A Christian Directory Volume I Part 33

_Rule_ XVI. 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 G.o.d, and true obedience, and the common good, is sincerely intended, and an error and sin of false-heartedness and sloth, when selfishness is the secret spring of the error, and carnal interest the real end, though G.o.d and his service be pretended. And usually the concomitants will show something of this to others. For instance; two magistrates and two ministers submit to some questioned imposition, all pretend that the glory of G.o.d, and his service, is it that prevaileth with them to submit. The one of the magistrates faithfully serves G.o.d 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 laboureth 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.

[Sidenote: For loving G.o.d as our Father, our Benefactor, and our end.]

_Grand Direct._ XI. Let it be most deeply engraven on thy heart, that G.o.d 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 inflamed 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 for ever. And first let us speak of LOVE.

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 G.o.d. In the fifth, how to know G.o.d 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 directed you in your relation of soldiers to Christ the Captain of your salvation. In the tenth I directed you in the relation of servants to Christ your Master. And now being past those subordinate relations (to the second), I proceed to direct you in your third grand relation to G.o.d 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 G.o.d as our Father and Felicity._

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 G.o.d. 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.

[Sidenote: G.o.d is not loved as a particular good, but as the universal good.]

I. For the understanding 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. G.o.d 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 splendour 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 G.o.d from the love of a particular, created good.

[Sidenote: Whether G.o.d may be the object of pa.s.sionate love.]

2. Our love to G.o.d is not ordinarily so pa.s.sionate as our love to creatures; because the nearness and sensibleness of the creature promoteth such sensible operations. But G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionateness of love; when the infiniteness of G.o.d 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 banks do make it go on with a roaring violence; but our love to G.o.d is like the brook that slideth into the ocean, where it is insensibly devoured. Therefore our love to G.o.d must princ.i.p.ally be perceived, not in violent pa.s.sions, but in, 1. A high estimation of him. 2. In the will's adhering to him. 3. And in the effects (to be mentioned anon). Yet when a pa.s.sionate love is added to these, it may be the most excellent significatively and effectively. Some philosophers think that G.o.d cannot at all be loved with a pa.s.sionate love, because he is a pure, immaterial Being, and therefore cannot be the object of a material act or motion, such as our pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sion, they may say the same of the will itself; for man (at least in flesh) can have no other volition of G.o.d, but as he is apprehended by the intellect. And if by an idol they mean the image of G.o.d in the mind, gathered from the appearances of G.o.d in creatures, man in flesh hath no other knowledge of him; for here we know him but darkly, enigmatically, and as in a gla.s.s, and have no formal, proper conception of him in his essence. So that the rational powers themselves do no otherwise know and will G.o.d's essence, but as represented to us in a gla.s.s. 2. And thus we may also love him pa.s.sionately; it being G.o.d in his objective being as apprehended by the intellect that we both will and pa.s.sionately love. The motion of the soul in flesh may raise pa.s.sions, by the instrumentality of the corporeal spirits, towards an immaterial object; which is called the object of those pa.s.sions, not merely as pa.s.sions, but as the pa.s.sions of a rational agent; it being more nearly or primarily the object of the intellect and will, and then of the pa.s.sions, as first apprehended by these superior powers. A man may delight in G.o.d; or else, how is he our felicity? and yet, we know of no delight which is not pa.s.sion. A man may love his own soul with a pa.s.sionate love; and yet it is immaterial. When I pa.s.sionately love my friend, it is his immaterial soul, and his wisdom, and holiness, which I chiefly love.

[Sidenote: What of G.o.d is the object of our love.]

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 G.o.d; but it is for both conjunctly; as he is good, and doth good, especially to us, in the greatest things.

[Sidenote: What is the motive of our first love to G.o.d.]

4. Our first special love to G.o.d, is orderly and rationally to be raised, 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, as already possessed, that is appointed to be the motive of our first special love to G.o.d. (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 favour, if we return by faith in Christ unto him.) For, 1. Every man is bound to love G.o.d with a special love: but every man is not specially beloved by him: and no man is bound to love G.o.d 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. G.o.d's special love must in itself be before its revelations; 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. And extraordinary revelation from heaven, by inspiration or angel, is not the ordinary begetter of faith; for faith is the belief of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, he hath no revelation that G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l when they had detected the deceit, and seen the natural impossibility and contradiction. 4. The first love to G.o.d is more a love of desire, than of possession; and therefore it may suffice to raise it, that we see a possibility of being for ever happy in G.o.d, 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. v. 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 undervaluer 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.

