Page:Memoir of the Reverend David Wilson (2).pdf/20

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

20

obedient subject and servant. 'Lovest thou me? said Jesus to Simon Peter. 'Lovest thou me' says Jesus to each of us. 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me,' Matth. x. 37. 'If any man,' says one of his apostles, 'love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha,'—accursed at his coming, 1 Cor. xvi 22. Dost thou love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity? with thy heart, thy whole Heart, and in his true character, as the Divine and only Saviour?—if you do, you will obey him. 'If a man love me, he will keep my words.—He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings,' John xiv. 21—24. Professions of faith and love are all vanity and emptiness, if you are not 'constrained by the love of Christ, to live to him who died for sinners, and rose again.' If you are living in sin, or if the world has the chief room in your hearts, you are none of his. He will say to you in that day 'I never knew you.' —For, 'if any man love the world, the love of the Father,' and consequently the love of the Son, 'is not in him.' 1 John ii 15. The love of Jesus will operate particularly by love to his people.—'This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another,' John xv. 12 xiii. 34. 35. 'Every one who loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him, l John v. 1. Do you then love the people as Jesus? you may perhaps be fond of some of them, because they are otherwise connected with you in life. But this is not the love of the bre-