Section 4: The law in the sum of Its requirements. -- The sum of requirements stated. -- Measured by human and not angelic capacities. -- The law requires supreme love and honor to the extent of man's power. -- This love comprehends those great duties that are always binding, and every other duty whenever it Is binding. -- Mistake of divines In considering "the two commandments of the law" as equal. -- Love to God. -- Love of benevolence and not love of complacency. -- Relation of one to the other. -- This love is an elective preference, and supreme. -- The law of God Is perfect; it is holy, just, and good. -- This view important to elevate the standard of Christian piety. -- Ought to be enforced by the Christian ministry to stimulate to holiness, and to expose the defects of a godless philanthropy.

 

 

I now proceed, as I proposed, to consider the law. Sect. 4 -- In the sum of its requirements.

 

By the sum of the requirements of the divine law I mean that one comprehensive requirement which, in its true nature and tendency, so involves or includes all others, as when obeyed to secure obedience to all others.

 

I shall now attempt to show that the sum of the requirements of the law of God is, that man love God in the highest degree, in which he is capable of loving him; or in more simple phrase, that he love God as much as he can love him.

 

Such is the obvious and undeniable import of what our Saviour calls "The first and great commandment of the law," which is so often repeated in the Old Testament and so fully ratified in the New; viz., "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." No form of language, according to Hebrew idiom, stronger than that which is here employed, can be supposed, for the purpose of expressing man's duty to love God to the extent of his power to love him. To understand the language therefore in any other meaning, is not only gratuitous, but is forbidden by the very terms employed.

 

The language is also so peculiar, compared with any used to describe love toward any other object than God; it is so manifestly intensive in form and exhaustive in specification, that we at once admit its propriety and truth, and feel the irreverence of applying it to any other object.

 

We shall, I think, be still more convinced that such is the import of this rule of action by further explanation and reflection.

 

Man's capacity to love God is comparatively limited. He is not an angel, and with his inferior powers be cannot love God as angels do. His feebler intellect with its necessary feebler apprehension and limited comprehension of God, involves a corresponding weakness of heart and will, so that were he to love God with all his power to love him, his love would not burn and glow with the intensity of a seraph's fervor. This fact should guard the mind against all enthusiastic notions on the very subject, in respect to which they have been allowed and cherished. And further, man's power of loving may be viewed, so to speak, as a given quantity -- so much in degree, more or less -- in relation to all the objects which he is qualified in his nature to love.

Moreover, he has not only power to love other objects than God, but is under an absolute necessity of loving many other objects. These are fit objects of a degree of affection or love, and man cannot suppress and extinguish all affection in his heart for each and all of them. If he could, and were actually so to do, he could not exercise gratitude to God -- he could not sing the song of heaven -- for gratitude involves not merely love to a benefactor, but also the love of his gifts. Now if man should love all other objects of affection in as low a degree as he can, or in no higher degree than they are fitted to be loved, the residue of his power of affection would remain to be exercised in loving God; and should he actually and perfectly exercise this power in loving God, he would love God as much as he can love him, i.e., "with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength." He would thus perfectly fulfill the FIRST and GREAT commandment This perfect love to God is indeed supreme love; but it is also more than supreme love, for man may love God supremely, and yet not love him to the extent of his power. Some however, suppose that the sum of the divine requirement is supreme love to God, and nothing more. Indeed, theology is almost silent in respect to any thing more, even as man's duty; as if a creature formed in God's image had no power to place God in his affections, in but a slight degree above the things which are seen and temporal. But can this be true? Can it be true that God has given only powers so diminutive to the creature whom he has made for eternal companionship with himself? Or has man powers of affection, which in the perfect use of them, qualify him to become an associate with angels and archangels, and can any reason be given why man should not love God more than supremely, even to the extent of his powers? or any reason why he does not in fact thus love God, except that he loves something else unduly -- more than it is fit to be loved in view of its relative worth? Nor can man love God less than with all his power to love him, and at the same time love him as it is fit that he should love him. But perfect fitness in the degree of affection toward any object, according to the true worth of the object, is essential to, or rather is the perfect rightness of the affection, whether natural or moral. Of course there can be no perfect rightness either natural or moral in any affection on the part of man toward God, in which man does not love God to the extent of his power. This element therefore, whatever be necessary to the moral rightness of this affection, is essential to its perfect rightness or rectitude in any sense, and of course to its perfect moral rightness or rectitude. Besides, why ought God to be loved by us with merely supreme love, and not to be loved to the extent of our power to love him? Of what love less than this can a Being of so much greatness, and goodness, and capacity of blessedness, be thought worthy? If in the whole range of existence there is one such being as we call God, then in the infinitude of his attributes, and in his capacity of blessedness, how far must be excel any and every necessarily limited system of creation! If we suppose such a system to be enlarged, and its perfection and happiness -- all that can render it beautiful and lovely -- to be increased to any extent i so would the blessedness of God as rejoicing in his own work also increase, in the peculiar and higher blessedness of giving instead of receiving. In view of the future, God can never be said to have already made the fullest conceivable expression of himself in the happiness of his own creation, nor to have secured to himself the highest conceivable degree of blessedness. Creation, however vast to our apprehension, is and ever must be insignificant compared with the Creator, save only that it reveals a greatness in him unexpressed in the past, and which never can be expressed in a coming eternity.

