all true and distinguishing Christian virtue and grace may be summed up in love.
2. The Scriptures teach us that love is the sum of all that is contained in the law of God, and of all the duties required in his word. This the Scriptures teach of the law in general, and of each table of the law in particular.
First, The Scriptures teach this of the law and word of God in general. By the law, in the Scriptures, is sometimes meant the whole of the written word of God, as in John x. 34—“Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? “And sometimes, by tile law, is meant the five books of Moses, as in Acts 14:14, where it is named with the distinction of the “law “and the “prophets.” And sometimes, by the law, is meant the ten commandments, as containing the sum of all the duty of mankind, and all that is required as of universal and perpetual obligation. But whether we take the law as signifying only the ten commandments, or as including the whole written word of God, the Scriptures teach us that the sum of all that is required in it is love. Thus, when by the law is meant the ten commandments, it is said, in Rom. 13:8, “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law;” and therefore several of the commandments are rehearsed, and it is added, in the tenth verse, that “love” (which leads us to obey them all) “is the fulfilling of the law.” Now, unless love was the Sum of what the law requires, the law could not be wholly fulfilled in love; for a law is fulfilled only by obedience to the sum or whole of what it contains and enjoins. So the same apostle again declares (1 Tim. 1:5), “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned,” etc. Or if we take the law in a yet more extensive sense, as the whole written word of God, the Scriptures still teach us, that love is the sum of all required in it. In Matt. 22:40, Christ teaches, that on the two precepts of loving God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, hang all the law and the prophets, i.e. all the written word of God; for what was then called the law and the prophets, was the whole written word of God that was then extant. And,
Second, The Scriptures teach the same thing of each table of the law in particular. The command, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” is declared by Christ (Matt. 22:38) to be the sum of the first table of the law, or the first great commandment; and in the next verse, to love our neighbor as ourself, is declared to be the sum of the second table; as it is also in Rom. 13:9, where the precepts of the second table of the law are particularly specified: and it is then added, “And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And 60 in Gal. v. 14—“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And the same seems to be stated in James 2:8, “If ye fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture sure, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well.” Hence love appears to be the sum of all the virtue and duty that God requires of us, and therefore must undoubtedly be the most essential thing—the sum of all the virtue that is essential and distinguishing in real Christianity. That which is the sum of all duty, must be the sum of all real virtue.
3. The truth of the doctrine, as shown by the Scripture appears from this, that the apostle teaches us (Gal. 5:6) that “faith works by love.” A truly Christian faith is that which produces good works; but all the good works which it produces are by love. By this, two things are evident to the present purpose:—
First, that true love is an ingredient in true and living faith, and is what is most essential and distinguishing in it. Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith. A truly practical or saving faith, is light and heat together, or rather light and love, while that which is only a speculative faith, is only light without heat; and, in that it wants spiritual heat or divine love, is in vain, and good for nothing. A speculative faith consists only in the ascent of the understanding; but in a saving faith there is also the consent of the heart; and that faith which is only of the former kind, is no better than the faith of devils, for they have faith so far as it can exist without love, believing while they tremble. Now, the true spiritual consent of the heart cannot be distinguished from the love of the heart. He whose heart consents to Christ as a Saviour, has true love to him as such. For the heart sincerely to consent to the way of salvation by Christ, cannot be distinguished from loving that way of salvation, and resting in it. There is an act of choice or election in true saving faith, whereby the soul chooses Christ its Saviour and portion, and accepts of and embraces him as such; but, as was observed before, an election or choice whereby it so chooses God and Christ, is an act of love—the lore of a soul embracing him as its dearest friend and portion Faith is a duty that God requires of every one. We are commanded to believe, and unbelief is a sin forbidden by God. Faith is a duty required in the first table of the law, and in the first command of that table; and therefore it will follow, that it is comprehended in the great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” etc.—and so it will follow that love is the most essential thing in a true faith. That love is the very life and spirit of a true faith, is especially evident from a comparison of this declaration of the apostle, that “faith works by love,” and the last verse of the second chapter of the epistle of James, which declares, that “as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” The working active, and acting nature of anything, is the life of it; and that which makes us call a thing alive, is, that we observe an active nature in it. This active, working nature in man, is the spirit which he has within him. And as his body without this spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. And if we would know what the working active thing in true faith is, the apostle tells us in Gal v. 6, “Faith worketh by love.” So that it is love which is the active working spirit in all true faith. This is its very soul, without which it; is dead as, in another form, he tells in the text, saying that faith, without charity or love is nothing, though it be to such a degree that it can remove mountains. And when he says, in the seventh verse of the context, that charity “believeth all things, and hopeth all things,” he probably refers to the great virtues of believing and hoping in the truth and grace of God, to which he compares charity in other parts of the chapter, and particularly in the last verse, “Now abideth faith, hope, charity,” etc. For in the seventh verse he gives the preference to charity or love, before the other virtues of faith and hope, because it includes them; for he says, “charity believeth all things, and hopeth all things;” so that this seems to be his meaning, and not merely, as it is vulgarly understood, that charity believeth and hopeth the best with regard to our neighbors. That a justifying faith, as a most distinguishing mark of Christianity, is comprehended in the great command of loving God, appears also, very plainly, from what Christ says to the Jews (John 5:4043, etc.)
Second, It is further manifest from this declaration of the apostle “that faith works by love,” that all Christian exercises of the heart, and words of the life, are from love; for we are abundantly taught in the New Testament that all Christian holiness begins with faith in Jesus Christ. All Christian obedience is, in the Scriptures called the obedience of faith; as in Rom. 16:26, the gospel is said to be “made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” The obedience here spoken of is doubtless the same with that spoken of in the eighteenth verse of the preceding chapter, where Paul speaks of making “the Gentiles obedient by word and deed.” And in Gal. 2:20, he tells us, “the life which I now dive in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God,” etc.; and we are often told that Christians, so far as they are Christians, “live by faith;” which is equivalent to saying that all gracious and holy exercises and virtues of the spiritual life are by faith. But how does faith work these things? Why, in this place in Galatians, it is expressly said, that it works whatsoever it does work by love. From which the truth of the doctrine follows, viz. that all that is saving and distinguishing in Christianity does radically consist, and is summarily comprehended, in love.
In the application of this subject, we may use it in the way of self-examination, instruction, and exhortation. And,
1. In view of it let us examine ourselves, and see if we have the spirit which it enjoins. From love to God springs love to man, as says the apostle (1 John 5:1)—Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth
