The Divine Love

Chapter 10 THE DIVINE LOVE IN ITS REFLEX POWER AND MANIFESTATIONS.

DETACHED ANNOTATIONS.

1. The Momentous Question

' So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my Lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, Son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him. Feed my sheep ' - John 22:15-17.

Peter had denied his Lord. The heart of the bold man had failed; and in fright at the gossip of a waiting maiden, he who had drawn a sword in presence of the Roman soldiers, told a deliberate falsehood ― once and again, and the third time confirmed his denial with an oath. 'I know not the man,' he solemnly avowed ― that man with whom but a few hours before he had pledged himself to die ― that man who, as the words of repudiation reached His ear, turned such a look of pity upon the recreant apostle, that he went out and wept bitterly.' Precious tears of thine, Peter, for they relieved the oppression of thy sorrow, and were the signs of thy genuine contrition. Judas had none to shed, and he 'went and hanged himself.' But Jesus still loved Peter, and the message about His own resurrection ran thus; ' Go and tell his disciples, and Peter.' what kindness to the penitent! ― and he needed it. 'Nay, early on the very day He rose, the Lord appeared to Simon. And now, when the Master met him. He saw his returning love; for as soon as he knew that it was the Lord, he tightened his robe, flung himself into the cold sea, and, bravely buffetting the waves, swam to the shore ― more than a hundred yards. The whole company then got the invitation from the mysterious purveyor, ' Come and dine.'' And they dined, and the meal being ended, Peter was accosted with the startling question, Lovest thou me? His smitten heart at once replied, ' Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.' Again was the question put, and again was the same answer given. A third time did the Lord make the unvarying interrogation, and a third time, Peter answered with a broader assurance, 'Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.' Three times had he denied his Master, and three times was he questioned as to his love. But his mind was now chastened ― there was no bold asseveration ― no pledge of going to death ― no boast of superior attachment. The humble appeal was at length to Christ's own omniscience and His knowledge of the speaker's heart.

Now, does not the same authority put the same question to us? Has not He the right to put it? Dare we demur to answer it? Can we challenge the Saviour's claim to our love? If He has loved us, and died for us ― given us such a pledge of His love as cannot be rivalled; and if He is bestowing upon us the fruits of that love in forms of blessing which He only could think of and confer ― beyond all question we are summoned to love Him. Surely as He points to Calvary in the past, and to the Heaven prepared by Him and held by Him for the future, He has the unchallengeable claim of asking, 'Lovest thou me?' And is it not to bestir us to self-examination that He so shapes the question? He is anxious that we love Him. And the formal question is meant to put us on our guard. He questions you, to prompt you to question yourselves. Let us look in and examine. Is love to Christ there at all; or, is it so overlaid that we cannot detect it? Is it there in power as it ought to be; or, is it, as in a coffin, feeble and useless? Is it the ruling passion, or but an incidental guest? Does it constrain you to self-consecration; or rather, do you repress and stifle it? You have certainly done many things unworthy of that love, and probably some things in defiance of it; there is, therefore, just cause that you subject yourselves to a searching scrutiny. Of the woman welcomed by the Lord, he said, ' she loved much.' O that He could bear such a testimony of us! May not Jesus be suspecting you, when He puts the testing question? Has He not just grounds? Peter had thrice denied Him; and have you never acted in a similar spirit? You may not, in so many words, have disclaimed all knowledge of Him; but, alas, how often have you acted as if He did not exist! as if there were no Christ, or you had no faith in Him, and no love to Him ― as if you had renounced all His claims upon you. You do not say so ― you would shrink from saying it; but you have acted as if it were so. Ah yes; when that pursuit so engrossed you that you could think of nothing else but it, according to your own confession; when that object you set your heart upon was the thought of the day and the dream of the night; when that child became so much of an idol, or that fame so much of a passion; when that affliction suddenly struck you, and in your first paroxysm you did not think at once of telling Jesus; when that temptation overcame you, and you forgot Him in its early blandishments; when that company treated His name lightly, and you interposed not to rebuke or argue; or when that enterprise of Christian beneficence was set on foot, and you allowed it to go on without one word of approbation, one prayer for its success, or one mite for its support. May not Christ suspect you, to induce you to suspect yourselves, and have you not just grounds of suspicion? Be jealous over yourselves with a godly jealousy, and slacken not your efforts, and abate not your scrutiny, till you can appeal to His omniscience, and say, 'Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.' See that you do this as honestly as Peter. O to be warranted to do so, with yet higher assurance! The grand proof of Peter's love was to be seen in his obedience to the command, ' Feed my lambs: feed my sheep.' This ' shepherding' of the flock was to be his special care; and nobly he discharged its duties, till at length he sealed his testimony with his blood. And still the cause of Christ represents Himself, and it is neither an unworthy nor an uncommissioned representative. He that loves Him, will love it. Where there is love to Him, there must be love to it.

