Nathaniel Vincent

(6) Love is the fulfilling of the Law, the doing of which is so much for our neighbor’s benefit. “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8). As love for God includes the whole First Table of the Law, so love for our neighbor includes the Second: with reason [it is] called “the fulfilling of the law,” for it causes an affectionate and obedient respect unto every commandment of the Second Table. And there is not one of these precepts [that is not] hugely for the good of mankind.

Love has a regard to the honor and authority of others. That honor which is due to natural parents, love is ready to yield. They who were instrumental in giving us our very being, and who nourished us with such tenderness and care when we were not able to shift for ourselves, may rightly challenge obedience from us…

Love has a regard to the lives of others. The guilt of blood is great; the cry of blood is loud. Murder! How does it wound the murderer’s conscience and defile the very land that receives the blood of him who is murdered! Love utterly abhors cruelty and slaughter. It considers the meekness and gentleness of Christ…Love is so far from thirsting after blood that it will not allow malice in the heart; nay, rash and causeless anger it dislikes, for that will make a man in danger of the judgment (Mat 5:22)…

Love will not violate others’ chastity. Lust is strongly inclined to such a violation, but the grace of love is of a holy and clean nature and abhors all obscenity. It is so far from consenting to defile another’s body that it will not allow the heart, even by a filthy thought or desire, to be defiled. For our Lord says, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mat 5:28).

Love looks upon the bodies of Christians as members of Christ, as temples of the Spirit. Now the members of Christ are not to be polluted. The temples of the Spirit are not to be profaned. How little of true love is there in this lustful age, in this adulterous generation! An affection that is indeed Christian is rarely to be found, but a reprobate and brutish concupiscence is very rife in both city and country, though hereby both are ripening apace for vengeance. “When I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jer 5:7-9). Love will not steal away the substance of another. It abhors being injurious to any. It is for following that which is altogether just. It is ready to distribute, willing to share with the poor, according to that charge in 1 Timothy 6:18. The poorer any are, love is so much the more generous. Love is liberal: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2Co 9:6). Though it will give away pounds to those who are needy, it dares not unjustly take away a penny or a farthing from another, though never so wealthy. Solomon tells us “divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good” (Pro 20:23). They are also an abomination to love.

No duty is more clearly discovered by the light of nature than to do justly. What does God in His written Word more expressly require? The unrighteous are plainly threatened with the loss of the kingdom of heaven. What poor and petty things are their unjust gains compared with such a kingdom! Wronging another, though it is in so sly a manner that human eyes observe it not, cannot be punished by human laws. Yet it will be overtaken with divine vengeance. “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified” (1Th 4:6). Love for our neighbor implies a love of justice, which is to give our neighbor his due.

Love can as soon cease to be love as it can begin to be injurious. Nay, if a man has heretofore been guilty of injustice, it will incline and constrain him to make restitution, for “If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die” (Eze 33:15).

Love is very tender of others’ names and reputations. It detests all manner of lying as that which is an abomination to God (Pro 6:17) and exposes the liar himself to the burning lake (Rev 21:8). But a slanderous or malicious lie, which wounds the name and murders the reputation of another, hates exceedingly. This is an abomination most abominable and more against the very letter of the Law: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exo 20:16). The name of a man ought to be very dear to him, especially if he is a Christian, because God, Christ, and the Gospel are concerned in it. A Christian cannot have aspersions cast on him without some aspersion on Christianity itself…Love hinders the tongue from evil speaking and makes it subject to the law of kindness. Love is so far from raising a false report of another that it dares not take it up, much less spread it all abroad. This is part of the character of the citizen of Zion who shall dwell with God both here and forever: “[He] speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour” (Psa 15:2-3)…If we observe how much injury may be done by a slanderous tongue, we shall not wonder that the throats of such slanderers are compared to open sepulchers, their tongues to whetted swords and sharpened arrows, and the poison of asps is said to be under [their lips].

Love is contented with its own and hinders us from coveting what belongs to another. Sinful lust and desire after that which is our neighbor’s precipitate those acts whereby he is injured. Thus, Ahab’s inordinate desire after Naboth’s vineyard made him a murderer of Naboth (and that with many aggravations) that he might enjoy it. Love breeds contentment. Instead of coveting what is another’s, it wishes him both a quiet possession and a holy improvement. Love, expelling these inordinate lusts, plucks up the very root of bitterness from whence commonly grow all those injuries that the sons of men do one to another. Thus, love is eagle-eyed to observe whatever God in His Law has commanded for our neighbor’s good. Since the wise and gracious Lawgiver has manifested His care of our neighbor in fencing his life and all that is dear to him with so many commandments, love rationally infers that it ought to be our care not to break this fence, but to keep all these commandments without exception.

