+The characters whom Christ loves.+ _Christ loves those who love Him._ (1) _Because He has done and suffered so much for their salvation._ We naturally prize any object in proportion to the labour and expense which it cost us to obtain it. How highly, then, must Christ prize, how ineffably must He love His people. For this, among other reasons, His love for them must be greater in degree, and of a different kind from that which He entertains for the angels of light. (2) _Because they are united to Him by strong and indissoluble ties._ The expressions used to describe this union are the strongest that language can afford. The people of Christ are not only His brethren, His sisters, His bride, but His members, His body, and He consequently loves them as we love our members, as our souls love our bodies. (3) _Because they possess His Spirit, and bear His image._ Similarity of character tends to produce affection, and hence every being in the universe loves his own image when he discovers it. Especially does Christ love His own image in His creatures, because it essentially consists in holiness, which is of all things most pleasing to His Father and Himself. (4) _Because they rejoice in and return His affection._ It is the natural tendency of love to produce and increase love. Even those whom we have long loved become incomparably more dear when they begin to prize our love and to return it. If Christ so loved His people before they existed, and even while they were His enemies, as to lay down His life for their redemption, how inexpressibly dear must they be to Him after they become His friends.--_Payson._ Seeking wisdom early implies 1. That it engages our first concern and endeavour, while matters of an inferior consideration are postponed. 2. The constant use of the proper means to obtain it. If we see one continually practising any art, we judge that it is his intention to be master of it. 3. The using them with spirt and vigour. The superficial and spiritless performance of duty is as faulty as the total omission.--_Abernathy._ All fancy that they love God. But those who either do not seek God at all, or seek Him coldly, whilst they eagerly seek the vanities of the world, make it plain that they are led by the love of the world more than by the love of God.--_Fausset._ It is His love to us that makes us to love Him; and, doubtless, He that loves us so as to make us to love Him, cannot but love us when we do love Him.--_Jermin._