an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections
CHAP. XXVII.] THE ORDER OF LOVE. 23 the beasts love themselves and their own bodies),—it only remained necessary to lay injunctions upon us in regard to God above us, and our neighbour beside us. " Thou shalt love," He says, " the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; and thou shalt love tliy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." ^ Thus the end of the commandment is love, and that twofold, the love of God and the love of our neighbour. Now, if you take yourself in your entirety,—that is, soul and body together,—and your neighbour in his entirety, soul and body together (for man is made up of soul and body), you will find that none of the classes of things that are to be loved is overlooked in these two commandments. For though, when the love of God comes first, and the measure of our love for Him is prescribed in such terms that it is evident all other things are to find their centre in Him, nothincj seems to be said about our love for ourselves; yet when it is said, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," it at once becomes evident that our love for ourselves has not been overlooked.
Chap, xxvii.—The order of love.
28. Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally. 'No sinner is to be loved as a sinner; and every man is to be loved as a man for God's sake; but God is to be loved for His own sake. And if God is to be loved more than any man, each man ought to love God more than himself. LikcAvise we ought to love another man better than our own body, because all things are to be loved in reference to God, and another man can have fellowship with us in the enjoyment of God, whereas our body cannot ; for the body only lives through the soul, and it is by the soul that we enjoy God.
' Matt. xxii. 37-40.