is it not written, "Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him?" And to that, the second
party will answer, And do you say that we are not to love this fair and
wonderful earth which God has made for our use, and put us into it? Why
did He make it lovely? Why did He put us into it, if He did not mean us
to enjoy it? That is contrary to common sense, and contrary to the whole
teaching of the Old Testament. But if by the world you mean the world of
man, the society in which we live--dare you compare a Christian and
civilized country like England with that detestable Roman world, sunk in
all abominable vices, against which St John and St Paul prophesied? Are
not such thoughts unjust and uncharitable to your neighbours, to your
country, to all mankind? Then the first party will say, But you do away
with all devoutness; and the second party will answer, And you do away
with all morality, for you tell people that the only way to please God is
to feel about Him in a way which not one person in a thousand can feel;
and therefore what will come, and does come, of your binding heavy
burdens and grievous to be borne and laying them on men's shoulders is
this,--that the generality of people will care nothing about being good
or doing right, because you teach them that it will not please God, and
will leave all religion to a few who have these peculiar fancies and
feelings.

And so they may argue on for ever, unless they will take honestly the
plain words of St John, and see that to love their neighbour is to love
God, and to love God is to love their neighbour. So says St John clearly
enough twice over. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God, and God in him." The two things are one, and the one cannot be
without the other.

Does this seem strange to you? Oh, my friends, it need not seem strange,
if you will but consider who God is, and who man is. Thou lovest God?
Then, if thou lovest Him, thou must needs love all that He has made. And
what has He made? All things, except sin; and what sin is He has told
thee. He has given thee ten commandments, and let no man give thee an
eleventh commandment out of his own conceit and will worship; calling
unclean what God hath made clean, and cursing what God hath blessed.
Thou lovest God? Then thou lovest all that is good; for God is good, an