'Hast Thou a lamb in all Thy flock
I would disdain to feed?
Hast Thou a foe before whose face
I fear Thy cause to plead?' For whatever reminds, and is so moulded and placed as to remind one of the absent object of love, creates attachment to itself. The cause of Christ so stands to us; and if we love Christ, we cannot but love it. It is His: His heart is set upon it, it bears upon it His image, and He has left it in charge to His people. The furtherance of that cause can rightly proceed only from love to Him in it. If we are indifferent to it ― if we care not about the purity, the union, and the extension of the church ― if we pray not, labour not, and give not for it ― if we prefer not Jerusalem to our chiefest joy, how can any one of us dare to say to the risen Redeemer, ' Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee!' Would not His immediate, if not indignant answer be, ' If ye love me, keep my commandments;' and in My absence, cherish My cause ― the cause I bled for, and then committed to you ― the cause involving My glory and My full reward? And that cause of His is no abstract or impersonal thing. His people are identified with it ― they are its embodiment. They bear His likeness, and each one that loves Him, will also love His image. And therefore He who challenges our love has, in order to warn and direct us, left behind Him ― 2 THE NEW COMMANDMENT.

'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.'
John 13:34-35. The divine love produces in the believer's heart the reflection of itself. Not only does it incite him to love the Lord Jesus Christ, but to love all who bear Christ's image. Love to the brethren is only another form of loving Christ, for it is loving Christ in them. The Redeemer is absent Himself, but He has left behind Him visible representatives; and they are, for His sake, to share in our affection. Of Him it is said, 'Whom, having not seen, ye love;' but of them it is true, that because we see them, therefore do we love them. To His disciples at the Paschal board, and over the symbols of His holy suffering humanity, our Lord said, 'Whither I go, ye cannot come.' I am about to leave you, and ye cannot in the meantime follow Me. It is on your errand I am going, and ye must remain behind to do My work. So long as He was with them, He was the bond of union among them: loving Him, they loved one another in Him. But He was soon to be withdrawn from them, and therefore it was needful to lay upon them the injunction still to love one another. In their new circumstances, there was need of the new commandment. The family had the more need to cling closely together after the Elder Brother had left them. While they followed Him, if two of them happened to disagree, a word from Him removed the misunderstanding, and a look from Him brought reconciliation and harmony. But now, if offenses should come, and He be away, it was only in the spirit of mutual attachment that peace and concord could be preserved among them.

Such a command as that of brother-love was not wholly new in its spirit. Even under the sternness of the Old Testament, men were summoned to love their neighbour as themselves. But this love was somewhat different from brotherly-kindness. The one is the love of man as man, the other is the love of man as a fellow-believer. Love to the human family is not identical with love to the household of faith. The law had also already taught some points of this duty. Thus the Mosaic statute said, 'Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy brother,' ― a mode of brother-love which, though negative in its form, was genuine in its spirit. But in its expressness and comprehensiveness this command was new. It was now given in direct phraseology, and it developed the one principle to which all preceding enactments were to be traced. Incidental injunctions had contained some one or other of the features of this brother-love; but all such commands were absorbed in this novel and engrossing declaration, Love one another.' Various practical elements had been previously delineated; but now, and for the first time, the theory was enforced. The commandment was new also in its origin and place. It had come, in some of its dictates, from the lips of prophets; but now it was enjoined by the found in the vicinity of other statutes, which cast a shadow over it, for they spoke of the sword, of the stern execution of law, and of some nations doomed to extinction, and of others which could never he naturalized in the Hebrew commonwealth. But now the command is freed from all such neighborhood, from all that might modity its power, or impede its results. For the church is not confined to one nation, but receives its members out of every tribe; and her brotherhood is not broken by difference of rank or colour, of language or social position.

