by my teaching to the knowledge and favour of God, "if ye have love one towards another." 5 It is true, we cannot love, strictly speaking, that is, we cannot have the feeling of love excited in our hearts, merely because we are commanded to love. It is not the nature of that affection to be produced by command. But we may show the signs, and do the works of love. We may perform as a duty those services which the feeling of affection would spontaneously fulfil. This, indeed, is required, even towards those who are not brethren: even towards enemies and persecutors. The martyr Stephen could not feel towards the men who were blaspheming the name which he revered, and who were compassing his own death, the affection with which he would regard his christian brethren who were standing by. But he could do what love would dictate. He could desire all that the warmest affection could desire. He could say, "Father, lay not this sin to their charge." In the same manner every Christian will abound in the works of love, though he cannot feel towards all men as Jonathan felt towards David, when he "loved him as his own soul." It is not this kind of affection which is commanded. But it is that sort of affection which the Samaritan displayed towards the wounded traveller, when he saw him lying by the wayside. He treated him as if he had been his friend or his brother. He did what his means allowed, and the occasion required; and so doing he fulfilled the 5 John xiii. 35. 6 Acts vii. 60. 7 1 Sam. xviii. 3. commandment which enjoins, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. Nothing is wanting to remedy the worst and saddest evils which affect our world, except that this commandment were generally observed. Then would there be no calamity without its appropriate relief. Then there would be no indigence without the aid of charity; no sickness without attendance and care; no sorrow without the comfort of sympathy. Then there would be no fatherless neglected, no widows unvisited in their affliction. Then there would be no ignorance untaught, no vice or carelessness unwarned. If the love of God were general, so would be the love of man. And if the love of man were general, and each did for his neighbour what God desires to have done, and what love would incline to do, then the world would be no longer a wilderness, nor man's path through it along a vale of tears. LECTURE LXXIII. THE NATURE OF FAITH IN CHRIST. 1 JOHN v. 1. 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him. In this remarkable passage, (for so it would ap pear if we read it now for the first time,) a certain class of persons is excepted out of the mass of mankind, and represented as born of God. In many respects all men are alike. All are naturally corrupt, and prone to sin; all by nature liable to disease and death; and, in one sense, all are God's children. As Creator, he is Father of all mankind. But here among those who are in such respects alike, a difference is made by the apostle, who declares, not concerning every man, but concerning that man, whoever he be, who believeth that Jesus is the Christ, that he is born of God. Surely they to whom this truth is revealed will inquire into themselves, and ask, "Lord, is it I?" Have we the mark and character of thy children? It would seem, at first sight, that this character must be easily discovered. Does a man believe that Jesus is the Christ? The fact presented to us appears extremely simple. It is known that from the earliest times God had revealed a merciful design of repairing the evil which Adam's sin had caused. He had afterwards expressly promised that a Deliverer should be born of Abraham's race, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. This promise was often alluded to and repeated in different stages of the Jewish history. And such a deliverer was universally expected by that nation and those connected with it. So that persons are described in the gospels as looking for the redemption of Israel;" as "waiting for the consolation of Israel." Even the Samaritans, who had been long separated from the Jews, and had no part of the Jewish scriptures except the writings of Moses, 66 even they cherished this expectation. For the Samaritan woman with whom our Lord discourses in John iv. answers to him, "I know that Messias cometh, who is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things." The angels, likewise, who announced to the Jewish shepherds the birth of Jesus, speak as of a thing familiar to their minds, and say, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." And the aged Simeon, when the infant was presented in the temple, acknowledges the accomplishment of what he had been expecting, and not of a thing new and strange, and says, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word." The promise of God was kept, the prophecies fulfilled, and the expected deliverer came, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Our Lord answered the woman of Samaria, when she declared her belief that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: “I that speak unto thee am he." 1 In Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he referred to the prophecies describing the Messiah ; and then fastened the eyes of all upon himself by announcing, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. So that Andrew remarks to his companion, Simon Peter, "We have seen the Messias." And Philip says to Nathanael, "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." And when various reports were raised concerning Jesus, and 1 John iv. 26. 2 Luke iv. 21. 3 John i. 45. some affirmed one thing, and some another, the apostles confidently declared, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” * Such is the fact to be believed. It is no new thing to us. We are constantly asserting that we believe it. We have no reason to doubt of it. When, indeed, our Lord was himself on earth; when his kingdom answered so ill to the common expectation of the Jews; when he went about with a few ordinary men as his followers, and had not where to lay his head; it might then be a question of doubt whether he was the Messiah; whether he who had no beauty that men should desire him, could be the same whose "name was to be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace." Only the mighty works that he did, only the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, could persuade men that he was the Son of God. But to us it presents no such difficulty. And though to the Jewish nation "the veil still remains untaken away, "6 and they still look for a deliverer whose kingdom shall be of this world, we only wonder at their blindness, and are all ready to give assent to the fact, that Jesus was the Christ. Is it then on a simple assent to this fact, that all the great privileges are suspended which are covenanted to those born of God? "If children, then heirs heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ ?" Can we suppose that all who do not, like unbelieving Jews, deny that Jesus is the Messiah, are, indeed, 4 Matt. xvi. 13. 5 Isa. ix. 6. 7 Rom. viii. 17. |