Love to Christ Necessary to Escape the CURSE AT His Coming By THO. DOOLITTLE M. A. Mat. x. 37. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me Mat. xxv 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels LONDON Printed for Tho. Cockerill at the Three Legs in the Poultrey over against the Stocks-Market 1692. THE EPISTLE TO Non-Lovers OF CHRIST Lamenting Their SIN and MISERY THat Glorious Person who is both Lord and Jesus and Christ hath suffered and done and promised such things that might gain the love of Sinners to himself and by these doth Plead with them to set their Affections upon him In opposition to him the World and Sin stand in competition with him for the love of man's Heart Christ calls Sinner Love me Sin and World cry aloud Place thy love on us The Spirit Word Ministers Mercies and a Well-informed awaken'd Conscience press hard for the Love of Man to Christ The Devil and the Flesh sollicit for the Heart of Man for Sin and World Love man hath and one of these he will Love both he cannot at the same time with a predominant Love for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot Love and serve God and Mammon Mat. 6.24 Predominant Love to the one is inconsistent with such Love unto the other 1 Joh. 2.15 Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him This considered what Thinking man can forbear to grieve abstain from floods of Tears and bitter Lamentation when he seeth that the Love of Man such a Noble Affection in it self is set so much on Sin that is so bad in it self and unto its Lovers and upon the World that proves a vexation to those that are so fond of it who Love and vex who vex at it and yet still continue and encrease their Love unto it and their vexation by it doth not abate their inordinate Affection to it while Christ that is the primary principal and most delightful Object of Love is slighted by so many even by the most Blind Sinners Do ye thus love Sin so vile and the World so contemptible and not Christ that is altogether lovely and desirable What perverseness is this that Christ that is best in himself and best for them should be refused and Sin that is worst in it self and worst to them should be embraced What folly and madness is this that Christ should be kept out standing at the Door when Sin and World are admitted in and Lodged and kindly Entertained in the chiefest Room of their Hearts Cursed doings When Sin should have no Love shall it have all When Christ should have all shall he have none When the whole World like that part the Earth should be as your Footstool shall it or any thing in it be set up in your Hearts as in its Throne How is it that ye are so much mistaken as to think ye see Beauty in Deformity and Deformity in Beauty it self Why is odious Sin so lovely and a precious Christ so unlovely in your Eyes Have ye considered what Sin is and what Christ is that ye have greater Love to that Work of the Devil than ye have to Gods own Son And this when Sin is so bad and vile that as Sin it cannot be loved by the worst of men till it be first disguised and dressed up with the appearance of Good and Christ so good that as Christ he is to be loved most of all When called invited and charged in the Name of God by the Ministers of Christ shewing you God's Call Invitation and Charge to love this lovely Jesus why do ye retort and say What is your Beloved above another Beloved O ye Teachers of Christ VVhat is your Beloved more than another Beloved that ye so charge us How long will ye say He hath no form or comeliness VVe see â—o Beauty in him that we should desire him How long shall Christ complain of you that ye hate both him and his Father And is not this complaint more grievous when ye hate him without a cause and do not love him when there is so much cause and reason why you should VVhat hath Sin and VVorld done for you and what did ever Christ do against you that ye love your sorest Enemies and hate him that would be your surest Friend Hath Sin afforded you Pleasures But how long will they last And what will ye do when the Pleasures of Sin are past and fled away and the Pains and Punishment for Sin are come and shall never never pass away Hath the VVorld allowed you its Profits But whose shall these be when ye are Dead and Lodged in the Dust VVhat profit is there in all your Profits if ye gain them and lose your Souls Will not your Gain be your Everlasting Loss Is Christ the Admiration of Angels and is he your Derision Do they Adore him and do ye thus Despise him Do Holy Saved-Souls above delight and joy in their Love to him and in his to them and do ye turn away your Love and Alienate your Hearts from him and Love Sin and Rejoyce in that your Love Do Holy Souls beneath in this Imperfect State cry ouâ— Whom have we in Heaven but Christ or what is there on Earth that we desire like or love in comparison of him and do ye prefer your Lust and Fleshly Pleasures and Worldly Profits before him Have ye done so and will ye still Are ye so resolved Are your Hearts so hardened Your Minds so blinded And so enslaved to Sin and Satan Alas for you Were ye Born without love to Christ And have ye lived so long without love to him And will ye Dye at last without love to him Where are the Mourners that they may with flowing Tears bewail your Sin and Misery Why your Sin Because ye love not Christ Why your Misery Because you must be ANATHEMA when MARANATHA be Accursed when the Lord shall come Alas for you that are Ignorant of Christ for can ye love whom ye do not know Alas for you whose Hearts are full of love to a vain deluding VVorld and empty of sincere Love to Christ for ye must all be ANATHEMA when MARANATHA Accursed when the Lord shall come Let Angels blush Let the Heavens be ashamed Let good men weep Let the Earth mourn Let all the Creation of God sigh and sob and groan that the Son of God is not beloved by so many of the Sons of Men O my Soul where is thy love to these Souls empty of Saving-love unto thy Lord Where is thy sorrow for want of their Love Where are thy Bowels of compassion
a thing or person and yet love him To have mean low and undervaluing thoughts of one and yet love him more than another whom you do more highly esteem and value Doth not the Worldling that loves his Money more than other things value it above other things Doth not the Ambitious person that loves his Honour and his Credit more than other things stand upon it and esteem it more than other things And will it not be so with him that loveth Christ Or is not he a Cursed man that valueth any thing above Christ and esteems it more than Christ As Christ is precious to him that doth Believe 1 Pet. 2.7 so he is to him that Loves Pearls are valued but as Pebbles and Diamonds as Dirt and Diadems as Dung by a man that loveth Christ when they stand in competition for our Love with Christ In the practical judgment of a sincere Lover of Christ Christ cannot be valued with the Gold of Ophir with the precious Onyx or the Saphire the Gold and the Chrystal cannot equal him and he would not exchange him for Jewels of fine Gold With him no mention shall be made of Coral or of Pearl for the Worth of Christ is above Rubies The Topaz of Ethiopia doth not equal him neither shall the purest Gold or the most refined Silver be weighed in the balance of his judgment to be preferred before Christ For to him he is more precious than Rubies And all the things the heart of man can desire besides him are not to be compared with him For Christ is that Treasure hid in a field which when this Lover hath found for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field He is that goodly Pearl of great Price which when found all shall be left or lost and parted with that this might be obtained Mat. 13.44 45 46. And what a man gives all for he values that more than all he giveth for it Can that man be judged to love Christ that values his corruptible Silver above the incomparable Saviour That esteemeth Earth above Heaven And the Creature more than God Or is not he deservedly to be reckoned an Anathema that shall esteem the Dross of this World above the Darling of God Or thick Clay above him that doth excel the clearest Chrystal Or the things of Time which are only for Time above that Christ that is a Good for all Eternity SECT VII The Sixth Requisite of Love to Christ SIxthly This Love to Christ takes in the Permanent Volition of the Will the setled Inclination of the heart towards the Lord Jesus Christ For what else is Love but the Volition of the rational Appetite Or the Will 's Volition of Good apprehended by the Understanding Or the Will 's chusing of him and adhering to him Aversation of the Will from Christ is no better than hating of him For as Volition and Complacency is Love so Nolition and Displicency is hatred Can a man Love Christ and yet not Will him Can he love him and yet not chuse him Can he love him and the Will refuse him Was Nilling ever accounted loving or turning of the Heart from an Object ever taken for the closing with it or is it not a contradiction will not and love not is all one John 5.40 Ye will not come to me 42. I know you that ye have not the love of God in you What is the Object of the love of the Heart is the Object of the choice of the Will and such as is the choice of your Wills such are ye If thy Will chuse the World before Christ I dare boldly call thee a worldly man or Pleasures before Christ I dare confidently declare thee a voluptuous man but if Christ before all other things I may term thee a truly gracious man Suppose then the World and the Riches thereof the Honours and the Pleasures of it were set on the one hand and Christ on the other which would you really chuse It is an easie thing to think and say you would chuse Christ and not the world but my question is Which you would really chuse Canst thou say and appeal to God that knows thy heart Lord thou that knowest all things thou knowest that I chuse Christ before Riches Christ before Pleasures Liberty Life or any thing that is dear unto me in this world Thou knowest that I would rather have Christ without the World than the World without Christ I would rather have the Lord Jesus with Disgrace with Poverty and with the Cross than all the Treasures of the world This must be a man's Will and this must be a man's Choice or cannot be said to have sincere Love to Jesus Christ SECT VIII The Seventh Requisite in Love to Christ or the Sincerity of it SEventhly This Love consists in the prevailing and predominant degrees of Affections unto Christ For if he be not loved above all he is not sincerely loved at all There might be love of other things subordinate with the Love of Christ but not co-ordinate or equal with it much less superior to it You might love your Friends and love your Enjoyments and love the Comforts of your life but you must love Christ more The love of these must be swallowed up in the love of Christ and be subordinate unto it But you may say This is that offensive Doctrine that 〈◊〉 the difference betwixt common and special Grace to be only gradual and not specifical and God forbid that we should think that God will damn a man for want of further degrees of Grace when he hath it in truth and kind and the degrees do not vary the kind 1. The degrees do not vary nor alter the kind in things natural but they may and do in things moral For Example The degrees of Reason acuteness of Wit solidity of Judgment that one man might have more than another man doth not make him more a man as to his Species or kind than another man that is in those respects inferior to him for both quoad Speciem as to Kind are men have the Human Nature and the specifical difference whereby they are distinguished from things of any other kind but yet degrees might make a specifical difference in morals where the act as natural is still of the same kind For instance In eating and drinking little or much the natural act of both is still the same but in morality if a man eat and drink for quantity and quality according to the rules and guidance of Prudence and no more this is a virtue called Temperance but if in degrees he doth exceed and eateth more and drinketh more than that Mediocrity quoad nos prescribed by Prudence in which the nature of this Virtue doth consist doth admit of then though eating and drinking considered Physically be of the same kind yet in a moral respect it alters the kind and is called quite by another name viz. Intemperance Gluttony and Drunkenness 2. The