Need we add that it is new in the example by which it is enforced ― ' as I have loved you.' Such a model almost deters us from attempting to comply. Can we come up to Christ's practice? Can that heart of ours, in which love is an implanted and not an original affection, ever resemble that heart where love had ever dwelt?

' As I have loved you.' As if He had said, recall your past intercourse with Me, and summon up to your memory the numerous proofs of My attachment to you. When I first called you, how I bore with your reluctance, and yet loved you. When you interposed so ignorantly and cruelly between Me and the little children, between Me and the Syrophenician women, I did not disband you. When some of you tried to expel the demon and failed, I did not throw you from Me as disgracing your functions, and for ever disqualified from exercising them. When Peter's forwardness and his rash sayings provoked Me, and the ambition of the sons of Zebedee chagrined Me; when the moodiness of Thomas grieved Me, and the treachery of Judas was apparent to Me, I did not exclude them from the list of apostles. When all of you misunderstood My parables, as your subsequent questions so often indicated; when you saw not the purpose of My miracles, and failed in your conceptions of the end of My mission, I did not depose you, and summon others to succeed you. When there arose the strife among you which should be the greatest, that recent outburst of selfish ambition has not quenched My love for you, or prompted Me to blast all your anticipations. Bear with one another, as I have borne with you. Let your love to one another be as Mine to you ― too ardent to be cooled, too tenacious to be severed; like Mine, let it be unaltered amidst changes, unshaken by disappointments, and unextinguished by the occasional coldness it may meet, and even by the hostility which its ardour and honesty may happen to provoke.

'As I have loved you.' Such love as His was a novelty, and therefore the injunction that was at once prompted by it and illustrated in it was certainly 'a new commandment.' The essence of the second table of the law was love; but that love was inculcated in prohibitions of injury to our neighbour, and the code was published amidst 'blackness, and darkness, and tempest;' but now the ruling motive of conduct has been placed in the fulness of light. For as the Master said, I have loved you,' there lay on the table before Him the fragments of a feast designed to set out and commemorate a love the noblest and tenderest the world had ever seen. As I have loved you:' and do you ask what is meant, or what measure of love is requisite? Had he not said but a few minutes ago, ' This is my body broken for you?' and over that cup that so lately passed round, did He not utter these awful words, ' This cup is the 'New Testament in my blood, shed for remission of sins unto many.' As I have loved you' ― is not this declaration still set before us as our model? Such love, pure, unselfish, and ready to deny itself ― such love as brought Him down, 'not to be ministered unto, but to minister' ― such love as prompted Him to endure the cross, ' despising the shame' ― such love as still sustains His uplifted arm while He pleads ― the image of this love ought to characterize our love to the brethren. But such love as His was ' a new thing in the earth,' and therefore the commandment based upon it and exemplified in it was ' a new commandment.'

