Trait 18.

TRAIT 18.

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 toward 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,” Romans 9:1-3. As though he should say, “It is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,” Galatians 3:13. 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,” Philippians 3:10; “and filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church,” Colossians 1:24. 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 countrymen. 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 malicious 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 19.

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 have 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,” Romans 1:13-16. If he writes to stranger converts, 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 of you always in my prayers. Making request, if, by any means, I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me,” Romans 1:9-12.

If the Apostle Paul, when he knew the Romans no otherwise than by report, expressed so ardent a desire to see them for the sole purpose of inciting them to seek after higher degrees of faith and piety; what must be the disposition of those ministers who feel no desires of this nature, even for the members of their own flock? And in how great an error are those Christians, who frequently assemble together, either in their own houses, or in more public places, for the very purpose of mutually forgetting the restraints of piety, losing their time in frivolous conversation, and debasing their minds by puerile amusements! Farther: if the new nature of the regenerate excites in them that lively concern for the salvation of their neighbours, which St. Paul expressed for the Salvation of those who inhabited the remotest parts of the earth, is it becoming in the faithful to stifle the motions of that commendable zeal which Christian charity alone can inspire? And if there are to be found among us dignified teachers, who, far from seconding a zeal so necessary in our day, are rather disposed to extinguish the first sparks of it, wherever they are discernible; whom may they be said to take for their model, Paul the apostle, or Saul the Pharisee? Doubtless Saul, the agent of a bigoted sect, and the open persecutor of the faithful.