at home too, and yet cannot find in their hearts to forgive an injury.

As forgiving injuries argues the truth of piety, so it is that which makes all converse both sweet and profitable, and besides, it graces and commends men and their holy profession to such as are without, and strangers to it, yea, even to their enemies.

Therefore is it that our Saviour doth so much recommend this to his disciples, and they to others, as we see in all their epistles. He gives it them as the very badge and livery by which they should be known for his followers, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another". And St. Paul is frequent in exhorting to and extolling this grace. He calls it the bond of perfectness, that grace which unites and binds all together. So doth our apostle here, and often in this and the other epistle; and that beloved disciple St. John, who leaned on our Saviour's breast, drank deep of that spring of love that was here, and therefore it streams forth so abundantly in his writings, they contain nothing so much as this divine doctrine of love.

We have here, 1. The due qualifications of it. 2. A Christian's obligation to it.

I. The qualifications are three; namely, sincerity, purity, and fervency. The sincerity expressed in the former clause of the verse, unfeigned love, and repeated again in the latter part, that it be with a pure heart, as the purity is included in fervency.

1. Love must be unfeigned. It appears that this dissimulation is a disease that is very incident in this particular. The apostle St. Paul hath the same word, and the apostle St. John to the same sense. That it have that double reality, which is opposed to double dissembled love; that it be cordial and effectual; that the professing of it arise from truth of

b John xiii. 35.

Rom. xii. 10. and xiii, 8. 1 Cor. i. 13.
other places.
d Col. iii. 14.

Gal. v. 13. Eph. iv. 2. and in many e Rom. xii. 9.

f 1 John iii. 18.

affection, and, as much as may be, be seconded with action; that both the heart and the hand may be rather the seal of it than the tongue: not court holywater, an empty noise of service and affection, that fears nothing more than to be put upon trial. Although thy brother with whom thou conversest cannot, it may be, see through thy false appearances, he that commands this love, looks chiefly within, seeks it there, and if he find it not there, hates them most that most pretend it: so that the art of dissembling, though never so well studied, cannot pass in this king's court, to whom all hearts are open, and all desires known. When, after variances, men are brought to an agreement, they are much subject to this, rather to cover their remaining malices with superficial verbal forgiveness, than to dislodge them, and free the heart of them. This is a poor self-deceit; as the philosopher said to him, that being ashamed that he was espied by him in a tavern in the outer room, withdrew himself to the inner, he called after him, "That is not the way out; the more you go that way, you will be the further within it." When hatreds upon admonition are not thrown out, but retire inward to hide themselves, they grow deeper and stronger than before; and those constrained semblances of reconcilement are but a false healing, do but skin the wound over, and therefore it usually breaks forth worse again.

How few are there that have truly maliceless hearts, and find this entire upright affection towards their brethren meeting them in their whole conversation, this law of love deeply impressed on their hearts, and from thence expressed in their words and actions, and that is unfeigned love as real to their brethren as to themselves.

2. It must be pure, from a pure heart; this is not all one with the former, as some take it. It is true, doubleness and hypocrisy is an impurity, and a great one; but all impurity is not doubleness; one may really mean that friendship and affection he expresses, and yet it may be most contrary to, that

which is here required, because impure; such a brotherly love as that of Simeon and Levi, brethren in iniquity, as the expressing them brethren, is taken to mean. When hearts are cemented together by impurity itself, by ungodly conversation and society in sin, as in uncleanness or drunkenness, &c. this is a swinish fraternity and friendship that is contracted, as it were, by wallowing in the same mire. Call it good fellowship, or what you will, all the fruit that in the end can be expected out of unholy friendliness and fellowship in sinning together, is to be tormented together, and to add each to the torment of another.