Besides one of the ends our Lord had in view was indeed till then unheard of: 'By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' Discipleship had been evinced in various shapes, and discovered by numerous tests. But no ' master' ever dreamed of imposing such an obligation, and creating by it such a characteristic. The scholars of the Academy, the Portico, or the Lyceum were at once known by their modes of reasoning, their attachment to distinctive theories, and their frequent appeals to Plato, Zeno, or Aristotle. The Jew was recognised by his dress and language, his reverence for Moses, his selection among meats and drinks, and his antipathy to all the races of the uncircumcision. If you entered a company of Greeks, and found them theorizing upon pleasure, its nature, enjoyment, and modes, you would at once pronounce them to be Epicureans; or if, mixing with another crowd, you were met with such sounds as fate, liberty, necessity, wisdom, and chief good, you would feel in a moment that you were among the Stoics. Did you, in any city of Judea, see a man clothed with a robe deeper than common, and adorned with a phylactery of unusual breadth ― did you follow him, and hear him pray with a stentorian voice to attract all passers by, or see him give alms so ostentatiously as to draw upon him the public gaze and admiration, you would have no doubt that you beheld a Pharisee. And if, on the streets of Jerusalem, you met with one in whose dress the prominent portions of the national uniform were carefully pared down, who, as he passed with you near the temple, observed with a quiet sneer that the scent of the burning sacrifice tainted the air, or who, as he looked on the place of sepulchers, assumed a philosophic air and spoke of death as the debt of nature, as a hard and universal necessity; smiled at the idea of a spirit-land, and hinted that the prevailing belief on that point was not consonant to reason, or based on a rational interpretation of scripture ― you would have no difficulty in detecting the speaker to be a Sadducee. But our Lord discards what is external; and His followers are to be known not by dress, language, or occupation, but by the mutual kindness which they cherished and exercised toward one another. They were to be known not by mind, but by heart ― not by intellect, but by soul.

How, then, should such love prove and glorify their Christianity? In this way. Love had never so belonged to any system. There might have been selfish attachments, but there was no genuine affection. Christ, however, came into the world to teach and illustrate love. Love is the very genius of his system. All its doctrines lead to love as their centre, and all its duties depend upon it for their fulfillment. Love is the essence of all its promises, and the lustre of all its hopes. It teaches that love to Jesus should fill the heart, and that the entire life should be swayed and consecrated by its influence. In imitation of the God of Love, it inculcates love to every living thing, and a special attachment toward all that bear His likeness. He who loved us and gave Himself for us, is the model we are summoned to copy in all our words and deeds. Love of the purest, fullest, and most disinterested nature is enjoined upon His disciples, and is to be uniformly exemplified by them.

' He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all'

Now, if men see such love, and observe its unselfish nature ― if they witness its self-denial and nobleness, over-leaping all conventionalities, and laying low every barrier which pride so often erects, and surviving also those shocks and trials which convert common affection into enmity or jealous rivalry, then they must feel that it is an uncommon and unearthly principle; and as it exists only among persons of a certain creed, they at once ' take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus.' No other system breathed such a spirit. The Greek sneered at all the world beyond himself as barbarian, and the Jew scowled upon it as uncircumcised. In Rome the word denoting a stranger meant also an enemy; and the classic tongues have no term to signify those erections where the sick and aged are sheltered and healed. In the eye of law, the slave was a thing; but the gospel made him a brother, and more than a brother. Creed is not enough, for there may be a dead orthodoxy; but this warm love, an image of His own, is the test of discipleship. Alas that it should be so feebly manifested, and that we should so seldom make ' full proof of our discipleship! The world may not be inclined to study books on the Evidences; it may not busy itself in analyzing the reality of miracles, or proving the fulfillment of prophecy; but here is a proof which commands attention, while no profound scrutiny is needed to detect it, and no earnest logic to reach its resistless conclusion ― 'hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' But there is another reason why such brother-love should characterize us, and that is, the enmity of the world round about us. "We are thus led to contemplate ― 3 THE NECESSITY AND GROWTH OF LOVE IN THE MIDST OF PERSECUTION.

