A

DISCOURSE

ON

MATTHEW xxii. 37-39.

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; and thy neighbour as thyself.

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HE wisdom and meekness of our Saviour is the more remarkable, and shines the brighter, by the malice of his adversaries; and their cavils and tempting questions occasion our benefit and instruction. Thus here,

We see the words are the sum of the whole law, and they are taken out of the book of the law: they are called two commandments; the former is the sum of the first, the latter of the second table. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, &c. That is, says our Saviour, the first and great commandment. Our first obligement is to God, and through him and for his sake to men: The second like to it.

Seems it not rather contrary than like to the former; whereas in the former the whole stream of love is directed in one undivided current towards God, this other commandment seems to cut up a new channel for it, and to turn a great part of it to men, Thy neighbour as thyself? No, they are not contrary, if we take them right; yea, they do not only agree, but are inseparable; they do not divide

our love, but they set it in its right course; first wholly to God, as the sovereign good, and only for himself worthy to be loved; and then back from him, it is according to his own will derived downwards to our neighbour; for then only we love both ourselves and others aright, when we make our love to him the reason and the rule of both *. So then our love is to be immediately divided betwixt him and our neighbour, or any creature, but is first all to be bestowed on him, and then he diffuses by way of reflexion so much of it upon others as he thinks fit: being all in his hands, it is at his dispose, and that which he disposes elsewhere as here, (Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself) it is not taken off from him, but abiding still in him, as in its natural place: as light doth in the sun, flows forth from him by such an emanation as divides it not; as beams flow forth from the sun and enlighten the air, and yet are not cut off from it.

So then the second is like unto the first, because it springs from it, and depends on it, it commands the same affection; love in the former placed on God, and in this extended from him to our neighbour. And like in this too, that as the former is the sum of the first table, and so the first and great commandment; so this is the sum of the second table, and therefore next unto it in greatness and impor

tance.

All the precepts that can be found in the law and prophets are reducible to these, and all obedience depends upon this love. 1. Consider this, how those are the sum of this law. 2. Particularly in themselves.

Not only because it is love facilitates all obedience, and is the true principle of it, that makes it both easy to us, and acceptable to God; but besides this, that

* Minus enim te amat, qui aliquid præter te amat, & non propter te. Incipiat homo amare Deum, & non amabit in homine nisi Deum. AUG.

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love disposes the soul for all kind of obedience, this very act of love is in effect all that is commanded in the law. For the first laid to the first table, it is so much one with the first commandment, that it expresses most fitly the positive of it, opposite to that which is there forbidden, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me, but shalt have me alone for thy God, or bestow all divine affection, and all worship that is the sign and expression of it, upon me only, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c. And if thou lovest me alone, thou wilt not decline to any kind of false worship, that were to vitiate thy affection, and to break that conjugal love and fidelity to which thou art bound by covenant, being my people as by a spiritual marriage." Therefore is idolatry so frequently called, in the phrase of the prophets, adultery and uncleanness: and in the letter of that commandment, the Lord uses that word, which in its usual sense is conjugal, and relates to marriage, I am a jealous God; and in the close of that precept expresseth particularly this affection of love, as particularly interested in it, though extended to all the rest, I shew mercy to thousands of them that love me.

Is it not a genuine property of love to honour and respect the name of those whom we love, and therefore it is altogether inconsistent with the love of God to vilify and abuse his name?

They that understand the true use of that holy rest of the sabbath-day, do know that it frees the soul, and makes it vacant from earthly things for this purpose, that it may fully apply itself to the worship and contemplation of God, and converse with him at greater length. Then certainly where there is this entire love to God, this will not weigh heavy, will be no grievous task to it, it will embrace and gladly obey this commandment, not only as its duty, but as its great delight; for there is nothing that love rejoices in more, than in the converse and society of those on whom it is placed,

would willingly bestow most of its time that way, and thinks all hours too short that are spent in that society. Therefore not only they that profanely break, but they that keep it heavily and wearily, that find it rather a burthen than a delight, may justly suspect that the love of God is not in them; but he that keeps his day chearfully, and loves it, because on it he may more liberally solace and refresh himself in God, may safely take it as an evidence of his love to God.

Now that after the same manner the love of our neighbour is the sum of the second table, the apostle St. Paul proves it for us clearly and briefly. All the commandments touching our neighbour are for guarding him from evil and injury. Now Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore is the fulfilling of the law. He that truly loves his neighbour as himself, will be as loth to wrong him as to wrong himself, either in that honour and respect that is due to him, or in his life or chastity, or goods or good name, or to lodge so much as an unjust desire or thought, because that is the beginning and conception of real injury. In a word, the great disorder and crookedness of the corrupt heart of man, consists in self-love; it is the very root of all sin both against God and man; for no man commits any offence, but it is some way to profit or please himself. It was a high enormity of self-love, that brought forth the very first sin of mankind; that was the bait that took more than either the colour or taste of the apple, that it was desirable for knowledge; it was in that that the main strength of the temptation lay, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And was it not deep self-love to affect that? And it is still thus, though we feel the miserable fruits of that tree: the same self-love possesses us still, that to please our own humour and lusts, our pride, or covetousness, or voluptuousness, we break the law of God, the law of

* Rom, iii. 9, 10,

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piety, and of equity and charity to men. fore the apostle, foretelling the iniquities and impieties of the last times, covetous, boasters, &c. and lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God; he sets that on the front, as the chief leading evil, and the source of all the rest, lovers of their ownselves: men shall be lovers of themselves, therefore covetous; and lovers of themselves more than lovers of God, because lovers of their own selves. Therefore this is the sum of that which God requires in his holy law, the reforming of our love, which is the commanding passion of the soul, and wheels all the rest about with it in good or evil.

And its reformation is in this, recalling it from ourselves unto God, and reflecting it from God to our brethren; loving ourselves sovereignly by corrupt nature, we are enemies to God, and haters of him, and cannot love our neighbours but only in reference to ourselves, and so far as it profits or pleaseth us to do so, and not in order and respect unto God: the highest and the true redress of this disorder, is that which we have here in these two precepts as the substance of all; first that all our love ascend to God, and then what is due to men de scend from thence, and so passing that way it is purified and refined, and is subordinate and conformed to our love of him above all, which is the first and great commandment.

Here we have the supreme object of love, to whom it is due, the Lord thy God, and the measure of it, which is indeed to know no measure*, with all thy heart, all thy soul, and all thy mind, (for which in Deut. thy strength,) Luke hath both; the differ. ence is none, for all mean that the soul, and all the powers of it, unite and combine themselves in their most intense and highest strength to the love of God, and that all the workings of the soul, and ac

y 2 Tim. iii. 2.

Modus est nescire modum, subtiliùs ista distinguere facile est magis quàm solidum.