468 WHAT LIGHT MUST Let them hate me, So they do but fear me, and 'obey me, is the saying of such as setup for themselves, (and but foolishly for them- selves) and, like Satan, would rule men to damnation. If lovebe the sum and fulfilling of the law, love must be the sum and fulfill- ingof our ministry.. But yet, by love I mean not flattery ; parents do love as necessarily as any, and yet must correct; and God him- selfcan love, and yet correct; yea, he chasteneth every son that he receiveth ; (Heb. xii. 6,1.) and his love consisteth with pa- ternal justice, and with hatred of sin, and plain and sharp reproof of sinners ; and só must ours ; but all as the various operations of love; as the objects vary. And what I say of ministers, I say of every Christian in this place. Love is the great and the new commandment ; that is, the last which Christ would leave, at his departure, to his disciples. O, could we learn of the Lord of love, and him who calleth him- self love itself, to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to the evil, and pray for them that hurt and per- secute us, we shouldnot only prove that we are genuine. Chris- tians, the children of our heavenly Father; (Matt. v. 44, 45.) but should heap coals of fire on our enemies' heads, and melt them into compassion and some remorse, if not into a holy love. I tell you, it is the Christian who doth truly love his neighbor as himself; who loveth the godly as his co-heirs of heaven, and loveth the un- godly with a desire to make them truly godly ; who loveth a friend as a friend, and an enemy as a man that is capable of holiness and salvation. It is he that liveth, walketh, speaketh, converseth, yea, suffereth, which is the greatdifl'iculty in love, and is, as it were, turned, by the love of God shed abroad upon his heart, into love itself; who doth glorify God in the world, and glorify his religion, and really rebuke the blasphemer, that derideth the Spirit in be- lievers, as if it were but a fanatical dream. And it is he that, by tyranny, cruelty, contempt of others, and needless, proud singularities and separations, magisterially con- demning and vilifying all that walk not in his fashidn, and pray not in his fashion, and are not of his opinion, where, it is like enough, he is himself mistaken, that is the scandalous Christian, who doth as much against God and religion, and the church, and men's souls, as he doth against love. And though it be Satan's way, as an an- gel of light, and his ministers' way, as ministers of righteousness, to destroy Christ's interest by dividing it, and separating things that God will have conjoined, and so to pretend the love of truth, and love of order, as the love of godliness, or discipline, against the love of souls, and to use even the name of love itself against love, to justify all their cruelties, or censures, and alienations; yet God will keep up that sacred fire in the hearts of the sound Chris-
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