Christian Love,
or the Influence of Religion upon Temper
By John Angell James, 1828
THE TRUSTFULNESS OF LOVE
"Love thinks no evil."
There are two senses which may be attached to this
beautiful description of love.
I. Love does not DEVISE evil.
What a horrible, demon-like disposition has the
Psalmist ascribed to the individual who has no fear of God before his
eyes!—"He has left off to be wise and to do good; he devises mischief upon
his bed." Such is the delineation given by the inspired writer of the
character of some wretched men; and the original is often to be found. They
are perpetually scheming to do injury; even their hours of rest are devoted
to the impulses of a wicked heart, and they sleep not except they have done
mischief. Instead of communing with God upon their bed, this is to commune
with the devil, and to hold nightly conference with him who goes about as a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But without going to the extent of
those who live by plunder, extortion, or oppression, and who, as the wolves
and tigers of society, are ever prowling about for their prey—there are many
who maintain a tolerably respectable character—but are still far too busy in
devising evil—this may arise from various motives, to all of which Christian
love stands firmly opposed.
Desire of gain may lead them to devise means by which
they may injure a more prosperous neighbor, a more thriving tradesman than
themselves. They cannot endure to witness his success, and they leave no
effort untried to hinder it. They are inventive in the way of insinuation,
innuendo, or explicit declaration—to check the tide of his good fortune, and
are ever scheming to circumvent and injure him. Or they may be moved by envy
to devise means for blasting the reputation of a popular rival, or at
least to render him less a favorite with the public. Revenge is ever busy in
laying plans to injure its object; it broods in wrathful silence over the
real or supposed injury, and looks round on every side for the opportunity
and the means of full retaliation.
A love of sporting with the fears of the timid and the
weak has led some to delight in finding means for exciting their
alarms—they do not desire to inflict pain so much from a malignity of
disposition as from a wanton pleasure in raising a joke. Such jests as
occasion distress are, whatever may be pretended by their authors, a kind of
devil's play, who can never relax from the work of tormenting, except it be
to occasion lighter pains, and whose very sport is the infliction of misery.
It is dreadful that the human intellect should ever be
employed in devising evil; and yet passing by the cabinets of statesmen,
where hostile and unprincipled aggressions are so often planned against a
weaker state; and the closets of monarchs, where schemes which are to entail
the horrors of war upon millions, are contrived without compunction; and the
slave-merchant's cabin, where the details are arranged for burning peaceful
villages, and dragging into captivity their unoffending inhabitants; and the
robber's cave, the murderer's chamber, and the swindler's retreat—passing by
these haunts of demons, where the master-spirits of mischief hold their
conclave, and digest their dark and horrid purposes—what a prodigious
movement of mind is perpetually going on among ordinary people! What a
frightful portion of every day's employment of the mental and bodily
energies, all over the globe, is seen by the eye of Omniscience to be
directed by the parent of evil, who is ever going about to do evil—so
that a great part of mankind seem to have no other prototype but the
scorpions which John saw rising out of the bottomless pit, armed both with
teeth and stings!
To all these people, and to all this their conduct—love
is diametrically opposed. It thinks not evil—but good; it devises to
communicate pleasure—not pain. It shrinks back with instinctive abhorrence
from inflicting a moment's suffering, in body or in mind. "Love works no ill
to its neighbor," but employs all its counsels and its cares for its
benefit. Like a good spirit, it is ever opposing the advice, and
counteracting the influence—of envy, revenge, or avarice. It would make the
miserable happy, and the happy still happier. It retires into the closet to
project schemes for blessing mankind, and then goes out into the crowded
regions of want and wretchedness to execute them; it devises good on its
bed, and rises in the morning to fulfill the plans of mercy with which it
had sunk to rest. "Love thinks no evil."
2. But most probably the apostle meant, that
love does not IMPUTE evil.
Lovely love! the farther we go, the more we discover your charms—your beauty
is such, that it is seen the more, the more closely it is inspected—and your
excellence such, that it never ceases to grow upon acquaintance. You are not
in haste to incriminate, as if it were your delight to prove men wicked—but
are willing to impute a good motive to men's actions, until a bad one is
clearly demonstrated.
It is proper however to remark here, that love is not
quite blind—it is not, as we have already said, virtue in senile
decay—having lost its power of discrimination between good and evil—nor is
it holiness in its childhood, which with childish simplicity believes
everything that is told it, and that is imposed upon by every pretender. No!
it is moral excellence in the maturity of all its faculties—in the
possession of all its manly strength. Like the judge upon the bench, it is
penetrating, yet not censorious, holding the balance with an even hand,
acting as counsel for the prisoner, rather leaning to the side of the
accused than to that of the accuser, and holding him innocent until he is
proved to be guilty.
There are some people of a peculiarly suspicious temper,
who look with a distrustful eye upon everybody, and upon every action. It
would seem as if the world were in a conspiracy against them, and that every
one who approached them came with a purpose of mischief. They invert the
proper order of things, and instead of imputing a good motive until a bad
one is proved, impute a bad one until a good one is made apparent; and
so extremely skeptical are they on the subject of moral evidence, that what
comes with the force of demonstration to the rest of mankind, in the way of
establishing the propriety of an action, scarcely amounts in their view to
probability. Those who suspect everybody, are generally to be suspected
themselves. Their knowledge of human nature has been obtained at home, and
their fears in reference to their neighbors are the reflected images of
their own disposition. But without going to this length, we are all too apt
to impute evil to others.
