INTRODUCTION
uninterrupted, continuous act, whose starting-point lies in the decree whose end is in the glorification before the throne. It contains nothing formal or mechanical. There is not a period of eighteen centuries first, during which God is occupied with the preparation of objective grace, without a single gracious work in individual souls. Neither is there salvation prepared only for possible souls whose salvation was still uncertain. Nay, the love of God never works toward the unknown. He is perfect, and His way is perfect; hence His love, always bears the high and holy mark of proceeding from heart to heart, from person to person, knowing and reading one with perfect knowledge. During all the day while Cain was being judged; while Noah and his eight were safe in the ark; while Abraham was called, and Moses talked with Jehovah face to face; while the seers were prophesying, the Baptist appeared in public, Jesus ascended Calvary, and St. John was seeing visions-throughout all those ages God foreknew us (if we are His own), the pressure of His love went out steadily toward us, He called us before we were, in order that we might come into being,; and when we had come into being, He led us all our days. Even when we rebelled against Him and He turned. His face from us, even then He led us as our true and faithful Shepherd. Surely all things must work together for good to them that love God, even the lives and characters of their ancestors for they are the called according to His purpose.
Instead of being cold and formal, it is rather one act of love, energizing, pouring forth, shedding itself abroad. From its fountainhead on the highest mountains, traversing many highlands before it can reach you, divine love flows on, ever restless, until it pours itself forth into your soul. Hence the apostle boasts that at last love had attained this blessed end in his person and in Rome's beloved church. " Now we have peace with God, because the love of God (moving toward us from eternity) at last has reached us, and is now shed abroad in our heart."
And this does not mean that now we possess a pure love of our own, but that the love of God for His elect, having descended from on high and overcome every obstacle, has poured itself into the deep bed of our regenerated hearts. And to this He adds the grace of making the soul understand, drink, and taste of that. love. And when in contrition and shamefacedness the soul loses itself in love's delights and in the adorations of its eternal compassion, then