5. But our love to G.o.d is greatly increased and advantaged afterwards by the a.s.surance or persuasion of his peculiar, special love to us.

And therefore all christians should greatly value such a.s.surance, as the appointed means of advancing them to greater love to G.o.d.

6. As we know G.o.d here in the gla.s.s 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.

7. The nearer we come to perfection, the more we shall love G.o.d 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.

II. Though love in its own nature be still the same, and is nothing but the rational appet.i.te of good; or the will's 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, dest.i.tute, 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 foretastes 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, a.s.sisted with some help of seeking, desiring love; but dest.i.tute 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.[114]

III. The reasons why love to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, to love him as G.o.d, or offer him the heart. G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d as a lifeless carrion is to us. And to prove any action sincere and acceptable to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 setteth 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, partic.i.p.ateth of its nature, and is a ready, cheerful, sweet obedience, acceptable to G.o.d, and pleasant to ourselves. 7. Love is a pure, chaste, and cleansing grace; and most powerfully casteth out all creature pollution from the soul:[115] the love of G.o.d 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 G.o.d is the true acknowledging and honouring 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, honoured, or used by the world, if there were no eyes in the world to see it. And the goodness of G.o.d is to them that love him not, as the light to them that have no eyes. If G.o.d 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 G.o.d's love to us; and as it is the soul's delightful closure with its most amiable felicitating object. 10. Love is the everlasting grace, and the work which we must be doing in heaven for ever. These are the reasons of love's pre-eminence.

IV. The love of creatures hath its contraries on both extremes, in the excess and in the defect; but the love of G.o.d hath no contrary in excess: for Infinite Goodness cannot possibly be loved too much (unless as the pa.s.sion may possibly be raised to a degree distracting or disturbing the brain). The odious vices contrary to the love of G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and taken up with creature love, is past all doubt; but whether they are all haters of G.o.d, may seem more questionable. But it is as certain as the other; only the hatred of G.o.d 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 G.o.d; 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. Displacency, nolition, and aversation are hatred.

If you think it impossible that men can hate G.o.d, 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 G.o.d simply in himself considered; 3. and therefore it is not all in G.o.d; 4. and it is not the name of G.o.d; 5. but it is, 1. G.o.d 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 appet.i.tes, and the blindness and error of their minds. 2. And it is G.o.d 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 G.o.d, as a madman 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 G.o.d, as one who 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 G.o.d will d.a.m.n them in h.e.l.l-fire if they cast them not away: this filleth them with displacency against G.o.d, 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 irresistible 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, as having the greatest adverse interest, and being most in love with the things which he prohibiteth and will condemn.

V. The counterfeit of love to G.o.d 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 G.o.d is loved as men think hath no opposition to their l.u.s.ts and carnal interest (as his mercy and readiness to forgive); and then they think that they truly love G.o.d, though they hate his holiness and other attributes. 2. Another counterfeit is, to love G.o.d upon mistakes, imagining that he is of the sinner's mind, and will bear with him and not condemn him, though he continue sensual and unG.o.dly: this is not indeed to love G.o.d, but something contrary to G.o.d. If men's fantasies will take G.o.d 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 G.o.d, that it is an odious blaspheming of him. 3.

Another counterfeit is, to love G.o.d 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 honouring G.o.d with the lips and knee, are mistaken for true love. In a word, whatever love of G.o.d respecteth him not as G.o.d indeed, and is not superlative, but is subservient to creature love, is but a counterfeit.

