Sermon 22: Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount, Discourse II

466 An Introductory Comment [to Sermons 21-33]

The unifying theme of these next thirteen ‘discourses’ on the Sermon on the Mount, with all their variations and nuancings, is the Christian life understood as the fruit of justifying faith. But given such faith, what follows? Wesley’s answer is given in this extended exposition of the Christian life based on the locus classicus of evangelical ethics, ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ (i.e., Matthew 5-7). Since Tyndale, this ‘sermon’ had been understood as ‘the epitome of God’s laws and promises’ for Christian believers; cf. Clebsch, England’s Earliest Protestants, p. 184; see also William Burkitt, Expository Notes…on the New Testament (eleven editions between 1700 and 1739), Preface to chapter 5: ‘Christ’s famous Sermon on the Mount comprehends the sum and substance of both the Old and New Testaments.’

Taken together, the following sermons are not a thirteen-part essay, tightly organized and argued. Instead, they are separate sermons, drawn from materials running back to 1725, arranged in a triadic pattern that seems to have been original with Wesley. Each is a discourse in its own right; yet the series is designed so that each appears as a part of a whole. This means that the sermons may be read singly or together, but with an eye on their shared aim: ‘to assert and prove every branch of gospel obedience as indispensably necessary to eternal salvation’; cf. Wesley’s open letter (Nov. 17, 1759) to John Downes in reply to the latter’s abusive Methodism Examined and Exposed (1759).

Many of the great and near-great commentators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had devoted their talents to the interpretation of Matthew 5-7 as the principal summary of Christian ethics, or, in Henry Hammond’s phrase, as ‘an abstract of Christian philosophy’; cf. his Practical Catechism (1st edn., c. 1644), II.1, in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology (1847), p. 83. Chief among these earlier works, in the order of their influences upon Wesley’s thought, were Bishop Offspring Blackall, ‘Eighty-Seven Practical Discourses Upon Our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’, Works, I.1-561; II.609-939; 467John Norris, Practical Discourses; the American, James Blair, Our Saviour’s Divine Sermon on the Mount in IV Volumes (1722; 2nd edn., 1740, with a preface by Daniel Waterland); John Cardinal Bona, Guide to Eternity… (six editions in English between 1672 and 1712); and Henry Hammond, op. cit. Echoes of all these are scattered along the way, together with lesser borrowings from Bengel, Poole, and Henry. This makes it all the more remarkable that Wesley came up with a model of his own, both inform and substance. This series thus reminds us, yet again, of Wesley’s ready appeal to tradition—even while he maintains his own originality and independence.

Benjamin Ingham records in his Journal that ‘during the voyage [to Georgia] Wesley went over our Saviour’s Sermon on the Mount’ with the ship’s company aboard the Simmonds. There are also other records of his preaching, very early on, from one or another text in Matthew 5-7. For example, his second sermon was preached at Binsey (near Oxford), November 21, 1725, on Matt. 6:33. A first draft of the sermon which appears here as ‘Discourse VIII’ seems to have been written out in 1736. Later, it was the example of the Sermon on the Mount that encouraged Wesley to break out of his High Church prejudices in Bristol, April 1, 1739: ‘In the evening (Mr. Whitefield being gone) I begun expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching, though I suppose there were churches at that time also) to a little society which was accustomed to meet once or twice a week in Nicholas Street;’ cf. Journal entries for this whole story of the unplanned outbreak of the Wesleyan Revival.

The records show that, between 1739 and 1746, Wesley preached more than one hundred sermons from separate texts in the Sermon on the Mount. There is, however, no recorded instance of his having treated that Sermon as a whole anywhere else. Evidently, he was prepared to allow this series, once published, to stand as his sufficient comment on the subject.

In his introduction to ‘Discourse X’, §§1-3, Wesley repeats his explanation (cf. ‘Discourse I’, Proem, §10) of how he had conceived the design of Matthew 5-7, according to its three unfolding themes: (1) ‘the sum of true religion’; (2) ‘rules touching that right intention which we are to preserve in all our outward actions’; and (3) ‘the main hindrances of this religion’. He then adds a clarifying summary: ‘In the fifth chapter [of St. Matthew] our great Teacher…has laid before us those dispositions of the soul which constitute real Christianity…. In the sixth [chapter] he has shown how all our actions…may be made holy, and good, and acceptable to God, by a pure and holy intention…. In 468the former part of [ch. 7] he points out the most common and fatal hindrances of this holiness; in the latter [part] he exhorts us, by various motives, to break through all [such hindrances] and secure that prize of our high calling [of God in Christ Jesus]’ (cf. Phil. 3:14).

The thirteen discourses are divided almost equally over the three chapters of St. Matthew: five for chapter five, four each for six and seven. Of the first five, Discourse I is devoted to the first two Beatitudes; Discourse II to Beatitudes three through five (with a hymn to love based on 1 Cor. 13); Discourse III to the remainder of the Beatitudes; Discourse IV turns to Christianity as ‘a social religion’ in which inward holiness (our love of God) prompts outward holiness (love of neighbour); Discourse V is a balancing of law and gospel. Discourses VI-IX are based on chapter six: VI to the problems of purity and holiness of intention (to the ‘works of piety and of mercy’); VII to fasting; VIII to a denunciation of greed and surplus accumulation; IX to the mutually exclusive services of God and Mammon. Discourses X-XIII turn to various hindrances to holy living and to their avoidance: X to ‘judging’ (contrary to love), ‘intemperate zeal’, ‘neglect of prayer’, ‘neglect of charity’; XI to the noxious influences of ill-example and ill-advice with which the world deludes us; XII to false prophets and unedifying preachers (and yet also our duties to attend church nonetheless and to avail ourselves of all means of grace); XIII is an inevitable comment on the parable of the houses built on sand and rock. Discourse XII was also published separately in the same year that it appeared in SOSO, III (1750), under the title, ‘A Caution Against False Prophets. A Sermon on Matt. vii. 15-20. Particularly recommended to the People Called Methodists’. This went through seven editions during Wesley’s lifetime. For a stemma delineating the publishing history of that sermon (‘collected’ and ‘separate’) and a list of variant readings, see Appendix, ‘Wesley’s Text’, Vol. IV, see also Bibliog, Nos. 130 and 13o.i.

