Trait 30.

TRAIT 30.

The ardour of his love.

THE passions are the springs by which we are usually actuated. Reason alone is too weak to put us in motion so often as duty requires; but when love, that sacred passion of the faithful, comes in to its assistance, we are then sweetly constrained to act in conformity to the various relations we sustain in civil and religious life. Thus the God of nature has rooted in the hearts of mothers a fond affection, which keeps them anxiously attentive to the wants of their children. And thus the Spirit of God implants in the bosom of a good pastor that ardent charity which excites him to watch over his flock with the most affectionate and unwearied attention. The love of a father to his son, the attachment of a nurse to her foster child, the tender affection of a mother to her infant, are so many emblems employed in the Holy Scriptures to set forth the sweetness and ardour of that Christian love which animates the true minister to the performance of his several duties. “You know,” says St. Paul, “how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children: we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us,” 1 Thessalonians 2:7, 8, 11. “God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,” Philippians 1:8. “Receive us; for ye are in our hearts to die and live with you,” 2 Corinthians 7:2, 3. Worldly pastors can form no idea of that ardent charity which dictates such benevolent language, and accompanies it with actions which demonstrate its sincerity. This is one of those mysterious things which are perfectly incomprehensible to the natural man, and which frequently appear to him as the extremest folly. This fervent love improves us into new creatures, by the sweet influence it maintains over all our tempers. This holy passion deeply interests the faithful pastor in the concerns of his fellow Christians, and teaches him to rejoice in the benefits they receive, as though his own prosperity were inseparably connected with theirs. “I thank my God,” writes the great apostle to the benefactor of his brethren, “making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; that the communication of thy faith may become effectual, by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother,” Philippians 5:4-7. The sorrow and the joy of this zealous imitator of Christ were generally influenced by the varying states of the faithful. When any, who had once run well, were seen loitering by the way, or starting aside from the path of life, he expressed the most sincere affliction on their account. There are some, “of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ,” Philippians 3:18. On the other hand, the progress of believers was as marrow to his bones, and as the balsam of life to his heart: “We are glad when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection,” 2 Corinthians 13:9. “My brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. Be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain,” Philippians 4:1; 2:15, 16.

Reader, whoever thou art, permit me to ask thee an important question. Art thou acquainted with that ardent charity that influenced the Apostle Paul? If his Christian love was like a rapid and deep river; is thine at least like a running stream whose waters fail not? Do thy joys and thy sorrows flow in the same channel, and tend to the same point, as the sanctified passions of this benevolent man? Relate the chief causes of thy satisfaction and thy displeasure, and I will tell thee whether, like Demas, thou art a child of this present world, or a fellow citizen of heaven, with St. Paul. f2