378 LOVE AND THE LAW
He who loves his neighbour also fulfils the commandmenta written in the first table of the law. Because he is God's child and therefore must needs have loved God first, and have thus conformed himself to the obligations of the whole law, he loves his neighbour with a pure heart and true charity. He can, in point of fact, keep the commandments which concern his neigh- bour only through love of God. For, as the law of Moses was powerless to produce in the heart of the Jew that true love for his fellow-men, without which the law itself could not be fulfilled, which is the efi'ect only of grace, so only those who are filled with the love of God, and possess the grace which grows from this love, can really possess that true love to man which is the fulfilment of the law.
When thy heart, love filled, grows graver,
And eternal bliss looks nearer. Ask thy heart, nor show it favour,
Is the gift or giver dearer?
Love, love on ; love higher, deeper ;
Let love's ocean close above her; Only, love thou more love's keeper,
More, the love-creating lover.
5. Love not only fulfils the precepts of the law, it also com- pletes and perfects the law itself. No law can provide for all cases that may come before us in the course of life. Every law can only lay down general principles and rules, and at the utmost can only name some cases in particular. Much less can a law- giver prescribe exactly the application of his law to the individual case ; for the application must necessarily differ with the difference between men, their actions, and the accompanying circumstances. Love alone can take account of all the cases that occur in human life, of all men and their actions, all their surrounding circum- stances and peculiarities, and provide completely and suitably for all. In this sense love is not only the fulfilling, but also the fulness (plenitudo), i.e. the completion and perfection of the law. Where love rules wholly and perfectly, there the precepts of the law become superfluous, and the rule of love takes the place of law ; where love withdraws and becomes cold, there the machinery
ROMANS XIII. TO 379
of the law must come in, and the more love removes herself, so much the more must the legal machinery rule until it sinks to the slavery of simple government by police.
A mightier church shall come, whose covenant word
Shall be the deeds of love. Not Credo then, —
Amo shall be the password through its gates.
Man shall not ask his brother any more,
" Believest thou ? " but " Lovest thou ? " and all
Shall answer at God's altar, " Lord, I love."
For Hope may anchor, Faith may steer, but Love,
Gieat Love alone, is captain of the soul.^
^ Henry Bernard Carpenter, Liber Amorit.
Ready for the Dawning.
Literature.
Blunt (J. J.), University Sermons, 22.
Brooke (S. A.), The Gospel of Joy, 319.
Cox (S.), Expositions, iv. 336.
Gibson (J. G.), Along the Shadowed Way, 1.
Gore (G.), The Epistle to the Romans, ii. 134.
Greenhough (J. G.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, 230.
Holland (W. L.), The Beauty of Holiness, 81.
Hortou (E, F.), The Conquered World, 24,
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year (Advent to Christmas Eve), 249.
LusMngton (F. de W.), Sermons to Young Boys, 1.
Maelaren (A.), Expositions : Romans, 317.
Meyer (F. B.), Statutes and Songs, 12.
Pope (W. B.), Discourses on the Lordship of the Inca/rnate BedeenMr^ 376.
Prothero (G.), The Armour of Light, 1.
Purchase (E. J.), The Pathway of the Tempted, 140.
Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 1.
Stanley (A. P.), Canterbury Sermons, 149.
Symonds (A. R.), Sermons, 1.
Talmage (T. de W.), /Sermons, iv. 393.
Watson (F.), The Christian Life Here and Hereafter, 262.
Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 25 (Hammond).
Churchman's Pulpit, i. 299 (Hodges), 301 (Farquhar), 305 (Taylor),
307 (MacCulloch), 309 (Butler). Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., vii. 321 (Creighton).
98a
Ready for the Dawning.
The night is far spent, and the day is at hand : let us therefore cast ofl the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.— Rom. xiii. 12.
1. There can hardly be any doubt that in the apostolic age the prevailing belief was that the Second Coming of the Lord was an event to be expected in any case shortly and probably in the lifetime of many of those then living ; it is also probable that this belief was shared by the Apostles themselves. For example, so strongly did such views prevail among the Thessalonian converts that the death of some members of the community filled them with perplexity, and even when correcting these opinions St. Paul speaks of " we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of our Lord " ; and in the Second Epistle, although he corrects the erroneous impression which still prevailed, that the coming was immediate, and shows that other events must precede it, he still contemplates it as at hand. Similar passages may be quoted from all or most of the Epistles, although there are others which suggest that it is by his own death, not by the coming of Christ, that St. Paul expects to attain the full life in Christ to which he looked forward.