3. As fountains have their rise in hills, so this of love is first in God’s heart in heaven: ‘We love God, because he loved us first,’ 1 John 4:10. ‘It springeth up,’ says Christ, ‘to eternal life,’ i.e., its original. Aqua in tantum ascendit, &c. I have done with the metaphor; I come to the naked sense intended, ἔτι μᾶλλον καὶ μᾶλλον περισσεύῃ, ‘may abound yet more and more.’ It had abounded already; the love of the primitive times it abounded, as you read, 1 Thess. 4:9, 10. One rivulet remains