VI. The directions for the exercise of the love of G.o.d are these:

_Direct._ I. Consider well, that the love of our Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator, is the very end for which we are created, redeemed, and regenerate; and how just it is that G.o.d should have the end of such excellent works, and that by neglecting or opposing the love of G.o.d, which is the end, we neglect or oppose the works of creation, redemption, and regeneration themselves.--Let us plead these works of G.o.d with our hearts, and say,--1. O sluggish soul! dost thou forget the use for which thou wast created, and for which thou wast endowed with rational faculties? Dost thou repent that thou art a man, and refuse the employment of a man? What is the means or instrument good for, but its proper end, and use, and action? G.o.d made the sun to shine, and it shineth; he made the earth to support us and bear fruit, and it doth accordingly: and he made thee to love him, and wilt thou refuse and disobey? How n.o.ble and excellent is thy employment in comparison of theirs! Is the fruit of the earth, or the labour of thy beast, or the service of any inferior creature, so sweet and honourable a work as thine, to know and love thy bountiful, glorious Creator? How happy is thy lot! how blessed is thy portion in comparison of theirs! And dost thou forsake thy place, and descend to more ign.o.ble objects, as if thou hadst rather been some silly, sordid animal? If thou hadst not rather be a beast than a man, why choosest thou the love and pleasures of a beast, and refusest the love and pleasures of a man? Is creation, and the image of G.o.d in a rational, free soul, a thing thus to be contemned for nothing? What is the sun good for, if it should yield no light or heat? And what art thou good for more than the beasts that perish, if thou know not and love not thy Creator? If G.o.d should offer to unman thee, and turn thee into a horse or dog, thou wouldst think he thrust thee into misery; and yet thou canst voluntarily and wilfully unman thyself, and take it as thy ease and pleasure. If death came this night to dissolve thy nature, it would not please thee; and yet thou canst daily destroy thy nature, as to its use and end, and not lament it! It were better I had never been a man, nor never had a heart or love within me, if I use it not in the holy love of my Creator. It is true, I have a body that is made to eat, and drink, and sleep; but all this is but to serve my soul in the love of him that giveth me all. Life is not for meat, or drink, or play; but these are for life, and life for the higher ends of life.

2. Look unto thy Redeemer, drowsy soul! and consider for what end he did redeem thee: Was it to wander a few years about the earth, and to sleep, and sport awhile in flesh? Or was it to crucify thee to the world, and raise thee up to the love of G.o.d? He came down to earth from love itself, being full of love, to show the loveliness of G.o.d, and reconcile thee to him, and take away the enmity, and by love to teach thee the art of love. His love constrained him to offer himself a sacrifice for sin, to make thee a priest thyself to G.o.d, to offer up the sacrifice of an inflamed heart in love and praise; and wilt thou disappoint thy Redeemer, and disappoint thyself of the benefits of his love? The means is for the end; thou mayst as well say, I would not be redeemed, as to say, I would not love the Lord.

3. And bethink thyself, O drowsy soul, for what thou wast regenerated and sanctified by the Spirit? Was it not that thou mightst know and love the Lord? What is the Spirit of adoption that is given to believers, but a Spirit of predominant love to G.o.d? Gal. iv. 6. Thou couldst have loved vanity, and doted on thy fleshly friends and pleasures, without the Spirit of G.o.d: it was not for these, but to destroy these, and kindle a more n.o.ble, heavenly fire in thy breast, that the Spirit did renew thee. Examine, search, and try thyself, whether the Spirit hath sanctified thee or not. Knowest thou not, that if "any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his?" 2 Cor. xiii. 5; Rom. viii. 9. And if Christ and his Spirit be in thee, thy love is dead to earthly vanity, and quickened and raised to the most holy G.o.d. Live then in the Spirit, if thou have the Spirit: to walk in the Spirit is to walk in love. Hath the regenerating Spirit given thee on purpose a new principle of love, and done so much to excite it, and been blowing at the coals so oft, and shall thy carnality or sluggishness yet extinguish it? As thou wouldst not renounce or contemn thy creation, thy redemption, and regeneration, contemn not and neglect not the love of thy Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator, which is the end of all.

_Direct._ II. Think of the perfect fitness of G.o.d 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 G.o.d seem unsuitable to thee.--O sluggish and unnatural soul! should not an object so admirably fit allure thee? Should not such attractive goodness draw thee? Should not perfect amiableness win thee wholly to itself? Do but know thyself and G.o.d, and then forbear to love him if thou canst!

