a plain Token that we do not heartily desire to be more beloved of God and consequently that we do not love him So that in fine the Sum of all is this The Law of Perfection requires us to love God with all our Might and with all our Strength that is as much as we are able in every Period of our Growth and Progress in Religion and by how much we love him less than we are able by so much less shall be the future Reward of our Love But then for the Law of Sincerity that only requires of us such a Degree of Love to him as doth together with the other Motives of Religion effectually incline us to obey him sincerely and to endeavour to improve our Obedience into farther Degrees of Perfection and so long as we fall short of this we are bad Men and the Wrath of God abides upon us And so I have done with the First Part of the Text We should or ought to love God 2. I proceed now to the second Part viz. the Reason why we ought to love him and that is because he first loved us which though it be but short in Words yet is extreamly comprehensive in Sense containing in it such puissant Motives and endearing Obligations as cannot but affect us if we have any Spark of Tenderness or Ingenuity remaining in us For in this Argument or Reason these six Things are implyed 1. That he began in Love to us 2. That he began before we could any Way deserve it 3. That he began to love us when we deserved his Hatred 4. That he began when he foresaw he could never make any Advantage by it 5. He began to love us to such a Degree as to think nothing too dear or too good for us 6. That he so began to love us as to condescend by all the Arts of Importunity to court us to accept his Love All which are very powerful Considerations to engage us to return him Love for Love 1. He began in Love to us Had he only engaged himself to re-love us whensoever we began to love him and in the mean Time remained indifferent in his Affection towards us this would have been a mighty endearing Obligation For the great Majesty of Heaven to take Notice of the Loves of such poor Worms as we and much more to engage himself to repay them with a correspondent Affection is in it self a noble Expression of his great and generous Goodness but that he should not only take Notice of and return our Love but forestal and anticipate it that he should condescend to make the first Address and Tender of Love to us is such an Expression of Goodness as is sufficient to inflame the most stupid and insensible Soul For he that loves another lays an Obligation upon him and renders him extreamly beholding he lends him his Heart and Soul which are much more valuable than Money and he becomes his Creditor and acquires a just Claim to be repaid with mutual Affection For not to repay Love for Love is equally unjust and ungrateful He therefore that begins to love doth thereby render the Person beloved his Debtor and acquires a just Right to be Beloved by him again though he should have no other Pretence to or Interest in his Affections especially if he be one who is much our Superiour in all endearing Perfections and Accomplishments because this must needs render his Love more valuable and consequently augment our Obligation to re-love him When therefore the great God himself shall begin to love us who doth so infinitely excel us in all Manner of amiable Perfections how deeply are we obliged and beholding to him What infinite Sums of Love must we owe him If he had laid no other Obligation upon us had neither made nor fed nor clothed nor provided for us if he had no other Claim to our Love but only this that he first loved us yet this is such as we cannot frustrate without being extreamly unjust and ungrateful For he is so much afore-hand in Kindness with us hath so much gotten the start of us in Love that we shall never be able to overtake him He loved us long before we had a Being when we existed only in his own Decree to make us Men and to provide for our Happiness so that now we are so far behind-hand in Arrears of Love to him that we shall need as well as have an Eternity to discharge them and should we from henceforth every Moment love him more and more to the longest imaginary Period of Duration yet we shall still owe him all that Eternity of Love that was due before we began to love him And shall we grudg to pay him a Mite to whom we are indebted Millions And is it not high Time for us to begin to love him now who hath loved us so long already for nothing without the least Shadow of Requital 2 ly He began to love us before we could any ways deserve it For it is impossible for a Creature that ows all to God the Fountain of its Being to deserve any Thing at his Hands because he hath every Thing from him and so can render him nothing but what is his own already by an unalienable Propriety But the noblest and most acceptable Sacrifice that we are able to render unto God is our hearty and unfeigned Love and if it were possible for us any way to deserve his Love who is so much above us and hath such an absolute Dominion over us it would doubtless be Offering up our Souls to him inflamed with Love and Affection for t is this alone that consecrates all our Services and renders them valuable in the Eyes of God If Love like an universal Soul be not diffused throughout all our Religion and doth not act and animate every Part of it in God's Account all our demure Pretences are nothing but the lifeless Puppits and Images of true Religion which though they may speak and move and act like that which they represent and imitate yet want that inward Form and Principle that gives it Life and Motion and to have nothing of Religion but merely the Shape and Outside is as bad at least in God's Account as to have none at all Since therefore 't is Love that gives Worth and Value to all our other Services and renders them acceptable to God it hence necessarily follows that it self is the most grateful Thing we can render to him and that when this is wanting we are so far from being capable of deserving his Love that nothing we do can be pleasing or acceptable in his Eyes Wherefore since he loved us before we loved him it is plain that it was not our Desert but his own Goodness that first endeared him to us for when we did not love him we could have neither Form nor Comliness to attract his Love our Love to him being the only Beauty that can render us amiable in his Eyes So that he
the same without the least Addition or Substraction And yet when Things were in this Posture when he had no Self-interest to serve upon us no Motive but his own Benignity to endear him to us then did he begin to love us and to express the Earnings of his Heart and Bowels towards us And now how can we think of this and not be affected with it How can we any longer avoid being captivated with the Thoughts of such a generous Kindness Consider O my Soul thy God gains nothing by all his Love to thee but thou gainest infinitely by thy Love to him by loving him thou glorifiest thy self and crownest thy own Desires with Happiness But he is not one jot the better for loving nor would he have been one jot the worse if he had never loved thee at all and yet out of pure generous Goodness he loves thee a thousand times more than thou lovest thy self or art ever able to love him and canst thou be such a wretched Thing so lost to all that is ingenuous and modest as not to return him Love for Love 5 thly He began to love us to such a Degree as to think nothing too dear or too good for us Considering how little we deserve his Love how much we have deserved his Hatred and how uncapable we are to make him any valuable Requital it is sufficient Matter of Wonder that ever he could prevail with himself to love us in the least Degree but that in the midst of so many Reasons to the contrary he should not only begin to love but to be so liberal of his Kindness to us is Matter of just Astonishment It was a mighty Kindness in him to create us what we are and make such a plentiful Provision for our comfortable Subsistence here for wheresoever we direct our Eyes whether we reflect them inwards upon our selves we behold his Goodness to occupy and penetrate the Root and Center of our Beings and discern the lively Characters of his Love in the incomparable Frame and Structure of our Natures or whether we extend them abroad towards the things about us we may perceive our selves like Fortunate Islands surrounded with an Ocean of Blessings containing whatsoever is necessary for our Sustenance convenient for our Use and pleasant for our Enjoyment And is it not wondrous Love in him to make such liberal Provisions for such undeserving Guests But this is the smallest Part of his Kindness for he hath inspired us with immortal Minds and Stamp'd them with the most fair Impresses of his own Divinity viz. a Knowledge of Truth and a Love of Goodness and a forward Capacity of the highest Perfection and purest Happiness and to fill and gratify these our noble Faculties and Capacities he hath prepared for us a Heaven of immortal Joys and furnished it with all the Delights that this our Heaven-born Mind is capable of and lest we should fall short of it he hath sent his blessed Son from Heaven to reveal it to us and shew us the Way thither to die for our Sins and obtain and ratify the Promise of our Pardon thereby to encourage us to return to our Duty and Allegiance without which we are incapable of ever enjoying that beatifical State And lest all this should not be sufficient he is always present with us to promote our Happiness present by his Providence to reclaim by his Angels to sollicit us and by his Holy Spirit to excite and co-operate with our Endeavours So extreamly careful is he not to be defeated of his kind Intentions to make us everlastingly happy O Blessed God! To what a Degree must thou love us who thinkest none of these Things too dear and good for us That dost not think thy Son too good to redeem us thy Spirit to Sanctify thy everlasting Heaven to Crown and Reward us And now can our Hearts hold when we think of this Can we be cold and indifferent in the midst of such a vigorous Flame Good God! What are we made of What senseless stony stupid Souls do we carry about us that can be Love-proof against so many Charms and Endearments that can listen to so many Wonders of Love with such unconcerned such unaffected Minds Methinks if we had but the common Sense and Ingenuity of Men in us it would be impossible for us in the midst of so much Love not to be melted into a reciprocal Kindness 6 thly And lastly He so began to love us as to condescend by all the Arts of Importunity to court us to accept of his Love That notwithstanding all our Unworthiness he should begin to love us and