Love One Another

By John Rogers and Blake Gillen

God defines himself in Scripture as the very embodiment of love (1 John 4:16). As his children, he commands us to imitate him by loving one another deeply and authentically–a command that is second only to love for God and belief in his Son Jesus Christ. In "Love One Another", John Rogers teaches Christians what it means to love. Armed with Scripture and a keen intellect, he begins by discriminating between genuine and counterfeit marks of love, then diagnoses common spiritual ailments that manifest as a lack of love within us. Pastor Rogers then concludes by illustrating how Christians can show the love of Christ to their enemies, unbelievers outside the church, the poor, and finally to fellow believers.

John Rogers (c.1570-1636) was a Puritan pastor who ministered in Essex, England. His dynamic preaching of God’s Word brought many to faith in Christ while simultaneously strengthening the faith of many more–but also drew the ire of his superiors in the Church of England.

Originally published in 1629, this timeless text has been meticulously edited to benefit a new generation of Christian readers. Archaic language has been gently modernized, and helpful footnotes have been added to aid the reader. It includes a biographical preface, many helpful footnotes, and review questions designed to facilitate group discussion or personal reflection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312355798

Book preview

Love One Another

by John Rogers

Edited by Gerald Mick

Westfield, Indiana, USA

www.digitalpuritan.net

Love One Another was first published in London in 1629 as A Treatise of Love. This Digital Puritan reprint, in which spelling, grammar, and formatting changes have been made, is Copyright © 2023 by Gerald Mick. All rights reserved.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations in the end-note section are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations annotated [KJV] are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Cover art: photo 18900856 by user Saje. Licensed through Dreamstime.com

ISBN 9781312355798 (e-book), 9798851734304 (paperback)

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Biographical Preface

Author’s Preface

1. Introduction.

2. Of love for God.

3. Of love for our neighbor: and first, what it is.

4. Of the notes by which love to our neighbor may be known.

5. Causes of the lack of love for our neighbor.

6. Six properties of true love.

7. Of love for our enemies.

8. Of love for all men.

9. Of love to the saints.

10. Of relieving the poor.

11. Of the poor’s duties.

12. How true Christians should love each other.

Some Other Titles by Digital Puritan Press

Scripture References and End-Notes

Foreword

We are currently living in a world that has twisted the true meaning of love. That should sober us—but it should not surprise us. Satan, the god of this age, has always put a question mark where God puts a period (Genesis 3:1–5). Only God’s Word can help us understand both what love is and what love does. The God who is love (1 John 4:8) defines love.

The night before our Savior went to the cross, he shared one last meal with his disciples. With the cross in view, Jesus taught them how to live moving forward. John 13:34–35, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. With the shadow of the cross looming before him, Jesus explained to his disciples the importance of living a life of love—something so unusual that the sinful world surrounding them would immediately know they were his disciples—Christ’s love would continue in the world through them.

Jesus never asked his disciples to do anything more for him than he was willing to do for them. Jesus always perfectly models what he mandates. What Jesus told them to do was nothing more than what he had already shown them through three years of ministry, and what he would show them the following day as he willingly laid down his life on the cross to purchase their redemption. Jesus’ perfect love is the perfect pattern for our love for one another.

This new commandment to love one another hasn’t gone away. It is still binding on every born-again believer in Christ. The new commandment never gets old. The precious privilege of every Christian is to grow into ever-increasing conformity to Christ—and this occurs by living a life of love.

Although what Jesus wants us to do is obvious, as fallen creatures we all need help to do it well. Paul prayed that the Philippians might have more love: And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9–11). He also reminded Timothy that the goal of biblical instruction is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5). Moreover, everything a believer does is to be done in love (1 Corinthians 16:14).

And so the command to love is clear—but the ability to love comes from Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit’s help because we do not have the innate capacity to love the way Jesus commands us to love. But with him, we have what we need, for the Spirit both instructs us through the Word, and empowers us to do it (Galatians 5:22–23). By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:2–3).

John Rogers is a reliable guide, teaching believers to love well for the glory of God. In this splendid treatise, Love One Another, Rogers begins with the command to love one another from 1 John 3:23, then spends the rest of the book showing us how to live that out. He will show you what love does and does not do. He sketches the pattern of God’s love, so that we can in turn love God and others in such a way that we might one day stand before Christ and hear him say, Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:23).

I heartily recommend this book to you, in order that you might live the life of love that Jesus both modeled for us and mandates to us. May his Spirit help us live it out.

Blake Gillen

Westfield, Indiana USA

November 2023.

Biographical Preface

The memory of the just is blessed.

