THE NATURE OF THE PRIMARY GRACES. GOD'S AND MAN'S LOWER AFFECTION-ORGANS—SELFISH AND SOCIAL. GOD'S SELF-ESTEEM. APPROBATIVENESS. RESTFULNESS. VITATIVENESS. SELF­ DEFENSIVENESS. AGGRESSIVENESS. CAREFULNESS. SECRETIVENESS. PROVIDENCE. INTELLIGENCE. AGREEABLENESS. CONJUGALITY. FATHERLINESS. KINGLINESS.

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IN THE preceding chapter we finished our study of God's higher  primary  attributes  of  character—wisdom,  justice, love and power. The expression, higher primary attributes, implies lower primary attributes of character. Perhaps a brief review of our definition of primary attributes of character will at this stage of our study prove helpful: Primary attributes of character are such as are produced by the direct action of the various affection-organs, e.g., the direct action of the affection-organ, spirituality, produces faith, a higher primary grace, one of the ingredients of wisdom; the direct working of the affection-organ, firmness, develops self-control, a higher primary grace, one of the ingredients of power; the direct operation of the affection-organ, continuity, cultivates patience, the other ingredient of power. Thus in all cases the direct result of the operation of any affection-organ is the pertinent primary grace. The direct operation of the higher affection- organs produces the higher primary attributes; and the direct working of the lower affection-organs cultivates the lower primary qualities, graces or attributes. Our speaking of such qualities being developed must, of course, be understood as applying to God's creatures who are free moral agents—angels and men. It would not be true to say that God has developed such qualities by the use

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of His affection-organs; for He has always had and will always have them in infinite perfection, and therefore has always used and will always use them in infinite perfection. Thus they have not been developed in Him.

From the fact that man originally was, and new creatures now are, images of God, from the fact that fallen man has all man's original affection-organs, though in a corrupt condition, and from the fact that man has lower affection- organs, we conclude that God has them also. But this thought is not only an inference, but is also proven by direct Scriptures that ascribe such affection-organs to God. Some of these Scriptures, as they apply to His lower affection-organs, we will cite when we come to a consideration of His individual affection-organs of the lower order, as we have already cited some that apply to His higher affection-organs. God, having the same general affection-organs as man originally had, as new creatures now have and as fallen man now has, though these are more or less corrupt in the latter, we can recognize what God's are by a consideration of what man's are. Man has especially two classes of lower affection-organs in connection with which lower primary graces act: (1) selfish and (2) social. Hence God has these two classes of lower affection-organs. Man's selfish affections, each the sentiment of a distinct organ, are (1) love for a proper self- estimate, (2) love for others' good opinion, (3) love for ease, (4) love for life, (5) love for defending self, (6) love for attacking the injurious, (7) love for safety, (8) love for concealment, (9) love for possessions, (10) love for food,

(11) love for knowledge and (12) love for making oneself

agreeable to others. God has all of these selfish affections with pertinent organs, except love for food, which God as a Divine and immortal Spirit does not need, though His love for the Truth and its spirit is in Him the thing that corresponds with our love for

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natural food. We speak of these affections as selfish, not in the sense of their being sinful, but in the sense of their being concerned with oneself. There is a righteousness selfishness, and it is approved as such in the statements, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and "All things whatsoever ye would [desire] that men do unto you, do ye even so unto them." In fallen man his selfish affections, alas, have become more or less sinful; but this is not the case with God's selfish affections, nor with those of Adam and Eve before their fall, nor with those of Jesus.

The second set of man's lower primary affections is the social, each of whose affections has its own organ for activity. These affections are: (1) love for the opposite sex,

(2) love for the members of one's family, including husband, wife, parents, children, and brethren, (3) love for relatives, (4) love for pets, (5) love for home, (6) love for native land and (7) love for friends. Some of these in the forms just mentioned God has, but others He does not have. There is no sex love in God, for there is no sex in spirit beings. Indeed, before Millennial perfection is reached, sex and sex love will cease in the human family, its purpose of replenishing the earth with a sufficiently large number of human beings having by then been accomplished. Gradually, in the Millennium, will the brain organ through which amativeness works dry up, and will finally cease to be a part of the brain, and by that process sex love will cease to be an affection of the human heart. Therefore God has placed the organ of sex love at the base of the brain, so that its drying up will not affect the rest of the brain disadvantageously. Without the pertinent human brain organs drying up there will be changes in the activities of other affections, e.g., love for spouse, parents and children in the perfected race, but it is unnecessary here for us to go further into these matters. God, of course, has no father, mother, brothers, or sisters. Hence we infer

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that He does not have pertinent organ departments for the operation of these affections. Nor has He a spouse in our understanding of the word. We will reserve details on this for later discussion.

We will now briefly discuss Jehovah's selfish lower primary graces. The first of these is His self-esteem, which is the quality active in His exercising a proper valuation of Himself. That the Scriptures teach that God has the! quality of self-esteem is evident from those passages in which He describes His person, His attributes of being and of character, His word and His works. In the chapters on His attributes of being and character we quoted numerous passages which prove that God sees His being and character as we have described them; and thus He exercises self-esteem. The things that He says of His word or plan and His works proves the same thing. Ps. 119 contains numerous passages that describe in language of praise God's word. Ps. 103; Rev. 15: 3, 4, and numerous other Scriptures praise God's works. These prove that He exercises self-esteem as to His word or plan and His works. His self-esteem consists of three qualities—self-confidence, self-satisfaction and self-respect. By His  self-confidence He feels that He is sufficient for anything in harmony with His being, character, plan and works. He never for a moment, or in any circumstance, feels distrust of Himself, well knowing that He is equal to any occasion, circumstance, demand or task. By His self-satisfaction He feels that He is "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." He never upbraids Himself. He never finds fault with Himself. He never finds any flaw with anything He is, plans or does; for He knows that He is in no way defective, but in every respect absolutely and unchangeably perfect. By His self- respect He sees Himself worthy of His own appreciation. He sees His every quality to be estimable, His every thought to be worthy, His every word to be appreciable and His

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every act to be properly highly regarded by Himself, as He regards every evil thing as unworthy of Himself. Never does He disrespect Himself; never does He feel Himself in any sense unworthy and never does He feel shame at any of His thoughts, words or acts; for they are perfect.

Some might, in view of God's self-esteem, say that He is proud and conceited. It is true that if any creature would have this supreme self-esteem, we would be warranted in speaking of him as proud and conceited. Especially if that creature were imperfect, would it be conceited and proud for him to be self-satisfied. But if one's qualities, attainments, works and words were perfect, even if he were a creature, he would not be proud and conceited to think of himself as perfect and to be self-satisfied, self-confident and self-respectful in harmony with his creaturely position, so long as he gives God the glory for his  being, attainments, thoughts, words and works; for this is exactly the measure of self-esteem that all perfected creatures are by God designed to have. Hence we can see that there is no conceit in God when He thinks of Himself and of His word and works in the highest terms of appreciation, since that is the exact truth of the situation. For Him to think otherwise of Himself would be wrong—a thing of which He would not be guilty. It is, therefore, not pride and conceit to think of oneself exactly as he is. On the contrary, this is just what the Scriptures say one should do (Rom. 12: 3). Well, then, one may ask, how can we fulfill the Scriptural injunction to be humble? We answer, A proper self-estimate is just what humility is. But to this we imagine one objecting, "I thought that humility is a lowly self-estimate." We answer, yes, with us; for with our many faults, lacks and weaknesses we do not amount to much; and a proper self- estimate is therefore a lowly self-estimate, as long as we  are imperfect; but if one were perfect,

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it would be in harmony with humility to think of himself as perfect. The above considerations prove that God is not proud and conceited in His esteeming Himself as supremely and incomparably perfect, and therefore worthy of His own self-confidence, self-satisfaction and self- respect.

The second selfish lower primary grace in God's character is His appreciativeness of others' approval. Because all others are His creatures God desires that they approve of Him in His person, attributes, word and works. He desires them to think highly of Him in these respects. Yea, He desires that they think of Him in these respects as incomparably superior to, and supreme above all others. So important does He regard this requirement that He made this the first of the ten commandments—" Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," i.e., esteem Me supreme above all others, put Me first, and that above all others. Nor does He lightly regard the refusal to heed this commandment. There can be no proper creaturely relation to the Creator without such an estimate of God by others; for God made all things for His pleasure and His glory—His pleasure being to bless others and His glory being to make others like Him in character, word and works. We are not to think of this quality in God as a low one. It is partly because of the incomparable superiority of God in person, attributes, thoughts, words and works that He desires His creatures to esteem Him as such; for such He is; and they owe it to Him and to the facts of the case so to think of Him. Again, it is partly because so to think of and feel toward God is for the best interests of the person involved and all others, that  God desires that His creatures think of Him so highly. It is also partly because of the principles underlying the relations of the creature to his Creator that God desires that He be supremely appreciated by His creatures. Certainly, in proportion as any of His creatures comes short of

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such an appreciation of God is he injured and does injure others. God thus desires to shine before all as He is in deed and in truth—the supremely excellent One, nor is such a desire on God's part an imperfection; because His perfections deserve it; His creatures owe it to Him; good principles require it; and everybody concerned is thereby properly placed, ennobled and blessed, and God fittingly recognized.

Restfulness, which operates through God's affection- organ of love for ease, is the third selfish lower primary grace in God to be considered. Not that we are to think of God as ever becoming weary in His body; for that would be an imperfection in Him; nor is rest of body a grace. A grace is an excellence of character. By God's restfulness we mean the calmness and serenity of His Spirit. God is never fretted. He is never worried. He is never thrown off His equanimity. Nothing ever excites Him. No situation disturbs His calmness. No opposition sets aside His serenity. No untoward event ruffles His Spirit. He knows the end from the beginning; He has provided the ways, means and agents of His arrangements from of old; He knows what and how to do in every situation; He has the power to execute His purposes; He knows that all things are working together to further His plans and purposes; and therefore with utmost serenity He pursues the even tenor of His ways. Why should He not, in view of these things, be restful in heart and mind? And surely as we realize ourselves one with Him in spirit, plan and work, we, too, like Him become restful, serenity and calmness pervading our hearts and minds.

Love of life is God's fourth selfish lower primary grace. God has life, yea, He has the highest form of life—life in Himself, immortality, a death-proof condition (John 5: 26). Not only has God this highest form of life, but He is also the ultimate source of life to all that live. And God loves His life. While He

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does not have to use ways and means to preserve it, to shield it from destruction, or to increase it as against loss, as we do, yet He loves it. It is a fault to desire not to live; therefore to suicide, or to neglect the preservation of health and life, or to contribute to its diminution and its loss, is faultful; for existence is conditioned on having life; and to pass out of existence is one of the greatest of evils. God loves to live, because to live is intrinsically valuable and because to live gives Him the opportunity to plan and do in the interests of truth, righteousness and His creatures; for He purposes to make truth and righteousness supreme and to illustrate their rule in perfected creatures. And it is because His living is an antecedent condition for the attainment of such ends that God loves to live— vitativeness, love for life, is one of His selfish lower primary attributes of character.