 

If God is a part of the actual universe, then is he inconceivably greater in excellence than all beside. In comparison with him, any created system were as nothing. To deny man's obligation to love with all his power such a being as God, is to deny his obligation to love in the degree proportioned to the work of the object; and if this obligation to love God does not exist, none exists. But better, far better surely were the non-existence or the misery of God's creation, than the non-existence or misery of God himself. Yet either the non-existence or misery of God is the necessary result of a warrant for practical enmity on the part of his moral creation, or, which is the same thing, of denying their obligation to love him to the extent of their power. If God then, in that perfect rule given in the FIRST and GREAT commandment of his Revelation, holds men to the full measure of their obligation as moral beings, then he requires them to love him to the extent of their power.

 

This affection is, as I maintain, the sum of God's requirements of men as their perfect moral governor. It is so in the first place, as it is the whole of that to which, in all circumstances of man's existence, alone pertains perfect moral rectitude. Other action as distinguished from this and not included in it, may, according to variable circumstances, be right, or may be wrong, but can never be morally right. But I have already said enough on the important distinction between morally right action and action merely right, to show my own views of it, and also how confused and erroneous the views of many moralists and theologians.

 

In the second Place, the affection of which we speak is the sum of God's requirements as it fully meets and satisfies every claim of God on man. He who should love God to the extent of his power always and in all circumstances, cannot be conceived to be morally delinquent in any respect or degree whatever. If circumstances exist which dictate and demand acts of love and beneficence to his kindred or to other fellow-beings, or if circumstances demand the contrary (Luke, xiv. 26), he will be sure, under the controlling influence of this principle, to conform his subordinate acts to the demand of circumstances, and thus, in such action, to act right. But he thereby adds nothing to his own moral rectitude, except the manifestation of it, and of course nothing which is necessary to satisfy God's claim on him as a moral being. What God requires of men as moral beings is not subordinate, executive action, but that morally right affection, and thus he secures the performance of all right subordinate action in all the varying circumstances of their existence. Such love to God is the sum of all God's requirements, as it comprises in its very nature as a principium or principle all right subordinate action, as the good tree comprises the good fruit which it produces, or the good treasure of the heart the good things which the good man bringeth forth from it.

 

There is however, another sense in which theologians seem often to speak of what they call the sum of God's requirements. They appear to be misled, by misapprehending what the Saviour means when he says, "On these two commandments hang all the (Jewish) law and the prophets." The meaning of the Saviour is plain, viz., that all the instruction given by Moses and the prophets, for the regulation of human conduct, depends on and is determined by these two commandments. But this is not saying that the FIRST and GREAT commandment is not the comprehensive requirement of God's moral government. On the contrary, as we have shown in our previous explication of the Saviour's language, he clearly teaches that the second commandment, like all other requirements which respect subordinate acts or duties, is comprised in the first. Nor, as we have seen, is it possible in any sense of the language, that any man should love his neighbor as himself, unless his love of himself be first duly regulated by his obedience to the first. By obeying -- and only by obeying the first, does or can his love of himself cease to be inordinate, and thus to be inconsistent with perfect love to God, and thus by its due regulation become the measure of love to his neighbor. Besides, a man's love to his neighbor, his fellow-creature, even to his kindred, may be inordinate, or rather will be inordinate, unless he first obeys the first commandment, in loving God to the extent of his power. The sum then of God's requirements of man as a subject of his moral government, in the only proper meaning of the language, is that he love God to the extent of his power. Such is the only supposable meaning of the FIRST and GREAT commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."

