15. For, as the Divine
utterances testify, “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in him.”2667
Whoso therefore
contends that
love
of
God may be had without aid of
God, what else does he
contend,
but that
God may be had without
God? Now what
Christian would say
this, which no madman would venture to say? Therefore in the
Apostle, true, pious,
faithful patience, saith exultingly, and by
the mouth of the
Saints; “Who shall separate us from the
love of
Christ? shall
tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or
famine,
or
nakedness, or
peril, or
sword? As it is written, For Thy sake we
are
killed all the day long; we are accounted as
sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him that
loved us:” not through ourselves, but,
“through Him that
loved us.”
2668
And then he goes on and adds;
“For I am
persuaded, that neither
death, nor
life, nor
angels,
nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able
to separate us from the
love of
God, which is in
Christ Jesus our
Lord.” This is that “
love of
God” which “is shed abroad in
our
hearts by the
Holy Spirit which is given unto us.” But the
concupiscence of the bad, by reason of which there is in them a
false patience, “is not of the Father,”
2669
as saith the Apostle John, but is
of the world.
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