Henry Schuyler
Published: 2013-03-26
Total Pages: 222
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"You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you." Thus to the apostles and to all mankind, our Lord points out the practical and only adequate way of enjoying in its fulness the blessed privilege of Friendship with Himself. We are to do what He commands us to do if we would be His friends. If we wish to abide with Him, we ought "also to walk, even as He walked;" to sacrifice ourselves in obedience to the Divine Will, even as He also sacrificed Himself to the least wish of His Father; to practice the virtues of a true Christian as exemplified in His life; in a word, to strive to be perfect as our "heavenly Father is perfect." Every step, therefore, that we take towards a full reproduction of the virtues of Christ in our lives, every increase in our courage and charity, for example, means a firmer and fuller state of friendship with the Great Exemplar of these virtues. But one barely begins to tread upon the way of the imitation of Christ when he realizes that every step he takes owes its efficacy to the very Model he is striving to imitate, and that all the thoughts and acts that go into the formation of virtue are prompted and sustained by the grace of God given him for this very purpose through the merits of Jesus Christ. In other words, his Friend is not only his Model, but also his sole support. Without Him he cannot take a step forward. He depends absolutely upon the infinite love of Jesus Christ. There must be a constant outpouring of this love upon him, else he is unable to make the least progress. It is here that we see clearly the existence of that foundation upon which friendship, in the full sense of the word, is based -intercourse between the two terms of the relationship, communication of friend with friend. Our Lord sends us His plenteous love, first to move us to act, and then to perfect the act itself and others that may follow. We, in return, offer Him our efforts of body and mind and will. There is, or should be, on our part, a continuous striving, a constant stream of effort going up to heaven, passing side by side, but in an opposite direction, with the ever-flowing current of divine love that pours downward, tirelessly seeking to penetrate and influence every minutest part of our beIng. Upon this intercourse is based our friendship with God, that mutual love of benevolence which leads a Perfect Being to diffuse His infinite goodness upon man, and impels us to add to His external glory by striving to save our own souls and the souls of others in so far as the opportunity is afforded us. In the days of the Old Dispensation, God had no permanent abiding place with man, in the sense that He possesses one now. From time to time, He appeared to His creatures under certain visible forms. It was thus that He had converse with Adam and Eve in the Garden, and Moses on Mount Sinai. But these Theophanies, as they are called, were rare. Brief and infrequent, however, as were these and other communications between God and man before the time of our Saviour, they entered into the life of the children of Israel, and helped to supply the stimulus required for the formation of the friendship which then existed between the Creator and His creatures.Then, in the fulness of time, came the Son of God in the flesh of man, and dwelt amongst us. And His visible habiting in the midst of men gave the most obvious opportunities for the perfecting of friendship with God that the world would ever witness. But those who embraced these opportunities were few. And when our Lord ascended into heaven, the vast majority of men had made not the slightest effort to enter into the relationship of friendship with their visible Saviour.