This is the character of God, unless Scripture be a dream of man's imagination. Thus far you may know God; thus far you may see God as He is; and know and see that He is just with the justice of a man, only more just; merciful with the mercy of a man, only more merciful; truthful with the truthfulness of a man, only more truthful; gracious with the graciousness of a man, only more gracious; and loving? That we dare not say: for if we say so much, the Scripture commands us to say more. The Scripture tells us that the whole absolute morality of God is summed up-- as our own human morality ought to be--in His Love. That love is the fulfilment of the Moral Law in Him as in us; that it is the root and cause and spirit of His justice, mercy, truth, and graciousness; that it belongs not to His attributes, as they may be said to be, but to His essence and His spirit; that we must not, if we be careful of our words, say, God is loving, because we are bidden to say, "God is Love." Thus, the commands, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God--and thy neighbour as thyself, are shown to be not arbitrary and impossible demands, miscalled moral obligations, while they are merely legal and external ones; but true moral obligations, in the moral sense, to which heart and spirit can answer, "I rejoice to do thy will, O God; Thy law is within my heart." You ought to love God, because He is supremely loveable and worthy of your love. You can love God, because you can appreciate and know God; for you are His child, made in His moral likeness, and capable of seeing Him as He is morally, and of seeing in Him the full perfection of all that attracts your moral sense, when it is manifested in any human being. And you can love your neighbour as yourselves, because, and in as far as you have in you the Spirit of God, the spirit of universal love, which proceedeth out for ever both from the Father and the Son to all beings and things which They have made.