Where should the fish live, but in the water? And where should birds fly, but in the air? G.o.d is thy very element: thou diest and sinkest down to brutishness, if thou forsake him or be taken from him. What should delight the smell, but odours? or the appet.i.te, but its delicious food? or the eye, but light, and what it showeth? and the ear, but harmony? and what should delight the soul, but G.o.d? If thou know thyself, thou knowest that the nature of thy mind inclineth to knowledge; and by the knowledge of effects, to rise up to the cause; and by the knowledge of lower and lesser matters, to ascend to the highest and greatest. And if thou know G.o.d, thou knowest that he is the cause of all things, the Maker, Preserver, and Orderer of all, the Being of beings, the most great, and wise, and good, and happy; so that to know him, is to know all; to know the most excellent, independent, glorious Being, that will leave no darkness nor unsatisfied desire in thy soul. And is he not then most suitable to thy mind? If thou know thyself, then thou knowest that thy will, as free as it is, hath a natural, necessary inclination to goodness. Thou canst not love evil as evil; nor canst thou choose but love apprehended goodness, especially the chiefest good, if rightly apprehended. And if thou know G.o.d, thou knowest that he is infinitely good in himself, and the cause of all the good that is in the world, and the giver of all the good thou hast received, and the only fit and suitable good to satisfy thy desires for the time to come. And yet, shall it be so hard to thee to love, so agreeably to perfect nature, so perfect, and full, and suitable a good? even Goodness and Love itself, which hath begun to love thee? Is any of the creatures which thou lovest so suitable to thee? Are they good, and only good, and perfectly good, and unchangeably and eternally good? Are they the spring of comfort, and the satisfying happiness of thy soul? Hast thou found them so? or dost thou look to find them best at last? Foolish soul! canst thou love the uneven, defective, troublesome creature, if to some one small, inferior use it seemeth suitable to thee? and canst thou not love Him, that is all that rational love can possibly desire to enjoy? What though the creature be near thee, and G.o.d be infinitely above thee? He is nearer to thee than they. And though in glory he be distant, thou art pa.s.sing to him in his glory, and wilt presently be there. Though the sun be distant from thee, it communicateth to thee its light, and heat, and is more suitable to thee than the candle that is nearer thee. What though G.o.d be most holy, and thou too earthly and unclean? is he not the fitter to purify thee, and make thee holy? Thou hadst rather, if thou be poor, have the company and favour of the rich that can relieve thee, than of beggars that will but complain with thee. And if thou be unlearned or ignorant, thou wouldst have the company of the wise and learned that can teach thee, and not of those that are as ignorant as thyself. Who is so suitable to thy desires, as he that hath all that thou canst wisely desire, and is willing and ready to satisfy thee to the full? Who is more suitable to thy love, than he that loveth thee most, and hath done most for thee, and must do all that ever will be done for thee, and is himself most lovely in his infinite perfections? O poor, diseased, lapsed soul! if sin had not corrupted, and distempered, and perverted thee, thou wouldst have thought G.o.d as suitable to thy love, as meat to thy hunger, and drink to thy thirst, and rest to thy weariness, and as the earth and water, the air and sun, are to the inhabitants of the world! O whither art thou fallen? and how far, how long, hast thou wandered from thy G.o.d, that thou now drawest back from him as a stranger to thee, and lookest away from him as an unsuitable good?

_Direct._ III. Imagine not G.o.d 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 any odour, nor taste any sweetness, nor see any colours, 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 G.o.d 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.--Remember always, O my soul, that none is so near thee as thy G.o.d. A Seneca could say, of good men, that G.o.d is with us, and in us. Nature taught heathens, that in him we live, and move, and have our being. Thy friend may be absent, but G.o.d is never absent from thee; he is with thee, when, as to men, thou art alone. The sun is sufficient to illuminate but one part of the earth at once; and therefore must leave the rest in darkness. But G.o.d is with thee night and day; and there is no night to the soul, so far as it enjoyeth him. Thy life, thy health, thy love, and joy, are not nearer to thee than thy G.o.d: he is now before thee, about thee, within thee, moving thee to good, restraining thee from evil, marking and accepting all that is well, disliking and opposing all that is ill.

