6. I need add but one caution. Think not, the _bigotry_ of another, is any excuse for your own. ’Tis not impossible, that one who casts out devils himself, may yet forbid you so to do. You may observe, this is the very case mentioned in the text. The apostles forbad another to do what they did themselves. But beware of retorting. It is not your part, to return evil for evil. Another’s not observing the direction of our Lord is no reason why you should neglect it. Nay, but let him have all the _bigotry_ to himself. If he forbids _you_, do not you forbid _him_. Rather labour and watch and pray the more, to confirm your love toward him. If he speaks all manner of evil of _you_, speak all manner of good (that is true) of _him_. Imitate herein that glorious saying of a great man (O that he had always breathed the same spirit!) “Let _Luther_ call me an hundred devils: I will still reverence him as a messenger of God.”
_And when he was departed thence, he lighted on_ Jehonadab _the son of_ Rechab _coming to meet him. And he saluted him and said, Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart? And_ Jehonadab _answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand._
1. IT is allowed even by those who do not pay this great debt, that love is due to all mankind: the royal law, _Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_, carrying its own evidence to all that hear it. And that, not according to the miserable construction put upon it by the zealots of old times, _thou shalt love thy neighbour_, thy relation, acquaintance, friend, _and hate thine enemy_: not so. _I say unto you_, saith our Lord, _love your enemies, bless them that curse you: do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you: that ye may be the children_, may appear so to all mankind, _of your Father which is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust_.
2. But it is sure, there is a peculiar love which we owe to those that love God. So _David, all my delight is upon the saints that are in the earth and upon such as excel in virtue_. And so a greater than he, _a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another: as I have loved you, that ye also love another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another_: John xiii. 34, 35. This is that love on which the apostle _John_ so frequently and strongly insists. _This_, saith he, _is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another_, 1 John c. iii. 11. _Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought_, if love should call us thereto, _to lay down our lives for the brethren_, v. 16. And again, _Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love_, c. iv. 7, 8. _Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another_, v. 10, 11.