THE EFFECT OF ECSTASY. DOING MUST BE THE FRUIT OF LOVE

^[p. 174] THE EFFECT OF ECSTASY. DOING MUST BE THE FRUIT OF LOVE

I like your remarks about ‘constraining and ecstasy’. I enjoyed (I was going to say) the effect of ecstasy — the sense of being transformed in the presence of One where there is no weakness, no worry, no discontent, no evil. The effect of being where everything is good is very great; you return to this poor world no longer looking for better things in the midst of all the bad, but certain that you have been where all is good....

I wonder that ———— does not see the place which feeling occupies in the moral economy of a man. The Spirit is feeling before power. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, each a feeling in a different way. Love is a feeling produced in respect to another, an engrossing feeling because of another outside of yourself. Joy, a feeling produced in yourself because of some great satisfaction rendered to you. Peace, the feeling that every element of disturbance which had existed has been destroyed. All I say is, the feeling is before the action; the motive before the execution. A man might have the best utterance, have all knowledge, all faith, work miracles, suffer extremely, give all his goods to feed the poor, and be nothing because he had not the right motive — love. Love is obedient, because if I am really absorbed with another, to do his will must be my first pleasure. Great love always controls, and under its influence you are not an independent being, you are under the control of another. There has been too much attention to the appearance and too little to the motive which should produce the right appearance. Make the tree good and the fruit will be good. There is more doing than loving. “Son, give me thine heart” (Proverbs 23: 26). “If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned” (Song of Songs 8: 7). Amiability and benevolence imitate the works of love, but always leave off when love would most persist. Love seeks my perfection, not merely my alleviation. Love is never satisfied but in the perfection of its object. Some invest their ideals with perfection;

^[p. 175] the Lord makes sure of our perfection, it is His own motive which is His measure.

As to the Red Sea and Jordan, we must go over the Red Sea for our own peace, and we must go over Jordan to enjoy union with Christ. Every one sealed is united, but there is a moment when by the work of the Spirit one apprehends the blessed fact. The Prince of Wales was born a prince before he was one, and it was still longer before he knew how to behave as one. It is not the high position which distinguishes a man, but the measure in which the man lives up to the high position.