Obviously there is no interest, in any of these sermons, in critical textual problems or in the historical context. Everywhere it is assumed that in St. Matthew’s text we are dealing with divine ipsissima verba—i.e., with a direct address from ὁ ὤν, ‘the self-existent, the Supreme, the God who is over all, blessed for ever’ (§9 below). The Sermon on the Mount, in Wesley’s view, is the only Gospel passage where Christ designed ‘to lay down at once the whole plan of his religion, to give us a full prospect of Christianity’. What matters most in our reading, therefore, is an awareness of Wesley’s sense of the wholeness of the message he is interpreting, of his conviction of the honest integration of an evangel profoundly ethical with an ethic that is also vividly 469evangelical. Maybe more than anywhere else in SOSO this particular bloc displays Wesley’s distinctive concern for integration and balance—between the faith that justifies and the faith that works by love.

488 Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,
Discourse the Second

Matthew 5:5-7

Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.

1

1I. 1. When ‘the winter is past’, when ‘the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land’;

1

S. of S. 2:11-12.

when he that comforts the mourners is now returned, ‘that he may abide with them for ever’;

2

Cf. John 14:16.

when at the brightness of his presence the clouds disperse, the dark clouds of doubt and uncertainty, the storms of fear flee away, the waves of sorrow subside, and their spirit again ‘rejoiceth in God their Saviour’:

3

Cf. Luke 1:47.

then is it that this word is eminently fulfilled; then those whom he hath comforted can bear witness, ‘Blessed (or happy) are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.’

4

Matt. 5:5.

22. But who are the meek? Not those who grieve at nothing because they know nothing, who are not discomposed at the evils that occur because they discern not evil from good. Not those who are sheltered from the shocks of life by a stupid insensibility; who have either by nature or art the virtue of stocks and stones, and resent nothing because they feel nothing. Brute philosophers

5

Cf. Nicholas Rowe’s lines from the prologue to The Ambitious Step-Mother (inaccurately cited in the OED), quoted by Wesley in No. 84, The Important Question, III.3:

Let not the Stoic boast his mind unmoved,

The brute philosopher, who ne’er has proved

The joy of loving, or of being loved.

See below, No. 136, ‘On Mourning for the Dead’, and Wesley’s assertions that Christians ought not feel deep grief. Is the disposition recommended there Christian meekness or stoicism?

are 489wholly unconcerned in this matter. Apathy

6

ἀπάθεια: a crowning virtue in Stoic ethics signifying the ideal state of freedom from passion (παθεία) or any other disturbing emotions. Cf. primary sources (Dionysius, Arrian, Plutarch) in Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon; see also Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, espec. the citations from Clement of Alexandria.

is as far from meekness as from humanity. So that one would not easily conceive how any Christians of the purer ages, especially any of the Fathers of the Church, could confound these, and mistake one of the foulest errors of heathenism for a branch of true Christianity.

33. Nor does Christian meekness imply the being without zeal for God, any more than it does ignorance or insensibility. No; it keeps clear of every extreme, whether in excess or defect. It does not destroy but balance the affections, which the God of nature never designed should be rooted out by grace, but only brought and kept under due regulations.

7

The familiar Thomist principle that grace does not destroy nature but perfects it (gratia non tollit naturam sed perfecit).

It poises the mind aright. It holds an even scale with regard to anger and sorrow and fear; preserving the mean in every circumstance of life, and not declining either to the right hand or the left.

8

See 2 Chr. 34:2.

44. Meekness therefore seems properly to relate to ourselves. But it may be referred either to God or our neighbour. When this due composure of mind has reference to God it is usually termed resignation—a calm acquiescence in whatsoever is his will concerning us, even though it may not be pleasing to nature, saying continually, ‘It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.’

9

1 Sam. 3:18. Note this composite definition of a familiar theme of the mystics. Its nearest source was Law’s Serious Call, (Works, IV.242): ‘Resignation to the divine will signifies a cheerful approbation and acceptance of everything that comes from God….’ But in the Christian Lib. (cf. the Index in the 2nd edn., 1837, Vol XXX) Wesley cites the same idea in almost the same words from Molinos, De Renty, Antoinette Bourignon, and The Country Parson’s Advice (cf. XLV.169-291). E.g., in Miguel Molinos, The Spiritual Guide Which Disentangles the Soul, 1688 (ibid., XXXVIII.249-93), resignation is defined as ‘a total and absolute consignment of thyself into the hands of God, with a perfect submission to his holy will….’ See also Nos. 69, ‘The Imperfection of Human Knowledge’, IV, ¶3; 82, ‘On Temptation’, III.10; and 83, ‘On Patience’, §10; see also the Diary for Sept 2, 1736, for his report of reading ‘Worthington on Resignation’; this would have been John Worthington, Cambridge Platonist and advocate of theological pluralism, The Great Duty of Self-Resignation to the Divine Will (1675).

When we consider it more strictly with regard to ourselves we style it patience or contentedness. When it is exerted toward 490other men then it is mildness to the good and gentleness to the evil.

10

Wesley is here digesting and adjudicating a very large literature on the theme of ‘Christian meekness’. His sources here include Joseph Trapp, Sermons on Moral and Practical Subjects (1725), I.145; Joseph Mede, ‘Discourse XXXII’, in Works, pp. 160-61; William Bates, ‘Sermon on the Mount’, in Works, II.193-94; and, of course, Offspring Blackall and Henry Hammond. For Blackall meekness is chiefly ‘the mastery of passion’; the Christian who ‘can show anger when there is just cause for it’ still keeps it under control (Discourse V, Works, I.42 ff.; there follows an interesting analysis of anger amongst the ‘Christian tempers’). Hammond defines meekness as ‘a softness and mildness and quietness of spirit’ in relation to God and our submission to his will and in relation to our fellows, ‘whether superiors, equals or inferiors’ (Practical Catechism, pp. 87-95). John Norris cites Aristotle’s Ethics (IV) which defines meekness as moderation but then proceeds to identify it ‘as an instance of charity, …since charity obliges us to promote both our own and our neighbour’s happiness. It must, consequently, oblige us to moderate and govern [our] passion’ (Practical Discourses, III.59). Anger is especially difficult to control in a degree that is Plato’s τὸ μέτριοv (‘the just right’): hence meekness is a necessary Christian virtue. See also Heylyn, Theological Lectures, pp. 60-61: ‘The immediate office of meekness is to govern the passions.’