not troubled because we do not love him For my own part I do complain I cannot love this Blessed Jesus with that strength of Love I ought and earnestly do desire and endeavour to grieve more because I love him no more and to loath my self so much the more by how much I fall short of that Love I ought to have to him Oh that others may make up what I do want and might be enlarged and abound in that love wherein I am straitned and defective that what degrees of Love I cannot reach others on Earth might attain unto that while I mourn for the smalness of my own Love I might rejoyce in the greatness of the Love of others unto this lovely Jesus and yet when all this is less than he is worthy of let it be some joy unto my grieved Soul that saved Souls above and Angels in Glory do love him with a perfect and eternal Love that though I cannot love him as they do yet I may rejoyce on Earth that there are Ten Thousand times Ten Thousands and Thousands of Thousands in Heaven rejoycing in the fullness of Love which is in them to him when Thousands upon Earth never will and Millions in Hell never can love this most lovely Lord Jesus Christ But still I must grieve and groan that when my Lord doth ask me Lovest thou me more than these sometimes I doubt and dare not say Lord thou that knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee but my Heart doth pant my Soul doth long that my love to him might be inflamed that the Actings of it might be more vigorous and the Workings of it so sensible that they may put me into pleasant Pangs and sweetest Pains of Love Lord I shall not account my self to be well till I am sick of love to thee that so I might from what I feel and find in my own Soul recommend the sweetest Delights the Rational Pleasures and the Spiritual Comforts to the Lovers of Vanity to allure and draw their Love to Christ that I may speak more of the unspeakable Joy that fills the Breast of a strong Lover of Christ and more pathetically Perswade more effectually Plead till God powerfully prevail with them to turn the Stream of their Love which now runs waste into the right Channel and glide along till it empty it self into that Sea of Love which Saints and Angels flow in unto Christ I have made a small Attempt in this little Treatise of the Necessity of Sincere Love to Christ whether God by Me might move the Hearts of any to fix their Love upon him in which I have not studied Words and Phrases to recommend Christ to wanton Wits in their Dress but with as much plainness and Gospel simplicity as I could in the very Words in which it was Preached to a People that love plain Preaching and easie to be understood If any for this shall dislike it when they have took it up and look'd into it and see it to be such may as easily lay it down and slight it as they please I sought not my Self in it but the love of Men to Christ by it I can be willing to be accounted a Fool for Christ and I doubt not but I shall have more Comfort on a Dying-Bed when I shall reflect I aimed not at vain Applause of Dying men but to gain the Hearts and hearty Love of once the Hearers and now the Readers of these Sermons and if God will please to own them in mens Reading as he did in the Hearing of them by many when not I but the Grace of God did so much affect their Hearts that they did desire it might be Preached to them some time after the second time which I did and did Work and had as great Success as at the first Not that I was any thing but God did all both first and last Many very many that did confess they loved not Christ but World and Vanity and Sin before did desire all in the Congregation earnestly to Pray That God would give them this love unto his Son which I hope they have and are increasing and growing therein and that God may so Bless it to any Poor plain Country People whom my voice cannot reach and to whom I cannot go where this may shall be the fervent Prayers that one so mean can put up to Heaven Where let the Prayers of all true Lovers of Christ meet that the Number of such may be increased Amen Tho. Doolittle THE Contents THE Introduction pag. 1 2 Anathema explained p. 3 to 9 Maranatha explained p. 3 to 9 The parts of the Text p. 9 A Paraphrase upon the Text p. 10 to 14 The Doctrine and Method p. 14 15 Twelve Requisites in sincere Love to Christ p. 15 to 41 Delighting Love p. 41 42 Desiring Love p. 41 42 Mourning Love p. 41 42 A Description of Love to Christ p. 43 The Necessity of sincere Love to Christ to escape the Curse proved by ten Arguments p. 44 to 55 Ten Properties of the Curse due to Non-Lovers of Christ p. 56 to 69 Eight Reasons why Love is so strictly required that Christ must be Loved or the Sinner Accursed p. 69. to 75 The Uses to be made of this Subject p. 75 76 Ten Inferences deduced from it p. 78 to 96 Twenty Aggravations of want of Love to Christ p. 96 to 124 The Case Resolved how a Man may know he hath or wants sincere Love to Christ p. 124 to 143 An Attempt to gain Sinners Consent to Love Christ p. 143 to 151 Twenty Motives or Pleas that Christ might have the Love of Mens Hearts p. 151 to 176 Ten Directions to get sincere Love to Christ p. 176 to 197 Ten Springs of Spiritual Comfort flowing into the Hearts of the Lovers of Christ p. 197 to 210 The Conclusion and Blessing p. 210 to the end LOVE to CHRIST NECESSARY TO ESCAPE the CURSE At His COMING 1 COR. XVI 22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran-atha CHAP. I. SECT I. The Introduction HOW Not love the Lord Hellish Sin How Not love Jesus Stupendous Wickedness What! Not love Christ Monstrous Impiety Not love him that is both Lord and Jesus and Christ What name might we call him by A Man or a Beast A Man or a Devil That doth not love the Lord Jesus Christ Do you confess him to be Lord and Jesus and Christ and love Sin and not Him Love the World and not Him Love Relations and not Him This may be the Astonishment of the Heavens the Amazement of the Earth the Wonder of Angels the Joy of Devils the Burthen of the Creation of God The Earth doth groan to bear them the Sun is grieved to give light unto them the Air laments its putrefaction to be suck'd into such filthy bodies wherein are more filthy souls because void of the Love of Christ Yea all this world looks more like Hell than Heaven because of
shall all the Non-Lovers of Christ at his coming be excluded and stand excommunicated from the favourable Presence of the Glorious God and of Christ the Gracious only Saviour from the Company of all the Holy Angels and Society of the Blessed Saints from the Holy Place above and from all the Joys and Happiness thereof The manner how the Jews excommunicated the Samaritans was very solemn and dreadful They brought Three hundred Priests and Three hundred Trumpets and Three hundred Books of the Law and Three hundred Boys and they blew with Trumpets and the Levites singing accursed the Cutthaeans in the Name of Tetragrammaton or Jehovah and with the Curses both of the Superior and Inferior House of Judgment and they said Cursed is he that eateth the bread of the Cutthaeans hence is that saying of theirs He that eateth the bread of the Cutthaean or Samaritan is as he who eats swines flesh and let no Cutthaean be a Prosâ—lite in Israel neither have any part in the resurrection of the just These Curses they wrote upon Tables and sealed them and sent them through all Israel who multiplied also this great Anathema or Curse upon them But the Excommunication of all the Non-Lovers of Christ will be inconceivably more terrible when the Lord himself shall come with Millions of his Holy Angels and with Ten Thousands yea Thousands of thousands of his Saints and the Trumpet sounding the Saints singing and the Air ringing Christ and all shall say Now cursed for ever be every man that did not love the Lord Jesus Let them never come into the Kingdom of Heaven nor have a share in the Happiness that God hath prepared for them that love him and all the Saints and Angels shall say Amen Amen There is another Text setting forth the contrary good condition of those that love Christ Ephes 6.24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Amen Paul standing one while upon Mount Ebal denounceth a Curse against those that do not love the Lord Jesus another while upon Mount Gerizzim pronouncing a Blessing upon them that do Deut. 27.11 And Moses charged the people the same day saying 12. These shall stand upon Mount Gerizzim to bless the people when ye are come over Jordan Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin 13. And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal to curse Reuben Gad and Asher and Zebulun Dan and Napthali 14. And the Levites shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice 15. Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image an abomination to the Lord the work of the hands of the craftsmen and putteth it in a secret place and all the people shall answer and say Amen 16. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother and all the people shall say Amen 17. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's land-mark and all the people shall say Amen 18 Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way and all the people shall say Amen 19. Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger fatherless and widow and all the people shall say Amen Six Tribes stood upon Mount Gerizzim and six upon Mount Ebal and in a little Valley between these two Mountains the Priests stood one while pronouncing a Blessing upon the Observers of the Law and then the Tribes upon Mount Gerizzim sounded out Amen Another while denouncing Curses against the Transgressors of the Law then the Tribes upon Mount Ebal founded out Amen But now though you are not unjust towards men no Drunkards no Swearers yet if Non-Lovers of Christ the Curse lies upon you and at the coming of the Lord it will be in vain to plead your praying hearing receiving your moral Conversation if void of the Love of Christ for Christ shall declare you accursed and all that shall attend him at his coming shall say Amen SECT III. A Division and Paraphrase of the Text. The whole Text consists of these seven parts 1. The Grace to be obtained the Duty to be performed or Act to be exerted viz. Love Sweet pleasant and delightful 2. The Object of this Act or Person to be loved called the Lord and Jesus and Christ 3. The Subject of this Act or who should do this Duty Man Beasts cannot Devils will not Man ought 4. A Supposition if a man love not and it is indeed to be supposed that many will not 5. An heavy Imprecation or solemn denunciation of Vengeance Anathema if he will not be a Lover of Christ let him be accursed 6. A determination of the time when this at furthest shall be executed and poured forth upon him Maran-atha when the Lord comes tho he prosper in the mean time yet when Maran-atha then Anathema 7. The Extent of this Curse If any man let him be he what he will a Scholar a Preacher a Professor an Emperor and yet not a Christ-Lover the Plagues of God at the coming of Christ shall light and lie upon him and if this any be never so many Vengeance and Damnation shall overtake and seize them all I cannot yet get off the words of the Text without another view of each term one by one 1. If This if joined to the not loving of Christ is one of the saddest ifs you can suppose if you should be poor if you should be cast into Prison if you should be banished if you should suffer the loss of liberty and life it is not so bad as if you should not love the Lord Jesus Christ For if you be cast to Hell if you should be damned for ever it will be if you love not Christ If you be ever saved if you never love Christ God is not true and Christ is not true and this Word of God is not true if you pray till you wear the skin from off your knees if you cry for mercy till you waste your Tongue if you confess sin and weep your selves blind if you go as far towards Heaven as ever glozing Hypocrite did and all this while have no sincere love to Christ you never shall escape the Damnation of Hell if you do say I am a Lyer say I preached falshood and deceitful words unto you What! will you drive us to despair yes that I would with all my heart into this despair of ever getting to Heaven without sincere unfeigned love to Christ for despair you must of having Happiness and eternal Glory any other way than God hath prescribed in his Word and Love to Christ is one qualification of that man that shall be saved And to this if relating to your not loving of Christ I will shew you another if relating to your not entring into Heaven Heb. 4.3 I have sworn in my wrath If they shall enter into my rest 5. And in this place again If they shall enter into my rest Here God useth an Oath but concealeth the Imprecation when
the Lord pronounceth his Oath negatively then it is to be understood as an affirmation as Isa 14.24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn if not so it shall come to pass that is it shall certainly come to pass But when he setteth it down affirmatively then it is to be understood negatively as Psal 95.11 If they shall enter into my rest that is they shall never enter into my rest When God sweareth thus by himself he mentioneth not the Curse because no Execration or Curse can fall upon him that is God necessarily infinitely and eternally blessed and therefore not to be expressed because it cannot come upon him neither should such a form of speech be supplied as some do prophanely use then let me not be God or such like It is sufficient to alarm Sinners that God doth swear if they continue to the death without love to and saith in Christ they shall not enter into his rest 1. A man loves not Christ that hath 1. an understanding to know the excellencies of Christ the necessity of Christ the danger of being without Christ and the everlasting good and benefits that are to be had by Christ 2. A man that hath a Will to be guided by the Understanding a Will to chuse good and refuse evil 3. A man that hath Affections of love desire and delight and shall not place them upon their proper primary principal Object 4. A man that hath a Conscience to walk and act by to accuse and condemn him when his Affections are not rightly fixed and to comfort him and to testify for him when they tend to and rest in their proper Object 5. A man that is capable of knowing loving and enjoying the best good 6. A man that hath heard of Christ that professeth Christ and hath frequently and earnestly been intreated to give Christ his love 7. A man that is a sinful man a lost man a diseased polluted man that stands in need of washing cleansing and recovering healing Grace Shew me the man that needs not Christ and let him deny him his love 8. A man that is a dying man a man leaving this World going out of Time and entring into Eternity that must shortly be a damned or saved man within a few years months weeks days or houts be eternally happy or everlastingly miserable 3. Any man especially where the Gospel is preached where the joyful sound is heard to whom the tydings of a Saviour and Eternal Life are brought The Heathen cannot love him because they do not know him because they hear not of him but any man especially that lives under the means of Grace any mean man