'On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.'
And not Elijah only, as James says, and not Paul and Barnabas only, as
they themselves said, were men of like passions with ourselves, but our
Lord Himself was a man of like passions with us also. He took to Himself
a true body, full of all the appetites of the body, and a reasonable
soul, full of all the affections, passions, and emotions of the soul.
Only, in Him reason and conscience and the law and the Spirit of God were
the card and the compass according to which He steered His life. We have
all our ruling passion, and our Lord also had His. As His disciples saw
His ruling passion kindled in His heart and coming out in His life, they
remembered that it was written of Him in an old Messianic psalm: 'The
zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.' They were all eaten up of their
ruling passions also. One of ambition, one of emulation, one of avarice,
and so on,--each several disciple was eaten up of his own besetting sin.
But they all saw that it was not so with their Master.
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