If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
Read Chapter 4
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
If any man say, I love God. What God? wherefore love we? Because He first loved us, and gave us to love. He loved us ungodly, to make us godly; loved us unrighteous, to make us righteous; loved us sick, to make us whole. Ask each several man; let him tell you if he love God. He cries out, he confesses: I love, God knows. There is another question to be asked. If any man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. By what do you prove that he is a liar? Hear. For he that loves not his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he sees not? What then? Does he that loves a brother, love God also? He must of necessity love God, must of necessity love Him that is Love itself. Can one love his brother, and not love Love? Of necessity he must love Love. What then? Because he loves Love, does it follow that he loves God? Certainly it does follow. In loving Love, he loves God. Or have you forgotten what you said a little while ago, Love is God? (1 John 4:8, 16) If Love is God, who...
Also in the same place: "If any one shall say that he loves God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? "
He that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not? By this is signified, that it is more easy and natural to love the things that we see, and that enter by the senses. Pretend not then to love the invisible God, whose perfections are hidden from you in this life, unless you love your brother whom you see. But he adds another reason to prove that no man can love God unless he love his brother; because saith he, (ver. 21.) this is God's express command, that he who loveth God love also his brother: so that a man cannot love God unless he also love his neighbour. (Witham)