 

This view of the sum of God's requirement of man may be confirmed by briefly considering some other essential characteristics of the state of mind required. I remark, then --

 

That the love to God required in the divine law, is primarily the We of benevolence. Some theologians suppose the primary and only form of this affection to be the love of compliancy, or the love of God's perfect moral character. This however, in view of the only just distinction between these two kinds of affection, cannot be true. The love of benevolence is the love of the well-being, or of the highest happiness of the sentient universe. As God comprises in himself immeasurably "the greatest portion of being," and of course compared with the universe besides the greatest capacity of blessedness, his perfect happiness has more worth than any which can be conceived to come into competition with it. He therefore, who loves God as his law requires, must love God's highest blessedness, which depends on and results from his own perfect character, i.e., his own disposition to produce the highest happiness which be can produce. Now he who loves God's highest blessedness will also love God's perfect character. This love of his perfect character is the love of complacency. It is loving God's perfect character on account of its intrinsic loveliness and excellence. But the intrinsic loveliness and excellence of his perfect character consists in its nature and tendency to produce the highest happiness which is possible to God in the nature of things. The mind of man, without primarily loving the highest possible happiness, and of course without loving God's highest happiness, cannot love God's character on account of its intrinsic loveliness and excellence. The mind cannot love the means of an end as such without primarily loving the end of which it is the means. If then the mind does not primarily love the highest blessedness of God and his perfect character as the means of this end, and this on account ok its perfect fitness or adaptation as the means of producing this end, it does not love his character on account of its intrinsic loveliness or excellence -- does not love it at all. In other words, unless the mind primarily loves God with the love of benevolence, it cannot love God with the love of complacency. I do not in this use of language mean to say that in the order of time one of these affections is prior to the other; but I intend to express simply the idea of priority in the order of nature, or the dependence of one on the other. I do not suppose, nor would I imply, that the two affections ever exist separately in the mind in such a manner that the love of benevolence can exist without the contemporaneous existence of the love of complacency. Though separable by a mental analysis which shows a dependence of one on the other, as in many other cases, they are Justly viewed as co-existing in one complex state of the mind, properly called the love of God.

 

Again: the love required in the divine law or God's perfect rule of action, is an elective preference of God. President Edwards has often said that "the affections are only the stronger and more vigorous actings of the will." And yet it would be easy to show that he often distinguishes them, not only in the Inquiry on the Will, but in his other writings. In his Dissertation on Virtue, he says: "True virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to Being in general. Or, it is that consent, propensity, and union of heart to Being in general, that is immediately exercised in general goodwill." I cite this passage from Edwards to show that its meaning is the same as that which I have so often used on the same subject when speaking of the nature of virtue, and substantially that which, theologically speaking, I express, when I say the love of God is an elective preference of God. I adopt this language because it describes love to God as both an affection and a choice -- as an act of the will and heart.

 

As I have elsewhere shown more at length, every act of will not only implies the prior existence of affections toward at least two objects, but the present existence of such affections; for the mind in every act of will, electively gives these existing affections supremely to one of these objects rather than to the other. It is equally true, that affections can in no form of love, desire or propensity, become practical, or prompt or move the mind to subsequent action in respect to one object rather than another, without an act of the will, or the elective act by which the affections are placed supremely on one object rather than on the other. I need not say that love to God as required in the great commandment, is eminently a practical affection, the moral principle, principium, the beginning and source of all other right action. Thus viewed it involves therefore an act of the will -- the elective act, which places one object above another in the affections. It is an elective preference of God to every other object of affection. Hence as I have before shown, it is in the Scriptures spoken of as an act of choice as well as an act of affection, when the object of the writer or speaker requires him to give prominence to the elective element of the complex act. (Josh. xxiv. 15; Isaiah, vii. 15; Luke, x. 42.)