Self-defensiveness, which operates through the affection-organ of combativeness, is God's fifth selfish lower primary grace. God cannot be attacked in His person by physical act, but He certainly is attacked in His person, character, word and works by wrong theories and practices. Satan—adversary—is the chief attacker of God in these ways. Then He has succeeded in enlisting fallen angels and fallen men to join him in his attacks on God's person, character, word and works. Especially have God's character and person been attacked through the doctrines that God has equals, that God originated sin, that God absolutely predestinated and reprobated individuals, that man is conscious in death and that the bulk of mankind are to suffer eternal torment. His Word has been attacked through the misinterpretation of its doctrine by some of His friends; its inspiration and veracity have been attacked by higher criticism; its salient features have been attacked by evolution and other non-ransom theories; its precepts have been attacked by the wickedness of men and its plan has been attacked by various self-atonement

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theories. His works toward both of His Israels have been attacked by subtle temptations and fierce persecutions. But Jehovah has ably defended Himself. Atheistic, agnostic, materialistic, pantheistic, deistic, rationalistic, and superstitious attacks on His being He has met and overthrown by the secular and religious truths that He has put into the hands of His servants. By numerous Scriptural truths He has utterly refuted the attacks on His character coming from those who have taught that He predestinated sin and beings to be sinful, that He predestinated a few to eternal bliss and the rest to eternal torment, that He made man so that he actually does not die and that He tortures eternally the bulk of the race. By scientific, archeological, historical, religious and numerical (Biblical numerics) truths He has successfully defended the inspiration and truthfulness of the Scriptures against the attacks of higher criticism. By the manifestation of the Divine Plan in its doctrines, precepts, promises, exhortations, prophecies, histories and types, He has defended His Word as Truth against all attacks. And by shielding and developing His faithful Israels amid their temptations, oppressions and persecutions, He has defended His work against attacks from fallen angels and men. No attack finds Him defenseless. Every one is in due time met and crushed; and He remains victorious in every defensive conflict that He enters. He quails not; He retreats not; He gives no ground; He loses no advantage under attack. Undismayed, unswerved, unafraid, He, as a veritable "man-of-war," rejoices to parry off every blow and loves to defend Himself against every onset. His meeting attacks on His plan, people and works, both in Bible times (e.g., from Pharaoh and the Egyptians, the Ammonites, the Moabites, etc., heathen religions, Jewish apostates, persecuting Jews and Gentiles, etc.) and since Bible times (from pagan and papal Roman persecutions, Catholic and Protestant sectarianism and

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false teachings, evolution, higher criticism, other forms of misbeliefs and unbeliefs, etc.) prove that Jehovah exercises the selfish lower primary grace of self-defensiveness. Thus self-defensiveness is one of His lower selfish primary graces.

The sixth selfish lower primary grace in Jehovah is aggressiveness, which works through His affection-organ of love for attacking. The preceding grace shows Him as active in self-defense, in shielding Himself, His people, plan and works from attacks. This quality shows Him as active in attacking obstacles, whether these be wicked persons, principles, acts, conditions or organizations, etc. This feature of His character especially displays itself in connection with His carrying out His plan. Whatever of evil persons (wicked angels and wicked men), evil principles, organizations, acts and conditions prevail in the universe is due to rebellion against God's sovereignty. This rebellion was originated by Satan and has spread among some of the angels and the whole human family. It is characterized by evil principles, organizations, conditions and acts. This entire complex may be called Satan's empire, an empire that has been holding its sway by initial and continued usurpation against God's authority. The Lord's plan has a variety of purposes, two of which are, the overthrow of Satan's empire and the restoration of the human family to Jehovah's rulership. To accomplish these two results the Lord, as features of His plan, has been selecting agents whom He will use for this work. For the overthrow of Satan's empire, He has been selecting as His agents, Jesus and His faithful followers; and for the restoration of the race to His dominion, He has especially selected these and added to them as assistants the Ancient Worthies, the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies. In the selection of each of these four classes God has had to act aggressively; for apart from Jesus all of these, before their selection began,

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have been more or less under the power and influence of Satan's empire (Col. 1: 12, 13). To deliver these from the power of darkness has meant somewhat of an attack on Satan's empire. This is manifest in the call of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and Babylon and the call of the Gospel Church from Judaism, heathenism and Babylonish sectarianism. These subsidiary attacks on Satan's empire were accompanied with all the aggressiveness on Jehovah's part necessary to accomplish His pertinent purpose. And in due time He will fill up the members yet lacking in any of these classes, using all the needed aggressiveness thereto. This aggressiveness has consisted in His arousing servants of His under Christ to minister this selective work, His providentially paving the way for their work and His overthrowing or neutralizing all obstacles to this work from wicked angels and men. God's opposing, restraining and weakening of the papacy from 1295 onward is an example of God's aggressiveness in this particular.

Jehovah's aggressiveness in His attacks on Satan's empire since 1874 has taken on a decidedly more intensified form; for from that time onward He not only continued aggressively in restraining and weakening it to the extent needed for His completing His elective work; but He has advanced to a concerted attack upon it, which in not many more years will result in its eternal annihilation. The attack began by the Lord using suitable agencies in giving world-wide secular truths in ever-increasing measure, especially along scientific, historical, sociological, political and financial lines, and religious truths, especially along elective and free grace lines, in opposition to the secular and religious errors and wrongs fundamental to Satan's empire. By these attacks God has mightily shaken its political, aristocratic, ecclesiastical and social foundations. He has accomplished something more by it the dividing of the subjects of Satan's empire

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into two hostile camps—the conservatives, consisting of the political, aristocratic and ecclesiastical rulers and their supporters, and the radicals, consisting of the trade- unionist, socialistic, communistic and anarchistic leaders and their supporters. Aroused by the secular truths that exposed the errors and wrongs of Satan's empire, the radical group has become so menacing to the conservative group that Satan trembled for the existence of his empire. To prevent a revolution on the part of the radicals, which he feared would overthrow his present order of affairs, he plotted the formation of two rival European alliances and stirred them up against one another, deceiving the nations of each alliance into believing that the others sought their national destruction and plunging them into the World War, with the aim of uniting in each nation the conservatives and radicals about the fictitious issue of warring in defense of their national existence; but by this stroke he made a dismal failure; for shortly the peoples, through certain exposures God made through the consecrated, learned that the issue was a false one, and as a result the division of the conservatives and radicals became worse than before the war. And the war accomplished one thing very undesirable to Satan: it greatly weakened his empire, as the first stage of its overthrow, and has helped to prepare it for the next great stage of its breaking-up—the World Revolution—the great revolution of prophecy, which will destroy the present form of Satan's empire. Since shortly after the war started, God has been giving many secular and religious truths on the causes of the war and the evils of the present world conditions. These truths have been arousing the radicals, through a selfish use they are making of them, more and more against the conservatives; and before many years will have passed these truths will stir up the radicals to the World Revolution, with the forementioned results. After  the revolution Satan will seek to build up another

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form of government, which will very shortly afterward perish in anarchy. The truths that the Lord will give after the revolution, selfishly used by the anarchists, will produce such unparalleled worldwide anarchy as will destroy every vestige of Satan's empire. God's part in all of these matters since 1874 has been an aggressive setting forth of truths exposing the corruption in theory and practice of Satan's empire, well knowing that these truths would be selfishly used by both conservatives and radicals, and in such selfish uses ultimately produce effects—war, revolution and anarchy—that would break up forever that wicked kingdom. Therefore He has been aggressively giving them.

God's aggressiveness has shown itself in others of His works, e.g., in creation, providence, redemption, instruction, justification, sanctification and deliverance now for the Church and in part later for the world, though in different forms from those used toward the Church. God's aggressiveness is due partly to His love for righteousness and partly to His hatred of wickedness. It acts constructively for righteousness and destructively toward wickedness and toward the incorrigibly wicked. His wrath—punishment, not rage—is an expression of His aggressiveness. The cases that we have mentioned, from both Biblical history and prophecy, are sufficient to prove that aggressiveness is one of God's selfish lower primary graces.

The wrath of God shall never strike in vain,

Nor cease to strike till sin shall be no more;

Till God His gracious purpose shall attain!

And earth to righteousness and peace restore.

The seventh lower primary grace in God that we will briefly study is carefulness, watchfulness, working through the affection-organ, love for safety. The quality of carefulness or watchfulness implies danger which one senses and against which he shields himself. In Himself, i.e., in His person or character, God is

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in no danger; for none can harm Him in His person or character. But with the enemies that He has, His plan, people and works could be harmed, if He did not exercise carefulness or watchfulness with respect to them. Therefore God's love for safety is not directed against dangers to Himself personally, but to dangers to His interests as they center in His plan, people and works. His carefulness for the safety of His people is compared to that of a shepherd for his flock (Ps. 23; 78: 52; 80: 1). Beautifully is He described in this carefulness or watchfulness on behalf of His people in passages like the following: "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." "Arising early and sending them"—the prophets to warn His people against danger. Satan has concocted many a plan to frustrate God's plan. The religions that he taught the ancient nations—the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, Greeks, etc.—were counterfeits of God's plan as it was epitomized in Gen. 3: 15; 12: 3; 22: 16-18. At every stage of the operation of that plan Satan sought to thwart it. This can be seen in his dealings toward Joseph, Moses, the judges, the kings and prophets of Israel and his continued attempts to mislead the people. To thwart Satan in these things required watchfulness on God's part to guard His plan and its agents. Satan sought to defeat God's plan in its chief agent, Jesus; and God's carefulness thwarted him and turned his machinations into the furtherance of that plan, as can be seen in Satan's purposes in the temptations of Jesus, in the opposition of the religious leaders to Jesus and in His death and the outcome of these.

Then Satan in the Jewish Harvest sought by five siftings to corrupt the Apostolic Church and failed, because the Father's carefulness averted the effects that the adversary sought through those siftings. In the following period of the Church Satan made his masterpiece in counterfeit work— the development of

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the papacy, whereby he made a detailed counterfeit of the True Christ—Jesus, the Head, and the Church, His body— in His teachings, practices and organization, while by that counterfeit he sought to destroy the real people of God. Against these dangers and amid them, with great carefulness God watched over the interests of His plan, His people and His works, so that these untoward experiences were manipulated by Him to their advancement. Thus again God's carefulness thwarted Satan's effort to destroy "the Seed." From the time of the Reformation onward until 1874 Satan introduced additional and increased sectarianism among God's people to injure them in His Truth and works, in ways that the papacy could not affect them; but God was always on His guard to shield them, with the result that Satan failed to overthrow them by the dangers of additional and increased sectarianism and of clericalism.

Since 1874 Satan has been endangering God's people, plan and works by such a multiplicity of false teachings and wrong practices as never was before manifested. Note some of the worst of these errors: various no-ransom theories, denial of the vicarious death of Christ, the Church's sharing in Christ's sufferings and glory, evolution, self-atonement, Eddyism, New Thought, Spiritism, occultism; various infidel theories—atheism, agnosticism, materialism, pantheism, deism, rationalism, higher criticism, modernism, etc. Note some of the worst of these wrong practices: combinationism, reformism by legal enactment and enforcement as against moral suasion, federationism, papalism, international league-ism, revolutionism, communism, socialism, anarchism, syndicalism, etc. Through these errors and wrong practices Satan again sought to destroy God's faithful people, thwart His plan, and overthrow His work. God's carefulness, watching the adversary's works and purposes, set into operation powerful truths, refutative of these errors,

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and good principles, destructive of the evil principles underlying these wrong practices, and thus shielded His faithful from "the arrow that flieth by day" and from "the pestilence that walketh in darkness." His carefulness guarded well each feature of His unfolding plan and brought each feature to a completion as it was due. When the adversary came in like a flood to devastate God's people, plan and works, our guarding God by His acts put limits to Satan's efforts, thus realizing the words, "so far and no farther." In the night of trouble now on the world His watchfulness will care for His plan, that all untoward things may work together for good to them that love God, and that out of this night His plan and works will emerge more nearly completed than before.

