And if you
had asked him to explain those words that trouble you so much, I
think he would have told you, that if many shall seek to enter in
at the strait gate and shall not be able, it is their own sins that
hinder them; just as a man with a large sack on his back might wish
to pass through a narrow doorway, and find it impossible to do so
unless he would leave his sack behind him. But you, Nancy, I dare
say, have no sins that you would not gladly throw aside, if you
knew how?"
'"Indeed, sir, you speak truth," said I.
'"Well," says he, "you know the first and great commandment--and
the second, which is like unto it--on which two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets? You say you cannot love God; but it
strikes me that if you rightly consider who and what He is, you
cannot help it. He is your father, your best friend: every
blessing, everything good, pleasant, or useful, comes from Him; and
everything evil, everything you have reason to hate, to shun, or to
fear, comes from Satan--HIS enemy as well as ours. And for THIS
cause was God manifest in the flesh, that He might destroy the
works of the Devil: in one word, God is LOVE; and the more of love
we have within us, the nearer we are to Him and the more of His
spirit we possess."
'"Well, sir," I said, "if I can always think on these things, I
think I might well love God: but how can I love my neighbours,
when they vex me, and be so contrary and sinful as some on 'em is?"
'"It may seem a hard matter," says he, "to love our neighbours, who
have so much of what is evil about them, and whose faults so often
awaken the evil that lingers within ourselves; but remember that HE
made them, and HE loves them; and whosoever loveth him that begat,
loveth him that is begotten also.
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