A Christian Directory
§. 51. Rule 7. If I cannot discern whether the Duty to be omitted: or the sin to be committed be mater • ally and in other respects the greater, then that will be ▪ to me the greater of the sins which my doubting Conscience doth most strongly suspect to be sin in its most impartial deliberation. For if other things be equal, certainly the sinning against more or less conviction or doubting must make an inequality. As if I could not discern whether my subscription to the Trent confession, or my forbearing to preach, or my preaching though prohibited, were the greater sin, in case they were all sinful; but yet I am most strongly suspicious of sinfulness in the subscription, and less suspicious of sinfulness in my forbearing in such a case to preach, and least of all suspicious of sinfulness in my preaching though prohibited: In this case to subscribe sinfully is the greatest sin, and to forbear sinfully to exercise my office is the next, and to preach unwarrantably is the least.
§. 52. Rule 8. If I could perceive no difference in the degrees of evil in the Omission and the Commission, nor yet in the degrees of my suspicion or doubting, then that is the greater sin which I had greater helps and evidence to have known, and did not.
§. 53. Rule 9. If both greater material evil be on one side than on the other, and greater suspicion or evidence of the sinfulness also, then that must needs be the greater sin.
§. 54. Rule 10. If the Greatness of the Material Evil be on one side, and the greatness of the suspicion and evidence be on the other, then the former (if sin) will be materially and in itself considered the worst▪ but the later will be formally the greater disobedience to God. But the comparison will be very difficult. As suppose that I swear to God that I will cast away a shilling, or that I will forbear to pray for a week together: Here I take perjury to be a greater sin, than my casting away a shilling, or forbearing to pray a week: But when I question whether the Oath should be kept or not, I have greater suspicion that it should not, than that it should, because no oath must be the bond of the least iniquity. Here if the not keeping it prove a sin, I shall do that which is the Greater sin in itself if I keep it not; but I shall show more disobedience in keeping it, if it be not to be kept.
§. 55. Rule 11. If it be a double sin that I suspect on one side, and but a single one on the other, it maketh an inequality in the case. As suppose that in my Fathers family there are Heretics, and Drunkards, and I swear that in my place and calling I will endeavor to cast them out. My Mother approveth my Vow: My Father is against it and dischargeth me of it, because I did it not by his advice. On one side I doubt whether I am bound, or may act against my Fathers will: On the other side I as much doubt whether I am not perjured, and disobedient to my Mother if I do it not, and whether I disobey not God, that made it my duty to endeavor the thing in my place and calling before I vowed it.
§. 56. Rule 12. There is a great deal of difference between omitting the substance of a duty for • ver, and the delaying it, or altering the time, and • place and manner. For instance that which will justify or excuse me for shortening my prayer, or for praying but once a day, or at noon rather than in the morning, or for defect in method, or fervency, or Expressions, may not justify or excuse me for denying, renouncing or long forbearing prayer. And that which may excuse an Apostle for not preaching in the Temple or Synagogues, or not having the Emperors, or the High-Priests allowance or consent; or for not continuing in one City or Country, would not excuse them if they had renounced their callings, or totally as to all times, and places, and manner of performance have ceased their work for fear of men.
§. 57. Rule 13. If the duty to be omitted, and the sin to be committed seem equal in greatness, and our doubt be equal as to both, it is commonly held safer to avoid the Commission more studiously than the • mission. For which there are many reasons given.
§. 58. Rule 14. There is usually much more matter for fear and suspicion caeteris paribus of sins to be committed, than of Duties to be omitted, when the Commission is made necessary to the doing of the duty. Both because it is there that the fear beginneth: For I am certain that the Good work is no Duty to me, if the act be a sin which is its necessary Condition. Therefore so far as I suspect the act to be sinful I must needs suspect the duty to be no duty to me at that time: It is not possible I should be rationally more persuaded that the Duty is my duty, than that the Condition is no sin: If it were the saving of the lives of all the men in the Country, I could no further take it to be my duty, than I take that to be no sin by which it must be done▪ it being a thing past controversy that we must not sin for the accomplishment of any good whatsoever. And also because the sin is supposed to be always sin; but few duties are at all time • duties: And the sin is a sin to every man: but the duty may be another man's duty and not mine. For instance: Charles the fifth imposeth the Interim upon Germany: Some Pa •••• rs yielded to it: Others refused it and were cast out: Those that yielded pleaded the Good of the Churches, and the prevention of their utter desolation; but yet confessed that if the thing imposed were sinful it was not their duty to do it for any Good whatsoever, but to seek the Good of the Church as well as they could without it: The other that were cast out argued that so far as they were confident the Interim was sinful, they must be confident that nothing was their duty that could not be done without it; and that God knew best what is Good for his Church, and there is no accomplishing its good by sin and God's displeasure; and that they did not therefore forsake their Ministry, but only lose the Rulers License; for they resolved to preach in one place or other till they were imprisoned; and God can serve himself by their imprisonment or death as well as by their preaching: And while others took their places that thought the Interim lawful, the Churches were not wholly destitute, and if God saw it meet, he could restore their fuller liberties again: In the mean time to serve him as all Pastors did for three hundred years after Christ (without the License of the Civil Magistrate) was not to cast away their office. Another instance: The zealous Papists in the Reign of Hen. 3. in France thought that there was a Necessity of entering the League and warring against the King, because Religion was in danger, the preservation whereof is an unquestionable duty: The Learned and moderate Lawyers that were against them said, that there being no question but the King had the total sovereignty over them, they were sure it was a sin to resist the Higher powers, and therefore no preservation of Religion could be a duty or lawful to them which must be done by such a certain sin. Sin is not the means to save Religion or the Common wealth.
§. 59. Rule 51. When a thing is not prohibited and sinful simply in itself, but because of some accidental or consequential evil that it tendeth to, there a Greater accidental or consequential Good, may preponderate the evil, and make the thing become no sin, but a Duty. It is a matter of exceeding difficulty to discern oft times whether a thing be simply and absolutely forbidden, or only by accident and alterably; and to discern which Accident doth preponderate. There are so many Observations that should here be taken in, and so much of a man's life and peace is concerned in it, that it deserveth a Treatise by itself: And therefore I shall not meddle with it any further here, lest an insufficient tractate be worse than none, in a case where error is so easy and p • rillous.
§. 60. Rule 16. As to the danger of the sinner himself, there is a great deal of difference between an error and sin of human frailty, when the service of God, and true obedience, and the comm • n good is sincerely intended, and an error and sin of falseheartedness and sloth, when selfishness is the secret spring of the error and carnal interest the real end, though God and his service be pretended. And usually the concomitants will sh • w something of this to others. For instance; Two Magistrates and two Ministers submit to some questioned imposition, all pretend that the Glory of God, and his service is it that prevaileth with them to submit: The one of the Magistrates faithfully serveth God afterward with his authority, and showeth thereby that he meant sincerely: The other doth no good in his place, and showeth his hypocrisy: One of the Ministers preacheth zealously and privately laboreth as one that thirsteth for the saving of souls: The other preacheth formally and coldly and heartlessly and never converteth a soul, and neglecteth the work which he pretended was his end.
DIRECT. XI. Let it be most deeply engraven on thy heart, that God is infinitely good, and amiable: thy grand Benefactor and Father in Christ; the End of all that thou art and hast; and the Everlasting Rest and Happiness of thy soul: See therefore that thy enflamed Heart be entirely and absolutely offered up unto Him by the Mediation of his Son, to Love him, to Trust him, to Delight in him, to be Thankful to him, to Glorify him, and through faith to long for the Heavenly Glory, where all this will be perfectly done forever. And first let us speak of LOVE.
§. 1. I did in the first Direction persuade you to lay a good Foundation in Faith and Knowledge: In the second I directed you how to live upon Christ: In the third how to Believe practically in the Holy Ghost: In the fourth I directed you to the orderly and practical Knowledge of all the Attributes of God: In the fifth, how to know God Practically in his first grand Relation, as he is your Owner: In the sixth, how to know him practically in his second grand Relation, as he is your King or Governor: And in subordination to his Governing Relation: in the seventh I directed you, in your Relation of Disciples to Christ your Teacher. And in the eighth I directed you in your Relation of Patients to Christ your Physician, and the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier. In the ninth I direct • d you in y • u • •• lation of Soldiers to Christ the Captain of your Salvation: In the tenth I di •• cted you in the •• lation of Servants to Christ your Master: And now being past those subordinate Relations (to the second) I proceed to direct you in your third Gra • d Relation to God as your Benefactor, Father and Felicity: And because there are divers great Duties in this General, I shall first begin with this of LOVE: and afterwards speak distinctly of the rest.
Directions for Loving God as our Father and Felicity.
§. 2. Here I shall first give you these General Preparatives, (and then give you Directions for the exercise of holy Love.) 1. You must understand the Nature of Love to God: 2. You must understand the differences of this Love: 3. You must understand the Reasons of it: 4. And the Contraries of it: 5. And the Counterfeits of it.
§. 3. I. For the understanding of its Nature, observe these things: 1. It is not the Love of a particular good, but of the infinite Universal Good. The creature is a particular good, and our Love to it is a particular limited Love, confined as to a point. God is the Universal Good, and our Love to him is not limited by the object, but by the narrowness and imperfection of our faculties themselves. As suppose you had variety of Candles in your Room, and you had Diamonds and other refulgent things: You love each of these with a particular love, for their splendor and usefulness: and you more easily observe and feel the motion of this confined Love: But Light itself as Light, you love with a more Universal Love; which is greater, but not so sensibly observed. (Not as we speak of notional Universals in Logic, which have no existence but in particulars; but of the Natural, transcendent, infinite good, eternally existent, and arbitrarily appearing in some created particles) As the love of an infinite Light would differ from the Love of a Candle, and the love of an infinite Heat, from the love of a Fire, and the love of infinite Wisdom itself, from the love of a wise man; and the love of infinite Goodness itself from the love of a Good Man: So doth the love of God from the Love of a particular created good.
§. 4. 2. Our Love to God is not ordinarily so passionate, as our Love to Creatures: Because the nearness and sensibleness of the creature, promoteth such sensible operations: But God is not seen, or felt, or heard, but believed in by faith, and known by Reason: And the narrowness of the creature making resistances, stops and difficulties, occasioneth a turbulent passionatenes of love: when th • infiniteness of God hath no such occasion: Our love to creatures is like the running of a stream in a channel that is too narrow for it, where stops and bancks do make it go on with a roaring violence: But our love to God, is like the Brook that slideth into the Ocean where it is insensibly devoured. Therefore our Love to God must principally be perceived, not in violent passions, but in 1. A high estimation of him: 2. In the Wills adhaering to him: 3. And in the effects (to be mentioned anon). Yet when a Passionate Love is added to these, it may be the most excellent s • gnificati • ely and effectively. Some Philosophers think that God cannot at all be loved with a Passionate Love, because he is a pure immaterial being, and therefore cannot be the object of a material act or motion, such as our passions are; and therefore that it is some Idol of the imagination that is so loved: But 1. If they mean that his pure Essence in itself is not the immediate object of a passion, they may say the same of the Will itself: For man (at l • ast in flesh) can have no other V • liti • n of God, but as he is apprehended by the Intellect: And if by an Idol they mean the Image of God in the mind, gathered from the appearances of God in creatures, man in flesh hath no other knowledge of him: For here we know him but darkly, enigmatically, and as in a glass, and have no formal proper conception of him in his essence. So that the Rational powers themselves do no otherwise kn • w and will God's essence, but as represented to us in a glass. 2. And thus we may also love him passionately; it being God in his objective being as apprehended by the Intellect that we both Will and passionately Love. The Motion of the soul in flesh, may raise passions by the instrumentality of the corporeal Spirits, towards an immaterial object: which is called the object of those passions, not merely as Passions, but as the Passions of a Rational Agent; it being more nearly or primarily the object of the Intellect and Will, and then of the Passions, as first apprehended by these superior powers. A man may Delight in God, or else how is he our felicity: and yet we know of no Delight which is not Passion: A man may love his own soul with a passionate Love, and yet it is immaterial: when I passionately love my friend, it is his immaterial soul, and his wisdom, and holiness which I chiefly love.
