SERMON XVII.

LOVE TO OUR NEIGHBOR.

ΜΑΤ. ΧΧΙΙ. 35-40.

Then one of them which was a lawyer asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In love to God and man consists all the religion of the Old Testament and the New. As far as any religion has this character it is genuine, whatever errors and imperfections may attend it As far as any religion wants this character it is spurious, however correct may be the creed and conduct of its professors. "Though I understand-all knowledge and—have all faith;—though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, [that love to God and man which "is the fulfilling of the law,"] it profiteth me nothing." Zeal itself is nothing better than

strange fire any further than it is enkindled by love. Is it tinctured with bitterness towards men of opposite opinions? Is it proud? Does it irritate rather than allay the sinful passions? It is nothing but animal nature excited. Animal nature, warmed by sympathy, heated by party spirit, and blown by the breath of spiritual pride, may be kindled into fervent zeal when there is little or no love to God or man. These impure ingredients are too often mixed with the zeal of those who are really pious,— those especially who have warm and sanguine constitutions. It may be admitted as an everlasting maxim, that the less our religion is shaped by our natural temperament, the more supernatural and pure it is.

Scarcely any human propensity discovers itself more in matters of religion, than a disposition to sunder the two tables of the law which God has joined together. A great portion of the Christian world, though split into different parties and called by various names, may be reduced to two classes; those who place their religion too exclusively in love to man, and those who place it too exclusively in love to God. The former class, neglectful of the duties of private devotion, and inattentive to their affections to their Creator and Redeemer, place all their religion in moral honesty, alms-giving, and decent manners, added perhaps to a formal acknowledgment of God in the acts of public worship. The latter class, though full of devotion and zeal towards God, are neglectful of their duties to their neighbors. If they are not deficient in moral

honesty, at least their intercourse with men is strongly marked with selfishness. If they do not neglect the social and civil duties which are cardinal, they are too inattentive to the feelings of others, and too desirous to please themselves in the adjustment of numberless little circumstances which constitute a great part of the happiness or misery of social life. They habitually withhold many attentions which love could not fail to render. When the gratification of their own wills or propensities comes in competition with the wishes of others, as daily happens in many trivial matters, their pleasure must be consulted and their neighbor's disregarded. If they happen to differ from others on the topics of ordinary conversation, they are always in the right, and they maintain their opinions with an obstinacy and an ambition to triumph in the argument which is no wise consistent with loving their neighbors as themselves. They are sociable or silent as their own whims, and not as the feelings of others, dictate. If they are not bitter and censorious, they are at least untender and uncandid towards those who differ from them in opinion. They claim to love God, but they have little or no love to man.

Now these two kinds of religion equally separate the two tables of the law. Both are defective. Where love to both God and man is not found, there is no true love to either. On the one hand, that heart which "is enmity against God," has no sanctified affections of any kind. Its social affections are nothing more than the natural feelings which are common to infidels and pagans, and in some

measure to brutes. How can there be a principle of pure benevolence which refuses to love the Father of the universe, who comprehends in himself infinitely the greatest portion of all existence? Those who neglect the first table of the law and place all their religion in the duties of the second, never perform even these otherwise than in a superficial, heartless manner: and who does not know that external actions without the heart are dead,— the body without the soul? On the other hand, "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." We cannot "bless-God” with the same tongue with which we "curse— men." That love to God which is not accompanied with love to our neighbor, is not genuine. True love to God contains a principle of good will to all intelligent beings, and of peculiar affection to those who bear his image. There is a selfish love to God as a benefactor and friend, which leaves the mind as sour towards men as ever. Love to men is one of the best tests of genuine love to God.

But even where love to God is sincere, there is danger that while engaged in contemplating our obligations to him, we shall overlook the attentions which we owe to men. We must reflect much on the second great command, in order to prevent our religion from becoming unsocial and severe. Real love is not an unsocial principle. The sweet flow

of affection towards all men which appears in revivals of religion, especially among those in whom the love of God is new and ardent, evinces this.

My present design is to treat of love to our neighbor; in doing which I shall describe perfection which I never reached; but the law of God is not the less binding for our defects.

We are required to love our neighbor as ourselves. Who then is our neighbor? Every child of Adam, -those who are to us what the Samaritans were to the Jews, those who have a different religion, who are strangers and natural enemies. These are our neighbors according to Christ's own instruction in the parable of the good Samaritan. Wherever there is man, there is our neighbor.

Love to our neighbor is a principle of universal good will and kindness; a disposition to desire, and as far as we are able to promote, the temporal and spiritual prosperity of all men; to "do good" to "all" as we have-opportunity," " especially" to "the house-hold of faith." "Charity-is kind."

Charity is a principle far more pure and elevated than any of the natural affections, and is essentially different from the friendships of the world,-from all friendships founded on a similarity of natural tastes, community of interests, or interchange of favors. Its objects are both persons and characters; and to both it is just and impartial. It loves persons according to their greatness and the distinctness with which they are contemplated. It loves the divine image by whomsoever reflected, in proportion to the clearness with which it is seen. Where charity is combined