Thomas Manton (1620–1677) on Loving and Hating Our Neighbor

(4.) There is a twofold hatred: Odium abominationis and odium inimicitiæ, the hatred of abomination and the hatred of enmity; the one is opposite to the love of good-will, the other to the love of complacency: Prov. xxix. 27, ‘The wicked is an abomination to the righteous.’ He hateth not his neighbor with the hatred of enmity, so as to seek his destruction, but with the hatred of offense, so as not to delight in him as wicked. In opposition to the love of complacency, we may hate our sinful neighbor, as we must ourselves much more; but in opposition to the love of benevolence, we must neither hate our neighbor, nor our enemy, nor ourselves. Apply this now to the case between God and us: it will be hard to excuse any carnal man from either hatred, certainly not from the hatred of offense or abomination, there being such an unsuitableness and dissimilitude between God and them. In pure nature we were created after his image, and then we delighted in him, but when we lost our first nature, we lost our first love, for love is grounded upon likeness: φίλον καλουμεν ομοίω κατ’ αρετην; we love those that have like affections, especially in a good thing. Now there being such a dissimilitude between God and us, we love what he hateth, and hate what he loveth; therefore how can there choose but be hatred between us? How can we delight in a holy God, and a God of pure eyes delight in filthy creatures? What can carnal man see lovely in God? Zech. xi. 8, ‘My soul loathed them, and their soul abhorred me.’ And therefore from this hatred of loathing, offense, and abomination, none can excuse them. Till they come to hate what God hateth, and love what God loveth, there is still the hatred of offense: Prov. viii. 13, ‘The fear of the Lord is to hate evil,’ &c. And for the hatred of enmity, which is an endeavor to do mischief, and seeketh the destruction of the thing hated, we cannot excuse the wicked from that neither, for there is a secret positive enmity, as you have heard before.

Thomas Manton, “Sermons upon 2 Corinthians V: Sermon XXXIX,” in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 13:298.

Update on 5-10-13:

(3.) Our love to God should put us upon loving his people, and making them our intimates; for religion influenceth all things, our relations, common employments, friendship, and converses. It is a smart question that of the Prophet, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord?” (2 Chron. xix. 2.) Surely a gracious heart cannot take them into his bosom: he loveth all with a love of good-will, as seeking their good; but not with a love of complacency, as delighting in them. Our neighbour must be loved as ourselves: our natural neighbour as our natural self, with a love of benevolence; and our spiritual neighbour as our spiritual self, with a love of complacency. In opposition to complacency, we may hate our sinful neighbour, as we must ourselves. “An unjust man is an abomination to the just” (Prov. xxix. 27.): the hatred of abomination is opposite to the love of complacency, odium inimicitiæ to amor benevolentiæ. So David saith, “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies” (Psalm cxxxix. 21, 22): I cannot cry up a confederacy with them; they that have a kindness for God, will be thus affected.

Thomas Manton, One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on the Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm, 3rd edition (London: William Brown, 1845), 2:45. Also in Thomas Manton, “Sermon LXXI (Psalm 119:63),” in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, 22 vols. (London: J. Nisbet, 1870), 7:181.