 

Again: true love to God must, for another reason, be at least supreme love. God is so far beyond and above not only our fellow-creatures, but any conceivable universe of creatures in all that is worthy of our love, that if he ought to be loved at all, he ought to be loved more than any conceivable system of creatures. This is only saying, that God compared with all things besides, ought to be supremely loved, because according to the eternal truth and fitness of things, our affections ought in all cases to be in proportion to the intrinsic worth and loveliness of their objects. To deny this, is to deny the intuitive proposition that it is fit that we should love every object as it is fit to be loved by us; which is to deny that it is fit that we should love the object as it is fit that we should love it. Whether God ought to be loved more than supremely is not now the question. It is, whether he ought to be loved at least supremely? And how plain is it, that any lower degree of affection for him would be a palpable violence to truth and a practical outrage on nature; a practical outrage on our own nature as well as on that of God, and would tend directly to the complete ruin and wretchedness of all. Without at least supreme love to God there can be no degree of that practical affection for him which is his due -- no executive doings prompted by such a principle fulfilling his will in the production of actual results -- no glorifying God by offerings of praise -- no walking worthy of God unto all well-pleasing -- no rejoicing on the part of God himself in all his works, even in his moral creation made to reflect his own moral image forever -- no condition of his pardoning mercy to a sinful world; for every other condition -- any act not involving this -- would defeat the grand end of his benevolence in providing pardon for the guilty. Without this affection every practical principle of the human heart would be hostility -- enmity to God, to his designs, to his highest blessedness and that of his sentient creation -- the utter defeat of infinite benevolence in complete and universal misery.

 

And further: if love to God is not an elective preference, i.e., if it does not involve an act of will, then it can possess no moral quality. If it is not such an act, it must be merely a necessary constitutional affection; and can no more possess moral quality than the circulation of the blood or the beating of the heart. Thus destitute of moral quality, it cannot as a moral act be the subject of requirement or approbation by a moral governor, nor yet be dictated or approved by the conscience of the subject. To be a moral act and of course to be a morally right act, it must be a free act -- an act exempt from all necessity -- an act done in the exercise of moral liberty. No act of the mind which with the knowledge of the difference between the excellence and worth of God and of all other objects, does not by an act of the will fix the affections in a higher degree on God than on any and every other object, can be the subject of legal requirement by the Supreme Lawgiver, or enthrone him in this high position. If then God in his law requires any affection for himself on the part of men, he requires at least supreme love as an elective preference.

 

In view of what has been said, it is manifest that supreme love to God, if it falls below loving him to the extent of the powers, is not all that he claims of men in his perfect law Any and every degree of affection for God as a substitute for this or compared with this, is a low, weak, and unworthy principle of action. God may and doubtless does require of men under the provision of a perfect atonement for sin, a lower degree of supreme love than he requires in his perfect law. But he does not require the former as that which in any respect meets and satisfies the claim of his perfect law. In its relation to this claim it falls utterly short of it, and must be viewed as the transgression of law, and as such justly exposing the subject to its full penalty. Under the relation of satisfying the claim of his perfect law, or as in any sense obedience to this law, God neither requires nor accepts that low degree of supreme love which is the condition of his pardoning mercy. It were entirely consistent with his justice or with his authority as lawgiver, to pardon sin under a perfect atonement without the required condition. Such an atonement would fully sustain his authority, without the imperfect love or faith or repentance of the sinner. The reason for the requirement of these as the condition of pardon is not as some maintain, that they are necessary to sustain his authority in granting pardon to the sinner for the same reason as is the atonement. It is widely different. It is not to uphold his authority, or vindicate his justice as a lawgiver in the slightest degree. This is fully and perfectly accomplished by a perfect atonement. The reason for making faith and repentance -- imperfect but supreme -- the conditions of pardon, is derived exclusively from his benevolence as distinguished from his justice. It is, that having by the atonement removed every obstacle from his justice, he may gratify his benevolence in raising up from this world of sinful beings a holy and happy kingdom. He makes personal holiness, in some low degree, the condition of his acceptance of sinners, that in this way by the discipline of his grace he may perfect the imperfect principle, and so prepare them for that world in which this kingdom itself will be perfected, and into which nothing that defileth shall enter.