The light of the sun doth not more certainly fill the room, and compa.s.s thee about, than G.o.d doth with his goodness. He is as much at leisure to observe thee, to converse with thee, to hear and help thee, as if thou wert his only creature: as the sun can as well illuminate every bird and fly, as if it shined unto no other creature. Open the eye of faith and reason, and behold thy G.o.d! Do not forget him, or unbelievingly deny him, and then say, He is not here. Do not say, that the sun doth not shine, because thou winkest. O do not quench thy love to G.o.d, by feigning him to be out of reach, and taken up with other converse! Turn not to inferior delights, by thinking that he hath turned thee off to these: and love him not as an absent friend; but as the friend that is always in thy sight, in thy bosom, and in thy heart; the fuel that is nearest to the flames of love.

_Direct._ IV. All other graces must do their part in a.s.sisting 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 G.o.d. Repentance and mortification must keep away diverting and deceiving objects, which would steal away our love from G.o.d. Faith must show us G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 wilfully one hour, and be taken up with the love of G.o.d 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 one's bones, and the next to run and work as pleasantly as we did before.

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 hinderance 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d.

Love casteth out this tormenting fear, and freeth the soul from the spirit of bondage. The devil tempteth melancholy persons to live before G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, and tended to our good. You never found him promoting your love or delight in G.o.d! 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 do 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d.

_Direct._ V. Esteem thy want of love to G.o.d (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 G.o.d's image, and Spirit, and objectively of himself.--I never loathe 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 G.o.d. And it is this that is the venom and malignity of every particular sin. I never so much hate myself, as when I observe how little of G.o.d is within me, and how far my heart is estranged from him. I never do so fully approve of the justice of G.o.d, if it should condemn me, and thrust me for ever from his presence, as when I observe how far I have thrust him from my heart. If there were any sin, which proceeded not from a want of love to G.o.d, I could easilier pardon it to myself, as knowing that G.o.d would easilier pardon it. But not to love the G.o.d of love, the fountain of love, the felicity of souls, is a sin, unfit to be pardoned to any till it be repented of, and partly cured; Christ will forgive it to none that keep it; and when it is incurable, it is the special sin of h.e.l.l, the badge of devils and d.a.m.ned souls. If G.o.d will not give me a heart to love him, I would I had never had a heart. If he will give me this, he giveth me all. Happy are the poor, the despised, and the persecuted, that can but live in the love of G.o.d! O miserable emperors, kings, and lords, that are strangers to this heavenly love, and love their l.u.s.ts above their Maker! Might I but live in the fervent love of G.o.d, what matter is it in what country, or what cottage, or what prison I live? If I live not in the love of G.o.d, my country would be worse than banishment, a palace would be a prison; a crown would be a miserable comfort, to one that hath cast away his comfort, and is going to everlasting shame and woe.--Were we but duly sensible of the worth of love, and the odiousness and malignity that is in the want of it, it would keep us from being quiet in the daily neglect of it, and would quicken us to seek it, and to stir it up.

