SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

* LOVE AND LAW. [BY DR. MACIiAREN.] Love is the foundation of obedience, and obedience is the sure outcome and result ot love. That is true in regard to the lower forms of love, which may teach us something of the operation of the higher. We all know that love which is real, and not simply passion and selfishness with a mask on, delights most chiefly in knowing and conforming to the will of the beloved and that there is nothing sweeter than to be commanded by the dear voice and to obey for dear love's sake. And you have only to take that which is the experience of every true heart, in a thousand sweet ways in daily life, and to lift it into the higher regions, and to transfer it to the bond that unites us with Jesus Christ, to see that He has invoked no illusory, but an omnipotent power, when He has rested the whole force of His transforming and sanctifying energy upon this one principle : " If ye love Me, the Lawgiver, ye will keep the commandments of My law." That is exactly what distinguishes and lifts the morality of the Gospel above all other systems. The worst man in the world knows a great deal more of his duty than the 'best man doos. It is not for want of knowledge that men go to the devil, but it is for want of power to live their knowledge. And what morality fails to do with its clearest utterances of human duty Christ comes and does. The one is like the useless proclamations posted up in some rebellious district, where there is no army to back them, and the king's authority from whom they come is flouted. The other gets itself obeyed. Such is the difference between the powerless morality of the world and the commandment of Jesus Christ. Here is the road plain and straight. What matters that if there is no force to draw the cart along it ? There might as well be no road at all. Here stand all your looms, polished and in perfect order, but there is no steam in the boilers; and so there is no motion and nothing manufactured. What we want is not law, but power. And what the Gospel gives us, and stands alone in giving us, is not merely the knowledge of the will of God and the clear revelation of what we ought to be, but it is the power to become it. Love does that, and love alone. That strong force brought into actiou in our hearts will drive out from thence all rivals, all false and low things. The true way to cleanse the Augean stables, as the old myth has it, was to turn the river into them. It would have been endless to wheel out the filth in wheelbarrows loaded by spades; turn the stream in. and it will sweep away all the foulness. When the ark comes into the temple Dagon lies, a mutilated stump, upon the threshold. When Christ comes into my heart, then all the obscene, twilight-loving shapes that lurked there, and defiled it, will vanish like ghosts at cock-crowing before His calm and pure presence. He and He alone, entering my heart by the portals of my love, will coerce my evil and stimulate my good. And if I love Him I shall keep His commandments. Now, brethren, here is a plain test, and a double-barrelled one, which tries both our love and obedience with a sharp touchstone: " If ye love Me ye will keep My commandments." That implies, first, that there is no love worth calling so which does not keep the commandments. All the emotional and the mystic and the so-called higher parts of Christian experience have to bo content to submit to this plain test: Do they help us to live as Christ would have us, and that because He would have us ? Love to Him that does not keep His commandments is either spurious or dangerously feeble. The true sign of its presence in the heart and the noblest of its operations is not to be found in high-pitched expressions of fervid emotion, nor even in the sacred joys of solitary communion, but in its making us, while in the rough struggle of daily life, and surrounded by trivial tasks, live near Him and by Him and for Him and like Him. If I live so, I love Him ; if not, not. Not that I mean to say that in regard of each individual action of a Christian man's life there must be the conscious presence of reference to the ; supreme love, but that each individual]

action of the life oucht Z :=:;^rtiß character of which tfiat refer™ 6 *** a ■ supreme love is the verv W?" to V ■ and foundation. Th TO& AS* B in at the fountain wi dy ?S ?«**& I stream; and they whose SKt* ° { 8 I tinged and tinctured with th?. hear to ■ Jesus Christ, from their heart SB* to H issues of life all coloured «n \ U »£& | * here >, Test ; your Christian W, K ottll ß I practical obedience. ove b y y OB I ■ And, on the other hand the IH dience worth calling So which is^? <*». of love; and all the multitude 5* chi, fl things which Christians do wiL I*A Hi motive are made short work nfW ** cinle. Obedience which is pS ■ pal, matter-of-course, without the T***> in it of a loving submission of tf r * Bea «s I obedience which is reluctant cat% Will forced upon us by dread imitated ■ others-all that is nothing; fin, I does not count it as obedience at ■1? Chri I is a sieve with very small meshes Si ♦?* H will be a great deal of rubbish left' in • lh «'- H the shaking. "If ye love Me I. n ty I commandments." The keeping of M p % H mandents which has not" lovelo M«» 7 Cr,tll - H lying it is no keeping at all. - 1 *- Ul % I I can fancy a man savins. " K*en »• SS mandments? Woe is me! How."?* I keep?" The answer is, 'Love.' l \» i 1 to fancying him saying,"Love?" Yes' «■■?