Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

LECTURE IV.

SUPREME LOVE OR ENMITY.

MATTHEW VI. 24.

NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS; FOR EITHER HE WILL HATE THE ONE AND LOVE THE OTHER, OR ELSE HE WILL HOLD TO THE ONE AND DESPISE THE OTHER: YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON.

IN the last Lecture the doctrine of Total Depravity was deduced from the nature of holiness; in this it will be drawn from the nature of sin. From the nature of sin I shall undertake to prove that the mass of men are enemies to God, which, as was shown in the foregoing Lecture, amounts to the fullest evidence that they are totally depraved.

Our text distinctly affirms that to love another object supremely is to be an enemy to God. "No man can serve two masters;" no man can satisfy two conflicting claims; no man can be under the commanding influence of God and mammon. ther he will hate God and love mammon, or he will cleave to God and despise mammon. If one is supreme the other must be hated or despised. The

Ei

reasoning, though applied to wealth, is not confined to that; the application being intended only to furnish an instance to illustrate what is manifestly laid down as a universal maxim, viz. that" no man can serve two masters," that no man can love two objects severally and imperatively claiming to be supreme. The plain instruction is, that the man who loves any creature supremely is the enemy of God. And this is taught also by the apostle James: "The friendship of the world is enmity with God whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."*

When I speak of supreme love to the world, I mean nothing different from supreme self-love. What is self-love? No man feels that fondness for his own person which he feels for another. Nothing can be meant by the love of himself but a regard for the happiness attached to his own consciousness. Now that happiness can reach his consciousness through no other medium than the gratification of his tastes and feelings. Self-love then is a regard for the gratification of one's own tastes and feelings. And what is the love of the world? Not a mere relish for worldly things, as food, a landscape, a garden, &e. That relish is not indeed self-love, nor is it what the Scriptures mean by the love of the world. The love of the world is a doting on worldly things. And why? No man loves these things as he loves beings capable of pleasure or pain, with an affection termi

* James iv. 4.

nating in them. He dotes on them, (except so far as he regards them as means of happiness to others,) only as instruments of his own gratification, that is, as instruments of his own happiness. And to dote on wealth and honour, for instance, as the mere instruments of his own happiness, is not distinct from loving himself. All that is sinful then in the love of the world, (except the small portion to be charged to the account of undue social affections,) is comprehended in self-love. To this principle, as the grand root of sin, I now wish to draw your attention. The thoughts which I have to suggest shall be arranged under the following heads :

I. The grand root of sin is inordinate selflove.

II. Every man who is not supremely attached to God, is supremely attached to himself.

III. Supreme self-love necessarily produces enmity to God.

IV. It follows from these principles that all men by nature are God's enemies.

I. The grand root of sin is inordinate selflove.

Unless something is loved, or regarded as desirable, there can be no motive to action, no excitement to feeling, nothing to inflame the passions. The love of something, therefore, must precede every sinful action or emotion. As then holiness radically consists in the love of universal being, (as was shown in the last Lecture,) the root of sin must be found in love to a private circle or object,

-in affections so limited as to set up the interest or gratification of an individual, a family, a country, or a world, in opposition to the interest of God and the universe. Now it is a law of these limited affections that their strength increases as their circles contract. No man loves the world at large as well as he loves his own country, nor his country as well as his family, nor his family as well as himself. Self-love of course becomes the ruling passion, and by far the most productive source of sin. It is obviously this which produces pride; and "only by pride cometh contention."* Only by pride come therefore the causes of contention, viz. anger, malice, envy, self-will, ambition, and I may add, the whole family of dependent vices. Self-love originates almost all the actions which men have agreed to denominate crimes. Self-love, fixing chiefly on the world as the grand instrument of personal gratification, offers all the worship that is paid to the world's trinity, riches, honour and pleasure. How great a proportion of the sin of man is comprehended in this operation of selfishness, may be estimated from the fact that a single branch of this idolatry, (viz. "the love of money,") has been by an apostle pronounced "the root of all evil." Self-love, while it often acts towards God in gratitude and desires after future happiness, is almost the exclusive source, as will presently appear, of all the enmity that is exercised against Him.

*Prov. xiii. 10.

† 1 Tim. vi. 10.

That this principle in its inordinate degrees is the exact opposite of holy love or charity, will be evident from almost any selection you can make from the precepts, prohibitions, or didactick parts of Scripture. The following texts, selected almost at random, are sufficient to show the disinterestedness and self-denial of holy love, and the bias of sin towards one's self.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinua »