A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Never before had love been the badge by which a people were known and distinguished. Christians are marked not by wealth, learning, dress, or rank, but by tender attachment to one another that surmounts all earthly distinction.
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The Pharisees corrupted this duty, limiting love to their own countrymen; I enlarge it to all mankind, even enemies. I urge it from a new motive and enforce it by my own example, laying down my life for you, which no teacher has ever done.
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I call it new not because the Law was silent on brotherly love, but because laws fade from memory and grow slack with time. Christ renews the commandment to press it deeply on His disciples' minds, as if freshly enacted, so they never let it slip away.
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