any noble man any ignorant man any learned man any man of any sort of any age of any calling of any place or Nation where they have so often and so long heard of Christ that his blessed name is become too common in their prophane polluted mouths If any such man 4. Love not tho he often talk of him tho he pray to God mentioning his Name tho he profess him hear daily from him suffer or dye for him and not love him that is 5. The Lord the Lord of Lords the only Potentate the Lord that hath the power of Life and Death able to take up to Heaven and cast down to Hell to damn and save that reigns over Men and Devils that hath all Power committed to him that is 6. Jesus the only mighty alsufficient Saviour that came from Heaven to Earth to get and purchase for men a passage from Earth to Heaven that suffered bled and died to save Sinners from Sin from Hell from Everlasting Burnings when there is no other Name under Heaven by which Sinners can be saved than the Name of Jesus who is also 7. Christ anointed of the Father designed from all Eternity and sent in the fulness of time to bring about and accomplish the work of man's Redemption that was furnished with all manner of qualifications to bring Souls to Eternal Glory and yet those that have their Names from him called Christians from Christ and yet not love him shall be 8. Anathema cursed Wretches miserable Caitiffs devoted to damnation separated from God cast to Devils when 9. Maran-atha the Lord comes to be Anathema when Maran-atha is to be accursed indeed and for ever then cursed Men must be with cursed Devils to all eternity CHAP. II. SECT I. The Doctrine and Method FRom this Text thus explained Doct. this Doctrine clearly resulteth That whatsoever man hath not sincere love to the Lord Jesus Christ is in a deplorable condition and shall be accursed when the Lord comes For his Sin is great his Mind is blind his Will perverse his Heart is hard and carnal his Affections corrupt and base and vile and his Soul and Body shall then be doomed down to blackness of darkness to extremity and eternity of misery to pains and punishment that no Tongue can express no Heart conceive no Pen can write how great how terrible how intolerable it will be found to be The method in treating on this Subject is cast into these five general Heads 1. What is the nature of this love to Christ what kind or manner of Love it is without which if man be found he is Anathema and shall be plagued with this heavy Curse at the coming of the Lord 2. That whosoever is without this love to Christ is in such a miserable condition and dying without it shall be damned when Christ shall come is to be demonstrated 3. What are the properties of this Curse that will make it so exceeding grievous and intolerable 4. Why so great a stress is put upon such Love why the Lord insists so much upon the love of man unto his Son that whosoever wants it shall be thus accursed 5. The improving of this Doctrine by practical application In opening of the nature of this Love to Christ I shall not only mention the formal reason of it but also what is presupposed and necessarily requisite to the raising or producing of it in the heart of man my Apprehensions concerning it I shall give you in these twelve following Particulars which being taking up and laid together will contain a description of this Love 1. This Love supposeth the goodness of the Object 2. It includes or implies the illumination of the Understanding to see and discern this incomparable goodness in Christ 3. It includes a discovery of the suitableness of Christ unto the Soul in all respects 4. As also a sight of the communicability of that good that is discerned to be so suitable 5. Highest valuation of Christ greatest estimation of him which is called appretiating Love 6. It contains the permanent volition of the Will the setled inclination of the heart towards the Lord Jesus Christ 7. It includes the prevailing and predominant degrees of our love to be to Christ more than to any thing else whatsoever 8. In this Love is the election of the Will choosing Christ
a corrupt thing for I am a great King saith the Lord of hosts and my name is dreadful among the heathen That is strange then that it should be no more dreadful among his people that pretend to love him that they are not afraid to bring and offer such Duties to him as do so much provoke him and are so greatly displeasing to him that give him only words when they have a Male in their Flock an heart in their breast to give him 4. Such Obedience as is a proof of Love must be persevering to the end expressed not by stepping into Gods ways but by walking in them One that loves not Christ might step into a good way but he that loves doth walk therein Deut. 11.1 Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God and keep his charge and his statutes and his judgments and his commandments alway And 19.9 If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them which I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God and to walk ever in his ways Such then as have made great shews of love to Christ and now are revolted and have forsaken his holy Commandments by this might judge what kind of love it was to Christ that they once made profession of and more by their partial irksom and refuse Obedience might be convinced that their love to Christ is unfound and only supposed Love II. Do you love Christ while you maintain the Love of Sin in your Heart Can the love of Sin and the love of Christ dwell together in highest degrees Can the affection of love in that manner be carried out to two contrary objects at the same time And is there any thing in the World more contrary than Christ and Sin Is there more opposition between Light and Darkness extreamly Sweet and extreamly Sowre Can you love your Health and Poyson too to be in your Stomach Can you love Christ and yet love what he doth hate Can you love Christ and delight in Sin which took away the Life of your Lord Could you carry that Knife continually in your Bosom with delight that was the Instrument of Death unto your dearest Friend You might as soon look down upon the Earth and up unto the Heavens at the same instant as thus love Sin and Christ together Psal 97.10 Ye that love the Lord hate evil and the hatred to Sin that proves sincere Love to Christ must be 1. Vniversal to the Darling Sin as well as others to the Sin that hath been to you as your Right Hand or Right Eye Hatred is to the kind he that hates a Toad It is not this one or that in particular but all He that Loves Christ sincerely hates Sin as a man hates a Toad not only as to the degree but also as to the extent all and every one Psal 119.104 I hate every false way 2. Implacable Anger might be pacified but Hatred planted in the Nature is irreconcileable Antipathy cannot be rooted out nor turned into Love A man might be angry at Sin that loves not Christ but be friends again might turn from it and afterwards return unto it but the hatred to Sin implanted in the new Creature is implacably bent against Sin that the words might have some place here by way of allusion relating the Love and Hatred of Amnon to Tamar 2 Sam. 13.15 Then Amnon hated her exceedingly Hebrew is with great hatred greatly so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her and Amnon said unto her Arise be gone With like detestation will the Lover of Christ pack away his Sin Arise be gone with greater hatred than before he loved it 3. Therefore it is mortal and destructive to Sin that is the object of it Esau hated Jacob because of the Blessing wherewith his Father blessed him and Esau said in his heart The days of mourning for my father are at hand then will I slay my brother Jacob Gen. 27.41 So the Lover of Christ that hateth Sin is resolved to be the destruction of it Shall not I be the death of that cursed Sin that was the death of my blessed Lord Shall I suffer that to live in my heart which would not suffer Christ to live in the World Did Sin shed my Saviours Blood and shall not I be avenged on my 〈◊〉 Did Sin make my Saviour Groan and Sweat in a bloody Agony and shall I take delight therein Was my Sin the Nails that did fasten him to the Cross The Spear that did pierce his blessed Side And the Thorns that Crowned his Sacred Head And shall I lodge it in my Bosom Did Christ in love unto my Soul dye for my Sin and shall not I in love unto my Lord cause Sin to dye in me III. Do you love Christ sincerely when the things of this World have the predominant degrees of your affections As Sin is not to be loved at all by them that love Christ so things that are good must not be loved above Christ nor are by them that love him Mat. 10.37 If any man love father or mother more than me he is not worthy of me Doth that Woman love her Husband with a sincere Conjugal Love that though she love him truly yet loveth another more than him Do you love Riches Pleasures Honours Relations Self Life more than Christ and yet sincerely love Christ As he is better than all greater than all more suitable more durable more sweet more satisfying than all other good things so he must be loved above and more than all 1 Joh. 2.15 Love not the world neither the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the father is not in him Jam. 4.4 Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God Though one that is sincere in his love to Christ might not love Christ more than some other persons love him yet he loves Christ more than he loves other persons or things But do you love Christ more than you love other things and yet 1. Your thoughts are habitually set and actually run out upon other things more than upon Christ Can you think on the World with delight but not on Christ And love to have a thousand thoughts on other things for one you have of Christ It is a pleasure to you to think on your Pleasures your Profits your Children but a burden to you to think of Christ and keep your thoughts upon him Are not the thoughts much upon the object of love Psal 139.17 When I awake I am still with thee But if you cannot sleep in the Night your Head is full of the thoughts of the World because your Heart is full of the love of the World Is it not a sign the World and not Christ is loved as your Treasure for where the treasure is there the
For 1. Love to Christ will be the sweetest Love He that loveth other things and not Christ loves nothing but Vanity and to love Vanity will prove vexation He that loveth Riches hath vexing sorrow with his love fretting fears and perplexing cutting cares When thou lovest thy Relations if they be bad the more thou lovest the more thou art Wounded If they be good the more evil befalls them the more thou art grieved There cannot be love to other things without love to Christ but it will be bitter Love for thou wilt repent of that love or thou wilt not If thou dost then thou wilt find more forrow for it more bitterness in it than ever thou didst find delight and say Oh now it doth repent me that ever I loved the World as I have done my Pleasures my Sin as I have done But thou wilt never have cause to say I repent that ever I loved Christ Never was such a Word heard from the mouth of a sincere Lover of Christ if thou dost never repent of thy Love to the World and Sin that Love will certainly end in sorrow and with bitterness of Soul be fruitlesly lamented in Hell But what content satisfaction delight comfort joy there is in loving of Christ none can tell so well as he that loves him 2. Love to Christ is the safest Love No fear of Sinning in this Love except it be in the smalness of the measure of it but that is not to Sin in loving but not loving more You might fear and tremble in loving other things and say Do not I sin in this Is there not sinning in my loving 3. Love to Christ is the surest Love to other things is often turned into hatred Love to day and hate to morrow but this remaineth firm The Object is the surest Object neither Men nor Death nor Devils can take away the Object of this Love It is surest in the Habit and Principle the Power of God the Prayer of Christ the promise of both secure the preservation of it It is surest in the Act for if we be careful our selves no Men nor Devils can hinder our acting of this Love they might keep us from hearing of his Word but not from loving of his Person 4. Love to Christ is the Noblest Love Love to Pleasures to the World to Sin is base polluted Love this most sublime and raised it hath the noblest and the highest Object it carrieth the Soul in his Thoughts and Meditations after him into the highest Heavens and hath complacency in the highest Degree and shall have for ever the highest Reward 5. Love to Christ is the longest Love that shall never end Sirs ere long you will have done loving this World even ye that love it most and have your hearts most set upon it Ye that now have your hearts full of Earth when ye shall have your mouths full too and your Corps lye rotting in the Earth you shall have done loving of it Death that ends your life in the World shall end your love to the World which Grace never did Ye shall also have done ere long loving your Relations ye shall have done loving Father and Mother Brother and Sister and Husband and Wife and Children as now in that relation but the gracious Soul the Lover of Christ shall never have done loving of Christ It is sweet to have it but this doth make it more sweet to think he shall always have it Have it in Life have it at Death and have it after Death O blessed Love that shall never be lost but ever last While I was Musing upon this it came into my mind to consider what those that never love Christ in this World can love in the next and I could not imagine any thing that Damned Souls in Hell can Love If it be that I understand not nor am acquainted with the acting of their Souls nor State God grant I never may as they