Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength… It is the improved ability of the head that forms the philosopher, but 'tis the right disposition of the heart that chiefly makes the Christian. 'Tis our love directed to that Being, who is most worthy of it, as the Centre in which all excellencies unite, and the Source from which all blessings proceed. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." 'Tis not the mere action that is valuable in itself. 'Tis the love from which it proceeds that stamps a value upon it, and gives an endearing charm and beauty to it. When a servile fear engrosses the whole man, it locks up all the active powers of the soul, it cramps the abilities, and is rather a preservative against sin than an incentive to virtue. But love quickens our endeavours, and emboldens our resolutions to please the object beloved; and the more amiable ideas we entertain of our Master, the more cheerful, liberal, and animated the service that we render Him will consequently he. Upon love, therefore, the Scriptures have justly laid the greatest stress, that love which will give life and spirit to our performances. I. I SHALL INQUIRE INTO THE NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF OUR LOVE TO THE DEITY. The love of God may be defined a fixed, habitual, and grateful regard to the Deity, founded upon a sense of His goodness, and expressing itself in a sincere desire to do whatever is agreeable, and avoid whatever is offensive to Him. The process of the mind I take to be this. The mind considers that goodness is everywhere stamped upon the creation, and appears in the work of redemption in distinct and bright characters. It considers, in the next place, that goodness, a lovely form, is the proper object of love and esteem, and goodness to us the proper object of gratitude. But as goodness exists nowhere but in the imagination without some good Being who is the subject of it, it goes on to consider that love, esteem, and gratitude is a tribute due to that Being, in whom an infinite fulness of goodness ever dwells, and from whom incessant emanations of goodness are ever flowing. Nor does the mind rest here; it takes one step farther to reflect that a cold speculative esteem and a barren, unactive gratitude is really no sincere esteem or gratitude at all, which will ever vent itself in strong endeavours to imitate a delight to please and a desire to be made happy by the Being beloved. If it be objected that we cannot love a Being that is invisible, I answer that what we chiefly love in visible beings of our own kind is always something invisible. Whence arises that relish of beauty in our own species? Do we love it merely as it is a certain mixture of proportion and colours? No; for, though these are to be taken into the account as two material ingredients, yet something else is wanting to beget our love; something that animates the features and bespeaks a mind within. Otherwise we might fall in love with a mere picture or any lifeless mass of matter that was entertaining to the eye. We might be as soon smitten with a dead, uninformed, unmeaning countenance, where there was an exact symmetry and regularity of features, as with those faces which are enlivened by a certain cheerfulness, ennobled by a certain majesty, or endeared by a certain complacency diffused over their whole mien. Is not this therefore the chief foundation of our taste for beauty, that it giveth us, as we think, some outward notices of noble, benevolent, and valuable qualities in the mind? Thus a sweetness of mien and aspect charms the more because we look upon it as an indication of a much sweeter temper within. In a word, though the Deity cannot be seen, numerous instances of His goodness are visible throughout the frame of nature. And wherever they are seen, they naturally command our love. But we cannot love goodness abstractedly from some Being in which it is supposed to inhere. For that would be to love an abstract idea. Hitherto, indeed, it is only the love of esteem. The transition, however, from that to a love of enjoyment, or a desire of being made happy by Him, is quick and easy: for, the more lovely ideas we entertain of any being, the more desirous we shall be to do his pleasure and procure his favour. Having thus shown the foundation of our love to God, I proceed — II. TO STATE THE DEGREE AND POINT OUT THE MEASURES OF OUR LOVE TO HIM. The meaning of these words, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength," is, that we are to serve God with all those faculties which He has given us: not that the love of God is to be exclusive of all other loves, but of all other rival affections; that, whenever the love of God and that of the world come in competition, the former undoubtedly ought to take place of the latter. To love God, therefore, with all our heart is so far from excluding all inferior complacencies that it necessarily comprehends them. Our love must begin with the creature, and end in Him as the highest link in the chain. We must love, as well as argue, upwards from the effect to the cause; and because there are several things desirable even here under proper regulations, conclude that He, the Maker of them, ought to be the supreme, not the only, object of our desires. We cannot love God in Himself without loving Him in and for His works. We are