_Direct._ VI. Improve the principle of self-love, to the promoting of the love of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d; but I mean that rational love of happiness, and self-preservation, which G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and tell you that nothing should be so much loved. Every one that is a man must love himself; we will not entreat him, nor be beholden to him for this: and every one 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 G.o.d. Why do men love l.u.s.t, or wealth, or honour, but because they think that these are good for them? And would they not love G.o.d, if they practically knew that he is the best of all for them, and instead of all?--Unnatural, unthankful heart! canst thou love thyself, and not love him that gave thee thyself, and gives thee all things? Nature teacheth all men to love their most entire and necessary friends: do we deserve a reward by loving those that love us, when publicans will do the like? Matt. v. 46. Art thou not bound to love them that hate thee, and curse, and persecute thee? ver. 44, 45. What reward then is due to thy unnatural ingrat.i.tude, that canst not love thy chiefest Friend? All the friends that ever were kind to thee, and did thee good, were but his messengers to deliver what he sent thee. And canst thou love the bearer, and not the Giver? He made thee a man, and not a beast. He cast thy lot in his visible church, and not among deluded infidels, or miserable heathens, that never heard, unless in scorn, of the Redeemer's name. He brought thee forth in a land of light, in a reformed church, where knowledge and holiness have as great advantage as any where in all the world; and not among deluded, ignorant papists, where ambition must have been thy governor, and pride and tyranny have given thee laws, and a formal, ceremonious image of piety must have been thy religion. He gave thee parents that educated thee in his fear, and not such as were profane and ignorant, and would have restrained and persecuted thee from a holy life. He spoke to thy conscience early in thy childhood, and prevented the gross abominations which else thou hadst committed. He bore with the folly and frailties of thy youth. He seasonably gave thee those books, and teachers, and company, and helps, which were fittest for thee; and blest them to the further awakening and instructing of thee, when he pa.s.sed by others, and left them in their sins. He taught thee to pray, and heard thy prayer. He turned all thy fears and groans to thy spiritual good. He pardoned all thy grievous sins: and since that, how much hath he endured and forgiven! He gave thee seasonable and necessary stripes, and brought thee up in the school of affliction; so moderating them, that they might not disable or discourage thee, but only correct thee, and keep thee from security, wantonness, stupidity, and contempt of holy things, and might spoil all temptations to ambition, worldliness, voluptuousness, and fleshly l.u.s.t. By the threatenings of great calamities and death, he hath frequently awakened thee to cry to Heaven; and by as frequent and wonderful deliverances, he hath answered thy prayers, and encouraged thee still to wait upon him. He hath given thee the hearty prayers of many hundreds of his faithful servants, and heard them for thee in many a distress. He hath strangely preserved thee in manifold dangers. He hath not made thee of the basest of the people, whose poverty might tempt them to discontent; nor set thee upon the pinnacle of worldly honour, where giddiness might have been thy ruin, and where temptations to pride, and l.u.s.t, and luxury, and enmity to a holy life, are so violent that few escape them. He hath not set thee out upon a sea of cares and vexations, worldly businesses and enc.u.mbrances; but fed thee with food convenient for thee, and given thee leisure to walk with G.o.d. He hath not chained thee to an unprofitable profession, nor used thee as those that live like their beasts, to eat, and drink, and sleep, and play, or live to live; but he hath called thee to the n.o.blest and sweetest work; when that hath been thy business, which others were glad to taste of as a recreation and repast. He hath allowed thee to converse with books, and with the best and wisest men, and to spend thy days in sucking in delightful knowledge: and this is not only for thy pleasure, but thy use; and not only for thyself, but many others. O how many sweet and precious truths hath he allowed thee to feed on all the day, when others are diverted, and commonly look at them sometimes afar off! O how many precious hours hath he granted me, in his holy a.s.semblies, and in his honourable and most pleasant work!

How oft hath his day, and his holy uncorrupted ordinances, and the communion of his saints, and the mentioning of his name and kingdom, and the pleading of his cause with sinners, and the celebrating of his praise, been my delight! O how many hundreds that he hath sent, have wanted the abundant encouragement which I have had! When he hath seen the disease of my despondent mind, he hath not tried me by denying me success, nor suffered me, with Jonah, according to my inclination to overrun his work; but hath enticed me on by continued encouragements, and strewed all the way with mercies: but his mercies to me in the souls of others, have been so great, that I shall secretly acknowledge them, rather than here record them, where I must have respect to those usual mercies of believers, which lie in the common road to heaven.

And how endless would it be to mention all! All the good that friends and enemies have done me! All the wise and gracious disposals of his providence; in every condition, and change of life, and change of times, and in every place wherever he brought me! His every day's renewed mercies! His support under all my languishings and weakness; his plentiful supplies; his gracious helps; his daily pardons; and the glorious hopes of a blessed immortality which his Son hath purchased, and his covenant and Spirit sealed to me! O the mercies that are in one Christ, one Holy Spirit, one holy Scripture, and in the blessed G.o.d himself! These I have mentioned, unthankful heart, to shame thee for thy want of love to G.o.d. And these I will leave upon record, to be a witness for G.o.d against thy ingrat.i.tude, and to confound thee with shame, if thou deny thy love to such a G.o.d. Every one of all these mercies, and mult.i.tudes more, will rise up against thee, and shame thee, before G.o.d and all the world, as a monster of unkindness, if thou love not him that hath used thee thus.

