He knew His own heart towards His
enemies, and thus He was able to say to the Searcher of Hearts with His
dying breath, They hated Me without a cause. Truly our hatred is hottest
when it is most unjust.
'Look to yourselves,' wrote the apostle John to the elect lady and her
children. Yes; let us all look sharply and suspiciously to ourselves in
this matter now in hand, and we shall not need John Owen nor anybody else
to discover to us the hatred and the hatefulness of our own hearts. Look
to yourselves, and the work of the law will soon be fulfilled in you.
_Homo homini lupus_, taught an old philosopher who had studied moral
philosophy not in books so much as in his own heart. 'Is no man
naturally good?' asked innocent Lady Macleod of Dunvegan Castle at her
guest, Dr. Samuel Johnson. 'No, madam, no more than a wolf.' That is
quite past all question with all those who either in natural morals or in
revealed religion look to and know and characterise themselves. We have
all an inborn propensity to dislike one another, and a very small
provocation will suddenly blow that banked-up furnace into a flame.
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