not to parcel out our affections between piety and sin. Then is our affection like a large diamond, most valuable, when it remains entire and unbroken, without being cut out into a multitude of independent and disjointed parts. To love the Lord with all our strength is to put forth the active powers of the soul in loving and serving Him. It is to quicken the wheels and springs of actions that moved on heavily before. It is to do well without being weary of well-doing. The love of God is a settled, well-grounded, rational delight in Him, founded upon conviction and knowledge. It is seated in the understanding, and therefore not necessarily accompanied with any brisker agitations of spirits, though, indeed, the body may keep pace with the soul, and the spirits flow in a more sprightly torrent to the heart, when we are affected by any advantageous representation of God, or by a reflection on His blessings. This I thought necessary to observe, because some weak men of a sanguine complexion are apt to be elated upon the account of those short-lived raptures and transient gleams of joy which they feel within themselves; and others of a phlegmatic constitution to despond, because they cannot work themselves up to such a degree of fervour. Whereas nothing is more precarious and uncertain than that affection which depends upon the ferment of the blood. It naturally ceases as soon as the spirits flag and are exhausted. Men of this make sometimes draw near to God with great fervency, and at other times are quite estranged from Him, like those great bodies which make very near approaches to the sun, and then all at once fly off to an immeasurable distance from the source of light. You meet a person at some happy time, when his heart overflows with joy and complacency: he makes you warm advances of friendship, he gives you admittance to the inmost secrets of his soul, and prevents all solicitation by offering, unasked, those services which you, in this soft and gentle season of address, might have been encouraged to ask. Wait but till this flush of good humour and flow of spirits is over, and you will find all this over warmth of friendship settle into coldness and indifference; and himself as much differing from himself as any one person can from another; whereas a person of a serious frame and composure of mind, consistent with himself, and therefore constant to you, goes on, without any alternate heats and colds in friendship, in an uninterrupted tenour of serving and obliging his friend. Which of these two is more valuable in himself and acceptable to you? The answer is very obvious. Just so a vein of steady, regular, consistent piety is more acceptable to that Being with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of change, than all passionate sallies and short intermitting fits of an unequal devotion. Truly to love God is not then to have a few warm notions about the Deity fluttering for a while in the breast, and afterwards leaving it void and empty of goodness. But it is to have the love of God dwelling in us. It is not a religious mood or humour, but a religious temper. It is not to be now and then pleased with our Maker in the gaiety of the heart, when, more properly speaking, we are pleased with ourselves. It is not to have a few occasional transient acts of complacency and delight in the Lord rising in our minds when we are in a vein of good humour, as the seed in the parable soon sprung up and soon withered away, because it had no root and deepness of earth, but it is to have a lasting, habitual, and determinate resolution to please the Deity rooted and grounded in our hearts, and influencing our actions throughout. III. I PROCEED TO EXAMINE HOW FAR THE FEAR OF THE DEITY IS CONSISTENT WITH THE LOVE OF HIM. "There is mercy with Thee, therefore shalt Thou be feared," is a passage in the Psalms very beautiful, as well as very apposite, to our present purpose. The thought is surprising, because it was obvious to think the sentence should have concluded thus: There is mercy with Thee, therefore shalt Thou be loved. And yet it is natural, too, since we shall be afraid to draw upon ourselves His displeasure, whom we sincerely love. The more we have an affection for Him, the more we shall dread a separation from Him. Love, though it casteth out all servile fear, yet does not exclude such a fear as a dutiful son shows to a very affectionate but a very wise and prudent father. And we may rejoice in God with reverence, as well as serve Him with gladness. Per love, if not allayed and tempered with fear and the apprehensions of Divine justice, would betray the soul into a sanguine confidence and an ill-grounded security. Fear, on the other hand, if not sweetened and animated by love, would sink the mind into a fatal despondency. Fear, therefore, is placed in the soul as a counterpoise to the more enlarged, kindly, and generous affections. It is in the human constitution what weights are to some machines, very necessary to adjust, regulate, and balance the motion of the fine, curious, and active springs. Happy the man who can command such a just and even poise of these two affections, that the one shall do nothing but deter him from offending, while the other inspirits him with a hearty desire of pleasing the Deity. (J. Seed, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. |
    |