For other comments on meekness in the Wesley corpus, cf. Nos. 23, ‘Sermon on the Mount, III’, III.12; 65, ‘The Duty of Reproving our Neighbour’, III.4; 83, ‘On Patience’, §4; 92, ‘On Zeal’, II.2; 110, Free Grace, §12; 120, ‘The Unity of the Divine Being’, §22; also his letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, Nov. 26, 1762.

55. They who are truly meek can clearly discern what is evil; and they can also suffer it. They are sensible of everything of this kind; but still meekness holds the reins. They are exceeding ‘zealous for the Lord of hosts’;

11

Cf. 2 Kgs. 19:31; Isa. 9:7; 37:32.

but their zeal is always guided by knowledge, and tempered in every thought and word and work with the love of man as well as the love of God. They do not desire to extinguish any of the passions which God has for wise ends implanted in their nature. But they have the mastery of all; they hold them all in subjection, and employ them only in subservience to those ends. And thus even the harsher and more unpleasing passions are applicable to the noblest purposes. Even hate and anger and fear, when engaged against sin, and regulated by faith and love, are as walls and bulwarks to the soul, so that the wicked one cannot approach to hurt it.

66. ’Tis evident this divine temper is not only to abide but to increase in us day by day. Occasions of exercising, and thereby increasing it, will never be wanting while we remain upon earth. We ‘have need of patience, that after we have done’ and suffered ‘the will of God, we may receive the promise’.

12

Cf. Heb. 10:36.

We have need of resignation, that we may in all circumstances say, ‘Not as I will, 491but as thou wilt.’

13

Matt. 26:39.

And we have need of ‘gentleness toward all men’;

14

Cf. 2 Tim. 2:24.

but especially toward the evil and the unthankful; otherwise we shall be overcome of evil, instead of overcoming evil with good.

15

See Rom. 12:21.

77. Nor does meekness restrain only the outward act, as the scribes and Pharisees taught of old, and the miserable teachers who are not taught of God will not fail to do in all ages. Our Lord guards us against this, and shows the true extent of it, in the following words: ‘Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever shall be angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire.’

Matt. 5:21-22. [Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, II.4 and n.]

88. Our Lord here ranks under the head of murder even that anger which goes no farther than the heart; which does not show itself by an outward unkindness, no, not so much as a passionate word.

‘Whosoever is angry with his brother’—with any man living, seeing we are all brethren; whosoever feels any unkindness in his heart, any temper contrary to love; whosoever is angry ‘without a cause’—without a sufficient cause, or farther than that cause requires—‘shall be in danger of the judgment’, ἔνοχος ἔσται, ‘shall’ in that moment ‘be obnoxious to’

the righteous judgment of God.

But would not one be inclined to prefer the reading of those copies which omit the word εἰκῆ, ‘without a cause’?

Is it not entirely superfluous? For if anger at persons be a temper contrary to love, how can there be a cause, a sufficient cause for it? Any that will justify it in the sight of God?

Anger at sin we allow. In this sense we may ‘be angry and’ yet we ‘sin not’.

In this sense our Lord himself is once recorded to have 492been angry: ‘He looked round about upon them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.’ He was grieved at the sinners, and angry at the sin. And this is undoubtedly right before God.

99. ‘And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca.’ Whosoever shall give way to anger, so as to utter any contemptuous word. It is observed by commentators that Raca is a Syriac word which properly signifies empty, vain, foolish: so that it is as inoffensive an expression as can well be used toward one at whom we are displeased.

And yet whosoever shall use this, as our Lord assures us, ‘shall be in danger of the council’—rather, ‘shall be obnoxious thereto’. He shall be liable to a severer sentence from the Judge of all the earth.

‘But whosoever shall say, Thou fool’—whosoever shall so give place to the devil as to break out into reviling, into designedly reproachful and contumelious language, ‘shall be obnoxious to hell-fire’—shall in that instant be liable to the highest condemnation. It should be observed that our Lord describes all these as obnoxious to capital punishment: the first to strangling, usually inflicted on those who were condemned in one of the inferior courts; the second to stoning, which was frequently inflicted on those who were condemned by the Great Council at [01:493]Jerusalem; the third to burning alive, inflicted only on the highest offenders, in the ‘valley of the sons of Hinnom’, Γῆ ‘Εννών, from which that word is evidently taken which we translate hell.

1010. And whereas men naturally imagine that God will excuse their defect in some duties for their exactness in others, our Lord next takes care to cut off that vain though common imagination. He shows that it is impossible for any sinner to commute with God, who will not accept one duty for another, nor take a part of obedience for the whole.

He warns us that the performing our duty to God will not excuse us from our duty to our neighbour; that works of piety, as they are called, will be so far from commending us to God if we are wanting in charity, that on the contrary that want of charity will make all those works an abomination to the Lord.

‘Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee’—on account of thy unkind behaviour toward him, of thy calling him ‘Raca’, or ‘Thou fool’—think not that thy gift will atone for thy anger, or that it will find any acceptance with God so long as thy conscience is defiled with the guilt of unrepented sin. ‘Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother’ (at least do all that in thee lies toward being reconciled) ‘and then come and offer thy gift.’

1111. And let there be no delay in what so nearly concerneth thy soul. ‘Agree with thine adversary quickly’—now; upon the spot—‘while thou art in the way with him’—if it be possible, before he go out of thy sight—‘lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge’—lest he appeal to God, the Judge of all—‘and the judge deliver thee to the officer’—to Satan, the executioner of the wrath of God—‘and thou be cast into prison’

—into hell, there to be reserved to the judgment of the great day. ‘Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’ But this it is 494impossible for thee ever to do; seeing thou hast nothing [with which] to pay. Therefore if thou art once in that prison the smoke of thy torment must ‘ascend up for ever and ever’.

