What are the tokens? (Tokens, that is, of the feeling existing in God's  mind, irrespective of our ability to be conscious of it) I might speak of creation as it is its beauty, its wisdom, its manifest beneficence: but  you might feel as  if  this  did  not  come close  enough.   Creation  you might feel to be too vast and indiscriminating to give an assurance  upon  which you  could  individually  rest.    This would be a natural feeling to some extent, a  reasonable feeling.   Still, it  may  be carried  too  far:   you must  allow it is something to see divine wisdom and love manifest in creation, as we see it with our eyes.
It is something to see the Father's  impress in the physi­ cal universe, marred and obscured though it may be by the particular  disturbance   prevailing  at   present  in  the  affairs of  men.   Doubtless, it is more to  the  purpose  to  note the fact  of His  having spoken and  acted.   This  fact  comes  to us with Israel's history, and the history of Europe as affected by the apostolic work.    Moses and  the  prophets come  be­ fore us in the other.   The  Bible is the irremovable and in­ expugnable  monument  of  both.    In  the  reading  of  it,  we are in the warm presence of living reality.   We hear God's voice:   we  see  His  wonderful  acts:   we  almost  note  His looks in Christ:  and out of all comes the conviction of the Father's  love not as a fantasy, not as a sentiment, but as a  deduction,  as  scientifically accurate  in  its  process  and result as any  modern demonstration.

What  more explicit assurance  could  we have  than  we have  received?
First Moses tells us:  "The  Lord  thy God is a merciful God...  The  Lord  is long suffering  and  of  great  mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression."    Then from David we have   the   teeming   declarations   with  which   the   Psalms abound, "The  Lord is gracious and full of compassion: slow to  anger,  and  of  great  mercy.   The  Lord  is good  to  all: and  his tender  mercies are  over all  his works.   The  Lord taketh  pleasure in  them that  fear  him:  in  those  that  hope in  his mercy."
Then the prophets, one and all, as occasion serves, unite in telling us what Isaiah declares:  "God  is my salvation, I will trust  and  not be afraid:  for  the  Lord  Yahweh  is my strength and song:  he also is become my salvation . . thou wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose mind  is  stayed  on thee, because he trusteth  in thee."
In the apostolic writings (including in them the apostolic record of Christ's  sayings) God's  love may be said to glow with a  warming brightness that  we cannot  escape.     First, Jesus  tells us in general  that  God  has "loved  the  world," and sent him for the reason that a· way might be opened for His  love  to  operate  conformably  with  His  righteousness. Then particularly, he used such comforting words to the disciples as these: "The Father  himself loveth you." "He careth for you." "How much more shall your heavenly Father  give good things to  them  that  ask  him."
The  apostolic  letters,  which are  the  breathings  of  the Spirit of God, are full of the same comfort.   "If God be for us, who can  be against  us."    "Who  shall separate  us from the love of Christ?    Shall  tribulation  or distress, or  persecution  or  famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril, or  sword?  ...
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that  loved us.   For  I am persuaded  that  neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God  which is in Christ  Jesus our Lord"  (Rom.  8:31-39).
"God,  who is  rich in mercy, for  his great  love where­ with he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he  might  shew  the  exceeding  riches  of  his  grace  in  his kindness  toward  us  through  Christ  Jesus"   (Eph.  2:4-7). "In  this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that  we might live through him.   Herein is love, not that  we loved God, but he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins ... We have seen and do testify, that the Father sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world"   (1   John 4:9-14).
Here, then, are  the tokens and  the  pledges of the love that exists in the Father for His children.   Not only in the Father,  but in Christ, especially, if there is any difference: for  the love of Christ for  his brethren  is compared  to the highest love known  to  man,  the  love of a  bridegroom for his bride  (Eph.  5:25-30).
What  should  hinder  our  joy in this love?   It  has not been intimated  to  us  personally:   but  it  has  been  assured to  "whomsoever"  and  to  "all,"  who come  into  a  certain way  of  things.    You  have come  into  this  way,  and  you walk in  it.   You  believe the great  and  precious promises: you are daily striving to obey the beautiful commandments. Wherein you fail, you may have mercy and forgiveness, through  the  mediation  of  the  "great  high  priest  over  the house of God," who ever liveth to make intercession for us: for, "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ; and if we confess our  sins, he is faithful and just  to forgive us  our  sins and  to cleanse us from  all iniquity."
Remember,  also, for  your  comfort,  that  this love that is  in  God,  the  Father,  and  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is supreme in the heart of every member of the house to which you belong.   You  may not see much of it  now.   You may know more of being "in  heaviness, through  manifold temptation."    You  are far  scattered  and  lonely,  just  now;  but nothing can change the purpose of God  to "gather  together in  one"  the  family  of  His  love, that  they  may  rejoice  in His love, and in the love that will pass in unchecked and flowing stream from heart to heart in their glorified assembly.