Ans. As blackmoors paint the devil white, so do vain men their vices and corrupt passions. So proceeding from words to blows is manliness with them; whereas a little consideration would shew them, that it is childishness; for so do nurses still their babies, by revenging them on those that displease them. It is brutishness; anger a dog, and he will be ready to fly at your face. It is foolishness, Eccl. vii. 9. "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools." Was David not manly that revenged not himself on Saul? Saul says otherwise, 1 Sam. xxiv. 18-21. "Thou hast shewed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me: forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedst me not. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the Lord reward thee good, for that thou hast done unto me this day," &c. Quest. How then should we do in the case of affronts and wrongs? Ans. 1. Arm yourselves with meekness and patience, while you go through an evil world, laying your accounts that ye will have use for them, wherever ye are, and that daily. 2. Learn to bear with and forbear one another, and to be always ready to forgive the injuries done to you, so far as they concern yourselves, Col. iii. 13. “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." And there is no measure to which this forgiving is to be stinted, Matth. xviii. 21, 22. "Lord, (says Peter) how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, until seventy times seven." 3. In matters of weight, where the good of the party offending, the public good, or your future safety, makes redress necessary, apply to those for it who are vested with authority for that end, Rom. xii. 4. Only do it not from a spirit of revenge. 4. In that case, and in other cases, wherein redress is not to be expected, lay the matter before the Lord, put it in his hand, and wait for him, Prov. xx. 22. "Say not thou, I will recompense evil: but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee." 5. Lastly, Live by faith, keeping your eye on Christ the fountain of strength, the pattern of meekness, and on the judgment to come, when all wrongs shall be redressed, and justice shall be done to every one. THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERS OF TRUE BELIEVERS. VI. IN RELATION TO LOVING THEIR ENEMIES.* A PERSUASIVE TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES. MATTHEW V. 44, 45. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you: that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. NEGATIVE holiness is short of Christianity more than the one half. It is not enough that we do others no ill, but we must do them good as we have access. Nor is it enough that we fly not out in passion and revenge on those who have wronged us, but we must love them. Nature teaches us to love them that love us; and so the worst of men may learn that lesson, ver. 46, "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" But sanctifying grace goes higher, teaching to love them that hate us; and this is a lesson hard to learn. Hence the corrupt Jewish teachers, unable to come up to the intent of the holy law, brought down the law to their nature, and expounded the second great commandment of the law conformably, ver. 43, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. Our Lord, who loved his enemies so as to die for them, does justice to that law here; and that end of the law which they had folded in, he folds out again, and stretches it out in its full length, so as to teach our foes as well as our friends. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, &c. In which words we have, 1. A duty enjoined, Love your enemies. It is supposed, that in The discourses on this subject were preached at Ettrick in November and December, 1724. this world every body will have some enemies; and want who will, Christ's friends will not want enemies, who will hate them, and do them any mischief they can reach. The greatest innocency of life, and harmlessness, the greatest usefulness in the world, will not secure one from having enemies. Christ's own case demonstrates this. Well, what is our duty to them? Love them. That is explained, Bless them, do them good, pray for them. That is an old commandment, Prov. xxv. 21, "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink." stamped with the authority and example of Jesus. men are fondest of the very old and the split-new. together. But it is new And of all coin. Here are both 2. The necessity of this duty, and of obedience to this command. It is agreed among all to be the hardest duty of Christianity. The Papists will have it to be not a command, but a counsel of perfection. And if most Protestants would speak their hearts in this point, they would agree with them; for in effect they think and say, It is not for every one, it is only the attainment of some very rare good men; and though they cannot reach it, they are in no doubt for all that, that they belong to Christ. But our Lord teaches here the downright contrary, namely, the absolute necessity of it to all, to Christians of the smallest as well as of the greatest size: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Not that we must first love our enemies before we can be adopted into the family of God; but that we must necessarily evidence our sonship by this, or else forfeit our claim to it. So that ye may be, is, that ye may appear to be. Adoption into the family of heaven is a great privilege. The question is, Who may claim interest in it, and who not? They who love their enemies may claim it; for thereby they discover they are really God's children, they are so like him they who do not, may not claim that privilege; for they really are not God's children, they are so unlike him. The text affords the following instructive note. DocT. Loving of our enemies is a necessary evidence, mark, and character of those who are of the family of heaven. In discoursing this subject, I shall, I. Consider the duty of loving our enemies. II. Shew that this loving of our enemies is a necessary mark and evidence of a child of God. III. Make some practical improvement. I. We shall consider the duty of loving our enemies. And here I shall show, 1. Who are to be understood by our enemies. 