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tween all Superiors and Inferiors. This levelling Principle has no Countenance either from this, or any other Text in Scripture; and would occafion all manner of Anarchy and Confufion in the World. But applying the Circumstances right, it is an excellent Rule to find out the juft Weights and Measures of our Duty to our Neighbour thus; placing myself in my Neighbour's Circumftances, and him in mine; what I in thofe Circumftances would judge to be his Duty to do to me, the fame I ought to do to him in the like Circumftances; and what in those Circumstances I fhould judge to be a Fault, that I ought by no Means to do to him.

13. We are to obferve here, that the Rule we are to go by in our Dealings with our Neighbour, is not what he doth by us, but what we would have him to do by us, or rather, what we should think his Duty to do by us, in fuch and fuch Circumftances. It is a vulgar and dangerous Error in Morals, that Men think they do very fairly by their Neighbour, if they treat him as he treated them in the like Circumftances. And by the Fallacy of this wrong Rule, they feldom make any Scruple of doing one ill Thing for another; and of requiting one Injury with another.

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4. Because this Rule is fet in very general Terms, whatsoever ye would that Men fhould do to you, do ye even fo to them; we are to confider, that it takes in all Duty, not only what is Duty by the Law of Nature, and by the pofitive Laws of God, but alfo what is our Duty by the Laws of the Land, or by any laudable Custom or Practice; the Way to find out our Duty in all these

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Cafes is, to put the Question to ourselves, what we should think to be our Duty, if our Neighbour were in our Place, and we in his. But then, in the answering this Queftion, we must take Care as to that Part of our Duty, which rises from human Laws and Customs, to give always the Preference to what is a known Duty by the Laws of God. For this Rule being given as the Compend of all the Duties we owe to our Neighbour, contained in the Law and the Prophets, muft never be interpreted to reach to any Thing inconfiftent with them. By the Help of this Explication, a Man will be reftrained from any fuch falfe arguing as this might be of a Pot-Companion from this Rule: As I would that my Neighbour, when I go to see him at his House, may treat me to the greatest Excefs of Drinking; so I think it my Duty to treat him when he comes to my Houfe: For granting that fuch a Custom were crept in, in fome Places, we must remember that God's own Laws about Sobriety and Temperance must take Place, before any of the contrary Customs of Men. So much for the Rule, to guard us against the Mifinterpretation of it.

III. The third Thing in the Words is, our Saviour's honourable Character of this Rule; for this is the Law and the Prophets. By the Law and the Prophets joined together, is to be underftood the Moral Law, with all the excellent Explications of the Prophets; and their Exhortations upon it. For the Prophets were as fo many Commentators on the Moral Law. This was the Design and Purport of their Writings, to enforce that noble Rule of Duties; the Ceremo

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[SERM. nial Law they did not meddle with, except it was to divert Men's Zeal from it, to the more fubftantial Duties of the Moral Law: as we may fee at large from that fmart Reprimand in the firft Chapter of Ifaiah, from the 10th to the 21st Verfe: Hear the Word of the Lord, ye Rulers of Sodom; give Ear unto the Law of our God, ye People of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the Multitude of your Sacrifices unto me, faith the Lord. I am full of the Burnt-offerings of Lambs, and the Fat of fed Beafts, &c. and a great deal more to that Purpose. Then follows: Wash ye, make you clean, put away the Evil of your doings from before mine Eyes; ceafe to do evil, learn to do well, Jeek Judgment, relieve the Oppreffed, judge the Fatherless, plead for the Widow. Come now and let us reason together, faith the Lord: though your Sins be as Scarlet, they fhall be as white as Snow; though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as Wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the Land. But if ye refufe and rebel, ye fhall be devoured by the Sword: for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. What our Saviour means here then, when he fays, this is the Law and the Prophets, is, that this is the whole Drift and Design, nay, the Sum and Substance of the Moral Law and the Prophets.

But before I proceed further in the Confideration of this, there is an Objection so very obvious, that it will be neceffary to remove it, in order to the right Understanding of our Saviour's Words. The Objection is this: If the doing by our Neighbour, as we would wish to be dealt by ourselves in the like Circumftances, is the whole Drift and Purport, and likewife the Sum and

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Subftance of the Moral Law, what becomes of our Duty to God, contained in the firft Table of the Law? for this Rule at best can be but the Compend of that Part of the Law, which prefcribes our Duty to our Neighbour. I anfwer, That these two are here connected together, and the one is made to flow from the other, as we have already fhewed from the Particle therefore. Now this, if duly obferved, is fufficient to convince us, that the Love of God is laid down as the Foundation of the Love of our Neighbour; and this voids the Difficulty; for if we love our Neighbour for God's fake, this certainly includes the Love of God, and fo is the Sum and Substance of both Tables of the Law, and of the Comments of the Prophets upon it.

The Objection being thus removed, let us next confider the Nature of this Commendation of the Rule in my Text; This is the Law and the Prophets.

1. First then, To take this Commendation at the lowest, it must mean, that this Doctrine is exactly agreeable to what is taught in the Law and the Prophets; confequently that all inordinate Self-love, which would have one Rule for our dealing with other Men, and another for their dealing with us, is utterly condemned by the Law of Mofes itself. If there were no more in the Rule but this, it is a noble Rule, as both establishing the Standard of Juftice, and guarding against the Biafs of Injuftice. The Standard of Juftice is, that we have one equal Measure for our own and all other Mens Actions; that we ufe not one Measure to buy, and another to fell

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withal; one Measure for a Friend, and another for an Enemy; one Measure for ourselves, and another for other Men; but that we have one common Rule for ourselves and for all our Neighbours, good and bad, Friends and Foes, in the fame Cafe, and under the like Circumstances. The Equity of this is fo felf-evident, that Words would but make it more obfcure.

The Biafs of Injustice, is the Partiality of our own Side, to which all Men, in this corrupt State, are naturally inclined. Now this is well guarded against in the fame Rule, which fets Self-love, and the Love of our Neighbour, upon one and the fame Foot; fo that it is not poffible to obferve this Rule, but either by depreffing Self-love to the Love of our Neighbour, or by exalting the Love of our Neighbour to the Pitch of Self-love.

Secondly, This Commendation, that this is the Law and the Prophets, implies, that this Rule is the Intent, Purport, and Design of the Moral Law, and of the Commentaries of the Prophets upon it. This is what they all aimed at in the many particular Rules of Duty which they taught. So that the Fifth Commandment, e. g. obliges Superiors to use the fame Moderation toward their Inferiors, and Inferiors to pay the fame Refpect to their Superiors, as they would think juft, if they were in each other's Place; and the Sixth Commandment is only the preferving our Neighbour's Life by the fame Rules of Juftice, by which we think it reasonable to preserve our own. The Seventh Commandment lays the fame Restraints upon us in regard of our Neighbour's Wife and Daughter, which we

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