that to so strange a Degree is a most amazing Instance of the infinite Benevolence of his Nature but that he should condescend to address himself to us to court and woo us as he doth to accept of his Love and to be as happy as he would have us is enough to astonish the most insensible Soul and even to dissolve a Heart of Rock into Love For thus the Scripture in the most pathetick Strains describes the Addresses of this great Lover of Souls borrowing Metaphors to express his Love to us from all that is kind and loving in the Creation even from the most melting Passions in Mankind from the Relentings of Fathers and Yearnings of Mothers Bowels towards their dearest Off-spring It paints him in all the charming Postures of an imploring beseeching and importunate Lover wooing and intreating us to be happy even with Tears of Pity in his Eyes with Charms of Love in his Mouth and Tenders of Mercy in his Hands And when with all the Rhetorick of his Love he can't prevail with us to live it represents him weeping at our Funerals and like a tender-hearted Judge pronouncing our Sentence with the Tears in his Eyes By which Metaphorical Descriptions he represents to us his infinite Concern for our Happiness how much his Heart is set upon it and how hardly he can bear a Defeat in his kind and merciful Intentions towards us For what but an infinite Love could ever have made the King of Heaven and Earth to stoop so low to his rebellious Subjects as to beseech them to lay down their Weapons of Hostility with which they can injure none but themselves and to listen to his Terms of Mercy and accept of his Crowns and everlasting Preferments One would have thought it had been enough for him barely to have told us how he loved us how willing he was to Pardon and Advance us and that this had been enough for ever to recommend him to the dearest Affections of his Creatures but that he should moreover condescend to supplicate our Acceptance to beseech us not to spurn his Love and frustrate its Designs of Mercy to us Lord how can we think of this without being all inflamed with Love to thee 'T is true he doth not come in Person to us because we are not able to bear the immediate Approaches of his Glory
love what he loves and hate what he hates these are much more certain Indications of our Love to him than the most ravishing Effects of sensitive Passion For though our Hearts were melted into a Transport and Fondness to him yet so long as our Hearts and our Practices are incomplyant to his Will and Laws he will look upon us and deal with us as Hypocrites and Enemies and esteem all our sensitive Fondnesses towards him but as the base Flatteries of Judas who kissed him and then betrayed him 3 ly Hence I infer what the great Reason is why God doth so strictly enjoyn us to love him For there is no Command whatsoever so often repeated in Scripture as this of loving God Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to love him O love the Lord all ye his Saints Take heed therefore to your selves that ye love the Lord your God These and a world of other reiterated Injunctions of Love do we meet with in the Sacred Pages But how comes this to pass Doth God need our Love that he so importunately calls for it Or doth it contribute any thing to his Happiness to see himself beloved by all this great World of Beings which he hath made and which he hath endued with the Capacity of loving him No no though doubtless the best Thing we can give him is our Love yet he is too happy in himself to need any thing of ours For he is a bottomless Fountain of Happiness circumscribing all those Blisses that he can need or desire within the boundless Circle of his own Being Or doth he court our Love meerly that he may glory in the Number of his Lovers and pride himself in those infinite Flames that concenter in him No nor this neither for he is so infinitely glorious in himself that no Act of ours can either add to or substract from his Glory which amidst all the Hallelujahs of Angels and Saints and all the Blasphemies of Men and Devils shines with the same unvaried Splendour and Brightness and is neither diminished by our Hatred nor improved by our Love Well then if neither of these be the Reason what is it 'T is true the Thing is infinitely reasonable in it self That he who is so lovely in himself should be beloved and that all our Affections should be united in him who is the Fountain of all our Beings and Well-Beings And God who is the Author of our reasonable Faculties cannot but desire that we should act reasonably and love that best which best deserves to be beloved But is there not some particular End for which God doth so earnestly crave and exact our Love Yes doubtless there is and such as is every way worthy of him that hath proposed it For it cannot be supposed that a Being infinitely wise should ever act without End or Aim but God being infinitely happy cannot be supposed to propose any End for his own Advantage because that would imply that he wants or desires some Good that he hath not and consequently that he is not happy But then he being infinitely good as well as happy we cannot imagin what other End he should have of his Actions but only to do good to his Creatures and promote their Happiness and consequently the End and Reason for which he doth so importunately demand our Love is not to add any Thing to himself but to do good to us for our goodness extendeth not to God as the Psalmist tells us xvi 2 And though the Love of God be a very great Perfection to our Natures yet Job tells us that it is no gain at all to God that we make our ways perfect Job xxii 3 But though it is none to God yet it is an infinite Gain to our selves and that is the End and Reason for which he requires it For as I have already shew'd you of all the Principles of our Obedience to God Love is the most pregnant and fruitful Now God requires us to obey him for our own Good he having enjoyned us nothing but what tends to the Perfection and Happiness of our Natures and he requires us to love him that so we may the more intirely and perfectly obey him and thereby more speedily arrive to that Happiness for which his infinite Goodness hath designed us So that all the profit both of our Love and Obedience accrues to our selves 't is we only that reap the Fruit of our own Virtues we only that are exalted by those Homages that we render to our Maker for he is as happy without our Love as he is with it and all those united Flames of Angels and Saints that meet and concenter in him add not one spark to the infinite Element of his Happiness which were not infinite could it admit of Increase But the Lovers themselves are glorified by their Love and because they are so God requires and exacts it For our Love being the great Soul of our Obedience and our Obedience the necessary Means of our Happiness the Profit of both must necessarily redound to our selves and 't is we only that must be inriched and glorified by them For this Reason therefore God requires our Love that it may be a living Principle to Obedience and that being so it might accelerate our Happiness for he whose Love of God is but arrived to the Degree of a reigning Principle of Obedience so as that his Obedience proceeds more from his Love than from any other Passion doth already border on the heavenly State and is within the Confines of Perfection For as for the Inhabitants of Heaven they are all acted by pure Love which makes their Obedience pure and perfect They see God face to face and by their Sight are all inflamed with Love to him and by their Love are winged with everlasting Vigour and Readiness to serve him and all their Aversations to his Heavenly Will being swallowed up in perfect Love they not only obey without Murmuring but with infinite Ravishment and Pleasure and never feel themselves more in Heaven than while they are serving praising and adoring him This is the happy State of those heavenly Lovers and to this we are approaching with full Speed while we obey from a Principle of Love For Love will carry us on with Wind and Tide from one Degree of Perfection to another and whilst poor slavish Souls that are acted mainly by their Fears are faign to tug at the Oar and yet creep on but slowly and by insensible Degrees we shall run forwards with Ease and Speed and get more ground at one stroak than they can in twenty For in one good Action performed out of Love there is more Virtue and Goodness than in a hundred of those whereunto we are dragged by our own Fears and Terrors because as the Degrees of Evil so the Degrees of Good in all Actions are to be measured by the Degrees
without being overcharged with their Weight and Number 3 dly Everlasting Life includes a most endearing Fruition of our glorified Saviour And certainly this is none of the smallest Ingredients of that blisful State that we shall ever be with our blessed Lord as the Apostle expresses it 1 Thes. iv 17 For herein it is evident the same Apostle placed one great Advantage of his future State for so he tells us he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Phil. i. 23 And indeed 't is impossible but it must be a vast Addition to the Happiness of all vertuous and grateful Souls to see this blessed Friend and Benefactor who came down from the Bosom of his Father and for their Sake exposed himself to a miserable Life and shameful Death to see him sitting at his Father's right Hand crowned with Majesty and Honour surrounded with the whole Choir of Angels and Saints like a Sun in the midst of a Circle of Stars How must it needs rejoyce the Hearts of all the Lovers and Followers of this blessed Lamb to see such a happy Change of his Circumstances To see him that was formerly despised and spit on and so unworthily treated by an ill-natured World adored and worshiped praised and admired by all the Court of Heaven and celebrated with the Songs of Cherubins and Seraphims of Arch-angels and Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect to behold him that hung upon the Cross and poured out his Blood there in Groans and Agonies meerly to make miserable Sinners happy advanced to the highest Pitch of Splendor and Dignity and made Head and Prince of all the Hierarchy of Heaven Verily methinks though I were excluded from that happy Place and had only the Priviledge to look in and see my blessed Lord and Saviour it would be a most heavenly Consolation to me to behold the Glory and Honour and Happiness with which he is surrounded though I were sure never to partake of it and the Communion I should have in the Joys of my Master the sweet Sympathy in all his Pleasures would be a Heaven at second Hand to me and I should feel my self unspeakably happy in being a Spectator of his Felicity and Advancement But Oh! When that dear and blessed Person shall not only permit me to see his Glory but introduce me into it when his blessed Mouth shall bid me Welcome and pronounce my Euge bone Serve well done Good and Profitable Servant enter into thy Masters Joy when I shall not only see his beloved Face but be admitted into his sweet Conversation and dwell in his Arms and Embraces for ever when I shall hear him record the wondrous Adventures of his Love through how many woful Stages he past to rescue me from endless Misery how will my Heart spring with Joy and burn with Love and my Mouth overflow with Praises and Thanksgivings O blessed Jesu How happy will the Day be when I who am loaded with so many vast Obligations to love thee shall be introduced into thy Presence to see thy Glories and Sympathize in thy Joys as thou didst in my Miseries to thank and praise thee Face to Face for all those Wonders of Love with which thou hast obliged me and to bear a Part in that heavenly Song Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing who hast redeemed us to God by thy blood our of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation Rev. v. 9 12. 