and Waspish People are no Company for one another and much less for those who are of contrary Qualities Similitude being the Foundation of all Love of Complacency Tho' where there is Similitude there may be no such Love viz. when it lyeth in unlovely and troublesome Qualities yet wheresoever there is such a Love there must be more or less Similitude And according to the degree of Similitude will be the degree of Complacential Love Again if such a Person be sensible that such a one Hates him and watcheth all Occasions to do him Mischief he cannot have this kind of Love for him Now when I say that some we can take no Complacency in I suppose that therefore we are not obliged to it Nemo tenetur ad impossibile Nor is it agreeable to the Divine Goodness to impose unnatural things on Men. There are again Others whom we may not Love with this Love of Delight though we could Namely Prophane or Debauched People those who tho' they may have the Form of Godliness deny in their Practice the Power thereof The Apostle admonisheth his Son Timothy to withdraw himself from such as these To be pleased with the Conversations of such People is to express a liking of their Ways at least it argues a very Luke-warm Temper and a great Unconcernedness for the Honour of God and the Interest of Religion But no Man can be of so Unlovely a Temper or so wicked a Wretch as that it should not be our Duty to love him in the Second Sense of the Word viz. to wish well to him and endeavour as we have Opportunity his Welfare and Happiness Which supposeth I need not say a Change of his Nature without which he cannot be capable of Happiness And therefore this Change of his Nature is in the first place to be desired and endeavoured Secondly As to the Necessity of Loving each other there is no Duty more plainly enjoyned or more vigorously urged in the Holy Scriptures Especially by our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles And therefore those who are better acquainted with the Christian Religion than with the Spirits and Behaviour of those who profess it may think it needless to spend any time upon this Argument But because the Religion of too too many who are called Christians and that Religion which our Saviour brought into the World are very unlike it will not be amiss to give a short Account what this is in reference to the Point before us As our Blessed Lord calls it His New Commandment That we Love one another as He hath Loved us so in the Words following he makes this the distinguishing Character of his Disciples By this saith he shall all men know that you are my Disciples if ye have Love one to another And so desirous was he that they should not be defective in Love that above all the excellent Petitions he puts up for them Iohn 17. this of Love is the only Grace he particularly prays for in their behalf viz. ver 21. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be united in Love have one Heart and one Soul And the Reason for which he thus prayeth doth mightily Commend this Grace viz. That the World may believe that thou hast senâ— me Which is as much as to say that Christian ex 〈…〉 ing in the Grace of Love will be a great Conviction to the World of the Execllency and therefore of the Truth of the Christian Religion And again Verse the last I have declared saith he to them thy Name and will declare it that the Love wherewith thou hast Loved me may be in them And his Beloved Disciple S. Iohn thought he could never enough extol this Grace He makes Love the very Essence of the Deity 1 Ep. 4. 16. God is Love and adds that he who dwelleth â—n Love dwelleth in God and God in him And v. 7. he saith that Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God and knoweth God Knoweth him practically and experimentally And Ch. 3. 14. We know saith he that we have passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren We know that we are Regenerate Christians by our Love and Charity He that loveth not his Brother abideth in Death He is certainly an Unregenerate Man a wicked Creature And ver 15. Whosoever hateth his Brother is a Murtherer and ye know that no Murther hath Eternal Life abiding in him Nor is S. Paul wanting in Recommending and pressing this Duty Owe saith he no man any thing but to love one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Or this is the Christian Perfection of the Law as it relates to our Neighbour And in what follows he sheweth that the whole second Table is herein implyed And in short this great Apostle preferreth Charity before all other Endowments and Accomplishments Before the speaking with the Tongues of Men or Angels before 〈…〉 all Mysteries before all Knâ—â—â—â—â—â— and 〈◊〉 all Faith too even the Faith of Miracles nay before the greatest Zeal nay such a zeal as will make men give their Bodies to be burnt 1 Cor. 13 chapter He there tells us that Charity is so much above all these that they are none of them worth any thing without Charity Much more may be said to shâ—w what a mighty Figure this Duty of Loving each other makes in the Religion of our Saviour Thirdly I come to shew how far this duty of loving one another is to extend or what we are to understand by one another in the Text. In a word it takes in all Men whatsoever Not only our Friends and Acquaintance Not only our own Party and those that say as we say and think as we think Not only those that oblige us and do us good turns but all the World all that partake of the same common Nature with our selves be they who or what they will 1. This is apparent from the Text. A new Commandment I give unto you That you love one another as I have loved you Now the Love of Christ was Vnlimited He dyed for all mankind S. Iohn saith that He is the Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World S. Paul calls him The Saviour of all Men That is so their Saviour as to exclude none from Salvation who will comply with the Terms on which He offereth it He hath shut out none from having benefit by what he did and suffered in the behalf of Sinners nor ever will he any who shall not reject the Counsel of God against themselves And lest we should think that by the World and the whole World and all Men we are only to understand some of all sorts this same Apostle assures us that this Phrase all Men is to be taken in the same Latitude in referrence to the Remedy brought by Christ that 't is to be taken in in reference to the Mischief done by Adam Therefore as by