Here also consider what G.o.d 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.

_Direct._ VII. Improve the vanity and vexation of the creature, and all thy disappointments, and injuries, and afflictions, to the promoting of thy love to G.o.d.--And this by a double advantage: First, by observing that there is nothing meet to divert thy love, or rob G.o.d of it; unless thou wilt love thy trouble and distress! Secondly, that thy love to G.o.d 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.--Is it for nothing, O my soul, that G.o.d hath turned loose the world against thee? that devils rage against thee; and wicked men do reproach and slander thee, and seek thy ruin; and friends prove insufficient, and as broken reeds? It had been as easy to G.o.d, to have prospered thee in the world, and suited all things to thy own desires, and have strewed thy way with the flowers of worldly comforts and delights; but he knew thy p.r.o.neness to undo thyself by carnal loves, and how easily thy heart is enticed from thy G.o.d; and therefore he hath wisely and mercifully ordered it, that thy temptations shall not be too strong, and no creature shall appear to thee in an over amiable, tempting dress. Therefore he hath suffered them to become thy enemies: and wilt thou love an enemy better than thy G.o.d? what! an envious and malicious world; a world of cares, and griefs, and pains; a weary, restless, empty world? How deep and piercing are its injuries! How superficial and deceitful is its friendship! How serious are its sorrows! What toyish shows and dreams are its delights! How constant are its cares and labours! How seldom and short are its flattering smiles! Its comforts are disgraced by the certain expectation of succeeding sorrows: its sorrows are heightened by the expectations of more: in the midst of its flatteries, I hear something within me saying, Thou must die: this is but the way to rottenness and dust: I see a winding-sheet and a grave still before me: I foresee how I must lie in pains and groans, and then become a loathsome corpse. And is this a world to be more delighted in than G.o.d? What have I left me for my support and solace, in the midst of all this vanity and vexation, but to look to him that is the all-sufficient, sure, never-failing good? I must love him, or I have nothing to love but enmity or deceit. And is this the worst of G.o.d's design, in permitting and causing my pains and disappointments here? It is but to drive my foolish heart unto himself, that I may have the solid delights and happiness of his love.

O then let his blessed will be done! Come home, my soul, my wandering, tired, grieved soul! Love, where thy love shall not be lost: love Him that will not reject thee, nor deceive thee; nor requite thee as the world doth, with injuries and abuse: despair not of entertainment, though the world deny it thee. The peaceable region is above. In the world thou must have trouble, that in Christ thou mayst have peace.

Retire to the harbour, if thou wouldst be free from storms. G.o.d will receive thee, when the world doth cast thee off, if thou heartily cast off the world for him.--Oh what a solace is it to the soul, to be driven clearly from the world to G.o.d, and there to be exercised in that sacred love, which will accompany us to the world of love!

_Direct._ VIII. Labour for the truest and fullest conceptions of the goodness and excellencies of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 d.a.m.n them if they go on impenitently. This, which is part of the goodness of G.o.d, he maketh them believe is evil, by engaging them in a way and interest, which he knoweth that G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and to continual apprehensions of his wrath and terrors. And if he can make them believe that G.o.d 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 devil's malice against G.o.d and them doth exercise itself in this, to make G.o.d appear to man unlovely, they would more studiously watch against such misrepresentations, and fly from them with greater hatred.[116] 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d's goodness in proportion with his other attributes.--O my soul, how unequally hast thou thought of G.o.d! Thou easily believest that his power is omnipotence, and that, his knowledge is omniscience; but of his goodness, how narrow and poor are thy conceivings! as if it were nothing to his power and knowledge. How oft hast thou been amazed in the consideration of his greatness, and how seldom affected with the apprehensions of his goodness! Thou gratifiest him that would have thee believe and tremble as he doth himself, and not him that would have thee believe and love. How oft hast thou suffered the malicious enemy to accuse G.o.d to thee, and make thee believe that he is a hater of man, and hateful to a man, or a hater of thee, that he might make thee hate him! How oft hast thou suffered him to draw in thy thoughts a false representation of thy dearest Lord, and show him to thee as in that unlovely shape! How oft have thy conceptions dishonoured and blasphemed his love and goodness, while thou hast seemed to magnify his knowledge and his power! Think of him now as love itself, as fuller of goodness than the sea of water, or the sun of light. Love freely and boldly, without the stops of suspicions and fears, where thou art sure thou canst never love enough; and if all the love of men and angels were united in one flame, they could never love too much, or come near the proportion of the glorious goodness which they love!