Proverbs 10:7

In about 1570, John Rogers was born in Moulsham, Essex, a modest and ancient hamlet situated twenty miles north-east of London. His parents were John and Mary Rogers. His father was a shoemaker. From what can be ascertained from church records, he appears to have been the oldest of nine children. His siblings included Thomas (b.1575), Mary (b.1576), Elizabeth (b.1577), and Richard (b.1579). Their mother died shortly after Richard’s birth.

Left alone with five young children, Mr. Rogers married Joan Garlinge that same year. She bore him Katherine (b.1581), Nathanael (b.1582), Ezechias (b.1585), and Susan (b.1588). Little is known about what life was like for young John during his childhood, except to say that his family was poor.

EDUCATION

In 1588 (the same year his youngest sister was born) he matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which was at that time a Puritan stronghold. His uncle, the well-known Puritan pastor Richard Rogers of Wethersfield (1551–1618), paid for his education. But John was young and foolish, and playing the prodigal son, he sold his books and spent the proceeds on his sinful vices. When this was discovered, he was quietly asked to leave Emmanuel College.

His uncle (who was himself a Cambridge alumnus) intervened on his behalf and secured a second chance for the young profligate. But the lesson hadn’t been learned, and before long John had sold his second set of books and found himself in the same situation as before! Now his uncle was ready to wash his hands of the naughty nephew—but his wife convinced him to give John yet another chance.

This time the young man came to his senses, repented of his sinful lifestyle, and began to manifest fruit in keeping with repentance. Benjamin Brook says of him, …the grace of God changing his heart, he became an illustrious ornament to his college, and a man of most exemplary piety.[1] John Rogers graduated in 1592.

MINISTRY

Under Queen Elizabeth, the theology of the English church was Protestant and Reformed in the main, but the external trappings of Roman Catholicism remained. Such were called the outward badges of popish errors, and included confirmation, the wearing of the cap and surplice, making the sign of the cross, and even the very term ‘priest’. These are the kinds of things the Protestant reformers sought to remove from the English church, thus purifying it. This is the very reason they were called ‘Puritans’.

Elizabeth’s reluctance to do so was driven by her desire to unite Protestants and Catholics in one national church. The queen went so far as to codify this philosophy into a series of legislative acts called ‘The Elizabethan Settlement’. Relatively speaking, Elizabeth was fairly tolerant, and so despite his Puritan convictions, when in 1592 John Rogers was first called to the ministry at St. Andrew’s Church in the village of Honingham, Norfolk, he was ordained and made a vicar.

Then in 1603 he was made vicar of the church in the flourishing market town of Haverhill, Suffolk. This was the same year that Queen Elizabeth died.

As the Virgin Queen she had no male heir. Her nearest royal relative was King James VI of Scotland; both were direct descendants of Henry VII. From her death-bed Elizabeth named James her successor, and within hours of her passing, Elizabeth’s privy council declared him king of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Henceforth he would be known as King James I.

Although a Protestant, James was even less inclined to see Puritan reforms pressed in the English church, preferring the status quo partly because he saw the bishops as useful allies in ruling the people. He refused to entertain the Puritans’ demand for reforms made at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, and as the supreme head of the Church of England, his word was final.

In 1605 Rogers returned to the county of his birth, when he was made lecturer of St. Mary the Virgin in Dedham, Essex, where he would remain in ministry until his death. At that time Essex was a small, prosperous market town involved in the textile industry.

Now a lecturer differs from a vicar in that the former is outside the formal realm of the Anglican service. Rogers would typically preach on Sunday afternoons between the morning and evening services. Being a lecturer allowed him to avoid having to comply with the superstitious aspects of the liturgy he found objectionable.

Many sources report that when Rogers was in the pulpit, the church was filled to overflowing, with even more people standing outside the church straining to hear Rogers proclaim God’s truth. He was nicknamed Roaring John (or sometimes Bawling John) because of his passionate style of preaching. Benjamin Brook says of him, His great gift lay in the delivery of solid truth, which he had prepared with a peculiar gesture and elocution, so that few heard him without trembling at the Word of God.[2] John Brownrigg said, John Rogers will do more good with his wild notes than we [the bishops] with our set music.

On one occasion, Thomas Goodwin (before he came to faith in Christ) attended one of Rogers’ sermons in which the preacher rebuked the congregation for their woeful neglect of their Bibles. Rogers acted out the part of God, reproving them for their ungratefulness and threatened to take away the Word of God from them if they would not read it. Then he played the part of the people, who wept and pleaded for anything but to have the Scriptures so removed: Lord, whatsoever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us! Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods—only spare us thy Bible; take not away thy Bible!

Many of those present were moved to tears and loud weeping. Goodwin himself reported being brought under an intense conviction of his sinfulness, and standing outside the church after the sermon, he leaned on the neck of his horse for several minutes before finally regaining enough composure to mount his horse and depart.

