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I. THE PRINCIPLE ITSELF is easily understood, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The proper expressions of this inward good affection in the mind are as various as the necessities of mankind, and the abilities and opportunities of others to relieve them. To instruct the ignorant, to reclaim the disobedient, to convert sinners, to strengthen the weak, comfort the feeble-minded, to encourage the sincere; these are the noblest offices we can possibly perform to our brethren, because they serve the highest ends, and produce the best and most lasting effects. But, besides these offices of charity, there are others enjoined by the natural law of benevolence, and which the gospel, so far from overlooking, peculiarly enforces. The wise and sovereign providence of God has so ordered that there is a diversity in the state of men; some are indigent, others in a capacity of relieving. In all these, and other cases of a like nature, reason and a compassionate heart will readily suggest to a man how he ought to show his charity.

II. THE OBLIGATIONS we are under to the practice of this excellent duty.

1. And the first thing I shall mention is taken from the consideration of ourselves. Let any one look into the workings of his own heart when a pitiable object is presented to him, and try whether he does not feel something within which calls him to stretch forth his hand for the relief of the distressed? if it is not with violence to himself that he can harden his heart, and hide himself from human misery? The greater ability, therefore, which Divine providence gives any man of diffusing the effects of his virtue far and wide by relieving multitudes of his fellow-creatures, the larger occasion he has of enjoying the purest pleasure, even like that of God Himself, whose happiness is in communicating good, for the absolute perfection of His nature raises Him above the possibility of receiving any.

2. Another obligation to the practice of brotherly kindness and charity arises from the object of it, our brethren and neighbours, their condition, and the relation we stand in to them. Do we acknowledge God the Author of our being? He is equally the Author of theirs, which should inspire us with tender compassion towards each other. But the Christian religion has super-added special obligations to those general ones which the common ties of humanity lay upon us, by establishing a new and intimate relation among the disciples of Christ.

3. In the third place, we are, with respect to God, under great and indispensable obligations to the exercise of brotherly kindness and charity. This is clearly insinuated in the text, for the apostle exhorts us to add charity to godliness. The principles of the fear and love of God will naturally determine us to exercise good-will and beneficence to our brethren.

(J. Abernethy, M. A.)

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KJV: And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

WEB: Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;