t $2 Perfeci Love gives Bold/leis', S F R M. words immediately following the text, it is VIII. direäly faid, we love him becarfe he firji loved us. Then follows as a juft inference, that if we love God, we fhould love our brethren alfo. So that the love in which chriftians are made perfect, and their perfection in it gives them boldnefs in the day of judgment, is the love of God and of mankind ; what our Saviour gives us as a cornprehenfive abridgment of all religion, all the obedience 'which is due to the divine laws, * To love the Lord cur God with all our heart, all our foul, all our /lrength and mind, and to love our neighbours as ourfelves. But what is this perfeftion in love which the apoftle here means, fuch as good men are evidently fuppofed in the prefent Rate to attain to ? I anfwer, it is not abfolutely free from every defct, every kind and degree even of moral infirmity. As there are dif- ferent orders of moral agents, they have fe- veral flandards of perfedion. An abfolute impeccability feems only to belong to the fu.- preme Being himfelf. All creatures, the higheft and belt of them, f nce their under- ftandings are limited, are naturally capable of being milled ; and being by the condition * Matta, xxii. 37, 38, 39. of
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