470 WHAT LIGHT MUST that you are good, nor judge you to excel others any further than your works are better than others. And marvel not if the world ask, ' What do you more than others ? ' when Christ himself doth ask the same ; Matt. v. 47. "If ye salute your brethren, and those ofyour own opinion and way, and if ye love them that love you, andsay as ye say, do not even 'publicans and infidels do the same ? " Matt. v. 46. Marvel not if men judge you' according to your works, when. God himself will do so, who knoweth the heart. He that is all for himself, may love himself, and think well pfhimself,, but must not'expect much love from others. Selfishness is the bile or imposthume.of societies,.where the blood and spirits have an inordinate afflux, till their corruption tonnent or gangrene the part. While men are all for themselves, and would draw 'all to themselves, instead of loving their neighbor as themselves, and the public good above themselves, they do but hurt and destroy them- selves, for they forfeit their communion with the, body, and deserve that none should care for them, who care for none but themselves. To a genuine Christian, another's good rejoicefh him as if it were his own, (and how much, then, bath such an one continually to feed his,joy,) and he is careful to supply another's wants as if they were his own., But the .shandalous, selfish hypocrite doth live quietly, and sleep easily, if he be but well himself; and it go well with his party, however it go with all his neighbors,'or with the church; or with the world. To himself he is fallen ; to himself he liveth ; himself he loveth ; himself he, se'eketh ; and himself, that is, his temporal prosperity,, he will advance and save, if he can, what- ever his religion be ; and yet himself he destroyeth, and will lose. It is not well considered in the world, how much of sin consisteth in the narrow contraction of men's love,-and regard unto their nat- ural selves, and how much of goodness.consistethin a community of love, and what a glory it is to the government and laws of God that he maketh it so noble and necessary a part of every man's duty to love 411 men, and to do. good to all, as he is able, though with a difference. God could do us all good enough by himself alone, without one another., But what a mercy is it to the world, that as many persons 'as there are, so many there are obliged by God to love their neighbors as themselves, and to do good to all about them ! And what a mercy is it to the actor that God will thus make him the instrument and messenger of his beneficence ! Ministers and Christians all, would you be thought better than others? Are you angry with men that think otherwise of you? What good do you more than others in your places? What good do you that other men can see, and feel, and taste, and judge of? Every,man loveth himself, and can feel what doeth him good, in natural things; and God, by giving you food, and other mercies to
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