§. 5. 3. It is not only for his Excellencies and Perfections in himself, nor only for his Love and benefit to us, that Grace doth cause a sinner to Love God; But it is for both conjunctly: as he is good, and doth good, especially to us, in the greatest things.
§. 6. 4. Our first special Love to God, is orderly and rationally to be raised, by the belief of his Goodness in himself, and his common Love and Mercy to sinners, manifested in his giving of his Son for the world, and giving men the Conditional promise of pardon and salvation, and offering them Christ and life eternal, and all this to us as well as others: and not to be caused by the belief or persuasion of his special peculiar electing, redeeming, or saving love to us above others, that have the same invitations and offers. It is the knowledge of Common Love and Mercy, and not of special Love and Mercy to us, as already possessed, that is appointed to be the motive of our first special Love to God: (Yet there is in it an apprehension that he is our only possible felicity, and that he will give us a special interest in his favor, if we return by faith in Christ unto him.) For 1. Every man is bound to Love God with a special Love: but every man is not specially beloved by him: And no man is bound to Love God as one that specially Loveth him, but those that indeed are so beloved by him: For else they were bound to believe a falsehood, and to Love that which is not; and grace should be an error and deceit. The object is before the act. God's special Love must in itself be before its Revelation: and as Revealed it must go before our belief of it; and as believed, it must go before our Loving it, or Loving him as such, or for it. 2. The first saving faith is inseparably conjunct with special Love: For Christ is believed in and willed, as the Way or Means to God as the End: (otherwise it is no true faith.) And the Volition of the End (which is Love ) is in order of nature before the choice or Use of the Means as such: And if we must Love God as one that specially Loveth us, in our first Love, then we must Believe in him as such by our first faith: And if so, it must be to us a Revealed Truth. But (as it is false to most that are bound to believe, so) it is not Revealed to the Elect themselves: For if it be, it is either by ordinary or extraordinary revelation: If by ordinary, either by Scripture directly, or by Evidences in ourselves which Scripture maketh the Characters of his Love. But neither of these: For Scripture promiseth not salvation to named, but described persons: And evidence of special Love there is none, before Faith and Repentance and the first Love to God. And extraordinary Revelations from Heaven by inspiration or Angel, is not the ordinary begetter of faith: For faith is the Belief of God speaking to us (now) by his written Word. So that where there is no Object of Love, there can be no Love: And where there is no Revelation of it to the understanding, there is no object for the will: And till a man first believe and Love God, he hath no Revelation that God doth specially Love him. Search as long as you will, you will find no other. 3. If the wicked were condemned for not Loving a false or feigned object, it would quiet their consciences in Hell when they had detected the deceit, and seen the natural impossibility and contradiction. 4. The first Love to God is more a Love of Desire, than of Possession: And therefore it may suffice to raise it, that we see a possibility of being forever happy in God, and enjoying him in special Love, though yet we know not that we possess any such Love. The Nature of the thing proclaimeth it most Rational and due, that we Love the Infinite Good, that hath done so much by the death of his Son to remove the impediments of our salvation, and is so far Reconciled to the world in his death, as by a message of Reconciliation, to entreat them to accept of Christ, and pardon, and salvation freely offered them 2 Cor. 5. 19, 20. and is himself the offered Happiness of the soul. He that dare say that this much hath not an Objective sufficiency to engage the soul in special Love, is a blind under-valuer of wonderful mercy. 5. The first special Grace bringeth no new Object for faith or Love, but causeth a new act upon the formerly revealed object.
§. 7. 5. But our Love to God is greatly increased and advantaged afterwards by the assurance or persuasion of his peculiar special Love to us. And therefore all Christians should greatly value such assurance, as the appointed means of advancing them to greater Love to God.
§. 8. 6. As we know God here in the glass of his Son, and Word, and Creatures, so we most sensibly Love him here, as his Goodness appeareth in his Works, and Graces, and his Word, and Son.
§. 9. 7. The nearer we come to perfection, the more we shall Love God for himself and his infinite Natural Goodness and perfections; not casting away the respects of his Goodness and Love as to ourselves; but highliest regarding himself for himself, as carried to him above ourselves.
§. 10. 11. Though Love in its own Nature be still the same; and is nothing but the Rational appetite of Good; or the Wills Volition of Good apprehended by the understanding; the first motion of the Will to Good, arising from that Natural inclination to Good which is the Nature of the Will, and the pondus animae, the poise of the soul; or from healing Grace, which repaireth the breach that is made in nature; Yet Love in regard of the state of the Lover, and the way of its imperate acting is thus differenced. 1. Either the Lover is in the Hopeful pursuit of the thing beloved: and then it is DESIRING SEEKING LOVE: 2 Or he is or seemeth to be denied, destitute, and deprived of his beloved (in whole or in part): and then it is a MOURNING LAMENTING LOVE. 3. Or he enjoyeth his beloved: and then it is ENJOYING DELIGHTING LOVE: 1. The ordinary Love which Grace causeth on Earth is a predominancy of seeking desiring Love, encouraged by some little fore-tastes of enjoying delighting Love, and in a great measure attended with Mourning Lamenting Love. 2. The state of deserted, dark, declining, relapsing, and melancholy tempted Christians, is, A predominance of Mourning Lamenting Love, assisted with some help of seeking desiring Love; but destitute of enjoying delighting Love. 3. The state of the Glorified is Perfection of enjoying delighting Love alone. And all the rest are to bring us unto this.
III. The Reasons why Love to God is so great, and high, and necessary a thing, and so much esteemed above other Graces, are: 1. It is the motion of the soul that tendeth to the End: And the End is more excellent than all the Means as such. 2. The Love, or Will, or Heart is the Man: where the Heart or Love is, there the Man is: It is the fullest resignation of the whole man to God, to Love him as God, or offer him the Heart. God never hath his Own fully, till we Love him. Love is the grand significant vital motion of the soul, such as the Heart, or Will, or Love is, such you may boldly call the man. 3. The Love of God is the perfection and highest improvement of all the faculties of the soul, and the End of all other Graces, to which they tend, and to which they grow up and in which they terminate their operations. 4. The Love of God is that Spirit or life of moral excellency in all other Graces in which (though not their form, yet) their acceptableness doth consist: without which they are to God as a lifeless Carrion is to us. And to prove any action sincere and acceptable to God, is to prove that it comes from a Willing Loving mind; without which you can never prove it. 5. Love is the commander of the soul: and therefore God knoweth that if he have our Hearts, he hath all: For all the rest are at its command: For it is as it were, the nature of the Will, which is the commanding faculty; and its Object is the Ultimate End which is the Commanding Object. Love settleth the mind on Thinking, the tongue on speaking, the hands on working, the feet on going, and every faculty obeyeth its command. 6. The obedience which Love commandeth participateth of its nature, and is a ready, cheerful, sweet obedience, acceptable to God, and pleasant to ourselves. 7. Love is a pure, chaste and cleansing grace; and most powerfully casteth out all creature pollution from the soul: The Love of God doth quench all carnal sinful love; and most effectually carrieth up the soul, to such high delights, as causeth it to contemn and forget the toys which it before admired. 8. The Love of God is the true acknowledging and honoring him as good. That blessed Attribute, his GOODNESS, is denied or despised by those that Love him not. The Light of the Sun would not be valued, honored or used by the world, if there were no eyes in the world to see it. And the Goodness of God is to them that Love him not, as the Light to them that have no eyes. If God would have had his Goodness to be thus unknown or neglected, he would never have made the Intellectual creatures. Those only give him the glory of his Goodness, that truly Love him. 9. Love (in its attainment) is the Enjoying and delighting Grace: It is the very content and felicity of the soul: Both as it maketh us capable to receive the most delightful communications of God's Love to us; and as it is the souls delightful closure with its most amiable felicitating object. 10. Love is the Everlasting Grace, and the work which we must be doing in Heaven forever. These are the the Reasons of Loves preeminence.
§. 12. IV. The Love of Creatures hath its Contraries on both extremes; in the excess and in the Defect: But the Love of God hath no contrary in excess: For infinite Goodness cannot possibly be Loved too much (unless as the passion may possibly be raised to a degree distracting or disturbing the brain.) The odious Vices contrary to the Love of God, are 1. Privative: Not loving him: 2. Positive: Hating him: 3. Opposite: Loving his creatures in his stead. All these concur in every unsanctified soul. That they are all void of the true Love of God, and taken up with creature Love, is past all doubt: But whether they are all Haters of God, may seem more questionable. But it is as certain as the other: Only the hatred of God in most, doth not break out into that open opposition, persecution or blasphemy, as it doth with some that are given up to desperate wickedness: Nor do they think that they hate him. But the Aversation of the Will, is the Hatred of God: And if men had not a great aversation to him, they would not forsake him, and refuse to be converted to him, notwithstanding all the arguments of Love that can be used to allure them. Displicency, N • liti • n and Aversation are Hatred.
§. 13. If you think it impossible that men can Hate God, whom they confess to be infinitely good; Consider for the true understanding of this Hatred; 1. That it is not as good that they hate him. 2. And it is not God simply in himself considered. 3. And therefore it is not all in God. 4. And it is not the name of God. 5. But it is 1. God as he seemeth unsuitable to them, and unfit for their delight and Love: which seeming is caused by their carnal inclination to things of another nature▪ and the sinful perverting of their appetites, and the blindness and error of their minds. 2. And it is God as he is an enemy to their carnal concupiscence; whose Holy nature is against their unholiness, and hateth their sin, and his Laws forbid them the things which they most love and take delight in: And so they hate God, as a mad man hateth his Keeper and Physician, and takes them for his enemies; and as a hungry Dog doth hate him that keepeth him from the meat which he loveth, or would take it out of his mouth: 3. And they hate God, as one that by his Holiness, Justice and Truth is engaged to condemn them for their sin, and so (consequently to their sin) is their enemy that will destroy them (unless they forsake it): when their Wills are enslaved to their sins, and they cannot endure to be forbidden them, and yet see that God will damn them in Hell fire, if they cast them not away, this filleth them with displicency against God, as Holy and Just. 4. And then consequently they hate him in the rest of his Attributes: As his Omniscience, that he always seeth them. His Omnipresence, that he is always with them: His Omnipotency, that he is unresistible, and able to punish them. His very mercy as expressed to others, when they must have no part in it: yea, his very immutability, eternity and being, as he is to continue an avenger of their iniquity: so that the wicked in despair do wish that there were no God; and in prosperity they wish he were not their Governor and Judge, or were unholy and unjust, allowing them to do what they list without account or punishment. Thus God is hated by the wicked according to the measure of their wickedness and carnal interest and concupiscence which he is against. Where you may note, 1. That the Hatred of God beginneth at the sensual Love of things temporal which he forbiddeth: 2. That the wicked great ones of the world, and those that have the strongest concupiscence, are usually the greatest haters of God, as having the greatest adverse interest, and being most in love with the things which he prohibiteth and will condemn.