The mutual love of Christians must be pure, arising from such causes as are pure and spiritual, from the sense of our Saviour's command and of his example; for he himself joins that with it, A new commandment give I you, saith he, that as I have loved you, so you also love one another. They that are indeed lovers of God are united; by that their hearts meet in him, as in one center. They cannot but love one another: where a godly man sees his Father's image, he is forced to love it; he loves those he perceives godly, so as to delight in them, because that image is in them, and those that appear destitute of it, he loves them so, as to wishthem partakers of that image. And this is all for God; he loves amicum in Deo, & inimicum propter Deum: that is, he loves a friend in God, and an enemy for God. And as the Christian's love is pure in its cause, so in its effects and exercise; his society and converse with any tends mainly to this, that he may mutually help, and be helped in the knowledge and love of God, he desires most that he and his brethren may jointly mind their journey heavenwards, and further one another in their way to the full enjoyment of God. And this is truly the love of a pure heart, that both begins and ends in God.

3. We must love fervently, not after a cold indifJohn xiii, 3416

Gen. xlix,

ferent manner. Let the love of your brethren be as a fire within you, consuming that selfishness that is so contrary to it, and is so natural to men, let it set your thoughts on work to study how to do others good; let your love be an active love, intense within you, and extending itself in doing good to the souls and bodies of your brethren as they need, and you are able; Alium re, alium consilio, alium gratia.

It is self-love that contracts the heart, and shuts out all other love both of God and man, save only so far as our own interest carries, and that is still self-love: but the love of God dilates the heart, purifies love, and extends it to all men, but after a spe cial manner directs it to those that are more peculiarly beloved of him, and that is here the particular love required.

II. The christian's obligation to this love, intimated in the words, love of the brethren. In this is implied our obligation to it after a special manner, to love those of the household of faith, because they are our brethren. This includes not only, as Abraham said, that there ought to be no strife, but it binds most strongly to this sincere and pure and fervent love; and therefore the apostle in the next verse repeats expressly the doctrine of the mysterious new birth, and explains it more fully, which he hath mentioned in the entrance of the epistle, and again referred to, v. 14. 17.

There is in this fervent love, sympathy with the griefs of our brethren, desire and endeavour to help them, bearing their infirmities, and recovering them too, if it may be; raising them when they fall, admonishing and reproving them as is needful, sometimes sharply, and yet still in love; rejoicing in their good, in their gifts and graces, so far from envying them, that we be glad as if they were our own; there is the same blood running in their veins: you have the same Father, and the same Spirit within you, and the same Jesus Christ the head of that glorious As Sen, de benef. lib. 1. cap. 2.

* Gen. xiii. 8.

fraternity, The first-born among many brethren', of which the apostle saith, that he hath recollected into one, all things in heaven and in earth". The word is, gathered them into one head; and so suits very fitly to express our union in him. In whom, says he in that same epistle", the whole body is fitly compacted together; and adds, that which agrees to our purpose, that this body grows up and edifies itself in love. All the members receive spirits from the same head, and are useful and serviceable one to another, and to the whole body. Thus these brethren receiving of the same spirit from their head Christ, are most strongly bent to the good one of another. If there be but a thorn in the foot, the back boweth, the head stoops down, the eyes look, the hands reach to it, and endeavour its help and ease. In a word, all the members partake of the good and evil one of another. Now by how much this body is more spiritual and lively, so much the stronger must the union and love of the parts of it be each to other. You are brethren by the same new birth, and born to the same inheritance, and such an one as shall not be an apple of strife amongst you, to beget debates and contentions: No, it is enough for all, and none shall prejudge another, but you shall have joy in the happiness one of another; seeing you shall then be perfect in love, all harmony, no difference in judgment nor affection, all your harps tuned to the same new song, which you shall sing for ever. Let that love begin here, which shall never end.

And this same union (I conceive) is likewise expressed in the first words of the verse: seeing you are partakers of that work of sanctification by the same word, and the same Spirit that works it in all the faithful, and by that are called and incorporated into that fraternity; therefore live in it, and like it. You are purified to it, therefore love one another after that same manner purely. Let the profane world scoff that name of brethren, you will not be so foolish as to be scorned out of it, being so honourable and 1 Rom. viii. 29. m Eph. i. 10. Chap. iv. 16.

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