2. We have no evidence that we ourselves in particular are the disciples of Christ without it. John xiii. 34, 35, " A new command- ment I give unto you, That ye love one another ; as I have loved yci?, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." I have a little inquired why this command of love is here and in other places called a new commandment. I told you before, when sin entered into the world, envy and hatred entered with it; and it is continued upon the
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same account. " Whence come wars and fightings?" saith the apostle ; " is it not from your lusts that war in your members ?" In the first revelation God gave of himself in the law, he commanded love. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us so, — that we are commanded to " love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves." Whence, then, is this command so often called a new command- ment? " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one an- other," saith he.
There are divers reasons of it : —
(1.) I judge one may be this, — That under the law God did indulge that carnal people in sundry things wherein they came short of the royal law of love, by reason of the hardness of their hearts. When Christ comes and gives this command in its full extent, it was a new command. Again,- — ■
(2.) They were carnal, and did not see the spirituality of the com- mand. And the truth of it is, you hear so little of it in the Old Testament, and so much of it in the New, that Christ may justly call it a new command. Besides, —
(3.) At the time when he came, there were cursed expositions of the law that went current in the whole church, which had overthrown the whole duty of love between the brethren and members of it ; as you may see in our Saviour's vindicating of it, Matt. v. But Christ, coming to take off all indulgence to carnal men, by reason of the hardness of then hearts; and to take away the darkness that was upon their minds, whereby they could not see the spirituality of the com- mand ; and to remove those false expositions that were put upon the law, corrupting the command; he calls it a new commandment.
(4.) Above all these, there is one reason more for it, which lies here in the words I before read unto you : " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye love one another." The reason why it was a new commandment was, because there was no quickening, enlivening example of it, to express the power of love, under the Old Testament. This was re- served for Christ. He comes and gives that glorious instance of love, in his condescension in all that he did, and in all that he suffered. He shows that there was something in love that they never before had an instance of in the world. Whence the command for love lies thus: " Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus;" — " That ye love one another, as I have loved you." And then it is a new commandment indeed, which it was not before. " Hereby," saith he, " men shall know that ye are my disciples: — if the great example I have set you, the great command I have given you, and the great work I came into the world about, was to renew love ; by love men will know that ye are my disciples, and not else." We have no other
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way to evidence ourselves to be disciples of Christ. Men's parts, gifts, wisdom, will not do it; if there be no love, the world has no reason to conclude that Ave are the disciples of Jesus Christ.
3. It is that wherein the communion of saints doth principally consist. There is great talk about communion of saints ; and certainly it is a great thing. We may observe it had a place in all the ancient creeds of the church : where they profess to believe in God, in Christ, and in the Holy Ghost, they profess also to believe the communion of saints ; which shows it to be a thing of great importance.
Wherein doth it consist? There are three things in it: — (1.) The fountain and spring of it ; (2.) The profession and explanation of it ; (3.) The formal reason and life of it : —
(1.) The fountain and spring of the communion of saints lies in their common participation of one Spirit from the one head, Jesus Christ. And you may as soon form a good society among dead men, as work a communion among professors, where it is not fundament- ally laid in a common participation of the same Spirit with the head, Christ.
(2.) This communion is expressed principally in the participation of the same ordinances in the same church. This is the great ex- pression of the communion of saints.