'This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. . . . These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.' ― John 15:12; John 15:17-18. The Lord here repeats His injunction. He had made them all His friends, and in being His friends they were to be mutual friends. The magnet that drew them to Himself, did, by the same process, attract them to one another. The nearer they came to Him, the nearer they came to one another. But they were left in a world of hostility ― a world that loathed them, scorned them, and scrupled not to shed their blood. If such rancor reigned around them, there was surely all the more reason why among themselves they should ' walk in love.' A small army in an enemy's country clings tenaciously together. The little company exposed to persecution should comfort one another, and put on that ' love which is the bond of perfectness.' Love in the midst of themselves Would be productive of peace and joy, would be a holy fire which the adverse winds could not extinguish, but only fan into a flame. Such love was to be as a family feeling, which becomes the stronger the more the family interests are threatened by external opposition. The world may bite and devour ― there may be in it envying and strife, confusion and every evil work ― it may be marked by its fierce competitions, springing from its motto that there is no friendship in trade; but surely in the church, the law of kindness should be devoutly and universally recognised ― its members not only 'forbearing one another and forgiving one another' in love, but striving for one another's welfare, 'in honour preferring one' another,' ready to lay down their lives for the brethren, as Christ laid down His for them, and exemplifying in their practice their belief in the statement, ' now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.' But brother-love is not only an evidence of discipleship to the world, it is also ― 4 THE CONSCIOUS TEST OF A SAVING CHANGE TO OURSELVES.

' We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren: he that loveth not his brother abideth in death ― 1 John 3:14. To pass from death to life ― how momentous and necessary the change! ― to pass from gloom and sorrow, insensibility and wrath, to light, health, activity, and blessedness. It is a change which divine power and love alone can effect. The ear of death wakes up to no voice but that of God. What joy to be warranted in saying, 'we live.' Now, the apostle proposes a test of the reality of this life. We know it, ' because we love the brethren.' This is no ambiguous declaration or criterion. And it is a sure one. These brethren bear the image of Christ; and only in so far as they bear that image, can we recognise them as brethren. Our love to them is but another form of love to Christ; and there can be no love to Christ where His salvation is not enjoyed. Faith is the means of life, and love exists as the result of saving faith. There can be no capability of love without the quickening power of such faith. For the human heart has by nature no attachment to the beauty of holiness. It finds no attraction in it. It does not appreciate spirituality of character. Therefore, not until it feel the influence of Divine Love upon itself, can it be drawn toward the results of that love in others. But it will be so drawn, as soon as it is conscious of ' the love of God shed abroad' within it. If, then, it pass out of a state of enmity or indifference into that of love, it knows that it has ' passed from death unto life.' So that if you do not love Christ's image in a brother, nor hail as a brother him in whose bosom that image is enshrined, you are yet in death, ' as Cain, who was of that wicked one.' ' He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.' Hatred is the nurse of murder, and ' no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.' The loveless heart is at once a faithless and a lifeless heart. And among the results of this brother-love there is one form which occupies a prominent place, and that is love to the poorer brethren, leading us to sympathize with them and to relieve them. So that this love is ― 5 THE BASIS OF THE CHRISTIAN POOR LAW.

' But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? ― 1 John 3:17. The gospel does not produce uniformity of social condition. ' The poor have ye always with you.' Some ride in chariots, and some are humble pedestrians. Some have abundance, others are denied it. Some have increasing stores, and others, with the utmost frugality, are still touching the verge of poverty and debt. But this inequality is the means, under God, of developing the choicest of the Christian virtues. "Were all rich, there would be no room for Christian benevolence; were all happy and prosperous, there would be no space nor call for Christian sympathy. Were there no brethren in need, we should be denied the luxury of doing good. If there were no distress, ' pure religion and undefiled' would never be fully exhibited. Nor could we copy Christ's example in many of its noblest features, or drink into the spirit of His work, if the church did not present such opportunities. Therefore the fairest graces of the Holy Spirit, and the noblest and loveliest adornments of the Christian character, would never be seen, but for the inequalities and hardships of social life within the pale of the church. Homage to the absent Christ in His members would also be impossible, if there were no prison with its inmates, and no sick-bed with its sufferers. No wonder that love takes this form, and rejoices in it. In doing good to the needy, it imitates Him who came into the world to serve. It pictures Him girt with the towel, and in the act of stooping to the basin and washing the disciples' feet. It tastes the blessedness of giving. It does not deal in cheap commiseration: ' If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?' The Christian heart will be thankful for the opportunity of imparting relief to a Christian brother, and proving itself a faithful steward: 'Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?' In opening itself to distress, it feeds itself with sublime enjoyment: 'And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day; and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.'