In 1625 King James I died and was succeeded by his son Charles I, who saw political advantage in maintaining the episcopacy and was not eager to remove the ‘high church’ elements the Puritans found so galling. Many regarded Charles’ affection for Catholic Spain, and his indifference to the Protestant conflicts throughout Europe as dark storm clouds on the horizon.

It is therefore unsurprising that John Rogers was denied the privilege of preaching from 1629–1631 because he refused to comply with the superstitious and tyrannical impositions of the ascendant Bishop William Laud. He appears to have resumed his preaching after agreeing to some minimal degree of conformity. Pastor Giles Firmin (one of his converts) states he never recalled seeing Rogers wear the priestly vestments, and that on the few occasions when Rogers did employ The Book of Common Prayer, it was in a perfunctory manner and from memory.

John Rogers died October 18, 1636 at about age 65. His funeral sermon was preached by John Knowles. Rogers was buried in the churchyard at Dedham, where a tombstone still stands. If you ever travel to Dedham, you can see his name listed with all the other vicars and lecturers of the parish inside the church by the north door. There is also a mural monument within the church, on the north wall of the sanctuary. The muniment room near the church’s tower (from which he preached to the crowds gathered below on market days) stills holds some early editions of his works.

FAMILY

He met and married Bridget Ray in 1595. She bore him at least four children: Nathaniel (1598–1655), Daniel (who apparently died in childhood), Bridget (Angier, 1609–1681), and John (1610–1680). His wife died in 1613, and Rogers married Elizabeth Bostwick (the widow of John Hawes) that same year. She too died soon after; he then married Dorothy Stanton (the widow of Richard Wiseman) in 1617. His sons Nathaniel and John both followed him into pastoral ministry.

PUBLISHED WORKS

He published two books on the text of 1 John 3:23, And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. The first was The Doctrine of Faith, in 1627. It went through eight editions by 1640. The second is the present work, A Treatise of Love (here renamed Love One Another) in 1629. It went through three editions by 1637.

After his death, A Godly and Fruitful Exposition Upon the First Epistle of Peter was published, in 1650. Benjamin Brook also credits Rogers with writing Sixty Memorials of a Godly Life, though the date of its publication is uncertain.

LEGACY

John Rogers was called one of the most awakening preachers of his age.[3] He had a humble and peaceful demeanor. As such God was pleased to work through him, especially in calling sinners to repent and put their whole trust in Christ for salvation. Indeed many came to faith in Christ, and many more were strengthened in their faith as a result of his faithful preaching and holy example. He had a deep love for others, especially those who loved Christ, and he was greatly loved by his congregation.

GERALD MICK

Westfield, Indiana, USA

July 2023.

FOR DISCUSSION OR PERSONAL REFLECTION:

1. What lessons can be drawn from the account of John Rogers’ time at Emmanuel College? Do you see any personal application to your own experiences?

2. What difficulties did Rogers face in his lifetime? Can you speculate on how these troubles may have ultimately helped to promote his own usefulness and God’s greater glory?

3. Can any other lessons or general truths be gleaned from this account of a man’s life? Is anything particularly admirable or worthy of imitation? Is there anything you might have done differently?

Author’s Preface

To my loving neighbors of Dedham,

Loving and good neighbors, The Doctrine of Faith[1] being gone forth into the world, I thought it not amiss that the daughter should attend upon her mother, and therefore to put forth A Treatise of Love, even as love follows after faith, as they were both handled in your hearing not very many years since. Now I desire that these things may live and speak unto you even when I have be taken from you. By publishing these two volumes, if you profit from them, you cannot help but do well, God shall be much honored—and I shall have my great desire.

Now this of Love I dedicate unto you, that as you have learned in some measure to love one another, so also that you will continue to love each other and increase more and more in it. By the care and diligence of my worthy predecessor, I found you in a state of peace. Thus through God’s mercy have you continued without rifts or divisions, sidings or part-taking, living in peace and unity these three and twenty years of my abode with you. And as both the head and body of the congregation are looking in the same direction, much evil has been hindered, and much good done and maintained.

This is how I hope to leave you. Yea, my heart’s desire is for you to live in peace and godly love when I am gone, so that as you have already done, you may continue to draw yourselves together as one man. In so doing nothing will be too hard for you; no power of wickedness will be able to prevail against you, even as a bundle of sticks—though they by themselves are weak and easily shattered asunder—yet when they are bound together as one, they cannot be broken.

