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The Union Of Love To God And Love To Man, A Sermon, Preached In St. Andrew's Church, New Town, Edinburgh,
A solitary individual is a helpless and a joyless creature . Hence the appetite for society is one of the strongest of our nature ; and the pleasure and the benefit of indulging it is very great , and would be still much greater , was our love to one another as pure and unallayed as it ought to be . Perfect love among men , unmixed with malice and . injustice , is not indeed to be expected in the present state of human nature . This would be that golden * ageof which some
bene-, volent philosophers dreamed , and of which some kind-hearted poets sung : but only in Heaven , and no where else , is it to be realized . The happier , however , will be our state on earth , the nearer that we approach to it . In the society of our Brethren , we are disburthened of our sorrows , and all our joys are enlivened . In society , we gratify some of the best and noblest feelings of the heart ; and from thence
our nature derives some of its greatest embellishments and improvements . Thus God has linked the human species together by such strong ties of affection and of interest , as ought not to be dissolved rashly , or upon slight grounds . Knowing that we have a common nature , and that we are all liable to errwe ought to bear with each other ' s
, weaknesses and errors , and we ought to forgive one another ' s offences . ' How oft , ' said St . Peter to his Lord * , ' 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 . ' This command our Lord has enforced by an argument of peculiar magnitude , and which must speak powerfully to the heart of every man who believes that he must give an account of himself to God . 'For if ye forgive men their trespasses , your Heavenly Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses , neither will your Father forgive your trespasses •(¦ . ' This leads us
, II . To mention some of the chief arguments which the Christian religion makes use of , to persuade us to love our brethren . The light of nature itself teaches us , that all men are the children of one great family . The whole human race are the children of one God and Father of all ; and therefore we are all in the relation of Brethren to one another . Our Brethren ought to be most dear to us , because
God is their God and our God , their Father and our Father : and our affection to one another ought to be increased , by considering that , Christ shed his blood for them , and for us . What can make us esteem and love even the most inconsiderable of mankind , more than the thought tiiat the Lord Jesus Christ died for them ? But we Christians are more nearly related to one another as
Brethren than others , because we are the children of God in a new and peculiar sense . We are his adopted children through grace , and we enjoy many spiritual p rivileges which are denied to other men . We are taken into a covenant-relation to God ; and we are , in a peculiar
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Union Of Love To God And Love To Man, A Sermon, Preached In St. Andrew's Church, New Town, Edinburgh,
A solitary individual is a helpless and a joyless creature . Hence the appetite for society is one of the strongest of our nature ; and the pleasure and the benefit of indulging it is very great , and would be still much greater , was our love to one another as pure and unallayed as it ought to be . Perfect love among men , unmixed with malice and . injustice , is not indeed to be expected in the present state of human nature . This would be that golden * ageof which some
bene-, volent philosophers dreamed , and of which some kind-hearted poets sung : but only in Heaven , and no where else , is it to be realized . The happier , however , will be our state on earth , the nearer that we approach to it . In the society of our Brethren , we are disburthened of our sorrows , and all our joys are enlivened . In society , we gratify some of the best and noblest feelings of the heart ; and from thence
our nature derives some of its greatest embellishments and improvements . Thus God has linked the human species together by such strong ties of affection and of interest , as ought not to be dissolved rashly , or upon slight grounds . Knowing that we have a common nature , and that we are all liable to errwe ought to bear with each other ' s
, weaknesses and errors , and we ought to forgive one another ' s offences . ' How oft , ' said St . Peter to his Lord * , ' 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 . ' This command our Lord has enforced by an argument of peculiar magnitude , and which must speak powerfully to the heart of every man who believes that he must give an account of himself to God . 'For if ye forgive men their trespasses , your Heavenly Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses , neither will your Father forgive your trespasses •(¦ . ' This leads us
, II . To mention some of the chief arguments which the Christian religion makes use of , to persuade us to love our brethren . The light of nature itself teaches us , that all men are the children of one great family . The whole human race are the children of one God and Father of all ; and therefore we are all in the relation of Brethren to one another . Our Brethren ought to be most dear to us , because
God is their God and our God , their Father and our Father : and our affection to one another ought to be increased , by considering that , Christ shed his blood for them , and for us . What can make us esteem and love even the most inconsiderable of mankind , more than the thought tiiat the Lord Jesus Christ died for them ? But we Christians are more nearly related to one another as
Brethren than others , because we are the children of God in a new and peculiar sense . We are his adopted children through grace , and we enjoy many spiritual p rivileges which are denied to other men . We are taken into a covenant-relation to God ; and we are , in a peculiar