SERMON CXIV. THE GREAT DUTY OF LOVING GOD. SERM. MATT. xxii. 37, 38. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great Commandment. ALL that have any true sense of God upon their minds, cannot but express it by doing something which they think may please Him; and seeing they can never do it without keeping His Commandments, therefore they offer at that. But such is the weakness of our corrupt nature, that there are but few that strive, or so much as think of keeping all His Commandments, but most men take up with some few of them, and such commonly as are of the least weight. The Pharisees themselves, the strictest sect in all the Jewish religion, they paid tithe of " mint, and anise, and cummin, but omitted the weightier matters of the Law, judgment, mercy, and faith;" as the Lawgiver Himself told them, and then said, Matt.23.23. "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone," whereby He hath signified His Divine will that none of His Commandments should be slighted or neglected, but that all should be observed one as well as another. And yet notwithstanding, there are some weightier than others, which He would have us take special care to observe. This the Jews themselves seem to be sensible of, so as to dispute. among themselves which should be esteemed the "greatest" Commandment in the Law some thinking that Circumcision, others the Sabbath; some that the paying of tithes and offerings, others that the sacrifices, were most strictly com manded and, therefore, that the Commandments about them were most necessary to be observed: and not agreeing among themselves about it, one of them, being a scribe or lawyer, whose business it was to search into the true meaning of the Law, propounded the question to our blessed Saviour, "tempting Him, and saying, Master, which is the great," or greatest "Commandment in the Law?" He little thought that he spake to the Lawgiver Himself, and therefore did not expect such an answer as he received: for Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great Commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Which being the oracle or answer of God Himself to a question put to Him concerning His Own Law, deserves to be particularly considered by all that really desire to observe it. But I cannot but first take notice of two things in general, concerning the answer which our blessed Saviour made to the questions which the Jews propounded to Him. The first is, that although their questions were usually propounded out of a very ill design, even to " entangle Him in his talk," that [Matt. 22. i5.] they might have something whereof they "might accuse Him; yet He took no notice of that, but gave them such answers, as are of general and perpetual use to His Church. So that we could not have been without any one of them; but have infinite cause to thank God for the very captious questions that were propounded to Him, and the gracious answers He was pleased to return to them: whereby we may see His Divine wisdom and power in bringing good out of evil. The other thing to be observed is, that whatsoever question they propounded to our Saviour, He gave so full and satisfactory an answer to it, that they never had any thing to reply upon it; but went away with wonder and amazement. When He was but twelve years old, as He was sitting among the Rabbies or doctors at Jerusalem, "both hearing them, Luke 2. 47. and asking them questions; all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." So it was all SERM. His life after. We need not go far for instances. In this CXIV. very chapter, He answered the Pharisees' question about Matt.22.22. paying tribute to Cæsar, so, that "when they had heard His 33. words, they marvelled, and left Him, and went their way." And when the Sadducees put a question to Him about the Resurrection of the dead, He gave them so clear a solution ver. 33, 34. of it, as did not only put them to silence, but "when the multitude heard it, they were astonished at His Doctrine.” And when one of the Scribes or lawyers perceived that He had answered both the Pharisees and Sadducees so well, as to put them to silence, he also propounded a question, this great question to him, "Which is the first Commandment of all?" And our Lord gave him so full and clear an answer to it, that he immediately confessed the truth of what He Mark 12.32, said, saying, "Well, Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God, and there is none other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole-burnt offerings and sacrifices." By this it seems their sacrifices were esteemed, at least by some, as the chief part of their law. But this lawyer had no sooner heard our Saviour's solution of his question, but he was convinced of the contrary, and was forced to own that all their burnt offerings and sacrifices, put them all together, how many soever they were, they still came short of a man's loving God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself: that this was indeed the great Commandment of all, as our Lord told him, and ordered it to be recorded, that all may know it. 5. And, indeed, this which our Lord here calls the "first and great Commandment" in the Law, is intimated to be so in Deut. 6. 4, the Law itself, where it is written: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might;" where we see this Commandment proclaimed with a preface proper and peculiar to itself, and such a one as requires a special regard to be had to it. "Hear, O Israel." And in the Hebrew, the last letter of the first word is greater than ordinary, to shew that there is something extraordinary in this Commandment, and that it is indeed, as our Saviour here calls it, the great Commandment in the Law. And, besides, this preface contains the substance of all that we ought to believe concerning God, as the Commandment doth our whole duty to Him. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." He is the Lord, Jehovah, Being, or Essence itself, existing in and of Himself, and giving both essence and existence to all things else. And He is our God. The original word is of the plural number, denoting the Trinity of the Divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: all and every one of which is here said to be our God. The Father is our God, and our Father: the Son, our God, and our Saviour: the Holy Ghost, our God, and our Sanctifier. All which supposeth and implies our reconciliation to God by the death of Christ, without which we could not have had Him to be our God. But lest we should think that the three Divine Persons signified by that plural name Elohim are so many several Gods, it followeth, "our God is one Lord, one Jehovah," or simply One (with a great letter also): which needed not to be added if no more than one Divine Person had been signified by it; the Unity of the Godhead being sufficiently declared by His Name Jehovah,' Being' in general, which can be but One. So that the addition of the word One, is an undeniable argument that a trinity of persons is implied in the foresaid Name, and that it is the will of God that we should believe Him to be "three Persons," and one " Jehovah, one God;" and that the Jews repeating, as they anciently did, these words every day, did thereby profess their belief of the Trinity in Unity, although they did not understand it so well as we now do by the light of the Gospel. The foundation of our faith in Almighty God being thus laid down in these words, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God," or Divine persons, "is one Lord," the great duty to be built upon it is subjoined in the words immediately following: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." This is that which our great Lord and Master Jesus Christ hath taught us to be the "first and great Commandment." And, therefore, we must be sure to learn and practise this, as ever we desire to shew ourselves to be His scholars or SERM. disciples indeed. For which purpose it will be necessary CXIV. to consider the true meaning and extent of this Commandment; what great reason it is grounded upon; wherefore it is called the "first and great Commandment;" and how happy they are who keep it. Unto which few heads, all that is necessary to be known reduced. concerning it may be easily I. First, therefore, By the "Lord thy God," as I have already observed from the original, is here meant that Almighty Being, Jehovah, Which made, preserves, and governs the whole world, and hath revealed itself in the 1 John 5. 7. Holy Scriptures to be three in one; "The Father, Son, and ver. 23. Holy Ghost, these three are one," that is, as it is here expressed, "One Jehovah, one Lord." And, therefore, as we are here commanded to love Jehovah, or the Divine Essence in general, so we are commanded to love each of the Divine Persons alike. And as they are all of one and the same nature, we must have the same affection for one that we have for the other: for "all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father Which hath sent Him." So he that doth not love the Son begotten of the Father, doth not love the Father that begot Him. And he that doth not love the Holy Ghost, that proceedeth from the Father and the Son, doth not love either the Father or the Son, from Whom He proceedeth. Wherefore, that our faith and love to God may be such as He hath commanded, it must be equally fixed upon each of these Divine Persons, not as so many several Gods, but as being all one and the same God, blessed for ever. Neither are we here commanded to love Him only as He is the Lord, but likewise as He is our God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God:" not thy Jehovah; for that word never hath any adjunct, or pronoun, or any thing else affixed to it: but thy God, or the Divine Persons, as He made thee, saves thee, and sanctifies thee; and so is the Author both of thy being and well-being: according to the Jer. 31. 33. Covenant that He hath made with us, saying, "I will be their God, and they shall be My people." And, as He is thus in a peculiar manner related to us, we ought accord |