I mean a common hearty love to all men, and a special love to holy men, according to their various degrees of loveliness. Love is a thing so agreeable to right reason, and to sociable nature, and to the common interest of all mankind, that all men commend it; and they that have it not for others, would have it from others. Who is it that loveth not to be loved? And who is it that loveth not the man that he is convinced loveth him, better than him that hateth him, or regardeth him not? And do you think that the same course, which maketh men hate yourselves, is like to make them love your religion?
Love is the powerful conqueror of the world. By it God conquereth
the enmity of man, and reconcileth to himself even malignant sinners;
and by it he hath taught us to conquer all the tribulations and
persecutions by which the world would separate us from his love;
yea, and to be “more than conquerors through Him that loved
us,” and thereby did kindle in us our reflecting love; (Rom.
8:34-38;) and by it he hath instructed us to go on to conquer
both his enemies and our own; yea, to conquer the
enmity rather than the enemy, in imitation of himself, who saveth
the sinner, and kills the sin; and this is the most noble kind
of victory. Every soldier can end a fever or other disease by
cutting a man’s throat, and ending his life; but it is the work
of the physician to kill the disease, and save the man. The scandalous
pastor is for curing heresy in the Roman way, by silencing sound
preachers, and tormenting and burning the supposed heretics; or
at least to trust for the acceptance and success of his labours
to the sword. And if that which will restrain men from crossing
the pastor, would restrain them from resisting the Spirit of God,
and constrain them to the love of holiness, it were well; then
the glory of conversion should be more ascribed to the magistrate
and soldier than to the preacher.
But the true pastor is armed with a special measure of life, light,
and love, that he may be a meet instrument for the regenerating
of souls, who by holy life, and light, and love, must be renewed
to their Father’s image. Every thing naturally generateth its
like, which hath a generative power. And it is the love of God
which the preacher is to bring all men to that must be saved;
this is his office, this is his work, and this must be his study;
he doeth little or nothing if he doeth not this.
Souls are not sanctified till they are wrought up to the love
of God and holiness; and, therefore, the furniture and arms which
Christ hath left us in his word, are all suited to this work of
love. We have the love of God himself to preach to them, and the
love of a humbled, dying and glorified Redeemer; and all the amiable
blessings of heaven and earth to open to them, and all the loving
promises and invitations of the gospel: and must not our hearts,
our ministry, and our lives, be answerable to all this? Believe
it, it must be a preacher whose matter and manner of preaching
and living doth show forth a hearty love to God, and love to godliness,
and love to all his people’s souls, that is the fit instrument
to glorify God by convincing and converting sinners.
God can work by what means he will; by a scandalous, domineering,
self-seeking preacher; but it is not his ordinary way. Foxes and
wolves are not nature’s instruments to generate sheep. I never
knew much good done to souls by any pastors, but such as preached
and lived in the power of love, working by clear convincing light,
and both managed by a holy, lively seriousness. You must bring
fire, if you would kindle fire. Trust not here to the Cartesian
philosophy, that mere motion will turn another element into fire.
Speak as loud as you will, and make as great a stir as you will,
it will be all in vain to win men’s love to God and goodness,
till their hearts be touched with his love and amiableness, which
usually must be done by the instrumentality of the preacher’s
love. “Let them hate me, so they do but fear me and obey
me,” is the saying of such as set up for themselves, (and
but foolishly for themselves,) and, like Satan, would rule men
to damnation. If love be the sum and fulfilling of the law, love
must be the sum and fulfilling of our ministry. But yet by “love”
I mean not flattery: parents do love as necessarily as any, and
yet must correct; and God himself can love, and yet correct; yea,
“he chasteneth every son that he receiveth.” (Heb. 12:6,
7.) And his love consisteth with paternal justice, and with hatred
of sin, and plain and sharp reproof of sinners: and so must ours;
but all, as the various operations of love, as the objects vary.
And what I say of ministers, I say of every Christian in his place.
Love is the great and the “new” commandment; that is,
the last which Christ would leave, at his departure, to his disciples.
O, could we learn of the Lord of love, and Him who calleth himself
Love itself, to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us,
and to do good to the evil, and pray for them that hurt and persecute
us, we should not only prove that we are genuine Christians, the
children of our heavenly Father, (Matt. 5:44, 45,) but should
heap coals of fire on our enemies’ heads, and melt them into compassion
and some remorse, if not into a holy love. I tell you, it is the
Christian who doth truly love his neighbour as himself; who loveth
the godly as his co-heirs of heaven, and loveth the ungodly with
a desire to make them truly godly; who loveth a friend as a friend,
and an enemy as a man that is capable of holiness and salvation.
It is he that liveth, walketh, speaketh, converseth (yea, suffereth,
which is the great difficulty) in love, and is, as it were, turned,
by the love of God shed abroad upon his heart, into love itself;
who doth glorify God in the world, and glorify his religion, and
really rebuke the blasphemer that derideth the Spirit in believers,
as if it were but a fanatic dream.
And it is he that by tyranny, cruelty, contempt of others,
and needless proud singularities and separations, magisterially
condemning and vilifying all that walk not in his fashion, and
pray not in his fashion, and are not of his opinion, where it
is like enough he is himself mistaken, that is the scandalous
Christian; who doeth as much against God, and religion, and the
church, and men’s souls, as he doeth against love. And though
it be Satan’s way, as an angel of light, and his ministers’ way,
as ministers of righteousness, to destroy Christ’s interest by
dividing it, and separate things which God will have conjoined,
and so to pretend the love of truth, the love of order, or the
love of godliness or discipline, against the love of souls, and
to use even the name of love itself against love, to justify all
their cruelties, or censures, and alienations; yet God will keep
up that sacred fire in the hearts of the sound Christians which
shall live and conquer these temptations, and they will understand
and regard the warning of the Holy Ghost: “I beseech you,
mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine
which ye have learned; and avoid them,” in their sinful,
dividing, offensive ways. “For they that are such serve not
our Lord Jesus Christ,” though they may confidently think
they do, “but their own belly,” or carnal interests,
though perhaps they will not see it in themselves; “and by
good words and fair,” or by “flattering speeches, deceive
the hearts of the simple.” (Rom. 16:17, 18.) The word is
twn akakwn, hominum minime
malorum, “no bad men,” or “harmless, well-meaning
men;” who, in case it be not to mortal errors, perhaps may
be in the main sincere, and may be saved when their stubble is
burnt; but whether sincere or not, they are scandals in the world,
and great dishonourers of God, and serve Satan, when they little
think so, in all that they do contrary to that universal love
by which God must be glorified, and sinners overcome.
By Richard Baxter