His carefulness will see to it that in the Millennium every condition not conducive to mankind's restitution to the original perfection will be removed, including Satan and his fellow fallen angels, and that every condition conducive to that end will be introduced and maintained. His carefulness will see to it that the weakest and most depraved will get every help needed for his uplift. His carefulness will guard against every external attempt to violate the kingdom arrangements and to wrong or to overreach one's neighbor. When the obedient of the race have by the Millennial operation been restored to perfection, God's carefulness will be exercised toward the preservation of the faithful amid the final trial which must demonstrate the fitness or unfitness, of each one so perfected, for eternal life. Nor will His carefulness permit Satan to bring too sudden and strong temptations upon the people. His carefulness will watch the course of the temptation to bring it within certain metes and bounds, within certain restraints as to progress in severity, and thus will He carefully guard the faithful and sever them thoroughly from the unfaithful. His carefulness will guard those worthy of everlasting life from eternal

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association with the unfaithful and from future Satanic temptations, by annihilating eternally all the unfaithful, with Satan and his fallen angels. And throughout all the Ages to come, the same carefulness of Jehovah will surround those worthy of eternal life, whether in the new heavens or in the new earth, with every condition guarding them from evil, and surrounding them with good. Surely the considerations above given prove and illustrate God's carefulness and watchfulness over His people, plan and works, and thus show that carefulness is one of Jehovah's selfish lower primary graces.

Somewhat related to watchfulness or carefulness is the eighth lower primary grace in God's character— secretiveness. It is the quality that God exercises in manifesting His love for concealment. Carefulness is exercised in the presence of danger, while secretiveness is exercised to obtain advantages that its use will gain and to prevent disadvantages which would come, if the matter at hand were known. No personal disadvantages could come to God considered in Himself alone, i.e., as to His person and character; but disadvantages could come to His plans and their agents, and certain advantages would be lost to Him, if His enemies understood these. Hence He uses His secretiveness to ward off disadvantages from His people and His works or plans, and to secure to them certain desirable advantages. God's secretiveness therefore is the quality whereby He uses His love for concealing to secure advantages and to ward off disadvantages. He always uses His secretiveness in harmony with sincerity and honesty. The abuse of secretiveness makes people untruthful, deceitful and hypocritical. Of course God's holy character makes Him proof against such abuse; but His secretiveness makes Him tactful and resourceful against the machinations of evil ones. Thus time and again "He taketh the [supposedly]

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wise in their own craftiness," as He exercises this quality.

God has had to use this quality for various reasons. In testing the devotion of the various classes connected with His plan He conceals many details as to the meaning and nature of their experiences under test, because of His purpose in that test—to demonstrate whether they will be loyal to Him on the basis of devotion to His principles, regardless of the personal disadvantages that such devotion might bring them. This is manifest in the trial of the good angels, of Adam and Eve, of the Ancient Worthies, the Little Flock, the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies. It will also be manifest in the trial of the fallen angels and the restitution class during the Millennium, as it has been manifest during the trial that the fallen angels have been having during the Gospel Age as to fitness for having the opportunity of standing the Millennial trial for life. If God had revealed or would reveal the exact reasons for each feature of the tests of the above—mentioned classes, He would have defeated His purpose in giving the test. Therefore He practices secretiveness with respect to these trialsome details. Again, if the Lord would reveal clearly His various purposes, Satan and wicked men would make use of such knowledge to thwart the plan, and such a course would necessitate an alteration of God's methods used in carrying out His plan. In ultimate analysis no one can thwart the Almighty; but their thwarting efforts would require changes in effecting the plan not so advantageous  as those the Lord uses compatibly with His purpose; for in the execution of His plan He has put Himself into harmony with the principle always to respect the creatures' uncoerced use of their wills. To act in harmony with this principle God must use secretiveness.

The Bible is replete with evidence of God's using secretiveness. He did not let Lucifer understand the

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details of his test when he was given the work of being the covering—protecting—cherub in Eden (Ezek. 28: 14, 16). Nor did Adam and Eve understand the details of their trial. When God in sentencing Satan pronounced the woe of enmity and conflict between him and the woman's seed, foretelling his persecuting and wearing out of the seed (" bruise his heel" ) and the seed's destroying him (" bruise thy head" ), He left in that dark saying many things unexplained. Indeed various features of His plan are called mysteries—secrets unknowable apart from special enlightenment from God. Thus, that the promised Deliverer would be a class, not an individual, that this class would have two advents—the first to suffer for sin and the second to reign unto its extirpation—were secrets that God hid from the ages and generations before the Gospel Age, during which He even conceals it from all but the elect classes (Col. 1: 26, 27). That Israel was to be in blindness until the full company of the Gentile elect would be won was kept a secret until St. Paul's time (Rom. 11: 25-33). That God used the Israelites as types to shadow forth Gospel-Age and Millennial-Age features of His plan He concealed from Israel and all others, and even now He makes these things known only to His saints (1 Cor. 10: 6, 11; Col. 2: 16, 17). God wove time features into His plan, but put them there in such a hidden manner that the general readers of the Bible have been and are completely oblivious to the times and seasons of God's eternal counsel (1 Pet. 1: 10-12).

God put all the secrets of His plan into the Bible; but knowing that it would come into the hands of wicked angels and men, as well as into the hands of His faithful people, and that the former would fearfully misuse the Scriptures, He put the secrets there in so hidden a manner that none could understand them except by a special act of God's enlightening

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grace, which He has withheld from all except from those to whom He wished to reveal Himself—the faith class. It is for this reason that the Bible in large part is simply unintelligible to any but the consecrated, and that as due. This St. Paul makes very clear in 1 Cor. 2: 7-14. Truly he could say, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery"—in a secret way. Take, for example, the Book of Revelation, which professedly is a great mystery. How very ambiguous this book is! Does one wonder why it is that there are so many sects that teach mutually contradictory doctrines and yet profess to base them all on the Bible? E.g., over 450 different interpretations have been given to the words of Gal. 3: 20: "A mediator is not of one; but God is one." We will now explain this strange fact so patent to all observing persons in Christendom: To the natural man God purposely mixed up the teachings of the Bible more inextricably than a thousand Chinese puzzles made into one could be mixed up. Why? Because during the time for the development of the elective features of His plan, God desired these features hidden from fallen angels and non-elect men, who would only misuse their understanding to the thwarting of that plan, if they understood it. While the Word is a light in a dark place (2 Pet. 1: 19) to the faithful, it is also a trap and  a snare to the wicked, who in their pride and naughtiness are repeatedly caught by its teachings to their confusion (Is. 28: 13). It was designedly so made for the ultimate benefit of everybody concerned. This secretiveness of God in His revelation is also designed to test especially the humility, honesty, meekness, obedience, faith, loyalty, and patience of His people. He makes each new advance in its knowledge a reward for loyalty in the pertinent test, as He repeatedly withholds the advancing light from them until they have successfully stood the Divinely required test to the heavenly Father's pleasement.

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Satan and wicked men would undo the righteous, were it not that God exercises His secretiveness on their behalf. He has hidden the righteous in' His secret place (Ps. 91: 1), "in the secret of His pavilion," just to protect them from the snare of the fowler, Satan, and the noisesome pestilence. Psalm 91 is a most beautiful description of how God uses His secretiveness to protect them from all disadvantages and to work for them His advantages. Therefore God has so composed the Bible that Satan and the wicked can learn to understand it only as they hear the saints expound it. And this knowledge they always pervert, and that with fell intent to injure the righteous. E.g., Satan, not understanding the Bible plan, listened to Christ and the Apostles expound it, until he thus learned its general features. On the basis of what he heard them say he made a counterfeit of it in the papacy. In this counterfeit he palmed off' the pope, a head, and his hierarchy, a body, as the counterfeit of Jesus, the Head, and the Church, His Body. Every Biblical doctrine, prophecy, promise and type, and practically every Biblical precept, history and exhortation, he counterfeited in the papacy, and palmed off on the world as of God. The Biblical practices, times and seasons, he also counterfeited in the papacy. This truly dreadful counterfeit he used to enslave the bulk of the human family in error and superstition and to persecute with extreme cruelty the saints of the living God. Having to deal with such a resourceful enemy, who He knew would pervert and seek to thwart God's plan, no wonder that Jehovah used His secretiveness to protect His plan and people from disadvantage, and to secure advantages to them.

The result of Jehovah's exercising such secretiveness in the revelation and outworking of His plan has been the successful execution of all its features in harmony with his foreordained methods as due; and from this we may well infer that its future features

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will be successfully carried out. His secret work during the order of affairs among men before the flood inured to test the race in Adam and the angels in place of rulership, and thereby to demonstrate that angels could not lift the race up from its fallen condition. During the Patriarchal Age God's secret work effected the revelation of His great covenant with Abraham and his seed, and also the selection of part of the Ancient Worthies. His secretiveness enabled Him to select a nation—Fleshly Israel—for His dealings and other purposes, and He succeeded in this. His secretiveness worked in a climax in the successful winning of the Christ class from the world during the Gospel Age, as it will also win the complete Great Company and the Youthful Worthies in due time. Then in the Millennial work toward fallen angels and men will appear in part the profit that His secretiveness, working out the elective features of His plan, will achieve by the use that He will make of the four elect classes for turning the fallen angels and men to Him. Yea, in the Ages to come, Age on Age will tell of the marvelous result of the secret working of Jehovah on the four elect classes; for these with the angels in their various orders will be Jehovah's agents in developing the various planets of the worlds about us and filling each of them with new orders of beings. It will then be glory to God and the Lamb—to God, in part because His secretiveness wrought out the Christ class and its associates with this marvelous purpose in view.

God's ninth lower primary attribute of character is providence, which acts through His love for possessing— both in its gaining and retaining aspects. By God's attribute of providence we mean that quality whereby He gains and retains possessions, with which He supplies His coming needs as to the universe and its creatures and carries out His purposes. We speak of a man as provident who by his work

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gains, and by his economy retains, possessions in order to have them to use for his future needs and purposes. In a similar way God is provident. When we speak of His coming needs, we are not to understand personal needs; for such He does not have. But by His needs we mean the necessities of His plan and people. There are many needs that God's plan has in the way of agents, instruments, arrangements, spheres, etc., of operation. So do His people in their relation to His plan have many needs—they need mercy, forgiveness, righteousness, instruction, sanctification, deliverance, etc. It is the providing quality in God that makes Him gain and retain the things necessary to supply such needs. That He does supply them is certainly a Scriptural thought. "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches [abundant possessions] in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4: 19). This abundantly satisfies us.

Let us notice how God acquired and stored up such riches. The Truth that we need for our instruction He drew out of the well-spring of His own heart and mind, and stored it up in the Bible for our use. The righteousness, a supply of which we need, He acquired by making the Logos—the Word—human, and inducing Him by the promises of the Divine nature to sacrifice His righteous humanity, so that His human righteousness might be available for us in an imputative way; and He stored it up as a deposit on our behalf; and thus His providence has and uses what we need to supply our necessities in the way of righteousness. How did He gain and retain the means needed for our sanctification? These are His Word, Spirit and our surroundings, circumstances, etc. Thus He arranged in His plan for an opportunity of co-suffering and co- reigning with Christ on behalf of those who in faith would consecrate themselves to Him under the call of the Gospel Age, and who would prove faithful to death. He stored up His

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Word in the Bible so that it would become the power of God working in them (Rom. 1: 16). Then when they were ready He used it to give them the enlightenment and stimulation necessary to work in them a consecrating faith and love whereby they gave themselves without reserve to God. He impregnated that Word with His Spirit—the Divine energy—which He also stored up for this purpose, whereby He begat them of the Spirit: gave a spiritual power to every faculty of their hearts and minds, adapting these to spiritual objects, whereas before such begettal these were adapted to certain objects, only from the natural human standpoint. Thus He began to supply our needs as to sanctification. But in sanctification we have more needs. We need advancing Truth for each new experience. This He acquired in making His plan, and then stored it in the Bible, which is a storehouse for all our need of Truth and its Spirit, even to the end of the way. Then we need power that will enable us to develop every feature of a Christlike character. This power He acquired by the use of His power and stored it, too, in His Word, and by it He enables us to grow in heavenly affections and in the graces of Christ. For the various experiences of our lives He takes from His bounteous store such parts of the Word and of the Spirit as we need and bestows them upon us, and thus His providence supplies these and satisfies our need.