4 thly Everlasting Life includes a most delightful Conversation and Society with Angels and glorified Spirits For when we come to the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem the Apostle tells us what our Society will be viz. an innumerable company of Angels the general Assembly and Church of the first-born God the judge of all the Spirits of just Men made perfect and Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant Heb. xii 22 23 24. Lord what glorious Society is here Society in which there is nothing intermingled but what is Heavenly and Divine it being altogether composed of the best and wisest and noblest Beings in the World For as for the blessed Saints and Angels they are all most perfectly refined from all that Folly and Peevishness Disguize and Dissimulation which is the Bane of humane Conversation their Understandings are exceeding large and comprehensive and their Charity and Goodness is full as extensive as their Knowledge And in such a Conjunction of Wisdom with Goodness what an excellent Society must there needs be produced For as their great Goodness must needs render their Conversation most free and amiable so must their great Knowledge and Wisdom render it no less profitable and delightful and as the latter must needs instruct them in all the wise Arts of Endearment so the former must needs oblige them to use and improve them to the utmost O how heavenly therefore must their Conversation needs be whilst 't is thus managed by pure Wisdom and most perfect Love whilst the most glorious Knowledge is the Scope and the most ardent Friendship the Law of all their Converse Who would not be willing to leave a foolish froward and ill-natured World for the blessed Society of those wise Friends and perfect Lovers And what greater Happiness can we desire than to spend an Eternity in such sweet Conversation Where we shall hear the deep Philosophy of Heaven freely communicated in the wise and amicable Discourses of Angels and glorified Spirits who mutually impart the Treasures of each others Knowledge without any Reserve or Affectation of Mystery and freely philosophize without wrangling Disputes or peevish Contentions for Victory where Wisdom is the Entertainment and Love and mutual Endearments the Welcome where there is Harmony without Discord Communication without Disputes and everlasting Discourse without Wrangling O happy Day When I shall depart from this impertinent and unsociable World and all my good old Friends that are gone to Heaven before me shall meet me on the Shores of Eternity and congratulate my Arrival to that blessed Society Where I shall freely converse with the Patriarchs and Prophets the Apostles and Martyrs and be most intimately acquainted with all those brave and generous Souls who have recommended themselves to the World by their glorious Examples where Angels and Arch-angels shall be my familiar Friends and all those illustrious Courtiers of the great King of Heaven shall own me for their Brother and bid me welcome to their Masters Joy and none will disdain my Company though never so much above me in Glory and Perfection but from the highest to the lowest will all receive and entertain me with the tenderest Indearments of heavenly Lovers 5 thly Everlasting Life includes also the infinite Glory and Delightfulness of the Place wherein all these Felicities are to be enjoyed For though the very State of the Blessed be sufficiently glorious to transform
Apollo So that to conclude that we love God from those corporeal Passions is very unsafe and dangerous and we may almost as certainly judge of the Hunger of our Souls after Righteousness by the Hunger of our Bodies after Bread as of the Love of our Souls to God by our bodily Ravishments and Passions For bodily Passion differs according to the Temper of the Body some Tempers are so soft and impressive that the most frivolous Fancy will affect them others so hard and sturdy that the greatest Reason will hardly move them and consequently Persons of this Temper though they should love God much more than the other and have a much higher Esteem of and more rational Complacency in his divine Perfections yet will have much less of corporeal Passion intermingled with it I do not deny but even this sensitive Passion when prudently managed may be of great Advantage to a rational Love for the Passions being soft and easie and apt to follow the Motions of the Soul do naturally intend and quicken them and render them more vigorous and active and we have very much Cause to bless God even for that sensitive Joy and Complacency which accompanies our Love to him since this I doubt not is many times excited by his own blessed Spirit to quicken and invigorate our rational Affection and render it more active and vivacious But that which I aim at is only this if possible to beat Men off from measuring the Strength or Weakness the Truth or Falshood of their Love to God by any corporeal Passion whatsoever since Men may we see and many times have a vehement Passion without any Reason and all those Ticklings and Ravishments of Heart which too many Men mistake for the Love of God are very often nothing else but the necessary Effects of a chafed and overheated Fancy But that which is really the Love of God is always founded in a rational Conviction of the Beauty and Goodness of his Nature and proceeds from an high Esteem and profound Veneration of his Perfections For no Man loves God but can give very good Reason why he loves him he is not moved to it by a Musical Tone or a gaudy Metaphor or an unaccountable Impulse of Fancy but by the real Charms and Attractions of the divine Goodness and Perfections which darting through his Mind like the Sun-beams through a Burning-glass have kindled his Affections and made him love with infinite Reason so that 't is his Vnderstanding that inamours his Will and that which makes him a Lover of God is the deep Sense of his Reason how much he deserves to be beloved He hath seriously considered how lovely God is in himself how kind and loving unto all his Creation and what particular Obligation God hath laid upon him to return him Love for Love and this gives Fire to his Love and affects his Will with Delight and Complacency and though perhaps he may not feel those passionate Soothings and Expansions of Heart which sensitive Joy is wont to produce yet he finds himself highly pleased with God and his Will acquiesces in the Thought of his Goodness and Perfections with a Calm and even Complacency And thus his Will is inflamed with the purest Light of his Understanding and his Love is nothing else but the warm Reflection of his Reason Thus Psal. cxvi 1 I love the Lord saith David and then he goes on to enumerate the vast and important Reasons why he loved him because he hath inclined his Ear c. And in the 1 Cor. viii 3 If any Man love God the same i. e. God is known of him intimating that all true Love of God is founded in the Knowledge of him 3 dly The Love of God is a fixed as well as rational Complacency in him by which I distinguish this heavenly Affection from those short and transitory Fits of Love that like Flashes of Lightning come and go appear and vanish in a Moment For thus upon some affecting Providence or passionate Representation of the Divine Goodness it is very ordinary for Men to be chafed into an amorous Fit and touched with very tender Resentments of the Loveliness and Love of God so that at present they seem to be in Raptures of Affection and with the Spouse in the Canticles to be wondrous sick of Love but alas It commonly proves but a sudden Qualm that after a Pang or two goes over and so they are well again immediately for upon their next Encounter with Temptation or Intermixture with secular Affairs their hot Love begins to languish and quickly dies into a cold Indifferency and notwithstanding all the Reasons and Obligations that they have to the contrary their fickle Hearts unwind again and by Degrees decline and sink into their old habitual Aversation to God and Goodness which is a plain Evidence that that which at first lookt like the Love of God in them was only a sudden Blush of Passion and not the true Complexion of their Souls For when once a Man is brought to love God upon Principles of Reason and Consideration 't is much more difficult to extinguish this than any Virtue whatsoever because of all the Virtues of Religion this is founded in the greatest Reason and accompanied with the strongest Pleasure For Love it self consisting in Delight and Complacency where the Object of it is an infinite Good there is not only infinite Reason to Love but infinite Occasion of Pleasure and Complacency When therefore our Love of God is back'd with so much Reason and sweetned with so much Pleasure how is it possible we should extinguish it without doing the greatest Violence to our selves For I am verily persuaded that one of the hardest moral Changes that can be made upon a rational Creature is from a Lover to become an Enemy to God for wheresoever this heavenly Affection is it sweetens and endears it self by its own appendent Pleasures which are in themselves a sufficient Counter-charm against all Temptations to the contrary So that when once it is kindled in the Soul like a subtil Flame 't will by Degrees insinuate farther and farther till it hath eaten into the Center of the Soul and turned it all into its own Substance Wherefore this we may certainly conclude upon that he who can suddenly or easily entertain an Aversation to God and Goodness did never truly Love for Love saith the Wise Man is strong as Death and many Waters cannot quench it Cant. viii 6 7. Wheresoever it lights it clings and can never be torn away again without violent Spasms and Convulsions So that whatsoever Passion we may have for God we can never conclude it to be hearty Love till it fixes and settles in our Souls till our Wills are habitually pleased with God and do entertain the Thoughts of his Love and Loveliness with a constant Complacency and Delight and then we may venture to call it Love and to rejoyce in the Nativity of this heavenly Flame within us 4
