Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

exclusive of those hopes of immortality, which the Gospel brought to light? How inferior in all that is truly great and magnanimous were the disciples of Zeno to those of Jesus Christ! The followers of the heathen philosopher, to avoid the inconvenient effects of their passions, were taught to oppose their laudable exertions, and thereby defeated that end for which nature had appointed them. To arrive at fortitude, they aimed at insensibility, and, in cultivating patience, destroyed all the gentle affections. To be exempt from misery, they endeavoured to deprive the heart of its feelings, and, from a selfish view of securing their own tranquillity, they proudly branded compassion with the name of weakness.

Upon far more amiable and more noble principles the fortitude of a Christian is formed. His patience is the associate of CHARITY, and by that quality, which implies the love of God and of human kind, he is taught to bear what the wise providence of the former may have permitted, or the weakness of the latter may have brought upon him.

The patience that is derived from such a disposition is not to be wearied out by the frequent attacks of misery: the same princi

ples will last for ever, and will support him under the repeated visitations of affliction. It is the exalted spirit of this charity, this divine and social love, that renders him superior to the sufferings of human calamity. It is an emanation of the Deity himself, a disposi tion derived from and approaching towards the supreme perfection, which places him above the influence of mortal evil.

The happiness and perfection of human nature consist in making the nearest possible approaches to the disposition of God; and in nothing can man represent his divine Creator so much as in this exalted spirit of the evangelical charity. From this he acquires an inclination of being pleased and satisfied with every thing, and that habit of mind which makes him cheerful under circumstances of ease, renders him resigned to the stroke of affliction. "Shall we, saith he, receive good "at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not "submit to evil? As the state of man is de"termined by the unerring wisdom to be a "state of probation, shall we not bear with patience those temporary evils which are "frequently so salutary to the mind, and "afford the noblest exercise to virtue ???

[ocr errors]

But the Captain of our salvation, who was

made perfect through sufferings, enforces this patience as well by the persuasion of example, as by the authority of precept.

See how mild, how silent the illustrious Sufferer! under the last distress of nature how patient! how resigned! He prayeth, indeed, that the bitter cup of affliction may pass from him, but under an entire resignation to the divine will.

Father, if this cup may not pass from me unless I drink it, thy will be done.

Such were the expressions of our divine Master, and such ought to be the language of every Christian, under the various circum, stances of natural or of moral evil, to which, as mortal creatures, we are exposed.

Nor ought we less industriously to imitate our blessed Redeemer in his conduct towards men than towards his heavenly Father. His patience in the one is equally exemplary as his resignation in the other.

It was to follow the steps of their Lord in both these respects, that the apostles were reconciled to the severest sufferings and the most degrading contempt.

holy mesthe Apostles

I think, saith one of the most eloquent, and not the least sufferer of those sengers, that God hath set forth us, last, as it were appointed to death.

Z

For we are

made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.

We are fools for Christ's sake; we are weak ; we are despised.

Even unto this present hour, we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffetted; and have no certain dwelling-place :

And labour, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat.

There is scarce any circumstance of human affliction, which these devoted men did not suffer, and most of them, indeed, they have themselves recorded. Nor is it to be wondered that they should record them, since they gloried in their persecutions, and counted it joy that they were thought worthy to suffer shame in the cause of the Redeemer.

But it was, nevertheless, on this grace of charity, this divine and social love, that all their fortitude and their forbearance were founded. Unsupported by this living and active principle, nature might have overthrown the resolutions of reason, even while the latter was appealed to by the hopes of immortality.

The sense of present evil has so much more influence over the frailty of human nature, than the prospect of distant good, that, though the immediate sufferings of the apostles were

not to be compared with their future rewards, yet, as men, they might have fainted under their tribulations, had not their hearts been confirmed by this animating, this heaveninspired spirit of charity.

Love is an active and unwearied principle, that is neither to be overcome by difficulties, nor deterred by dangers. For ever tending towards its object, and every affection of the heart absorbed in the interest of that object, all circumstances that are foreign to this end are considered as indifferent, and all the inconveniences that attend the pursuit of it are borne without a murmur.

The object of the apostles' love was their amiable, their adorable Master. With unwearied perseverance they preached his doctrines-with unbounded affection they pursued his interests. No labour was too difficult to execute; no misery too painful to bear. Inspired by that charity which beareth, which endureth all things, they rejoiced in affliction, and triumphed over death. This was that love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord, from which one of them declares, that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor heighth, nor depth, nor any other creature, should be able to separate them.

« AnteriorContinuar »