1212. Meantime, ‘the meek shall inherit the earth.’

Such is the foolishness of worldly wisdom! The wise of the world had warned them again and again that if they did not resent such treatment, if they would tamely suffer themselves to be thus abused, there would be no living for them upon earth; that they would never be able to procure the common necessaries of life, nor to keep even what they had; that they could expect no peace, no quiet possession, no enjoyment of anything. Most true—suppose there were no God in the world; or suppose he did not concern himself with the children of men. But ‘when God ariseth to judgment, and to help all the meek upon earth’, how doth he laugh all this heathen wisdom to scorn, and turn the ‘fierceness of man to his praise’! He takes a peculiar care to provide them with all things needful for life and godliness. He secures to them the provision he hath made, in spite of the force, fraud, or malice of men. And what he secures he ‘gives them richly to enjoy’. It is sweet to them, be it little or much. As ‘in patience they possess their souls’, so they truly possess whatever God hath given them. They are always content, always pleased with what they have. It pleases them because it pleases God; so that while their heart, their desire, their joy is in heaven, they may truly be said to ‘inherit the earth’.

1313. But there seems to be a yet farther meaning in these words, even that they shall have a more eminent part in the ‘new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness’,

in that inheritance, a general description of which (and the particulars we shall know hereafter) St. John has given in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. ‘And I saw an angel come down from heaven…. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, …and bound him a thousand years…. And I saw the souls of them that were 495beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and of them which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were expired. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.’

2

1II. 1. Our Lord has hitherto been more immediately employed in removing the hindrances of true religion: such is pride,

38

Cf. No. 14, The Repentance of Believers, I.3 and n.

the first, grand hindrance of all religion, which is taken away by ‘poverty of spirit’;

39

Cf. Matt. 5:3.

levity and thoughtlessness, which prevent any religion from taking root in the soul till they are removed by holy mourning; such are anger, impatience, discontent, which are all healed by Christian meekness. And when once these hindrances are removed—these evil diseases of the soul which were continually raising false cravings therein, and filling it with sickly appetites—the native appetite of a heaven-born spirit returns; it hungers and thirsts after righteousness. And ‘blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.’

40

Matt. 5:6.

22. Righteousness (as was observed before) is the image of God, the mind which was in Christ Jesus.

41

See Phil. 2:5.

It is every holy and heavenly temper in one; springing from as well as terminating in the love of God as our Father and Redeemer, and the love of all men for his sake.

42

Cf. Blackall’s definition of righteousness as ‘twofold’: both ‘actual, personal, and inherent righteousness’ (always imperfect) and ‘imputed righteousness…, i.e., our justification and acquittal by God…for the sake of Christ’ (Works, I.61). Here he follows Hammond, who had drawn the same distinction in his Practical Catechism, p. 96. Wesley pushes beyond their point and interprets righteousness as holiness: the perfect love of God and ‘of all men for his sake’. Cf. Nos. 83, ‘On Patience’, § 10; and 85, ‘On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, §§2, 3.

33. ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after’ this; in order fully to understand which expression we should observe, 496first, that hunger and thirst are the strongest of all our bodily appetites. In like manner this hunger in the soul, this thirst after the image of God, is the strongest of all our spiritual appetites when it is once awakened in the heart; yea, it swallows up all the rest in that one great desire to be renewed after the likeness of him that created us. We should, secondly, observe that from the time we begin to hunger and thirst those appetites do not cease, but are more and more craving and importunate till we either eat and drink, or die. And even so, from the time that we begin to hunger and thirst after the whole mind which was in Christ

43

See Phil. 2:5.

these spiritual appetites do not cease, but cry after their food with more and more importunity. Nor can they possibly cease before they are satisfied, while there is any spiritual life remaining. We may, thirdly, observe that hunger and thirst are satisfied with nothing but meat and drink. If you would give to him that is hungry all the world beside, all the elegance of apparel, all the trappings of state, all the treasure upon earth, yea thousands of gold and silver; if you would pay him ever so much honour, he regards it not; all these things are then of no account with him. He would still say, ‘These are not the things I want; give me food, or else I die.’

44

Cf. Gen. 25:29-34; 30:1.

The very same is the case with every soul that truly hungers and thirsts after righteousness. He can find no comfort in anything but this: he can be satisfied with nothing else. Whatever you offer beside, it is lightly esteemed; whether it be riches, or honour, or pleasure, he still says, ‘This is not the thing which I want. Give me love or else I die!’

44. And it is as impossible to satisfy such a soul, a soul that is athirst for God, the living God, with what the world accounts religion, as with what they account happiness. The religion of the world implies three things: first, the doing no harm, the abstaining from outward sin—at least from such as is scandalous, as robbery, theft, common swearing, drunkenness; secondly, the doing good—the relieving the poor, the being charitable, as it is called; thirdly, the using the means of grace—at least the going to church and to the Lord’s Supper.

45

An interesting summary of ‘the [invalid] religion of the world’ (an earlier account of which had been given in No. 2, The Almost Christian; cf. espec. I.6). Note, however, that it is also a précis of Wesley’s own General Rules, the seed of which can be found in his early sermon (Sept. 3, 1732), ‘Public Diversions Denounced’, II.2 (No. 143). Thus, the Rules by themselves, outside the context of faith, are no better than any other set of moralistic dicta. Cf. also Nos. 23, ‘Sermon on the Mount, III’, II.4; 25, ‘Sermon on the Mount, V’, IV.7, 11; 33, ‘Sermon on the Mount, XIII’, I.2, II.2-4; 85, ‘On Working Out Our Own Salvation’, II.4 (where Wesley has an approving reference); 89, ‘The More Excellent Way’, §5; 98, ‘On Visiting the Sick’, §1; 115, ‘Dives and Lazarus’, II.7; 119, ‘Walking by Sight and Walking by Faith’, §§15 ff.; cf. also A Blow at the Root, §4 (Bibliog, No. 250, Vol. 13 of this edn.); and JWJ, Nov. 25, 1739. For Wesley’s comments on ‘the saints of the world’ cf. No. 4, Scriptural Christianity, II.5 and n.

