He apparently consults our interests rather than His own, by making in reality the last identical with the first. His first thought for sinners is to make repentence easy and light, and strange indeed are the things to which His wisdom can persuade His justice, or His goodness bend His sanctity. By His own order our liberty seems to take precedence of His law, while the whole of creation is apparently disposed for the convenience of our salvation. The increase of this love depends upon ourselves. On this side the grave we can have it when we will, and there is always grace to enable us to ask and to will it. The more we ask the more He will give, and reckon the obligation to be on His side rather than on ours. All that is wanted of us is, to take God's side, to love what He loves, to hate what He hates, and, to sum up all in one word, to belong to Jesus Christ. ~ Frederick William Faber, (1858)