do I thought can they love God Christ the holy Spirit Angels Saints Their hatred to all these is and shall be more deeply radicated that is Rooted in them than ever upon Earth Can they love the place of Hell They wish they never had come thither Can they love the pains of Hell They grieve and groan under them and are weary to bear them Can they love the Devils in Hell They curse them for tempting them to Sin that brought them to that place Can they love their Companions in Hell They are an aggravation of one anothers misery Can they love their Sin in Hell Alas all that was pleasurable in it is gone and the pain and sting only doth remain Can they love their Beings in Hell They had rather dye than live and cease to be at all than to continue to be there I know not what it is that they can love O loathsome place where there is and can be no love O lovely Heaven where Love doth Reign where Love doth Live and the Life of them therein shall be for ever a Life of Love And in this World where Love is wanting so far it looks like Hell Where Love and that which is the best which is that which is to Christ doth prevail so far it looks like Heaven Dear Lord save me from Hell because there there is no love to thee nor to any thing that is good Sweet Saviour lead me in thy way to Heaven and bring me thither where Love to thee shall live and last for ever IV. Is it not great folly to love other things and not Christ For love ye will There is such an affection as Love in all your Hearts and something it will be set upon in this World what e're it be with Damned Souls in the next Now if Christ have it not the World will If Christ hath it not Sin will And do ye act as Rational Creatures as Men endued with Reason to deny your Love to Christ and give it to the World and Sin Set one over against the other and then tell me 1. Is it not great folly to love that which is worse than your selves and not that which is infinitely better Do ye think your Silver and your Gold is better than your selves as much as ye love it That your Houses and your Lands as bad as ye are are better than your selves But ye are not yet so good nor yet so bad but I hope ye will say and ackdowledge that Christ is better 2. Is it not great folly to love that which cannot love you again and not him that would Ye love your Gold but that cannot love you again The Cloaths upon your back the Furniture in your Houses ye love but these can make no returns of Love Ye give your love to them but ye receive no love from them Are ye not vexed when ye love a Man that doth not love you again nor return love for love And why are ye so well pleased and are so well contented in placing the very
for himself and for the excellency of his own Person tho not with the exclusion of our own advantage by him 9. Christ as Lord as well as Saviour is the Object of this Love Christ in all his Offices as Teacher Ruler as well as Benefactor is beloved in which respect the Love of all Hypocrites and carnal Gospellers doth fail and come short 10. This Love is wrought by the powerful special operation of the Spirit of God upon the heart 11. Whence follows a voluntary resignation of a man's self to Christ without reservation of himself or any thing he hath unto himself 12. When all this is done the Soul doth delighe in Christ if present or desires after him if absent or mourns for him if it cannot find him for one of these three ways Love will be working and by these workings discover it self SECT II. The nature requisites and the description of this Love to Christ Frist This Love supposeth the goodness of the Object as all Love doth For nothing can be loved but what is really good or at least appeareth so unto the Lover This holy Love therefore being the choicest chiefest Love supposeth Christ to be the choicest and the chiefest Good That he is a good Saviour a good Redeemer a good Lord and Master a Good excelling transcending all inferior sublunary good Good not only good but best best in himself and best for us And because he must be loved with such a love as that we be willing at his call to part with all other good for his sake therefore he is looked upon and loved as an universal Good whereas Riches Honours Friends and all things of this World are but particular good no one thing good for all things Meat and drink are good to satisfy your hunger and thirst but not to clothe you Clothes are good to cover you but not to feed you c. But the Soul whose love is fixed upon Christ doth see and say In poverty Christ will be my riches in disgrace Christ will be my honour in bonds and imprisonment Christ will be my liberty in pain Christ will be my ease in death Christ will be my life in the loss of all things Christ will be better to me than the enjoyment of all these things He that looks not upon Christ as an incomparable Object doth not love him as he ought Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Prov. 3.14 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding 14. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold 15. She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her The Spouse saw such goodness in Christ that she was love-sick for him Cant. 5.8 I charge you O daughters of Jerusalem if ye find my beloved that ye tell him that I am sick of love Others wonder what a gracious Soul doth see in Christ that it is so inflamed with love unto him V. 9. What is thy beloved more than another beloved O thou fairest among women what is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou dost so charge us What is he in a large description of his Excellencies she answereth to this Question 10. My beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand proceeds in Vers 11 12 13 14 15. and in the 16th concludeth He is altogether lovely this is my beloved and this is my friend O daughters of Jerusalem What then Doth the transcendent goodness of Christ thus displayed draw the Heart allure the Affections yes verily for it immediately follows Cant. 6.1 Whither is thy beloved gone O thou fairest among women Whither is thy beloved turned aside that we may seek him with thee 1. Christ as God is incomparably good for so he is originally good infinitely good eternally immutably incomprehensibly good 2. Christ as Man is the most excellent of all men Adam in innocency the Prophets and Apostles in all their greatest dignity and the Saints in Heaven in perfect glory are not comparable to the man Christ Jesus 3. Christ as God-man and Mediator surpasseth in goodness all the holy Ones on Earth and all the Angels in Heaven Ephes 1.20 And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places 21. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come And though he call his People his Brethren and his Fellows Yet God hath anointed him with the oyl of gladness above all his fellows Psal 45.7 is Christ thus in your Eyes and to your Hearts SECT III. The Second Requisite of this Love SEcondly This Love includes and implies the illumination of the Vnderstanding to see and discern this matchless goodness in Christ Tho Knowledge be not formaliter Love yet it is necessarily pre-requisite to it for this Love is not blind Ignoti nulla cupido What we do not know we cannot love nor desire John 4.10 If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water You might love an UNSEEN Christ but you cannot love an UNKNOWN Christ 1 Pet. 1.8 whom having not seen ye love in whom tho now ye see him not yet believing and Faith includeth Knowledge ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory Therefore the Prophet speaking of graceless men as disliking not desiring nor loving Christ brings them in as saying Isa 53.2 He hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him How no comeliness in him that is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person yes there was there is but they had not eyes to see it as if a blind man should say the Sun is dark because he hath no eyes to behold the light thereof How when we shall see him there is no beauty in him that we should desire him It was because in seeing they did not see How should they look upon him with an eye of Love when they did not discern him with an eye of Faith But a sanctified Soul whose eyes are opened seeth that superlative Goodness Beauty and Excellency in Christ that all other things that are good with an inferior goodness seem to him as dross and dung Phil. 3.7 But what things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ 8. Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things cast to dogs or Dogs-meat or dung that I may win Christ The sanctified
man whose mind is savingly inlightned can say I see that goodness in the Saviour that far surpasseth all the goodness of the Creature tho the Stars in the coldest night might be seen yet when the Sun ariseth they all disappear so in the night of Ignorance when my Mind was blind my Heart hard and my Affections frozen I was taken with the goodness of Riches of Honours and of worldly Pleasure yet when the Sun of Righteousness with his radiant Rays did shine into my Soul and with his warming Influences did thaw my benummed frozen Heart when Christ the Day-Star arose in my Soul then O then the glory of these things that did dazle mine eyes did presently vanish and wither away then in comparison of Christ I saw an emptiness in all the Creatures fulness I saw beggery in all its bravery shame in all its glory and poverty in its riches I saw its greatest resplendent lustre to be darkness its wisdom to be folly its beauty appeared to me no better than deformity when once I had got a view of Christ's transcendent loveliness SECT IV. The Third Requisite THirdly This Love to Christ includes a discovery of the suitableness of Christ unto the Soul as the most convenient Good Appetibility is not the formal reason of goodness but rather a consequent of it for a thing is not therefore good because it is desirable but it is therefore desirable because it is good Our Desires do not make the goodness of the Object but the goodness of the Object allures our Desires and Love Suitableness is the ground of Love A thing might be good in it self yet if we apprehend no suitableness in it to us the love of our hearts is not upon it therefore in pain and sickness a man judgeth ease and health to be better for him than Gold and Silver because more suitable a man in hunger and thirst esteemeth Bread and Water to be better than Honours and Preferments because more suitable Love to Christ is grounded on the Apprehensions that the Soul hath of the suitableness of Christ unto him and saith Food is not more suitable to an hungry man nor Physick to a sick man nor Cloathing to a naked man than Christ is to me a poor sinful and by my Sins a lost man an undone perishing and distressed man For I am naked and He will give me change of Raiment I am blind and He will restore my sight I am enslaved to Sin and Satan and He will give me liberty I am lost He will save me I am guilty He will pardon me I am polluted He will purge me I am an enemy to God He will reconcile me I am ignorant He will teach me I am indebted He will be my Surety I am poor He will make me rich I am a stranger to God He will bring me into acquaintance with him What shall I say I am unfit for Heaven but He will make me meet to be Partaker of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Though I have Riches I might be damned but if I have Christ I shall be saved Though men admire me yet God might loath me but if I have Christ the Lord will love me Though I prosper in the World in all my pomp I might be walking in the way to Everlasting Misery but if I have Christ He will lead me in the paths unto Eternal Glory Look O my Soul look round about thee and thou shalt find none so suitable to thee as the only Saviour no! then only he shall have my prevailing love Is there none for me like him then none shall have love from me like him This suitableness of Christ unto the Soul in every respect is to be more largely spoken to among the Arguments to persuade you to set and six your Love on him SECT V. The Fourth Requisite of this Love FOurthly Love includes a sight of the communicability of that good that is discerned to be so suitable to the person that should love it possibility of participation is necessary to the begetting or raising of the Affection for while we see a Good though every way suitable yet if it be impossible to be obtained we can have no hope of it but sink under despondency and despair and though Love respects its Object without the circumstances of hard or easie to be obtained but simply as good yet that which is good in it self but impossible to us is not a good to us because a good not to be possessed by us and such a Good cannot be loved with such a Love as we ought to have to Christ who is to be loved by us as good and our good or as attainable by us for good as incommunicable to us so considered may beget vexation anguish and horrour but not complacency which yet Philosophers make the formal reason of Love 1. And this I judge might be one reason why there is no love in Devils to Christ nor can be Why are not Devils under unexpressible horrour and would not deliverance be esteemed by them as a good suitable to them Do they not know that there is no Saviour but Christ why then do they hate him why the Benefits of Christ are not communicable to them The Sufferings of Christ tho sufficient to have redeemed all the Devils in Hell yet were not ordained by God nor endured by Christ for any such end or with any such intention Christ did not dye to make Salvation or Happiness possible for Devils or finally-unbelieving-impenitent Sinners Therefore though they know Christ to be good and freedom from misery would be suitable to them yet this Good being incommunicable to them they neither have nor can have sincere love unto him Hence it is they hate Christ with an implacable hatred and oppose his Kingdom and Interest with the strongest opposition Mat. 8.29 And behold they the unclean Spirits cried out saying What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God art thou come to torment us before the time As if they had said There is no good that we look should come by thee to us we expect no Salvation no Deliverance from our Pain and Misery Thou art a Saviour to men but not to us Thou wilt have nothing to do with us in a way of mercy and we have nothing to do with Thee by any hopes of Redemption through thy Mediatory Undertakings men on Earth might have to do with Thee and therefore have cause to love Thee and thou art come into the World to have to do with them to seek them and to save them they may have Thee for a Redeemer and a Saviour but so may not we They are fallen and by Thee might be restored but we are fallen and must lie where we fell without hope without a possibility of recovering there is no doing betwixt Thee and us for Heaven and Salvation no dealings betwixt Thee and us for Life and Happiness none of thy Sufferings are to be for us
