James 2:8-9 If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well:… The good old word "neighbour" means one who, because he lives in a near dwelling or home, is specially related to us; and upon the relation which it signifies there have been builded more than one of the institutions of Anglo-Saxon civil society. From its earliest times among that people the bond between neighbours was so definite and intimate, that in the eye of the law one neighbour was held to be responsible for the security and well-being of another. If a man was murdered, the neighbours were in the first instance accounted responsible; and it was only when they had purged themselves by finding and convicting the real murderer, that they were held to be acquitted. So also in case of dispute or disagreement between any two neighbours, twelve or more of the other neighbours were summoned as an assize to determine the matter. There is no doubt that it was upon this ancient custom that our great institution of trial by jury was founded; and it is upon the same custom, the same ancient and sacred bond of neighbourhood, that what may be called the very corner-stone of our public liberty rests — that is, the right and the duty of local self-government in all matters not expressly delegated to the national power. Now, if we go back to first principles, we find that the enactment on which all human society rests is, the royal law given by God Himself and re-enacted by His Son. You will observe that love to one's neighbour is likened to love to God. Let us try, then, to get at the principle on which love to God must rest, and this will be the principle of love to our neighbour. Why, then, should we love God with heart, mind, soul, strength? It is because in God man finds the ideals which are the prototypes of all that is noble in himself, and which therefore he must love if he would be true to his own better nature and higher destiny. And the obligation of man to love his neighbour as himself lies in the fact that it is in his neighbour that man gets his clearest revelation of God — more clear than any revelation in words or works. It is in the soul of man when looked at with the eyes of neighbourliness that man gets his best vision of the majesty and beauty of God. Now in the light of these considerations, think first of the dignity and discipline that belong to society. If we take society now as we know it, the social intercourse of Christian men and women under well-known rules of politeness and good manners, we find that it has a dignity of its own that entitles it to be considered one of the loftiest results of Christian civilisation. It was not till comparatively recent times that this great commonwealth of men and women was organised in the civilised world; and even now it is only among the English-speaking peoples and their congeners that it has attained a free development. This great commonwealth has its own gentle and gracious laws; its silent tribunals which noiselessly but unerringly enforce them; its dignities, its honours, its joys, its labours, its duties, its delight's, the movements of which constitute the characteristic economy of modern civilised life. Now, the discipline of it will be apparent, when it is considered that the one principle which regulates it throughout is self-sacrifice. It is a great truth that the principle of the Cross underlies all good manners. Self-denial, self-control, self-sacrifice, the very essence of Christianity, are actually put into practice in the behaviour of good society. Men must restrain their baser impulses and instincts. Selfishness, if it exist at all, must at least be dissembled or concealed. Self-assertion must be abandoned. No man can even seem to be a gentleman who does not put into practice those principles of the Cross of Christ which the gospel commends to us; and no man can really be a gentleman unless be have those principles in his heart. The discipline of polite society, therefore, is of much importance in the culture of the Christian life, since it is the actual putting into practice of its principles, which, like all principles, cannot be fully appropriated until we use them. Little need be said of the educational influence of society. To see Christian men and women at their best; to turn toward them the best, side of our nature; to abjure pride; to banish self-seeking and selfishness; to follow, if only for an hour, lofty ideals; to enjoy the bright flashes of wit, the sustained delight of high converse; to think not of self but of others, and to lose one's self in gracious ministry to others — this of itself ought to be aa educating, ennobling employment, which would train men for ideal pursuits, both here and hereafter. And this brings me to my next topic — the dangers which beset society. First, there is selfishness — the selfishness which is always seeking its own good, its own advancement, its own advantage, in, through, or by means of society. This it is which so often makes society a mere vulgar competition, hospitality a mere sham and bargain, like the publicans giving merely to receive as much again. Akin to this danger, and no less base, is the frivolous or calculating worldliness which makes society a mere means of vulgar and pretentious display — a display which excludes the poor, which alienates classes, which works ruin to many a household, and which, like a dry-rot, soon makes the society where it prevails a mere sham. The last danger I shall mention is unreality. In society it is so easy to be unreal; to pretend to feel more than one does feel; to seem glad when one is not glad, and sorry when one is not sorry; to say smooth and false things, because smooth and false things are so easy to be said. What is the remedy? A return to the great first principle on which society is founded — love to one's neighbour because he is a neighbour, and because he is a man. (Bp. S. S. Harris.) Parallel Verses KJV: If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: |
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