This word is so very plain in its simple meaning, and so universally understood, that there would have needed no observation upon it, but for an expression of our Lord's concerning it, which appears to me, according to all the commentators I have seen or read upon it, to have been totally mistaken. The passage in which our Lord hath spoken concerning hatred is Luke 14:26. Where Jesus hath said, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The hatred of father, and mother, and the like, they say, is in contradiction to the divine command, and, therefore, they have conceived, that the expression means no more than by a comparative statement, to say, that none can be the disciple of Jesus who loves his earthly friends equal to this heavenly one. But certainly this is not our Lord's meaning; for here is nothing said in the whole passage by way of comparison. And every one that knows the original word here made use of to express the verb hate, knows that Misei can mean no other than to hate. Neither is the doctrine, when duly considered, contradictory to the whole design of the gospel. All the claims of nature are, for the most part, unfavourable to the pursuits of grace. And the love of our near and dear connections in nature, every one knows that is brought acquainted with the feelings of his own heart, is but too often leading us on the confines of sin and corruption, Hence, to hate whatever opposeth the best and purest desires of the soul, is among the clearest evidences of a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the latter clause in this expression of our Lord serves to explain the whole; "yea, and his own life also." Self-loathing, and self-abhorring, mark the true believer's character. And wherefore doth a child of God loathe his own flesh, but because that flesh is always rising up in rebellion against the Spirit. Hence, therefore, if my own body becomes a rebel, and an enemy to my own soul, so that I cannot do the things I would, certainly I hate it; and if I hate my own flesh, from the opposition it is continually making to a life of grace, in the same sense, and upon the same account, I must, and do hate all the opposers of the divine life, be they who they may, or what they may. Nothing is to come into competition with Christ in our affection. I believe I may venture to affirm, that many of God's dear children look forward to the humiliation of the grave with holy joy on this very account, as knowing that then, and not before, they shall drop this body of sin and death, which now so often makes them groan. It is blessedly said of Levi, that in his zeal and love to JEHOVAH'S Holy One he said, "of his father, and his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children." (Deuteronomy 33:9) I venture, therefore, upon the whole, to accept the words of the Lord Jesus in this Scripture by the Evangelist. (Luke 14:26) precisely as the words themselves express this solemn truth. And since every thing in nature is hostile to a life of grace, so that my own corrupt heart is a much greater enemy to my soul's enjoyment in Christ, than either the world, or the powers of darkness, I do hate all, and every tie of nature, yea, and my own life also, in every degree, and by every way in which they are found to oppose, or run counter, to the pursuit of the soul in her desires after the Lord Jesus Christ.