We also need opportunities of demonstrating devotion to our Heavenly Father's cause. This He has also made provision for. By permitting evil in the world He acquired a condition for His cause that calls for our sacrifices in order to its furtherance. These conditions He reserved as a store, supplying us opportunities of service. He puts us in such places where there is need for our declaring His Word to the world or to the brethren, or to assist others to do it. Some of these opportunities call for our personal

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declaration of the Truth by word of mouth, others by the printed page, others by letter, while still others call for us to do these things through our brethren. Thus His providence through the permission of evil has made for our needs as to service the opportunities, that if embraced, give us the chance to demonstrate our devotion to God's cause. In arranging for deliverance for us God has used His quality of providence. This He accomplishes by giving us opportunities amid tests to demonstrate loyalty to His character in an exercise of its graces amid trialsome conditions. He has acquired such conditions by allowing us to have fallen flesh with selfish, worldly, sinful and erroneous propensities. Furthermore, He has permitted the fallen angels and fallen men to be in a condition and to do things which very sorely test our devotion to God's character as a character whose likeness we are to attain. Thus we see that God acquired, in these conditions that He permits, a wealth of things for the testing of a Christlike character in us, in order to work deliverance for us, i.e., victory in all the conflicts incidental to the Christian warfare and final victory as a result of these victorious conflicts in delivering us from death in the glorious first resurrection. How marvelously has God's love for gaining and retaining acted toward us in the providence that acquires and stores up against future needs. These same things under altered conditions will be manifested toward the world in the Millennium, as they have been toward the other three elect classes; but we will not discuss them further.

There is another remarkable way that God's love for acquiring and storing up for future needs has manifested itself—in acquiring all creation as His own, particularly the various orders of angels, the Christ class, the other three elect classes and the world in the Millennium, and not only so, but in the Ages to come the perfected planets and their perfect inhabitants

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in ever increasing additions. When we look at the various features of His plan as respects the Church and the world, we see that they result in God's acquiring sons on various planes of being. Some may say that God must be very avaricious to be gaining and retaining on such a colossal scale. We answer, No; for He does all this gaining and retaining in order to bless. He doubtless has pleasure in such gaining and retaining, but that pleasure instead of being a selfish one is a benevolent one; for it is all to the intent that He may, in harmony with good principles, bless and make happy all the larger number of beings. What a noble use God makes of His acquiring and retaining faculty! How beautiful and noble, therefore, is the grace that this faculty of His exercises—providence! And how it should move us to love and adore and praise Him all the more, especially giving Him the highest form of praise in this particular, viz., in cultivating a similar kind of providence—one that gains and retains good things, not for self-aggrandizement, but to bless and ennoble.

We have so far studied nine of God's lower primary attributes of character. Those of this class of Divine attributes so far studied belong to the lower selfish, as distinct from the lower social primary attributes of character. We have shown that man has twelve lower primary selfish affections—nine of them corresponding to the nine in God so far studied, the other three being love for food, love for knowledge and love for making oneself agreeable to others. God has no affection organ corresponding to love for food as we use that word in its natural sense; for love for natural food is implanted in natural beings to incite them to take nourishment to replace the depleted cells of the body by cell matter gotten from natural food. Such food implies that its partaker has a corruptible body, whose wasted cells must be replaced by other cells derived from the food that one digests and assimilates; but

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God has an incorruptible and immortal body (Rom. 1: 23; 1 Tim. 1: 17; 6: 16). Therefore there is no cell wastage in His body, and thus no need of food to supply cells to replace such wastage.

We speak spiritually when we talk of our partaking of God's Word, as of our eating it (Jer. 15: 16, 1 Pet. 2: 2; Heb. 5: 11-14; 6: 5; Rev. 10: 8-10). It is the food on which our spirits—new creatures—feed. From it we gain nourishment for our spiritual hearts and minds; and by it we spiritually grow and gain strength. Thus it also supplies spiritual lacks and wastage. But we cannot speak of God as using His words or thoughts to supply spiritual wastes or lacks; for He has none of these. Therefore there is, so far as we know, nothing in God that corresponds to our need of natural and spiritual food. So far as we can discern, God is the only being in the universe who needs no spiritual food; and this is due to His omniscience. Christ now, and the Little Flock beyond the vail, will not need it in order to their replacing lost knowledge or to their strengthening in character; for they will never forget anything and their characters will be forever unbreakably strong. But they will need the revelations of new things from God in order to know what and how to do in the future works of creation, as the Ages roll on in endless succession. Such knowledge with reference to the Millennial arrangements is part of the blessings implied in the term, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19: 9). Here we note that the figure of eating is implied in the language, the marriage supper; but the only lack that its knowledge part will supply is of new intelligence. There will be no character lack, nor forgotten knowledge, supplied by that supper. God's intuitive and universal knowledge of things precludes such a lack in Him. Hence we cannot speak of God's even having a longing for spiritual food, and therefore cannot discuss appetitiveness as a lower primary grace in God.

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God has the affection-organs in which love for knowledge lies; but He does not love any knowledge as a thing that He longs for, and does not have; for He has all knowledge, has always had all knowledge and will always have all knowledge. His store of knowledge is infinite. It can neither be increased, nor diminished. And His love for it consists not in a longing for and a delight to attain it, but in a delight in its possession, as an excellent, good and valuable thing in itself and in its uses. He does not have to study to gain it. It, and all of it, is His intuitively and has been and will always be His intuitively. Our love for knowledge makes us studious; and studiousness is a lower primary grace in us; but God does not have this quality, because He does not study, not needing to do so, for the reason that without study, i.e., intuitively, He has known and does and will know all things. It is for this reason that we classed and treated of omniscience as an attribute of God's being (Chapter II). Thus we see that two of our lower primary graces, appetitiveness and studiousness, God does not have; the first because of the incorruptibility and immortality of His body, and the second because omniscience is in God an attribute of being, not of character. His love for true knowledge—the Truth—is, however, an activity of His character, for it is the first feature or element of His disinterested love, and as such we have treated of it when discussing His love (Chapter III). Hence we cannot treat of studiousness as a lower primary attribute in God.

In our enumerating the lower selfish affections, we just noted that as the eleventh we gave: love for knowledge, which produces intelligence, a lower primary grace. Hence the above remarks on studiousness. Love for work has not a single affection-organ through which it might operate. It results in part from other qualities seizing our affection- organ of love for ease and suppressing its efforts to control us, and this

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produces as a result a secondary grace—industriousness. Hence its producing qualities need not be those of our lower affection-organs. Working properly such qualities would usually be the higher primary graces. We therefore see that love for work does not belong in the list of the selfish affections.

There is, therefore, but one other lower selfish affection in God that we will consider—love for making Himself agreeable. Its being a love to make self agreeable to others in part induces us to class it among the lower selfish affections. We would not insist as a matter of doctrine that this is a lower selfish affection. In some respects, when properly working, it is quite unselfish, and its place in the head is not adjacent to any selfish affection-organ. It is more of a general affection than a selfish affection; but because self is involved in it and it uses the selfish affections in activity and suppression probably more than it does any others, we have, from other apt considerations also, put it among the selfish affections, though in its nature it is not a selfish sentiment. We cannot place it among the higher affections; nor can we place it among the artistic affections, like love of oratory, of acting, of the beautiful, of the sublime and of the humorous; nor can we place it among the intellectual affections. In some respects it fits very well among the lower social affections, and in other respects among the lower selfish affections. We are discussing it at the end of all the lower selfish graces, and before the lower social affections, designedly, because it very much belongs to both of them. It is either to be classed as an affection by itself alone, or to be classed as belonging to both the selfish and social affections, with a leaning toward the former—hence our classification of it. But if one might think otherwise and place it among the social affections, we will not at all be disposed to dispute with him for so doing; for much can be said in favor of such a classification. These facts move some

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to count it a general affection by itself alone, and not belonging to any group, but acting through all of them. This view has probably more in its favor than the other two, and for this reason we will treat of it as a figurative bridge between the lower selfish and the lower social affections. But the question of classification is not essential to our understanding of its nature, office and effects in God.

The affection-organ through which love of making oneself pleasing to others works, develops by exercise agreeableness as its lower primary grace. By this we do not mean the quality that makes people agree in everything with others; for such a quality is hardly a grace; at least it is not usually so; rather it is often a dis-grace. It shows that its possessor lacks independence of thought, feeling and will. It proves that he is servile and unmanly, lacking in courage and decision, as well as in independence. We think of such as echoes. In religion they are the priest-ridden, in politics the bossed, in labor the enslaved, in business the ciphered, in state the bound, and in family the hen-pecked, or rooster­ pecked—in a word, these are Crusoe's man, Friday. By agreeableness as a lower primary grace we mean the  quality whereby one makes himself pleasing to others. His words, looks, acts and manner please. He is winsome. He readily insinuates himself into the good graces of others. They think him pleasant, delight in his society and feel at ease with him. They readily lend themselves to be persuaded by him. His bland conduct soothes those with whom he comes in contact. Where others excite, anger, enrage, disgust and sadden, he calms, composes, pacifies, conciliates and delights. He knows what to avoid as working for disagreeableness; he knows what to use as making for agreeableness. So peculiarly winning is he that he even fascinates and gains over opponents to himself. He knows how to speak so as to take the sting out of disagreeable things that he

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must at times utter; and often endears himself to a wrong­ doer by the pleasant way that he administers a needed correction. He is a benediction to the mourners and troubled, and makes loyal friends of those even who are not naturally disposed to friendship. The quality that acts in this way is the one that we mean by agreeableness; and when it is controlled by the higher primary graces it is one of the most useful of the lower primary graces, especially in contact with our associates, friends and neighbors.

God in a pre-eminent way has this quality. He lacks those qualities that make for disagreeableness and has in perfection those that make for agreeableness. He is not contentious. Where in the Bible or out of it do we find Him so? Everywhere He expresses His thoughts long-sufferingly and peacefully. He is not disputatious. We search the Scriptures and history in vain to find Him disputatious. Without disputing He sets forth reasonably His mind on the subjects that He discusses. Never does He revile His opponents, though He does at times say uncomplimentary things of them; but He tells disagreeable truths as mildly as can be done. Did He oppose Pharaoh? It was without bitterness, ridicule or vituperation. Did He send His messengers to proclaim the flood in Noah's day, the angels to deliver Lot and his family from Sodom's approaching doom, Moses and Aaron to predict the fate of the Egyptians, the angel to destroy the Assyrian host, the prophets and Jesus to announce Jerusalem's fall, and the faithful to proclaim the destruction of the second, "this evil" world? He commissioned none of them to be vituperative or abusive. Rather, both He Himself used sober language in prophesying the pertinent calamities and He commissioned His messengers to imitate His example. How agreeably did He act toward Abraham at Mamre, Jacob at Bethel, Moses at Horeb, Joshua at Jordan, Gideon at Abiezer, Samuel at Shiloh, David at Bethlehem,

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Solomon at Gibeon, Elijah at Samaria, Isaiah and Jeremiah at Jerusalem, Daniel at Babylon, Mordecai, Ezra and Nehemiah at Shushan, Jesus at Nazareth, Peter at Caesarea Philippi, Paul at Damascus and John at Patmos. Insinuatingly winsome was He in all these acts. And when we view His dealings with Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Arius, Claudius of Turin, Berengar of Tours, Peter Abelard, Arnold of Brescia, Waldo, Marsiglio, Tauler, Wyclif, Huss, Wesel, Wessel, Savonarola, Luther, Zwingli, Hubmaier, Servetus, Cranmer, Browne, Fox, Wesley, Stone, Miller, Russell and all the other saints, less prominent indeed than these, but yet loyal to Him, we see how winsomely He has acted toward them.