could have no other Motive to incline him to love us but only the immense Benevolence of his own Nature Since therefore he hath loved me without any Desert of mine can I forbear to love him who hath deserved so well of me If he had never expressed any Kindness towards me yet I have infinite Reason to love him because of the infinite Loveliness of his Nature but when I add to this the unspeakable Love he bore me when I had neither Beauty to endear nor Desert to oblige him what a tender Care he took of my Welfare and how big his Thoughts were with Designs of Kindness to me I am not able to reflect upon my Coldness and Indifference towards him without the greatest Shame and Confusion especially considering 3 ly That he began to love us when we deserved his Hatred And indeed if we consider the wretched Condition in which his Love found us when it first addressed to us and cast its gracious Eyes upon us we shall find sufficient Reason to wonder that it did not immediately convert into implacable Fury For when it first looked down on us from the Battlements of Heaven it beheld us wallowing in our Blood all polluted and distained with the foulest Treasons and Rebellions It saw us unanimously engaged in an unnatural Conspiracy against the blessed Author of our Beings converting those very Faculties he bestowed upon us into Weapons of Rebellion against him and arming the Effects of his Bounty against his Sovereign Authority It beheld our Natures all depraved and vitiated our Faculties all disordered and confused our Minds surrounded with Egyptian Darkness our Wills byassed with wild and irregular Inclinations our Affections overgrown with monstrous and preternatural Lusts and all the beautiful Structure of our Natures most miserably disfigured and deformed and certainly one would have thought that such a loathsome Spectacle as this might have been sufficient to extinguish his Love for ever and stifle all his tender Resentments towards us But so invincible was his Kindness to us that all the Deformities we had superinduced upon our Natures all our Unworthiness to be beloved by him all the rude Affronts and Indignities we had offered were not able so much as for one Moment to stop or divert the impetuous Current of his Goodness But in the midst of so many Reasons that he had to hate us he fixed his Love upon us and notwithstanding the Continuance of those Reasons doth still persist to love us and while we are abusing of his Kindness dishonouring his Name and trampling on his Laws and Authority he is continually mindful and active to do us good and doth incessantly imploy his restless Thoughts extend his watchful Eye and exert his powerful Arm to contrive promote and procure our Happiness as if he were resolved to be as obstinate in Love as we are in Unkindness to contend with us for Victory and if it be possible to vanquish us with the Charms of an invincible Kindness And now methinks it should be impossible for any one that hath but the Reason of a Man to be so base and disingenuous as not to be endeared by such a victorious Love O blessed God! dost thou love me who have so many ways deserved thy Hatred and can I hate thee who hast so infinitely merited my Love Have I not been long enough thine Enemy already and hast thou not been long enough my Friend at last to thaw my obdurate Enmity and melt me into a reciprocal Kindness Barbarous Heart Canst thou still withstand these puissant Endearments of Almighty Love that hath so long repay'd thee Smiles for Affronts and returned thee Favours for Provocations For shame if thou hast any Sense of Gratitude or Modesty in thee be at last persuaded to hearken to the Love of thy Maker and to return him Love for Love 4 thly He began to love us when he could never reap the least Advantage to himself by it Had we been capable either of benefiting or injuring him of adding to or substracting from his Happiness his own Interest might have obliged him to love us or at least to have pretended Kindness to us that so he might the better obtain his Ends upon us and engage us to contribute more freely to his Happiness But such a poor Design as this is inconsistent with the Notion of a Divinity which implies infinite Perfection and consequently infinite Happiness and for him who is infinitely happy to design a Contribution of Happiness from his Creatures implies a Contradiction because the very designing of a farther Happiness implies a present Want and Insufficiency which can have no Place in a Being that is infinitely happy already The Happiness of God therefore being so immense and secure that nothing can be added to or substracted from it it is impossible he should love us for any Self-interest or Advantage it being out of the Reach of any Power whatsoever either to benefit or injure him and his Love to us can have no other Design but only our Happiness and Welfare He his infinitely perfect and happy in himself and consequently cannot be supposed to love us for his own Advantage it being impossible that he who is infinitely happy in himself should be capable of receiving any Advantage from any Thing without him so that there can be no other End of his Love but only to render us like himself compleatly perfect and happy For when he first set his Heart upon us and chose us for his Favourites he knew his own Happiness to be so immense and stable as that he could never need our Love or Services either to add more to it or to continue and perpetuate it which from Eternity to Eternity was and is and always will be commensurate to the boundless Capacity of his Nature But such was his innate Goodness and Beneficence as would not permit him to be happy alone to content himself in a solitary Fruition of his own essential Beatitudes but to gratify the benign Inclinations of his Nature he must have Companions in Happiness upon whom he may diffuse his Goodness and imprint his own Bliss and Perfection And 't was only this frank and generous Motive that first obliged him to cast an Eye of Love towards us When we had neither Worth to deserve nor Power to requite his Kindness then did his own Benignity incline his Heart to love us and to invite and receive us into a Participation of his Happiness He knew well enough that the most we were capable to do for him was only to love and obey to praise and honour and adore him and that when we had done all this it would be impossible for him to reap the least Advantage by it that if we did love and obey him the Profit would all redound to our selves and that if we did not our selves only would fare the worse for it so that whether we did or no it would be all one to him his Happiness would be still
that could either promote or compleat thy Happiness but is so importunately concerned for thee as to beseech and intreat thee not to reject his Favours And canst thou be cold and insensible in the midst of so many prevailing Endearments Suppose that thy Fellow-creature had done for thee but a thousandth Part of what thy God hath done and thou hadst repayed his Kindness with nothing but Affronts and Indignities wouldst thou not call thy self a thousand ungrateful Wretches and acknowledge thy self infinitely unworthy of his Favours And is it less criminal to be ungrateful to God than to thy Fellow-creature Suppose thou hadst a Friend that began to love thee as soon as thou wast born and had persisted to love thee notwithstanding thou hadst offered him a thousand Provocations to the contrary that had done thee all the good he was able and constantly repaid thy Injuries with Favours Would not thy Conscience fly in thy Face and all that is humane in thee upbraid thy monstrous Baseness And hath not thy God obliged thee infinitely more than the best Friend in the World How then canst thou excuse thy Coldness and Indifference to him Consider O my Soul the Eyes of all the spiritual World are upon thee Angels and Saints are looking down from their Thrones of Glory to see how thou wilt acquit thy self under all these mighty Obligations which if any mortal Friend had laid them upon thee and thou shouldst have so ill requited him all the World would have hissed at thee for a Monster of Ingratitude And is it less infamous to be an ungrateful Wretch towards God than towards a mortal Friend With what Confidence then wilt thou lift up thy head among those blessed Spirits who have been Spectators of thy Actions who have seen thy foul Ingratitude towards thy best Friend and must therefore brand thee for an inglorious Wretch abandoned of the common Sense and Modesty of humane Nature And if after you have pressed you Souls with all this mighty Weight of Love you should be still to learn to re-love the blessed Author of it I know no other Expedient but to send you to the Brutes to be their Scholars to call for your Spaniels and bid them teach you and by their kind Returns of your Favours instruct your cold ungrateful Hearts to make proportionate Returns of Love to your dearest Lord and Master Thus let us frequently argue with our selves and repeat these Considerations upon our Minds and certainly if we have any Sense of Obligations they cannot fail of warming and affecting our Hearts 3 dly Let us endeavour so much as in us lies to moderate our Affections to the World Love not the World saith St. John neither the things that are in the World If any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him 1 Epist. ii 15 that is if we inordinately love and dote upon the World if we suffer its Pleasures Profits and Honours to creep into to hamper and inveagle our Affections into an excessive Delight and Complacency in them that will so forestal and prepossess us that we shall find no Room for the Love of God in our Souls Our Hearts will be so soaked and moistened with sensual Desires and Complacencies that the pure Flame of divine Love will never be able to take hold of or kindle upon them For whilst we immoderately dote upon the World that will so ingross our Thoughts so perpetually importune our Desires that no Friend from Heaven will ever be able to come at us no good Thought or Consideration