ception of its true depth and beauty of meaning, is properly love in
exercise towards inferior and sinful creatures who deserve something
else. Condescending, pardoning, and active love, is its proper meaning.
And, says Peter, the inmost significance of the gospel is that it is the
revelation of such a love as being in God's heart.

Another meaning springs out of this. That same message is not only a
revelation of love, but it is a communication of the gifts of love. And
the 'true grace of God' is shorthand for all the rich abundance and
variety and exuberant manifoldness and all-sufficiency of the sevenfold
perfect gifts for spirit and heart which come from faith in Jesus
Christ. The truths that lie here in the Gospel, the truths which glow
and throb in this letter of Peter's, are the revelation and the
communication to men of the rich gifts of the Divine heart, which will
all flow into that soul which opens itself for the entrance of God's
word. And what are these truths? The main theme of this letter is Jesus
Christ, the Lamb of God, that was slain. 'Ye were as sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.' He
dwells upon Christ's innocence, upon Christ's meekness; but most of all
upon the Christ that died, 'whom, having not seen, we love, and in whom,
though unseen, we, believing, receive the end of our faith'--and the end
of the gospel--'even the salvation of our souls.'

Thus, dear brethren, this gospel, the gospel of the Divine Christ that
died for our sins, and lives to give His Spirit to all waiting hearts;
this is the true grace of God. It is very needful for us to keep in view
always that lofty conception of what this gospel is, that we may not
bring it down to the level of a mere theory of religion; nor think of it
as a mere publication of dry doctrines; that we may not lose sight of
what is the heart of it all, but may recognise this fact, that a gospel
out of which are struck, or in which are diminished, the truths of the
sacrifice of Christ and His ever-living intercession for us, is not the
true grace of God, and is neither a revelation of His love to inferior
and sinful men, nor a communication of His gifts to our weakness. Let us
remember Peter's witness. This--the full gospel of incarnation,
sacrifice, resurrection, ascension, and reign in glory, and return as
Judge--this, and nothing else, 'is the true grace of God.' And this
gospel is not exalted to its highest