J. N. Darby.
<42038E> 234
(Notes and Comments Vol. 2.)
How thoroughly, after all the history of man's ways, all the failure and ruin, evil brings out the whole nature, character and ways of God Himself! The Cross is just the central proof of this, but the whole history tends to and flows from that.
I adore the perfection of those ways of God which, while revealing in a living Person, i.e., Himself in a living Person, the perfection of blessedness and grace as the attractive power for the heart, and which thus forms it, yet does so in that which by its perfection judges the conscience and makes the work of this Person necessary, so that there is a setting the conscience on the full ground on which the heart is, without which there could not be perfect blessedness. Were it only the perfect enjoyment, alas! man would think something of himself, but as it throws light on his conscience he is dependent entirely on the work which cleanses (has cleansed) it, and thus is in humility, and yet he gains immensely because his moral estimate of things is thus according to the perfection which has judged his conscience. Then his walk is in the nature which has loved this Object, and according to the light in the conscience which He has thrown on it, i.e., "as God is in the light," see 1 John 1.
This connection of conscience and the Object is very blessed.