Morality and Religion
H. W. Beecher. Luke 10:27 And he answering said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength… You will observe there are several "ands" in the passage, and that all the earlier ones, though very useful, are merely additions; but here ["AND thy neighbour"] is an equalising copulative, a word which brings two sentences together as the two sides of an equation, and which will not permit you to take the first part of the sentence as the declaration of the Saviour, but which requires you to take it in its wholeness. It is not enough to "love the Lord thy God," nor is it enough to "love thy neighbour as thyself," you must do both; and therefore that "and" stands as none of the others do, and as almost no other such single common word does in the great realm of literature. The love of God is put first in order, probably from the dignity of the personage spoken of; it is in the order of importance, but not of time. We do not first love the Lord our God with all our heart, and then learn to love our neighbour as ourselves. We learn to love our neighbour, and from that point, through practice, we come to a condition in which we love our God. So then, these two members or sides of this wonderful sentence, this charter of human life, may be said to represent religion and morality. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" — that is, thou shalt worship Him, reverence Him, acknowledge Him and look up to Him, in every inflection of experience-this stands appropriately for religion; and the other — "Thou shelf love thy neighbour as thyself" — stands appropriately and properly for morality. I. WHAT, THEN, IS THE SPHERE AND FUNCTION OF MORALITY; its educating force; its final intent? Morality includes — 1. Duties to oneself, personal duties, sustenance, defence. 2. Social duties — the duties of the family and the neighbourhood. 3. The relations in which we stand to the larger community represented by the Government in all its forms. Here, then, I pause in the discussion, having shown in the first place what moralities are — namely, that they are in their highest and best sense, these duties which men owe to themselves, to their households, to civil society, to their social relations in this world and in time; and also, that morality, in one form and at each stage, prepares for the next higher development of it and the next advance in growth; and likewise, interiorly, that every true morality tends to develope itself in a higher class of faculties. So that, finally — II. EVERY MORALITY THAT DOES NOT GO ON TO A SPIRITUAL FORM IS STOPPED AND DWARFED. Men say, "I am not a religious man, but still I do about as well as I know how." Is that rational? What would you say of men who should voyage to a distant country, and make only those provisions which were necessary for them while they stayed at home? Death cuts men in two, and leaves the bottom here, and there is no top to go there. Do not understand me as saying that morality is of no use. It is very useful; it is the seed-ground of immortality; and I go further and say, it is better that you should have that, even if you have no religion, than that you should have no religion and not that either. Therefore when I preach that you must be born again, when I preach that the new life in Christ Jesus, wrought by the power of God, must be in you, do not think that I undervalue the lower forms by which you come to the possibility of these things, They are of transcendant importance, but do not believe that they are enough. Straw that never ripens its grain is straw, plants that throw out leaves and do not blossom are mere grass and herbs and not flowers. Trees and vines that bring forth no fruit are not fruit vines, nor fruit trees. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. WEB: He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."