صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

vated. It must be exercised not only to seven times, but to seventy times seven.

"Therefore, said the Lord, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king, who would take an account of his servants."

Jesus, in order to explain the duty of forgiving offences by a striking similitude, remarks farther to Peter, that the kingdom of heaven, in its present constitution and its final process, may be illustrated by the proceeding of a certain king, who ruling over a large country, and having under him a great number of officers, came to the determination of calling them to an account for their conduct.

And is not this an affecting representation of the manner in which God, the judge of all, will deal with men, who are the subjects of his moral government? Will he not call every one of us to account? Has he not said, that he will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil? Our Lord has here shewn us, what we are elsewhere taught, that the Omniscient Judge will call all men to an account for the use they have made of the talents committed to their trust. "God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Let us proceed with the parable.

"And when the king had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him who owed him ten thousand talents."

1. The first argument is from the original word, in the text translated faileth.

Not that it is hereby implied that the word is incorrectly rendered. For the English term, in its common acceptance, is sufficient to shew that love is an immortal principle. For if it never fail or cease, then it follows that those who possess it can never be deprived of it in time or eternity. But the term used in the original more strikingly illustrates the proposition. The word is used by the Greek writers with reference to a ship when it is driven upon the quicksands, or runs aground, or is dashed against the rocks; and it is remarkable that St. Luke uses the Greek verb in these three senses in that chapter in the Acts of the Apostles, in which he describes the shipwreck of St. Paul and his companions. He speaks of the ship as being in danger of falling upon the quicksands, predicts its being cast upon a certain island, and mentions the means that were used to prevent its falling upon the rocks. (Acts xxvii. 17, 26, 29). Now, we read in the Word of God of some who "having put away a good conscience, concerning faith have made shipwreck." That is, the practice of sin and the putting away a good conscience have occasioned some, who have thus acted, to cast off the profession of religion, and thus to make shipwreck of their faith :-not of that faith which unites to the Saviour, and to which the promise of eternal life is made; but of that dead faith, which consists in nothing more than the mere profession of religion. But we never read of love being ship

wrecked. No, that divine principle, which is the truth and the evidence of the faith which is the gift of God, and which worketh by love through grace, faileth not. A true believer may for a time lose it in degree and exercise. He may for a season leave his first love, and therefore may receive the rebukes and chastisements of his Lord; but the principle itself is immortal and incorruptible. We may accommodate to it the words of the blessed Jesus :"The water that I shall give him shall be in him (to whom it is given) a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

2. Secondly, I argue that love never faileth, from the declarations of the beloved apostle John.

"By this we know (says this apostle) that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Here, love to our fellow Christians is spoken of as a direct and positive evidence that we have passed from a state of spiritual death to spiritual life. The possession of the principle that influences a Christian to love the brethren, is a mark of his being born again, and of his having implanted in him the incorruptible seed of God. This seed is sown in the souls of all the children of God in their regeneration, and this apostle tells us, that it remaineth in every one that is born of God. For what is his express language? "Whosoever is born of God his seed remaineth in him." When a child is born into the world, he can never be unborn again, but he is created for immortality. So when a child of God is born again in spiritual regeneration, it is born to

rate.

eternal life. But when we speak of regeneration, it is necessary that we distinguish between the supposition of its existence and the actual fact. Every baptized person is supposed to be elect and regeneHe receives the outward part of regeneration in the administration of the ordinance of baptism, and is considered in the judgment of charity to receive, or to have received, the spiritual part, the regeneration of the Spirit likewise. But of this, God only is the judge. The visible church is a mixed society, represented as consisting of wheat and tares; respecting which it is the prerogative of the Saviour alone to make the discrimination between one and the other. Man can judge only externally. It does not belong to him to pluck up what he imagines to be the tares, and to leave only what he supposes to be the wheat. "The Lord only knoweth them that are his," who are born of his Spirit. A regenerate soul may backslide and fall into sin; but if he fall, he will rise again. An unregenerate one may apostatise from his faith and profession, and be lost for ever. But he who possesses the principle of love, is not only supposed as a professing Christian to be regenerate; but he is in reality so in the judgment of God himself-he is born of God-he has passed from death unto life, no more, blessed be God, to pass back again from life unto death.

"Love is the golden chain that binds

The happy souls above;

He is an heir of heaven who finds

His bosom glow with love."

3. One more argument that love never faileth, is the fact, that the principle is the special gift of God.

All christian graces are produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (or, as it here means, fidelity,) meekness, temperance." At the head of these graces is placed love, which is as much the gift of God, as the faith from which it proceeds; or or as regeneration, which is accomplished by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit, and which is the commencement, the groundwork, the foundation of all true religion-the seed from which repentance, faith, holiness, and every other Christian principle springs and grows. Allow me then to ask, Do you love God? Do you love the Saviour? Do you love the brethren? If so, how came you to be possessed of the principle? answer is, It is the gift of God, and the fruit and

The

effect of your regeneration. You do not possess it

naturally. By nature we are the children of wrath. But can we at the same time be the children of wrath and the lovers of God and his saints? Impossible! If, therefore, you possess the grace of love, it is because God has implanted it in you by his grace. The religion of some is nothing more than an earth-born, self-sprung thing. They have never been the subjects of a supernatural work of grace, nor have undergone that great change in the temper of their minds which all must experience who pass from the love of the world and of sin, to the love of God and his people. But when God bestows his

« السابقةمتابعة »