2. What is that love which we owe to them. First, I am to shew who are to be understood by our enemies. In general, it aims at those about whom there is least to engage our love to them. For the more our Christian love is of that sort, it is the liker to the love of God, who loves freely, and does not find the objects of it lovely, but makes them so, And, It is not only to be understood of those who are simply our enemies, but of those who are enemies to God as well as to us. This is evident from the context, for the law binds us to love our neighbour, ver. 43. Every body is our neighbour in the sense of the law. Therefore our enemies, even such of them as are enemies to God, are our neighbours, and so to be loved. And upon this principle our Lord's explication goes. Again, were not such as cursed, hated, and persecuted the disciples of Christ, the enemies of God as well as theirs? Yet the text will have those loved. Finally, the evil and unjust are so far loved of our heavenly Father, that he does them Therefore we are to love them too, : good yet they are his enemies. if we would be like him, ver. 45. They would do well to consider this, who make the extent of their religion the boundaries of their love; who if they love those of their own religion and way, think they owe no love to others, but are at liberty to hate all the world besides; and could be content to exterminate and devour them under the notion of God's enemies. This is the way of the bloody Papists; and be who they will that go that way, they are actuated by the spirit of Antichrist, which is a spirit of hatred, not by the Spirit of Christ, which is a Spirit of love. If Christ had loved at that rate, there had never been a church in the world but, as says the apostle, Rom. v. 10. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Object. 1. Does not the psalmist say, Psalm. cxxxix. 21, 22, "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies?" And does not Jehu the son of Hanani the seer say to King Jehoshaphat, Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? 2 Chron. xix. 2. : Ans. (1.) There is a hating of one's way and course, and a hating of one's person. It is not the latter that is meant in these passages, but the former. They hate the Lord, rise up against him, are ungodly; that is their course, which our hatred must fix upon. So the sum of it is, I count them mine enemies, whose persons I am obliged to love, but their enmity I am obliged to hate. So a man loves his sick child, though he loathes his loathsome disease, and seeks to root it out. (2.) There is a hatred opposite to a love of complacency, and a hatred opposite to a love of good will: the former is what we should bear to the enemies of God, and is there meant; the latter is not. Object. 2. Are not the prayers of the church bent against the enemies of Christ? Ans. Yea they are, and for them too, in different respects; the former in respect of their wicked works, the latter in respect of their persons. And if there is no separating of their works from their persons, that their works are not to be destroyed but with the destruction of their persons, i. e. if they be incorrigible, then since. God's honour must be dearer to us than all the world, we may lawfully pray against their persons too. And this is as consistent with the love in the text, as a parent's calling a surgeon to cut off his child's gangrened leg; he loves the leg, and would heartily wish its preservation; yet he must call for cutting it off, lest it ruin his child's whole body. See all this, Psal. lxxxiii. 16-18, “Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and troubled for ever: yea, let them be put to shame, and perish that men may know, that thou whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth." : 2. It is to be understood of those who are adversaries to us, or are against us any manner of way, whether they in that matter be against God or not. And so it takes in, 1st. Those who are not truly and properly our enemies, but in our account and reckoning only are enemies to us. And here is an occasion of the exercise of this grace and duty, as well as in the case of the most real enemy to us. For though one be not indeed your enemy, yet if you think him to be so, it is all a case to you to love him, as to love one that is really so; and if you reach it, it will be certainly acceptable to God, it will not be lost for though it is your weakness to mistake one for your enemy who is not so, yet it is your excellency to love one whom you take for your enemy, Luke xxiv. 1. So this love is owing, (1.) To those whom we take for our enemies, but are really only smiting friends. Wounding friends in a childish sickly world ofttimes go under the name of enemies; while kissing enemies are taken for friends, Prov. xxvii. 6. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." So it fared with Paul among the Galatians, chap. iv. 16. Am I therefore become your enemy, says he to them, because I tell you the truth? Much enmity is raised this way in the world. A sound reproof for sin, an |