§. 14. V. The Counterfeit of Love to God, is something that seemeth like it, and yet is consistent with prevalent hatred, or privation of true Love, and maketh self-deceiving Hypocrites. 1. One is when so much of God is Loved as men think hath no opposition to their lusts and carnal interest: (as his mercy and readiness to forgive); and then they think that they truly Love God, though they hate his Holiness and other attributes. 2. Another Counterfeit is, to Love God upon mistakes, imagining that he is of the sinners mind, and will bear with him, and not condemn him, though he continue sensual and ungodly: This is not indeed to Love God; but something contrary to God: If men's fantasies will take God to be like the Devil, a friend to sin, and no friend to holiness, and false in his threatenings, &c. and thus will Love him, this is so far from being indeed the Love of God, that it is an odious blaspheming of him. 3. Another counterfeit is to Love God only for his temporal mercies; as because he preserveth and maintaineth them; when yet he is resisted when he would give them things spiritual. 4. Another is, when the opinionative approbation of the mind, and honoring God with the lips and knee, is mistaken for true Love. In a word, whatever Love of God, respecteth him not as God indeed, and is not superlative, but is subservient to creature Love, is but a counterfeit.
§. 15. VI. The Directions for the exercise of the Love of God are these.
Direct. 1. Consider well that the Love of our Creator, Redeemer and Regenerater, is the very end for which we are Created, Redeemed and Regenerate, and how just it is that God should have the end of such excellent works; and that by neglecting or opposing the Love of God which is the end, we neglect or oppose the works of Creation, Redemption and Regeneration themselves. Let us plead these Works of God with our hearts, and say,
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§. 18. Direct. 2. Think of the perfect fitness of God to be the only Object of thy superlative Love; and how easy and necessary it should seem to us to do a work so agreeable to right Reason and uncorrupted Nature; and abhor all temptations which would make God seem unsuitable to thee. [
§. 19. Direct. 3. Imagine not God to be far away from thee, but think of him as always near thee and with thee, in whose present Love and Goodness thou dost subsist. Nearness of Objects doth excite the faculties: we hear no sound, nor smell no odour, nor taste no sweetness, nor see no colors, that are too distant from us: And the mind being limited in its activity, neglecteth or reacheth not things too distant, and requireth some Nearness of its object, as well as the sense. Especially to the excitation of affections and bodily action. A distant danger stirreth not up such fears, nor a distant misery such grief, nor a distant benefit such pleasure, as that which is at hand. Death doth more deeply affect us, when it seemeth very near, than when we think we have yet many years to live. So carnal minds are so drowned in flesh and captivated to sense, that they take little notice of what they see not, and therefore think of God as absent, because they see him not: They think of him as confined to Heaven, as we think of a friend that is in the East Indies, or at the Antipodes, who is, if not out of mind as well as out of sight, yet too distant for us delightfully to converse with. [
§. 20. Direct. 4. All other Graces must do their part in assisting Love, and all be exercised in subservience to it, and with an intention (directly or remotely) to promote it. Fear and watchfulness must keep away the sin that would extinguish it, and preserve you from that Guilt which would frighten away the soul from God: Repentance and mortification must keep away diverting and deceiving objects, which would steal away our Love from God: Faith must show us God as present, in all his blessed attributes and perfections: Hope must depend on him for nearer access and the promised felicity. Prudence must choose the fittest season, and means and helps from our special approaches to him; and teach us how to avoid impediments: And obedience must keep us in a fit capacity for communion with him. The mind that is turned loose to wander after vanity the rest of the day, is unfit in an hour of prayer or meditation to be taken up with the Love of God. It must be the work of the day, and of our lives, to walk in a fitness for it, though we are not always in the immediate lively exercise of it. To sin willfully one hour, and be taken up with the love of God the next, is as unlikely, as one hour to abuse our Parents, and provoke them to correct us, and the next to find the pleasure of their love; or one hour to fall and break ones bones, and the next to run and work as pleasantly as we did before.
§. 21. And we must see that all other Graces be exercised in a just subserviency to Love; and none of them degenerate into noxious extremes, to the hindrance of this which is their proper end. When you set yourselves to Repent and Mourn for sin, it must be from Love, and for Love: That by ingenuous lamentation of the injuries you have done to a gracious God, you may be cleansed from the filth that doth displease him, and being reconciled to him in Christ, may be fit to return to the exercises and delights of Love. When you Fear God, let it be with a Filial fear, that comes from Love, and is but a preservative or restorative for Love. Avoid that slavish fear as a sin, which tendeth to hatred, and would make you fly away from God. Love casteth out this tormenting fear, and freeth the soul from the Spirit of bondage. The Devil tempteth melancholy persons to live before God, as one that is still among Bears or Lions that are ready to devour him: For he knoweth how much such a fear is an enemy to Love. Satan would never promote such fears, if they were of God, and tended to our good. You never found him promoting your Love or Delight in God! But he careth not how much he plungeth you into distracting terrors: If he can, he will frighten you out of your Love, and out of your comforts, and out of your wits. A dull and sluggish sinner he will keep from fear, lest it should awaken him from his sin: But a poor melancholy, penitent soul he would keep under perpetual terrors: It is so easy to such to fear, that they may know it is a sinful inordinate fear: For gracious works are not so easy. And resist also all humiliation and grief, that doth not (immediately or remotely) tend to help your Love. A Religion that tendeth but to grief, and terminateth in grief, and goeth no further, hath too much in it of the malice of the enemy, to be of God. No tears are desirable, but those that tend to clear the eyes from the filth of sin, that they may see the better the loveliness of God.
§. 22. Direct. 5. Esteem thy want of Love to God, (with the turning of it unto the creature) to be the Heart of the old man; thy most comprehensive odious sin; and observe this as the life of all thy particular sins, and hate it above all the rest. This is the very death and greatest deformity of the soul; the absence of God's Image, and Spirit, and objectively of himself. I never loath my heart so much as when I observe how little it loveth the Lord. Methinks all the sins that ever I committed, are not so loathsome to me, as this want of Love to God. And it is this that is the venom and malignity of every particular sin: [
§. 23. Direct. 6. Improve the principle of self-love, to the promoting of the Love of God, by considering what he hath done for thee, and what he is and would be to thee. I mean not carnal inordinate self-love which is the chiefest enemy of the Love of God: But I mean that rational Love of Happiness and self-preservation which God did put into innocent Adam, and hath planted in man's nature as necessary to his Government. This natural innocent self-love is that remaining principle in the Heart of man which God himself doth still presuppose in all his Laws and Exhortations; and which he taketh advantage of in his works and word, for the conversion of the wicked, and the persuading of his servants themselves to their obedience. This is the common principle in which we are agreed with all the wicked of the world [ that all men should desire and seek to be happy, and choose and do that which is best for themselves; ] or else it were in vain for Ministers to preach to them, if we were agreed in nothing, and we had not this ground in them to cast our seed into, and to work upon. And if self-love be but informed and guided by understanding, it will compel you to Love God, and tell you that nothing should be so much Loved. Everyone that is a man must Love himself: We will not entreat him, nor be beholden to him for this: And everyone that Loveth himself, will Love that which he judgeth Best for himself: And every wise man must know, that he never had, nor can have any good at all, but what he had from God. Why do men Love lust, or wealth, or honor, but because they think that these are good for them? And would they not Love God, if they practically knew that he is the Best of all for them, and instead of all? [
Here also consider what God is for your future good, as well as what he hath been hitherto: How all sufficient, how powerful, merciful and good: But of this more anon.
§. 24. Direct. 7. Improve the vanity and vexation of the Creature, and all thy disappointments, and injuries, and afflictions, to the promoting of thy Love to God. And this by a double advantage: First, By observing that there is nothing meet to divert thy Love, or rob God of it; unless thou wilt Love thy trouble and distress! Secondly, That thy Love to God is the comfort by which thou must be supported under the injuries and troubles which thou meetest with in the world: And therefore to neglect it, is but to give up thyself to misery. [
§. 25. Direct. 8. Labor for the truest and fullest conceptions of the Goodness and excellencies of God, which are his Amiableness; and abhor all misrepresentations of him as unlovely. That which is apprehended as unlovely cannot be loved: And that which is apprehended as evil is apprehended as unlovely. Therefore it is the grand design of Satan to hide God's Goodness, and misrepresent him as evil: Not to deny him to be Good in himself (for in that he hath no hope to be believed); but to persuade men that he is not Good to them▪ or to make them forget or overlook his goodness. Not to persuade them that God is Evil in himself; but that he is evil to them, by restraining them from their beloved sins, and hating them as sinners, and resolving to damn them if they go on impenitently. This which is part of the Goodness of God, he maketh them believe is evil, by engaging them in a way and interest, which he knoweth that God is engaged against, and enticing them under the strokes of his Justice: And he tempteth believers themselves to poor diminutive unworthy thoughts of the Goodness and Mercifulness of God, and to continual apprehensions of his wrath and terrors: And if he can make them believe that God is their enemy, and think of him only as a consuming fire, how little are they like to Love him? If Christians knew how much of the Devils malice against God and them, doth exercise itself in this, to make God appear to man unlovely, they would more studiously watch against such misrepresentations, and fly from them with greater hatred. Not that we must first by the advice of arrogant Reason and self-love, as some do, draw a false description of Goodness and Amiableness in our minds, and make that the measure of our judgment of God, his nature, attributes and decrees; nor take his Goodness to be only his suitableness to our opinions, wills and interest: But we must take out from the word and works of God that true description of his Goodness which he hath given of himself, and expunge out of our conceits whatsoever is contrary to it. Think of God's Goodness in proportion with his other attributes. [O my soul, how unequally hast thou thought of God?
§. 26. Direct. 9. The great Means of promoting Love to God, is duly to behold him in his appearances to man, in the ways of NATURE, GRACE and GLORY: First therefore learn to understand and improve his appearances in NATURE, and to see the Creator in all his works, and by the Knowledge and Love of them to be raised to the Knowledge and Love of him: Though sin hath so disabled us to the due improvement of these Appearances of God in nature, that Grace must restore us, before we can do it effectually and acceptably; yet Objectively Nature is still the same in substance, and affordeth us much help to the Knowledge and Love of God. He knoweth nothing of the world aright, that knoweth not God in it, and by it. Some note that the greatest students in Nature are not usually the best proficience in grace; and that Philosophers and Physicians are seldom great admirers of piety: But this is to judge of the wise by the foolish, and to impute the ignorance and impiety of some, to others that abhor it. Doubtless he is no Philosopher but a fool, that seeth not and admireth not the Creator in his works. Indeed if a man do wholly give himself to know the shape and form of Letters, and to write them curiously, or cut them in brass or stone, or to print them, and not to understand their significations or use, no wonder if he be ignorant of the arts and sciences, which those Letters well understood would teach him: Such a man may be called an Engraver a S • rivener, a Printer but not a Scholar: And no better can the Atheist be call • d a Philosopher or a learned man, that denieth the most wise Almighty author, while he beholdeth his works: When the Nature and Name of God is so plainly • ngraven upon them all. It is a great part of a Christians daily busyness, to see and admire God in his works, and to use them as steps to ascend by to himself Psal 111. 2, 3, 4. The works of the •• rd •• e great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein: His work is hon • urable and gl •• i • us; and his righteousness endureth forever: He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered —Psal. 143. 5▪ I meditate on all thy works: I muse on the works of thy hands. [Psal. 77. 12. I will meditate also of all thy works, and talk of thy d • ings. Psal. 92. 4, 5, 6. For thou Lord hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a f • ol understand this: As the praising of God's works, so the observing of God in his works, is much of the work of a holy soul. Psal. 145. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: And his greatness is unsearchable: One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts: I will speak of the glorious honor of his Magisty, and of thy wondr • us works. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; and I will declare thy greatness: They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great Goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness:—All thy works shall praise thee O Lord, and thy Saints shall bless thee—The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. Rom. 1. 19, 20. That which may be known of God is manifest to them: For God hath shown it to them: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: Even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. ] If we converse in the world as believers or rational creatures ought, we should as oft as David repeat these words. Psal. 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness! and for his wondr • us works to the Children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoy • ing: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do busyness in great waters: these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. verse 21, 22, 23, 24. But this is a subject • itter for a Volume (of Physicks Theologically handled), than for so short a touch. What an excellent Book is the visible world for the daily studies of a holy soul? Light is not more visible to the eye in the Sun, than the Goodness of God is in it and all the creatures to the mind. If I Love not God, when all the word revealeth his Loveliness, and every creature telleth me that he is Good, what a blind and wicked heart have I? O wonderful Wisdom, and Goodness, and Power which appeareth in everything we see? In every Tree, and Plant, and Flower: In every Bird, and Beast, and Fish: In every Worm, and Fly, and creeping thing: In every part of the Body of Man or Beast: Much more in the admirable composure of the whole: In the Sun, and Moon, and Starrs, and Meteors: In the Lightning and Thunder; the Air and Winds; the Rain and Waters; the Heat and Cold; the Fire, and the Earth; Especially in the composed frame of all, so far as we can see them set together: In the admirable order and cooperation of all things: In their times and seasons; and the wonderful usefullness of all for man: O how Glorious is the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of God in all the frame of nature! Every creature silently speaks his Praise, declaring Him to Man whose office is, as the worlds High▪Priest, to stand between them and the Great Creator, and expressly offer him the praise of all. Psal. 8. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9. When I consider the Heavens the work of thy fingers, the Moon, and the Starrs which thou hast ordained: What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels; and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet: O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy Name in all the earth? O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness, and declare his wondrous works to the children of men! The earth is full of the Goodness of the Lord: Psal. 33. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Read Psalm 65. Thus Love God as appearing in the works of Nature.