that comes to court and woo our Souls for God will ever find Admittance to them or if now and then they obtrude upon us and force themselves into our Minds the World will be so buisy about us that we shall not be long at Leasure to attend to them but whilst they are addressing to us and importuning our Affections we shall feel a thousand Rival Thoughts swarming and buzzing about us and this will be holding that pulling the other clasping it self about us and wooing us not to leave and forsake them And though between these Competitors for our Love our Hearts may now and then be a little wavering and irresolute yet our fond Partiality to the World will so vehemently incline and biass us that we shall soon reject those divine Thoughts that would so fain court us to a contrary Affection Wherefore if ever we would acquire this noble and heavenly Virtue of divine Love we must endeavour as much as in us lies to wean and withdraw our selves from the World to rescue our selves from under it's Tyranny and Dominion into our own Power that so we may be able to dispose of our Time our Thoughts and Hearts as shall seem to us most fit and reasonable For till we have recovered our Hearts from the World into our own Disposal how can we resign them to God Before we can give him our selves we must be in our own Power which no Man can be so long as he is inthralled to the World Wherefore if we would become hearty Lovers of God we must labour so much as in us lies to get such a Sovereignty over our earthly Desires and Affections as that whensoever we are minded to retire from the World and converse with God we may be able to keep them off at such a Distance as that they may not be able to intrude upon us to mingle themselves with our Contemplations and divert our Eyes from the endearing Prospect of his infinite Love and Loveliness And then our Thoughts will stay and dwell upon this ravishing Theme like Bees upon a sweet Flower and never rise till they have extracted thence the Honey of Canaan the delicious Sweets of heavenly Love and Complacency then we shall muse on till the Fire burns and never take off our Eyes from God till we have gazed our selves into Captivity to his Love and Beauty 4 thly If we would attain to the Love of God we must endeavour by the constant Practice of what is agreeable to his Nature to reconcile our Minds and Tempers to it For whilst our Minds are averse to the Perfections of his Nature to the Justice Purity and Goodness of it the most powerful Motives of his Love and Benevolence will never be able to beget in us an hearty Complacencey in him We may admire his Love to us and be sometimes moved by the consideration of it into mighty Transports of sensitive Passion but 't is impossible we should ever attain to a fix'd and permanent Delight in him till we are reconciled to his Nature For all true and constant Love is founded in a Likeness of Natures and therefore till we are in some Measure god-like till we are pure as he is pure just as he is just good and merciful as he is good and merciful we have not as yet so much as laid the Foundation of divine Love nay we are so far from that that we are under a
Commandments what an Immodesty is it in us to pretend to love him while we chuse to disobey him 4. And lastly If we love God sincerely we shall be ready chearfully to undergo any Thing for his sake be it never so hard and difficult For Love is a bold and vigorous Passion it makes weak Things strong and turns Cowards into Heroes and warms and animates the Heart with such a generous Fire as disdains all Opposition and courageously out-braves the greatest Dangers and Difficulties For he that loves heartily would do any Thing for the sake of his Beloved and then measuring his Strength by the Greatness of his Desires he thinks himself able to do whatsoever he will So strongly doth this Passion transport Nature beyond the Bounds of its Abilities inspiring it with such Force and Vigour as that scarce any thing is able to withstand it If therefore we love God sincerely and heartily our Love must necessarily resolve into Obedience to his Will be it never so hard and difficult For our Love will so enliven and animate our Endeavours of serving him and carry us with such Spirit and Alacrity through all the weary Stages of our Duty that it will be our Meat and Drink to do his Will and there is no Instance of Obedience be it never so hard and difficult but our Love will smother and render it not only easy but delightful For what I do for him whom I love I do for my self his Pleasures being mine and our Wills and Ends and Interests being involved in one another So that if my Love be in any Measure intense and cordial I shall do his Pleasure and perform his Will with the same Complacency and Delight as if I were doing my own and whatsoever Difficulties I meet with in serving him I shall encounter them with Joy that I am furnished with Opportunities of expressing the Zeal and Sincerity of my Love to him So that to pretend to love God and yet to boggle at the Difficulties of obeying him is the most shameful Hypocrisy in nature for if we did as highly love him as we pretend our Wills would be so swallowed up in his that it would be our Joy and Recreation to serve him and the very Thought that we are doing what is pleasing and grateful to him would level all the Mountains of Difficulties in our way and render them not only accessible but easy He therefore that stumbles at every Straw and startles at every Difficulty in Religion must be a notorious Hypocrite if he pretend to the Love of God for where true Love is Difficulty is so far from daunting it that that animates and encourages it and instead of blunting its Activity whets and renders it more keen and vigorous because the greater the Difficulty is the greater is its Opportunity of manifesting its own Sincerity and thereby of recommending it self to it s Beloved the Joy of which not only ballances but endears all its Pains and Trouble Hence the Apostle tells us that there is no fear in love and that perfect love casteth out fear 1 John iv 18 It inspires us with such Bravery and Courage that there is no Difficulty in our Obedience to him whom we love that can daunt or terrify us Wherefore since this is a necessary Property of the Love of God to make us ready to undergo any Thing for his sake this also must necessarily resolve into the keeping his Commandments for if we are willing to do any thing for God we shall surely be willing to obey him and though our Obedience in some Instances may be difficult yet our Love if it be real will conquer its way through them all And thus you see how all the essential Properties of the Love of God do finally resolve into Obedience from whence it is evident that wheresoever the Love of God is it will most certainly prove a Principle of Obedience II. I proceed now to the second Head of Discourse which was to shew that the Love of God is it self the most perfect Principle of Obedience Not that I think all other Principles in their own nature bad for God himself hath proposed other Principles of Action to us besides this of Love he hath denounced his fearful Threatnings against us to alarm our Fear that by that we may be moved to obey him and propounded his glorious Promises to us to excite our Hope that that may be a Spring and Principle of Obedience in us And certainly that can be no bad Principle which is excited in us by divine Motives but yet it is most certain that there is no Principle whatsoever can be acceptable to God that is quite separated from Love to him for that which makes it acceptable is this that it is a Principle of Vniversal Obedience But now the Love of God being the greatest Instance of our Obedience that can be no Principle of universal Obedience that is wholly separated from it 'T is true the Religion of most Men begins upon a Principle either of Hope or Fear and it cannot be denied but they are very good Beginners but yet till by these we are induced to love God as well as to practise all other Duties we are by no means pleasing and acceptable to him So that though the Fear of Punishment and the Hope of Reward are good Ingredients in the Principle of our Obedience yet till they have some Intermixtures of Love with them they can make no Claim to the divine Acceptation There may be indeed and at first there generally is much less of Love in this Principle of Obedience than of Hope and Fear whilst yet the whole Composition is very acceptable to God for the lowest Degree of cordial Love intermixed with our Hope and Fear will leaven and consecrate them into an acceptable Principle of Obedience but still the less Love there is in it the more weak and languid and imperfect it is and in all its Progresses towards Perfection its Maturity is to be measured by the Degrees of Love that are in it and till our Love is arrived unto that Degree of Ardency as to become the predominant Motive and Master-Ingredient in it our State in Goodness is very slow and imperfect So that in short the Principle of our Obedience is more and more perfect the more of Love there is in it and the less of Hope and Fear and when Hope and Fear are all swallowed up in Love and that is the sole Spring of Action within us then it is the Principle of Heaven and the Soul that acts and animates the Religion of the Spirits of just men made perfect But to convince you how much our Obedience is perfected by Love I shall briefly give you these following Instances of it 1. It rendereth our Obedience universal and unconfined 2. Spritely and chearful 3. Natural and easy 4. Constant and steady 1. Love renders our Obedience universal and unconfined When Men are acted only by a Principle of Fear