But, specially, it is glad in this accredited way to manifest its love to Christ; for He and His are identified. It is in this spirit that relief should be offered or beneficence conferred, so as to receive the commendation, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' Me,' said He," 'ye have not always.' But He never wants representatives; and this love to Him through them, is so pleasing to Jesus, that on the day of judgment He shall openly refer to it, as if to vindicate His sentence of acceptance by it, or as if it were the highest proof of the power of faith, and of the reality of their salvation. ' Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them. Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' And thus we find the church in Antioch, when a famine had been predicted, resolving at once 'to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea.' ' Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.' We do not further pursue these sentiments of the beloved disciple, who rejoiced to his dying day in exhorting the members of the church to love one another, and who was privileged especially to make the sublime announcement that ' God is Love.'

Again, all who love Christ will rejoice in holding fellowship with Him. Therefore it is that they have special attachment to the 'Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms,' which are so full of Him. So that love to Christ is indicated by ― 6 LOVE TO THE BIBLE.

'And they are they which testify of me.' ― John 5:29

All who love another, and who love Christ, also love ' His appearance and coming.' 'Amen. So come,' is the language of their hearts. On this account they cherish the book which contains the promise of his advent, and often have recourse to it as a communication from Himself. In and by the Bible they hold correspondence with Jesus. They meet Him in it ― Him who is the great promise of the Old Testament, and the great fact of the New. There is indeed much about the book to interest them, but its Christ is the principal attraction. There they see Him in His love ― there they hear His words, and behold His wondrous deeds. They can there bend over His cradle, and kneel by His cross ― sail with Him on the lake, and journey with Him on His errands of mercy. The New Testament, therefore, has exercised a supremacy of love in the church. It consists of only two modes of composition ― telling a story and writing a letter. But the book is immortal, for believers love it, and will not let it die. And they have felt its influence in a variety of forms. For no volume ever commanded such a profusion of readers, or has been translated into so many languages. Such is the universality of its spirit, that no book loses less by translation ― none has been so frequently copied in manuscript, and none so often printed. King and noble, peasant and pauper, are delighted students of its pages. Philosophers have humbly gleaned from it, and legislation has been thankfully indebted to it. Its stories charm the child, its hopes inspirit the aged, and its promises soothe the bed of death. The maiden is wedded under its sanction, and the grave is closed under its comforting assurances. Its lessons are, the essence of religion, the seminal truths of theology, the first principles of morals, and the guiding axioms of political economy. Martyrs have often bled and been burnt for attachment to it. It is the theme of universal appeal. In the entire range of literature, no book is so frequently quoted or referred to. The majority of all the books ever published have been in connection with it. The Fathers commented upon it, and the subtle divines of the middle ages refined upon its doctrines. It sustained Origen's scholarship and Chrysostom's rhetoric. It whetted the penetration of Abelard, and exercised the keen ingenuity of Aquinas. It gave life to the revival of letters, and Dante and Petrarch revelled in its imagery. It augmented the erudition of Erasmus, and roused and blessed the intrepidity of Luther. Its temples are the finest specimens of architecture, and the brightest triumphs of music are associated with its poetry. The text of no ancient author has summoned into operation such an amount of labour and learning, and it has furnished occasion for the most masterly examples of criticism and comment, grammatical investigation, and logical analysis. It has also inspired the English muse with her loftiest strains. Its beams gladdened Milton in his darkness, and cheered the song of Cowper in his sadness. It was the star which guided Columbus to the discovery of the new world. It furnished the panoply of that Puritan valour which shivered tyranny in days gone by. It is the magna charta of the world's regeneration and liberties. The records of false religion, from the Koran to the Book of Mormon, have owned its superiority, and surreptitiously purloined its jewels. Among the Christian classics it loaded the treasures of Owen, charged the fulness of Hooker, barbed the point of Baxter, gave colors to the palette and sweep to the pencil of Bunyan, enriched the fragrant fancy of Taylor, sustained the loftiness of Howe, and strung the plummet of Edwards. In short, this collection of artless lives and letters has changed the face of the world, and ennobled myriads of its population. May we not, then, sum up these various precepts, and say with the apostle ― 7 ' WALK IN LOVE ' Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us... - Ephesians 5:1-2

