Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

parties can tell certainly, on which side thescale preponderates.

It is a narrowness of mind, to wish to confine your friend's affection solely to yourself: If she depends on you alone for all the comforts and advantages of friendship, your absence or death may leave her desolate and forlorn. If therefore you prefer her good to your own gratification, you should rather strive to multiply her friends, and be ready to embrace in your affections all who love her, and deserve her love.

A toad, fed on the vapors of a dungeon, is not such a wretch, as a man of sense who has X had the misfortune to be heartily in love with a weak and worthless woman.

In true love one object must ever reign predominant in the affections, knowing no equal; perhaps in friendship too, we always hold one dearer than all the others beside.

There is in love a power

There is a soft divinity that draws transport
Even from distress, that gives the heart
A certain pang, excelling far the joys
Of gross unfeeling life.

Love is the most elevated and generous of all passions; and, of all others, the most incident to virtuous and liberal minds.

LOVE OF GOD.

THE three great springs of love to God are these: A clear discovery of what God is in himself; a lively sense of what he has done for us, and a well grounded hope of what he will do for us. Where the love of God reigns in the affections, it will command all the powers of nature, and all the rest of the passions to act suitably to this sovereign and all ruling affection of love. The eye will often look up to God in a way of humble dependence; the ear will be attentive to his holy word; the hands will be lifted up to heaven in daily requests; the knees will be bent in humble worship; all the outward powers will be busy in doing the will of God, and promoting his glory. He that loves God, will keep his commandments, and fulfil every present duty with delight: He will endeavor to please God in all his actions, and watch against and avoid whatever may offend him : and while the several outward powers are thus engaged, all the inward affections of nature will be employed in corresponding exercises. Supreme love will govern all the active train of human passions, and lead them captive to cheerful obedience.

How senseless and absurd is the pretence to love God above all things, if we do not resolve to live upon him as our hope and happi

ness; if we do not choose him to be our God and our all, our chief and all-sufficient good in this world, and that which is to come! Where the idea of God, as a Being of supreme excellence, doth not reign in the mind, where the will is not determined and fixed on him, as our supreme good, men are strangers to that sacred and divine affection of love. 'Till this be done, we cannot be said to love God with all our heart.

How necessary and useful a practice is it therefore for a Christian to meditate often on the transcendant perfections and worth of the blessed God; to survey his attributes, and his grace in Christ Jesus; to keep in mind a constant idea of his supreme excellence, and frequently to repeat and confirm the choice of him as our highest hopes, our portion and our everlasting good! This will keep the love of God warm at heart, and maintain the divine affection in its primitive life and vigor. But if our ideas of the adorable and supreme excellence of God grow faint and feeble, and sink lower in the mind; if we lose sight of his amiable glories, the sense of his amazing love in the gospel, his rich promises, and alJuring grace; if we shall abate the fervency of this sacred passion, our love to God grows cold by degrees, and suffers great and gradual decays.

What thanks do we owe to God, who, though we are so much indebted to him, de

mands only our love, to pay off all our debts upon this consideration; doth he not show us, by placing the precept of love above all others, how, poor and insolvent as we are, we may clear ourselves of all that we owe him?

It is surely impossible to read the life and death of our blessed Saviour, without renewing and increasing in our hearts, that love and reverence, and gratitude to him, which is so justly due for all he did and suffered for us: every word that fell from his lips is more precious than all the treasures of the earth, for his are the words of eternal life! They.ust, therefore, be laid up in our hearts, and be constantly referred to, on all occasions, as the rule and direction of all our actions.

It is impossible to love God, without desiring to please him, and as far as we are able, to resemble him; therefore the love of God must lead to every virtue in the highest degree; and we may be sure we do not truly love him, if we content ourselves with avoiding flagrant sins, and do not strive, in good earnest, to reach the highest degree of perfection we are capable of, by his help.

We cannot possibly exceed in the measure of our love to God, to whom reason as well as revelation directs us to offer the best of our affections, and from whom alone we can hope for that happiness, which it is our nature incessantly to desire.

As to the acts of love to God, obedience is the chief: "This is love, that we keep his commandments."

LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOR.

LOVE your neighbor for God's sake, and God for your Saviour's sake, who created all things for your sake, and redeemed you for his mercies' sake. If your love hath any other motive, it is false love; if your motive hath any other end, it is self love. If you neglect your love to your neighbor, in vain you profess your love to God; for by your love to God, your love to your neighbor is acquired; and by your love to your neighbor, your love to God is nourished.

All men of estates are, in effect, but trustees for the benefit of the distressed, and will be so reckoned when they are to give an ac

count.

We may hate men's vices, without any ill` will to their persons; but we cannot help despising those that have no kind of virtue to recommend them.

He that makes any thing his chiefest good, wherein virtue, reason, and humanity, do not bear a part, can never do the offices of friendship, justice, or liberality.

« AnteriorContinuar »