III. Peace.—To maintain peace and concord: 1. Neither take offence nor give offence. 2. Seek to edify one another; either do good or take good.
IV. Longsuffering.—To moderate our anger and desire of revenge when many and great wrongs are done us. Set and sow this plant in the furrows of your heart, and consider: 1. The goodness of God, who forgives more to us than we can forgive. 2. It is the duty of love to suffer and forbear. 3. It is a point of injustice to revenge ourselves, for then we take to ourselves the honour of God, and against all equity—we are the parties and judge and witness and all. 4. We are often ignorant of the mind of men in their actions, and of the true circumstances thereof, and so may easily be deceived.
V. Gentleness.—Right courtesy is with an honest heart to bless when we are wronged.
VI. Goodness.—The virtue whereby we communicate to others good things, for their good and benefit.
VII. Faith.—Faith towards man, which means: 1. To speak the truth from the heart. 2. To be faithful and just in the keeping of our honest promise and word. This faith a rare virtue in these days. The common fashion of them that live by bargaining is to use glorying, facing, soothing, lying, dissembling, and all manner of shifts. They that deal with chapmen shall hardly know what is truth, they have so many words and so many shifts.
VIII. Meekness.—The same in effect with longsuffering. The difference is that meekness is more general, and longsuffering the highest degree of meekness.
IX. Temperance.—The moderation of lust and appetite in the use of the gifts and creatures of God. 1. We must use moderation in meats and drinks. That measure of meat and drink which serves to refresh nature and make us fit for the service of God and man is allowed us of God and no more. 2. We must use moderation in the getting of goods. 3. In the spending of our goods—contrary to the fashion of many who spend their substance in feasting and company, and keep their wives and children bare at home. 4. In our apparel. To apparel ourselves according to our sex, according to the received fashion of our country, according to our place and degree, and according to our ability.
X. Against such virtues there is no law.—1. No law to condemn. 2. No law to compel obedience. Spiritual men freely obey God, as if there were no law; they are a voluntary and free people, serving God without restraint.—Perkins.
Ver. 22. Love an Attendant of Regeneration.—1. Love is a delight in happiness. 2. Is universal. 3. Is just. 4. Is disinterested. 5. Is an active principle. 6. Is the only voluntary cause of happiness. 7. Is the only equitable spirit towards God and our fellow-creatures. 8. Is the only disposition which can be approved or loved by God.—Dr. Dwight.
The Powers of Love.—If these be the fruit of the Spirit, they cannot be mere matters of temperament. When philosophy gives an account of the human soul it can find only constitutional propensities and voluntary acquisitions. When we interrogate Christianity, we are told besides of communicated sanctities, states of mind which inheritance cannot give or resolution command, which need some touch of God to wake them up, which are above us and yet ours, and seem to lie on the borderland of communion between the finite and the infinite Spirit.