 

Thus God requires far more in his perfect law than be exacts as the condition of his pardoning mercy. These requirements, made for different reasons, harmonize with each other, with every attribute of God, and with every principle of his perfect moral government. Thus law is established, and in every element of its influence. Alike therefore under his system of grace as under a system of mere law, he enforces in all the majesty of his rightful authority, his immutable and eternal claim that men love him to the extent of their power.

 

 

REMARKS.

 

1. How perfect is the law of God's moral government!

 

According to the view which has now been given of it, man is bound by the full authority of God to absolute moral perfection in all his doings. Thus appears the force of the apostle's commendation of the commandment, that it is holy, just, and good. It is "holy." Such a claim of law utterly excludes all sin or moral defilement. As requiring a positive and exactly defined act of the subject, it meets every want or deficiency with the frown of God's prohibition. The claim, in its full form and absolute purity, must be met by the subject. In this respect it bespeaks the purity, the holiness of its author, who cannot look on sin, and casts his withering abhorrence upon the slightest moral defilement! It is "holy," for it requires holiness -- holiness in its celestial beauty -- that resplendent moral purity which gives to heaven its glories as "the habitation of God's holiness, and awakens the song that makes all its pillars tremble; "holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty." It is also "just." The love to such a being as God by man to the extent of his power, is but the homage due. The right to require it is based in his infinite perfection, eternally and immutably possessed in his own Godhead. Who shall be found to question the rightful authority of such a being as God, his absolute prerogative to reign, the justice Of his legal requirement, or the equity of his administration? The love which he claims on the part of men is the only true and full recognition by them of God's greatness and worthiness compared with any thing in a universe besides. It is this love which alone attests, exalts, and honors the supremacy of God. It is this love which alone by its reverence, its adoration, its submission, its confidence, its universal obedience, gives the throne to Him to whom only it belongs, and thus, recognizing the rightful authority of Him that sitteth thereon, imparts protection and safety to every interest of his kingdom. What less according to the principles of eternal justice, can be done by man than to obey this law of love; what less can be claimed by the sovereign and guardian of such an empire? The commandment which is so "holy" and so "just," is also "good." If God has created all things for his pleasure; if he will rejoice in all his works; if he is blessed forever -- how is his creature man to contribute to his blessedness except by doing his will, by walking worthy of God unto all pleasing? How is God as a perfect moral governor to be pleased, to be perfectly blessed, except by the obedience and the homage which he requires in his law? The ultimate end of God, in creation and providence is his own highest blessedness. This end is necessarily and emphatically the ultimate end of his moral government; for, as we have seen, all his other works both of creation and of providence are subordinate to his moral government and to its great end. His law is of course perfectly adapted to this end. What higher, better end -- what end worthier of himself -- what other ultimate end than this can God propose? What law so perfect as that which is perfectly fitted to accomplish this end? It is the necessary and perfect means of God's highest blessedness. How excellent -- how absolutely good is such a rule of moral action! But this is not all its excellence. It is based in the everlasting truth -- the grand, cardinal fact of the nature of things -- the absolute coincidence of God's highest glory and blessedness with man's highest well-being. Thus while it aims, at and uncounteracted, would secure the former, it is not less adapted to secure man's perfection in character and in happiness. As an intelligent preference of God involving the knowledge of the difference between God and every other object of affection -- how must it give the mind the calm dignity of repose in truth -- the gladness and the joy of walking in the light of life! How as the governing principle of the mind it secures the end of his being, giving to all subordinate affections their beautiful harmony and to all executive doings their most productive energy! How like the whole armor of God it resists temptation and the tempter. How as the most vigorous health and life of the soul it tends to its own perpetuity and ever -- augmenting strength! How it evinces in the mind's own consciousness, the peace and triumph of its own reality and excellence! How it ventures into fellowship with God assured of his love in return! How it delights in doing his will, and in the unfolding and fulfillment of his designs! How it finds its own blessedness in God's! How it adorns the soul with all the beauties of holiness! How it enters, sure of their joyful welcome, into companionship with angels and archangels! How it lives and acts and rejoices under the light of God's countenance -- the ceaseless smile of his love! In a word, how it imparts to man God's own likeness in character and in blessedness, while according to its own measure it engages in the service, augments the bliss, and partakes of the glories of heaven! Can such love to God dwell in the heart of man! What else is great; what else is good; what else is godlike; what else is to be thought of but the God whom he loves?