Yes, 'Walk in love.' Not simply, pray in love, or ' keep the feast' in love; not simply, hold the doctrine of the communion of the saints in love, or give relief to the poorer brethren in love; but 'Walk in love.' Every, step is to be one of love. The whole tenor and course of life are to be characterized by love ― not only on the Sabbath, but on every day; not only in the sanctuary, but in the house, the workshop, the counting-room, and the exchange. Love is to reign, not only in the Ianguage of congratulation, but also in that of reproof; and to hold its sway, not merely when Christians meet in the oratory, but when they ofter one another civilities on the streets. Nor is it suddenly to forsake them when they are making a bargain, and each is looking for his own profit by the transaction. Are you injured? Love forbids you to retaliate. You might perhaps derive from some business considerable advantage, and yet keep within the limits of commercial usage, though you certainly would go beyond the bounds of Christian equity, ― then love interdicts you. It may be that one who has done you some harm has come into your power, and you could easily and safely let him feel your memory of his past offense: love ' worketh no ill to his neighbour,' but bids you ' heap coals of fire upon his head.' Is there any one whom you could oblige and benefit without being under any formal or legal obligation to do so? Love requires you to 'do good,' as you have opportunity. Perhaps there is another in whom you do not feel a very great interest, but in some moment when you might be of service to him, and direct him to some useful opening in life, love will keep your tongue from justifying your indifference, and saying, 'Am I my brother's keeper.

' Walk in love.' Were this walk of love to be always trodden, how very soon would ecclesiastical and civil discords cease. Were nations to observe this precept, there would speedily come to an end all forms of selfish monopoly and tariff"; all attempts to convert might into right, and to enforce an ambitious and grasping policy by the cannon and the sword. Love would far outweigh diplomacy. Were churches to remember this injunction, alienation because of differences in ritual and government would disappear, truth would be spoken in love, the jargon of sectarianism would never be heard, and catholicity and conscientiousness would not only coexist, but coalesce. And if individuals were to keep the Christian statute in their hearts, no little animosity and misunderstanding would be avoided. But how often has the 'dead fly' fallen into the apothecary's ointment. One drop of the 'gall of bitterness' has an infinitesimal power of self-diffusion; for they who taste it, and they who behold the result, are alike under temptation to forget themselves. It is a strange thing that any rational mind should be guilty of this 'little folly,' which in so many forms frets itself and embroils others ― either haunted by the suspicion that it is slighted or overlooked, and for ever guarding itself against the baseless fancy by hard and rash accusations of others, or set on edge by the slightest occurrence, and ingeniously construing accident into design ― claiming independence of speech, yet hurt and ruffled into surly displeasure should others speak and act under the very same plea ― utterly regardless of the annoyance it causes to others, or the obstacles it raises to Christian fellowship ― loving, above all things, to utter a truth which may be distasteful to others, and yet annoyed beyond measure when any truth is spoken distasteful to itself ― stiff and unyielding, not in defence of principle, but only in obedience to its own inherent and unreasonable obstinacy ― mistaking narrow-mindedness for fidelity, and baptizing its censorious surmises by the sacred title of conscientiousness or rectitude. Such infirmities of temper are all of them deviations from this path of love. No apology can vindicate them either in church or market. It is a shame for any disciple of the religion of love either, on the one hand, to be thrown off his balance by a fit of indignation, or, on the other hand, to cherish a grudge, and to feed it against any one who may have given him offense. The prayer of Ebert Hall in a moment of provocation was a very fitting one: ' Lamb of God; Lamb of God, calm my perturbed spirit.' ' Slow to speak, slow to wrath,' is a maxim of prudence and inspiration. The Master, 'when he was reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, he threatened not.' There is nothing so remote from Christ's example as a hard and uncharitable disposition.

' Walk in love.' There are no thorns in the path, but all deviations from it lead into thickets of distress, and the transgressor lacerates his own feet with briar's and thistles. He grieves others, and, in proportion to the tenderness of his conscience, he is a plague and sorrow to himself. ' Walk in love,' and you induce others to tread in your steps. But all such loveless and repulsive features of character do not and cannot commend the gospel around you.

'Walk in love.' It is 'the more excellent way,' for it leads to perfection. Were the path fully recognised and entered on by professing Christians, and were those around them again to be urged to exclaim, ' See these Christians how they love one another,' we might safely hail such a period as the dawn of the world's jubilee. Let us, therefore, commend the grace of Christian love. ' The fruit of the Spirit is love.' Ought not Himself to be loved, as He is ' altogether lovely?' and should not His hold a place in our heart of hearts? O if we or our churches were to meet 'with one accord,' as on the morning of Pentecost, and present our united supplications for reviving influence, its effusion would develop our mutual affinities, and bring us into sympathetic contact and final unity. Men have struggled for the faith ― let them now contend for love. With a pure theology, let us have a warm and out-flowing religion. Loving Him who begat, let us love 'him that is begotten.' 'Above all things,' says an apostle, ' have fervent charity among yourselves.' Let prejudice be charmed away by calm and dignified appeal. Let there be a constant desire to accommodate. 'See that ye fall not out by the way,' is an admonition as appropriate in our days as in those of Joseph. Let the spirit of mutual condescension pervade our every arrangement. No one is to deem his opinion infallible, or his character in all respects invulnerable. Again, Jesus is our model. At the last supper, he was among his disciples ' as one that serveth;' and he taught them the nature and spirit of that service of love which they ought ever to render to one another: ' So, after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them. Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Yerily, verily I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.' And now, perhaps, we are able to understand the apostle's statement when he says, ' The greatest of these is charity.' Let us, then, in conclusion, try and enter into the spirit of ― 8 The Apostle's Adjudication Among the Graces 'And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.' ― 1 Corinthians 13:13 The apostle in this chapter proves the superiority of love by two comparisons. He compares it first with the miraculous endowments of the primitive age, and his conclusion is, that they shall disappear, but love shall survive, and always keep its place in the church. The gifts of the early church were of a bright and dazzling order ― prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. They have passsd away with the age that needed them. But 'love never faileth.' It can never be superseded. The church, bereft of the extraordinary, has still the ordinary graces of the Spirit: for the apostle, in his second comparison, says, 'And now abideth faith, hope, love ― these three.' We dare not disparage faith, for according to our faith so is it unto us; and we cannot look lightly on hope, 'for we are saved by hope.' 'But the greatest of these is love.' It leavens all other graces with its spirit. 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' ' Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.' 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments bans: all the law and the prophets.' Every precept of the Decalogue is thus resolved into love, which is thereby enthroned on an eminence to which faith and hope cannot be elevated.

Farther, eloquence such as would befit an angel's lips is, without it, only ' as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.' Profound insight into the depths of faith, and supernatural ability to disclose its mysteries, are ' nothing,' if love be absent. The labours and sacrifices of professed philanthropy, if not prompted and sustained by it, ' profit nothing. Such love is not soon exhausted, is filled with unwearying sympathy, never grudges what another enjoys, never boasts of its efforts, is purely disinterested in all its labours, never rashly withdraws its kindness, imputes no sinister motives, longs to advance God's glory and man's good, is patient under provocation, indulges in no suspicions, forms no censorious judgments, perseveres though it be thwarted, never dreams of rendering evil for evil, and still holds on its course amidst malignity and insult. This noblest of the graces has faith and hope as its supporters, and it therefore rises as far above them, as the end surpasses the means. And when faith and hope shall have ceased to exist in their present forms and aspects, it shall survive unchanged but in intensity. Nay, more, it gives its happy possessor the closest approach to Him who is Love, for faith and hope cannot properly he ascribed to God, but ' God is love,' and ' he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God,' and shall dwell with Him for ever. We are, therefore, brought to the irresistible conclusion that ' The greatest of these is love,' excelling them all on earth and absorbing them all into itself in heaven; for ' Love is heaven, and heaven is love.'