What is the Grace Of Love ?

The grace of love is of God; he is the efficient cause and author of it, as he is of every grace; the apostle John expressly says, "love is of God," of God, Father, Son, and Spirit; it is of God the Father, who is the God of all grace, and so of this (1 John 4:7), and "love with faith," are wished for "from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 6:23), and it stands in the first place among the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), it is wrought in the soul in regeneration, when other graces are, and is an evidence of it; for "every one that loveth is born of God" (1 John 4:7), and a man cannot love God until he is regenerated, and renewed in the Spirit of his mind, and is made a partaker of the spiritual circumcision of the heart, which is necessary to it, and which is promised (Deut. 30:6), this grace only appears with other graces, and when they do; there can be no love to God where there is no knowledge of him; according to that known phrase, "ignoti nulla cupido;" where there is knowledge of him, especially of him in Christ as gracious and merciful there will be love to him (1 John 4:7,8), where ignorance is there is no love; but it appears where knowledge is, and it accompanies faith: both spring from the same abundant grace (1 Tim. 1:14), faith, hope, and love go together (1 Cor. 13:13), as the subject of love is a regenerate man, the seat of it is the heart, not the head, nor the tongue, but the heart; it lies not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth; and true love to God is a love of him with all the heart, soul, and strength.