are now liable by Reason of their Vnion with the Body and having in a great Measure conquered their Wills while they were in the Body and subdued them to the Will of God they shall immediately commense into an high Degree of Perfection For being freed from the Incumbrances of Flesh and Blood from the Importunities of their bodily Passions and Appetites and the Temptations of Sensuality that do now continually sollicit them they shall no longer be liable to those Irregularities of Affection that do here disturb the Tranquility of their Minds and their Actions and Affections being always regulated by their Reason their Consciences shall be no longer bestormed with those Terrors and Affrightments which nothing but the Sense of Guilt can suggest to them but enjoy a perpetual Calm and Serenity And being thus freed from all Evils and Disquietudes both from within and without they shall be at perfect Ease and for ever enjoy a most undisturbed Repose O blessed Day when I shall take my Leave of Sin and Misery for ever and go to those calm and blisful Regions whence Sighs and Tears and Sorrows and Pains are banished for ever more 2. Everlasting Life includes a most intimate Enjoyment of God For God being a rational Good is capable of being enjoyed by rational Beings no otherwise than by Knowledge and by Love and by Resemblance all which Ways he hath promised that we shall enjoy him when once we are arrived into that blisful State For as for the Knowledge of him St. Paul tells us that whereas now we see through a Glass darkly we shall then see him Face to Face And whereas now we know in part then we shall know even as also we are known 1 Cor. xiii 12 and St. John tells us that we shall see him as he is 1 John iii. 2 Which expressions must needs import such a Knowledge of him as is unspeakably more distinct and clear than any we enjoy in this present State For then the Eyes of our Minds shall be so invigorated that we shall be able to gaze on the Sun without dazling to contemplate the pure and immaculate Glory of the Divinity without being confounded with its Brightness and our Understandings shall be so exalted that shall we see more at every single View than we do now in Volumes of Discourse and the most tedious Trains of Inference and Deduction And enjoying a most perfect Repose both from within and without we shall have nothing to disturb or divert our greedy Contemplations which having such an immense Horizon of Truth and Glory round about them shall still discover farther and farther and so entertain themselves with everlasting Wonder and Delight For what an infinite Pleasure will that all-glorious Object afford to our raised Minds which then shall no longer labour under the tedious Difficulties of Discourse but like transparent Windows shall have nothing to do but only to receive the Light which freely offers it self unto them and shines for ever round about them when every new Discovery of God and of those bottomless Secrets and Mysteries of his Nature shall enlarge our Capacities to discover more and still new Discoveries shall freely offer themselves as fast as our Minds are enlarged to receive them This doubtless will be a Recreation to our Minds infinitely transcending all that we can conceive or imagin of it especially considering that all our Knowledge shall terminate in Love that sweet and grateful Passion that sooths and ravishes the Hearts and dissolves it into Joy and Pleasure For God being infinitely good and amicable the more we know him the more Cause and Reason we have to love him When therefore we are arrived to that Degree of Knowledge which the beatifical Vision implies we shall find our Hearts inflamed with such a vehement Love to him as will issue into an unspeakable Delight and Satisfaction and even overwhelm us with Extasies of Joy and Complacency for if those divine Illapses those more immediate Touches and Sensations of God which Good Men do sometimes experience in this Life do so affect and ravish them that they are even forced into Triumphs and Exultations how will they be wrapt and transported in that State of Vision when they shall see him so immediately and love him so vehemently and their Souls shall be nothing else but entire Globes of Light and Love all irradiated and inflamed with the immediate Effluvia's of the Fountain of Truth and Goodness But alas As these Joys are too big for mortal Language to express so are they too strong for frail Mortality to bear and if we but for one Day or Hour should see God and love him as those glorified Spirits do we should questionless die with an Extasy of Pleasure and our glad Hearts being tickled with such insupportable Joys by endeavouring to enlarge themselves to make Room for them all would quickly stretch into a Rupture But then as our Knowledge of God shall terminate in the Love of him so both together shall terminate in our Resemblance of his Perfections for having so immediate a Prospect of his Beauties and being so infinitely enamoured with them with what inexpressible Vigour must we imitate and transcribe them And our Imitation being invigorated with such a clear Knowledge and such a vehement Love cannot fail of producing the described Resemblance so that the more we know God the more we shall love him and the more we know and love the more we shall imitate and resemble him So that then both our inward Motions and outward Actions will be all most pure and perfect Imitations of God which will produce such an exact Agreement between his Original and our Copy that whilst we interchangably turn our Eyes to God and our selves and compare Beauty with Beauty it will fill our Minds with unspeakable Content to see how the Image answers to the Prototype what a sweet Harmony and Agreement there is between his Nature and our own For if from our Love of God there must necessarily result to us such ineffable Joy and Complacency what a ravishing Delight will it afford us to see the Signatures of those adorable Beauties for which we love him stampt and impressed upon our own Natures when the Glory that shines about and inflames us shall shine into us and become our own and those amiable Ideas of him which are impressed upon our Understanding shall stamp our Wills and Affections with their own Resemblance For so the Apostle tells us it shall be 1 John iii. 2 For when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Lord how must our Souls be enlarged and widened to be able to contain all those mighty Joys that must necessarily spring from our Fruition of thee And to what a Degree of Happiness shall we be advanced when we shall be entertained with all the delights that the Enjoyment of an infinite Good can afford us and have Hearts great enough to contain them all
much in discovering his Loveliness as in affecting our Hearts with the Sense of it and in raising our gross and carnal Affections to a Love proportionate to those Discoveries and 't is this that creates us so much Toil and Labour in the Progress of our Obedience to the Law of Perfection but when once we are arrived into the blessed Regions of Immortality our Affection being perfectly subdued to the Reason of our Minds and dreined and clarified from all its gross and carnal Love will as naturally flame out more and more towards God upon every new Discovery of his Beauty as Fire doth when more combustible Fuel is layd upon it and so without any Toil or Difficulty the more we know the more we shall Love and so more and more for ever If therefore we would know what Measures of Love to God we are obliged to by this Law of Perfection the Answer is easy viz. that to all Eternity we are bound to love him as much as we are able and always to love him more and more as our Ability increases And this I take to be the Sense of that comprehensive Law of our Saviour Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength Mar. 12.30 that is thou shalt imploy thy Faculties thy Mind thy Will and thy Affections to the utmost of thy Strength and Power in loving delighting and taking Complacency in the Goodness Beauty and Perfections of God But 2 ly What Degree of Love to God is required by the Law of Sincerity which is the Law by which we must stand or fall for ever So that the Sense of the Enquiry is this what Degree of Love to God is necessary to put us into a State of Salvation the indispensable Condition of our Salvation being nothing else but our Obedience to this Law of Sincerity Now as to this particular of our Love of God there are two Things which this Law exacts of us First it requires the Being and Existence of this heavenly Virtue in us that is it requires not only that we should not hate God or be indifferent between Love and Hatred in our Affection to him but that we should really cordially and sincerely love him And hence those eternal Glories and Beatitudes in which our Salvation doth consist are said to be prepared by God for them that love him 1 Cor. 2.9 which is a plain Evidence that it is one of the Conditions or Qualifications upon which our Salvation doth depend and consequently an indispensable Duty of the Law of Sincerity and St. James expresly tells us that the Lord hath promised the Crown of Life to them that love him Ja. 1.12 And therefore since that Law of Sincerity contains the Condition of that Promise it hence necessarily follows that our Love to God is a Part of it since that Promise is made to those that love him Nay so necessary a Part of that Law is this excellent Virtue that the Apostle tells us without this the most vertuous Actions whatsoever are insignificant Cyphers in the Account of God for though saith he I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor and though I give my Body to be Burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13.3 where it is plain he takes Charity in the largest Sense for our Love to God and one another He therefore that doth not really love God who is not heartily touched and affected with the Sense of his Goodness and Perfections stands condemned by the Law of Sincerity and without Repentance and Amendment shall have no Part or Portion in the Kingdom of God But then Secondly This Law of Sincerity requires such a Degree of Love to God as doth together with the other Motives of Christianity effectually render us obedient to his Will For as I have shewed you the Scripture every where makes our keeping his Commandments the most essential Property of our Love of him for if a man love me saith our Saviour he will keep my Words Joh. 14.23 And whoso keepeth his Word saith St. John that is his Commandments in him is the love of God perfected that is in him it is real and cordial and sincere 1 Joh. 2.5 When therefore our Love to God hath that Power over us as together with the other Motives of Christianity to restrain us from the wilful Omission of any known Duty or Commission of any known Sin it is then perfected to that Degree which the Law of Sincerity exacts But before we dismiss this Argument it will be necessary to give a more particular Account of it 1. Therefore this Law of Sincerity requires that some Degree of true Love to God should be intermingled with the other Parts of our Obedience to him because this as I have shewn you is one great and essential Part of that Obedience which it requires and therefore if out of mere Fear of God we should obey him in all other Instances yet so long as we are defective in this our Obedience will be lame and partial and want a great Part of that Intireness which the Law of Sincerity exacts For since it requires us to love God under the same Penalty of eternal Death that it requires all its other Duties we can no more be saved by it without this Virtue than without Justice Temperance and Chastity yea considering how necessary this is both to quicken our Obedience here and qualify us for Happiness hereafter we may much better spare any Virtue of Religion than this of the Love of God This therefore is indispensably necessary according to the Tenor of the Law of Sincerity that there should be some Degree of true Love to God intermingled with the other Parts of our Obedience 2 ly This Law of Sincerity exacts of us only such a Degree of Love to God as in Conjunction with the other Motives of Christianity is actually sufficient to enforce our Obedience It doth not require us to love God in that heroic Degree as not to need any other Motive to engage us to obey his Will for if it did no Man could be in a good State till he were able to obey God purely for his own Sake without any Respect either to those glorious Advantages he promises or those endless Torments he denounces which requires such an ardent Degree of Love to him as I doubt few good Men arrive to in this Life I know 't is usually said by those that handle this Argument that to love God above all Things is the Degree of Love to which the Law of Sincerity obliges us but either this must be a Mistake or no Man can be good till he is so perfect a Lover of God as not to need any other Motive but that of his own Love to oblige him to Obedience For Men need no Motives to persuade them to chuse what they love best and therefore if Men loved God above all they
