My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Read Chapter 3
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Lo, whence charity begins withal! If you are not yet equal to the dying for your brother, be even now equal to the giving of your means to your brother. Even now let charity smite your bowels, that not of vainglory you should do it, but of the innermost marrow of mercy; that you consider him, now in want. For if your superfluities you can not give to your brother, can you lay down your life for your brother? There lies your money in your bosom, which thieves may take from you; and though thieves do not take it, by dying you will leave it, even if it leave not you while living: what will you do with it? Your brother hungers, he is in necessity: belike he is in suspense, is distressed by his creditor: he is your brother, alike you are bought, one is the price paid for you, you are both redeemed by the blood of Christ: see whether you have mercy, if you have this world's means. Perchance you say, What concerns it me? Am I to give my money, that he may not suffer trouble? If this be the an...
"Little children, let us not love in word, or in tongue "says John, teaching them to be perfect, "but in deed and in truth; hereby shall we know that we are of the truth."
My little children, let us not1ove in word, and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. He condemns here all false charity, which exhibits itself in words only, as S. James ( James 2:15) does also. S. Gregory (Moral. xxi14) says that our charity must ever be exhibited in reverent words, &c, and in ministering bountifully. And S. Bernard (in Song of Solomon 2:4) explaining the words, "He ordered charity in me" (see. Vulg.) says, "He requires not the craft of the lying tongue, nor the taste of affected wisdom. Let us love in deed and in truth, being moved to good deeds by the impulse of living charity rather than by any affected love. Give me a man who loves God with all his heart, himself and his neighbours, and everything else relating to God with well-ordered love, and I boldly pronounce him to be a wise Prayer of Manasseh , to whose taste all things seem to be just as they really are, and who can in truth safely say, Because He hath ordered love in me. But who is he?"
But observe here...
