Charity and its fruits - Edwards - I - Lecture I

Required reading
Charity and its fruits by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Lecture I (Charity, or love, the sum of all virtue).

My summary
Today we begin a new work on love by Edwards.

Firstly, Edwards speaks about the nature of a truly Christian love.  A true Christian love is one and the same in its principle as it is:
(i) all from the same Spirit;
(ii) wrought in the heart by the same work of the Spirit;
(iii) from the same motives.

Secondly we are shown the truth of the doctrine, that all virtue that is saving, or distinguishing of true Christians, is summed up in Christian love.  This appears from:
(i) what reason teaches of the nature of love;
(ii) the Scriptures teaching us that love is the sum of all that is contained in the law of God;
(iii) the Scriptures teaching us that "faith works by love".

The chapter then closed with some points of application.

What grabbed me
I liked Edwards' comments about love for enemies: '...it is no wonder that Christianity so strongly requires us to love our enemies, even the worst of enemies (as in Matt. v. 44); for love is the very temper and spirit of a Christian : it is the sum of Christianity. And if we consider what incitements thus to love our enemies we have set before us in what the Gospel reveals of the love of God and Christ to their enemies, we cannot wonder that we are required to love our enemies, and to bless them, and do good to them, and pray for them, " that we may be the children of our Father which is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."'

If we were once God's enemies and yet he loved us by sending his Son, it shouldn't surprise us that we are told to love our enemies.

Next week's reading
Read Lecture II (Charity more excellent than the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.