but many a Message of Love he hath sent us transcribed from his very Heart He sent his Son from Heaven to us and clothed him in our Natures that therein we might be capable of conversing freely with him and all his Errand was to deliver a Message of Love to the World and to court and importune them to listen to and comply with it And when he returned again to his Father he instituted an Order of Men to supply his Room and in his Stead to woo the World to be happy For we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 So that you are set upon the Throne and not only Men but God himself lies prostrate before your Foot-stool beseeching you to lay down your Arms and to be reconciled to your best Friend that never did you the least Injury unless that be one that he hath loved you better by a Thousand Degrees than ever you loved your selves And can we be such barbarous Wretches as not to listen to him when he thus humbles himself before us and even comes upon his Knees to us for Reconciliation How justly may the whole Creation be astonished to see the great Majesty of Heaven condescend so low as to beseech and entreat a Company of rude disdainful Rebels whom he could every Moment frown into Nothing to accept of his Love and at last comply with Terms of Friendship Who would ever imagine but that sad Experience evinces the contrary that among reasonable Beings there should be found such Monsters of Ingratitude as to persist in Enmity to God after he hath thus humbled himself and made so many lowly Addresses only to court and woo us to be happy And thus you see how many puissant Motives to Love are comprehended in these few Words because he first loved us which are such as nothing can ever be able to resist but a Heart that is steeled with Impudence and Ingratitude So that if after all these Obligations which God hath laid upon us we do not at last surrender up our Hearts unto him our Baseness and Ingratitude is such as nothing but our eternal Ruine will be able to expiate For when with all the Endearments of his Loving kindness he finds he cannnot prevail on us to love him the very Consideration how much he hath obliged us and what unworthy Requitals we have made him will but incense him the more against us till it hath converted his Kindness into implacable Fury and when once the Heats of wronged Love take Fire and kindle into Wrath it will be a quenchless Flame and everlasting Burning Wherefore in the Name of God Sirs let us endeavour to affect our Souls with the Sense of this dear Love to warm our Affections at this heavenly Fire till it hath insinuated it self into them and converted them into its own Substance And that we may be succesful herein let us take with us these following Directions 1. Let us season our Minds with good Opinions of God For since 't is his Goodness that is the most immediate Object of our Love to him whatsoever Opinions do reflect upon that or any way tend to cloud and disgrace it must necessarily Damp our Affection towards him Whilst therefore we look upon God as a mere arbitrary Being as one that conducts all his Actions by a blind Omnipotent Self-will and governs the World and dispenses Rewards and Punishments to his Creatures according to a certain fatal Decree which he made without Foresight or Consideration as one that exacts Impossibilities of his Subjects commands the Lame to run the Blind to see and without ever enabling them thereunto is resolved to damn them forever for Non-performance Whilst I say we look upon God through such false Opticks as these they must needs represent him exceeding unlovely in our Eyes For though I doubt not but there are many Men that love God heartily notwithstanding they have entertained these sower and gastly Notions of him yet I must seriously profess had I such black Opinions of him I should never be able heartily to love him though I were sure to be damned for ever for neglecting it Wherefore if we would kindle in our Souls the Love of God let us take Care as much as in us lies to purge our Thoughts of all ill Opinions of him and to represent him fairly to our Minds what he truly is and what the Scripture represents him to be viz. a most bountiful Benefactor unto all his Creation and an universal Lover of the Souls of Men one that heartily desires our Welfare and is always ready to contribute to us whatsoever is necessary thereunto Let us firmly persuade our selves that he desires not our Ruine but would have all Men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth that when he finally destroys any particular Offender it is in great Mercy to the Publick that he loves not Punishment for its own Sake and never inflicts it but for some gracious and merciful End These are such Thoughts of God as are truly worthy of him and infinitely apt to endear him to all considering Minds 2 ly Let us frequently consider and revolve in our Minds the numerous Reasons and Engagements that we have to love him For all Virtue whatsoever begins in Consideration and it being a rational Accomplishment cannot be otherwise acquired but only by Reason and Discourse that is by considering the Reasons and pressing our selves with the Arguments upon which it is founded And thus we must do in the Case before us if ever we would attain to a hearty Love of God we must be often entertaining our Thoughts with the Consideration of those great Obligations he hath laid upon us to love him how deeply we are engaged by all the Ties of Gratitude and Ingenuity to repay him in his own Coin and to return him Love for Love Nor will it be sufficient to affect our Hearts with the Sense of those Obligations now and then to reflect a few slight and transient Thoughts on them but with holy David we must muse on till the Fire Kindles we must fix and stay our Thoughts upon the Consideration of God's endearing Love to us urge and press them again and again till we have wrought and chafed them into our Souls and a heavenly Warmth diffuses from them and enflames our Hearts with a divine Affection Wherefore let us frequently revolve such Thoughts as these in our Minds O my Soul How infinitely art thou obliged to love thy God who hath been such a tender Friend and liberal Benefactor to thee who loved thee before ever thou wast capable of thinking a Thought of Love towards him yea and when thou didst most justly deserve to be excommunicated from his Favour for ever and who had no other Aim in loving thee but to do thee good and make thee happy and thought nothing too good for thee
should be such as did clearly argue and evince his righteous Severity for otherwise it would have no Force in it to prevent our Presumption And what Motive of Pardon could better evince his Severity than the Suffering of some other in our Room especially the Suffering of his own Son the greatest and dearest Person in the whole Creation For not to be moved to grant a publick Pardon to us upon our hearty Repentance unless this blessed Person would engage to die for us whose infinite Greatness gave such an inestimable Value to his Sufferings as rendred them adequate to what we had deserved to suffer was as great an Argument of his inflexible Severity against Sin as if he should have destroyed at one Blow the whole World of Sinners So that as he hath expressed an infinite Mercy to us in admitting his own Son to die for us so in refusing to pardon us upon any less Motive than his precious Death he hath expressed an infinite Hatred to our Sins and so that very Death which moved God to pardon us moves us to stand in Awe of his Severity the Death of the Son of God upon which we are pardoned being the most terrible Instance that ever was of the Desert of our Sin and God's Displeasure against it Thus our blessed Lord hath not only given us the greatest Encouragement by procuring our Pardon to return from our Iniquities but by procuring it in such a formidable way he hath given us the most dreadful Warning of God's Severity against them So that now we cannot think upon the Reason for which our past Offences are forgiven without being vehemently moved to future Obedience And thus the main Design you see both of Christs Life and Death was to recal us from Sin to the Practice of Righteousness And hence he is said to have given himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity and to purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Tit. ii 14 And then he arose again from the Dead to confirm that righteous Doctrine which he had revealed to the World and visibly ascended into Heaven to give us an ocular Demonstration of the heavenly Rewards of Righteousness and there he now sits at the right Hand of God to assure us that if we persevere in Righteousness we shall be continually befriended in the Court of Heaven through his all-powerful Intercession and hath assured us that at the End of the World he will come to Judgment and faithfully distribute those Rewards and Punishments which here he promised and threatned to righteous and unrighteous Persons Thus the main Drift you see of all these great Transactions of our Saviour was to advance the Interest of Righteousness and true Goodness What a mighty Evidence therefore is this of God's great Love of Righteousness that he should send his own most