§. 27. Direct. 10. Study to know God, as he appeareth more clearly to sinners in his Goodness in the works of GRACE; especially in his Son, his Covenant, and his Saints, and there to Love him, in the admiration of his Love. Here Love hath made itself an advantage of our sin, and unworthiness, of our necessities and miseries, of the Law and justice, and the flames of Hell: The abounding of sin and misery hath glorified abounding Grace: That Grace which fetcheth sons for God from among the voluntary vassals of the Devil: Which fetcheth Children of Light out of darkness; and Living souls from among the dead; and heirs for Heaven from the gates of Hell; and brings us as from the Gallows to the Throne. 1. A believing view of the Nature, Undertaking, Love, Obedience, Doctrine, Example, Sufferings, Intercession and Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST, must needs inflame the believers hearts with an answerable degree of the Love of God. To look on a Christ and not Love God, is to have eyes and not to see, and to overlook him while we seem to look on him. He is the liveliest Image of Infinite Goodness, and the messenger of the most unsearchable astonishing Love, and the purchaser of the most invaluable benefits, that ever were revealed to the sons of men. Our greatest Love must be kindled by the Greatest revelations and communications of the Love of God. And Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, John 15. 13. that is, Men have no dearer and clearer a way to express their Love to their friends: But that Love is aggravated indeed which will express itself as far for enemies. But God commendeth his Love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life: Rom. 5. 8, 9, 10. Steep then that stiff and hardened heart in the blood of Christ, and it will melt: Come near with Thomas, and by the passage of his wounds, get near unto his heart, and it will change thy unkind unthankful heart into the very nature of Love. Christ is the best Teacher of the lesson of Love, that ever the world had: who taught it not only by his words, but by his blood: by his life and by his death▪ If thou canst not learn it of him, thou canst never learn it. Love is the greatest commander of Love; and the most effectual argument that can insuperably constrain us to it. And none ever loved at the measure and rates that Christ hath loved. To stand by such a fire, is the way for a congealed heart to melt, and the coldest affections to grow warm. A lively faith still holding Christ, the Glass of infinite Love and Goodness, before our faces, is the greatest Lesson in the Art of Love.
§. 28. 2. Behold God also in his Covenant of Grace, which he hath made in Christ. In that you may see suc • s • r • , such great and wonderful mercies, freely given out to a world of sinners, and to yourselves among the rest, as may afford abundant matter for Love and Thankfulness to feed on while you live. There you may see how loath God is that sinners should perish: How he delighteth in mercy: And how great and unspeakable that mercy is. There you may s • e an Act of Pardon and Oblivion granted upon the reasonable condition of Believing, Penitent Acceptance, to all mankind: The sins that men have been committing many years together, their will • ul h • ynous aggravated sins, you may there see pardoned by more aggravated Mercy: and the enemies of God reconciled to him, and condemned rebels saved from Hell, and brought into his family, and made his sons. [O what an Image of the Goodness of God is apparent in the tenor of his word and Covenant? H • liness and Mercy make up the whole: They are expressed in every leaf and line. The precepts which seem too strict to sinners, are but the perfect Rules of Holiness and Love, for the health and happiness of man. What Loveliness did David find in the Law itself? And so should we, if we read it with his eyes and heart: It was sweeter to him than honey: he loved it above gold, Psalm 119. 127, and 97. he crieth out O how I love thy Law! it is my meditation all the day And must not the Law-giver then be much more lovely, whose Goodness here appeareth to us? Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way: Psalm 25. 8. I will delight myself in thy Commandments which I have loved: My hands also will I lift up to thy Commandments which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes. Psalm 119. 47, 48. How delightfully then should I love and meditate on the Blessed Author of this holy Law? But how can I read the history of Love, the strange design of Grace in Christ, the mystery which the Angels desirously pry into, the p • omises of life to lost and miserable sinners, and not feel the power of Love transform me? Behold with what Love the Father hath Loved us, that we sh • uld be called the sons of God? 1 John 3. 1. How doth God shed abroad his Love upon our hearts, but by opening to us the superabundance of it in his word, and opening our hearts by his spirit to perceive it? O when a poor sinner that first had felt the load of sin, and the wrath of God, shall feelingly read or hear what mercy is rendered to him in the Covenant of Grace, and hear Christ's messengers tell him from God, that All things are now ready, and therefore invite him to the heavenly feast, and even compel him to come in, what melting Love must this affect a sinners heart with? When we see the Grant of Life eternal sealed to us by the blood of Christ, and a pardoning, justifying saving Covenant, so freely made, and surely confirmed to us, by that God whom we had so much offended, O what an incentive is here for Love?
§. 29. When I mention the Covenant, I imply the Sacraments which are but its appendants or confirming seals, and the investing the believer solemnly with its benefits. But in these God is pleased to condescend to the most familiar communion with his Church, that Love and Thankfulness might want no helps. There it is that the Love of God in Christ, applieth itself most closely to particular sinners; And the meat or drink will be sweet in the mouth, which was not sweet to us on the table at all. O how many a Heart hath this affected? How many have felt the stirrings of that Love, which before they felt not, when they have seen Christ crucified before their eyes, and have heard the Minister, in his name and at his command, bid them Take, and Eat, and Drink; commanding them not to refuse their Savior, but Take him, and the benefits of his blood as their own; assuring them of his good will and readiness to forgive and save them?
§. 30. 3. Behold also the Loveliness of God in his Holy ones, who bear his Image, and are advanced by his Love and Mercy: If you are Christians indeed you are taught of God to Love his servants and to see an excellency in the Saints on earth, and make them the people of your delight: Psalm 16. 1, 2. 1 Thes. 4. 9. And this must needs acquaint you with the greater Amiableness, in the most Holy God that made them Holy. O how oft have the feeling and heavenly prayers of lively believers, excited those affections in me, which before I felt not? How oft have I been warmed with their Heavenly discourse? How amiable is that Holy Heavenly disposition and conversation which appeareth in them? Their faith, their Love, their trust in God, their cheerful obedience, their hatred of sin, their desire of the good of all, their meekness and patience: how much do these advance them above the ignorant, sensual, proud, malignant and ungodly world? How Good then is that God that makes men Good? And how little is the Goodness of the best of men, compared to his unmeasurable Goodness? Whenever your converse with holy men, stirs up your Love to them, rise by it presently to the God of Saints, and let all be turned to him that giveth all, to them and you.
§. 31. And as the excellency of the saints, so their privilege and great advancement, should show you the Goodness of God that doth advance them. As oft as thou seest a saint, how poor and mean in the world soever, thou seest a living monument of the abundant kindness of the Lord: Thou seest a child of God, a member of Christ, an heir of Heaven: Thou seest one that hath all his sins forgiven him, and is snatched as a brand out of the fire, and delivered from the power of Satan, and translated into the Kigdom of Christ: Thou seest one for whom Christ hath conquered the powers of Hell; and one that is freed from the bondage of the flesh; and one that of the Devils slave, is made a Priest to offer up the sacrifices of Praise to God. Thou seest one that hath the spirit of God within him; and one that hath daily intercourse with Heaven, and audience with God, and is dearly beloved by him in Christ. Thou seest in flesh a companion of Angels, and one that hath the Divine Nature, and must shortly be above the Stars in glory, and must be with Christ, and must love and magnify God forever. And is not the amiableness of God apparent in such mercy, bestowed upon sinful man? And should we not now begin to admire him in his Saints, and glorify him in believers, who will c • me with thousands of his Angels, to be glorified and admired in them at the last? 2 Thess. 1. 10. O the abundant deliverances, preservations, provisions, encouragements, which all his servants receive •••• God! Who ever saw the just forsak • n, even while they think themselves forsaken? For the L • rd 〈…〉 h jud •• meant▪ and forsaketh not his Saints: they are preserved f • r ever: The Law of his God is in •• s heart: none of his steps shall slide: Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end •• that man is peace: Psal. 37. 25▪ 28, 31, 37. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints: Ps • lm 116. 15. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his Saints; be delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked: Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upri • ht in heart, Psal. 97. 10, 11. O love the Lord all his Saints! for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the pr • ud doer: Psal. 31. 23.
§. 32. Direct. 11. Insist not so much on your desires after vision, as to undervalue the lower apprehensions of Faith: but love God by the way of Faith, as in order to the Love of Intuition.
We are exceeding • pt to be over-desirous of sight; and to take nothing as an object fit to affect us, which sense perceiveth not. When we have the surest evidence of the truth of things unseen, it hardly satisfieth us, unless we may see or feel. And hereupon our Love to God is hindered; while we think of him as if he were not, or take the apprehensions of faith, as if they were uncertain, and little differed from a dream. Yea, it proveth the ground of most dangerous temptations to Infidelity itself: While we take that knowl • dge which we have of God, in the way of Faith, the Love and Communion which is exercised thereby, to be as nothing; we are next tempted to think, that there is no true knowledge of God, and communion with him to be attained: And when we have been searching and striving long▪ and find that we can reach no more, we are tempted to think that the soul o • man is made but as the beasts, for present things, and is uncapable of those higher things which are revealed in the Gospel, and that if there were indeed a life to come, and man were made to enjoy his God, we should get nearer to him than we are, and know him more, and love him better.
