That God in Christ may be All in All which how can he be saith the holy Father if any thing of man be left in man If the Souls of the just are not drown'd and drunk up in the fathomless Sea of Aeternal light If humane affections do not dissolve and melt away from themselves and become so transfus'd into the sole will of God as to be like a drop of water in a great quantity of wine wherein departing from it self it wholly puts on the colour and taste of wine or as an Iron red-hot does make a defection from itself by putting on the whole Nature and Form of fire if I say it is not thus after the general Resurrection in what sense can it be said and said it is by S. Paul that God in that day shall be All in All But in the place before cited from 1 Cor. 6. 17. S. Paul does not speak however S. Bernard apply's his words touching the union we shall injoy after the general Resurrection through the perfection of our love to the Lord Iesus Christ. For when he saith he that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit he seems to mean no other cleaving than was commanded even by Moses Deut. 10. 20. where to * fear and * serve God is to cleave unto him And so we are properly said to cleave unto the Lord Iesus Christ when the Caement of our union is an indissoluble Affection and such an obstinate Resolution not to depart from his Commandments that Death it self cannot seperate 'twixt us and them This alone is the Love which Saints are capable of on Earth and here is exacted under the penalty of Anathema Maranatha The other is competent to none but Saints Beatified in Heaven Sic affici Deificari est in the bold Dialect of S. Bernard This Love is our Duty whereof that other is our Reward And therefore this is commanded but that is promised For this we are prays'd for that admir'd This is difficultly had in a state of Grace whilst that we cannot but have in a state of Glory For as this does not expire but rather is perfected into that so by the Tenor of the New Covenant it does entitle us to its Fruition And therefore stoutly let us resolve so to cleave in our Affection to the Lord Iesus Christ and so to express our cleaving to him by keeping close to his Commandments as that before we have possession we may not fail to have a Right to the Tree of Life That in the day when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire when the Elements shall melt with fervent heat and the Heavens be shrunk up like a scrowl of Parchment when every Valley shall be filled up and every Mountain brought low we may be able to appear before the Judge with great boldness and whilst they that would not love the Lord Iesus in sincerity shall send forth weepings and wailings and gnashings of Teeth all alluded to in the sentence of Anathema Maranatha we may be called to bear a part in the quire of Angels and with the ten thousand times ten thousand which are round about the Throne of the Lord Iesus Christ who hath redeemed us to God unto whom he hath made us both Kings and Priests we may never rest from singing with unimaginable delight Blessing Honour Glory and Power to Him that liveth forevermore THE INTRODUCTION TO The Third Part. WHAT hath hitherto been praemis'd touching Christ's Love to us and ours to Him cannot better be succeeded in point of pertinence or use than by that which now follows touching our Love to one another A subject which is the rather to have its place in this Volume because our Love to one another is recommended to us in Scripture as much as God's love to us and ours to God And as that which does make us most like our Maker 'T was recommended to us by Christ in his last Will and Testament and that as one of the richest Legacyes that he was able to bequeath us The ever-blessed Testator as the Author to the Hebrews does fitly call him being to take his last leave in a farewel Sermon to his Disciples and having prepar'd them with an assurance that the time of his leaving them was at hand to make them ponder what he was speaking and lay it up as the speech of a Dying man And being resolv'd not to leave them without some Legacy some special Token of his Solicitude both for their present Consolation and future Bliss Peace saith he I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world a few good words in Civility or at the most a kind wish and therefore let not your heart be troubled at the sudden departure of my Person for as a supplement of That I leave you my cordial and solid Peace But knowing well that His peaee could never quietly rest with them in case of War and Division amongst themselves and being not able to indear them with a greater Testimony of His love than by obliging them strictly to the constant loving of one another He therefore bequeathed this Royal Precept as a previous part of their Patrimony whereby to fit them for all the rest That their reciprocal kindness should be like His that they should all be so affected as they had Him for an Example that just as He had been to All they should be All to one another for so runs the Instrument whereby he convey'd his good Pleasure to them a new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another even as I have loved you But then to gain their Acceptance of his Bequest and their religious Execution of what he commanded them to observe He shew'd them the value of such a Legacy as did accordingly tye them to such a Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By this all men shall know ye are my Disciples if ye love one another In which words of our Saviour there are two things suppos'd and a third is Taught First of all it is suppos'd that All to whom the words are spoken either are or ought to be Christs Disciples And that not only in profession but in singleness of heart not only verbally and by name but very really such This is easily collected from three words in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are my Disciples It is secondly suppos'd that such as are really Christs Disciples not in hypocrisy but in deed ought to endeavour to make it known to all THE WORLD that they are such Their light must shine before men by their Procope and Growth in the SCHOOL of Christ. This is apparent from two words more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All men shall know it And were it not so in good earnest the Master would never have directed them as here he does to the infallible means of it's attainment For We
that such a thing should be suppos'd as that a Christian should not love the Lord Iesus Christ Let us examin if you please how very natural 't is to love him that so our wonder may be the less at the severity of the Curse which our Apostle thunders out against as many as love him not Sect. 6. First 't is natural for us as men to love the gifts of the Almighty because by them we have the pleasure of staying our hunger and our thirst the pleasure of giving Satisfaction to all our Appetites and Needs Next 't is every whit as natural to love that Love of the Almighty from whence those gifts are derived to us And then how natural is the Transition from our love of his Love unto a yet greater love of Him that loves us For such a free Lover of Souls must needs Himself be more lovely than all his Love as much as the Agent than the Act or the Cause than the Effect Sect. 7 Again be we never so debauch't we cannot possibly abstain from being kind unto ourselves And as little from being kind unto the benefits and Blessings which we injoy And being so kind unto the benefits we should as little methinks abstain from being kind to the Benevolence from which those Benefits must needs proceed How much less should we be able to abstain from being kind to the Benefactor who is the Sourse and the Fountain of that Benevolence Certainly nothing can be viler than to love the meer Gifts above the Giver nothing more contumelious to him that Gives them Sect. 8. And if 't is natural for us as men to love our God as God only or at least as the Giver of our Injoyments how much more as God in Christ Reconciling us all unto Himself He is the Maker and the Preserver and so at least the Benefactor of all things else but the Redeemer the Restorer the Reconciler only of us As God Incarnate he conversed with men on Earth and as such in special manner we still converse with him in Heaven I therefore say in special manner because to address our selves to God as he is Infinite and Invisisible a self-subsisting Existence from everlasting to everlasting is not only apt to dazzle but to distract our understandings Our Thoughts are lost in this Ocean as the drops of a Bucket And where our Thoughts are hardly fixt 't is hard to fasten our Affections But now to address ourselves to God in the man Christ Iesus as he is manifest in the Flesh and hypostatically united to human Nature to settle our Affections and Thoughts upon him both as our Sacrifice and our Priest our Elder Brother and our Advocate as one incessantly pleading for us and reconciling us to Himself This is to take him at the advantage of his descending to our Infirmities and as it were to lay hold both on his Majesty and his Mercy whilst he is thus stooping down to our low embraces And therefore if any man shall be found so void of Grace and good Nature as not to love the God of Heaven both as a Bridegroom and a Redeemer who never had bought but to espouse us and courts our kindness under the Title of The Lord Iesus Christ he cannot deserve a milder Curse than that of Anathema Maranatha Which though the frightful'st and the most dismal that any poor Caitiff can undergo is yet the mildest and the most gentle that our Apostle could in Conscience condemn Them to who should be found NOT TO LOVE the Lord Jesus Christ. Should the very Souls of men be wholly dissolv'd into Love â—…twould be no more than He deserves for the excess of whose Love to the Souls of men the Holy Ghost hath affirmed that He is Love And considering how much the Cause is more noble than the Effect as I said before 't is very evident that our Saviour should be much dearer to us than our Salvation The name of Iesus a Saviour how delicious to our mouths ought it to be when e're we speak it How melodious to our Ears when e're we hear it And what a Iubily to our Hearts whensoever we do ruminate or think upon it Having therefore such a name as is above every name the name of Iesus a Saviour nor that temporal but eternal he needs must challenge such a Love as is above every Love not only of our Sins but of our selves too And therefore well might S. Paul upon the foulest supposition that can be made of a Malefactor pronounce the formidabl'st Sentence that can be uttered by any Iudge If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha Sect. 