blessed Son upon its Errand to transact such mighty Things on its Behalf For by sending Christ into the World and exposing him to Misery for Righteousness Sake he did in Effect declare that he valued the Interest of Righteousness more than the present Happiness and Enjoyment of his most dearly beloved and only begotten Son and we may most certainly conclude that had not Righteousness been infinitely dear to him he would never have authorized his dearest Son to take such infinite Pains to promote it 4 thly Another supernatural Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his promising such vast Rewards to us upon it and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us if we despise and neglect it For besides all those temporal Rewards he hath proposed to us if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the Righteousness thereof he hath erected a Heaven of immortal Joys and Felicities to crown and entertan it a Heaven that contains in it all the Beatitudes that humane Nature is capable of all that Truth that the most capacious Mind can comprehend and all that Good that the vastest Affections can either crave or contain In a word a Heaven whose Blisses are all as large as our immense Desires and all as lasting as our immortal Beings For 't is a Heaven which consists in an eternal Fruition of the Fountain of infinite Truth and Goodness whose everflowing Streams are abundantly sufficient to quench the Thirst and make glad the Heart of every Being that understands and loves How much therefore God loves Righteousness you may easily guess by these vast Preparations he hath made to entertain it For he built Heaven on purpose to lodge righteous Souls and that they may see he thinks nothing too dear for them he is himself their Feast there as well as their Entertainer He feeds them with his own Perfections and they live for ever as happily as their Hearts can wish upon the Sight and Love and Imitation of his Beauties So vehemently is his Heart set upon Righteousness that he will have every righteous Soul dwell with him and live upon him and partake of all those heavenly Joys in which his own Beatitude consists But as for Vnrighteousness how much his Soul abhors it is evident by those dire Punishments he hath denounced against it by those dark and dismal Abodes which he hath condemned unrighteous Souls to to languish out a woful Eternity to burn in Flames there that never consume and be gnawn with Worms which never devour them to be scared and haunted with Devils without and Furies within and perpetually worried Day and Night without any Ease or Intermission with all the Horrors Griefs and Vexations that an everlasting Hell imports O thou merciful Father of Beings How couldst thou have found in thy Heart to condemn thy Creatures to so wretched a State had not their unrighteous Practices been infinitely odious in thine Eyes No certainly the good God would never have made Hell for a Trifle for the sake of any Thing that his Nature could have endured or dispensed with nor would he ever have cast any unrighteous Creature into it were it not for the implacable Abhorrence he hath to all Unrighteousness And therefore since he hath not only made Hell but warns us of and threatens us with it we may be sure he infinitely abominates that for which he made and threatens it and consequently that he is infinitely concerned for the Cause and Interest of Righteousness 5 thly And lastly Another supernatural Indicaton of God's Love of Righteousness is his granting his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness First he sent his Son to propagate Righteousness by his Ministry his Life and Death and upon his Return to Heaven he sent his Spirit to supply his Room and carry on that dear Design of which his Son had already laid the Foundation For in Christ's personal Absence his Spirit acts in his Stead and was sent down from the Father by Virtue of his Intercession to be his Vicegerent in the World to promote and inlarge his heavenly Kingdom to conquer our
Hearts and subdue our stubborn Wills to the Obedience of his most righteous Laws So that the Holy Ghost doth now preside in the Church as the supreme Minister and vicarous Power of our Saviour and is continually imployed even as our Saviour himself was whilst he abode upon Earth in driving on the Interest of Righteousness for hitherto tend all his secret Operations on the Minds of Men this is the Reason why he suggests so many good Thoughts and by repeating them thick upon us keeps our Minds so fix'd upon them that so if possible he may recollect our dispersed Minds that are continually wandring to and fro in this infinite Maze of sensual Vanities and engage them to attend to such Motives of Righteousness as are most apt to excite them to wise and vertuous Resolutions So that as in the Beginnings of Christianity before Christian Motives to Righteousness were believed the Holy Spirit did operate more visibly and miraculously to confirm and demonstrate the Truth of them so now they being believed and thereupon the Necessity of such miraculous Operations superseded his great Work is to object and present them to our Minds and fix our Thoughts upon them till they have effected in us those good Resolutions for which they were designed and intended And how diligently he pursues this Work our own Experience certifies and informs us For how often do we find good Thoughts and Motions injected to us we know not how nor whence and how many times do these unexpected Thoughts kindle holy Desires in us before we are aware Which Desires being fed by a fresh Supply of holy Motions and Suggestions are many times nourished into good Resolutions and these being still back'd with those repeated Motions which do frequently press with strong Importunity upon us are at last perfected into firm and lasting Principles of Action Thus does the Holy Spirit continually knock at the Door of our Souls and sollicit us with the greatest Earnestness to sober and righteous Resolutions and this is his constant Imployment among Men and will be so to the End of the World till Jesus whose Vicegerent he is and whose Absence he supplies returns in Person from Heaven to keep his last and general Assizes upon Earth And can we imagin that God would have all this while imployed his Holy Spirit in the Service of Righteousness to drive on its Interest and sollicit its Cause if it had not been infinitely dearer to him No certainly he sets a greater Value on the Pains of his Son and Spirit than to busy them about a Trifle to imploy them so industriously as he has done in an Affair which he had little or no Regard for If his Heart had not been extremely set upon it he would have found out some other Imployment for those divine and illustrious Persons and not have engaged them so everlastingly as he hath done in the Service and Ministry of Righteousness Having thus explained and proved the Proposition That the Righteous Lord loveth Righteousness I shall conclude with some few Inferences drawn from the whole Argument 1. From hence I infer that no Religion or Proposition of Religion can be true that either directly or by true Consequence is an Enemy to Righteousness For all true Religion is from God and therefore to be sure that cannot be true which either directly or indirectly opposes that which God so dearly loves This therefore is a plain Conviction of the notorious Falshood and Imposture of Popery that in all those Doctrins it hath superinduced upon the common Principles of Christianity it is an open Enemy to Righteousness As for Instance it is a common Principle of Christianity that God alone is to be worshiped as the supream Author and Fountain of our Beings upon which the Church of Rome hath superstructed the Invocation of Saints and Angels which they perform in the same Words and with the same Address as they do the Invocation of God himself For though they pretend to pray to them only for their Prayers yet in their Publick Offices they do not only beg their Prayers to God for them but also invocate them as sovereign Gods and independent Disposers of the Mercies they pray for Thus in the Hours of Sarum they implore the Angels to direct their Thoughts and Words and Actions in the way of Salvation that so they may be able to fill up the Number of the Angelical Orders which by the Fall of Lucifer was diminished to protect them from the Devils and comfort them when they are dying Particularly St. Michael they beseech to be their Coat of Mail St. Gabriel to be their Helmet St. Raphael to be their Shield St. Vriel to be their Defender St. Cherubim to be their Health St. Seraphim to be their Truth and all the holy Angels and Arch-angels to keep protect and defend them and bring them to eternal Life And as for Raphael to whom they seem to bear a more particular Affection they stile him the best Physitian both of Body and Soul and pray him to inlighten both their spiritual and carnal Eyes And then as for the Saints they do as immediately address to them in their Forms of Prayer for Sanctification Pardon temporal and eternal Blessings as they can possibly do to God himself particularly the Blessed Virgin they adorn with the most glorious Titles of God and in her Psalter address to her in the same Forms of Invocation which David uses in his Psalms to God they stile Her the Lady Almighty the Author of Mercy the Queen of infinite Majesty and the Hope of all the World praying that her Mercy may lighten upon them as they do put their trust in her and a great deal more to this Purpose And as for Joseph her Husband they stile him the Support of their Lives and the Pillar of the World beseeching him with his Carpenters Ax a Tool fit only to work upon such wooden Souls to hew down their Sins that they may be adopted Timber for the Palace of Heaven In a word in their present Breviary they implore St. Peter to loose them by his Word from the Bonds of Sin and supplicate the Apostles who by their Word if the Prayer lies not do lock and unlock the Gates of Heaven to loose them from all Sin by their Command They humbly intreat St. Genovesa to have pity on those that hope in Her to blot out their Sins and send them Relief and Comfort and implore St. Sebastian to preserve their Country from the Plague to preserve their Bodies and heal their Minds and to win him thereunto assure him that all their Hope is in him These and several other such like Instances there are of their Prayers both to Angels and Saints in which they do as immediately invoke them both for temporal spiritual and eternal Blessings as they can do God himself who is the sole Disposer of them And is not this most palpable Unrighteousness towards God to strip him thus of