> H how am Ito love? I cannot get un Mi fl the word of command, or by anv vJ, , ' « I effort And the answer comes > sa &"S*l ■ heve!" Trust Christ, and von w ni ,* H Him. Love Him, and you will do His 5 H And then the question comes a"*in «$• fl what!" And the answer comes "p H lievethat He is the Son of God who die if I you." JUie u:j; Nothing else will kindle a man's l ove A IS the faithful contemplation and „3 I Christ in that character and aspect fit l B the redeeming Christ affords a reaV.nJ? B ground for our love to Him. Here i s afi ■ Alan, dead for nineteen centuries exnw*- I you and me to have towards I['im D I personal affection which will iiitt ueuc^ lll!l I conduct and our character. What V 1 I He to expect that? There is oulv 5" H reasonable ground upon which I mL 0 ? I called to love Jesus Christ, and that ;-V* I He died for me. And such a love tow J?' I such a Christ is the only thin. whiM B wield power sufficient to guide.'to coenv, B restrain, to constrain, and to sustauT'J? B weak, wayward, rebellious, and giLS B .will. All other emotions of so-caUedTi H miration and worship and reverence &ni I affection for Jesus Christ are apt to f? tepid; but this one has power and warmth H Here is a unique power in the historvrf I the world, that not only did He make th I astounding claim upon all subsequent '<•<■*, I rations, but that the subsequent generation I have responded to it, and that to-day the! I are millions of men who love Jesus Christ I with a love warm, personal, deep, powerful I -the spring of all them goodness and the I Lord of their lives. Why do they? For on' I reason only. Because they believe that H» fl died for them individually, and that He liv« I an ascended yet ever-present Helper an! I Lover of their souls. I That- conviction, and that conviction onlv | as 1 venture to affirm, has power to send a I glow of love iuto the heart which shall more I all the limbs in swift and happy obedience. I That conviction, and that conviction alone. B will melt the thick-ribbed ice of our spiny I and will make it flow down in sweet waters. B The love that has looked upon the cross wffl I be the fulfilling of the law of Him that fl speaks from the throne. When our faith H has grasped Him, as enduring all that for fl us, then our love will be awakened to hear B and to do His commandments. "We lots B Him because He first loved us." Ami sad! fl love will flower and fruit in obedience. I fl sliall keep Hi 3 commandments when 1 lore fl Him. I shall love Him with a love that fl makes my love plastic and my life a ghfl fl service when by faith I grasp Him as the la- fl carnate Lord, " who loved me and gaveHia- fl self for me." H SEED THOUGHTS. fl The partial salvation of to-day is essentially fl the same as the complete salvation of fl eternity. The faintest streak of morninj fl twilight is the same light from the same son M which at morn floods the sky. Mi What of God we possess is not parte! from its source, but lives His life still, though _it dwells in us. Therefore it is woven into an amaranthine garland which makes the brow on which it is twined immortal as itself. Religion makes us good only as it nukes us glad. The average religion of this day does not believe in its own creed heartily' enough to find in it support against temptations or joy in sorrow. If our Christianity has not the power to bless us with gladness in our hearts, there is something wron: either in the completeness of our surrendt: to it or in the articles of our belief. The will is never bowed into submission without being softened in the furnace, aw' there is no great goodness but from ass missive will. _ The props around which a heart twines its tendrils have to be cut dor. that it may fasten itself on the only tra support. Love is the one uniting force. "Cords oj love" must fasten us to Christ, or we are not fastened to Him, and that love must flow from the faith which recognises Him for Saviour by His cross, and trusts Him. WE SHALL KNOW HEREAFTER, By-and-bye we shall meet in the glory, A nd understand everything there ;* We shall then see the Kin;* in His beauty, And thank Him for all His kind care. We shall then know th« beautiful meaning Of things that so puzzled us here, We shall spell out their wonderful " wherefore,* In letters sill radiantly clear. Shall we wonder we never could see it? That sight was so short and so dim Shall we grieve that we did not more fully Leave all explanations with Him ? Shall we wish that we never had worried When everything seemed to go wrong? That we then had "dispelled dark delusions With glad " hallelujahs* of song ? Jesus, Master, forgive us we pray Thee, For all our dishonouring fear, Afresh take us into Thy keeping, And give us a nappv New Vear! Charlotte Mpkrat. A HYMN OF THE HOME-LAND. The Home-land! The Home-land! The land of tie free born ; There's no nifbt in the Home-Land, But *ye the Modeless morn. Tm sichinc for the Home-Land, My hejwi is aching here; There's no pjua in the Home-land To which Tra dra-w-ing near. My Lord is in th* Home-land, With tnce.i> bright Jiiid fair; There's no"Vdn in Uae Home-laud, And no temptation there. The musk of the Home-land Is rincint in roy ears. And when I think of the Home-land My eyes gush out with tears; For those I love in the Home-land Are cailiiis me awav, To the rest and peace'of the Home-land, And the life beyond decay; For there's no death in the Home-land, There's no sorrow above : Christ, bring us all to the Homeland Of His eternal love ! Rev. 11. R. Hawe&