Love breeds sympathy when our fellow Christians are in misery. It makes us fear lest harm befall the Church of God. When the Church is actually under affliction, it causes us in that affliction to be afflicted. Love is the great law of Christ, and Christian sympathy is a fulfilling of it. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2)…Love easily melts the heart of a saint into sorrow when other saints are in sadness and calamity. Nay, [it is] ready to put on compassion when it sees any in misery. This sympathy of love is a real thing and shows itself in a forwardness to relieve and help. Love enlarges the heart in prayer for the distressed Church of Christ and all His members. It makes us, as we observe the Church’s languors, ready to faint and die away ourselves…

Love makes us delight in the communion of the saints. Sin has brought a great deformity and unloveliness upon mankind. The Scripture speaks thus of men considered in their natural state: “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psa 14:3). But the grace of God has made a difference between the saints and other men, in that they have put off the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph 4:22, 24). Now this holiness makes them truly amiable. Love makes us pity the world that lies in wickedness, but delight in those who by regeneration are called out of the world and made new creatures…Love is exceedingly pleased with the holy, unblameable, and exemplary lives of others. It finds a melody and sweetness in their gracious and edifying discourses, when their hearts are warm and their graces are in vigorous exercise…Love is for communion with all saints, though of different persuasions. It is a sign that a man is fond of his own opinion if he likes saints of his own judgment only, and that his complacency is not so truly in the image of God wherever it shines. [It is] want of light that makes saints of different sentiments in religion; and [it is] want of love that makes them so shy, to look so strangely, to speak so strangely, and to act so strangely one towards another.

Love causes a joy in the good of others. In the natural body, if “one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it” (1Co 12:26). Christians in like manner are “to rejoice with them that do rejoice” (Rom 12:15). It was an excellent spirit in John the Baptist, and it argued the truth of his love for the Messiah, of Whom he was the forerunner, that he rejoiced to see Christ increase, though he himself decreased (Joh 3:29-30). The Apostle was persuaded of the Corinthians’ affection for him when he said, “Having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all” (2Co 2:3). The more love abounds, the more the joy of one Christian will be the joy of every one! Love rejoices to see the Spirit of God poured out in the most plentiful manner, to see useful and excellent gifts distributed to others. It is glad of their highest attainments, their enlargements, their comforts, their honor and esteem following upon all this. We are all members one of another. Why should we not rejoice in one another’s honor since we are really honored one in another, and the honor of all redounds at length to our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Head of all?

Love covers a multitude of sins and infirmities (1Pe 4:8). Not that there is any merit in this grace of charity to deserve the pardon of sin in ourselves; but instead of spreading the faults of others, it spreads a veil over them. Love makes us tenderhearted and kind, ready to forgive others, as we ourselves for Christ’s sake have been forgiven. Indeed, the offenses and injuries done to us by others are but like the debt of a few pence compared with our offenses against God, which amount to many millions of talents. The Apostle Peter asked Christ, “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Mat 18:21-22)…We must pardon our trespassing brother without any stint or limitation… Where is the love of those who not only harbor in their hearts a grudge against their brethren, but whose mouths are like trumpets to sound forth their failings? Nay, they tarry not to examine whether they are truly failings or not, but boldly and blindly conclude them to be such and proclaim and exclaim against them. Nay, their eager tongues tarry not for verified information. Whether reports to the disparagement of others be true or false, they spread them like wildfire. What has become of love all the while? Love hides a multitude of sins, but these persons will not conceal one. Love covers real crimes, but these forbear not spreading false reports…If, as the Apostle says, an unruly tongue defiles the whole body; and he who seems religious and bridles not his tongue does but deceive his own heart and his religion is in vain (Jam 1:26); then let a multitude of professors at this day tremble and be astonished and cry out, “Who among us shall be saved?”

Love is projecting and designing the good of others. Thus, the Apostle abased himself that others might be exalted, and sought not his own profit, but the profit of many that they might be saved (1Co 10:33). Love works no ill to one’s neighbor, but is very fruitful in contriving and operative in promoting his neighbor’s welfare. Love is not in word and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth (1Jo 3:18). It will not only say, “Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled” (Jam 2:16), but [it is] ready to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry. Nay, it devises liberal and charitable things and considers the wants of souls as well as bodies cordially, according to its capacity, endeavoring that both may be supplied. The Apostle’s love for the Corinthians was very active, notwithstanding a woeful failing on their side. “I seek not yours, but you…and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (2Co 12:14-15). Thus, have I explained the nature of love.

From A Discourse Concerning Love, reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria, a ministry of Reformation Heritage Books.
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Nathaniel Vincent (1638- Nathaniel Vincent (1638-1697): Nonconformist Puritan preacher; graduated from Christ Church, Oxford; became well known for his sermons preached in London following the Great Fire of 1666; born in Cornwall, England.

Published with permission of Chapel Library.