9. These words of the Apostle which I have thought a fit Subject for the second Part of my Design are first of all to have a general and then a more special Consideration Their Parts in the General are briefly Three First the necessary Duty which is incumbent on a Christian and that is the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Next the Latitude or Extent of the obligingness of the Duty which does not reach only to some but to all in general And this is imply'd in the Indefinite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man love him not Thirdly the dreadfulness of the Danger to whosoever shall despise or neglect the Duty And this is expressed in the sentence of esto Anathema Maranatha So that in order to the more plain and useful handling of the Text which is propos'd only to profit and not to please us we are to fasten our present Thoughts upon these three subjects of Meditation First the Nature of the Love which is here requir'd Next the Quality of the Curse which is here denounc't Thirdly the means we are to use to attain the first and in consequence of that to escape the second CHAP. I. Sect. 1. TO understand the first aright we are to view the Grace of Love by several steps of Gradation First of all we are to view it as it is fasten'd upon God and so is contradistinguish't to all other Love Such as is the love of men whether our Neighbours or our selves the love of our Bodies and of our Souls and so of all other Creatures not only such as are unlawful and under a special prohibition but also such as are commanded and of necessity to be lov'd It must be opposite to the former and hugely transcendent unto the later And then it is the Grace of Love as fastned in general upon God But we are secondly to consider it in its particular application I mean its Appropriation to the Lord Iesus Christ. And this again in a threefold respect as he is Dominus the Lord who is to rule and reign over us and as Iesus the Saviour who is like Ioshua and the Iudges at once to deliver and to conduct us and as Christ the Messias in all his Offices at once in that of Teaching and Blessing and Swaying his Scepter
his Mortality He did not groan to be uncloath'd with any desire of being naked but as a necessary condition of being cloathed upon with his House from Heaven It was for this and this only his extreme love of Christ that he did glory in Tribulations that he rejoyced in his Sufferings that he took pleasure in Persecutions and lov'd to bear in his Body the Dying of the Lord Iesus For this alone did S. Iohn embrace his Banishment into Pathmos S. Stephen his very stones and the men that threw them S. Thomas his saw and S. Peter his Crucifixion It was for this that S. Ignatius could bid defiance to salvage Beasts that Anacharsis brake forth with a kind of Triumph into his Tunde and that others being tormented would not let go their Sufferings not so much as accept of such a thing as a Deliverance when they might innocently have had it for taking up For this it was that Mary Magdalen perfum'd the Head of her blessed Lord and kiss't his Feet with the same affection and also wash't them with her Tears and after wip't them with her hair administred to him of her Substance closely follow'd him all along as far as from Galile to Ierusalem from thence to Golgotha and from thence unto his Grave too forgetting the tenderness of her Sex the tedious passages of the way the ghastly presence of the night the waking jealousie of the Elders the barbarous violence of the Guard and being afraid of just nothing unless of not finding Him whom with the pantings of her Soul she did love and long for Would ye know now the reason of so much love to the end it may affect you with somewhat like it She had been a great sinner and He had sav'd her from her Sins She had been seiz'd by seven Devils and her dear Lord had dispossess't her Had had the members of an Harlot which by a more than creative power He had converted into a Temple She had purchac't a place in Hell and He had given her an Inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven Or to give you the sum of all in our Saviours own words She loved much because much had been forgiven her Now what Marbles rather than Men may we be worthily esteem'd if such Examples as I have nam'd cannot provoke us to aemulation Seeing Christ is our Saviour as well as theirs what should hinder us from loving him as well as they Can we think so hardly of him as to believe he did decree that such as they only should love him did he not love that we should love him as well as S. Peter and S. Paul And did he therefore necessitate our want of kindness Did he accordingly praedetermin the several means of our disaffection or give us any discouragements from being kind Let us expostulate with ourselves as God himself was pleas'd to do with his People Israel Hath Iesus Christ been a wilderness to any of us or have we found him a wither'd Tree which hath not afforded us any Fruit What kind of Iniquity have we ever seen in him Which part of his Covenant hath he not punctually performed Did he ever yet forsake us when we forsook him not first What hath he don unto us and wherein hath he wearied us He desires us if he hath that we will testifie against him Mic. 6. 