Thou art not come to offer us any terms of Mercy or to make any Propositions of Peace betwixt God and us and therefore our recovery is impossible and therefore being fallen do lie down in utter despair of any communication of the Benefits of thy Death and Sufferings unto us and having no hope of merciful Redemption by Thee we neither have nor will nor can have any love unto Thee 2. The same is now the condition of Damned Souls as that of Damned Devils Men on Earth might have love to Christ but in Hell they cannot for on earth Christ had to do with them and they with Christ and Mercy had to do with them and Grace and Patience had to do with them but when once in Hell Christ hath done with them and the Spirit hath done with them Grace Mercy and Patience of God hath done with them no offer of Grace no tender of Peace and Reconciliation no overtures of Mercy more to all Eternity But now Wrath hath to do with them and vindictive punishing Justice hath to do with them and they are fallen into the hands of the Living God and being past all possibility of benefit and advantage by Christ they cannot love him but have more rooted hatred to him than ever By the way let me note That ye should with fear and trembling diligently labour fervently pray speedily repent and turn from sin sincerely believe that ye might not at death be doom'd down to Hell because by damn'd Souls Christ cannot be loved 3. But the case is otherwise with men on earth with the worst of you in this Congregation this day The Swearer might yet have benefit Pardon by Christ the vilest the greatest sinner that stands here before God this day may yet be saved if he will hearken to the Voice of Mercy to the Commands and Invitations of the only Saviour to the Calls of Grace and answer to those Calls Christ hath dyed for you for every one of you so far that Salvation yet is possible to you and God reconcilable to you and Christ and his Benefits upon the conditions of the Gospel communicable to you For who dare say there is no difference between the state of the damned in Hell and the worst of men upon earth or that there is no more hope or possibility of Salvation by Christ for the greatest sinners upon the earth than of the Devils themselves or that God is no more reconcilable and the Benefits of Christ no more communicable to them than to these while to sinners on earth Commands are given to repent and believe and turn to God in hopes of Mercy and Conditional Promises of Life and a conditional Grant of Pardon is given to them which is not the case of Devils or damned Souls and therefore we Study in hope and Pray in hope and Preach in hope of your Conversion and Salvation when there is no hope of them that are gone down to death and utter and eternal darkness Methinks this considered should win thy Love to Christ and cause thee to break forth into such Language as this and say O my Soul as yet through the Mercy and Patience of God to thee there is a wide difference betwixt thy state and the state of damned souls for tho thou hitherto hast not loved Christ which is thy hainous sin yet thou mayest which is God's great Mercy to thee For tho now thou art without Christ which is thy misery yet thou mightest have Christ which will be thy remedy when the Damned love not Christ nor can love him for they have not Christ nor can have him Thou art yet in the land of hope and under the means of hope and thy remedy is at hand if by thy wilful refusals of recovering Grace thou dost not dash this hope when those poor wretched Souls that are passed out of Time into Eternity from Earth to Hell from Hearing in this world to Howling in the next are now and there Christless and because now and there Christless are therefore there now and for ever hopeless and remediless O then my Soul look towards this Christ that thou mayest have Behold This Christ and all his Benefits upon Gospel-Conditions are yet communicable unto thee for thine Everlasting Good Dost thou not hear the Offers of Pardon Peace and Glory made to thee in his name Dost thou not perceive him yet standing at thy door and knocking crying calling there Open to me and I will save thee Dost thou not feel his Spirit yet striving with thee Dost thou not see Mercy hath not yet delivered thee into the hands of Justice and to God's fiery Indignation Here thou standest while others are lying rowling in a Lake of burning Brimstone Doth not his Grace still woo thee for thy Love Doth not his Goodness still intreat thee and his Patience still wait upon thee If thou wilt be holy yet thou mayest if thou wilt have Mercy Mercy thou mayest have and if thou wilt have the fruit and benefits of Christ's Death as yet it is not too late Is not this enough to melt an heart of stone To break an heart as hard as adamant To dissolve thee into tears to kindle and inflame thy love And with admiration cause thee to cry out and say Is this thy Mercy Lord to me to me to me that have so long abused thy Grace despised thy Mercy and slighted thy Love To me that have lived so long and never loved thee To me that might have been damned before this day and so have been shut up under an impossibility of Salvation by thy Blood and bloody Sufferings Yea have had the hatred of my heart fixed upon thee and Love never bent towards thee But forasmuch as thou art pleased to this day to follow me with thy Calls of Mercy with the Entreaties of thy Grace and still the voice of Love is sounding in my ears and thou sayest to me If thou wilt love me I will pardon thee if thou at last wilt give me thy heart I will be thy Saviour it is long that I have waited but if now thou wilt hearken and consent all shall be thine own my Righteousness shall be thine my Merits shall be thine my Spirit shall be thine and Heaven shall be thine O Blessed Lord I cannot withstand this pleading Love I can no longer gainsay this expostulating Grace I have but now I cannot I have but now I will not Thou sayest that Thou wilt yet be mine and the Blessings of the Covenant may yet be mine and Heaven it self may yet be mine Dearest Lord thou hast won my heart thou hast got my Love and lo I give it all to thee I place it all upon thee SECT VI. The Fifth Requisite of Love to Christ FIfthly This Love to Christ includes highest Valuation of him greatest estimation which is appretiating Love for can we love him and not prize him Or can we love him most and not prize him most Or do you use to despise
above all thankfully accept him for my Lord and Saviour is plainly required from me and upon the sincere performance of these conditions and persevering therein unto the end of my life for Christ's sake beloved and believed on I may comfortably well-groundedly hope wait for and expect through the Riches and Freeness of his Grace Everlasting Happiness In like manner I judge it a perplexing question Whether we should love Christ for himself or for the Benefits by him Lord help me to love Christ for himself and for all the good I have and hope for by him but the one subordinately the other ultimately for such love I read there was in David Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplications SECT X. The Ninth Requisite in Love to Christ NInthly Sincere Love to Jesus Christ doth respect him and is placed upon him as he is Prophet Priest and King In which respect the love of Hypocrites and carnal Gospellers doth fail and come short Most will profess love to Christ as he is Jesus a Saviour to deliver them from the Guilt of Sin and Punishment of Hell and the Wrath that is to come but will not love him nor have him as a Teacher and a Ruler As if a woman should love her husband as he makes provision for her and doth protect her from wrongs and injuries but as he is her Head to guide to rule and govern her so she cannot endure him Would you not in such a case cry out against such love and say this is but partial and pretended love And do not you see you deal as deceitfully and hypocritically with Christ when in one respect you say you like and love him but indeed in other respects you do dislike and hate him And do you think that Christ will save you from Hell if he do not save you from your sins That he will make you happy if you be never holy Or do you hope that he will bring you to Heaven without your being made meet and fit for Heaven Doth not your own Reason and Conscience if you consult them condemn such hopes of happiness that is built upon such partial Love Must Sin be loved as a Lord and Christ loved as a Saviour Do you think if Sin be your Lord Christ will be your Saviour What is the meaning then that the Object of such love that you must have if you would not be Anathema in the Text is set down the Lord Jesus Christ What meaneth then that slaughter at the last day among them that never would submit to Christ as Lord and Ruler nor love him in that relation Whom Christ looks upon not as Lovers of him but as Enemies to him and will deal with them not as Lovers but as Enemies Luk. 19.27 But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me What is the meaning then that Lord and Saviour so often in Scripture with a Conjunction Copulative are put together if as the Object of your Love they are to be parted asunder Rom. 8.39 and 7.25 1 Cor. 1.2 1 Cor. 15.57 2 Cor. 1.2 Gal. 1.3 Eph. 1.2 3. Phil. 1.2 Col. 1.2 1 Thes 1.1 and 2.1 2. 1 Tim. 1.2 and 2.1 2. Tit. 1.4 Jam. 1.1 1 Pet. 1.3 and 2 Pet. 1.1 2. In these Texts and many more Lord and Saviour Lord and Jesus Lord Jesus Christ are set together and in all these respects propounded to us to be loved and received by us if we would have Grace Mercy and Peace from God and Salvation by him And as he is offered so he must be loved and accepted or you must go without him and his benefits for ever SECT XI The Tenth Requisite to Love to Christ or the Worker of it TEnthly This Love to Christ is wrought by the Powerful Operation of the Spirit of God upon the heart For tho there is Affection of Love naturally in all men yet there is not the Grace of Love naturally in any man There is love to sin and to the world and there might be love of man to man and some common love in man to God by some common workings of the Spirit but there can be no special Saving Love to Jesus Christ but by the special Operations of the Holy Ghost It is a Flower that doth not grow in Natures Garden but is planted by the Spirit of God Therefore spiritual holy Love is said to be a fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 And if any such surely is sincere and saving Love to Christ SECT XII The Eleventh Thing required in it ELeventhly This Love includes a Resignation of a man's self to Christ without reservation of any thing he is or hath unto himself A Lover of Christ doth so devote dedicate and give up himself unfeignedly to Christ as to his rightful Owner and bountiful Benefactor that he looks upon himself to be Christ's more than his own to live to Christ and not to himself and to seek Christ in all and not himself As in Conjugal Love there is a mutual giving each to other the one I give my self to thee the other and I give my self to thee so in this holy Spiritual Love between Christ and the Soul Christ gives himself unto the Soul and says I am thine my Righteousness is thine my Merits are thine and all my Benefits shall be thine So the Soul in love with Christ saith Lord I give my self to thee my Understanding shall be thine my Will my Heart my Estate my All shall be thine at thy Command at thy Disposal for me to have to use to leave or lose as thou shalt please Cant. 2.16 My beloved is mine and I am his Hos 2.23 I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy and I will say to them which were not my people Thou art my people and they shall say Thou art my God SECT XIII The Workings of this Love as it is Delighting Desiring or Mourning Love TWelfthly When all this is done the Soul doth Delight in Christ if present Desireth after him if absent or mourneth for him if it cannot find him One of these Three ways Love will discover it self There are Three sorts of Love First Delighting Love If a man finds Christ's gracious quickning Presence in his Soul discovering and manifesting himself and Love unto him he rejoiceth in it more than in all Riches and saith My Life is a Pleasure my Heart is filled with Comfor my Soul with Heavenly Delights Psal 4.6 There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us 7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased Cant. 2.3 As the apple-trees among the trees of the wood so is my beloved among the sons I sate down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet unto my taste 4. He brought me