1. We are too forward to suspect the piety of our
neighbors , and to consider, if
not direct hypocrisy, yet ignorance or presumption, as the ground of their
profession. Upon some very questionable or imperfect evidence—upon some
casual expression, or some doubtful action—we pronounce an individual to be
a self-deceiver, or a hypocrite. There is far too much proneness to this in
the religious world—too much haste in excising each other from the body of
Christ—too much precipitancy in cutting each other off from the shelter of
the Christian church. To decide infallibly upon character is not only the
prerogative of God—but requires his attributes. There may be some grains
of wheat hid among the chaff, which we may be at a loss to discover. We must
be careful how we set up 'our views', or 'our experience'—as the test of
character, so as to condemn all who do not come up to our standard. It is a
fearful thing to unchristianise any one, and it should be done only upon the
clearest evidence of his being in an unconverted state. Without being
accused of lax or latitudinarian views, I may observe that we should make
great allowance for the force of education—for peculiar habits acquired in
circumstances different from our own—and for a phraseology learned among
those whose views are but imperfect. To impute to a professor of religion
the sin of hypocrisy, and mere formality, and to deny the reality of his
religion altogether, is too serious a thing for such short-sighted creatures
as we are, except in cases which are absolutely indisputable.
2. We are too prone to impute bad motives in reference
to particular actions. Sometimes where
the action is good, we ascribe it to some sinister or selfish inducement
operating in the mind of him by whom it is performed. This is not
infrequently done where we have no contention with the individual, and the
imputation is merely the effect of envy; but it is more frequently done in
cases where we have personal dislike. When the action is of a doubtful
nature, how apt we are to lose sight of all the evidence which may be
advanced in favor of its being done from a good motive, and with far
less probability decide that the motive is bad.
If we ourselves are the object of the action, we too
commonly conclude instantly, and almost against evidence, that a bad motive
dictated it. Although the circumstance is at worst equivocal, and admits of
a two-fold interpretation, we promptly determine that an insult or an injury
was intended, when every one but ourselves clearly discerns that no such
design can be fairly imputed. A person passes us in the street without
speaking, and we immediately believe that it was an act of intentional
insult—forgetting that it is probable he did not see us, or was so immersed
in thought as not to recognize us. A general remark is made in conversation,
which we suppose, with no other evidence than its applicability to us, was
intended to expose us before the company; when, perhaps, the individual who
made it had no more reference to us than to a man on the other side of the
globe.
A thousand cases might be mentioned, and in which, of two
motives that may be imputed, we choose the evil one. If a person has
previously injured us, we are peculiarly propensity to this unchristian
practice of thinking evil of him. We can scarcely allow ourselves to believe
that he can do anything relating to us—but from an improper inducement; we
suspect all his words and all his actions—nor is the propensity less strong
in those cases in which we have been the aggressors; we then set down
everything done by the injured person to the influence of revenge.
The evil of such a disposition is manifest. It is
explicitly and frequently prohibited in God's Word.
This is the censoriousness forbidden by our Lord, where
he says, "Judge not, that you be not judged," and which is condemned by
Paul, where he says, "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes,
who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make
manifest the counsels of the hearts." James commands us "not to speak evil
one of another; for he who speaks evil of his brother, judges his brother."
"Evil surmisings" are placed by the apostle among the sins which oppose the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is an invasion of the prerogative of Deity, who alone
can search the heart, and read the motives of the bosom. It is injurious to
the character of our brethren, and disturbs the peace of society. Half
of the broils which arise in the world, and of the schisms which spring up
in the church, may be traced to this wicked propensity of "thinking evil,"
for if men think evil, it is an easy matter to speak
evil, and then to do evil—so that the origin of many quarrels will be
found in the false impression of a suspicious mind—the misapprehension of a
censorious judgment. It is a disposition which our own observation and
experience are quite sufficient, if we would be guided by them, to correct.
How often, how very often, have we found ourselves mistaken in this matter!
How frequently has subsequent evidence shown us our error in imputing a bad
motive to an action, which at the time, to say the worst of it, was only of
a doubtful nature! We have discovered that to have originated in
accident, which we once thought to have been the result of malevolent
design; and we have found other things to have proceeded from ignorance,
which we had hastily set down to malice. How many times have we blushed and
grieved over our unfounded hasty conclusions—and yet in opposition to our
experience and to our resolutions, we still go on to think evil.
But "love thinks no evil," this divine
virtue delights to speak well, and think well of others—she talks of their
good actions, and says little or nothing, except when necessity compels her,
of their bad ones. She holds her judgment in abeyance as to motives, until
they are perfectly apparent. She does not look around for evidence to prove
an evil design—but hopes that what is doubtful will, by farther light,
appear to be correct; she imputes not evil, so long as good is probable; she
leans to the side of toleration rather than to that of severity; she makes
every allowance that truth will permit; looks at all the circumstances which
can be pleaded in mitigation; does not allow her opinions to be formed until
she has had opportunity to escape from the mist of passion, and to cool from
the wrath of contention. Love desires the happiness of others—and how can
she be in haste to think evil of them?
If it be asked, Do all good men act thus? I again reply,
They act thus just in proportion as they are under the influence of
Christian love. The apostle does not say that every man who is possessed of
love does so—but that love itself thinks no evil; and therefore implies that
every good man will act thus in the same degree in which he submits to the
influence of this virtue. Divine grace! hasten the universal reign on earth,
and put an end to those evil surmisings by which the comfort of mankind and
the fellowship of the saints are so much disturbed!
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