§. 33. Direct. 12. It is a powerful means to kindle the Love of God in a believer, to foresee by faith the glory of Heaven, and what God will be there to his Saints forever. And thus to behold God in his GLORY, is the use of GRACE. Though the manner of knowing him thus by faith, be far short of what we there expect, yet it is the same God, and glory that now we believe, which then we must more openly behold. And therefore as that Apprehension of Love will inconceivably excel the highest which can be here attained; so the fore-thoughts of that doth excel all other arguments and means to affect us here; and will raise us as high as means can raise us. The greatest things, and greatest interest of our souls being there, will greatly raise us to the Love of God, if anything will do it: To foresee how near him we shall be ere long, and what a glorious proof we shall have of his good will! and how our souls will be ravished everlastingly with his Love! To think what hearts the blessed have that see his glory, and live with Christ! How full of love they are? and what a delight it is to them thus to love! must needs affect the heart of a Believer. [
§. 34. Direct. 13. Exercise your souls so frequently and diligently in this way of Love, that the Method of it may be familiar to you, and the means and motives still at hand, and you may presently be able to fall into the way, as one that is well acquainted with it, and may not be distracted and l • st in generals, as not knowing where to fix your thoughts. I know no Methods alone will serve to raise the dead, and cause a carnal senseless heart to love the Lord: But I know that many honest hearts, that have the Spirit of Love within them, have great need to be warned, that they quench not the Spirit, and great need to be directed how to stir up the grace which is given them: and that many live a more dull, or distracted, uncomfortable life, than they would do, if they wanted not Skill and Diligence. The soul is most backward to this highest work; and therefore hath the greater need of helps: And the best have so much need, as that it is well if all will serve to keep up Loving and Grateful thoughts of God upon their minds. And when every Trade, and Art, and Science, requireth diligence, exercise and experience, and all are Bunglers at it at the first, can we reasonably think that we are like to attain any high degrees, with sleight, and short, and seldom thoughts?
§. 35. Direct. 14. Yet let not weak-headed or mel • ncholly persons, set themselves on those Methods or lengths of Meditation, which their heads cannot bear, lest the Tempter get advantage of them, and abate their Love, by making Religion seem a torment to them: but let such take up with shorter obvious Meditations, and exercise their Love in an active obediential way of living. That is the best Physic that is fitted to the Patients strength and case: And thats the best Shoo that is meetest for the foot, and not that which is the biggest, or the finest. It is a great design of Satan to make all duties grievous and burdensome to us; and thereby to cast us into continual pain, and fear, and trouble, and so destroy our delight in God, and consequently our Love. Therefore pretend not to disability for carnal unwillingness and laziness of mind: but yet mar not all by grasping at more than you are able to bear: Take on as you are able, and increase your work, if God increase your strength. If a melancholy person crack his brain with immoderate, unseasonable endeavors, he will but disable himself for all.
§. 36. Direct. 15. Keep clear, and hold fast the Evidences of thy Sincerity, that thou mayest perceive thy interest in the Love of God; and resist the temptations which would hide his Love to thee, and cause thee to doubt of it, or deny it. Satan hath not his end when he hath troubled thee, and robbed thee of thy peace and comfort: It is worse that he is seeking to effect by this: His malice is more against God, than against thee: and more against God and thee in this point of Love, than in any other grace or duty. He knoweth that God esteemeth this most: And he knoweth if he could kill thy love, he kills thy soul. And he knoweth how natural it is to man to love those that love him, and hate those that hate him, be they never so excellent in themselves. And therefore if he can persuade thee into despair, and to think that God hateth thee, and is resolved to damn thee, he will not despair of drawing thee to hate God. Or if he do but bring thee to fear that he loveth thee not, he will think accordingly to abate thy love. I know that a truly gracious soul keepeth up its love, when it loseth its assurance, and mourneth, and longeth, and seeketh in love, when it cannot triumph and rejoice in love: But yet there are some prints left on the heart, of its former apprehensions of the love of God: And such souls exceedingly disadvantage themselves as to the exercises of love, and make it a work of wondrous difficulty. O it will exceedingly kindle love, when we can see God's surest Love-tokens in our hearts, and look to the promises, and say, They are all mine; and think of Heaven, as that which shall certainly be our own: and can say with Thomas, My Lord, and my God: and with Paul, that The life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, that loved me, and gave himself for me. Denyal of our grace may seem to be humility, but it tendeth to extinguish Love and Gratitude.
§. 57. But, you will say, I must avoid soul-delusion and Pharisaical ostentation on the other side; and few reach assurance: how then should we keep up the Love of God?
Answ. 1. Though I am not come to the point of Trying and Discerning Grace, I shall give you this much help in the way, because it is so useful to the exercises of Love. 1. If you have not Enjoying delighting Love, yet try whether you have not Desiring seeking Love. Love appeareth as truly in de • i •• ng and seeking Good as in delighting in it. Poor men show their Love of the world, by Desiring and seeking it, as much as rich men do in delighting in it. What is it that you most desire and seek? 2. Or if this be so weak that you scarce discern it, do you not find a mourning and lamenting Love? You show that you loved your money, by mourning when you lose it; and that you loved your friend by grieving for his death, as well as by delighting in him while he lived. If you heartily lament it as your greatest unhappiness and loss, when you think that God doth cast you off, and that you are void of Grac • , and cannot serve and honor him as you would, this shows you are not void of Love. 3. If you feel not that you Love him, do you feel that you would fain Love him, and that you Love to Love him? If you do so, it is a sign that you do Love him? When you do not only desire to find such an Evidence of salvation in you, but when you desire Love itself, and Love to Love God. Had you not rather have a heart to Love him perfectly, than to have all the riches in the world? Had you not rather live in the Love of God, if you could reach it, than to live in any earthly pleasure? If so, be sure he hath your hearts. The Will is the Love, and the Heart; If God have your Will he hath your Heart and Love. 4. What hath your Hearts if he have them not? Is there anything that you prefer and seek before him, and that you had rather have than him? Can you be content without him, and let him go, in exchange for any earthly pleasure? If not, it is a sign he hath your Hearts. You love him sa • ingly if you set more by nothing else than by him. 5. Do you love his holy Image in his word? Do you delight and meditate in his Law, Psalm 1. 2. Is it in your hearts? Psalm 40. 8. Or do you pray, Incline my heart unto thy Testimonies? Psalm 119. 36. If you love God's Image in his word, (the wisdom and holiness of it) you love God. 6. Do you love his Image on his Children? If you Love them for their heavenly wisdom and holiness, you so far Love God. He that loveth the Candle for its light, doth love the light itself and the sun: He that loveth the wise and holy for their wisdom and holiness, doth love wisdom and holiness itself. The word and the saints being more in the reach of our sensible apprehensions, than God himself is, we ordinarily feel our Love to them, more sensibly than our Love to God; when indeed it is God in his word and servants that we love: 1 John 3. 14. Psalm 15. 4. 7. Though for want of Assurance you feel not the delights of Love, have you not a heart that would delight in it more than in all the riches of the world, if you could but get assurance of your interest? Would it not comfort you more than anything if you could be sure he Loveth you, and could perfectly Love him and obey him? If so, it is not for want of Love that you delight not in him, but for want of Assurance. So that if God have thy heart, either in a delighting Love, or a seeking and desiring, or a lamenting mourning Love, he will not despise it or reject it. He is • igh to them that be of a broken heart, Psalm 34. 18. A broken and contrite heart is his sacrifice, which he will not despise, Psalm 51. 17. The good Lord will have mercy on everyone that prepareth their hearts to seek him, though they do it not according to the preparation of the sanctuary. 2 Cor. 30. 18, 19. By these Evidences you may discern the sincerity of Love in small degrees; and so you may make Love the occasion of more Love, by discerning that Goodness of God which is manifested to you in the least.
§. 38. 2. But suppose you cannot yet attain assurance: Neglect not to improve that Goodness and Mercy of God which he revealeth to you in the state that you are in? Love him but as Infinite Goodness should be loved, who so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, John 3. 16. Love him as the most blessed merciful God, who made you and all things, and hath given to the world an universal pardon, on condition of their penitent acceptance, and offereth them everlasting life, and all this purchased by the blood of Christ: Love him as one that offereth you reconciliation, and entreateth you to be saved; and as one that delighteth not in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn and live, and as one that would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, though he will save none but the penitent, that do acknowledge the truth. And when you love him sincerely on these accounts, you will have the evidence of his special Love to you.
§. 39. Direct. 16. Improve thy sense of natural and friendly love, to raise thee to the Love of God. When thou seest or feelest what Love a parent hath to children, and a Husband to a wife, or a Wife to a Husband, or faithful friends to one another, think then [What Love do I owe to God?
§. 40. Direct. 17. Think oft how delightful a life it would be to thee, if thou couldst but live in the Love of God: And then the complacency will provoke desire, and desire will turn thy face towards God till thou feel that thou lovest him. The Love of a friend hath its sweetness and delight: and when we Love them we feel such pleasure in our Love that we Love to Love them. How pleasant then would it be to Love thy God?
§. 41. Direct. 18. In thy Meditations upon all these incentives of Love, preach them over earnestly to thy Heart, and expostulate and plead with it by way of soliloquy, till thou feel the fire begin to burn. Do not only Think on the Arguments of Love, but dispute it out with thy Conscience, and by expostulating earnest reasonings with thy heart, endeavor to affect it. There is much more moving force in this earnest talking to ourselves, than in bare cogitation, that breaks not out into mental words. Imitate the most powerful Preacher that ever thou wast acquainted with: And just as he pleadeth the case with his hearers, and urgeth the truth and duty on them, by reason and importunity, so do thou in secret with thyself. There is more in this than most Christians are aware of, or use to practice. It is a great part of a Christians skill and duty to be a good preacher to himself. This is a lawful and a gainful way of preaching. No body here can make question of thy call, nor deny thee a License, nor silence thee, if thou silence not thyself. Two or three sermons a week from others, is a fair proportion: but two or three sermons a day from thyself, is ordinarily too little. Therefore I have added soliloquies to many of these Directions for Love, to show you how by such pleadings with yourselves, to affect your hearts and kindle Love.