In our own experiences with Him we have found Him the acme of agreeableness. He giveth liberally and upbraideth not. How open-hearted and kindly He was to us as He led us out of sin into repentance and faith unto justification! How ineffably winsome He has been while enlightening us in our ignorance and giving us freely, without upbraiding, and most graciously His all-embracing, mind-satisfying and heart-resting Truth! How winsomely did He woo us to the brideship of Jesus—" Harken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget  also thy people and thy father's house. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty; for He is thy Lord and worship thou Him!" Was ever a marriage proposal clothed in more gracious and winsome terms than these? So did He woo us to brideship for Jesus, and certainly He has been conducting us most agreeably to the Bridegroom's home now being prepared for us. How agreeable have been His spirit, words, acts and manner, as He gave us the bridal present of the hearing ears, the working hand, the ornate will, and the espousal robe of the beauty of holiness? Agreeable indeed have been His attitude, works and acts toward us as He develops us in every good word and work. How fascinatingly

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winsome have His words been to us when we are weary and heavy-laden—" Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." When tribulations as a great flood would overflow and submerge us, most agreeably He tells us: "When thou passest through deep waters I will be with thee; and they shall not overflow thee." In our storms He reassuringly tells us: "It is I; be not afraid." In our battles with sin, error, selfishness and worldliness He strengthens us with the comfort that the battle is the Lord's and that He will go forward with us. In every experience of life, whether it be toward or untoward, easy or hard, pleasant or unpleasant, joyful or sorrowful, pleasurable or painful, He shows Himself toward us as the gracious, winsome, pleasing and agreeable God that He is, our Father and our Helper, our Lover and our Friend, our Preserver and our Provider, our Teacher and our Trainer, our Comforter and our Encourager; and in it all, through it all and by it all, He ever remains our ever gracious and winsome God.

Is it any wonder that so gracious and agreeable a being as God wins many and holds them, not by physical, but by heart and mind ties? Is it any wonder that now, while sin is in the ascendancy, the best of minds and hearts are unbreakably drawn to Him? Is it any wonder that He shall yet win to Himself billions of the fallen race and myriads of the fallen angels in everlasting ties of sacred loyalty? To deal with Him in a reciprocal spirit is to become won by and to Him. To fellowship with Him is to admire, appreciate and cling to Him. To know Him is to desire to  be everlastingly united with Him. To feel His favor, to know His generosity, to experience His benignity and to have His smile, are joy ineffable, peace ununderstandable and heaven on earth. His agreeableness brightens our nights and glorifies our days; it turns our winters into spring and makes our Decembers as pleasant as May. Overcome by a sense of His winsomeness we

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forget our sorrows, bid "good-bye" to our troubles, triumph in our trials and conquer in life's battles. In His favor, which expresses itself in His agreeableness, we find life and health, peace and joy, faith and sight, hope and fruition, love and delight, brotherhood and Fatherhood! The Scriptures, in ascribing to Him supreme longsuffering, forbearance, forgiveness, generosity, magnanimity, liberality, mildness, love, peace, joy and graciousness, declare to us His supremacy in agreeableness. We praise, worship and adore Him for another of His glorious lower primary graces—even His agreeableness. And our praise, worship and adoration of Him should be so heartfelt as to make us long to be and daily endeavor to become like Him in the lower primary grace, agreeableness, a quality that will make us a blessing to others, a strength for ourselves and an honor for God.

In the discussion of our theme in the foregoing parts of this chapter we have finished our consideration of God's Selfish Lower Primary Attributes of Character, and with  the next part of this chapter we begin our study of God's Social Lower Primary Attributes of Character. The difference between these two sets of primary attributes of character lies in this: That whereas the selfish lower primary attributes go out to self as their object, the social lower primary attributes go out to others. Thus self-esteem, approbativeness, restfulness, etc., reach out to self as their object in certain respects, while conjugality, friendship, parental love, etc., go out to others as their object. There  are certain aspects of the social graces that God does not have, e.g., amativeness—love for the opposite sex—love for parents and love for brothers and sisters. There being no sex in God, there is no sex love in Him. He not having parents, brothers or sisters, He of course does not have corresponding qualities—love for parents, brothers or sisters. Thus there are certain affections that human beings have

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which God does not have. And since these are such as are based on the differences of their natures, there are certain respects in which God's character differs from man's character. But, apart from love for food and drink, which man's physical constitution will always require him to have, these differences will cease after man has attained full perfection and crystallized character; for then in mankind sex will have passed out of existence (Luke 20: 35-37), and human family ties will have been swallowed up into the family relation of Christ and the Church as the parents of the perfected race, all of whose members will then be brothers.

While there is no sex in God and while He does not have a wife in our sense of the word, wife, nevertheless God's relations to the covenants whereby He develops His children are Scripturally set forth as those of a husband to a wife. Thus He is set forth as the husband of the covenant that develops the Little Flock (Is. 54: 1, 5; Gal. 4: 26, 27). In this He is, as Husband, typed by Abraham, whose wife, Sarah, types this covenant (Gal. 4: 21-31), God's symbolic wife. The Divine covenants in their primary significance are promises (Eph. 2: 12). Some of His covenants are unconditional and some are conditional promises. Thus the Lord's promises—covenants—to Noah and to Abraham and to Abraham's seed are unconditional (Is. 54: 9; Rom. 11: 29; Gal. 3: 15—18; Heb. 6: 17, 18); while the Law Covenant and the New Covenant are conditional promises, man's obedience being required, if he would get the promise (Gal. 3: 10-12; Ezek. 18: 4-24).

But the word, covenant, is used in a second sense in the Scriptures, i.e., in the sense of all the teachings, institutions, arrangements, etc., connected with a covenant in the primary sense of the word. Thus all of the teachings, institutions, arrangements, etc., connected with the covenant made at Sinai are a part of the Law

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Covenant in this second sense of the word. Thus while God and Israel bound themselves to one another in a covenant, in the first sense of that word, at Sinai; the covenant, in the second sense of that word, began to be made with the institution of the Passover, the day Israel left Egypt (Heb. 8: 9), and was not completed until Moses finished giving the covenant teachings, etc., to Israel just before he died, a few days before Israel's crossing Jordan and about forty years after leaving Egypt (Deut. 33: 1-29).

Then, in the third place, the word, covenant, is Scripturally used to include with the two preceding senses the servants who apply the promises and their pertinent teachings, institutions, arrangements, etc., to those in the covenant. It is in this third sense of the word, which includes the first and second senses as a part of it, that the covenant is called Scripturally, the mother. This we gather from Is. 54: 17, compared with the rest of the chapter, where the Sarah Covenant is addressed as Jehovah's wife and the mother of His children, while the one addressed is shown in verse 17 to include God's servants. Compare also St. Paul's use of Is. 54: 1 in proof of his explanation of the antitype of Sarah, in Gal. 4: 21-31. This is also manifest from what St. Peter said in Acts 3: 25, where the prophets, in their capacity of ministering to the Church (1 Pet. 1: 12) various features elaborative of the Sarah promises, are with those promises called the mother of the Israelites indeed, who had just become new creatures through the faith wrought in their hearts by the preceding part of St. Peter's discourse. It is when the third sense of the word, covenant, is used (which third sense includes the other two senses of the word), that God figures forth the covenant as a woman who is His wife. This is quite manifest from the fact that while the Sarah Covenant was barren (during the Patriarchal and Jewish Ages), it is spoken of as sorrowful, mourning, desolate,

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troubled, forsaken, etc., in Is. 54. All these expressions descriptive of distress characterize the covenant in the third sense of the word, because the prophets, who were a part of the covenant in that sense of the word, had just such experiences while "unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven." (1 Pet. 1: 12). Yet the covenant was barren in their days and only at Jordan in our Lord and at Pentecost in the first representatives of the Church did it begin to bring forth the Seed of promise and has throughout the Gospel Age been continuing to bring forth that Seed, that in its last part will soon be glorified.

In God's relations to the Law Covenant and especially to the Abrahamic Covenant, particularly in its Sarah feature, God has been exercising the social lower primary grace of conjugality—husbandliness. That is, just as a true husband feels and acts toward his wife, so has God felt and acted toward this great covenant. In God's relations to these two covenants, God is typed by Abraham and these two covenants are typed by Sarah and Hagar (Gal. 4: 21-31). Just as Abraham, at Sarah's suggestion, took Hagar only temporarily, and then at Sarah's suggestion dismissed her; so God, at the suggestion of the servants of the Abrahamic promises, took the Law Covenant in the third sense of that term as His temporary wife, and at their suggestion dismissed it. In both cases the latter was done only after each mother and son had shown their wrong attitude toward the true Seed of promise. Nevertheless God acted a husbandly part toward the Law Covenant in the third sense of the word throughout the Jewish Age, until at its end the servants of that covenant—the priest, Levites, scribes, Pharisees, etc., proved their utter unworthiness, whereupon the Lord cast off them, the Law's promises and its teachings,

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arrangements, institutions, etc., with all under them, from His favor.

It is, however, more in His relations with the married wife, antitypical Sarah, and not with the desolate—cast off—concubine, antitypical Hagar (Is. 54: 1), that Jehovah's quality of husbandliness appears; for God acts like a true husband toward antitypical Sarah—the oath—bound promises to the Christ, their Biblically elaborated teachings, institutions, arrangements, etc., and His servants that apply these to His faithful children. These promises, teachings, institutions, arrangements, etc., and servants, are of the highest order and call forth God's appreciation and sympathy. And He richly gives these to them as His wife. In sublimest strain and tenderest sentiment Jehovah tells of His feelings and activities toward antitypical Sarah. We make bold to say that for elevation of thought, tenderness of feeling, delight of spirit and oneness of heart and mind, nowhere in literature does husbandly feeling and activity go out in so noble, beautiful and sublime ways as God's husbandly feelings and activities express themselves to antitypical Sarah in Is. 54. We ask our readers, especially those among them who are husbands, carefully to read Is. 54 and then try to match it with anything in all literature descriptive of good husbands. Note, in verse 1, the triumphant joy of the husband at His wife, long childless, becoming the mother of His children. Consider His encouraging her, in v. 2, to make a suitable home for the increasing family, unstintingly in His providing for its every comfort and enlargement. See how, in v. 3, He rejoices with her in the future success of their beloved and mutual children. See how, in v. 4, He beautifully describes her glorious future and lovingly and sympathetically comforts her as against a sad past. Note carefully how, in v. 5, He points out her highest honor in being the beloved wife of the Supreme Being, the Hallowed of God's people and the Covenant God of

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the whole earth. Notice the marvelous contrasts in vs. 6-8, each one blotting out a sad past by a bright present and future. Keep in mind, in vs. 9 and 10, how He swears undying fidelity, tenderest care and sure joy for the future. How tenderly, in vs. 11, 12, He, reminding her of the sad past (the Patriarchal and Jewish Ages) in which she was the afflicted, tempest-tossed and uncomforted one, assures her, His beloved wife, of the great prosperity, beauty and value of her glorious palace which she will share with Him! Her wifely heart as the mother of His children is, in v. 13, made to beat with joy in His husbandly assurance that He Himself will be the teacher of their children and will lead them into great prosperity. How remarkably His confidence in her noble character of righteousness, mercy and courage is set forth in v. 14! While, in v. 15, He tells her that envious evil-wishers will take counsel against her. He nevertheless assures her that He will so thoroughly defend her as to deliver her and foil them—a real Husband protecting the wife of His bosom. While He assures her, in v. 16, that it is of His permissive ordering that the evil-

intentioned will act, yet, in v. 17, He promises her—His servants—complete victory over every error and wrong that will arise against her and that He Himself will provide her righteousness—in Christ will this be. In this chapter every husbandly function as possessed by Jehovah in the highest degree, is touched on. Here the husband is set forth as the one who loves his wife, cherishes her, honors her, companions her, trusts her, provides for her, protects her and co-operates with her in the raising and training of their children. Is there any husbandly quality and act found wanting in Him? And did ever a husband tell it all more beautifully, winsomely, lovingly and reassuringly than Jehovah, the Husband—antitypical Abraham—of the Sarah Covenant? This chapter, through the light thrown on it by St. Paul in Gal. 4: 21-31, is indescribably fine, and

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certainly proves that God has in the highest degree the social grace of husbandliness. This would also appear from a consideration of His husbandly relations to the New Covenant, but we forbear giving further particulars.