He in whom these three 497marks are found is termed by the world a religious man. But will this satisfy him who hungers after God? No. It is not food for his soul. He wants a religion of a nobler kind, a religion higher and deeper than this. He can no more feed on this poor, shallow, formal thing, than he can ‘fill his belly with the east wind’.

46

Job 15:2.

True, he is careful to abstain from the very appearance of evil.

47

See 1 Thess. 5:22.

He is zealous of good works.

48

Titus 2:14.

He attends all the ordinances of God. But all this is not what he longs for. This is only the outside of that religion which he insatiably hungers after. The knowledge of God in Christ Jesus; ‘the life that is hid with Christ in God’;

49

Cf. Col. 3:3.

the being ‘joined unto the Lord in one Spirit’;

50

Cf. 1 Cor. 6:17.

the having ‘fellowship with the Father and the Son’;

51

Cf. 1 John 1:3.

the ‘walking in the light as God is in the light’;

52

Cf. 1 John 1:7.

the being ‘purified even as he is pure’

53

Cf. 1 John 3:3.

—this is the religion, the righteousness he thirsts after. Nor can he rest till he thus rests in God.

54

Yet another usage of Wesley’s favourite line from St. Augustine, Confessions, I.1; cf. No. 3, ‘Awake, Thou That Steepest’, II.5 and n.

55. ‘Blessed are they who’ thus ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.’ They shall be filled with the thing which they long for, even with righteousness and true holiness.

55

Eph. 4:24.

God shall satisfy them with the blessings of his goodness, with the felicity of his chosen. He shall feed them with the bread of heaven, with the manna of his love.

56

See John 6:58.

He shall give them to drink of his pleasures, as out of the river

57

See Ps. 36:8 (BCP).

which he that drinketh of shall never thirst

58

See John 4:14.

—only for more and more of the water of life.

59

Rev. 21:6; 22:1, 17.

This thirst shall endure for ever.

498

The painful thirst, the fond desire,

Thy joyous presence shall remove;

But my full soul shall still require

A whole eternity of love.

60

Charles Wesley, ‘Pleading the Promise of Sanctification’, st. 22. This was first published as an appendix to No. 40, Christian Perfection (1741), and was reprinted in the brothers’ Hymns and Sacred Poems (1742), p. 263 (Poet. Wks., II.322). Orig.,

While my full soul doth still require

The whole eternity of love.

66. Whosoever then thou art to whom God hath given to ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’, cry unto him that thou mayst never lose that inestimable gift, that this divine appetite may never cease. If many rebuke thee, and bid thee hold thy peace, regard them not; yea, cry so much the more, ‘“Jesus, Master, have mercy on me!”

61

Luke 17:13.

Let me not live but to be holy as thou art holy!’ No more ‘spend thy money for that which is not bread’, nor thy ‘labour for that which satisfieth not’.

62

Cf. Isa. 55:2.

Canst thou hope to dig happiness out of the earth? To find it in the things of the world? O trample under foot all its pleasures, despise its honours, count its riches as dung and dross—yea, and all the things which are beneath the sun—‘for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus’;

63

Phil 3:8.

for the entire renewal of thy soul in that image of God wherein it was originally created.

64

Cf. No. 1, Salvation by Faith, §1 and n.

Beware of quenching that blessed hunger and thirst by what the world calls religion—a religion of form, of outward show, which leaves the heart as earthly and sensual as ever.

65

Cf. No. 23, ‘Sermon on the Mount, III’, IV.1. Wesley’s usage of the term ‘religion’ varies. More often than not, he equates it with ‘Christianity’, as ‘the true religion’. But he will also, as here, use ‘religion’ with a naturalistic connotation and, thus, as antithetical to Christianity.

Let nothing satisfy thee but the power of godliness, but a religion that is spirit and life; the dwelling in God and God in thee,

66

See 1 John 4:12-13.

the being an inhabitant of eternity;

67

See Isa. 57:15.

the entering in by the blood of sprinkling

68

Heb. 12:24.

‘within the veil’,

69

Heb. 6:19.

and ‘sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus’.

70

Cf. Eph. 2:6.

3

1 499III. 1. And the more they are filled with the life of God, the more tenderly will they be concerned for those who are still without God in the world,

71

Eph. 2:12.

still dead in trespasses and sins.

72

Eph. 2:1.

Nor shall this concern for others lose its reward. ‘Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.’

73

Matt. 5:7.

The word used by our Lord more immediately implies the compassionate, the tender-hearted; those who, far from despising, earnestly grieve for those that do not hunger after God. This eminent part of brotherly love is here (by a common figure) put for the whole; so that ‘the merciful’, in the full sense of the term, are they who ‘love their neighbours as themselves’.

74

Cf. Matt. 19:19, etc. Cf. below, III.3 and n.

22. Because of the vast importance of this love—without which, ‘though we spake with the tongues of men and angels, though we had the gift of prophecy and understood all mysteries and all knowledge, though we had all faith so as to remove mountains; yea, though we gave all our goods to feed the poor, and our very bodies to be burned, it would profit us nothing’

75

Cf. 1 Cor. 13:1-3.

—the wisdom of God has given us by the Apostle Paul a full and particular account of it, by considering which we shall most clearly discern who are ‘the merciful that shall obtain mercy’.

33. Charity, or love (as it were to be wished it had been rendered throughout, being a far plainer and less ambiguous word),

76

Cf. No. 17, ‘The Circumcision of the Heart’, I.2 and n. Notice how οἱ ἐλεήμονες here reminds Wesley of ἀγάπη in 1 Cor. 13, and provides him with the occasion for this extended comment on the latter.

the love of our neighbour as Christ hath loved us, ‘suffereth long’,

77

1 Cor. 13:4.

is patient toward all men. It suffers all the weakness, ignorance, errors, infirmities, all the frowardness and littleness of faith in the children of God; all the malice and wickedness of the children of the world. And it suffers all this, not only for a time, for a short season, but to the end: still feeding our enemy when he hungers; if he thirst, still giving him drink; thus continually ‘heaping coals of fire’, of melting love, ‘upon his head’.

