# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1861_S339
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report on the Law. 339

love yourself so much that you would gladly wish someone to help and
counsel you, were you in anguish and distress, not only as much as all
men could do with their body and goods, but as much as all creatures
together could do. So you need no book from which to learn how you ought
to love your neighbor. For you already have in your heart the finest and
best book there is, in which you find written all that any laws whatever
could ever teach you; you need no doctor or teacher for it either: only
ask your own heart, and it will readily tell you that you ought to love
your neighbor just as you love yourself. Therefore love, when it is not
false, is such a virtue that it is ready and willing to serve not only
with tongue and hand, but also with body and life. It cannot be moved to
serve by the fact that one has previously served it and done it good, nor
can it be hindered from serving by the fact that one has previously done
it harm and wrong. Take an illustration of this. A mother nourishes and
tends her child, and lets no trouble or labor weary her; indeed, the more
unclean and sickly the child is, the greater are her diligence and care
for it. The child does not deserve this — indeed, it only causes her much
unrest. What is it, then, that keeps her from growing weary of it, etc.?
She is a mother; that is, she loves the child, etc. Just so does Christian
love show itself also toward everyone." (See Luther's Works, Walch's
edition, VIII, 2595–97).

2. Another mistaken understanding and application of the word "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" consists in this: that from it people
believe they must draw the conclusion that it is against love of neighbor
for me to be rich, or a master, and to let my neighbor remain poor, or a
servant. For by this, it is supposed, equality is abolished, since I would
then necessarily be loving myself more than my neighbor — for were I to
love him exactly as I love myself, I would also make him equal to myself.
This principle, however, is just as much a burden and a confusion to the
conscience as it would, if carried through, overturn every order in the
world. For if that alleged understanding of the words "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself" were correct, then, first, no man could with a good
conscience possess or enjoy anything that his neighbor did not also
possess and enjoy; and second, an absolute communism would be the only
right relationship among men with respect to their goods. But the words
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" have a wholly different meaning.
Their interpretation is given, as already noted, by the Lord Himself in
the words: "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do
to you, do ye even so to them," Matt. 7:12. Those words, then, do not mean
that I should put my neighbor in my own place, but rather that I should
put myself in my neighbor's place, and so act toward him as I, were I
standing in my neighbor's place, would wish — that is, would consider fair
and right — that he should then act toward me. If my neighbor is, say,
poor and I am rich, I should deal with him just as I would consider fair