1 Thess. iii. 12, 13. The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you : to the end he may stablish your hearts un- blameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
THE grace which is most generally spoken of in the Holy Scriptures as establishing the souls of men, is faith : " If ye believe not," says the prophet, " ye shall not be established3 :" and again, " Believe in the Lord your God, and so shall ye be established V It is by faith that we lay hold on the word of God ; and by faith that we commit our every concern to God ; and by faith that we expect the accomplish- ment of all that God has promised : and therefore the composing and establishing of our minds in rela- tion to all future events is properly represented as the fruit of faith. But there is a sense in which love also establishes the heart, as the Apostle intimates in the passage before us ; where he prays, that God would make the Thessalonian Christians to abound in love, in order to the establishment of their hearts in uni- versal holiness. In this view love is sometimes united with faith, as concurring with it to strengthen and fortify the soul ; as when Christians are said to " have on the breastplate of faith and love."
But this effect of love not being generally under- stood, we will enter the more carefully into the sub- ject, and point out,
I. The influence of love on universal holiness —
Love is an extremely powerful principle in the heart of every one that is truly born of God : it is the great wheel which sets the whole machine in motion, and gives a vital energy to every part. In that chiefly does the new man consist ; and from it does every Christian grace derive its strength.
a Isai. vii. 9. b 2 Chron. xx. 20.