Cast thyself boldly into this ocean of delights. Though the narrowness of thy own capacity confine thee, yet, as there are no bounds in the object of thy love, let not false, unbelieving thoughts confine thee.

Oh that I were all eye, to see the glorious amiableness of my G.o.d! Oh that I were all love, that I might be filled with his goodness! Oh that all the pa.s.sions of my soul were turned into this holy pa.s.sion!

Oh that all my fears, and cares, and sorrows, were turned into love!

and that all the thoughts that confusedly crowd in upon me and molest me, were turned into this one incessant thought, of the infinite goodness of my G.o.d! Oh that all my tears and groanings, yea, and all my other mirth and pleasures, were turned into the melodious songs of love! and that the pulse, and voice, and operations of love, were all the motion of my soul! Surely in heaven it will be so, though it is not to be expected here.

_Direct._ IX. The great means of promoting love to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. He knoweth nothing of the world aright, that knoweth not G.o.d in it, and by it. Some note that the greatest students in nature are not usually the best proficients 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 bra.s.s 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 scrivener, a printer, but not a scholar: and no better can the atheist be called a philosopher or learned man, that denieth the most wise Almighty Author, while he beholdeth his works, when the nature and name of G.o.d is so plainly engraven upon them all. It is a great part of a christian's daily business, to see and admire G.o.d in his works, and to use them as steps to ascend by to himself. Psal. cxi. 2-4, "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honourable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered." Psal. cxliii. 5, "I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands." Psal.

lxxvii. 12, "I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings." Psal. xcii. 4, 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 fool understand this." As the praising of G.o.d's works, so the observing of G.o.d in his works, is much of the work of a holy soul. Psal. cxlv. 3-7, 10, 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 honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous 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. i. 19, 20, "That which may be known of G.o.d is manifest to them; for G.o.d hath showed it unto 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 G.o.dhead; 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 those words, Psal. cvii. "O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wondrous works to the children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep," ver. 21-24. But this is a subject fitter for a volume (of physics theologically handled) than for so short a touch.

What an excellent book is the visible world for the daily study of a holy soul! Light is not more visible to the eye in the sun, than the goodness of G.o.d is in it and all the creatures to the mind. If I love not G.o.d, when all the world 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 every thing 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 stars, 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 co-operation of all things; in their times and seasons, and the wonderful usefulness of all for man. O how glorious is the power, and wisdom, and goodness of G.o.d, in all the frame of nature! Every creature silently speaks his praise, declaring him to man, whose office is, as the world's high priest, to stand between them and the great Creator, and expressly offer him the praise of all. Psal. viii.

3-6, 9, "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, 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 honour. 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!" "Oh 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. x.x.xiii. 5-9. Read Psal. lxv. Thus love G.o.d as appearing in the works of nature.

_Direct._ X. Study to know G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l. The abounding of sin and misery hath glorified abounding grace; that grace which fetcheth sons for G.o.d from among the voluntary va.s.sals 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 h.e.l.l; 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 believer's heart with an answerable degree of the love of G.o.d. To look on a Christ and not to love G.o.d, 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 he kindled by the greatest revelations and communications of the love of G.o.d. And "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,"

John xv. 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 G.o.d commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to G.o.d by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life,"

Rom. v. 8, 10. Steep, then, that stiff and hardened heart in the blood of Christ, and it will melt: come near, with Thomas, and by the pa.s.sage 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 gla.s.s of infinite love and goodness, before our faces, is the greatest lesson in the art of love.