Love for the Brethren by Dr. Hawker

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 24, 1859

Love for the Brethren

By Dr. Hawker

THERE may be with some precious souls, seasons when former views of Christ's person and suitableness, and fullness, and all-sufficiency are not so bright and shining as heretofore. But there are no seasons in the life of a believer when the love of the brethren, as brethren in Christ Jesus, is done away. Try a child of God in the darkest hours, and this remains. And if I love a child of God because he is a child of God, I must certainly love him on whose account I feel that love; so that it is a sweet testimony in the absence of higher tokens of our love to the Lord Jesus Christ, when we love the brethren for his sake. He can never be said to trust God with his soul, who is over-anxious in providing for the body; and very sure I am that he is really lean in spiritual things, who is fattening on temporal things. “God is love,” and from all eternity he hath been giving out demonstrations of that love in the streams and effects of it. Christ is the first edition of that love, and all the subsequent works are with him, and in him, and through him, and by him. Our Adam-fall gave occasion for the greater display of that love. But Christ and his church were one in the womb of God’s love before the Adam-fall or even the foundation of the earth was laid.—Dr. Hawker.