3. Nay who was ever more belov'd than he was pleas'd to love us For whose sake hath he don better or suffer'd worse than he did for ours Hath he forgiven us lesser sins than Mary Magdalen was forgiven Why then should we requite him with lesser Instances of Affection Or if the Affectionateness of others will not provoke us to aemulation and that we have not any Impatience of coming after them in Loyalty as much as Time yet let us try by a third Indeavour how to make up the defects of the first and second Let us display before our selves the several excellencies of Christ That so if any spark of Love is now discoverable within us we may by the Grace which he hath given us blow it up into a Flame To speak of his Loveliness in Himself would be the business of an Age and therefore must not be set about in this poor Remnant of an Hour But yet a little let us consider his great obligingness to us because the powerfull'st Incentive to Love is Love When Love was suppos'd by the old Poets to have brought down their Gods from Heaven to earth it was the highest flight of fancy their Wits could take whereby to celebrate the vertue and Power of Love But we can say without the help of either a Fable or a Figure that 't was the love of our Souls I mean the love of their safety which made the God of all Glory to bow the Heavens and come down to take upon him not the likeness but the essentials of a man yea to become a man of sorrows an intimate acquaintance with Grief and Miseries and this in the Form of a poor servant yea and in the disguise of a sinner too Sure if the Heavens had not bow'd unto the Scepter of his Love his Love was so strong it must needs have broke them When he reflected upon the Torments he was to suffer soon after for our Injoyment he shew'd the vehemence of his Love by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How am I streightn'd how am I press't how am I terrifi'd and pain'd till it be accomplish't He long'd to drink of the cup of Trembling He thirsted after the Potion of Gall and Vinegar He gladly suck't the very dregs of the wine of Gods wrath Not at all for its own sake because 't was bitter for as such it made him wish that the Cup might pass from him but because our Redemption was sweeter to him than any thing else could be bitter by which 't was purchacâ—…t Is not he a rare Physician for skill and kindness and certainly if it be possible more for kindness than for skill who takes no more unto Himself than the Rancidity of the Medicine and leaves his Patient to injoy the pleasant effects of a Recoverie Yet this was perfectly our case with the great Physician of the Soul He took the nauseousness of the Physick which made for the Cure of our Diseases We were desperately sick and He would needs swallow the ugly Pills That we might be purged from our filthiness He would needs drink up the filthy potion Would have the noisomest Ingredients as it were strain'd through His body that we might have nothing to pledge him in but the sweet Restorative of his Bloud Now what can more excite our Love than thus to meditate upon His As there is no better way whereby to keep up our Patience than by looking up to Him who did indure with so much Patience such contradiction of Sinners against himself so is there no better way whereby to keep up our love and to raise it
effect of discharging his duty and so 't is our duty to be happy and therefore an happiness to do our Duty The summ of our duty towards our Neighbour is to love him as our selves and the effect of this duty is full contentment and satisfaction For we are neighbours unto all for whom Christ dyed and he dyed for our enemies as well as Friends and if we love all the world for which Christ dyed with such a singleness of love as we love our selves with we cannot fail of observing that other Precept of our Saviour Matth. 7. 12. which is the doing unto others as we would that others should do to us And then by a consequence unavoidable we shall not covet another mans goods because we would not that another should covet ours And coveting nothing that is anothers we cannot choose but be satisfied and contented with our own And in contentment or satisfaction which are Synonymous it will be granted by all the world that real happiness does consist Sect. 20. Now if the loving of one another even as Christ hath loved us and as our selves do love our selves does infer our loving God with all our heart as S. Iohn does clearly intimate 1 Ioh. 4. 20. And if the Commandments of our Lord do amount all to this that we love one another with such a love as our Lord does clearly intimate in the 13 14 15 and 17. chapters of S. Iohn's Gospel then we discern the great reason of those expressions of S. Paul He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law And all the law is fulfilled in this one word thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self And if these things are so then all the moral law of Moses which is withal the law of Christ does make it our Duty to be content and by consequence to be happy and by consequence an happiness to do our Duty For he that saith in plain terms thou shalt not only not rob or defraud thy neighbour of his life his wife his goods or his good name but thou shalt also not coveâ—… any thing that is anothers doth clearly say in effect and substance thou shalt be satisfied with thine own thou shalt not be in any want of the things without but shalt have happiness