To suppose anything else; to suppose that God’s wisdom and God’s love, or that God’s justice and God’s love, are different from each other, or limit each other, or oppose each other, or are anything but one and the same eternally, is to divide God’s substance; to deny that God is One:  which is forbidden us, rightly, and according to the highest reason, by the Athanasian Creed.

But more; experience will shew us that the spirit of love is the same as the spirit of wisdom; that if any man wishes to be truly wise and prudent, his best way—­I may say his only way—­is to be loving and charitable.

The experience of the apostles proves it.  They were, I presume, the most perfectly loving and charitable of men; they sacrificed all for the sake of doing good; they counted not their own lives dear to them; they endured—­what did they not endure?—­for the one object of doing good to men; and—­what is harder, still harder, for any human being, because it requires not merely enthusiasm, but charity, they made themselves (St Paul at least) all things to all men, if by any means they might save some.

But were they wise in so doing?  We may judge of a man’s wisdom, my friends, by his success.  We English are very apt to do so.  We like practical men.  We say—­I will tell you what a man is, by what he can do.

Now, judged by that rule, surely the apostles’ method of winning men by love proved itself a wise method.  What did the apostles do?  They had the most enormous practical success that men ever had.  They, twelve poor men, set out to convert mankind by loving them:  and they succeeded.

Remember, moreover, that the text speaks of this Spirit of the Lord being given to One who was to be a King, a Ruler, a Guide, and a Judge of men; who was to exercise influence over men for their good.  This prophecy was fulfilled first in the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ:  but it was fulfilled also in His apostles, who were, in their own way and measure, kings of men, exercising a vast influence over them.  And how?  By the royal Spirit of love.  In the apostles the Spirit of love and charity proved Himself to be also the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.  He gave them such a converting, subduing, alluring power over men’s hearts, as no men have had, before or since.  And He will prove Himself to have the same power in us.  Our own experience will be the same as the apostles’ experience.

I say this deliberately.  The older we grow, the more we understand our own lives and histories, the more we shall see that the spirit of wisdom is the spirit of love; that the true way to gain influence over our fellow-men, is to have charity towards them.

That is a hard lesson to learn; and those who learn it at all, generally learn it late; almost—­God forgive us—­too late.

Our reason, if we would let the Spirit of God enlighten it, would teach us this beforehand.  But we do not usually listen to our reason, or to God’s Spirit speaking to it.  And therefore we have to learn the lesson by experience, often by very sad and shameful experience.  And even that very experience we cannot understand, unless the Spirit of God interpret it to us:  and blessed are they who, having been chastised, hearken to His interpretation.