love is the infinite and ceaseless welling out of Himself, in all forms
of beauty and blessedness, according to the capacity and contents of His
recipient creatures. He is 'the giving God,' as James in his epistle
eloquently and wonderfully calls Him, whose very nature it is to give.
And that is only to say, in other words, 'good _is the Lord_.'

But then 'good _and_ upright'--that combination determines the form
which His blessings shall assume, the channel in which by preference
they will flow. If we had only to say, 'good is the Lord,' then our
happiness, as we call it, the satisfaction of our physical needs and of
lower cravings, might be the adequate expression of His love. But if God
be righteous, then because Himself is so, it must be His deepest desire
for us that we should be like Him. Not our happiness but our rectitude
is God's end in all that He does with us. It is worth His while to make
us, in the lower sense of the word, 'happy,' but the purpose of joy as
of sorrow is to make us pure and righteous. We shall never come to
understand the meaning of our own lives, and will always be blindly
puzzling over the mysteries of the providences that beset us, until we
learn that not enjoyment and not sorrow is His ultimate end concerning
us, but that we may be partakers of His holiness. Since He is righteous,
the dearest desire of His loving heart, and that to which all His
dealings with us are directed; and that, therefore, to which all our
desires and efforts should be directed likewise, is to make us righteous
also.

'Therefore will He teach sinners in the way.' If the righteousness
existed without the love it must 'come with a rod,' and the sinners who
are out of the way must incontinently be crushed where they have
wandered. But since righteousness is blended with love, therefore He
comes, and must desire to bring all wanderers back into the paths which