within thee all thy desires shall be fulfill'd thou shalt have absolute contentment and satisfaction and the Angels of Heaven can have no more This is the precept which I command and this the Duty thou art obliged to perform Thou shalt not covet what is not thine that is to say in other words Thou shalt be as happy as I would have thee And thus at last I have proceeded unto the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or thing proposed to be prov'd Sect. 21. Another way whereby to prove it will be to argue from that Trichotomie in the 6. chapt of Micah at the 8. verse where the whole Body of the Commandments is compendiously divided into these three members to do Iustice to love Mercy and to walk humbly with our God The first of which bestows upon us a full Serenity of mind the most desirable felicity of being satisfied with our selves and so by consequence it yields us the greatest pleasure The second is not only to make our Donor to become our Debtor but to lend him our Riches upon Increase nor that for ten in the hundred but for an hundred-fold the Principal Mat. 19. 20. and by consequence it yields us the greatest gain The third is that which speaks us masters of our selves by speaking us servants to a master whose service is not only Freedom but Empire too Illi servire est regnare saith Espensaeus And giving us the advantage of that most honourable subjection which in Tacitus his judgment does place the Subjects above their Prince makes us Favorites in the Court of the King of Heaven and by consequence it yields the greatest Honour So that unless we are professedly Platonick Lovers of Disobedience all our Duties are conformable to the very unruliest of our Desires The doing of Iustice does comply with our Sensuality the loving of Mercy with our Avarice and to walk humbly with our God is very agreeable to our Ambition Sect. 22. Lest this should seem at first hearing to be but a phansiful way of arguing I shall shew it once more by a clearer light As for the first the doing of Iustice it entertains its entertainers with peace of Conscience which in the wise man's Judgment is a continual Feast It is so acceptable and pleasant to reflect in a mans Thoughts upon his having don well having wronged no man defrauded no man but dealt righteously with all that any man whose understanding hath not quite lost its Tast may make as pleasant a meal on a mess of Honesty I speak of likeness and not equality as if he had din'd that day in Paradise and taken his Supper in Heaven it self Sect. 23. The second the loving of Mercy is the giving our selves a Right to what we have by our parting with the possession For non videtur cujusquam id esse quod casu auferri potest saith Caius the Lawyer Nothing is properly our own which can possibly cease to be so by being entrusted unto a Treasurie where rust and moth can corrupt or where thieves break through and steal From whence it follows that 't is the Thrift if not the Avarice of a merciful man to make Heaven his Coffer and to Inventory his Goods by the number of the persons to whom he hath been a Benefactor For in propriety of speech we are worth no more than we have wisely given away And that the parting with our possession is no infringing of our Right appears not only by Gods but Iustinians Law For eum habere dicimus qui Rei dominus est aeque ac eum qui Rem tenet saith Ulpian And this Rule of the Civilians you may interpret out of S. Paul For when saith he we are poor by making many rich we are as having nothing and yet possessing all things Sect. 24. Lastly for the Third the walking humbly with our God it is not only the safest but noblest temper not only the most christian but the most hansome quality And thence is call'd by S. Peter not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is profitable or gainful in relation to God of whom it looks for its Reward but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too that is hansome or comly in the sight of men 1 Pet. 3. 4. Where having said wherein comliness does but negatively consist not in the plaiting of the hair or putting on of our apparel he proceeds to inform us wherein it positively consists to wit in the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even the Ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit 'T is this that makes us like the Queens Daughter all glorious within And therefore when Celsus upbraided Origen with that degenerous modesty of the Christians for
less the greatest which he requires Our obedience unto Christ like Christ's obedience unto the Father must not only be paid to some but to all his Commandments without exception All that Abigail could but say Christ Jesus acted For she desir'd to wash the feet of the servants of her Lord but He de facto did wash the feet of the servants of Himself who yet was their Lord and Davids too So very low went our Saviour in the Active part of his Obedience but his passive was lower yet not only to the Death which is the wages of disobedience but to the Death of the Cross too the worst of Deaths and the most terrible whether we consider its shame or torment By such incomparable Obedience both active and passive did the love of our Saviour express it self And shall not our love to Him express it self in our being clean In the keeping of our selves unspotted from the world Shall we adventure