eternal life, to know by faith that God is love, and that he seeks to gain our affections by blessings without number. A discovery of this kind cannot but give rise to some grateful return in the soul; since it is impossible firmly to believe these ravishing truths without crying out, like the first Christians, "We love him, because he first loved us." If God has mercifully made the first advances toward his rebellious creatures; if, notwithstanding the distance between him and us be infinite, and the obstacles to our union innumerable, he yet graciously presents himself in spite of all; if he yet inclines to pardon the guilty, and endeavours to reconcile the world unto himself by Jesus Christ; what conscious heart can be unaffected with these tokens of his love, or what tongue be silent in his praise?

This God of charity thus affectionately addresses an ancient class of his servants: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee." The favour which he here expresses toward the Jewish church is great; but that which he testifies to the Christian church is still more astonishing. His Son, the living and eternal image of his Father, humbles himself to the dust, and invests himself with our nature, that raising us from our low estate, he may at length place us at the right hand of the Majesty on high. "He loved the church," saith St. Paul," and gave himself for it, that he ⚫ might sanctify and cleanse it, and that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Thus he has given to believers an example of the love which they ought to entertain for all their Christian brethren, and to husbands a pattern of the attachment they should feel to their wives; since he left the bosom of his Father for the very purpose of suffering with and for his church, which in the language of Scripture is called his spouse. "But," adds the apostle, " this is a great mystery." Now the true minister is happily initiated into this grand mystery of charity. He can say with Peter, "Lord! thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee:" he can testify with Paul, "the love of Christ constraineth me:" and, at other times, when the emotions of his heart are too tender for utterance, tears of gratitude and joy silently cry out, like those of dissolving Mary, Lord, thou art worthy of all my love, since thou hast graciously pardoned all my sin. Animated with this

love, he publicly insists upon universal charity, with all the ardour of St. John, testifying that it flows from the knowledge of God, and must be considered as the root of Christian obedience. "Hereby," saith he, "perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. My little - children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but," according to the example of Christ, "in deed and in truth" for "if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." And remember, "he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love."

:

66

Although Christ evidently came to break down the wall of separation between the Jews and Gentiles, by preaching the doctrine of universal charity; yet he willed that believers should love one another with a peculiar degree of affection. We are required to meet the unregenerate with a love of benevolence: but believers should be bound to each other by ties so tender and powerful, that the world may acknowledge them to be men of one heart and one soul. By this," saith our Lord, "shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." And who can describe the generosity, the sweetness, the strength, and the constancy, of this enlivening grace ? It is more active than the penetrating flame; it is stronger than death. "The communion of saints," is received among Christians as a sentence in their established creed happy would it be, did it constitute a part of their religious experience! As to the difference betwixt Christian charity, and that which was required under the law, it seems to be satisfactorily pointed out by St. John in the following passage: "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning:" for Moses himself earnestly exhorted his people to maintain among themselves the fire of fraternal love. 66 Again, a new covenant I write unto you :" new, in relation to Christ, who hath loved us not only as himself, but even more than himself; since he offered up his life a ransom for the rebellious. Moses tasted not of death for Pharaoh, as Jesus did for Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas. The Christian legislator alone requires a charity of this perfectly disinterested nature; and for the support of so exalted a precept, he has seconded it with his own great example. "Herein is love," continues

the apostle, "not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Love, then, is undoubtedly of God; flowing from him as from an inexhaustible spring: "and he that loveth," after the same pure and fervent manner, "is born of God, and knoweth God."

This charity is set forth by St. Paul as a source of consolation. "If," saith he to the Philippians, "there be any comfort in love, be ye like-minded, having the same love" one to another: and, "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." And in another epistle, he cries out, "I have a great conflict for them at Laodicea, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love."

1. Charity may be considered as a spring of comfort, because it frees us from the fear of death, and delivers us from a thousand other terrors which trouble the peace of worldly men. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love, hoping all things, casteth out fear; because fear hath torment. He, therefore, that feareth, is not made perfect in love.

2. Charity is consoling, because it assists and encourages us in the discharge of our several duties. When we glow with affection to God and our neighbour, works of piety and charity are performed not only without pain, but with heart-felt sensations of secret delight. "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and to those who sincerely love him, his commandments are not grievous." Thus a tender mother loses her repose without repining, that she may attend to the wants of her restless infant; thus an affectionate father labours with pleasure, for the support and education of his children; and thus, with every testimony of joy, the primitive Christians relieved and supported one another. The admirable effects produced by this unfeigned love, are described by St. Luke in the following terms: "The multitude of them that believed, were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them, that aught of the things which he possessed was his own;" but losing sight of every self interested view," they had all things common."

Here we behold that eminently accomplished by Christ, which was anciently prefigured under Moses in the desert, when the manna was so equally distributed among the

people, that "he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack." Happy were these fleeting days of Christian fellowship! Days that had long been promised by God, and of which a foretaste had been given in the land of Canaan, when it was ordained, that during the year of jubilee the poor should be permitted to share the comforts of their richer neighbours. It must be allowed that a multitude of insincere professors overspreading the church in these melancholy times, will not permit this method to be generally adopted among us, which would nevertheless be entirely practicable in a country inhabited by the affectionate followers of Jesus. But, at the same time it is no less true, that every individual who is possessed of real charity, is still treading in the steps of his elder brethren, and waiting only the return of favourable times to prove that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;" and that unfeigned charity, in the same circumstances, will ever produce the same effects.

It is impossible too highly to exalt this charity, which springs from a grateful sense of the redemption that is in Jesus. He, who is unacquainted with this grace, is a stranger to every real virtue, and utterly destitute of that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." Hence we find the apostle Paul so frequently connecting "holiness" with "love;" or rather pressing the latter, as that in which the former may be said principally to consist. God, saith he, "hath chosen us in Christ, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness be

fore God."

Knowledge alone "puffeth up," but charity, added to knowledge, edifieth and conducts the soul, from grace to grace, "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Happy they who have attained to this high degree of spirituality, from which, with a look of pure benefi

cence, they can smile on all around them! Such may join the first professors of Christianity, and say, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us:" and, penetrated with a deep sense of his affection, we declare from happy experience, that "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." The love of these persevering disciples may, in a scriptural sense, be termed perfect, since it enables them to bear a just, though faint resemblance to the God of love. Their hearts are as replete with charity, as sparks are filled with fire; and doubtless the smallest spark may be said to shine with a degree of perfection, in its little sphere, as well as the brighter sun in his more boundless course.

St. Paul, who preached this charity with so much fervency, declares, that it was kindled in his heart by the love of Christ; and upon this account he labours to found it upon those doctrines which are universally despised by every class of deists. In his epistle to the Romans, which contains sixteen chapters, he employs eleven in laying this solid foundation, while the duties of charity are declared only in the five remaining chapters. Like a wise master builder, before he attempts to raise this sacred edifice, he endeavours to remove out of the way the ruins of corrupted nature, and the rubbish of self-love. But had he endeavoured to do this without calling in to his aid the doctrines of the gospel, he would have acted as ridiculously as Archimedes, had that philosopher attempted the removal of the earth, without having first secured a solid footing suited to his purpose.

The most powerful motives employed by this apostle in urging us to the practice of Christian charity, are the love of God, and the compassion of Christ. God, saith he, "commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: and ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich." Now, whoever is sensible of the power, and tastes the sweetness, of these two grand truths, feels himself, at the same time, carried to every good work, in the same manner as the miser is led to those actions which serve to increase his hoard. through faith," in these very Christ Jesus unto good works.

For, "being saved by grace, truths, we are created by Who gave himself for us,"