense, has a necessary tendency to conform us to the image of God. True love, based on appreciation of character, is imitative it seeks to resemble its object. Love is the most formative thing in the world, the most powerful in removing what is uncongenial to its nature, and in assimilating all things to itself. By loving goodness we increase in goodness; by loving wisdom we increase in wisdom; by loving holiness we increase in holiness; by loving these as qualities in God, we become like God." (p. 233.)

THE INFLUENT LIFE OF GOD— ITS LAW.

" The Lord himself is continually in the desire and endeavor to communicate to man the life of his own love. The actual communication of this life is limited, not by the Lord's willingness to impart, but by man's capacity to receive. It is a law of man's nature that he is receptive of good affections from the Lord only so far as their opposites are removed. The Lord alone is able to remove man's evil loves; but He can do

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.