And, in the first place, love to Christ is intelligent. This property distinguishes it from all enthusiastic emotions, which are sometimes confounded with devout affections, and which spring either from a heated fancy, or the working of animal feelings. These may be produced on susceptible minds by means of warm addresses to the passions, without due care being taken to instil the knowledge of the truth into the understanding. Such rapturous ecstasies are excited equally by truth and error; and accordingly you will find those who are subject to them, as warm and devout when they have embraced an unscriptural system of doctrine, as they were when they professed the doctrine of Christ. Of such persons it may be said, they love they know not what. This kind of feeling our Lord, instead of fostering, uniformly sought to discourage and repress. When one said to him, "Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," our Lord, who perceived that this ardour was not accompanied with any adequate knowledge of what was implied in the engagement, replied: "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."1 When a woman in the crowd, ravished with his doctrine, cried out in an ecstasy, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked!" he said, "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."2 When Peter was confident and warm in his professions, he said to him, "Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." Such also was the strain of his apostles: "This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment."

The genuine Christian does not talk like one beside himself or possessed, but speaks the words of truth and soberness. If he feels deeply, he also perceives clearly. He can give a reason of his love to Christ, as well as of the hope that he has in him, and renders both with meekness and fear. Though in one sense he loves him whom he hath not seen, yet in another, and no less true sense, he "hath both seen and known him." He hath seen him in the word of truth. He makes no pretensions to any knowledge of him which he has not received from the Scriptures, and gives head to no spirit which would lead him away from "the law and the testimony."

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Secondly, Love to Christ seeks an increasing knowledge of him. This is the food on which it lives, and by which it grows: nor is it ever satisfied with what it has attained. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

Thirdly, Love to Christ delights in his ordinances, and leads the person in whom it dwells to observe them regularly and conscientiously. These are the places where he meets with his people, and holds communion with them. True love will fly with eagerness to seek its object wherever it is to be found, and will linger fondly about the spot where

1 Luke, ix. 58.

2 Ib. xi. 27.

3 Phil. i. 9; Col. ii. 2—4.

it expects to meet him. When the disciples heard of the resurrection of their Master, without waiting to go into Galilee where he had promised to meet with them, they hasted to the place where he had been laid. "Then arose Peter, and ran to the sepulchre ;" and though the beloved disciple outran him, Peter was the first to venture into "the place where the Lord lay."1 On another occasion, such was his eagerness to meet his Lord, that "he girt his fisher's coat unto him, and did cast himself into the sea.' If a person is careless in waiting on public ordinances, if he can absent himself from them on the most trifling account, if he has more pleasure in loitering at home, in traversing the fields, or in visiting his friends, how dwelleth the love of Christ in that man? O how unlike him who, at twelve years of age, remained behind his parents in the temple, and said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Fourthly, Love to Christ displays itself by a conscientious and universal obedience to his commandments. These are not confined to the moral precepts which he specially inculcated in his personal ministry, such as brotherly love, the forgiveness of injuries, or charity to the poor. The whole moral law of God, which was within his own heart, and which he magnified by obeying its precepts and bearing its penalty, is taken into the administration of grace, and becomes the rule of his government over his redeemed, and the standard of their duty. Consequently, the obedience which they yielded to it is a necessary test of friendship and fidelity to him. "If ye love me, keep my commandments. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Mere professions of love are a mockery and insult to him who "knoweth all things." Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." It is not meant that none are the friends of Christ who transgress any of the commandments; but they yield an habitual obedience to them, and do not live in the allowed violation of any of them. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all thy commandments." The character of acceptable obedience is, that it proceeds from love; and the character of evangelical obedience is, that it proceeds from the faith of Christ's love. "The love of Christ constraineth us."

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A variety of other marks might be insisted on, which I shall state more briefly. True love to Christ displays itself by a fear of displeasing him, and unfeigned sorrow when we have done what has this tendency. It is more afraid of displeasing him than all the world. Peter wept bitterly; and his were the tears of love as well as of penitence. It displays itself by the distress which it feels at whatever dishonours him. Christ and the believer have common friends and common foes. "This thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.""Do not I hate all those that hate thee?"-" Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law." It discovers