And as few or no lawsuits have been found amongst you, but instead your differences between yourselves agreed upon, so do still in the name of God. I have always found you inclined to doing any deed of charity; in this you have been moved to make good provision for the poor among you. So would I urge you to continue, in order that you may show forth the fruit of the ministry of the Word for so long that other towns, seeing your well-doing and good order, may be provoked by your example. Thus will God have much honor by you, and he will take pleasure in dwelling among you. He will be the God of your posterity after you, from one generation to another. This has been my prayer for you, which I have entreated on you behalf, that he might grant it for his mercy’s sake, and for Christ’s sake.

And to those of you that are now young (and thanks be to God show good hope), if God lets you live to stand up in your predecessors’ places, see to it that you labor to quit yourselves as well as they have done—for even better will be required, as you have more light every day, and their example to make use of. In this hope I take my leave, and heartily commit all of you to the grace of God. Until death I remain yours in what service of love I can,

John Rogers

FOR DISCUSSION OR PERSONAL REFLECTION:

1. What is the heartfelt desire of this pastor for his congregation? Do you suppose this is a common desire for many pastors (including your own)?

2. How are unity and love for one another related?

3. What benefits attend a body of believers that prizes such unity?

4. How does unity differ from uniformity?

Chapter 1

This is the commandment of God, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another.

1 John 3:23

Having finished The Doctrine of Faith, let me add a few things concerning love, which are found in the same text. The Holy Spirit has joined these two—faith and love—together, as two necessary and inseparable companions. The duty of love is so essential to our daily lives that I thought it good to add some things to the former treatise.

In verse 22 the Holy Spirit teaches us that the keepers of God’s commandments are those whose prayers God will hear. Now in this verse, lest any should doubt and ask the question, ‘But what are those commandments?’ he therefore names them, summarizing them all under these two heads: faith in Jesus Christ, and love to our brethren. We are to believe in Christ Jesus and love one another.

Now I would but briefly show these few observations from this text:

1. By reducing all the commandments of God and our duty to two heads, the apostle has mercifully provided for our weakness, and prevented the carnal excuses whereby most men cloak their ignorance and careless neglect of heavenly things: ‘O we are so dull to conceive! The Scriptures, they are so dark! We have such poor memories! The Scriptures are so vast that we can make no work of them!’ This is Adam-like, to turn the fault from ourselves toward God. It is as if they should say, ‘If only God had given us Scriptures which were shorter and more plain, and we were given better wits and memories—then we would have done great things.’ But the wickedness and falsehood of their hearts is revealed in this, for they can find enough wit and memory for the things of this world: their profits, pleasures, and lusts—whatever they have set their minds to. Now if they can so easily comprehend these base things, then why can they not employ their intellects for better things?

But in his mercy God has left us as much of his Word as is necessary for salvation; it is clear and plain to every humble and teachable heart that seeks the help of God by prayer, and is willing to be ruled by it. Yea, in many places he has gathered the whole into short summaries. The whole law and will of God, so large and scattered throughout the Scriptures, is encapsulated in the Ten Commandments delivered by God (Deuteronomy 10:4, Exodus 20:1–17). And these ten are further condensed into two (Matthew 22:37–40), and these two to one (Galatians 5:14).

So also, our whole direction concerning prayer is found in the short example we call the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13). And since that time, the Church of God has gathered out of the apostles’ writings twelve articles which contain all the things we are to believe if we are to have eternal life.

Furthermore, God has also provided in this illuminated (and in that respect) blessed age of ours an abundance of good books to illustrate the points and principles of our religion—some larger, some smaller. There are catechisms for everyone’s ability, so that even the dullest person with the worst memory (unless they are shamefully careless) may come to the knowledge of God, themselves, their duties, and the things which pertain to salvation.

USE OF REPROOF. And thus the ignorance of the people of this land (which is dreadfully obvious, and worse still than any may think, unless they examine the issue) is willful and contrived—and therefore their inexcusable condemnation will be more fearful than that of other nations (which have not the same light) and most just.

O how lamentable it is to see the multitudes spend their precious time in sinful courses and exercises! Most eagerly pursue the world’s profits, honors, and pleasures as though they were necessary things and our purpose in being here, while the intended means of knowing God and the things that comprise our own true happiness lie woefully neglected. Has God, after the long night of superstition, ignorance, and idolatry that our forefathers lay under, caused the day to arise, and the sun of righteousness to shine so long upon us—and shall we yet love darkness and not light, be ignorant, and grope at noon-day? Has God provisioned us with these precious means of grace and life, and given us every opportunity to make use of them (while denying them to nations twenty times as great as ourselves)—and shall we make slight of them? O how many there are who lie under the tyranny of Antichrist that would leap at the crumbs that fall from our tables, would risk their lives for the scraps and leavings of such things as we cast under our feet! They would and cannot;