Henry Venn
God’s incomparable excellency is a motive to induce the Christian to love God, but he has further motives. The more completely an object is suited to benefit us, so much the more will our hearts be united to it and feel affection towards it. Accordingly the Christian loves God as his chief good. God alone, says he, can be a heart-satisfying portion to me. In His favour is my life, while all beneath Him is full of vanity and disappointment – too worthless and too transient to satisfy even one desire fully. But God is all-sufficient: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.”
This love of a Christian to God expresses itself in frequent longings to share in His pardoning mercy and be happy for ever, through being accepted by Him. He is content to part with all he has for this; he considers God’s love to him to be above everything. He can say with David: “Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us”. He cannot be easy while a cloud obscures his Father’s face. The apprehension of His displeasure is most grievous to him; nor can he be satisfied till God is reconciled. He cries with vehemence like David: “Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not
1Taken, with editing, from The Complete Duty of Man. Venn (1724-97) was an Anglican minister in Huddersfield and elsewhere.
Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.”
He discovers also the sincerity of his love to God by a delight in Him, no less than by desires after Him. His soul is at rest while he can call God his God. In such a view he rejoices in the divine favour more than he would in calling the whole world his own. It animates him in the highest degree to think that God is his “portion”. And so truly does he rejoice in God, and delight in Him with sincere affection, that he is satisfied under all the troubles to which he can be exposed. Amidst shame and reproach he can support and content himself in the thought that God knows his innocence and approves of him. In his needs, distresses and afflictions, it is a strong consolation that, in this state the Lord knows his path and that when he is tried, he shall come forth as gold.
Even in the most perilous and dismaying circumstances, when the judgements of an incensed God are spreading consternation over whole countries, the Christian in his love to God still finds a spring to cheer and refresh his soul, to which none but himself has access. “God is [my] refuge and strength,” he says, “a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not [I] fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” For in the midst of all this fiery indignation issuing forth against his adversaries, the Christian still beholds God in Christ Jesus reconciled to him and to every humbled sinner.
Such were the glorious expressions of love to God even before the Lord Jesus Christ had ascended up on high, leading “captivity captive”; one must therefore conclude that the more explicit knowledge of salvation which we enjoy must produce the same blessed effect. The inspired Habakkuk could find such love to God in his heart as to say, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation”. If a man of like passions with ourselves could so love God as to find comfort in Him amidst the horrors of a universal dearth, we may certainly conclude that – now that the Messenger of the covenant, the Dayspring from on high, has visited the Church – the love which a real Christian bears to his God may enable him to feel at least as high a delight and exultation in His favour.
Though, alas, few are observed in our own day to love God in a degree so fervent and intense as this, yet the endeavour and the desire of all who are sincere Christians is to do so. And they reveal they have a principle of love,
of the very same kind, by opposing their first tendencies to complain, even in a time of great tribulation, by rebuking themselves for the defectiveness of their delight in God, saying “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance” (Ps 42:5).
Whether therefore the Christian is weak or strong, it is apparent that he delights himself in the Lord. When he rejoices and triumphs in the midst of outward troubles, his delight in God flames forth with vigour and brightness. And when it is his grief and heavy burden that he cannot do so, this is still as true an expression of love to God struggling in a sore conflict under the weight of oppression. It is because it is the very joy of his heart to be glad in the Lord and in everything to give thanks, that he feels pain on account of his dejection and lack of joy in God in the time of tribulation.
Such delight in God, even in the midst of prosperity, is something the world cannot understand; and the utmost they can conceive man is able to attain is to bear distressing troubles with calmness. Therefore it demonstrates that a Christian delights in God when it is his very desire to be “strengthened with all might, according to [God’s] glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” – that is, to bear afflictions with holy triumph, considering what God is to him and has done for him.