As Jehovah is the best of husbands, so, too, is He the best of fathers—He has the social grace of fatherliness. At the present time God is the Father of the angelic hosts (Job 1: 6; 2: 1; 38: 7), of the Little Flock (Rom. 8: 14-16), and of the Great Company (2 Cor. 6: 18). After the Millennium, as the antitypical Abraham, He will also be the Father of the Ancient and Youthful Worthies and of the faithful of the Restitution Class (Rom. 4: 17). While in all these relations He is an ideal Father, exercising unapproachable fatherliness, we will limit our consideration of Him as Father to His fatherly relation to the Little Flock—Jesus and His faithful footstep followers. God is the Father of these, according to many Scriptures (Matt. 3: 17; 11: 25-27; 18: 10, 14, 19; Luke 22: 29; 23: 46; John 1: 14, 18; 10: 36­ 38; Rom. 1: 3, 4; Gal. 4: 6, 7; 1 Thes. 1: 3; Heb. 12: 9; 1 John 3: 1). And He does toward and for them everything that a real father should do toward and for his children, with this important difference: that whereas there are frequently mistakes of head and inabilities of hand in the best of earthly fathers, Jehovah, as the Father of Jesus and the Church, never makes any mistake of head or lacks any ability of hand in His relations to His children. There are especially seven things that must be done by one who has full fatherliness. We will, on consideration, readily recognize these as the acts of a real father; and these God does in supreme degree toward the Christ Class. A true earthly father begets, loves, companions, provides for, trains, prepares an inheritance for, and gives an inheritance to, his children. And God does these things in a perfect and supreme way, thus exercising real fatherliness.

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In the first place, God begets His children. Without begetting children one cannot really be a father; for the begetting act is fundamental to fatherhood. The Scriptures clearly teach that God has begotten Jesus and His followers (John 1: 14, 18; 3: 16, 18; Jas. 1: 3; 1 John 5: 1, 18). Of course we are not to think of God's act of begetting the Christ as a carnal thing. It is altogether spiritual. The seed whereby the begetting has been done is God's Word as it pertains to sanctifying faith and love (Jas. 1: 18; 1 Pet. 1: 23). The mother in whom the begetting has taken place is the Sarah Covenant in the third or wide sense of that word. She furnishes truths other than those that create sanctifying faith and love unto the begettal of the Spirit. With these other truths she has nourished the begotten powers implanted in the consecrated head and heart. These truths correspond to the ovum and subsequent nourishment furnished by the human mother to the seed of human begetting and to the begotten thing. If we ask what the act of the begetting is, we answer: the impartation of spiritual capacities to all the brain organs of a consecrator. These capacities enable each brain organ of ours to reach beyond its natural objects and to attach itself to corresponding spiritual things. E.g., our intellectual organs naturally reach out and grasp human knowledge. While after our spirit­ begettal our intellectual organs continue so to exercise themselves; yet, through the spiritual capacities bestowed upon them by the begettal, they additionally reach out and grasp, spiritual knowledge. Again, our heart organs— affections—naturally reach out to human objects, like our human parents, brethren, friends, etc. But after our spirit­ begettal, while our affections still continue to go out to our human parents, etc., our affection-organs through the implanted spiritual capacities reach out to our heavenly Parents—God and the Sarah Covenant, our heavenly brethren and friends—Jesus and the Church, etc. God

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has been our begetter, because by the pertinent Truth He implanted spiritual capacities in every one of our brain organs, adapting them to spiritual objects. The begetting of the Spirit is God's first act as our Father. With the greatest of care has He done this, choosing the proper persons, time, place and condition, so that the embryo new creature is started on his way under the best circumstances for his development; which is real fatherliness.

A second thing that belongs to the quality of fatherliness is fatherly love. The proverb puts it like this: Every father loves his child. Human experience proves this with respect to a good earthly father; and certainly the Scriptures and the experiences of God's children prove that God loves them. "The Father Himself loveth you" (John 16: 27). "He that loveth Me [Jesus] shall be loved of My Father … If a man love Me [Jesus], he will keep My words, and My Father will love him" (John 14: 21, 23). "Thou … hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me … That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in [given to] them" (John 17: 23,  26). These passages show that God loves Jesus and His faithful ones and that with the same kind of love, though, of course, not in the same degree. "All that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (Rom. 1: 7). "His great love wherewith He hath loved us" (Eph. 2: 4). "Our Father, who hath loved us" (2 Thes. 2: 16). "Herein is love … that He loved us … God so loved us … He first loved us" (1 John 4: 10, 11, 19). This love includes duty and disinterested love in appreciation, sympathy and service. What are His creative works toward us other than expressions of His love? Look at His providential blessings on us and therein see His great love for us. Consider His redemptive work in giving up His Son, even unto death, and His love toward us becomes manifest. His instructional blessings prove His love for us by experience. His justifying

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blessings in forgiving us our sins and in imputing Christ's righteousness to us, are another proof from experience that He loves us as His children. His sanctifying blessings, both with respect to the sacrifice of our humanity and the development of our new creatures, evidence from experience His love for us. His delivering blessings, giving us victory in our battles with sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, reveal in experience His love for us. And what shall we say of the future features of His delivering blessings—deliverance from the grave and human nature into heaven, the Divine nature and joint-heirship with Christ. All this certainly proves His love for us. Yea, in these ways God loves us as His children. So, in the highest sense, He has that feature of fatherliness whereby He loves us as His children.

The third thing that a genuine father does toward His children is that He companions them—gives them fellowship. He is not a real father who in cold austerity holds his children at arm's length, feeling, looking, speaking and acting sternly and distantly toward them. Such a father may secure their obedience and fear; but he will never endear himself to them; nor will he ever draw out the spirit of childship from them toward himself. Companionableness on his part that draws out his children's confidence and love are needed as elements of fatherliness, if he would fulfill this one of the functions of fatherliness. God as our Father exercises this quality of fatherliness in His dealing with us as His children. The chief elements of such companionableness are: Confidence, sympathy, adaptability, agreeableness, kindness, interest and partnership. God as our Father has confidence in us to the degree that our qualities of heart and mind and our spirit of consecration warrant; and He shows us that He has such confidence by imparting to us the secrets that He keeps within the family circle and by entrusting us with a stewardship in His interests. He sympathizes

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with us in all our joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, successes and failures, hopes and fears, aims and  ambitions, works and recreations; for it is especially with reference to the Church that it is written, "In all their affliction He was afflicted" (Is. 63: 9). Moreover His sympathy with us is also one of heart's oneness— kindredness of feeling with us. Such sympathy, of course, conduces to fellowship.

Then He certainly adapts Himself to the peculiarities of all His children. There is not a quality in us that He does not understand; there is not a weakness in us toward which He does not know how to act and does not act properly. There is not a circumstance in our lives but He accommodates Himself to it. There is not an experience coming to any one of us but He sees and feels its ins and outs. In all the changes of our moods and modes, in all the vicissitudes of our work and rest, in all the diversities of our talents and attainments, in all the varieties of our graces and faults and in all the variations of our states and activities, He knows how to, and does adjust Himself to us in most helpful, uplifting and beneficent ways. His agreeableness toward us as His faithful children is never ruffled; it is unchangeable and it is always in evidence. No petulance, no touchiness, no garrulity, no grouchiness, marks His carriage toward us. When we offend in weakness or ignorance, He knows how to close one eye; when we do not play fair, He knows how to forgive; and when we do well, He knows how to smile most charmingly and winsomely. Then He is also interested in us and in what concerns and interests us. He never loses the sense of a personal concern for us and a personal feeling toward us. And in what interests us He is interested; and for what concerns us He is concerned. He is not indifferent to what is for our weal or woe. He never clothes Himself with the mantle of forgetfulness and the girdle of abstractedness when our good is concerned; for He always

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makes our interests His. His kindness, too, is ever on hand and active. If danger lurks in some place, He beneficently points it out and guards against it. If need threatens us, He provides against it; and if it is present, He supplies it. If good is present, He works on it to improve it; and if anything is wanting for our best good, He sees to it that it is bestowed. And, finally, in His fellowship feeling toward us He enters into a real partnership with us. This partnership is one of spirit; for He gives us His Spirit. It is one of interest; for He shares with us His wealth. It is one of work; for He makes us colaborers of His. And it is one of ambition; for He associates us with Him in the realization of His plans and purposes. Thus in the highest sense He embodies in His companioning of us as His children the qualities of confidence, sympathy, adaptability, agreeableness, interest, kindness and partnership; and this is the third element of true fatherliness.

The fourth thing that a good father does for his children is to provide their food, raiment and shelter, and that in harmony with his ability and station in life. This God does, not only in earthly, but more especially in heavenly respects, from which latter standpoint we desire to give briefly some general items. He provides the best of spiritual foods for them—the pure and unadulterated nourishment of the Word, both in its milk [simpler truths] and in its strong meat [deeper truths] aspects (Heb. 5: 12-14). This food covers doctrinal, ethical, promissory, hortatory, prophetical, historical and typical truths, variously adapted in each of its forms to the babe, the child, the youth, the man and the aged. And the raiment that He provides for them is both beautiful and useful. How beautiful is our Lord's robe of righteousness, which God has provided for us to wear (Is. 61: 10)! It hides every uncomely feature in us and adorns  us in real beauty. Our Father, whose sense of beauty and comeliness is superior

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to that of any other being, looks upon us when so arrayed with the utmost satisfaction and pleasure. It protects us from too much cold and heat, keeps us comfortable and expedites our movements. Additionally, He provides us with the means and instrumentalities whereby we may embroider our raiment. With threads of gold [Divine Spirit] and needles of silver [Truth] we are by Him enabled to work out on our Divinely provided raiment beautiful designs drawn thereon into the Christian graces, whereby our wedding garments will be charmingly beautiful (Ps. 45: 13, 14). So, too, He gives us the best of shelter; for He Himself is our habitation (1 John 4: 16). This is the most beautiful, tasteful and practical home ever erected. It is well lighted and ventilated. It is roomy and comfortable. It has the elegance of a palace and the invitesomeness of a home; and perpetual joy and peace reign there. Father, mother and children here are in the best of bonds, in the finest of spirits and in the most joyful of hearts. The house is well protected from the contagion of error, which cannot come nigh it (Ps. 92: 10). The sun of temptation (Luke 8: 6, 13; Matt. 13: 6, 21) cannot beat upon this house so as to make it uncomfortably hot within, or smite with sunstroke those who dwell therein. In the winter time of trouble it is kept comfortably warm, so that those who dwell therein are never cold; for no tribulation too great for them to bear is allowed to come nigh them. And while outside of this house the night of sin reigns with its sorrows, woes, uncertainty and fears, within that house it is always light; for the light of Truth illuminates its every room and hall. Thus God Himself provides His children perfect shelter. His giving His children food, raiment and shelter, and that of the best quality and in abounding quantity, proves Him to fulfill perfectly the fourth function of a father— providing for his family—and thus proves that He has also this ingredient of real fatherliness.