§. 42. And O that this might be the happy fruit of these Directions with thee that art now reading or hearing them! That thou wouldst but offer up thy flaming Heart, to Jesus Christ our Great High Priest, to be presented an acceptable sacrifice to God! Or if it flame not in Love as thou desirest, yet give it up to the Holy Spirit to increase the flames. Thou little knowest how much God setteth by a Heart. He calleth to thee himself, My son, give me thy heart. Prov. 23. 26. Without it, he cares not for anything that thou canst give him: He cares not for thy fairest words without it: He cares not for thy loudest prayers without it: He cares not for thy costliest alms or sacrifices, if he have not thy heart. If thou give all thy goods to feed the poor, and give thy body to be burnt, and have not Love, it will profit thee nothing: If thou speak with the tongue of Men and Angels, and hast not Love, thou art but as sounding brass or a tinkling Cymbal: If thou canst prophecy, and preach to admiration, and understand all mysteries and knowledge, and hadst faith to do miracles, and have not Love, thou art Nothing: 1 Cor. 13. 1, 2, 3. Thou hast but a shadow, and wantest that which is the substance and life of all. Come then and make an agreement with God, and resolve now to Offer him thy Heart: He asketh thee for nothing which thou hast not: It is not for riches and lands that he seeketh to thee; for then the poor might say as Peter, silver and gold have I none: Give him but such as thou hast, and it sufficeth. He knoweth that it is a polluted sinful heart: but give it him, and he will make it clean: He knoweth that it is an unkind heart, that hath stood out too long: but give it him yet, and he will pardon and accept it. He knoweth that it is an unworthy heart: but give it him, and he will be its worth. Only see that you give it him entirely and unreservedly; for he will not bargain with the Devil or the world, for the dividing of thy heart between them. A half heart and a hollow heart, that is but lent him till fleshly interest or necessity shall call for it again, he will not accept. Only resign it to him, and do but Consent that thy Heart be his, and entirely and absolutely his, and he will take it and use it as his own. It is his own by title; Let it be also so by thy Consent. If God have it not, who shall have it? Shall the world, or pride, or fleshly lust? Did they make it? or did they purchase it? Will they be better to thee in the time of thy extremity? Do they bid more for thy heart than God will give thee? He will give thee his Son; and his Spirit, and Image, and the forgiveness of all thy sins: If the greatest gain, or honor, or pleasure will win it and purchase it, he will have it: If Heaven will buy it he will not break with thee for the price. Hath the world and sin a greater price than this to give thee? And what dost thou think that he will do with thy Heart? and how will he use it, that thou art loath to give it him? Will he blind it, and deceive it, and corrupt it, and abuse it, and at last torment it, as Satan will do? No; he will more illuminate it, and cleanse it, and quicken it, Psalm 51. 10. Ephes. 2. 1. Ier. 24. 7. He will make it new, and heal and save it: Ezek. 36. 26. 2 Cor. 5. 17. Tit. 3. 3. 5. and 2. 14. He will advance and honor it, with the highest relations, employments and delights: For Christ hath said, John 12. 26. [ If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: If any man serve me, him will my Father honor ] He will Love it, and govern it, and comfort it, and the Heart that is delivered to him shall be kept • ear unto his own: John. 26. 27. For the Father himself loveth you (saith Christ) because you have loved me. —Whereas if thou deliver not thy heart to him, it will feed on the poison of Iuscious vanity, which will gripe and tear it when it is down: it will be like a house that nothing dwelleth in, but Dogs, and Flies, and Worms, and Snakes: it will be like one that is lost in the Wilderness, or in the night, that tireth himself in seeking the way home, and the longer the worse: Despair and Restlesness will be its companions forever. Let me now once more in the name of God bespeak thy Heart? I will not use his commands or threatenings to thee now, (though these as seconds must be used) because that Love must have attractive arguments, and is not raised by mere authority or fear: If there be not Love and Goodness enough in God, to deserve the highest affections of every reasonable creature, then let him go, and give thy Heart to one that's better. Hear how God pleadeth his own cause with an unkind unthankful people, Mic. 6. 2, 3. Hear O ye mountains the Lord's controversy—O my people what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. What is there in him to turn away thy heart? Let malice itself say the worst without notorious impudence▪ against him: What hath he ever done that deserveth thy disaffection and neglect? What wouldst thou have to win a heart that is not in him? For which of his mercies or excellencies is it, that thou thus contemnest and abusest him? What dost thou want that he cannot, yea or will not give thee? Doth not thy tongue speak honourably of his Goodness, while thy heart contradicteth it, and denieth all? What hast thou found that will prove better to thee? Is it sin or God that must be thy glory, rest and joy, if thou wilt not be a firebrand of restlessness and misery forever? What sayest thou yet sinner? Shall God, or the world and fleshly pleasures have thy Heart? Art thou not yet convinced which best deserveth it, and which will be best to it? Canst thou be a loser by him? Will he make it worse, and sin make it better? Or wilt thou ever have cause to repent of giving it up to God, as thou hast of giving it to the world and sin? I tell thee, if God have not thy Heart, it were well for thee if thou hadst no Heart—I had a thousand times rather have the Heart of a dog or the basest creature, than that man's heart that followeth his fleshly lusts, and is not unfeignedly delivered up to God through Christ.
If I have not prevailed with your hearts for God, by all that I have said, your Consciences shall yet bear me witness, that I shown you God's title, and love, and goodness, and said that which ought to have prevailed: and you shall find ere long, who it is that will have the worst of it: But if you resolve and Give them presently to God, he will entertain them, and sanctify and save them: And this happy day and work will be the Angels joy, Luke 15. 7, 10. and it will be my joy, and especially your own everlasting joy.
Directions for Loving God as our Father and Felicity.
§. 2. Here I shall first give you these General Preparatives, (and then give you Directions for the exercise of holy Love.) 1. You must understand the Nature of Love to God: 2. You must understand the differences of this Love: 3. You must understand the Reasons of it: 4. And the Contraries of it: 5. And the Counterfeits of it.
§. 3. I. For the understanding of its Nature, observe these things: 1. It is not the Love of a particular good, but of the infinite Universal Good. The creature is a particular good, and our Love to it is a particular limited Love, confined as to a point. God is the Universal Good, and our Love to him is not limited by the object, but by the narrowness and imperfection of our faculties themselves. As suppose you had variety of Candles in your Room, and you had Diamonds and other refulgent things: You love each of these with a particular love, for their splendor and usefulness: and you more easily observe and feel the motion of this confined Love: But Light itself as Light, you love with a more Universal Love; which is greater, but not so sensibly observed. (Not as we speak of notional Universals in Logic, which have no existence but in particulars; but of the Natural, transcendent, infinite good, eternally existent, and arbitrarily appearing in some created particles) As the love of an infinite Light would differ from the Love of a Candle, and the love of an infinite Heat, from the love of a Fire, and the love of infinite Wisdom itself, from the love of a wise man; and the love of infinite Goodness itself from the love of a Good Man: So doth the love of God from the Love of a particular created good.
§. 4. 2. Our Love to God is not ordinarily so passionate, as our Love to Creatures: Because the nearness and sensibleness of the creature, promoteth such sensible operations: But God is not seen, or felt, or heard, but believed in by faith, and known by Reason: And the narrowness of the creature making resistances, stops and difficulties, occasioneth a turbulent passionatenes of love: when th • infiniteness of God hath no such occasion: Our love to creatures is like the running of a stream in a channel that is too narrow for it, where stops and bancks do make it go on with a roaring violence: But our love to God, is like the Brook that slideth into the Ocean where it is insensibly devoured. Therefore our Love to God must principally be perceived, not in violent passions, but in 1. A high estimation of him: 2. In the Wills adhaering to him: 3. And in the effects (to be mentioned anon). Yet when a Passionate Love is added to these, it may be the most excellent s • gnificati • ely and effectively. Some Philosophers think that God cannot at all be loved with a Passionate Love, because he is a pure immaterial being, and therefore cannot be the object of a material act or motion, such as our passions are; and therefore that it is some Idol of the imagination that is so loved: But 1. If they mean that his pure Essence in itself is not the immediate object of a passion, they may say the same of the Will itself: For man (at l • ast in flesh) can have no other V • liti • n of God, but as he is apprehended by the Intellect: And if by an Idol they mean the Image of God in the mind, gathered from the appearances of God in creatures, man in flesh hath no other knowledge of him: For here we know him but darkly, enigmatically, and as in a glass, and have no formal proper conception of him in his essence. So that the Rational powers themselves do no otherwise kn • w and will God's essence, but as represented to us in a glass. 2. And thus we may also love him passionately; it being God in his objective being as apprehended by the Intellect that we both Will and passionately Love. The Motion of the soul in flesh, may raise passions by the instrumentality of the corporeal Spirits, towards an immaterial object: which is called the object of those passions, not merely as Passions, but as the Passions of a Rational Agent; it being more nearly or primarily the object of the Intellect and Will, and then of the Passions, as first apprehended by these superior powers. A man may Delight in God, or else how is he our felicity: and yet we know of no Delight which is not Passion: A man may love his own soul with a passionate Love, and yet it is immaterial: when I passionately love my friend, it is his immaterial soul, and his wisdom, and holiness which I chiefly love.
§. 5. 3. It is not only for his Excellencies and Perfections in himself, nor only for his Love and benefit to us, that Grace doth cause a sinner to Love God; But it is for both conjunctly: as he is good, and doth good, especially to us, in the greatest things.
§. 6. 4. Our first special Love to God, is orderly and rationally to be raised, by the belief of his Goodness in himself, and his common Love and Mercy to sinners, manifested in his giving of his Son for the world, and giving men the Conditional promise of pardon and salvation, and offering them Christ and life eternal, and all this to us as well as others: and not to be caused by the belief or persuasion of his special peculiar electing, redeeming, or saving love to us above others, that have the same invitations and offers. It is the knowledge of Common Love and Mercy, and not of special Love and Mercy to us, as already possessed, that is appointed to be the motive of our first special Love to God: (Yet there is in it an apprehension that he is our only possible felicity, and that he will give us a special interest in his favor, if we return by faith in Christ unto him.) For 1. Every man is bound to Love God with a special Love: but every man is not specially beloved by him: And no man is bound to Love God as one that specially Loveth him, but those that indeed are so beloved by him: For else they were bound to believe a falsehood, and to Love that which is not; and grace should be an error and deceit. The object is before the act. God's special Love must in itself be before its Revelation: and as Revealed it must go before our belief of it; and as believed, it must go before our Loving it, or Loving him as such, or for it. 2. The first saving faith is inseparably conjunct with special Love: For Christ is believed in and willed, as the Way or Means to God as the End: (otherwise it is no true faith.) And the Volition of the End (which is Love ) is in order of nature before the choice or Use of the Means as such: And if we must Love God as one that specially Loveth us, in our first Love, then we must Believe in him as such by our first faith: And if so, it must be to us a Revealed Truth. But (as it is false to most that are bound to believe, so) it is not Revealed to the Elect themselves: For if it be, it is either by ordinary or extraordinary revelation: If by ordinary, either by Scripture directly, or by Evidences in ourselves which Scripture maketh the Characters of his Love. But neither of these: For Scripture promiseth not salvation to named, but described persons: And evidence of special Love there is none, before Faith and Repentance and the first Love to God. And extraordinary Revelations from Heaven by inspiration or Angel, is not the ordinary begetter of faith: For faith is the Belief of God speaking to us (now) by his written Word. So that where there is no Object of Love, there can be no Love: And where there is no Revelation of it to the understanding, there is no object for the will: And till a man first believe and Love God, he hath no Revelation that God doth specially Love him. Search as long as you will, you will find no other. 3. If the wicked were condemned for not Loving a false or feigned object, it would quiet their consciences in Hell when they had detected the deceit, and seen the natural impossibility and contradiction. 4. The first Love to God is more a Love of Desire, than of Possession: And therefore it may suffice to raise it, that we see a possibility of being forever happy in God, and enjoying him in special Love, though yet we know not that we possess any such Love. The Nature of the thing proclaimeth it most Rational and due, that we Love the Infinite Good, that hath done so much by the death of his Son to remove the impediments of our salvation, and is so far Reconciled to the world in his death, as by a message of Reconciliation, to entreat them to accept of Christ, and pardon, and salvation freely offered them 2 Cor. 5. 19, 20. and is himself the offered Happiness of the soul. He that dare say that this much hath not an Objective sufficiency to engage the soul in special Love, is a blind under-valuer of wonderful mercy. 5. The first special Grace bringeth no new Object for faith or Love, but causeth a new act upon the formerly revealed object.
§. 7. 5. But our Love to God is greatly increased and advantaged afterwards by the assurance or persuasion of his peculiar special Love to us. And therefore all Christians should greatly value such assurance, as the appointed means of advancing them to greater Love to God.
§. 8. 6. As we know God here in the glass of his Son, and Word, and Creatures, so we most sensibly Love him here, as his Goodness appeareth in his Works, and Graces, and his Word, and Son.
§. 9. 7. The nearer we come to perfection, the more we shall Love God for himself and his infinite Natural Goodness and perfections; not casting away the respects of his Goodness and Love as to ourselves; but highliest regarding himself for himself, as carried to him above ourselves.
§. 10. 11. Though Love in its own Nature be still the same; and is nothing but the Rational appetite of Good; or the Wills Volition of Good apprehended by the understanding; the first motion of the Will to Good, arising from that Natural inclination to Good which is the Nature of the Will, and the pondus animae, the poise of the soul; or from healing Grace, which repaireth the breach that is made in nature; Yet Love in regard of the state of the Lover, and the way of its imperate acting is thus differenced. 1. Either the Lover is in the Hopeful pursuit of the thing beloved: and then it is DESIRING SEEKING LOVE: 2 Or he is or seemeth to be denied, destitute, and deprived of his beloved (in whole or in part): and then it is a MOURNING LAMENTING LOVE. 3. Or he enjoyeth his beloved: and then it is ENJOYING DELIGHTING LOVE: 1. The ordinary Love which Grace causeth on Earth is a predominancy of seeking desiring Love, encouraged by some little fore-tastes of enjoying delighting Love, and in a great measure attended with Mourning Lamenting Love. 2. The state of deserted, dark, declining, relapsing, and melancholy tempted Christians, is, A predominance of Mourning Lamenting Love, assisted with some help of seeking desiring Love; but destitute of enjoying delighting Love. 3. The state of the Glorified is Perfection of enjoying delighting Love alone. And all the rest are to bring us unto this.