78

Cf. Rom. 12:20.

44. And in every step toward this desirable end, the ‘overcoming evil with good’,

79

Cf. Rom. 12:21.

‘love is kind’ (χρηστεύεται, a word not easily [01:500]translated)

80

Cf. 1 Cor. 13:4. χρηστεύσμαι (‘to be kind or merciful’) and its cognates occur in Christian texts (e.g., 1 Clement 14:3; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V., I.46, etc.) and in the Psalms of Solomon 9:11; cf. Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon. Its original sense was ‘pleasant’, ‘comfortable’ (as of well-fitting clothes); hence its remarkable usage in Rom. 2:4.

—it is soft, mild, benign. It stands at the utmost distance from moroseness, from all harshness or sourness of spirit; and inspires the sufferer at once with the most amiable sweetness and the most fervent and tender affection.

55. Consequently, ‘Love envieth not.’

81

Cf. 1 Cor. 13:4.

It is impossible it should; it is directly opposite to that baneful temper. It cannot be that he who has this tender affection to all, who earnestly wishes all temporal and spiritual blessings, all good things in this world and the world to come, to every soul that God hath made, should be pained at his bestowing any good gift on any child of man. If he has himself received the same he does not grieve but rejoice that another partakes of the common benefit. If he has not he blesses God that his brother at least has, and is herein happier than himself. And the greater his love, the more does he rejoice in the blessings of all mankind, the farther is he removed from every kind and degree of envy toward any creature.

66. Love οὐ περπερεύεται: not ‘vaunteth not itself’, which coincides with the very next words, but rather (as the word likewise properly imports) ‘is not rash’ or ‘hasty’ in judging.

82

Ibid. In classical Greek πέρπερος means ‘braggart, windbag’. Its cognate forms (even here) have more of a connotation of boasting than hasty judgment. Bengel, Gnomon, loc. cit., had taken it thus. Even so, Wesley (Notes) translates it ‘rashly’, and adds: ‘does not hastily condemn anyone.’ Cf. III.10, below; also No. 149, ‘On Love’, II.7.

It will not hastily condemn anyone. It does not pass a severe sentence on a slight or sudden view of things. It first weighs all the evidence, particularly that which is brought in favour of the accused. A true lover of his neighbour is not like the generality of men, who, even in cases of the nicest nature, ‘see a little, presume a great deal, and so jump to the conclusion’.

83

Wesley had found this aphorism in an essay by Henry Grove (1648-1738) in The Spectator, No. 626 (Nov. 29, 1714), where it is attributed to John Locke. It can be found in ‘Of the Conduct of the Understanding’ (§16, on ‘Haste’), written in 1697 but not included in any of Locke’s published writings until 1762 (fourteen years after this sermon!). It may be found in modern edns. of Locke’s Works—e.g., the 1963 Scientia Verlag Aalen reprint of the London, 1823 edn. (III.238). Grove was a disciple of Locke and obviously had access to the unpublished MS of ‘Conduct…’. He and The Spectator thus were Wesley’s source for this bit of Lockean wisdom which Wesley quotes here exactly.

No; he proceeds with wariness and circumspection, taking heed to every step; willingly subscribing to that rule of the ancient heathen (O where 501will the modern Christian appear!): ‘I am so far from lightly believing what one man says against another that I will not easily believe what a man says against himself. I will always allow him second thoughts, and many times counsel too.’

84

In No. 30, ‘Sermon on the Mount, X’, §13, Wesley cites Seneca as the source for a slightly different version of this quotation. This is confirmed by Susanna Wesley’s quotation of it as a ‘rule of Seneca’s’ but with no more specific citation; cf. Adam Clarke, Memoirs, p. 317. But where in Seneca?

77. It follows, love ‘is not puffed up’.

85

1 Cor. 13:4.

It does not incline or suffer any man ‘to think more highly of himself than he ought to think’, but rather ‘to think soberly’.

86

Rom. 12:3.

Yea, it humbles the soul unto the dust. It destroys all high conceits engendering pride, and makes us rejoice to be as nothing, to be little and vile, the lowest of all, the servant of all.

87

See Mark 9:35.

They who are ‘kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love’ cannot but ‘in honour prefer one another’.

88

Cf. Rom. 12:10.

Those who, ‘having the same love, are of one accord’, do ‘in lowliness of mind each esteem other better than themselves’.

89

Cf. Phil. 2:2-3.

88. It ‘doth not behave itself unseemly’.

90

1 Cor. 13:5.

It is not rude or willingly offensive to any. It ‘renders to all their due: fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour’;

91

Cf. Rom. 13:7.

courtesy, civility, humanity to all the world, in their several degrees ‘honouring all men’.

92

Cf. 1 Pet. 2:17.

A late writer defines good breeding, nay, the highest degree of it, politeness: ‘A continual desire to please, appearing in all the behaviour.’

93

In No. 100, ‘On Pleasing All Men’, II.4, Wesley quotes ‘Mr. Addison’s well-known definition of politeness: “A constant desire of pleasing all men, appearing through the whole conversation”’—obviously a repetition of this definition here. The characterization of it as ‘well-known’ poses a problem, though, for I have yet to locate it in any of Addison’s published works or in any of the indexes of The Spectator, The Guardian, or The Tatter. Nor is it cited in OED, Johnson’s Dictionary, or Chambers’s Cyclopaedia. Something very like it may be seen in The Spectator, No. 386 (May 23, 1712), but the author was Richard Steele; see also Steele in The Spectator, No. 33 (Apr. 11, 1711), for a similar phrasing; cf. Addison in The Freeholder, No. 38 (Apr. 30, 1712), for the same sentiment in different words.

But if so, there is none so well-bred as a Christian, a lover of all mankind; for he cannot but desire to ‘please all men’,

94

1 Cor. 10:33.

‘for their good to edification’.

