The Tenth Sermon
IT remaineth, since I have in some sermons discoursed of true faith, that I do now also add one sermon touching love towards God and our neighbour. For in my fourth sermon I promised, so soon as I should have done with the exposition of faith, that then I would speak of love toward God and our neighbour; because the exposition of the scriptures. ought not to go awry out of faith and charity, which are, as it were, the right and holy marks for it to draw unto. Ye, as hitherto ye have done, so cease not yet to pray, that this wholesome doctrine may be by me taught as it should be, and by you received with much increase and profit.
And, first of all, I will not curiously put any difference between charity and love. 1 will use them both in one and the same sense. St Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, saith: “call charity a motion of the mind to delight in God for his own sake, and to delight in himself and his neighbour for God’s sake.” And therefore I call love a gift given to man from heaven, whereby with his heart he loveth God before and above all things, and his neighbour as himself. Love therefore springeth from heaven, from whence it is poured into our hearts. But it is enlarged and augmented, partly by the remembrance and consideration of God’s benefits, partly by often prayer, and also by the hearing and frequenting of the word of Christ. Which things themselves also are the gifts of the Spirit. For the apostle Paul saith: The love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us” For verily the love of God, wherewith he loveth us, 1s the foundation and cause of our love wherewith we love him; and of both these jointly consisteth the love of our neighbour. For the apostle saith: “We love him because he first loved us.” And again: “Every one that loveth him which begot, loveth him also that is born of him?”
[1 Caritatem voco motum animi ad fruendum Deo propter ipsum,]
[et se atque proximo propter Deum.—De Doct. Christ. Lib. 111. cap. 10,]
[Vol. m1. fol. 11.] [2 Rom. v. 5.] [3 1 John iv. 19; v. 1.]]
Hereby we gather again, that this gift of love cannot be divided or severed, although it be double. For he that loveth God truly, hateth not his neighbour: and yet, nevertheless, this love, because of the double respect that it hath to God and our neighbour, standeth of two parts. And because of this double charity the tables of God’s law are divided into twain: the first whereof containeth four commandments touching the love of God, the second comprehendeth six precepts touching the love of our neighbour. Of which I will speak in their own place. But at this time, because the love of God and of our neighbour are twain, I will first speak of the love of God, and then of the love of our neighbour. “In these two commandments,” saith the Lord, hang the law and the prophets.”
With that which we call the love of God, we love God entirely well; we cleave to God as the only, chief, and eternal goodness; in him we do delight ourselves and are well pleased; and frame ourselves to his will and pleasure, having evermore a regard and desire of him that we love’. With love we love God most heartily. But we do heartily love the things that are dear unto us, and the things that to us seem worthy to be desired; and we love them entirely indeed, not so much for our commodity, as for because we do desire to join, and, as it were, for ever to give and dedicate ourselves wholly to the thing that we so dearly love. So verily we desire for ever to be joined with God, and are in charity fast linked unto him; as the apostle saith: “” God is charity; and he that dwelleth in charity dwelleth in God, and God in him” And that is the way whereby we cleave to God, as to the only chief and eternal goodness, in whom also we are delighted, and that not a little. On him we rest, thinking assuredly that without him there is no good at all; and again, that in him there is to be found all manner of goodness. Wherefore our hearty love is set on no good thing but God: and in comparison of him whom we love, we do lightly? loathe and tread under foot all things else that
[[ Matt. xxii. 40.] [5 “Here be many propositions together, which we will explain]
[singly and one by one a little more fully:” omitted. P.—Plurima hic]
[simul sunt proposita, que sigillatim et per partes copiosius paulo]
[exponemus. [6 1 John iv. 16.] [7 facile, Lat.)]
seem to be good in the whole world; yea, verily, the love of (God in us doth overcome all the evils which otherwise seem invincible. Let us hear Paul with a vehement motion proclaiming this, and saying: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all the day long, and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.) Nevertheless in all these things we overcome through him that loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rule, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesu our Lord!” Hitherto have I recited the words of Paul.
The love of God worketh in us a will to frame ourselves wholly to the will and ordinances of him whom we do heartily Jove. Yea, it is pleasant and sweet to him that loveth God to do the thing that he perceiveth is acceptable to God, if it be done. He that loveth doth in mind reverence him whom he loveth. His eye is never off him whom he loveth. He doth always, and in all things, wish for his dearling whom he loveth. His only joy is, as oft as may be, to talk with God, and again to hear the words of God speaking in the scripture. For the Lord in the gospel saith: “If any man love me, he will keep my word: he that loveth me not doth not keep my words.” Again: “Abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I also have kept my Father’s commandments, and do abide in his love.” And again: “If any man love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our dwelling in him?2”
But now let us hear Moses, the servant of God, declaring and teaching us the way and manner how to love God; to wit, how great love ought to be in the elect. Thou shalt,” saith he, “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength” The very same words, in a manner, did our Lord in the gospel repeat, and sald: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
[[! Rom. viii. 35—39.] [2 John xiv. 23, 24; xv. 9, 10.] [3 Deut. vi. 5.]]
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind%” By this we understand, that the greatest love that may be is required at our hands to God-ward; as that which challengeth man wholly, how big soever he be, and all the parts of man, as peculiar unto itself. In the mind is man’s understanding. In the heart is the seat of his affections and will. The strength of man containeth all man’s ability, as his very words, deeds, counsel, riches, and his whole substance. Finally, the soul is the life of man. And we verily are commanded to employ all these upon the love of God, when we are bidden to love God with all our soul, with all our strength, with our whole mind, and our whole heart. Nothing is overslipped, but all is contained in this. We are God’s wholly and altogether; let us altogether therefore and wholly love God. Let nothing in all the world be dearer to us than God: let us not spare for God’s sake any thing of all that which we possess, how dear to us or good soever it be; but let us forsake, spend, and give it for God’s sake, and as the Lord by his word appointeth: for in doing so we love God before and above all things.
We are also commanded to stick fo God only, and to embrace him alone. For to whom we do wholly owe all that we have, to him is all the whole sincerely, simply, and fully to be given. Here are they condemned, whosoever will at once love God and the world together. The Lord requireth the whole heart, the whole mind, the whole soul, and all the strength; finally, he requireth all whatsoever we are, or have in possession: he leaveth nothing therefore for thee to bestow on other. By what right then wilt thou give to the flesh, the devil, to other gods, or to the world, the things that properly are God’s own? And God verily alone is the chiefest, eternal, greatest, mightiest creator, deliverer, preserver, most gentle, most just, and best of all. He alone doth give, hath given, and is able to give to man all that is expedient for the safeguard of his body and soul. God alone doth minister to man ability to live well and blessedly: and therefore God deserveth to be loved alone, and that too before and above all other things. This love of God doth bless all the haps and chances of men, and turneth them to their profit, according to that saying: “To them that love God all