III. The Reasons why Love to God is so great, and high, and necessary a thing, and so much esteemed above other Graces, are: 1. It is the motion of the soul that tendeth to the End: And the End is more excellent than all the Means as such. 2. The Love, or Will, or Heart is the Man: where the Heart or Love is, there the Man is: It is the fullest resignation of the whole man to God, to Love him as God, or offer him the Heart. God never hath his Own fully, till we Love him. Love is the grand significant vital motion of the soul, such as the Heart, or Will, or Love is, such you may boldly call the man. 3. The Love of God is the perfection and highest improvement of all the faculties of the soul, and the End of all other Graces, to which they tend, and to which they grow up and in which they terminate their operations. 4. The Love of God is that Spirit or life of moral excellency in all other Graces in which (though not their form, yet) their acceptableness doth consist: without which they are to God as a lifeless Carrion is to us. And to prove any action sincere and acceptable to God, is to prove that it comes from a Willing Loving mind; without which you can never prove it. 5. Love is the commander of the soul: and therefore God knoweth that if he have our Hearts, he hath all: For all the rest are at its command: For it is as it were, the nature of the Will, which is the commanding faculty; and its Object is the Ultimate End which is the Commanding Object. Love settleth the mind on Thinking, the tongue on speaking, the hands on working, the feet on going, and every faculty obeyeth its command. 6. The obedience which Love commandeth participateth of its nature, and is a ready, cheerful, sweet obedience, acceptable to God, and pleasant to ourselves. 7. Love is a pure, chaste and cleansing grace; and most powerfully casteth out all creature pollution from the soul: The Love of God doth quench all carnal sinful love; and most effectually carrieth up the soul, to such high delights, as causeth it to contemn and forget the toys which it before admired. 8. The Love of God is the true acknowledging and honoring him as good. That blessed Attribute, his GOODNESS, is denied or despised by those that Love him not. The Light of the Sun would not be valued, honored or used by the world, if there were no eyes in the world to see it. And the Goodness of God is to them that Love him not, as the Light to them that have no eyes. If God would have had his Goodness to be thus unknown or neglected, he would never have made the Intellectual creatures. Those only give him the glory of his Goodness, that truly Love him. 9. Love (in its attainment) is the Enjoying and delighting Grace: It is the very content and felicity of the soul: Both as it maketh us capable to receive the most delightful communications of God's Love to us; and as it is the souls delightful closure with its most amiable felicitating object. 10. Love is the Everlasting Grace, and the work which we must be doing in Heaven forever. These are the the Reasons of Loves preeminence.
§. 12. IV. The Love of Creatures hath its Contraries on both extremes; in the excess and in the Defect: But the Love of God hath no contrary in excess: For infinite Goodness cannot possibly be Loved too much (unless as the passion may possibly be raised to a degree distracting or disturbing the brain.) The odious Vices contrary to the Love of God, are 1. Privative: Not loving him: 2. Positive: Hating him: 3. Opposite: Loving his creatures in his stead. All these concur in every unsanctified soul. That they are all void of the true Love of God, and taken up with creature Love, is past all doubt: But whether they are all Haters of God, may seem more questionable. But it is as certain as the other: Only the hatred of God in most, doth not break out into that open opposition, persecution or blasphemy, as it doth with some that are given up to desperate wickedness: Nor do they think that they hate him. But the Aversation of the Will, is the Hatred of God: And if men had not a great aversation to him, they would not forsake him, and refuse to be converted to him, notwithstanding all the arguments of Love that can be used to allure them. Displicency, N • liti • n and Aversation are Hatred.
§. 13. If you think it impossible that men can Hate God, whom they confess to be infinitely good; Consider for the true understanding of this Hatred; 1. That it is not as good that they hate him. 2. And it is not God simply in himself considered. 3. And therefore it is not all in God. 4. And it is not the name of God. 5. But it is 1. God as he seemeth unsuitable to them, and unfit for their delight and Love: which seeming is caused by their carnal inclination to things of another nature▪ and the sinful perverting of their appetites, and the blindness and error of their minds. 2. And it is God as he is an enemy to their carnal concupiscence; whose Holy nature is against their unholiness, and hateth their sin, and his Laws forbid them the things which they most love and take delight in: And so they hate God, as a mad man hateth his Keeper and Physician, and takes them for his enemies; and as a hungry Dog doth hate him that keepeth him from the meat which he loveth, or would take it out of his mouth: 3. And they hate God, as one that by his Holiness, Justice and Truth is engaged to condemn them for their sin, and so (consequently to their sin) is their enemy that will destroy them (unless they forsake it): when their Wills are enslaved to their sins, and they cannot endure to be forbidden them, and yet see that God will damn them in Hell fire, if they cast them not away, this filleth them with displicency against God, as Holy and Just. 4. And then consequently they hate him in the rest of his Attributes: As his Omniscience, that he always seeth them. His Omnipresence, that he is always with them: His Omnipotency, that he is unresistible, and able to punish them. His very mercy as expressed to others, when they must have no part in it: yea, his very immutability, eternity and being, as he is to continue an avenger of their iniquity: so that the wicked in despair do wish that there were no God; and in prosperity they wish he were not their Governor and Judge, or were unholy and unjust, allowing them to do what they list without account or punishment. Thus God is hated by the wicked according to the measure of their wickedness and carnal interest and concupiscence which he is against. Where you may note, 1. That the Hatred of God beginneth at the sensual Love of things temporal which he forbiddeth: 2. That the wicked great ones of the world, and those that have the strongest concupiscence, are usually the greatest haters of God, as having the greatest adverse interest, and being most in love with the things which he prohibiteth and will condemn.
§. 14. V. The Counterfeit of Love to God, is something that seemeth like it, and yet is consistent with prevalent hatred, or privation of true Love, and maketh self-deceiving Hypocrites. 1. One is when so much of God is Loved as men think hath no opposition to their lusts and carnal interest: (as his mercy and readiness to forgive); and then they think that they truly Love God, though they hate his Holiness and other attributes. 2. Another Counterfeit is, to Love God upon mistakes, imagining that he is of the sinners mind, and will bear with him, and not condemn him, though he continue sensual and ungodly: This is not indeed to Love God; but something contrary to God: If men's fantasies will take God to be like the Devil, a friend to sin, and no friend to holiness, and false in his threatenings, &c. and thus will Love him, this is so far from being indeed the Love of God, that it is an odious blaspheming of him. 3. Another counterfeit is to Love God only for his temporal mercies; as because he preserveth and maintaineth them; when yet he is resisted when he would give them things spiritual. 4. Another is, when the opinionative approbation of the mind, and honoring God with the lips and knee, is mistaken for true Love. In a word, whatever Love of God, respecteth him not as God indeed, and is not superlative, but is subservient to creature Love, is but a counterfeit.
§. 15. VI. The Directions for the exercise of the Love of God are these.
Direct. 1. Consider well that the Love of our Creator, Redeemer and Regenerater, is the very end for which we are Created, Redeemed and Regenerate, and how just it is that God should have the end of such excellent works; and that by neglecting or opposing the Love of God which is the end, we neglect or oppose the works of Creation, Redemption and Regeneration themselves. Let us plead these Works of God with our hearts, and say,
§. 16. [
§. 17. [
§. 18. Direct. 2. Think of the perfect fitness of God to be the only Object of thy superlative Love; and how easy and necessary it should seem to us to do a work so agreeable to right Reason and uncorrupted Nature; and abhor all temptations which would make God seem unsuitable to thee. [
§. 19. Direct. 3. Imagine not God to be far away from thee, but think of him as always near thee and with thee, in whose present Love and Goodness thou dost subsist. Nearness of Objects doth excite the faculties: we hear no sound, nor smell no odour, nor taste no sweetness, nor see no colors, that are too distant from us: And the mind being limited in its activity, neglecteth or reacheth not things too distant, and requireth some Nearness of its object, as well as the sense. Especially to the excitation of affections and bodily action. A distant danger stirreth not up such fears, nor a distant misery such grief, nor a distant benefit such pleasure, as that which is at hand. Death doth more deeply affect us, when it seemeth very near, than when we think we have yet many years to live. So carnal minds are so drowned in flesh and captivated to sense, that they take little notice of what they see not, and therefore think of God as absent, because they see him not: They think of him as confined to Heaven, as we think of a friend that is in the East Indies, or at the Antipodes, who is, if not out of mind as well as out of sight, yet too distant for us delightfully to converse with. [
§. 20. Direct. 4. All other Graces must do their part in assisting Love, and all be exercised in subservience to it, and with an intention (directly or remotely) to promote it. Fear and watchfulness must keep away the sin that would extinguish it, and preserve you from that Guilt which would frighten away the soul from God: Repentance and mortification must keep away diverting and deceiving objects, which would steal away our Love from God: Faith must show us God as present, in all his blessed attributes and perfections: Hope must depend on him for nearer access and the promised felicity. Prudence must choose the fittest season, and means and helps from our special approaches to him; and teach us how to avoid impediments: And obedience must keep us in a fit capacity for communion with him. The mind that is turned loose to wander after vanity the rest of the day, is unfit in an hour of prayer or meditation to be taken up with the Love of God. It must be the work of the day, and of our lives, to walk in a fitness for it, though we are not always in the immediate lively exercise of it. To sin willfully one hour, and be taken up with the love of God the next, is as unlikely, as one hour to abuse our Parents, and provoke them to correct us, and the next to find the pleasure of their love; or one hour to fall and break ones bones, and the next to run and work as pleasantly as we did before.
§. 21. And we must see that all other Graces be exercised in a just subserviency to Love; and none of them degenerate into noxious extremes, to the hindrance of this which is their proper end. When you set yourselves to Repent and Mourn for sin, it must be from Love, and for Love: That by ingenuous lamentation of the injuries you have done to a gracious God, you may be cleansed from the filth that doth displease him, and being reconciled to him in Christ, may be fit to return to the exercises and delights of Love. When you Fear God, let it be with a Filial fear, that comes from Love, and is but a preservative or restorative for Love. Avoid that slavish fear as a sin, which tendeth to hatred, and would make you fly away from God. Love casteth out this tormenting fear, and freeth the soul from the Spirit of bondage. The Devil tempteth melancholy persons to live before God, as one that is still among Bears or Lions that are ready to devour him: For he knoweth how much such a fear is an enemy to Love. Satan would never promote such fears, if they were of God, and tended to our good. You never found him promoting your Love or Delight in God! But he careth not how much he plungeth you into distracting terrors: If he can, he will frighten you out of your Love, and out of your comforts, and out of your wits. A dull and sluggish sinner he will keep from fear, lest it should awaken him from his sin: But a poor melancholy, penitent soul he would keep under perpetual terrors: It is so easy to such to fear, that they may know it is a sinful inordinate fear: For gracious works are not so easy. And resist also all humiliation and grief, that doth not (immediately or remotely) tend to help your Love. A Religion that tendeth but to grief, and terminateth in grief, and goeth no further, hath too much in it of the malice of the enemy, to be of God. No tears are desirable, but those that tend to clear the eyes from the filth of sin, that they may see the better the loveliness of God.