95

Rom. 15:2.

And this desire cannot be hid: it will necessarily appear in all his intercourse with men. For his ‘love is without dissimulation’;

96

Cf. Rom. 12:9.

it will appear in all his actions and 502conversation. Yea, and will constrain him, though without guile, to ‘become all things to all men, if by any means he may save some’.

97

1 Cor. 9:22.

99. And in becoming all things to all men ‘love seeketh not her own.’

98

1 Cor. 13:5.

In striving to please all men the lover of mankind has no eye at all to his own temporal advantage. He covets no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel: he desires nothing but the salvation of their souls. Yea, in some sense he may be said ‘not to seek his own’

99

Cf. 1 Cor. 10:24.

spiritual, any more than temporal advantage. For while he is on the full stretch to save their souls from death he as it were forgets himself. He does not think of himself so long as that zeal for the glory of God swallows him up. Nay, at some times he may almost seem, through an excess of love, to give up himself, both his soul and his body; while he cries out with Moses, ‘Oh! this people have sinned a great sin […]! Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin. And if not, blot me out of the book which thou hast written.’

Exod. 32:31-32. [Both 1771 and 1787 edns. have an exclamation mark here.]

Or with St. Paul, ‘I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh!’

Rom. 9:3.

1010. No marvel that ‘such love is not provoked,’

100

1 Cor. 13:5. Cf. also Nos. 91, ‘On Charity’, I.5 and n. (see also, above, III.6); and 149, ‘On Love’, II.7.

οὐ παροξύνεται. Let it be observed, the word ‘easily’, strangely inserted in the translation, is not in the original. St. Paul’s words are absolute: ‘Love is not provoked’—it is not provoked to unkindness toward anyone.

101

In classical Greek παροξόνεται means ‘irritable’ or ‘quick-tempered’ or, literally, ‘in a paroxysm’ (as in a fever). Most modern translations tilt away from Wesley’s absolute, as in Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, the RSV (‘not irritable’), NEB (‘not quick to take offence’) or Phillips’s colloquial (‘not touchy’).

Occasions indeed will frequently occur, outward provocations of various kinds. But love does not yield to provocation. It triumphs over all. In all trials it looketh unto Jesus, and is more than conqueror in his love.

’Tis not improbable that our translators inserted that word as it were to excuse the Apostle, who, as they supposed, might otherwise appear to be wanting in the very love which he so beautifully describes. They seem to have supposed this from a 503phrase in the Acts of the Apostles, which is likewise very inaccurately translated. When Paul and Barnabas disagreed concerning John, the translation runs thus: ‘And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed asunder.’

Acts 15:39.

This naturally induces the reader to suppose that they were equally sharp therein; that St. Paul, who was undoubtedly right with regard to the point in question (it being quite improper to take John with them again, who had deserted them before) was as much provoked as Barnabas, who gave such a proof of his anger as to leave ‘the work’ for which he had been ‘set apart by the Holy Ghost’. But the original imports no such thing; nor does it affirm that St. Paul was provoked at all. It simply says, καὶ ἐγένετο παροξυσμός, ‘And there was a sharpness, a paroxysm’ of anger; in consequence of which Barnabas left St. Paul, took John, and went his own way. ‘Paul’ then ‘chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren to the grace of God’ (which is not said concerning Barnabas), ‘and he went through Syria and Cilicia’, as he had proposed, ‘confirming the churches’. But to return.

1111. Love prevents a thousand provocations which would otherwise arise, because it ‘thinketh no evil’.

Indeed the merciful man cannot avoid knowing many things that are evil, he cannot but see them with his own eyes and hear them with his own ears. For love does not put out his eyes, so that it is impossible for him not to see that such things are done. Neither does it take away his understanding, any more than his senses, so that he cannot but know that they are evil. For instance: when he sees a man strike his neighbour, or hears him blaspheme God, he cannot either question the thing done or the words spoken, or doubt of their being evil. Yet οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν. The word [01:504]λογίζεται (‘thinketh’) does not refer either to our seeing and hearing, or to the first and involuntary acts of our understanding; but to our willingly thinking what we need not; our inferring evil where it does not appear: to our reasoning concerning things which we do not see, our supposing what we have neither seen nor heard. This is what true love absolutely destroys. It tears up, root and branch, all imagining what we have not known. It casts out all jealousies, all evil surmisings, all readiness to believe evil. It is frank, open, unsuspicious; and as it cannot design, so neither does it fear, evil.

1212. It ‘rejoiceth not in iniquity’,

common as this is, even among those who bear the name of Christ; who scruple not to rejoice over their enemy when he falleth either into affliction, or error, or sin. Indeed, how hardly can they avoid this who are zealously attached to any party! How difficult is it for them not to be pleased with any fault which they discover in those of the opposite party! With any real or supposed blemish, either in their principles or practice! What warm defender of any cause is clear of these? Yea, who is so calm as to be altogether free? Who does not rejoice when his adversary makes a false step which he thinks will advantage his own cause? Only a man of love. He alone weeps over either the sin or folly of his enemy, takes no pleasure in hearing or in repeating it, but rather desires that it may be forgotten for ever.

1313. But he ‘rejoiceth in the truth’,

wheresoever it is found, in the ‘truth which is after godliness’, bringing forth its proper fruit, holiness of heart and holiness of conversation. He rejoices to find that even those who oppose him, whether with regard to opinions or some points of practice, are nevertheless lovers of God, and in other respects unreprovable. He is glad to hear good of them, and to speak all he can, consistently with truth and justice. Indeed, good in general is his glory and joy, wherever diffused throughout the race of mankind. As a citizen of the world he claims a share in the happiness of all the inhabitants of [01:505]it. Because he is a man he is not unconcerned in the welfare of any man; but enjoys whatsoever brings glory to God and promotes peace and goodwill among men.

