Obs. 4. That the rule that God hath left us is laid down in the scriptures ; there is the signification of his will, and from thence must it be sought : they are ' able to make the man of God perfect.'
Obs. 5. The scriptures require we should love our neighbour as our- selves. Paul saith. Gal. v. 14, ' All the law is fulfilled in one word : love thy neighbour as thyself.' AH the laiv, that is, all that part of the law which concerns our duty towards others ; or all the law, by worshipping God, in discharging our duly towards man, and so turning both tables into one. And Christ saith. Mat. vii. 12, ' This is the law, and the prophets ' — that is, the sum of the whole word, and that standard of equity which is erected therein — that ' whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : ' for which saying Severus reverenced Christ and Christianity. . But must a man
208 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. II. 8.
love his nci^^libour with tlie same proportion of care and respect that he doth himself y The special love of a man to his wife is expressed by this, Epii. v. 28, ' So ou<;ht men to love their wives as their own bodies;' and the Hebrew expression is the same in all other places : ' Let him love his neighbour as his own body.' And must he now love every one with those singular respects and proportions of alFectiou that he beareth to himself and his wife?
I answer — The strictness of the precept should not amaze us. Christ raiseth it one peg higher : John xiii. 34, ' I have given you a com- mandment, that as I have loved you, so ye should love one another.' There is another manner of pattern : Christ's love was intense, and the measure of it beyond the conceit of our thoughts : Yet as I love, 80 must ye love one another.
But for the opening of this matter, I shall first show you. Who is your neighbour ; secondly. What kind of love is required to him.
First, Who is your neiglibour ? — a question necessary to be jiro- pounded. It was proj)Ounded to Christ himself : Luke x. 29, ' Who is my neighbour?' The soluti(^n may be gathered out of Christ's answer. First, In the general, every man to whom I may be helpful ; and the term neirjhhour is used because our charity is most exercised and drawn out to those that are near us, the objects that are about us. But it must not be confined there : for Christ proves that a stranger may be a neighbour, Luke x. 3(3. All people tliat have the face of a man are called ' our flesh,' Isa. Iviii. 7, and ' one blood,' Acts xvii. 26 — ' one blood,' cousins at a remoter distance. Any man is a neighbour in regard of the nearness of our first original, and as he is capable of the same glory and blessedness which we expect ; and so a stranger, an enemy, may be a neighbour by the gospel rules, and an object of such love as we bear unto ourselves, we being bound to desire his good, by virtue of liis manhood, as we would our own. Secondly, There are more especial neighbours, who dwell about us, and are more frequent with us, whose necessities must provoke us to more acts and expressions of love ; and as they are more or less near unto us, so are we to proportion our love to them : those that dwell with us before strangers. Thus the Hebrews preferred the men of their own nation before the Grecians ' in the daily ministration,' Acts vi. And then our kindred, and tliose of our family, before a common neighbour ; as the apostle saith, 1 Tim. v. 8, ' If any man provideth not for his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an intidel.' He speaks upon the case of sliowing pity at home. And then our ciiildren are in the next rank l)cfore them ; and the wife of the bosom before them all : and accordingly must all acts of bounty and pro- vision be dispensed. Thirdly, There are spiritual neighbours, and they are those who are begotten by the same Spirit to the same hopes, who are to have a special preferment in our affection ; I mean, in that kind of affection which is proper to Christianity : and for all outward acts of bounty and love, they are to have the ])re-eminence, our children and families only excepted, which, by the law of nature, in this case are to be looked ui)on as a part of ourselves : Gal. vi. 10, ' As we have opportunity, let us do good to all men ; especially to the house- hold of faith.' In. short, in the love of bounty, the poor and necessitous
JaS. II. 8.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 209
man is the special neighbour ; in tlie love of delight, the godly man is to have the preferment : ' My delights are to the excellent of the earth,' Ps. xvi. 2. Which also is Bernard's determination, Meliori major affecius, indigeniiori major effectus, trihuendus est — the best must have most of our affection, the poorest most of our bounty : Luke xiv. 12-14, ' Wlien thou makest a feast, call not thy rich neigh- bours,' &c. He doth not condemn honest courtesies, but reproveth the Pharisees' error, who thought by these things to satisfy the command- ment; just as these did here in the text, who would seem to make that an act of charity which was but an act of covetousness, and called that love which was base servility and compliance ■ and we still see that many esteem that Christian communion which is indeed but a carnal visit, and pretend courtesy to excuse charity.