“Was ever love like this? Was it ever equaled? Where shall we find its parallel? Love less divine, less strong, less gentle, could never have won your heart, uprooted your enmity, tore you from your idols; enthroning Christ, all of Christ, Christ only, Christ supremely, Christ forever! The love of Christ will be the wonder, the study, and the song of all pure, holy intelligences through eternity!

Beloved, nothing shall take the love of Christ from you, or separate you from it. It does not ebb with the ebbing of your feelings; it does not chill with the chill of your affections; it does not change with the changing scenes and circumstances of your life. The love of Christ has depths we cannot sound, heights we cannot explore, an infinite fulness and freeness tiding over all the sins, infirmities, and sorrows of its blessed and favored objects.

Seek to know this love of Christ, though it is so vast that it ‘passes knowledge.’ Infinite though it is, you may experience its reality, taste its sweetness, and be influenced by its all commanding, all constraining power. Do not limit your heart experience of Christ’s love, for it is infinite in its nature, and boundless in its extent.”

–Octavius Winslow, The Sympathy of Christ (1862) as cited here (accessed 8.01.2009).