Prov. XXV. 21, 22. If thine enemy he hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, give him ivater to drink : for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head; and the Lord shall retvard thee.
THE morality both of the Old and New Testament is the same. Some have imagined, that, because our blessed Lord said, '^A new Commandment give I unto you," he has in his Gospel enlarged the duties of his followers beyond what was required by the moral law. But no command of his was new iu itself, but only in its circumstances ; as being enjoined from new principles, and illustrated by new examples. Morality does not depend on any arbitrary appoint- ment : it arises out of the relation which we bear to God as our common Parent, and to each other as Brethren : and, irrespective of any express revela- tion of it, " To love God with all our heart and mind
and soul and strength, and our neighbour as our- selves," must of necessity be the duty of every child of man. Had our blessed Lord increased the de- mands of the moral law, either the Law must have demanded too little of us, or the Gospel must de- mand too much. But neither of these is the case : the requirements both of the one and of the other are the same, as far as morals are concerned. Love is acknowledged to be the fulfilling of the Law, and the great commandment of the Gospel also. But to love our enemies is the utmost extent to which this duty is carried, either in the Law or Gospel : yet is this enjoined, as we see, under the Mosaic dispensation ; which is a clear proof, that it is not, as many erro- neously suppose, a requirement peculiar to the Christian code. The very words of our text are cited by the Apostle Paul, as inculcating all that Christianity itself requires on this head^: only there is one point in our text which adds greatly to its interest, and which has determined us to select the original words for our consideration, rather than the Apostle's citation of them.
From the words before us we shall be led to con- sider,
L The duty inculcated —
Certainly the love of enemies was never regarded as a duty by any of the heathen philosophers. What- ever might be occasionally spoken by them in praise of magnanimity, the love of enemies, and the render- ing of good for evil under all circumstances, was never admitted by them as a proper principle and rule of conduct. Such a principle is directly con- trary to all our natural sentiments and feelings.
By nature we all are inclined to render evil for evil — [There is not a child that does not manifest this disposi- tion, as soon as it begins to act : nor is there any one whose own experience will not furnish him with mmumbered proofs, that this is the natural bent of his own heart. Circumstances may indeed prevent us from retaliating injuries in an open way : the person that has inflicted the injuries may be out of
a Rom. xii. 19, 20.