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15. Whosoever hateth his brother, is a murderer and ye know that no murderer bath eternal life abiding in him.

16. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because be laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

17. But whofo bath this world's good, and feeth his brother have need, and fhutteth up his bowels of compaffion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in bim ?

18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

The MORAL REFLECTION.

CARCE did the Chriftian religion appear in

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the world, but it was attack'd on all fides. Its profeffors were ridiculed by fome, fcorned by others, and perfecuted by all. St. John exhorts them, neither to be difcouraged, nor difmayed; but to bear up against the stream with refolution: Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. Our bleffed Saviour foretold this animofity to his difciples, and his prophecy was accomplished in himself, who fell a victim to hatred; and in all his followers, who have met with the fame treatment. And St. Paul has fet it down as an infallible truth: All that will live godly in Chrift Jefus, shall fuffer perfecution, 2 Tim. iii. 12. And what wonder the flaves of the world declare war against Jefus Christ, who condemns the world with its principles and practice, and commands his followers never to make peace with this mortal and dangerous enemy; ten times more pernicious when it fawns, than when it frowns upon us; when it loves, than when it hates?

But, bleffed be God! we cannot receive any harm from its hatred, unless we will ourselves. G 2

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us to abandon Chrift. It may employ both threats and allurements, to engage us to take part with it; but it can overcome only thofe, who voluntarily fubmit to its flavery.

Let then, dear Chriftians, men of the world laugh at your piety: Pity their ftupidity; but blush not at your duty. Vice indeed is shameful, but not virtue and even those, who hate it, cannot hinder themselves from efteeming it. So that when they flander and perfecute you, 'tis not because they think you worse, but better than themselves. The regularity of your life lays before their eyes the hor ror of theirs. This tacit reproach makes them uneafy; and they love not to be reproved for those crimes, they have no refolution to amend.

Go on therefore with courage in the happy car, reer you have begun; and be no lefs bold in the practice of virtue, than they in that of vice. If they endeavour to fright you with fatire and farcafm from your duty, you may with better reason deter them from their enormities with a profpect of hell, which will be their eternal habitation, unlefs they turn penitent, and wash out with tears thofe fins, that, unrepented, will caft them into an everlasting despair. One mark of a disciple of Jefus Chrift is perfecution, the other is patience: that comes from malice, this is a Christian virtue; and the exercise of it being hard, the reward will bear proportion to the difficulty.

God will avow, and praife, in the presence of men and angels, the conduct of those who have confefs'd his name, and embraced his morals in spight of rage and railery. And he will as openly condemn theirs, who have endeavoured to laugh and perfecute their brethren out of their piety and religion. Oh! the fatisfaction, to be praised of God, who neither errs in his judgment, nor flatters in his expreffion !

expreffion! Oh! the misfortune, to be condemned by him, from whose sentence there is no appeal!

Tho' the world hates the followers of Christ, his difciples are forbid to hate them. They must indeed hate their vices, but, at the fame time, love their perfons. And St. John declares all those to be murderers, who hate their brethren: Whosoever bateth his brother, is a murtherer, and liable to the pains of homicides: And ye know that no murtherer bath eterenal life abiding in him, i. e. hatred has cut off his title to heaven, by destroying fanctifying grace, which gives us a right to eternal life.

But of what hatred speaks the Apoftle? Not of antipathies of nature, or disputes which arise from a contrariety of humours and interefts. God for.. bid, such small misunderstandings fhould make us guilty of homicide, and turn us over to the punishment of murtherers and adulterers: but he speaks of those, who cannot endure the fight of a brother; whose presence they cannot fupport with Chriftian temper, nor even hear of his profperity with common decency; who envy his happiness, and rejoice at his ruin; fuch people have not eternal life abiding in them. Their hatred is mortal; and, if they defire their brother's death, they ftand at God's tribunal guilty of homicide. Our Saviour has declared this in very clear terms in another cafe. Whosoever, fays he, looketh on a woman to luft after her, has already committed adultery with. her in his heart, Matth. v. 28. And confequently he, who wishes his brother's death, tho' he does not procure it, is guilty of the malice, tho' not of the exterior act of murther.

What shall we fay of those, who, in fits of anger and paffion, wifh their brother dead, and fometimes fend him to hell. Nothing but want of reflection can excufe them from a deadly fin, from homicide,

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homicide, and a crime of a deeper dye. For as the death of the foul is a greater evil than that of the body; fo to wifh it feriously, must be a fin of a blacker nature.

People are wont to excufe themselves with the pretext, they were in a paffion: I believe it; for what Chriftian in cold blood would break out into fuch an unfeemly language? But the question is, whether your tongue prevented reafon, whether you reflected on what you did if your heart agreed with your tongue, you fall within the compafs of murder. Paffion, 'tis true, has a strange afcendant over reafon; and therefore Seneca calls it a fhort madness: but after all, 'tis hard to extinguish it; and therefore I am of opinion, that not one of a hundred continues in thefe unchriftian imprecations without a mortal offence; for it is almost impoffible, for a paffion to be fo intenfe, for a confiderable space, as to leave no room for reflection, no place for the exercise of reafon. These paffionate expreffions (to give them the fofteft name) often come even from thofe, who make profeffion of piety; but custom cannot render them innocent, nor any pretended devotion, warrantable. They are commonly extremely finful, and always marks of a depraved heart, and of an ungovernable paffion.

Hate therefore no body, but yourselves this is lawful, nay even commanded: there is no danger of excefs. It is more to be feared, we fhall ftill love ourselves to our ruin. He that loveth his life, fball lofe it, John xii. 25. And he who hateth it, fhall find it. Oh happy hatred, that faves our foul and hateful love, that damns it!

It is not fufficient to abftain from hatred; but we muft carry our love of our brother fo far, as even to facrifice our lives for his fpiritual good. This in plain terms is the apostle's doctrine, and drawn from the

example

example of our Saviour: Because he hath laid down bis life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. Paftors, in time of plagues, or other epidemical diftempers, must not abandon their flocks, but take care of their fouls, and fupply them with thofe helps Chrift has inftituted for their falvation. They muft adminifter the facraments, comfort the diftreffed, and apply thofe fpiritual remedies charity fuggefts, and their circumstances require: the danger of death doth not dispense with the obligation. They lie not only under the precept of charity, but of justice also, and fin grievously, if they neglect their duty in a point fo effential: and divines teach, that even feculars are obliged to expofe their lives for the falvation of their brother's foul, if they are in imminent danger of perdition, and cannot be rescued, but by fuch a facrifice, of charity.

Oh the perfection of the Christian religion! Who could preach a doctrine fo pure, fo fublime, but you, my God, and my Redeemer? Who could perfuade the world to embrace a law fo difinterested, fo contrary to the perverfe Inclination of nature, but you? And who is able to fulfill it without your powerful affistance? Give me this help, that I may lay down my life (if neceffity requires) not only for thee, but for my brother, for whom thou haft laid down thine. Thy charity has faved me: I, in return, offer my life to fave a brother.

To conclude with St. John: Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Nothing is more ordinary, than love in ceremony, and friendship in expreffion: And if the heart va ried not from the tongue, we might say of the Chriftians of our age, what the the evangelift writes of thofe of the firft; They were of one heart, and of one foul, Acts iv. 32. But this is a mere language of courfe; a fet of words; a love that fits

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