He was full of grace and truth. Grace and truth: that is what
Christ is; and therefore that is what God is.
There was another aspect of him, true; and St. John saw that
likewise. And so awful was it that he fell at the Lord's feet as he
had been dead.
But the Lord was still full of grace and truth; still, however awful
he was, he was as full as ever of love, pity, gentleness. He was the
Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world, even though that Lamb
was in the midst of the throne from which came forth thunderings and
lightnings, and judgments against the sins of all the world.
Terrible to wrong, and to the doers of wrong: but most loving and
merciful to all true penitents, who cast themselves and the burden of
their sins before his feet; perfect justice and perfect Love,--that
is God. That is the maker of this world. That is he who in the
beginning made heaven and earth. An utterly good God. A God whose
mercy is over all his creatures. A God who desires the good of his
creatures; who willeth not that one little one should perish; who
will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the
truth; who wages everlasting war against sin and folly, and wrong and
misery, and all the ills to which men are heirs; who not only made
the world, but loves the world, and who proved that--what a proof!--
by not sparing his only-begotten Son, but freely giving him for us.
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