1414. This love ‘covereth all things’.

(So without all doubt πάντα στέγει should be translated; for otherwise it would be the very same with πάντα ὑπομένει, ‘endureth all things’.) Because the merciful man ‘rejoiceth not in iniquity’, neither does he willingly make mention of it. Whatever evil he sees, hears, or knows, he nevertheless conceals so far as he can without making himself ‘partaker of other men’s sins’. Wheresoever or with whomsoever he is, if he sees anything which he approves not it goes not out of his lips unless to the person concerned, if haply he may gain his brother. So far is he from making the faults or failures of others the matter of his conversation, that of the absent he never does speak at all unless he can speak well. A talebearer, a backbiter, a whisperer, an evil-speaker, is to him all one as a murderer. He would just as soon cut his neighbour’s throat as thus murder his reputation. Just as soon would he think of diverting himself by setting fire to his neighbour’s house as of thus ‘scattering abroad arrows, firebrands, and death, and saying, Am I not in sport?’

He makes one only exception. Sometimes he is convinced that it is for the glory of God or (which comes to the same) the good of his neighbour that an evil should not be covered. In this case, for the benefit of the innocent he is constrained to declare the guilty. But even here: (1). He will not speak at all till love, superior love, constrains him; (2). He cannot do it from a general confused view of doing good or of promoting the glory of God, but from a clear sight of some particular end, some determinate good which he pursues; (3). Still he cannot speak unless he be fully convinced 506that this very means is necessary to that end—that the end cannot be answered, at least not so effectually, by any other way; (4). He then doth it with the utmost sorrow and reluctance, using it as the last and worst medicine, a desperate remedy in a desperate case, a kind of poison never to be used but to expel poison; consequently, (5). He uses it as sparingly as possible. And this he does with fear and trembling, lest he should transgress the law of love by speaking too much, more than he would have done by not speaking at all.

1515. Love ‘believeth all things’.

It is always willing to think the best, to put the most favourable construction on everything. It is ever ready to believe whatever may tend to the advantage of anyone’s character. It is easily convinced of (what it earnestly desires) the innocence or integrity of any man; or, at least, of the sincerity of his repentance, if he had once erred from the way. It is glad to excuse whatever is amiss, to condemn the offender as little as possible, and to make all the allowance for human weakness which can be done without betraying the truth of God.

1616. And when it can no longer believe, then love ‘hopeth all things’.

Is any evil related of any man? Love hopes that the relation is not true, that the thing related was never done. Is it certain it was?—‘But perhaps it was not done with such circumstances as are related; so that, allowing the fact, there is room to hope it was not so ill as it is represented.’ Was the action apparently, undeniably evil? Love hopes the intention was not so. Is it clear the design was evil too?—‘Yet might it not spring, [not] from the settled temper of the heart, but from a start of passion, or from some vehement temptation, which hurried the man beyond himself?’ And even when it cannot be doubted but all the actions, designs, and tempers are equally evil; still love hopes that God will at last make bare his arm, and get himself the victory; and that there shall be ‘joy in heaven over this one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.’

1717. Lastly, it ‘endureth all things’.

This completes the 507character of him that is truly merciful. He endureth not some, not many things only, not most, but absolutely ‘all things’. Whatever the injustice, the malice, the cruelty of men can inflict, he is able to suffer. He calls nothing intolerable; he never says of anything, ‘This is not to be borne.’ No; he can not only do but suffer all things through Christ which strengtheneth him. And all he suffers does not destroy his love, nor impair it in the least. It is proof against all. It is a flame that burns even in the midst of the great deep. ‘Many waters cannot quench his love, neither can the floods drown it.’ It triumphs over all. It ‘never faileth’, either in time or in eternity.

So shall ‘the merciful obtain mercy’;

not only by the blessing of God upon all their ways, by his now repaying the love they bear to their brethren a thousandfold into their own bosom, but likewise by an ‘exceeding and eternal weight of glory’ in the ‘kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world’.

1818. For a little while you may say, ‘Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar!’

You may pour out your soul, and bemoan the loss of true genuine love in the earth. Lost indeed! You may well say (but not in the ancient sense), ‘See how these Christians love one another!’ These Christian kingdoms that 508are tearing out each other’s bowels, desolating one another with fire and sword! These Christian armies that are sending each other by thousands, by ten thousands, quick into hell! These Christian nations that are all on fire with intestine broils, party against party, faction against faction! These Christian cities where deceit and fraud, oppression and wrong, yea, robbery and murder, go not out of their streets! These Christian families, torn asunder with envy, jealousy, anger, domestic jars—without number, without end! Yea, what is most dreadful, most to be lamented of all, these Christian churches!—churches (‘Tell it not in Gath;’ but alas, how can we hide it, either from Jews, Turks, or pagans?) that bear the name of Christ, ‘the Prince of Peace’, and wage continual war with each other! That convert sinners by burning them alive: that are ‘drunk with the blood of the saints’! Does this praise belong only to ‘Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth’? Nay, verily; but Reformed churches (so called) have fairly learned to tread in her steps. Protestant churches, too, know to persecute, when they have power in their hands, even unto blood. And meanwhile, how do they also anathematize each other! Devote each other to the nethermost hell! What wrath, what contention, what malice, what bitterness is everywhere found among them! Even when they agree in essentials, and only differ in opinions, or in the circumstantials of religion. Who ‘follows after’ only ‘the things that make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another’? O God! How long? Shall thy promise fail? Fear it not, ye little flock. Against hope believe in hope. It is your Father’s 509>good pleasure yet to renew the face of the earth. Surely all these things shall come to an end, and the inhabitants of the earth shall learn righteousness. ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they know war any more.’ ‘The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains;’ and all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our God. ‘They shall not’ then ‘hurt or destroy in all his holy mountain;’ but ‘they shall call their walls salvation and their gates praise.’ They shall all be without spot or blemish, loving one another, even as Christ hath loved us. Be thou part of the first-fruits, if the harvest is not yet. Do thou love thy neighbour as thyself. The Lord God fill thy heart with such a love to every soul that thou mayst be ready to lay down thy life for his sake! May thy soul continually overflow with love, swallowing up every unkind and unholy temper, till he calleth thee up into the region of love, there to reign with him for ever and ever!