the offence of one saith he judgment came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free-gift came upon all men to Iustification of Life viz. the gift of the new Gracious Covenant And the Author to the Hebrews chap. 2. 9. tells us that Christ tasted death for every man Now if our Saviour loved all men loved all so as to put them into a Reconcilable state so that it must be their own Personal fault and long of their Wilfulness and Obstinacy if the worst of Sinners be not actually reconciled to God then since he hath commanded us to love others as He hath loved them our Love is to extend to all without exception And well might our Lord call this a New Commandment for no such is to be found in the Law of Moses or in the Prophets 2. This farther appears from those other words of our Saviour Mark 12. 31. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self You may say the word Neighbour seems to be Limiting and Confining But we must understand this word as our Lord himself hath Explained it Luke 10. 29. Here is a Question put by a Lawyer to Him Who is my Neighbour Now see His Answer in the following words A Certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his Rayment and wounded him leaving him half dead and by chance there came a certain Priest that way and when he saw him he passed by on the other side and likewise a Levite when he was at the place came and looked on him and passed by on the other side But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had Compassion on him c. Now saith our Saviour v. 36. Which of these three thinkest thou was Neighbour to him that fell among thieves And the Lawyer answering He that shewed mercy on him Our Lord replyed Go thou and do likewise Which is as if he had said Thou hast now answered thy self every Person that needs thy relief tho' he be unto thee as Iews and Samaritans are to one another tho' he be of a different Religion from thee nay tho' he be thine Enemy as the Iews and Samaritans were to each other he is thy Neighbour and therefore thou art obliged to love him as thy self to do to him when in an afflicted state as thou wouldst be done unto in the like Condition Again 't is Evident 3. That we are not to confine our Love and Charity to some particular Persons in that we are farther required by our Saviour to imitate our Heavenly Fathers Love and Charity Be Perfect saith he as your Heavenly Father is perfect Mat. 5. 48. That is as appears from what goes before let the exercise of your Charity extend as far as God ' s extendeth For as it follows v. 45. He maketh His Sun to rise on the Evil and on the Good and sendeth Rain on the Iust and on the Vnjust And as the Psalmist declareth His mereys are over all his works The Lord is good to all and His tender mercys are over all His works But 4. Express Texts enjoyn this If any are to be excluded from our Love they must be our Enemies but what saith our Lord of these Mat. 5. 44 But I say unto you Love your Enemies bless them that curse you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven And v. 46. If you love them which love you what Reward have you Do not even the Publicans the same And if you Salute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 embrace your Bretheren only what do you more than others Or what Excellent thing do you Do not even the Publicans the same And Gal. 6. 10. The Apostle saith Let us do good unto all men and the next words shew that tho' we ought to love all without exception as that word signifies Benevolence yet we are not to shew neither this kind of love to all alike For it follows Especially to them who are of the Household of Faith That which makes our Brother a Member of Christ's Church doth give him a Title to our greater Affection in both the foresaid Senses And here let me mind you that we ought to have a higher degree of love for all that own Christ for their Lord and Saviour than for Infidels and such as are Enemies to his Religion and those that own him most in their Practice we are obliged to have a greater love for than for mere Professors of Christianity or such as whose lives are less Conformable thereunto 'T is highly Reasonable that the most Lovely Persons should have most of our love There is nothing so Amiable as true Goodness and according to the degree thereof in any Person should be the degree of our Love to him God is to be the Object of our Highest Love because He is Perfectly and Originally Good and according as Men are more or less like to God the greater or less Complacency ought we to take in them and more or less ardently to Desire and Endeavour their Wellfare The true Christian Love doth chiefly consist in loving His Image from whom we are call'd Christians And where there is most of that whether the Persons are in all things of our minds or no we do not Love as becomes Christians if there we do not most love I speak now of Christian Love as I said such a love as is the effect of our own choice directed and Governed by our Saviour's Laws I speak not of a Natural Love which is necessary and not the effect of Choice This love do we what we can will ordinarily flow most freely towards our Yoke-Fellows Children Brethren and Sisters as being parts of our selves And so for those that are Naturalized to us by a long Acquaintance we cannot in that respect but love them better than such as are less known to us and those that have greatly obliged us we naturally love with a greater Passion than those to whom we are not at all or less beholden But tho' Scripture Nature and Reason do enjoyn us to love one another with a different kind and degree of love yet it hath been fully made to appear that 't is our duty to extend our love to all to wish well to and desire and endeavour as we are able and have opportunity the happiness of every man Fourthly I proceed to shew what Qualifications our love to each other ought to have Our Text tells us that we ought to love one another as Christ hath loved us and the other Text in S. Mark that we are to love our Neighbour as our selves And that is 1. Most Heartily and Sincerely My little Children saith S. Iohn Let us not love in word neither in tongue but in Deed and in Truth Let love be without dissimulation saith S. Paul I need not say that Christ's love to
