much of this natural good temper, who yet have no regard to God or duty: yea, a secret grudge against a neighbour, reigning in the heart, may be, in the good-notured man, consistent with his good-nature, but it is not consistent with the love here required; and therefore they are evidently two things. 3. That love which is commonly called natural affection, is not the love here required. It is true, that man is worse than the beasts, who is without natural affection, for they evidenly are not; but every man is not a saint, because he has natural affection: and it is true we owe a peculiar love, according to God's law, to our relatives; but natural affection is not this love: for there are many ungodly wretches, who care neither for God nor his law, who have as much natural affection as any in the world; yea, it is a common thing for ungodly parents to make very idols of their children; for them, they go, and run, and work, and toil, by night and day, to the utter neglect of God and their own souls: and surely this cannot be the very love which God requires. And besides, as natural affection naturally prompts parents to love their children more than God, and be more concerned for their welfare than for his glory, so it is commonly a bar in the way of their loving others as they ought. They have nothing to give to the poor and needy, to the widow and the fatherless; they must lay up all for their children: yea, many times they rake and scrape, cheat and defraud, and, like mere earth-worms, bury themselves in the world; and all this for the sake of their children. And yet all this love to their children does not prompt them to take care of their souls. They never teach their children to pray, nor instruct them to seek after God: they love their bodies, but care little for their souls. Their love to the one is beyond all bounds, but, to the other, is little or nothing: it is an irrational fondness, and not the love required. Indeed, if parents loved their children as they ought to do, their love would effectually influence them to take care of their souls, and do all their duty to them-which natural affection evidently does not; and therefore it is not that love with which God, in his law, requires parents to love their children: nor, indeed, does there seem to be any more of the nature of true virtue or real religion in the natural affection of men, than there is in the natural affection of beasts -both resulting merely from animal nature and a natural selflove, without any regard to the reason and nature of things. 4. Nor is that the love here required, which arises merely from a party-spirit; because such a one is of their party, and on their side, and loves those whom they love, and will plead, stand up, and contend for them, and maintain their cause: for such a love is pregnant with hatred and ill-will to every body else; and nothing will humour and gratify it more than to see the opposite party hated, reviled, and blackened: and besides, such a love is nothing but self-love in another shape.Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: But I say unto you, love your enemies. Mat. v. 43, 44. 5. Nor is that the love here required, which arises merely from others' love to me: As if a rich man is kind and bountiful to poor people all around him, and appears to love and pity them, they, though almost ever so wicked, will feel a sort of love to him. But if this rich man happens to be a civil magistrate, and is called to sit as a judge in their case, and passes judgment against them for their crimes, now their love dies, and enmity, and hatred, and revenge begin to ferment in their hearts. In this case, it is not the man they love, but rather his kindnesses: and their seeming love is nothing but a certain operation of self-love. And indeed, however full of love persons may seem to be to their neighbours, if all arises merely from self-love, or is for self-ends, nothing is genuine: and that, whether things worldly, or things religious, occasion their love. A poor man will love and honour those who are rich, if he hopes to get any thing by it. A rich man may be kind to the poor, with an eye to his credit. An awakened sinner will love an awakening preacher, in hopes he shall be converted by his ministry. A minister may seem to show a world of love to the souls of sinners, and all with an eye to applause. Hypocrites will love a godly minister, so long as he thinks well of them, and happens not to detect their hypocrisy in his public preaching. Even the Galatians were very full of love to Paul for a while, so long as they thought he loved them, and had been the instrument of their conversion; yet, afterwards, they lost their love, and turned his enemies, for his telling them the truth; while others, who loved him truly for what he was, were more and more knit unto him for those very doctrines for which the Galatians hated him. If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not the publicans the same? Mat. v. 46. There is no virtue nor religion in such a kind of love, and it is evidently not the thing required by the divine law. And indeed it is a thing as difficult, and as contrary to corrupt nature, for us genuinely to love our neighbours as ourselves, as it is to love God with all our hearts; and there is as little true love between man and man, as there is between men and God. It is for our interest to love God, and it is for our interest to love our neighbours, and therefore men make as if they did so, when, really, there is nothing genuine and true. And, at the day of judgment, when a wicked world comes to God's bar, and their past conduct is all brought to light, nothing will be more manifest than that there never was a spark of true love to God or man in their hearts, but that, from first