to be the worse for his goodness to us or violate his precepts with peace and comfort because we know he dyed our Sacrifice and is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for all our Sins No let us strive against sin though we resist it unto Bloud And resist it so much the rather because obliged to it by Him who is a God ready to pardon If He was prodigal of his life when he could spend it to our advantage why should we niggardly keep our Lives when 't is the thrivingst course to lose them That there is a certain case wherein we may save them to our loss and that again there is a case wherein we may lose them to our advantage is the peremptorie assertion of Christ himself He that will save his life shall lose it and he that will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it Now till we come to this pitch of being able in time of trial to lose a life for Christ's sake we have not satisfied the Text in its full Importance and by consequence till we have we stand in need of being taught from another Topick I mean we ought to be persuaded by seeing the terrors of the Lord or at least to be frighted by them And considering that S. Paul hath comprehended them all at once in that short pandect of Imprecations his dreadful Anathema Maranatha as also considering that the sins by which those Curses are all incurr'd do all arise from this Fountain a most unnatural want of love to the Lord Iesus Christ I cannot think of a fitter Text whereon to continue my Meditations than that Sentence of S. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And this I mean shall be the subject of the second part of my Design THE INTRODUCTION TO The Second Part. Sect. 1. AMongst the many obliging Titles which God in reference to Man vouchsafes to take upon Himself there is not any so apt to melt us as that of Eridegroom For whilst in other Relations to us he is the object of our Fear our Adoration our Admiration and the like still in the quality of a Bridegroom all he draws from us is Love And if we weigh the chief ingredients which are prescrib'd to make up and compound a Christian every grain of pure love will go as far as many pounds of our Awe and wonder Faith and Hope are great vertues but Love is greater And that as for many other reasons so in particular also for This that God was never yet said to be Faith or Hope nor is it possible for him to be so but S. Iohn hath said plainly that God is Love And therefore Love of all Graces makes us most to resemble the God that made us 'T is true indeed that Faith and Hope must help to carry us into Heaven But holy Love besides that will keep us company when we are there Our Love indeed shall there be perfected but only perfected into Love that though it shall cease to be incomplete it shall not cease to be it self Whereas our Faith and our Hope shall be for ever don away For that shall dy into experience and so shall this into Fruition Sect. 2. To fear and honour Him that made us is a most acceptable service Mal. 1. 6. But very passionately to love him does please him far beyond both It being absolutely in vain that we do honour him as a Father or that we fear him as a Lord unless we Love him as a Bridegroom who hath betrothed us to Himself Take away Love and Fear hath Torment Or take away Love and Honour degenerates into Hypocrisy Both are servil in themselves until our Love does manumit them and make them free Our Fear and our Honour are only welcom for our Loves sake whereas our sole or single Love is welcome to him for its own Sect. 3. Nor may you think that I have nam'd the utmost privilege of Love above other Graces For Love alone is that Motion or Affection of the Soul by which we render back to God though not ex aequo yet de simili a noble kind of Retaliation If he is Angry we are to Tremble not to be angry with him again If he Commands we must obey and if he censures we must adore him But by no means presume to return the like Nay if he saves us or sets us free we cannot thank him for it in kind we cannot make him a Retribution either of safety or of deliverance But when he condescends to love us we can and must love him without the Arrogance of taking too much upon us For to this very end does he begin to us in Love that though we never can requite yet at least we may pledge him with Love for Love Sect. 4. Again of all the Emanations or Affections of the Soul the Love of God is that alone which carries with it its own Reward I mean a Pleasure and Satisfaction which cannot admit of an allay by either Repentance or Satietie Indeed to love him for somewhat else is to receive no greater Pleasure than somewhat else has the luck to affect us with But to love him for himself is to possess the very end because the object of our Love For the greatest injoyment of such a Lover is still to love what he injoyes Hence it was that S. Austin did argue thus in his Confessions Thou hast commanded me Lord to love thee and dost threaten me with Hell if I love thee not Whereas 't is Hell enough to me that I cannot love thee enough For to love thee as I ought as thou deservest and I desire would be at once the greatest Duty and highest Reward to be imagin'd It would not only be my Task but my Heaven to love thee Sect. 5. Now when Interest and Honour conspire with Pleasure and Satisfaction to make us kind may it not seem a great wonder