1. If ye remember, brethren, yesterday we closed our sermon at this sentence,298    1 John iii. 18–20. which without doubt behooved and does behoove to abide in your heart, seeing it was the last ye heard. “My little children, let us not love only in word and in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” Then he goes on: “And herein we know that we are of the truth, and assure our hearts before Him.”299    [Better, “judge ill,” i.e., condemn.—J.H.M.] “For if our heart300    Male senserit. think ill of us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” He had said, “Let us not love only in word and in tongue, but in work and in truth:” we are asked, In what work, or in what truth, is he known that loveth God, or loveth his brother? Above he had said up to what point charity is perfected: what the Lord saith in the Gospel, “Greater love than this hath no man, that one lay down his life for his friends,”301    John xv. 13. this same had the apostle also said: “As He laid down His life for us, we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.”302    1 John iii. 16. This is the perfection of charity, and greater can not at all be found. But because it is not perfect in all, and that man ought not to despair in whom it is not perfect, if that be already born which may be perfected: and of course if born, it must be nourished, and by certain nourishments of its own must be brought unto its proper perfection: therefore, we have asked concerning the commencement of charity, where it begins, and there have straightway found: “But whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of the Father in him?”303    1 John iii. 17. Here then hath this charity, my brethren, its beginning: to give of one’s superfluities to him that hath need to him that is in any distress; of one’s temporal abundance to deliver his brother from temporal tribulation. Here is the first rise of charity. This, being thus begun, if thou shalt nourish with the word of God and hope of the life to come, thou wilt come at last unto that perfection, that thou shalt be ready to lay down thy life for thy brethren.

1. Si meministis, fratres, hesterno nos clausisse sermonem ad istam sententiam, quae sine dubio manere debuit et debet in corde vestro, quia ipsam novissimam audistis: «Filioli, non diligamus verbo tantum et lingua, sed opere et veritate.» Deinde sequitur: «Et in hoc cognoscimus quia ex veritate sumus, et coram ipso persuademus cordi nostro: quia si male senserit cor nostrum, major est Deus corde nostro, et novit omnia.» Dixerat, «Non diligamus verbo tantum et lingua, sed opere et veritate:» quaeritur a nobis, in quo opere et in qua veritate agnoscitur qui diligit Deum, vel qui diligit fratrem suum. Jam superius dixerat quousque charitas perficiatur; quod et Dominus in Evangelio ait, Majorem hac nemo habet charitatem, quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis (Joan. XV, 13): et iste hoc dixerat, Sicut ille animam suam pro nobis posuit, debemus et nos animas pro fratribus ponere. Haec est perfectio charitatis; et major omnino non potest inveniri. Sed quia non in omnibus perfecta est, et desperare non debet in quo perfecta non est, si jam nata est quae perficiatur: et utique si nata est, nutrienda est, et quibusdam suis nutrimentis ad perfectionem propriam perducenda. Quaesivimus inchoationem charitatis unde incipiat, et ibi continue invenimus: Si quis habet facultates mundi, et viderit fratrem suum egentem, et clauserit viscera sua adversus eum; quomodo dilectio Patris manet in illo (I Joan. III, 16, 17)? Ergo hic incipit ista charitas, fratres, ut de suis superfluis tribuat egenti, in angustiis aliquibus constituto; ex eo quod sibi abundat secundum tempus, a tribulatione temporali liberet fratrem. Hinc exordium est charitatis. Hanc ita coeptam, si verbo Dei et spe futurae vitae nutrieris, pervenies ad illam perfectionem, ut paratus sis animam tuam ponere pro fratribus tuis.