to last, they were actuated and governed either by their animal constitution, or else merely by self-love. 6. I may add, nor is that the love required, when men love others merely because they are as bad, and so just like themselves. Nature and self-love will prompt the worst of men to do so. The vain and profligate love such as are as bad as themselves: and, from the same principle, erroneous persons have a peculiar regard for one another. And the enthusiast and blazing hypocrite may, from the same principle, seem to be full of love to their own sort, though full of malice against all others: and they may think that it is the image of God which they love in their brethren, when, indeed, it is only the image of themselves. Persons of a bad taste may greatly delight in those things in others, which are very odious in the sight of God: but surely this cannot be the love required; and yet, by this very thing, many a hypocrite thinks himself a true saint. Thus we see what it is to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbours as ourselves, and see these two distinguished from their counterfeits. And so we have gone through the two great commands of the law, in a conformity to which the very essence of religion does much consist. And now it is added by our Saviour, Upon these two hang all the law and the prophets. The law and the prophets, i. e. the inspired writings of the Old Testament consider these two maxims, that we must love God with all our hearts, and our neighbours as ourselves, as frst and foundation-principles : and all the various duties which they urge, respecting God and our fellow-men, are but so many inferences and deductions from them. God must be loved with all the heart: and therefore we must make him our God and none else, according to the first çommand; worship him according to his appointed institutions, agreeably to the second command; with becoming reverence and devotion, according to the third; and that in all such set times as he hath appointed in his word, according to the fourth. Our neighbour must be loved as ourselves: and therefore we must render honour to whom honour is due, according to the fifth command; and be tender of our neighbour's life, chastity, estate, and good name, according to the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth commands; and rejoice in his welfare and prosperity, according to the tenth: and, in all things, treat him as we could reasonably desire him to treat us, according to that golden rule of Jesus Christ, in Matthew vii. 12. And as all the duties we owe to God and man, are thus, in the theory, but so many deductions, necessarily flowing from these two maxims or first principles, so, when the law of God is written in the heart of a sinner by divine grace, and put in his inward parts, there will, from these two principles, naturally flow all duties to God and his neighbour, in his daily practice; i. e. from a disposition to love God supremely, live to him ultimately, and delight in him superlatively, he will naturally be inclined and enabled sincerely to do all his will; to make him his God, according to the first command; to worship him according to his own appointments, with becoming reverence, and at all suitable times, according to the rest. It will be his nature to do all this; his meat and his drink, and so his greatest delight. And so, also, from a genuine disposition to love. his neighbour as himself, he will be naturally inclined and enabled, in all things, and at all times, sincerely to do as he would be done by. It will be his nature to do so; his meat and his drink, and so his greatest delight. Heb. viii. 10. John xv. 14. 1 John ii. 3,4. Psalm xix. 10. So that, as it is in theory, so also it is in practice; these two are like the seed that virtually contains the whole plant, or like the root from which the whole tree grows, with all its branches and fruit. And in proportion as a man loves God and his neighbour with a genuine love, in the same proportion will his inclination and ability, thence arising, be, to do all these duties: and consequently, when his love to God and his neighbour arrives to perfection, he will be perfectly inclined and enabled to be perfect in holiness and righteousness, and will actually, in all things, perfectly conform to both tables of the law. And it is equally evident, that, until a man has a genuine love to God and his neighbour in his heart, he will have neither inclination nor ability, (in a moral and spiritual sense,) to perform one act of true obedience: for as all true obedience, according to the law and prophets, is to flow from these two principles, so consequently, according to the law and prophets, that is not true obedience which does not: and, therefore, when all a man's religion is merely from self-love, and for self-ends he cannot be said, strictly speaking, to do any duty to God or his neighbour, or obey one command; for he only serves himself, and that from a supreme love to himself, which the law and the prophets do not require, but strictly forbid, in that they enjoin the direct contrary. So that now, in a few words, we may here see wherein true religion does consist, as it stands distinguished from all the false religion in the world. The godly man, from seeing God to be just such a one as he is, and from a real sense of his infinite glory and amiableness in being such, is thereby influenced to love him supremely, live to him ultimately, and delight in him superlatively : from which inward frame of heart, he freely runs the way of God's commands, and is in his element when doing God's will. He eats, he drinks, he works, he prays, and does all things, with a single eye to God, who has placed him in this his world, allotted to him his peculiar station, and pointed |