that come to pray and hear and not love Christ are such Deceivers All such mens Religious Duties and Services are done in deceit and hypocrisy they are Deceivers of themselves Deceivers of other men and go about to deceive God himself What is to play the Hypocrite if this be not to give God your Words but not your Hearts what is deceitful dealing if this be not to give God and Christ outward Service and deny him your Love to do the outward Action and withhold from him the inward Affection would you be paid what is owing to you in such Coyn in that which hath the colour and resemblance of Gold but underneath is base Metal Would you not cry out of such a one as a Deceiver and is this a fault in men to you and is it no fault in you to God are you ready to curse such a man and will not God curse you Read Mal. 1.14 But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a great King saith the Lord of hosts and my name is dreadful among the heathen You bring him some cold Prayers have you not an Heart to give him you bring him some outward Expressions have not you inwards Affections to bring him you offer him Words and deny him your Love Are these cursed Doings and yet not you the Doers of them accursed Arg. 8. Robbers and Thieves are accursed Non-Lovers of Christ are Robbers and Thieves For whose are you God's or your own Whose by right are your Hearts the World 's or Christ's Who should have your Love as due to whom doth it belong to the World or Vanity to Self or to Christ that which you purchase do not you call your own that which you pay dear for is it not your own and would it not be robbery in another without your Consent to keep it from you Hath not Christ bought you with a price given for you more than you are worth He made your Hearts to love him and when you defaced them and sinned away the love of God did not Christ buy you hath not he paid dear to have your Love might you set your Love upon what you please might you place it upon what Object you list for are not you Body and Soul Christ's by purchase 1 Cor. 6.19 What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's Is it not a robbing of Christ to deny him his own and is not he that is a Robber of God and Christ a cursed Wretch If thou shouldest rob thy Father or Mother or a Stranger wouldst thou not be accounted a vile Transgressor how comes it to pass that thou robbest God and Christ and makes no matter of it but God doth Mal. 3.8 Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me But ye say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings 9. Ye are cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole nation They are said to rob God in Tithes and Offerings and you in your Hearts and Affections And what is the taking away of Tithes to the taking away of the Heart and love thereof and yet God cursed them with a Curse that is certainly accursed them how then wilt thou escape God might charge thee that thou hast played the Thief with him and hast stoln away thy Love from him and hast gone and pawned it for a little Silver or a filthy Lust and yet hast no mind nor serious thought for to get it redeemed or fetched out of pawn Arg. 9. Those that love not Christ are spiritual Adulterers and go a whoring from God Do not you profess to be married to Christ what and give your love to the World to Pleasures to the Strumpet Sin Is that a chast Woman that loveth another man more than her own Husband to love other things more than God and Christ is called in Scripture a going a Whoring from God Hos 4.12 A playing the harlot Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers Committing adultery vers 8. and are Adulterers Jam. 4.4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God A Lover of the World is an Enemy of God and are not those that God taketh for his Enemies in a bad and miserable condition and will be worse when the Lord comes Some please themselves with this as an Evidence of their good Condition and hope of Salvation that they are neither Whores nor Thieves but such as love not Christ above all in a Spiritual and Scriptural Sense are both Such a one is a Thief in robbing God of that Love that is his due and guilty of spiritual Whoredom in loving other things more than Christ and if you think to escape the Curse continuing in such Sins when the Lord comes and you tried at his Bar shall find you were wonderfully mistaken and meet with a Curse when you expected a Blessing Arg. 10. Such as shall be commanded to depart from Christ and be driven from his glorious presence are accursed Final Non-Lovers of Christ shall be commanded to depart from Christ and be driven from his glorious presence Your Heart that loves not Christ is not towards God and Christ and when he comes his Heart shall not be towards you your Heart is alienated from Christ and then Christ's Heart shall be alienated from you While you will not love you say in your hearts to Christ depart from us and Christ will say to you depart ye from me As he that trusteth in the Creature his heart departeth from God so he that loveth the Creature more than God his heart departeth from God and he whose heart departeth from God either by trusting to or loving of the Creature more than God is accursed Jer. 17.5 Thus saith the Lord Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. And when Christ shall command you to depart from him you shall find your selves in a cursed condition Matth. 25.40 Such as do not love the Lord Jesus do not obey the Gospel for the Gospel commands your Love and they that do not obey the Gospel at Christ's coming shall be separated from him and they that shall be separated from him then shall find and feel themselves accursed 2 Thess 1.7 When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty Angels 8. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 9. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the
glory of his power Are you yet convinced of your deplorable Condition by reason of the want of love to Jesus Christ Do you not see the Curse of God hangs over your Soul Can you reply to this proof or deny it or will you still hold to your old Conclusion that you shall not be thus accursed like to what is recorded Deut. 29.19 And it shall come to pass when he heareth the words of this curse that he bless himself in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of mine heart to add drunkennese to thirst Behold a man blessing himself whom the Lord declared accursed But what then Is the Curse the further from him or the Blessing nearer to him Read on Verse 20. The Lord will not spare him but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoak ageinst that man and all the curses that are written in this hook shall lie upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven 21. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the Tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the Covenant that are written in this book of the Law It is but a poor shift to Iull your Consciences asleep with groundless hopes of escaping the Curse contrary to the express word of God who will not suffer one tittle of it to fall to the ground though in the accomplishment and fulfilling of it millions of Sinners fall into Hell The Curse then being certainly to fall upon the Final-Non-Lovers of Christ the third thing in order follows to open to you what kind of Curse it shall be to be Anathema when Maran-atha accursed when the Lord shall come CHAP. IV. Ten Properties of the Curse upon Non-Lovers of Christ 1. TO be Anathema when Maran-atha will be to be cursed with a dreadful curse This is more general and the following Properties will shew it to be so dreadful so dreadful as will make your Joints to tremble your Knees to knock together your Faces gather paleness for you will be cursed by God himself and as to be blessed by God is the greatest Blessing so to be cursed of God is the sorest Curse A great Emphasis is laid upon those words where God calls a People a People of My Curse Isa 34.5 When the Church prayed against her Enemies it was a sore Petition Lam. 3.65 Give them sorrow of heart thy curse unto them If the Devil should curse you yet God may bless you if men should curse yet God might bless you as David begged in Psal 109.28 Let them curse but bless thou As if he had said If I have God's blessing I will not fear wicked mens cursings for when they curse God can turn it into a blessing Deut 23.5 Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee because the Lord thy God loved thee The form of the rash and wicked Speech of ungodly men much given to cursing shews it to be a dreadful thing to be cursed of God when they say The Curse of God fall upon you The Curse of God overtake you they mean the forell the heaviest the greatest Curse by the Curse of God but though men might wish you so accursed yet you might be far from it but if you love not sincerely the Son of God then the Curse of God will overtake you light and lie upon you and then you will be accursed indeed Oh now love Christ indeed that you might then escape the Curse indeed which else will be a Curse indeed heavy indeed and indeed intolerable 2. To be Anathema when Maran-atha accursed when the Lord comes will be to be accursed totally all the Sinners shall lie under this Curse his Body shall be cursed and his Soul shall be cursed as the Curse in this world falls upon all that belong to the Disobedient and rebellious Deut. 28.15 But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee 16. Cursed shalt thou be in the city and cursed shalt thou be in the field 17. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store 18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy land the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep 19. Cursed shalt thou be in thy coming in and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out So when the Lord comes thou shalt be cursed in all thou art in thy Body and all the parts thereof cursed shall be thine Eyes that were as Windows to let vanity into thy heart Cursed shall be thine Ears that hearkened to the Enticements of Sinners but not to the Commands and Calls of God Cursed shall be thy Hands and Feet that acted wickedly and carried thee on in ways of Sin Cursed shalt thou be in thy Soul and in all the Powers and Faculties thereof Cursed shall be thine Vnderstanding that never was inlightned with the saving Knowledge of Jesus Christ Cursed shall be thy Will that never made choice of him for thy Saviour and thy Lord. Cursed shall be thy Conscience that did not effectually stir thee up to look after and to hasten to Jesus Christ Cursed shall be all thine Affections that thou shalt be constrained to confess that Love that was set upon the World and Sin which should have been better placed upon Christ was cursed Love Those Desires which run out after Vanity which should have been upon the wing in moving after Christ were cursed Desires and those Delights which are fetched from the Creature and from sinful Objects were cursed Delights and that Hatred which I had to Christ and his ways which should have risen against Sin was cursed Hatred Thus as now where the Love of Christ doth not rule in the Heart Sin is spread all over so then the Sinner shall be cursed all over In this Life Spiritual Curses upon the Soul are the heaviest Curses as Blessings on the Soul are the best of Blessings When men will not be persuaded to love the Lord Jesus but will love their Cups and their Whores and their Profits and Sporting Pleasures better than Christ but after long wooings of Grace and intreaties of Mercy after many strivings of the Spirit and Calls of Conscience and waitings of patience they will love their Sin and not Christ the World and not Christ God and Christ and Holy Spirit may give them up to these vile and cursed Affections and say to them as Christ cursed the Fig-tree on which there was no Fruit Mark 11.13 14 20 21. Never fruit grow on thee more Sinner wilt thou not love me never Repentance be found in thee never Pardon be bestowed on thee Wilt thou not love me let him love his Swearing still let him
faith so that I could remove mountains and have no charity I am nothing 3. And tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and tho I give my body to be burn'd and have not charity it profiteth me nothing Love therefore is above all these for all these without love are nothing 5. Love makes us most like to God for God is love 1 Joh. 4.8 And God loveth Christ above all the men on earth and above all the Angels in Heaven therefore calls him his Beloved Son Mat. 3.17 God loveth All men with a Common Love John 3.16 Tit. 3.4 Holy men with a Special Love Angels with an Higher Love Christ most of all who is the Son of his Love Col. 1.13 So our Love is gradual we ought to love all men with some degrees of Love Holy men and Angels with an higher Love and Christ with the highest Love And when we love as God loves our Love makes us most like to God 6. Love is the highest improvement of the faculties of our Souls 1. We have Vnderstandings to know God and Christ And Love to God and Christ is the highest improvement of all our knowledg for if we know him and not love him the more we know of him the more our knowledge doth increase our sin and will aggravate our condemnation 2. We have Wills to chuse the Lord Jesus Christ and when we chuse him Love is the improvement of our Wills in taking complacency in him who is the Object of our choice 3. We have Consciences that do dictate to us that Christ is best and best for us and then we improve those dictates when we love him else all those dictates of Conscience are lost and come to nothing 4. We have Memories wherein the Sayings of Christ to us the Sufferings of Christ for us and the Benefits of Christ bestowed upon us should be lodged and laid up and when we love him we shall love to remember all these things that we have by him and from him and himself that is Purchaser and the Donor of them But if our Love is predominantly placed upon any thing below Christ all the Powers of the Soul are debased the Reason of man is degraded in contriving the getting of such ignoble and fordid enjoyments as his highest end the Will is debased in chusing of them and the Memory in being stuffed with the remembrance of them forgetting God and Christ and better things so that a man is more a brute than a man without sincere Love to Christ 7. Love is the end of all other Graces and in which they terminate their Operations Our knowledge of Christ endeth in our loving of Christ our believing on him hoping in him trusting to him like so many streams at last run into the Love of Christ 8. Love is the Everlasting Grace that shall abide and be in use and exercise when the actings of other Graces shall cease There are some Graces suitable especially to our state of imperfection in this world To live by Faith to Repent and Mourn for sin to live in hope of the glory that is to be revealed to wait till we be possessed of the Mansions that are above to desire all the good that is promised to us but not yet conferred upon us But hereafter Faith shall be turned into Vision Hope into Fruition Desires into Possession waiting into Obtaining And then we shall thus believe no more nor hope nor desire nor wait but then we shall love still yea more than ever more abundantly yea perfectly without diminution continually without intermission and eternally without cessation in which respect among the three Cardinal Graces Love hath the preheminence 1 Cor. 13.13 Now abideth faith hope charity these three but the greatest of these is charity because it is the longest in duration So that those that love Christ sincerely here shall love him perfectly hereafter and be for ever blessed in that love But those that love him not on earth cannot love him in the other world and for want of such Love shall be accursed for ever CHAP. VI. The Application of the Doctrine THE last thing propounded in the method of this Subject is the Vse and Application of it to bring it down to our own hearts to work this truth upon our Minds Consciences and Affections And now O that God would help me and Christ would help me and the blessed Spirit of God and Christ would so help me and give me lively words a lively Heart lively and inflamed Love to blessed Jesus and your immortal precions Souls that I might speak and apply this great Truth as becomes a man that deth believe every one of you before God in this Congregation this day must be Anathema when Maran-atha if you live and die void of love to Jesus Christ as becomes a man that doth believe you must be blessed or cursed damned or saved for ever as you are prevailed with or not prevailed with to give Christ your Hearts and hearty love as becomes a man that doth believe your Everlasting Stare is much concerned in this one point that now is before us Alas Methinks I do foresee the great multitudes that this Anathema will fall upon Methinks I see the Lord a-coming methinks I hear the Trumpet sounding and the Voice calling to the Dead Arise and come to judgment Come ye cursed Souls that have been in the Infernal Lake and appear before my Bar come ye cursed Bodies awake arise and stand before my Judgment-Seat and let those cursed Souls be again united to those cursed Bodies and now be both cursed together and cursed for ever and let both be inseparably linked together to endure this Curse to all eternity Methinks I see them coming but unwillingly they come but with fear and trembling with horrour and amazement Now what is to do now now Maran-atha and now every one of us that loved not that Lord that now is come must be Anathema O woful Souls O miserable Sinners O cursed Caitifs What shall we now do and whither shall we now go do that we should have asked before this day that the Lord is come Do We should have done that which we did not do and now must go thither whither we would not go O that we might rather cease to be than to be what we must for ever be and go from whence we never must return and feel what will make us cry and roar toss and throw and be for ever restless and the more restless because hopeless and remediless O Sirs my Heart is pained my Bowels roul within me my Joints do shake with trembling for fear lest any of you that pray in this place and hear in this place should fall under this Curse when the Lord shall come The Uses of this Doctrine shall be 1. By way of Inference or Instruction what things from hence may be deduced and learned 2. For Reprehension or Reproof aggravating the Charge against such as love not the
and work in being wise in the reproved sense for my self I should be found an egregious Fool. He that preacheth so that no man can rationally contemn him and yet every man understand him and thereby wins Souls to set their love on Christ is a Wiseman and a Learned Preacher when he that preacheth so that few or none of the meaner Capacities which are the greater number can understand him any further than to understand they do not understand him and so the People perish for want of knowledge under the sound of profoundest knowledge shall have little thanks from such People at the Judgment-day and what Reward he shall have from Christ when he comes to take an account of Ministers for preaching and People for hearing let him take into his serious thoughts and learn of Learned Paul who hath left a pattern of the wisest Preaching 2 Cor. 4.5 For we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake lest not preaching Jesus the Lord but himself as if he were more than a Servant and Jesus not Lord he find when Preaching and Hearing are ended and cease Maran-atha and Anathema be joined together VIII Must they be cursed that love not Christ then know that outward Prosperity and this Curse are consistent A man might be a prospering man in this World and cursed in this World and in the World to come Do you see many whose Lives declare they have no sincere love to Christ in their Hearts thrive and abound in outward Enjoyments not love Christ and yet are strong not love Christ and yet are rich not love Christ and yet be in honour What then Might not a man in health be a cursed man nay the more strength he hath the more able he is to do the Devil Service and so his strength is a curse unto him The more he enjoyeth of the World the more he hath to love and the more he loves it and so his Enjoyments are a curse unto him when they keep him from placing his love upon Jesus Christ Have you not read that mens Blessings are cursed Mal. 2.2 If ye will not hear and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name saith the Lord of hosts I will even send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings yea I have cursed them already because ye do not lay it to heart God threatens to curse wicked mens Blessings I will curse your blessings I will that is not to do now I have cursed them already Many are apt to call the proud happy Mal. 3.15 The Rich though bad are thought by many to be blessed a great mistake all men might see their outward Blessings but all have not eyes to behold the inward Curses that lie under those outward Blessings Is it not a Curse to have Riches without Grace to have our Portion and Blessings and all in this Life to prosper in the World and to be every moment in danger of Hell do you look upon it to be such happiness to have all for the Body and nothing for the Soul to have Earth and nothing of Heaven and nothing to shew for them You read of some that have their Portion in this life on Earth Psal 17.14 and you might read that their Portion on Earth is a cursed Portion Job 24.18 and was it not so with the Rich man spoken of in the Gospel that on Earth had his purple robes and fine linen and sumptuous costly dishes every day O happy man but stay till you hear the end He died and whither then to Hell Where is now your happy man and what is his condition there what there he finds more pain than on Earth pleasure there he feels more torment and terror than all his days on Earth had pleasure and delight Luk. 16.25 But Abraham said Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Remember that vexeth not easeth in thy life-time but that was but for the time of life which then was short and sweet but this Life where now I am more properly called Death than Life is long and bitter receivest thy good things but amongst them all hadst not a good God a good Conscience nor one good Fruit of the Spirit no not so much as love to Christ but now he is comforted and thou art tormented he is blessed and thou art cursed he is happy and thou art miserable Behold the change the world 's blessed man is now the cursed man and he that was the miserable man in the esteem of the World is now the blessed man Then do not judge of Blessedness or Misery by the prosperity or poverty of this World but by the graces of the Spirit or want of them in your hearts particularly by your love or want of love to Jesus Christ For it is not said Let him that is not rich but let him that loves not Christ be Anathema Maran-atha IX Must all that love not Christ be cursed then tremble at the thoughts of the great number that shall be cursed There are but few comparatively that have sincere Love to Christ therefore but few comparatively that shall be blessed by entring into Eternal blessed life Mat. 7.13 Enter in at the strait gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat 14. Be cause strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it Many for want of Love to Christ will not bear his Cross but all that want this love Finally shall bear his Curse The number of the Curse-bearers and Non-lovers of Christ shall be an equal number so many and no more Consider then what multitudes there are that love other things more than Christ and see what vast numbers of men shall be accursed 1. How many are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of Christ 2 Tim. 3.4 2. How many are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lovers of money more than lovers of Christ They prize their Silver above the Saviour and part with him to keep that Luke 16.14 2 Tim. 3.2 3. How many are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lovers of honours more than lovers of Christ John 5.42 44 and and 12 43. 4. How many are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lovers of themselves more than lovers of Christ 2 Tim. 3.2 And indeed sinful self-love is the very heart and core of the carnal man and the great Idol of all unconverted sinners Principles of selfishness are the rise of all their actions and self is the end and scope at which they aim in all they do and so set up self in the room of God and Christ and love carnal self when they should love Christ and so shall lye under the Curse when they would have a Blessing Few love
Christ and few blessed by Christ Most are void of love unto him and most shall be accursed at his coming Is it an hard saying If hard yet true Is it a hard saying But it will be harder feeling when the Curse shall fully be inflicted XI Shall every one that loves not Christ be Anathema when Maran-atha accursed when the Lord shall come then the day of Christ's coming will be a doleful day to the Non-Lovers of Christ Then all the World shall be divided into cursed ones and blessed ones You love not Christ and yet bless your self but I pray you consider Maran-atha the Lord comes You glory in your Estate though Christ hath not your Heart but I beg of you that you would remember Maran-atha You put the Curse and the Evil day far from you but I beseech you let Maran-atha sound in your ears Then Oh then you shall curse the day that ever you were born you shall curse the time that you lived under the Gospel and heard of Christ but did not love him You shall curse your self for your wickedness madness and folly that so lovely a Christ was set before you and you had not an heart to set your love upon him and say Oh cursed heart that would love the World and not love yonder glorious Christ Oh cursed Will that didst chuse the Vanities of the World before the Son of God! Oh cursed was that love which I gave unto the Creature and did deny to Christ How can I hold up my head now to behold that Christ whom I never had an heart to love How can I hear that Voice and yet it is so great so thundring and so loud that I cannot but hear it commanding me to depart like a cursed Wretch when I never did and never would hearken to his Voice calling to me to love him and to give my Heart and Affections to him Wo is me now Maran-atha and now I am Anathema Wo is me the Lord is come and with him wrath is come and banishment from Heaven is come Wo wo wo is me the Lord is come and I feel fear and trembling is come ten thousand woes to me for the Lord is come and now compleat damnation comes the Lord is come and I must go I poor Wretch must go go Whither must I go to a cursed place to whom Alas to cursed Company But how wo is me like a cursed Wretch Cursed most bitterly cursed finally totally Body and Soul and all eternally for I had no Love for Christ and now Christ hath no Blessing for me When it is said throughout the World Maranatha then the World will ring with this Cry every one that loves not Christ is now Anathema CHAP. VIII Twenty Aggravations of want of Love to Christ THE Second Use doth bring a Charge and an Accusation against you for not loving the Lord Jesus Christ Some openly declare by their actions and manner of conversation That they do not love him Some openly pretend Love to Christ but really have no love unto him Ezek. 33.31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh and they sit before thee as my people and they hear thy words but they will not do them for with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness Love to Christ is in their mouth but love to