Page images
PDF
EPUB

TRAIT XVI.

HIS PARTICULAR LOVE TO THE FAITHFUL.

THE universal love of the true minister manifests itself in a particular manner, according to the different situations of those, who are the objects of it. When he finds the whole conduct of professing christians conformable to the nature of their sacred profession," he loves' them with a pure heart fervently ;" and giving way to the effusions of a holy joy, he expresses his affection in words like these: "Brethren, we are comforted over you, in all our affliction and distress, by your faith: for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." And " what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy, wherewith we joy for your sakes before God!" In these expressions of St. Paul an astonishing degree of affection is discovered. "Now we live"....as though he had said, We have a twofold life, the principal life which we receive immediately from Christ, and an accessory life, which we derive from his members, through the medium of brotherly love. And so deeply are we interested in the concerns of our brethren, that we are sensibly affected by the variations they experience in their spiritual state, through the power of that christian sympathy, which we are unable to describe. Thus when sin has detached any of our brethren from Christ, and separated them from the body of the faithful, we are penetrated with the most sincere distress and, on the contrary, whenever they become more affectionately connected with us, and more intimately united to Christ, our common Head, our spirits are then sensibly refreshed, and invigorated with new degrees of life and joy.

Reader, dost thou understand this language? Hast thou felt the power of this christian sympathy?

Or has thy faith never yet produced these genuine sentiments of brotherly love? Then thou hast spoken as a person equally destitute of sensibility and truth, whenever thou hast dared to say...." I believe in the communion of saints."

TRAIT XVII.

HIS LOVE TO THOSE, WHOSE FAITH WAS WAVERING. WHEN a minister, after having been made instrumental in the conversion of sinners, perceives their faith decreasing, and their love growing cold, he feels for them, what the Redeemer felt, when he wept over Jerusalem. Not less concerned for the remissness of his believing hearers, than St. Paul was distressed by the instability of his Galatian and Corinthian converts, he pleads with them in the same affectionate terms: "Ye know," ye who are the seals of my ministry," how I preached the Gospel unto you at the first. And ye despised me not, but received me as an Angel of God. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you," "I tell you with sorrow, that after all my confidence in you, "I stand in doubt of you. Our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recoinpence in the same, (I speak as unto my children) be ye also enlarged. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? or what part hath he that

believeth, with an infidel? Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We beseech you," therefore brethren, "that ye receive not the grace of God in vain."

This language of the christian pastor is almost unintelligible to the minister, who is merely of man's appointing. Having never converted a sin. gle soul to Christ, he has neither spiritual son nor daughter, and is entirely unacquainted with that painful travail, which is mentioned by St. Paul. His bowels are straitened towards Christ and his members, and having closely united himself to the men of the world, he considers the assembly of the faithful as a company of ignorant enthusiasts. But, notwithstanding the spiritual insensibility of these ill-instructed teachers, who never studied in the school of Christ, there is no other token, by which either sincere christians, or true ministers can be discerned, except that fervent love, which the Galatians entertained for St. Paul, before their falling away, and which that Apostle ever continued to entertain for them. "By this," saith our Lord, "shall all, men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."

TRAIT XVIII.

HIS LOVE TO HIS COUNTRYMEN AND HIS ENEMIES.

ST. PAUL, like his rejected master, was persecuted even to death by the Jews, his countrymen, while he generously exposed himself to innumerable hardships, in labouring for their good.

These furious devotees, inspired with envy, revenge, and a persecuting zeal, hunted this Apostle from place to place, as a public pest. And when the Gentiles, on a certain occasion, had rescued him out of their hands, forty of the most hardened among them engaged themselves, by an oath, neither to eat nor drink, till they had assassinated him. But notwithstanding the most indubitable proofs of their bloody disposition towards him, his fervent charity threw a veil over their cruelty, and made him wish to die for his persecutors. "I declare," saith he, " the truth in Christ, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish, that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." As though he should say: "It is written, cursed is every one that hangeth oa a tree" Thus Christ himself became "accursed" for us, and I also would lay down my life for my brethren, "that I may have fellowship with him in his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, and filling up that, which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church." It is by expressions so charitable, and by actions, which demonstrate the sincerity of those expressions, that christians avenge themselves of their enemies, and work upon the hearts of their country men.

If the sentiments of every sincere disciple of Christ are expressed in the preceding language of St. Paul, how deplorable then must be the state of those christians, whose anxiety, either for their own salvation, or for that of their nearest relations, bears no proportion to that eager concern, which this Apostle manifested for the salvation of his bitterest persecutors! And if good pastors feel so ardent a desire to behold all men actuated by the spirit of Christ, without excepting even their most mali

cious enemies, what shall we say to those ministers, who never shed a single tear, nor ever breathed one ardent prayer, for the conversion of their parishioners, their friends, or their families?

TRAIT XIX.

HIS LOVE TO THOSE, WHOM HE KNEW ONLY BY

REPORT.

THOUGH the true minister takes a peculiar interest in every thing, that concerns the salvation of his countrymen, yet his christian benevolence is far from being confined within the narrow limits of a particular country. He desires to bear the name of his Saviour to the ends of the earth; and if he is not able to do this by his personal addresses, he will do it, at least, by his earnest wishes and his constant prayers. If providence has not yet fixed him in a particular church, he writes, in the manner of St. Paul, to the inhabitants of the most distant countries...." I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that I" consider myself as a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and the unwise. And as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you, that are at Rome," where error and impiety have fixed their throne. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one, that believeth." If he writes to strangerconverts, whose faith is publicly spoken of in the world, he declares his sincere attachment to them, and his longing desire to afford them every spiritual assistance, in terms like these...." God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention

« PreviousContinue »