CHAPTER XIII.

How love does not only belong to God but is God.

FINALLY so highly is the virtue of love extolled that the blessed Apostle John declares that it not only belongs to God but that it is God, saying: "God is love: he therefore that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God in him."⁸⁹⁸⁸⁹⁸    1 John 4:16. For so far do we see that it is divine, that we find that what the Apostle says is plainly a living truth in us: "For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in us."⁸⁹⁹⁸⁹⁹    Rom. 5:5. For it is the same thing as if he said that God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who dwelleth in us: who also, when we know not what we should pray for, "makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered: But He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth, for He asketh for the saints according to God."⁹⁰⁰⁹⁰⁰    Rom. 8:26, 27.