 

2. This view of the divine law is important, not to say necessary, to elevate the standard of Christian character. It will be generally admitted, that the character of good men in this world is marred by great moral imperfections; vide John, xv. 2; Rom. vii.; Gal. v. 17. Would not such imperfections be greatly diminished by juster -- more adequate views of God's perfect law as the authoritative rule of moral action? It is true, that no child of God may ever attain that perfect love of God which his law so justly demands, till the last hour of probation -- even till the moment in which the soul begins to leave the body -- a process perhaps, of separation more gradual than is commonly supposed, and which may involve a mental consciousness before unknown. Then, in a momentary but unclouded vision of faith, the soul, aware of its departure, may let go of the world with all its undue affection, and fix its love on God as he is. Until then however, we are constrained to believe that love to God in the heart of good men is at most only a low degree of supreme love. Herein consists the imperfection of the saints -- their remaining sin as we call it which is so common and so much to be lamented. Nor must we disparage the principle in any of its relations and aspects. Such love to God as supreme is also sincere, and through abundant grace, secures God's forgiveness and favor. But it is not that perfect love which God with the fall weight of his infinite authority, in his law demands of all men. Still, as supreme love to God, it is vastly diverse from the supreme love of the world. It has a useful tendency and influence, while the supreme love of the world in every substantial respect is wholly destructive. The one is destined by use and discipline to attain perfection: the other by its own inherent corruption, to grow worse and worse. The one being imperfect, according to the law of works, is sin, while in relation to the law of faith it is obedience: the other is sin without qualification, or in all its forms and relations. The one, through an atonement, renders pardon and acceptance with God not only consistent with justice, but with every other interest of benevolence: the other subjects to condemnation and punishment without hope, not only as consistent with but as demanded by justice, and by every other interest of benevolence. The one causes sorrow and contrition, more or less, over its own imperfection, and many a struggle and sacrifice, that it may triumph over a tempting and corrupting world: the other acquiesces in its own deformity without sorrow and without conflict, and defies and resists external assault. The one desires most of all, higher measures of personal holiness: the other is indifferent, or rather decidedly averse to any such acquisition. The one through grace issues in eternal life: the other as the demand of inflexible justice in eternal death. And yet with this vast and ever-increasing difference between the two great practical principles of the righteous and the wicked -- with all the worth and excellence of the former when contrasted with the unqualified moral deformity of the latter -- still how imperfect, how sinfully imperfect according to God's perfect law, is all that can be called, in this world, Christian principle! It is, as I said, supreme love to God; but how low in degree! How is it chilled, and checked, and weakened, by unduly and sinfully holding the affections of the heart to the world! These affections still linger and play about the former idol of the heart with so much activity and vigor, that the Christian's love to God scarcely acquires the vitality and power which determine its distinctive reality. For the most part, it is but a feeble, fitful, and often an entirely inactive principle, wanting the strength and controlling influence necessary to own distinct visibility to the mind, while its existence is more than doubtful both to its subject and to others. In many sad instances as in those of David and Peter, it betrays its weakness or rather its suspended activity, in overt crimes, as it would in thousands besides under like temptations. Thus one of the only two objects of moral affection to man -- a vanity as it is -- is loved more than it is fit to be loved: the other, though the all-perfect God, is scarcely loved more than this vanity! Oh, has man no more power of affection for the living God I What a stinted, dwarfish affection, in view of so much greatness and excellence! How unworthy, how inexcusable, I had almost said, how vile, were such love to God as this! What cause for humiliation for shame and confusion of face! How it needs to be washed with the tears of repentance, and these very tears themselves need to be purified with atoning blood!

