Discourses on Various Subjects, Vol. 1 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Discourses on Various Subjects, Vol. 1 (of 2)Duché, Jacob
Religion
Discourses on Various Subjects, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Duché, Jacob
Episcopal Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
The tender and pathetic expostulation which this ungenerous conduct
produced from the blessed lips of the common Friend and Saviour of Man,
breathes such a spirit of love, kindness, and compassion, towards the
souls of those whom he came to redeem, as cannot but claim our most
serious and grateful attention. The deep concern he must have felt for
such an instance of apostasy, added to his apprehensions of the fatal
influence it might have upon his beloved Apostles, awakened in him all
those innocent and delicate sensibilities, which, even in his human
nature, were the genuine offspring of that ETERNAL LOVE to which he was
essentially united.
Friendship, true friendship, is the HEAVEN-BORN OFFSPRING of Divine
Charity. Heaven is her native country. In that pure and gentle element
she lives and moves without constraint, free, chearful, delighting and
delighted. If ever she deigns to associate with the sons of men, it is
among the truly virtuous alone she can be found. She visits none but
those, whose "conversation is in heaven," who have within them a birth
congenial with her own, whose hearts and affections are governed by the
Spirit of Love, and can only be wooed and won by correspondent tempers
and characters. Her sacred name, indeed, is often prostituted to venal,
base, and corrupt purposes. Her fair and beauteous garb is often worn by
the votaries of avarice, pleasure, and ambition. Her sweet aspect, her
mild and winning graces, her obliging and disinterested disposition,
yea, even her peculiar warmth of affection, and glowing sensibility of
heart, are all profanely counterfeited by the selfish and sensual, the
vain and the aspiring.
Take it for granted, however, that man, whether gay, dissolute,
covetous, or ambitious, is incapable of real friendship: all his designs
and prospects center in himself, and every seeming act of kindness,
every splendid appearance of courtesy and generosity, is calculated to
promote some selfish purpose, to procure some temporal emolument.
Far different is the friendship of those who are "born of God;" who,
from a vital union with the Source of Love, derive such pure and
unadulterated streams of Charity into their breasts, as manifest
themselves in a life of general beneficence towards all men, and a warm,
affectionate, spiritual attachment towards "those especially, who are of
the houshold of faith." Such, but in the purest highest degree, were
those heavenly feelings of true friendship, with which the heart of
JESUS glowed, when he uttered this sweet and endearing expostulation,
"Will ye also go away?"
The words are few, but the sentiments are manifold, gracious, and
animating; and they cannot but appear so to those, who attend, with nice
discernment, to the common feelings of human nature. It is to these
common feelings that our Lord makes his appeal, in all his heavenly
discourses.
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