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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 12.

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Love.

By Jos. Clarke

“He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8. Very many texts might be adduced to prove that love is a virtue, inseparable from the Christian character. Love is one of the ingredients which form the fine gold spoken of in Rev. 3:18, and from what is said in that chapter to the Laodicean church, we may infer that one great cause of the lukewarmness existing, would be a want of this love; for the fine gold is placed first; and we believe that the fine gold alluded to here, is union of faith and love. “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire,” Rev. 3:18, is the language of the Revelator. Here this is placed first on the list of graces. Peter, in his arrangement of the Christian graces, also puts faith at the foundation: “Add to your faith virtue.” See 2 Pet. 1:5. Now as Paul asserts that faith worketh by love, and we are assured that true faith is mixed with love, we must believe that faith without love is a dead faith.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might,” is the plain command of God. See Deut. 6:5. Can we love God too much? or can we begin too soon? Can we take a single step in the Christian life, or maintain, or attain to, a single Christian grace without this love? Can we do anything acceptably to God in the absence of this love? When Israel heard God announce his law from Sinai, they fancied in their hearts that it would be easy to obey; but when the terror was withdrawn, their zeal abated; for there was no love to God or to his law to anchor them to his throne.
Some suppose that because Peter enumerates the graces, placing charity last, that this grace is not to be expected of those commencing the Christian life. They suppose that these graces must be laid as a mason lays his layers of stone, or brick, or marble, in due form.
Now the object of Peter, here, is to bring out to view these graces in order, relatively.
A person truly converted to God, will manifest all these graces in a greater or less degree, as soon as they are called for by circumstances. Often in the hour of his enlargement, his conduct is an illustration of each of them; but Peter would have each of these cultivated, and would have the attention of all drawn to them.
A Christian will not merely cultivate one of these graces to-day, another to-morrow, but each receives its due share of attention day by day. Charity, the last in his enumeration, is woven into the daily experience of the man of God, from the first of his experience; and faith, the first in Peter’s list of graces, is as much cultivated in the last of the Christian life. We cannot classify the various graces just as we would in mechanics. No; for love and faith are the cement and strength of, and ingredients in, all the graces. Take away love from the Christian, and he is a dry tree, a barren heath, a desert. Without love, his benevolence becomes but a drudgery, and his prayers become hypocrisy.
From the plain testimony of John, we have no reason to hope in God’s mercy, unless we love God, and our brother also. Here, then, is the grace of charity; love to the household of faith, even to the most imperfect. Not that this can exist alone, but they are all mutually dependent upon each other; and the better developed the Christian virtues are, the more perfect will the grace of charity become. No one of these graces can stand long alone. They all uphold, strengthen, and encourage, each other; and often we cultivate those most difficult to attain, by the assiduous cultivation of the others which come up like the reserve of an army to the relief of the weaker portion. So that if we despair of one point, let us look the more closely to the others, with at least the forlorn hope of victory.
What can we attain to, then, without love? Whom can we help without love? Would you take a mote from your eye with a penknife, or with a needle? As soon may you correct the erring without love.
This love does not weaken the column of truth. We say it strengthens and polishes the pillars of wisdom, and settles and confirms the wandering and wayward in the path of truth. It restores the erring, and wins the froward from the influences of evil. JOS. CLARKE.