1 John, xx. 3-8; Luke, xxiv. 12.

itself by earnest desires and strenuous endeavours to be like him. Love has an assimilating tendency. We naturally imitate those for whom we have an affection, especially if that affection is blended with esteem and respect. "Be ye followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us." It discovers itself by honouring, loving, and delighting in those who bear his image. "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." She is not an affectionate wife who does not love her husband's relations. And this love must show itself according to the circumstances in which they are placed, and as if Christ himself were in their circumstances. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me."—"My goodness extendeth not unto thee, but unto the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight." In fine, true love to Christ will manifest itself in suffering for his sake, and according to his will; in cleaving to him, and confessing him under all circumstances; in grieving that we love him so little; in adoring and meditating on his love; and in desiring to be with him in the sanctuary above, that we may enjoy his society without interruption, behold his glory without the intervention of means, and celebrate the praises of his redeeming love, world without end. Having laid these marks before you, I may conclude by again urging you to reply to the question of Christ, "Lovest thou me?" Difficult as the question may be, it admits of a satisfactory answer. Had it not been so, Jesus would not have put the question. He would not have pushed the matter to a third interrogatory, if he had not known that the disciple could reply in the affirmative without hypocrisy, without his heart condemning him. Nor would he have appointed an ordinance which was intended only for his friends, and enjoined them to observe it, if he had not promised that his Spirit, witnessing with their spirits, should enable them to say, with truth in the inward part, "We love him who first loved us." The real friends of Christ may have great doubts of their actual believing, and of the genuineness of their love to him. They are deeply grieved on account of the many evidences which they have given of indifference and even of enmity to him. The proofs of their ingratitude, forgetfulness, and unkindness, stare them in the face, and sometimes seal their lips. They complain, and they have good reason to complain, of the coldness of their hearts, and the deadness of their affections. But though they cannot say, in so many words, “Thou knowest that I love thee," still they can say, "O Lord, the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee." And when urged by him, they cannot refrain from crying out, "Lord, I love thee; help thou my want of love." To the question, "Will ye also go away?” they instinctively and resolutely reply: "To whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." And if offered their liberty to leave him, they would say, with the manumitted slave under the law: “I love my master, and I will not go free."-"Truly, O Lord, I am thy

servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds." And that is love.

"But," methinks I hear some hesitating soul reply, "I do not feel that warmth of affection for Christ which is due to him." You cannot; for his love passeth returns, as it passeth knowledge. "But I do not feel that love which others have felt for him, and have had freedom to express." Neither durst Peter speak strongly on this head; and the Saviour graciously dropped the clause in the first question, expressive of the degree of his love, and instead of "Lovest thou me more than these?" simply asked, "Lovest thou me?" He is a condescending catechist puts the question in different forms-and helps the confused and timid disciple to an answer. "But I have acted an ungrateful part towards him." So had Peter; and yet the Lord, overlooking his past conduct, and covering it with the mantle of forgiveness, questioned him as to his present exercise; and the disciple, though humbled, was able to give a suitable reply: "But I am afraid I may falsify my profession." And had not Peter as much reason for that fear? "Blessed is the man that feareth always.”

Think on what he is, and what he hath done for sinners. Do you not love him? Can you say that you do not? Would you not wish to love him? Can you but love him? Would you not be ashamed of yourself, if you did not love him? Is it not your desire and prayer that all should love, honour, and serve him? And have you not such a strong sense of the high obligation which all are under to this exercise, that you can join with the apostle in saying, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha"-accursed of the Lord at his coming?

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SERMON VIII.1

THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

"Unto him that loved us."-REV. i. 5.

WE have lately spoken of love to Christ as an essential feature in the character of all who belong to him, and the efficient principle of all evangelical worship and acceptable obedience. We are now to enter on a higher theme to ascend from the stream to the fountain-from the love of a creature of yesterday, to that of the Father of eternity-"unto him that loved us." A delightful, but a difficult task! We are forcibly reminded here of our Lord's saying to Nicodemus, when he was staggered at the doctrine of the new birth: "If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" Love to the person of Christ appears so strange to some, that they would expunge it from the catalogue of Christian virtues, and discourage all pretensions to it as extravagant and enthusiastical; while others, who acknowledge its reasonableness and obligations, are afraid of presumption in laying claim to such a high and mysterious feeling, and think that none but such persons as Peter and Paul and John can return an affirmative answer to the question, "Lovest thou me?" The doctrinal error of the one class, and the practical defect of the other, are to be cured in the same way in which Jesus cured the unbelief of Nicodemus-by revealing the higher mystery. "For," added he, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." If persons believed the wondrous love of God to sinners, the highest expressions of love to him would not appear unreasonable or extravagant ; and if we were more occupied in believing contemplations of that wonderful subject, we would feel our hearts warmed and inflamed by it, and would be constrained to cry out, "We love him, because he first loved us." Come then, and let us light our torch at the rays of the Sun of righteousness as concentrated in the glass of our text.

Well did it become the inspired writer of this book to speak on such a theme. Who so fitted for discoursing of the love of Christ, as he who was admitted to enjoy such endearing proofs of it, both during the time that he dwelt on earth and after he went to heaven? He was 1 Preached before the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, Edinburgh, Nov. 6, 1831.