p246 [Mons. Eynard] [From the French.] BELOVED BROTHER, - Thank you for your letters, which always interest me. God is so faithful towards His own, that if there is any disposition to be lifted up, God humbles them: witness the assembly of - . It is not His will that we should be out of the place of safety and blessing. Discipline is more difficult than we think, because we are not sufficiently humbled at the thought of sin in a brother. What we are ourselves is not enough felt, nor, consequently, love for others.

I have been deeply interested and touched by the reciprocity of interest between the Father and the Son in their love for us. (John 17.) Their communications are between themselves, or at least by the mouth of the Son, who addresses the Father, and I learn the manner in which they share this love. The Father has given us to the Son; the Son has manifested to us the name of the Father. He has kept the disciples in the name of the Father; now the Father is to keep them. The Father is to bless them because they are His, but also because the Son is glorified in them. The Son has also given us all the words which the Father has given Him for His own joy. What a thought, that the Father and the Son think thus about us!

In general, in John, it is the love of the Father and of the Son that characterises grace. God is light, but the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not; but if no one has seen God at any time, the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him. Thus, in chapter 8 it is His word; it is, "I am." In chapters 9, 10, it is grace, and, "I and the Father are one." They will think that they do God service; it is "because they have not known the Father, nor me."

December 13th, 1855.

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