us was most hearty nor that our love to our selves is so Indeed if our Love be not hearty as we love not like Christians so we do not love at all Love is seated in the Heart only so that Professions of love and love it self are no more the same thing than are Shadows and Substances Realities and mere Appearances 2. We ought to love Ingenuously as well as Heartily To love Men Ingenuously is to delight in them or wish well to them for their own sakes without respect to our own Interest So you need not be told our Saviour loved Mankind next to the Glory of God and the Advancement of Righteousness and Universal Goodness in the World He was acted by a vehement desire of Our happiness He did not Love Men as men love their Horses and too commonly their Servants only or mostly for his own Advantage Now as I said that to Pretend to love is not to love so to love others merely with respect to our own good is rather mere self love than a love of them And to love others principally for our own sakes is more to love our selves than them And that such a love is far from deserving to be called Christian Love will appear by what a Pagan saith of it Tully tells us in his Laelius that Ipse se quisque deligit non ut aliquam a seipso mercedem exigat Charitatis suae sed quod perse sibi quisque Charus est c. Every man loves himself not that be may obtain a reward from himself for so doing but because he is for his own sake dear to himself And except as he proceeds men so love one another they cannot be true Friends And this saith he farther is seen in the very Brutes how much more then ought it to be found among Men. But many Impudently desire that others should be such Friends to them as they will be to none and expect that love from others which they will not bestow on others That is they expect that others should love them purely upon their own account and not that their love to them should Ultimately Terminate in themselves And as the Example of our Saviour so that of God the Father obligeth us thus to love one another For Man cannot be profitable to God as he that is wise may be profitable to himself Is it any Pleasure or Courtesy to the Almighty that thou art Righteous c. Iob 22. 2 3. And therefore he cannot desire that Sinners should turn from their Wickedness and live for any gain to himself If therefore we would be the Children of God we must love each other not only sincerely but generously and ingenuously And indeed if we consider the Nature of Mankind we shall find that this as well as the Commands of God and our Saviour doth oblige us to such a love of all Men. And this indeed is the reason why they have obliged us hereunto by their Commands They Command it because it is fittest in it self and best And therefore are we required to love and wish well to all for their own sakes because every man is in himself considered and as abstracted from Vicious Habits and from what is Preternatural an Excellent and therefore a Lovely Creature Every man as to his pure Naturals bears God's Image and consequently 't is most reasonable to love every man and desire his greatest happiness for his own sake Nay we ought to bear such a sort of Good-will to God's whole Creation thus to love Brutes as well as Men tho' in a far lower degree and to desire for them all that Happiness their Natures are Capable of without as well as with respect to our own Advantage and the service they may do us I say we ought to desire the well-being of all Creatures whatsoever for their own sakes I mean so far as it is consistent with the Well-being of Men because all God's Works are good and whatsoever is so hath a Right to our Benevolence as such A mercifull man saith K. Solomon Is merciful to his Beast And not only is he so because by his ill usage of his Beast he will disable him from being serviceable for this would not speak one a Merciful Man but a Man that considers his own interest but because the poor Creature has a Right to good Usage And if such a Love as this be due to Beasts much more is it so to Man-kind By the way what an ill-natured Principle is that of the Malmsbury Philosopher viz. That our Need of each other is the only Cause of our entring into Societys and the Ground of all Friendship He might judge so by himself but every one whose Nature is not miserably depraved knows by but reflecting on himself that this is wretched Doctrine 3. We are obliged to have such a degree of Love for one another as will make us most Prompt and Ready to the Performance of all Offices of Mercy and Kindness as shall be shewn presently And so to love the Souls of our Brethren as to be willing even to lay down our Lives for the procuring of their Eternal Happiness if it be necessary Hereby saith S. Iohn Perceive we the Love of God because He laid down his Life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the Brethren And thus to love one another as Christ hath loved us is not only o love our Neighbour as our selves but even better than our Selves that is than one part of our selves our viler part And as severe as this may seem nothing is more highly Reasonable than that we should prefer our Brethrens Souls before our own Bodies than that we should be more solicitous for their Eternal than for our own Temporal life This appears so Reasonable at first sight that such a Man as Tully had it come into his Mind would certainly have asserted it to be our duty This Love I might shew S. Paul professed to have for his Unbelieving Country-Men and he gave the greatest Demonstrations of the sincerity of that his Profession and so did the other Apostles too of the like Love And the same ought we all to aspire after Fifthly I come in the last place to shew in what Instances our Love to one another ought to be expressed Many I might lay before you but I cannot insist on above two or three 1. It ought to be Exprest by Sympathizing with each other in Afflictions and Rejoicing in each others Prosperity Rejoice saith the Apostle with them that Rejoice and Weep with them that Weep And look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Not that he would have us be Busy-bodies in other folks matters this we are elsewhere Cautioned against by the same Apostle But he would have us enquire after and be affected with the State of others if it be good not to Envy them but to be Glad for their sakes and if bad to Compassionate them This was