expression and true mirror of His character. What He thus does shows
that character to His creatures, who cannot see Him but in the glass of
His works, and have to infer His nature, as they best may, from His
works. The Bible begins with His nature and thence interprets His work.

The work in which God delights is the utterance of His love in blessing.

The very essence of love is self-manifestation.

The very being of God is love, and all being delights in its own self-
manifestation, in its own activity.

How great the thought is that He is glad when we let Him satisfy His
nature by making us glad!

The ordinary course of His government in the world is blessing.

II. The Task in which He does not delight, or His Strange Work.

The consequences of sin are God's work. The miseries consequent on sin
are self-inflicted, but they are also God's judgments on sin. We may say
that sin automatically works out its results, but its results follow by
the will of God on account of sin.

That work is a necessity arising from the nature of God. It is foreign
to His heart but not to His nature. God is both 'the light of Israel'
for blessing, and 'a consuming fire.' The two opposite effects are
equally the result of the contact of God and man. Light pains a diseased
eye and gladdens a sound one. The sun seen through a mist becomes like a
ball of red-hot iron. The whole revelation of God becomes a pain to an