Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/264

 influence, as to confirm him in his evil courses, and so render his case hopeless.

Our blessed Lord declared that all the law and the prophets hung upon these two precepts—namely, love of the Lord above all things, and love of our neighbour. A requirement so spiritual and so extensive is peculiar to the law of God, to whom alone the heart is open; and no other law ever claimed the subjection of the soul. Our Lord states that the first and great commandment is to love God; and it may, with the greatest propriety, be so styled, from the excellence of its object, because it is the only principle from which any feeling or act of true virtue or goodness can proceed. The second, or love to our neighbour, is like to it in comprehensiveness, the authority by which it is given, and the happy influences which it exercises over those who obey it. To love God with all our heart, is to love Him sincerely and fervently with every affection. "Give me thine heart," is the Lord's claim.

Men may be imposed upon by profession of attachment; but the Lord looks to the heart, and can see enmity to Him under all the disguises which may be assumed in the outward conduct: and to love Him with all the soul, is to employ the understanding in the contemplation of His character and works, and wisely to form ideas of him suited to His purity and excellence, as a guide to the affections. To love Him with all the strength, is to love Him with all the energy of our nature, with an energy which no fears can repress, no difficulties intimidate, no struggles exhaust, and no opposition overcome.

The love of our neighbour consists in the due estimation of their valuable qualities, an interest in their