May 5

This is love:-that we walk after his commandments. - 2 John 1:6.

HERE love is set forth as the principle of obedience. Obedience may arise from various motives:-from fear, from hope, reputation, recompense. But here we have Christian obedience, and this also we see proceeds from the principle of love. Let us consider the excellency of this principle.

First, Love, as the principle of obedience, renders it divinely acceptable. “My son,” says God, “give me thine heart.” The Lord looketh at the heart, and where that is towards him he will pardon a thousand mistakes and infirmities, and say, “It was well that it was in thine heart.” “Where there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not.” Christ said of Mary, “She hath done what she could.”

Secondly, Love, as the principle of obedience, renders it delightful to ourselves. “What are the most pleasing actions you ever performed?” was a question once addressed to a man; who answered, “The services I have performed for my friends.” Jacob served for a wife: for a wife he kept sheep; for seven years he served, during which he had to endure the heat of the day and the cold of the night, and to bear all the casual losses of the flock and of the herd; and yet these seven years seemed to him only as so many days, for the love he bore to Rachel. It is this principle which reconciles the mother, and more than reconciles her, to numberless and nameless privations, attention, and self-denial, in rearing her infant charge. “Love is strong as death: many waters cannot quench it, nor can the floods drown it.” Religion made Paul a sufferer, but it did not deprive him of pleasure, because he was actuated by love to Him whom he served, and therefore, says he, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.” And when Peter and John had been stripped and scourged ignominiously in the council, they withdrew, rejoicing “that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.” Christians are men wondered at; and perhaps nothing excites more surprise in the minds of the poor blinded people of the world, who have their portion in this life and think of nothing else, than to see their zeal and their ardour in a cause that confers on them no secular advantages. The fact is, they know the motion, but they are perfectly unacquainted with the mainspring that produces it. The love of Christ constraineth them to live, not unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again.

Once more, love, as the principle of obedience, renders it impartial. “Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect to all thy commandments.” Nothing but love will ever produce this. Other considerations may induce persons to avoid some sins, especially those to which they have little constitutional tendency,-those to which they are but little tempted by any thing in their station or calling. But what is to make a man crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts? What is to enable a man to pluck out a right eye or cut off a right hand? “What is to induce him to say, with Ephraim, “What have I to do any more with idols?”

Other things may induce a man to regard some duties, and especially those which are agreeable and easy,-those which will bring peace or profit; but it is love only that will throw down the will at the feet of Jesus, that will lead us to ask, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”