of God by the destruction of man, for whose sake God declares that he created all things: nay, as it is prohibited in Genesis to take away human life, because God created man to his own image and likeness, he, therefore, who destroys his image offers great injury to God, and seems, as it were, to lay violent hands on God himself! David, with a mind illumined from above, deeply impressed with the enormity of such guilt, characterizes the sanguinary in these words: " Their feet are swift to shed blood." [1] He does not simply say, " they kill," but, " they shed blood;" words which serve to set that execrable crime in its true light, and to mark emphatically the barbarous cruelty of the murderer. With a view also to describe energetically how the murderer is precipitated by the impulse of the devil into the commission of such an enormity, he says: " Their feet are swift."
But the tendency of the injunctions of Christ our Lord, regarding the observance of this commandment, is, that we have peace with all men. Interpreting the commandment he says: " I: therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy offering, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother; and then coming thou shall offer thy gift," &c. [2] In unfolding the spirit of this admonition, the pastor will show that it inculcates the duty of cherishing charitable feelings towards all without exception, feelings to which, in his exposition of this commandment, he will exhort with the most earnest solicitude, evincing, as they do most effectually, the virtue of fraternal charity. It will not be doubted that hatred is forbidden by this commandment, for, " whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer;" [3] from this principle it follows as an evident consequence, that the commandment also inculcates charity and love; and inculcating charily and love it must also enjoin all those duties and good offices which follow in their train. " Charity is patient," says St. Paul; [4] we are therefore commanded patience, in which, as the Redeemer teaches, " we shall possess our souls." [5] " Charity is kind;" [6] beneficence is, therefore, her companion and hand-maid. The virtue of beneficence is one of very great latitude: its principal offices are to relieve the wants of the poor, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked; and in all these acts of beneficence we should proportion our liberality to the wants and necessities of their objects.
These works of beneficence and goodness, in themselves exalted, become still more illustrious when done towards an enemy, in accordance with the command of the Saviour: " Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you:" [7] " If thine enemy be hungry," says St. Paul, " give him to eat: if he thirst, give him to drink; for doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome
