八月七日
正直人爱你。（改译）（歌1：4）
信徒爱耶稣的爱比爱一切人的爱更深。不久他们要失去他们的父母，但却不能离开基督。他们把属世的福乐看得很轻，但却紧紧把他存在心里。他们自动地爲他的缘故舍掉自己，但无论怎样摧逼也不能舍掉他。一点点爱或者可以被逼迫的火烧干，但一个真信徒的爱却像一条深邃的河流。人们曾多方致力分化信徒与主的关系，但每一次他们的企图都归失效，荣冠、怒杖，都不能把他们分开。这种联系是世界的权势所不能分开的。无论是人或是魔鬼都不能找到一把钥匙打开这锁。撒但所犯的严重错误乃是想分裂这种密切的关系，经上说：“正直人爱你。”什麽也不能涂去这话。正直人的爱有多大的力量，就是自己也不能估计。我们的爱心若是不够，那才是一件可悲的事呢！愿我们心中的爱日渐增加，长进。愿我们能和路兹福德（Samuel Rutherford）一同说：“愿我有全世界和天上所有的爱——天上的天和万千世界的爱——都给美丽、可爱、最可爱的基督。”可惜，我们爱情的量最多不过像水桶上的一滴，哪能满足他的干旱呢？若我们按著自己的心愿来测量我们的爱，当然显得很多；但我们要凭主的判断才行。愿我们把衆心的爱结合起来归于全然可爱的主！
“耶稣，我爱你名，比爱他名加增，耶稣我主。
独你爲我永业，有你我无匮乏；无你，我多忧怯；耶稣我主。”
August
7
“The
upright love Thee” — Song of Solomon 1:4
Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to
any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with
Christ. They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry Him fast
locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for His sake, but they
are not to be driven to deny Him. It is scant love which the fire of
persecution can dry up; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this.
Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts
have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of
anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment
which the world’s power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have
found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at
fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of
two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence,
“The upright love Thee.” The intensity of the love of the upright,
however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright
long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our
hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel
Rutherford, we sigh and cry, “Oh, for as much love as would go round about
the earth, and over heaven–yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand
worlds–that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ.” Alas!
our longest reach is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of
a bucket compared with His deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it
is high indeed; ’tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could
give all the love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all
loves to Him who is altogether lovely!