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The fifth function of a father is training his children; and therefore the ability so to do and the exercise of this ability are the fifth element of fatherliness. As a true Father, God trains His children. This training embraces intellectual, heart and manual matters. He trains their heads by teaching them true knowledge, which He enables them to perceive, remember and reason on, so that this knowledge becomes a part of their very being. Thus they live in His knowledge, and it becomes, so to speak, a second nature to them. This knowledge is both theoretical, inasmuch as it gives them the right principles of thought, speech and action, and practical, inasmuch as it is of a kind that they can and do apply helpfully to all the problems of life. Furthermore, He trains their hearts, because He knows that character is the best of all acquisitions, the most useful of all attainments and the most attractive of all embellishments. In their training He puts them through every process of character development: supply of lacks, overcoming of faults, quickening in good, growth in good, strengthening in good, balancing in good and crystallizing in good. And when He has finished His training of their hearts, they have the finest of hearts in the universe; and thus with such characters they will be well adapted to living forever (Ps. 22: 26). Then, God as Father gives His children manual training as well as head and heart training. He trains them in the arts of building (Matt. 7: 24-27; 1 Cor. 3: 10-15), whereby they erect the structures of faith and character; husbandry, whereby they plant and water God's garden (1 Cor. 3: 6-9); vineyardry, whereby they grow precious fruits in God's vineyard (Matt. 21: 28-31, 41, 43); and farming, whereby they sow, reap, sheave, dry, thresh, winnow, supervise the sifting and co-operate in the garnering of the wheat. Many of them He trains in the work of shepherding sheep (Acts 20: 28); and some of them make a splendid success of such work. He trains them to be good

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merchants (Matt. 13: 45, 46), capable fishermen (Matt. 4: 19), careful watchmen (Matt. 24: 42-44), successful executives (Matt. 25: 14-17) and good teachers (Matt. 28: 19). He develops them into being athletes, whereby they become great racers (Heb. 12: 1; 1 Cor. 9: 24-26), mighty wrestlers (Eph. 6: 12), skillful boxers (1 Cor. 9: 26, 27) and brave, efficient and victorious soldiers (2 Tim. 2: 3; Rev. 3: 21; 15: 2). Thus He trains them for many forms of occupation in this life; but additionally He is training them for successful careers in life everlasting as Kings, Priests (Rev.  20:  6), Mediators (Acts  3:  23;  Heb.  9:  15-17), Physicians (Rev.  22:  2,  3), Teachers  (Ps.  22:  30,  31), Judges (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3), and Saviors (Ob. 21). Accordingly, God as Father gives His children a splendid training.

The sixth thing that a good father does for his children is to prepare for them an inheritance. And God has this feature of fatherliness in His character. Before the foundation of the world He made a plan, an integral part of which embraces the preparation of an inheritance for His children (Eph. 1: 11). This inheritance is not gotten in this life, but is one that will be bestowed in the next life with the saints in light (Acts 20: 32; 26: 18). It is therefore an inheritance reached through the salvation process, and that at its end (Heb. 1: 14). St. Peter assures us of this also, adding that it will be incorruptible as to the body, undefiled as to the heart and mind, unfadeable as to life, and heavenly as to nature (1 Pet. 1: 4). The process through which it is being prepared is the Spirit begettal, quickening, growth, strengthening, balancing, crystallizing and birth (1 Pet. 1: 3; Eph. 2: 5; 2 Pet. 3: 18; 1 Pet. 5: 10; John 3: 5-8). Our Lord Jesus is God's Agent in preparing this inheritance (John 14: 2). The offer and acceptance of the hope of obtaining this inheritance makes us heirs of God and joint- heirs with the Lord Jesus (Rom. 8: 14-17; Gal. 4: 6, 18). The

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things that the heirship has in store for us are: eternal heavenly life (Titus 3: 7) in heavenly Divine bodies (1 Cor. 15: 41-54; 2 Cor. 4: 16-5: 8; 2 Pet. 1: 4), joint-heirship with Christ (Rom. 8: 17) in the kingdom promise of ruling and blessing (Jas. 2: 5; Rev. 1: 6; 5: 10) and in the administration of the universe by perfecting yet uncreated orders of beings and their residential planets in harmony with God's plans yet to be revealed (Eph. 2: 7; Is. 9: 7). Truly, the preparation of our inheritance outshines any other parental preparation of inheritance for children.

The final thing that a good father does for His children is to give them a well ordered and sufficient inheritance—the best he can give. Certainly, Jehovah as Father does this for His children in superlative degree. The time when He will give this inheritance is our Lord's Second Advent (1 Pet. 1: 7). It will be before the assembled heavenly host. It will include all God's wealth—the boundless universe with all that pertains to it. It will be an undivided inheritance. Nor need any fear that such an inheritance will breed discontent and strife in the heirs, because each of them will love the others more than self; and thus they in perfect peace and prosperity will jointly administer their inheritance. Nor will they be the objects of others' envy for their great inheritance, since they will use it for the best interests of all concerned—first for fallen men and fallen angels, and then for the good of various orders of beings that God is planning for the billions of planets in His universe; and in this work of developing their inheritance they will have the glad cooperation of the angels, those who never fell, as well as those who fell and will rise again. The wealth of this inheritance is inconceivably great, which will appear when we think of the wealth of this earth and remember that there are billions of at least as rich planets in the universe. And this wealth will ever increase as these planets and their various orders of beings

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are developed to perfection. It is an inheritance that will be developing endlessly; for the work of the Faithful will be the development to perfection of one planet after another with their pertinent orders of beings. And they will have the satisfaction of perfect success in their task, as the Ages to come will witness the planets and their inhabitants started on the way of, and reaching perfection. Nor will their entering into the possession of their inheritance be marred by the sense of loss of, and mourning for, a dead Father, as it is among men; for the Immortal Jehovah will give them the inheritance and live on; and this He can safely do, because their absolute devotion to Him and His interests will have been unchangeably proven by most crucial tests. What a super-wonderful inheritance God will give His people! Surely He has the seven main features of the grace of fatherliness, as our study abundantly proves; and this grace of fatherliness surely is His.

We have hitherto treated of God's main selfish lower primary attributes of character and of two of His main social lower primary attributes of character. We now proceed to our discussion of the rest of God's lower  primary attributes of character. We trust our discussion of this subject will prove instructive to our readers' heads and uplifting to their hearts. We rejoice in the prospect of such blessings and trust that a like experience will follow the study of all the chapters of this book. After finishing our discussion of God's primary attributes of character we hope, D.v., to consider in turn His secondary and tertiary graces. Such a study should equip all of us with a reasonably comprehensive understanding and appreciation of God's qualities of Spirit. In the rest of this chapter we propose to study friendship and kingliness as social lower primary attributes in God.

When we speak of friendship we mean a mutual regard cherished by like minds and hearts. Friendship

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can never be experienced by one person alone. It implies at least two persons as its possessors; for it is a mutual regard cherished by like minds and hearts. Thus friendship is a quality that requires at least two persons before it can be exercised at all. In this it differs from friendliness, which does not necessarily imply a mutual regard. Accordingly, friendship, as an attribute of God, implies that it is exercised by Him and others mutually. It means that there are hearts and minds that are kindred to God's heart and mind, and that these and God's heart and mind have a mutual esteem toward one another. This is true of the relations of the Father and the Son to each other; for they are linked together in kindredness of heart and mind by the fact that they have the same Holy Spirit or disposition. This is likewise true of God and the good angels, and of God and certain ones in the human family. It is not now true between God and all human beings; for some are now not at all of a kindred spirit with God. Hence there can be between them no mutual regard that constitutes friendship. Sometime there will be between God and all mankind such kindredness of disposition as will make them hold one another in mutual esteem, i.e., when after the Millennium all who after full opportunity prove that they are worthy of everlasting life are rewarded with it, and all others are destroyed.

The entrance of sin among certain—the fallen—angels and among mankind has disrupted friendship between God and them. Sin of necessity destroys friendship between God and the sinner; because sin is a repudiation of friendship with God on the sinner's part. Thus God could not find in fallen angels and men, as such, that kindredness of heart and mind necessary for a mutual regard based on harmony with righteousness, which is the necessary foundation of a friendship in which God is a partaker; for He is of too pure eyes to behold [look with favor and esteem

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upon] iniquity (Hab. 1: 13). Hence when certain angels and mankind fell into sin, God withdrew from the relations of friendship with them. We are not to understand that thereupon He hated them. Rather that He became so displeased with them for their casting away of their former state of mind and heart that was kindred to His, that mutual esteem was no longer possible as between Him and them. But while this became the condition between them, and while sinful men and angels turned into hating Him, He, instead of returning hatred for hatred, continued to be as friendly toward them as their changed attitude toward Him permitted this to be; i.e., insofar as this was in harmony with truth and righteousness. Hence in His friendliness He gave them such blessings as were compatible with the sentences that He imposed upon them severally for their wrongs. Furthermore, He cherished the hope of winning them back into friendship with Him, after their experience with evil would sufficiently teach them the  unprofitableness of sin and the desirability of righteousness.

His friendliness toward them despite their evil reached an almost inconceivable height of greatness when, in order to restore them to friendship with Himself, He willingly gave up His Son to a most shameful, cruel and painful death, as the basis for the restoration of such a friendship. And in the meantime He kept Himself open to entering into friendship with any of the race that, hungering and thirsting after such a condition, would accept of His overtures of friendship. It was in harmony with this thought that He and Abraham entered into friendship with each other, so that Abraham became known as the friend of God (Jas. 2: 23). And not only Abraham, but all who walked in his footsteps have entered into friendship with God (Rom. 4: 12; 5: 1). Accordingly, God welcomes back into friendship with Him all who exercise repentance toward God and faith in

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Christ. These thereby become friends of God and God the friend of them. We trust that all of our readers have at least attained to friendship with God.

It might be well for us to look into the ingredients of such a friendship. Keeping in mind the thought that in spirit the sinner must retrace the steps that he took when he left the condition of friendship with God, and that the restoration of the long-wrecked friendship does not imply that God lowers Himself to the degraded state of mind and heart of sinful man, though it does imply that He condescends to lift man back toward the state of heart and mind that existed before sin entered into the world, we will be able to see the ingredients of the restored friendship. On God's part it implies that He retain the same thoughts and feelings that He had before friendship between Him and man was broken off. It also implies that He has sought to renew mankind into a condition in which He can take the same interest in them as formerly, exercise the same trust in them as of yore, show them the same amiableness as before, bestow the same benefits as in days gone by and give them the same companionship as He once did. Unless He would do these things and thus renew them unto their former condition toward Him, mankind could not perform their part in the mutual relations implied in friendship between God and themselves. And all these things God works on behalf of all who are responsive to His advances; and as a result, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, He and certain humans have already re-entered into friendship with one another.

And in this friendship we see operative a kindredness of thought in which man accepts the Divine thoughts connected with friendship's restoration. Thus this enables such men to gain kindredness of mind with God and one another. Again, by renewing kindred feelings in the responsive, God puts men into a condition in which they love the things that God loves.

