Love as a Motive to Christian Life.
THE one great and only efficient motive to a Christian life is not fear, but Love. Fear may have a place among the motives that lead men to a better life. It is the lowest motive. It belongs to the lowest stage of moral development. “Rod and candy” are for child-minded men. In the early barbarous ages this motive was in large request. But it is quite impossible that mere dread of hell should make men virtuous, loving, Christ-like. The man who would steal if he was not afraid of the penitentiary is a thief. That he is kept back from the act by the penalty does not make him one whit more an honest man. So the man who practices the outward forms of religion because he is afraid of hell, has no religion worth speaking of. Duty is a higher motive, and may lead to a life worthy of all respect. But it is not until the life is “touched with emotion,” inspired by love to Christ, that souls enter into the liberty and joy of a regenerated life. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God,” says Paul, “they are the sons of God,”—not slaves, not captives trembling at the sentence of Divine judgment, but sons. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” To say father, is to have the feeling of sonship, which is love. How is this feeling begotten in us? John tells us. “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. . . . Herein is our love made perfect.” It is the knowledge of God’s goodness, brought home with reality and power to the heart, that makes men religious in the true and Christian sense. If this motive does not persuade men, no other will. Herein is the power of the gospel. God sent his Son into the world to declare, and to be to the race a representative of, the Infinite Love. Nothing else can make men the children of God in deed and in truth.—Christian at Work.