§. 22. Direct. 5. Esteem thy want of Love to God, (with the turning of it unto the creature) to be the Heart of the old man; thy most comprehensive odious sin; and observe this as the life of all thy particular sins, and hate it above all the rest. This is the very death and greatest deformity of the soul; the absence of God's Image, and Spirit, and objectively of himself. I never loath my heart so much as when I observe how little it loveth the Lord. Methinks all the sins that ever I committed, are not so loathsome to me, as this want of Love to God. And it is this that is the venom and malignity of every particular sin: [
§. 23. Direct. 6. Improve the principle of self-love, to the promoting of the Love of God, by considering what he hath done for thee, and what he is and would be to thee. I mean not carnal inordinate self-love which is the chiefest enemy of the Love of God: But I mean that rational Love of Happiness and self-preservation which God did put into innocent Adam, and hath planted in man's nature as necessary to his Government. This natural innocent self-love is that remaining principle in the Heart of man which God himself doth still presuppose in all his Laws and Exhortations; and which he taketh advantage of in his works and word, for the conversion of the wicked, and the persuading of his servants themselves to their obedience. This is the common principle in which we are agreed with all the wicked of the world [ that all men should desire and seek to be happy, and choose and do that which is best for themselves; ] or else it were in vain for Ministers to preach to them, if we were agreed in nothing, and we had not this ground in them to cast our seed into, and to work upon. And if self-love be but informed and guided by understanding, it will compel you to Love God, and tell you that nothing should be so much Loved. Everyone that is a man must Love himself: We will not entreat him, nor be beholden to him for this: And everyone that Loveth himself, will Love that which he judgeth Best for himself: And every wise man must know, that he never had, nor can have any good at all, but what he had from God. Why do men Love lust, or wealth, or honor, but because they think that these are good for them? And would they not Love God, if they practically knew that he is the Best of all for them, and instead of all? [
Here also consider what God is for your future good, as well as what he hath been hitherto: How all sufficient, how powerful, merciful and good: But of this more anon.
§. 24. Direct. 7. Improve the vanity and vexation of the Creature, and all thy disappointments, and injuries, and afflictions, to the promoting of thy Love to God. And this by a double advantage: First, By observing that there is nothing meet to divert thy Love, or rob God of it; unless thou wilt Love thy trouble and distress! Secondly, That thy Love to God is the comfort by which thou must be supported under the injuries and troubles which thou meetest with in the world: And therefore to neglect it, is but to give up thyself to misery. [
§. 25. Direct. 8. Labor for the truest and fullest conceptions of the Goodness and excellencies of God, which are his Amiableness; and abhor all misrepresentations of him as unlovely. That which is apprehended as unlovely cannot be loved: And that which is apprehended as evil is apprehended as unlovely. Therefore it is the grand design of Satan to hide God's Goodness, and misrepresent him as evil: Not to deny him to be Good in himself (for in that he hath no hope to be believed); but to persuade men that he is not Good to them▪ or to make them forget or overlook his goodness. Not to persuade them that God is Evil in himself; but that he is evil to them, by restraining them from their beloved sins, and hating them as sinners, and resolving to damn them if they go on impenitently. This which is part of the Goodness of God, he maketh them believe is evil, by engaging them in a way and interest, which he knoweth that God is engaged against, and enticing them under the strokes of his Justice: And he tempteth believers themselves to poor diminutive unworthy thoughts of the Goodness and Mercifulness of God, and to continual apprehensions of his wrath and terrors: And if he can make them believe that God is their enemy, and think of him only as a consuming fire, how little are they like to Love him? If Christians knew how much of the Devils malice against God and them, doth exercise itself in this, to make God appear to man unlovely, they would more studiously watch against such misrepresentations, and fly from them with greater hatred. Not that we must first by the advice of arrogant Reason and self-love, as some do, draw a false description of Goodness and Amiableness in our minds, and make that the measure of our judgment of God, his nature, attributes and decrees; nor take his Goodness to be only his suitableness to our opinions, wills and interest: But we must take out from the word and works of God that true description of his Goodness which he hath given of himself, and expunge out of our conceits whatsoever is contrary to it. Think of God's Goodness in proportion with his other attributes. [O my soul, how unequally hast thou thought of God?
§. 26. Direct. 9. The great Means of promoting Love to God, is duly to behold him in his appearances to man, in the ways of NATURE, GRACE and GLORY: First therefore learn to understand and improve his appearances in NATURE, and to see the Creator in all his works, and by the Knowledge and Love of them to be raised to the Knowledge and Love of him: Though sin hath so disabled us to the due improvement of these Appearances of God in nature, that Grace must restore us, before we can do it effectually and acceptably; yet Objectively Nature is still the same in substance, and affordeth us much help to the Knowledge and Love of God. He knoweth nothing of the world aright, that knoweth not God in it, and by it. Some note that the greatest students in Nature are not usually the best proficience in grace; and that Philosophers and Physicians are seldom great admirers of piety: But this is to judge of the wise by the foolish, and to impute the ignorance and impiety of some, to others that abhor it. Doubtless he is no Philosopher but a fool, that seeth not and admireth not the Creator in his works. Indeed if a man do wholly give himself to know the shape and form of Letters, and to write them curiously, or cut them in brass or stone, or to print them, and not to understand their significations or use, no wonder if he be ignorant of the arts and sciences, which those Letters well understood would teach him: Such a man may be called an Engraver a S • rivener, a Printer but not a Scholar: And no better can the Atheist be call • d a Philosopher or a learned man, that denieth the most wise Almighty author, while he beholdeth his works: When the Nature and Name of God is so plainly • ngraven upon them all. It is a great part of a Christians daily busyness, to see and admire God in his works, and to use them as steps to ascend by to himself Psal 111. 2, 3, 4. The works of the •• rd •• e great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein: His work is hon • urable and gl •• i • us; and his righteousness endureth forever: He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered —Psal. 143. 5▪ I meditate on all thy works: I muse on the works of thy hands. [Psal. 77. 12. I will meditate also of all thy works, and talk of thy d • ings. Psal. 92. 4, 5, 6. For thou Lord hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a f • ol understand this: As the praising of God's works, so the observing of God in his works, is much of the work of a holy soul. Psal. 145. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: And his greatness is unsearchable: One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts: I will speak of the glorious honor of his Magisty, and of thy wondr • us works. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; and I will declare thy greatness: They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great Goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness:—All thy works shall praise thee O Lord, and thy Saints shall bless thee—The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. Rom. 1. 19, 20. That which may be known of God is manifest to them: For God hath shown it to them: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: Even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. ] If we converse in the world as believers or rational creatures ought, we should as oft as David repeat these words. Psal. 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness! and for his wondr • us works to the Children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoy • ing: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do busyness in great waters: these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. verse 21, 22, 23, 24. But this is a subject • itter for a Volume (of Physicks Theologically handled), than for so short a touch. What an excellent Book is the visible world for the daily studies of a holy soul? Light is not more visible to the eye in the Sun, than the Goodness of God is in it and all the creatures to the mind. If I Love not God, when all the word revealeth his Loveliness, and every creature telleth me that he is Good, what a blind and wicked heart have I? O wonderful Wisdom, and Goodness, and Power which appeareth in everything we see? In every Tree, and Plant, and Flower: In every Bird, and Beast, and Fish: In every Worm, and Fly, and creeping thing: In every part of the Body of Man or Beast: Much more in the admirable composure of the whole: In the Sun, and Moon, and Starrs, and Meteors: In the Lightning and Thunder; the Air and Winds; the Rain and Waters; the Heat and Cold; the Fire, and the Earth; Especially in the composed frame of all, so far as we can see them set together: In the admirable order and cooperation of all things: In their times and seasons; and the wonderful usefullness of all for man: O how Glorious is the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of God in all the frame of nature! Every creature silently speaks his Praise, declaring Him to Man whose office is, as the worlds High▪Priest, to stand between them and the Great Creator, and expressly offer him the praise of all. Psal. 8. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9. When I consider the Heavens the work of thy fingers, the Moon, and the Starrs which thou hast ordained: What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels; and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet: O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy Name in all the earth? O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness, and declare his wondrous works to the children of men! The earth is full of the Goodness of the Lord: Psal. 33. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Read Psalm 65. Thus Love God as appearing in the works of Nature.
§. 27. Direct. 10. Study to know God, as he appeareth more clearly to sinners in his Goodness in the works of GRACE; especially in his Son, his Covenant, and his Saints, and there to Love him, in the admiration of his Love. Here Love hath made itself an advantage of our sin, and unworthiness, of our necessities and miseries, of the Law and justice, and the flames of Hell: The abounding of sin and misery hath glorified abounding Grace: That Grace which fetcheth sons for God from among the voluntary vassals of the Devil: Which fetcheth Children of Light out of darkness; and Living souls from among the dead; and heirs for Heaven from the gates of Hell; and brings us as from the Gallows to the Throne. 1. A believing view of the Nature, Undertaking, Love, Obedience, Doctrine, Example, Sufferings, Intercession and Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST, must needs inflame the believers hearts with an answerable degree of the Love of God. To look on a Christ and not Love God, is to have eyes and not to see, and to overlook him while we seem to look on him. He is the liveliest Image of Infinite Goodness, and the messenger of the most unsearchable astonishing Love, and the purchaser of the most invaluable benefits, that ever were revealed to the sons of men. Our greatest Love must be kindled by the Greatest revelations and communications of the Love of God. And Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, John 15. 13. that is, Men have no dearer and clearer a way to express their Love to their friends: But that Love is aggravated indeed which will express itself as far for enemies. But God commendeth his Love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life: Rom. 5. 8, 9, 10. Steep then that stiff and hardened heart in the blood of Christ, and it will melt: Come near with Thomas, and by the passage of his wounds, get near unto his heart, and it will change thy unkind unthankful heart into the very nature of Love. Christ is the best Teacher of the lesson of Love, that ever the world had: who taught it not only by his words, but by his blood: by his life and by his death▪ If thou canst not learn it of him, thou canst never learn it. Love is the greatest commander of Love; and the most effectual argument that can insuperably constrain us to it. And none ever loved at the measure and rates that Christ hath loved. To stand by such a fire, is the way for a congealed heart to melt, and the coldest affections to grow warm. A lively faith still holding Christ, the Glass of infinite Love and Goodness, before our faces, is the greatest Lesson in the Art of Love.
§. 28. 2. Behold God also in his Covenant of Grace, which he hath made in Christ. In that you may see suc • s • r • , such great and wonderful mercies, freely given out to a world of sinners, and to yourselves among the rest, as may afford abundant matter for Love and Thankfulness to feed on while you live. There you may see how loath God is that sinners should perish: How he delighteth in mercy: And how great and unspeakable that mercy is. There you may s • e an Act of Pardon and Oblivion granted upon the reasonable condition of Believing, Penitent Acceptance, to all mankind: The sins that men have been committing many years together, their will • ul h • ynous aggravated sins, you may there see pardoned by more aggravated Mercy: and the enemies of God reconciled to him, and condemned rebels saved from Hell, and brought into his family, and made his sons. [O what an Image of the Goodness of God is apparent in the tenor of his word and Covenant? H • liness and Mercy make up the whole: They are expressed in every leaf and line. The precepts which seem too strict to sinners, are but the perfect Rules of Holiness and Love, for the health and happiness of man. What Loveliness did David find in the Law itself? And so should we, if we read it with his eyes and heart: It was sweeter to him than honey: he loved it above gold, Psalm 119. 127, and 97. he crieth out O how I love thy Law! it is my meditation all the day And must not the Law-giver then be much more lovely, whose Goodness here appeareth to us?