A Great Hateject
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H u g h L a tim e r
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Saviour saith, “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.” , THE LIVERY OF LOVE So Christ makes love His cognizance, His badge, His liveby. Like as every, lord Commonly gives a certain livery to his servants, whereby they may be known that they pertain unto him; and so we say, yonder is this lord’s servants, because they wear his livery: so our Saviour, who is the Lord above all lords, would have His ser vants known by their liveries and badge, which badge is love alone. Whosoever now is endued with love and charity is His servant; him we may call Christ’s ser vant; for love! is the token whereby you may know that such a servant pertaineth to Christ; so that charity may be called the very livery of Christ. He that hath charity is Christ’s servant; he that hath not charity is the servant of the devil. For as Christ’s livery is love and charity, so the devil’s livery is hatred, malice and discord. But I think the devil has a great mahy more servants than Christ has; for there are a great many mone in his livery than in Christ’s livery; there are but very few who are endued with Christ’s livery; with love and charity, gentleness and meekness of spirit; tu t there aré á great number that bear hatred and malice in their hearts, that are proud, stout, and' lofty; therefore
____ EEING the time is so far spent, we will take no more ® in hand at this time than this one sentence; for it will \ a. d)JJ be enough for us to con sider this well, and to bear it away with us. “This I command unto you, that ye love one another.” Our Saviour Himself spake these words at His last supper; it was.the last sermon that He made unto His disciples before His departure; it is a very long sermon. Eor our Saviour, like as one that knows He shall die shortly, is desirous to spend that- little time that He has with His friends, in exhorting and instructing them how they should lead their lives. Now among other things that he commanded this was one: “This I com mand unto you, that ye love one another.” The English expresses as though it were but one, “This is my commandment.” I examined the Greek, where it is in the plural number, and very well; for there are many things that pertain to a Christian man, and yet all those things are con tained in this one thing, that is, love. He lappeth up all things in love; Our whole duty is contained in these words, “Love together.” Therefore St. Paul saith, “He that loveth another ful- filieth the whoie law;” So it appeareth that all things are contained in this word love. This love is a precious thing; our
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