 

Now I do not say that perfect love to God has ever been or ever will be attained by the Christian, until the last hour or even moment of his probation on earth. Nor yet do I find, as some think they find, a scriptural warrant for saying that he will not attain to such perfect love, and still less that he cannot. But I do say that he can -- that he ought; and that he has no excuse or palliation for the imperfection of his love to God. God's authority is upon him. He cannot throw it off, nor weaken it. He must fulfill or violate the obligation it imposes. The concern of the Christian is not merely to comply with the condition of God's forgiveness, and to be satisfied merely to escape damnation. He must hereafter awake in God's perfect likeness. The work must be achieved before his probation in the strict sense terminates. And sloth and worldliness through life give no security that it will be achieved when the final summons comes. He is called to perfect holiness in the fear of God. The same unbending authority which requires him to set his affections on things above, requires him not to set them on things below. He must lay aside every weight. He must press toward the mark for the prize of his high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He who would give the arrow its highest elevation must aim at the sun. So the Christian, in the exercise of holy affection, must aim to give it perfection in view of its object -- God, as he is. In every act of worship -- in every act of faith, repentance, prayer, he should love and therefore aim to love God to the extent of his power. If he has never done it in the past, the more reason for doing it in the present.

 

Finally I remark, how important it is that just views of the perfect law of God be entertained and inculcated by the Christian ministry. How else shall they become co-workers with Christ in calling not the righteous, but sinners to repentance? How commend the great Physician to any except the sick? How fall in with the mission and work of the Holy Spirit in convincing the world of sin? How show that sin, by the commandment, is exceeding sinful? How render Christ precious to every believer? How magnify the superabounding grace of God? How enforce daily, hourly repentance? How prepare the children of God for a triumphant or even a peaceful death? How present every man perfect in Christ Jesus at the judgment-seat?

 

There are yet other considerations on this part of the subject which are not to be unthought of. What exceedingly low and superficial views of the full claim of God on the men who are to live and to act under his moral government forever, are entertained by large portions of the Protestant Church, and even by professed Christian divines and moralists! To what an extent is the law of God depressed and obscured! How, as the consequence, are the sinful imperfections and shortcomings of good men, every one of which according to God's law deserves God's condemnation, unseen in their true moral turpitude and unrepented of for their defilement and guilt! How common to infer that because God's perfect law is not a rule of judgment, therefore it has lost all its authority, ceased to be a rule of action and become unworthy of a thought! Or to conceive of supreme love to God, and a low degree of it, as if it were all the love that God's law requires, and to regard mere compliance with the conditions of his pardoning mercy, as that absolute moral perfection which fits the soul for heaven's purity, services, and joys! How great is the error! And yet who of the best religious teachers, so exhibits that use or exercise of all the powers and capacities of the immortal spirit within us -- call them by what names you will -- intellect, heart, affections, susceptibility, will, conscience -- which is requisite to give to the love of God that absolute perfection, without which there is guilt on the soul! Or if the law is quoted -- which is better than nothing -- how constantly is it assumed that it is understood without explanation! How is explanatory instruction almost exclusively confined to repentance, to faith, to regeneration, and other conditions of salvation through grace, or to some slight and imperceptible progress in religion, as if man's absolute moral perfection were no concern of his in this life, but the responsibility and the work of preparation for heaven were to be thrown upon God at the moment of the soul's departure from the body, or in some short purgatory during its flight to a better world! Worse than all and in confirmation of all this, how is the full measure of man's moral obligation obscured, shaded away into practical oblivion, or rather unequivocally denied by the perpetual asseveration of his utter inability to love God as God's law requires, i.e., his inability to love God with all his ability! What sad views of truth are these for beings whose preparation for heaven must be not only begun, but completed during this short probation on earth! What a complete paralysis is thus imparted tot the Christian life on earth, in which, if Christ and his apostles are to be regarded, all, all is action, energy -- life in all its fullness of activity and strenuousness of effort -- the labor for sustenance, the wakefulness of the watcher, the energizing for the strait gate, the exertion of the race, the vigor of the wrestler, the resistance and onset of battle! And yet the pulpit and the press, theology, preaching, prayer, all join the chant of the sluggard heart -- you cannot, you cannot; i.e., you cannot love God as much as you can!

 

And then again, what multitudes of ungodly men extol, commend, and hold in exclusive esteem, love or kindness to our fellow-men! The good man in the world's estimation, is the man who loves his neighbor, his fellow-men, though he make little or even no account of God. According to this standard of morality and religion, the man who practices a generous liberality or philanthropic beneficence, reciprocates kindness with kindness, and is blameless in the intercourse of business and of social life, fulfills every moral obligation. He may live and die as thousands do, without supreme love to God, and even without one respectful or affectionate thought of God beyond what is necessarily associated with not denying his existence, and still love God as much as he ought. It is enough so far as God is concerned, that man is not a contemptuous atheist. Thus mere philanthropy without supreme love to God -- humanity, going forth, uncounteracted, in its instinctive emotions, kindness to man without godliness or rather with utter ungodliness of heart, is true virtue, true religion. Thus God in all his greatness and his worthiness to be loved, is not to be supremely loved, but our fellow-men; so that if God's will, interests, or designs in any respect come into competition with those of our fellow-men or our own, the former will be as they constantly are, sacrificed to the latter. But as we have said, if the least degree of love is due to God, then at the least it is supreme love. For why should beings of far inferior worth and therefore of far inferior fitness to be loved, be loved at all, and yet a being of infinitely superior fitness to be loved, not be loved in a far superior degree? Has man no capacity or power to love in degree any object beyond that degree of love which is due to a fellow-worm, or even to this atom world? Has God destined so insignificant a creature to immortality? Plainly, if there is a God and if there is a man, then either God must be loved at least supremely, or he cannot be loved at all, as it is fit that he should be loved. What then Shall we say of mere philanthropy as virtue -- the merely loving man without, loving God? Instead of any due recognition of God, it wholly excludes him as an object of affection from the human heart, for it is the love of the creature more than of the Creator. It exiles God utterly from a world of his own, a world of creatures made in his own likeness -- made for high fellowship -- high social intercourse with himself. It is practical atheism, for it is a practical denial of every important relation between God and man. It practically denies all the rights of God as the benevolent Father of man's existence, and all the obligations of man reciprocal to these rights. It thus denies the supreme and rightful sovereignty of God's moral dominion over men, and of course the reciprocal spirit of loyalty, with its supreme love, its reverence, its submission, its unqualified devotion in doing all his will. It thus denies God as the constant and bountiful benefactor of his creatures, their all-providing God, for it neither acknowledges with gratitude and praise their dependence on him for blessings in the past, nor for blessings in the future, by prayer and supplication. In the relations of Redeemer and Sanctifier in which God comes closest to sinful man, grasping as it were the very heart with his love, they know him not in the least return of grateful affection, nor in the peaceful repose furnished for human guilt by trusting in his mercy. They know him not in the condescension which brings him from his high sanctuary where he inhabiteth eternity, to dwell with the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite. They know nothing of his invitations and promises, as alluring to heaven, inspiring its steadfast hope, and securing its immortal joys; and nothing of his warnings and threatened terrors in their kind and salutary design to secure safety from impending ruin. They know nothing of the probation he assigns them as a place of preparation for his presence -- for that theater of existence, of life and action amid the scenes, the grandeurs, and the glories of eternity. They know nothing of him as the final judge, the supreme and resistless arbiter of all destiny, in the exaltation, purity, and joys of perfect holiness, or in the ever-deepening turpitude and miseries of sin. They are WITHOUT GOD and WITHOUT HOPE.

 

What is the remedy? The first remedy is that the commandment should come, and come in the fullness of its claim and its rightful authority -- come to the conscience and to the heart of every subject of the Lord God Almighty. And how is this to be accomplished, except through the instrumentality of the Christian ministry I And if they will not awake to the summons and rouse themselves to the work of their high calling; if they will not comprehend and unfold God's commandment in its exceeding breadth; if they will not hold up the torch of God's law -- to the sin-darkened mind, to what purpose can they, hope to proclaim the salvation of the Gospel? They will neither save themselves nor them that hear them.