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Further, by arousing the responsive to taking interest in truth and righteousness for themselves and others, He creates in them the same interests as He has. So, too, by enabling these to stand fast in devotion to truth and righteousness for themselves and others, He makes them dependable, and thus restores His confidence in their integrity; and of course only such as trust Him are dealt with in such restoration of friendship, as is evident from the case of Abraham and those who follow in his steps. God's amiableness toward them takes away from them all unamiableness toward God and fills them with amiableness toward Him. His constant benefactions on them arouse them to do good to Him, in the sense of benefiting His cause. And His companioning them arouses them to companion Him; and thus every ingredient of friendship is restored between God and responsive ones.

This description of the restoration of friendship into operation between God and man shows that friendship as a quality operating between God and man consists of the following things: Mutual thoughts, mutual feelings, mutual interests, mutual trust, mutual amiableness, mutual helpfulness and mutual companionableness. God shares with reconciled humans every one of these things. We may say that He craves these things—not that He needs them for His own existence, but for the pleasure that it gives Him in working in others the blessings for them implied in these things. We are not to think of this matter as though God could not get along without entering into friendship with us, as though He needs us or what we can give Him. Rather, in His friendliness He does out of pure benevolence the things that we need for our well being, in a restoration of friendship with Him; and He is made happy in such restored friendship in the thought that it has blessed, uplifted and ennobled us; for His delight is in benefiting others. Thus His friendship is of the noblest character,

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the most generous feeling and of the most comprehensive kind. Blessed indeed are they who have God as their Friend and who are friends of God!

And who are these? We reply that now, they are first, those who have taken the steps of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus; and second; those who thereafter have made a full consecration of themselves to the Lord. The first class are indeed friends; but they are not privileged to enter into the deepest friendship with God unless they take the further step of consecration. Justification gives them peace with God; but only the consecrated enter into God's heart of hearts, in the most intimate friendship in which their very beings become one with God's Spirit. While we, therefore, rejoice with the justified in their measure of friendship with God, we would urge them to enter into still deeper and closer relations with God and bind themselves to Him with still stronger ties than those of justification—even those of consecration; for in the latter, becoming dead to self and to the world and becoming alive unto God; they take His good and perfect and acceptable will as theirs, and this enables them to enter into most intimate thoughts, feelings, interests, trust, amiableness; benefaction and companionship with God in ways that those who have proceeded no further than justification are unable to experience, understand and appreciate: This is the unanimous testimony of the faithful consecrated. And this friendship is mutually to God and them one of the most precious, endearing and happifying of all experiences.

It is not only such, but it is also a very fruitful one to both parties of this friendship. God has His fruitage in their profiting, which shows His unselfishness in this friendship; while they have as their fruitage from this friendship the blessings of creations providence, redemption, instruction, justification, sanctification and deliverance. Therefrom are they undergoing

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a recreation, in ultimate analysis, to perfect spirit natures. God makes all things work together for their good in His providence. He has given His Son in redemption to recover them from the curse. In instruction He teaches them all the things of His Word due in their times, so that they are favored with His thoughts. In justification He forgives their sins and reckons them righteous in Christ's righteousness. In sanctification He enables them to become and remain dead to self and the world and alive unto God, while sacrificing their humanity in His interests, and while undergoing transformation into Christ's likeness as new creatures. And in deliverance He protects them amid, and gives them victory in, their battles with sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, as these fight against them under the leadership of the devil, the world and the flesh. And ultimately He will give them victory over the grave by raising them from the dead, and will give them pertinent rewards in life eternal. These are the fruitage that God's friends receive from Him in their friendship relations with Him; and, as stated above, His fruitage from His friendship is the possession of such friends and the pleasure of so greatly benefiting them.

As precious and fruitful as His friendship is, so lasting and strong is it. One of the sad facts of human friendship is in most cases its weakness and transitoriness. Most friendships are unable to bear the weight even of prosperity, let alone adversity. Hence, earthly friendships for the most part quickly break up, and former friends frequently are lightly forgotten. Almost none survive the pressure of adversity. Not so with Jehovah's friendship. Time does not only not weaken, but strengthens it. Prosperity brightens it, and adversity crystallizes it. The dangers incidental to it cement its possessors the more firmly together. Pressure put upon it makes it all the more enduring. Our faults and weaknesses arouse Jehovah

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to all the more manifestations of it. In health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow, in pleasure and in pain, in rest and in labor, in safety and in danger, in prosperity and in adversity, and in life and in death, it abides strong and enduring; for no such things can separate the faithful from the friendship between them and God. The only thing that can make God withdraw friendship from His friends is that faithlessness which sins willfully against God, the best of friends; for His friendship is so strong and enduring that it stands all other pressures, while this one disrupts its very conditions of existence. Such a friend is a friend indeed. Blessed are those who are knitted together in friendship with God; nothing shall stumble them, nothing shall injure them and nothing shall be lacking to them; for in God and in His friendship they find their all in all.

The last of God's lower primary graces of character that we will consider in this chapter is His kingliness. Kingliness is a social grace. It is true that all social beings do not now have it; for it is limited to but a small class of human beings—royal rulers. Its ingredients, however, should in part be found in all who, as social beings, are placed in some respect or other over others. Thus certain phases of this quality should be found in husbands as the heads of their wives, in parents as the guardians of their children, in teachers in the management of their scholars, in employers in the direction of their employees, in political officials in the governing of their subordinates and non­ official citizens and in officers in the command of soldiers and sailors, etc. By kingliness we mean the quality of heart and mind whereby one is, thinks, feels, speaks and acts as a royal ruler must, in order properly to govern his people. We would not think of everybody as being kingly in character and bearing. Certainly an ignorant and foolish person could not commend himself to us as kingly; nor could an impulsive, weak

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willed person do so. Nor would we think that a tactless or a cringing person were kingly in heart and bearing. Neither does a selfish and unpatriotic person deserve the praise of kingliness. So, too, does the world not regard one who is impractical and unfaithful as being kingly. Why so? Because these qualities are the direct antithesis of those that we think a king should have. His being the leader and ruler of his people, he must be intelligent and wise enough to think out laws and policies to put into effect, whereby to lead, benefit and rule them. He must be steady and firm to give these laws and policies the necessary backing to make them operative. He must be tactful to win his subjects to them, and dignified enough to command that respect that insures obedience to them. He must be so unselfish as to put the interests of the commonwealth above his own interests, to insure the good of his country; and he must be so patriotic as to sink every consideration into the interests of the nation. He must be so practical as to execute with good results his laws and policies and so faithful as to make himself the embodiment of conscientiousness in fulfilling the duties of his office. Such a king is indeed kingly. David in Israel and Alfred in England are among the most conspicuous examples of such kings among human rulers. Of each of them it can properly be said that he was every inch a king.

But Jehovah has these features of kingliness in the supreme degree; and He is therefore the greatest and best of all royal rulers. His omniscience makes Him know everything that pertains to royalty in itself, in its duties, in its laws, in its subjects, in its processes, in its purposes and in its results. His wisdom makes Him able to use His knowledge in ways best calculated to achieve the ends of rulership—the well being of His subjects. His self-rule makes Him adjust Himself to the conditions and demands of His position as King; and His moderation makes Him steadfastly pursue

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His ends to a successful consummation. His tact is unendingly making Him speak and do at the proper time what is necessary, as it also makes Him suppress unsuitable words and acts. Such tactfulness makes Him winsome in the superlative sense toward those who are winable. He is always dignified in carriage, in sentiment, in speech and in act, with a result that He inspires His subjects with the profoundest reverence to His person, laws and works. He neither fears, nor stands in dread of, anyone; hence He needs not, nor does He, cringe before anyone. He is wholly unselfish in His ways; and thus instead of exploiting His subjects in His own interests or tyrannizing over them to their own detriment, He constantly seeks and achieves their good. He does not set at naught, nor break His own laws; but is subject to them as a supreme ruler, and thus commends them with all the greater impressiveness to His subjects. This is all the more noteworthy in Him, inasmuch as He is an absolute monarch in the supreme sense of the word; for He never submits His decisions to the vote of His subjects in order to make them valid, as do most earthly rulers. But He commends them to their willing obedience by virtue of their intrinsic value and their source. Indeed He and His viceregents are, and will forever be, the only absolute monarchs who can be absolutely trusted to use their unique power solely in the interests of their subjects; and for this reason they will forever be the only ones really worthy of, and fitted for, the exercise of absolute and unconditional power over subjects.

As a sovereign God is the highest example of a patriotic ruler. He loves His country, its laws, its policies, customs, citizens, works and ideals, and in all His works and plans as its ruler He ever keeps this in mind and furthers them. He defends them against corruption, attack and conquest; and successfully assails and overthrows every person and thing that seek

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to effect any injury to the realm. As an executive, He carries out the laws and policies that He makes for His kingdom, attaining thereby every feasible result. No executive has His abilities as a successful executive in His empire. And finally, as our king, He is faithful in everything pertinent to His office as king. Faithfully does He use His intelligence and wisdom to devise laws and policies for the good of the realm. Faithfully does He exercise self-control and steadfastness in initiating and carrying out these laws and policies. In all negotiations He faithfully exercises the necessary tact and dignity to gain His ends and gain and retain the reverence of His subjects. He is faithful to make love for proper principles and the interests of His empire and of His subjects incite Him to ruling acts on their behalf; and this excludes every species of tyranny, cruelty and injustice from His rulership. His faithfulness keeps Him ever on the alert to plan, to initiate and to carry on in the interests of His kingdom and its subjects. He is the best and most successful of kings, because He is the most kingly of them all.

His kingdom is an orderly one. It has officers and subjects. These officers are in harmony with the King and His ideals. They are bound to Him by the most lasting bonds of devotion, appreciation, sympathy and harmony. For them to fail in these respects for any length of time would mean dismissal from His service. So devoted to Him and His interests are they that they willingly lay at His feet their all in His service, and demonstrate loyalty to Him, His cause and His people unto death. And His subjects have the same spirit of devotion. Hence His subjects excel those of other kings. They show much loyalty to Him, His cause and His people, better than the subjects of other kingdoms do to their rulers, countries and peoples. And they are bound to Him not by ties of self-interest; but of principle and love. So greatly have His

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benign policies and deeds as Ruler enhanced Him to them that out of grateful and appreciative love they are devoted to Him, and they are happy and prosperous in such devotion to their great King. At the present time these subjects are comparatively few; but when the war is over that is now on between His and Satan's empire, the latter being destroyed, its subjects will become His subjects; and those that faithfully submit themselves to the Vicegerent that He will put over them in the Millennium will gain the favor of being everlastingly under His kingship, while all others who reject such a benign rulership, will be destroyed, all evil conditions being likewise with them destroyed. The result will be that all beings worthy of existence in heaven and on earth will in everlasting innocence, righteousness and blessedness acclaim Him in a universal hallelujah chorus of peerless harmony and sweetness, singing, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne" of the Universe (Rev. 5: 13). And in the securing of this glorious result His kingliness will play a very large and important role. Surely Jehovah, our King, in His kingliness is worthy of our supreme devotion as subjects of His benign and beneficent reign. Blessed is the people whose King Jehovah is!

With this we will conclude our study of the lower primary graces of God's character. In both their forms, the selfish and the social, we have found them good, perfect, appreciable and worthy of our imitation. Our God is from every standpoint worthy of our love, praise, worship, adoration, devotion and service. In the highest sense His higher primary graces reflect credit on Him, and only in a less degree do His lower primary graces honor Him. And as we devoutly contemplate these, we are enabled to imitate them and thus become transformed into His likeness. To secure this end is one of the main reasons for these chapters on God's graces of heart and mind.

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