the world is in their heart Some say they love him but God knows they do not John 5.42 But I know you that ye have not the love of God in you No! Do you know how great a sin this is Why then do you make so light of it Why then are you no more ashamed that you want this love Would you not be ashamed if this report went of you That you did not love your Wife your Children or your Neighbour And is it not an incomparably greater sin and shame that you do not love the Lord Jesus The only Son of God the only Saviour of lost sinners How is it that you do so seldom or never bewail the want of love to Christ in your Prayers or scarce put it in amongst the Confession of your Sins What do you love your Gold and not your God Or do you make your Gold your God and then love your Gold instead of loving the true God Can you love your Silver and not the precious Saviour Are you bound to love your very Enemies and yet have no love to him that would be your surest greatest and most faithful friend What shall I say Good Lord I am ashamed and blush to say which yet is true of too many of the sons of men that they both can and do love their very beasts their dog their horse and all their cattel and yet will not be prevailed with to love thy Son thy only Son and by thee beloved Son Nay what shall I say That you do love your very lusts and filthy sins that will destroy and damn you for ever and yet not love that only Lord and Jesus that would save you from your sins and from Hell for ever What can I say but that you love not Christ because you love your sin so much Oh horrid shame Love Deformity and not Beauty Where are your eyes Surely your love to sin is blind O monstrous Lover Love that which is worst of all and not him that is best of all Where is your reason Have you lost the understanding of a man Hath sin bereaved you of your wits Then oh Madness and Folly Are you so fond of sin as to be damn'd for it Are you so foolishly fond of this world as for the love of it to be hated of God and banished out of his Glorious Presence for ever Is your Soul so clogg'd with flesh and sunk so deep into it that it can rise no higher in its love than sensual earthly and fleshly delights and pleasures Will this love be so sweet in the review as you think it is in the present taste thereof Is this so vile a thing so base and sordid love that sets you below the rank of men not to be reproved For this are you not justly blamed Blamed yea and justly reckoned an Anathema that hath such an incomparable Object as Christ propounded to him and yet will nor love him Whose Excellencies are set forth and yet he seeth no Beauty in him That when there is nothing in the world so suitable to a sinner as Christ and yet will you be so perverse as to imagine and your heart maintain that Riches are more suitable and Pleasures are more suitable and Christ and the things of Christ the only inconvenient things for you If you do not think so why do you do so as you do in denying him your love Are you not to be blamed that when yet you might have Christ are not past a capacity a possibility of having Christ and all his benefits and good by him that you do not turn your love unto him Are you not to be
blamed when you thus do vilifie that Blessed Lord that none can over-value Will not you pass for a sinful wretch among all wise and serious men nay with God and Angels that you have a will for the world and for the empty vanities of this life but no will for Christ for a full and All-sufficient Christ When you do prefer fading enjoyments of a transitory life before a durable good in eternal life Tell me I beseech you is not he deservedly a wretch whom neither the Excellencies of Christ himself nor all the benefits he might have by him will move him to set his heart upon him What do you think What do you say Have you done well or ill in not loving Christ Well you dare not say Ill you are loth to say because by so saying you will condemn your self What then Condemn your self because you have not loved him and love him now that you might not be condemned by God and cursed by Christ for not loving him at all But because the want of love to Christ is such an horrid loathsome sin and yet lamented but by a few as if it were in our days almost accounted for no sin at all I shall endeavour to aggravate the hainousness thereof in Twenty particulars propounded to you by way of questions and let me intreat you to weigh them with a serious mind and when Right Reason shall dictate a true answer seek out some secret place where you might weep bitterly for this odious sin want of love to the Lord Jesus Christ I. Not love Christ What is this but a crossing of the end of God in making thee a man In setting thee above the beasts of the field In giving thee a more noble and more excellent soul than he hath given to the unreasonable creatures Hath not God given thee a soul capable of knowing Jesus Christ And what shouldst thou know him for if not to love him Hath not God given thee a will to go forth in its actings upon the most sweet and suitable Objects And what is that but Christ Hath he not put such an affection as Love into thy heart And dost thou think in thy Conscience it was that thou mightest love the world and not his Son Thy self and not his Son but thy self in opposition to his Son Thy sin and not his Son Canst thou imagine that God made thee a man and not a beast that thou mightest love him no more than beasts can love him Then it had been enough if God had made thee a beast and not a man Or dost thou repent that God hath given thee the Nature the Reason and the Love of a man that thou wilt not place it upon himself for which end he made thee a man If thou dost repent that thou art a man and not a beast then chuse the Love and Pleasures of a beast and refuse the Love and Pleasures of a man and that as a man thou art capable of If not why dost thou not answer the end of thy creation Dost thou not see that all the Visible Works of God do that for which they were made Did not God make the Sun to give light unto this World And dost thou not see what haste it makes to set and in the morning thou perceivest when out of view it kept its course and hasted to rise to give its light to this our Hemisphere again Did not God make this Earth to bring forth Fruit for the comfort of man And dost thou not daily eat thereof Did not God make other Creatures for the use and service of man And do they not do so And hath not God made thee and made it thy duty to love him Why then dost thou not do it Oh monstrous perverting of the Creation of God! And that in the best of his visible works If the like were done by other creatures how soon wouldst thou be weary of thy life If the Sun should withhold its light what a dungeon would this world be If the Earth should bring forth nothing but Briars and Thorns it would yield thee nothing but vexation and sorrow If the creatures should use their power and strength against thee as they do in serving of thee thou wouldst judge it better to want them than to have them And shall all that was made for man answer their end and not man that was made more immediately for God himself But a man that wants Love to Christ is become worse than the beasts that perish Psal 49.20 Better thou hadst never had the heart of a man if Christ hath not thy heart II. Not love Christ What is this but a thwarting the end of all Christ's undertaking for thee as thy Redeemer When man had sinned away the Holy Image of God and turned his heart and affections from God to the Creature man might have feared him but never have loved him Gen. 3.10 I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid Sin had brought such an aversation in the heart of man from God and all good that without Christ's undertakings for man man could have loved him no more than Devils Why did the Son of God become the Son of Man Why did he shed his Blood lay down his Life Why did he suffer sweat bleed and dye Why did he bear our Punishment satisfie Divine Justice endure the Wrath of God the Rage of Men and Devils but to bring man back again to God from whom he had departed And that the stream of man's affections might be turned again into its right Channel Couldst thou not have loved the World and Self if Christ had never dyed Couldst thou not have loved thy Pleasures and thy Sins if Christ had never died And having died wilt thou love no better Hath he come from Heaven to gain thy Love and shall he not have it Hath he given himself a Ransom to deliver thee from thy Captivity and paid thy Debt for which thou shouldst have gone to the Prison of Hell to gain thy Love and shall he not have it Hath he given his Life for thine his Soul for thine in dying when thou shouldst have dyed and all this to gain thy Love and shall he not have it What thinkest thou Was Christ weary of the Bosom of his Father Was it more honourable for him to dwell in flesh on earth than with the Father of Spirits in Heaven Was it not infinite Condescention for his Deity to be vailed with the rags of our Humanity Or was Christ prodigal of his Blood or weary of his Life or did he love and chuse such cruel Scourgings such Contempt and Scorn such a cursed shameful painful Death for themselves Surely all this was for some great and noble end which end thou doest as much as in thee lies by thy not loving him frustrate and render unattainable for if all men should deny him their Love as thou dost where would be the Reconciliation betwixt God and man Remission of Sins or Salvation
that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment And Epistle of Jude ver 6. The Angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day Not a word of a Saviour for them but of Mankind the Scripture speaks of abundance of love and mercy Joh. 3.16 God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Tit. 3.4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared and denieth that concerning Angels which it doth affirm concerning Man Heb. 2.16 For verily he took not upon him the nature of Angels but he took upon him the seed of Abraham Hath he done that for you which he hath not done for Devils and is not then want of love in you to him a greater evil than it is in Devils Let this shame you that ye are not lovers of Christ XII Not love Christ What do ye make of this but the beginning of Hell By the same reason as love to Christ is the beginning of Heaven Love to Christ is the employment of the Saints in Glory and to be without love to Christ is the frame of the Damned in misery So much of hatred to Christ is in you so much of Hell is in you before you be in Hell XIII Want of love to Christ Is not this the Daughter and the Off-spring of many foul abominations that are reigning in thy heart Doth it not suppose the predominancy of many other sins As 1. Doth it not suppose Ignorance of thy misery Sins deformity and of Christs beauty excellency and necessity 2. Doth it not suppose preceding Infidelity That thou dost not believe what God saith concerning Christ nor what shall be thy portion and thy everlasting miserable condition without Christ 3. Doth it not suppose a conceit of thy own Righteousness which if thou sawest to be insufficient would Christ be thus slighted and disregarded by thee 4. Doth it not suppose Self-willedness Thou wilt love what thou wilt love and not him thou shouldst love come on it what will Is it not plain wilfulness when thou canst give no reason why thou wilt not love Christ But because thou wilt not 5. Doth it not suppose predominancy of sinful Self love Carual Self thou wilt love and because this in dominion is inconsistent with the love of Christ thou dost omit the loving of him 6. Doth it not suppose fearlesness of God and of his Indignation If this did awe thee could Christ be thus neglected by thee 7. Doth it not suppose forgetfulness of Death and Judgment Of Heaven and Hell Couldst thou without horror think of dying without love to Christ When to dye so once would be to dye for ever Without trembling couldst thou think of Judgment when for want of love to Christ thou shalt certainly be damned whenever thou appearest at his Judgment-bar Or of Heaven when thou must never enter into it Or of Hell when thou must certainly be cast into it for want of love to Christ 8. Doth it not suppose great carelesness of thine own Soul For canst thou love thy Soul and not love Christ the Saviour of the Soul Canst thou take care of the Salvation of thy Soul and take no care to love him that is the purchaser and the donor of eternal Salvation Is such a litter of sins in the heart void of the love of Christ And wilt thou after this make so light a matter of it XIV Want of love to Christ Is it not the Mother of many horrid transgressions and the Nurse Maintainer and Fomenter of them Love to Christ shuts the door of the heart against the temptations of Satan the inticements of Sinners and the allurements of the World but the want of it sets it open unto all Love to Christ would be a Dam to the stream of Sin but the want of it is the plucking up the Floodgates thereof that Sin might run out of the heart into the life with a swift current Is not the absence of love to Christ the cause of many commissions of Evil Would it not bridle thy Tongue restrain thine Hands shut thy Eyes stop thy Ears and keep all these from being defiled with finful actings upon sinful objects Is it not the cause of the omission of good Of praying hearing meditation holy discourse What goeth before and what followeth after the want of love to Christ as flowing and proceeding from it maketh it a sin exceeding sinful XV. Love not Christ Have not then all the Ordinances of God been ineffectual as to thee Have not Ministers preached in vain and spent their labour for nought And hast not thou heard in vain And followed the means of Grace in vain when by all the means thou hast not got this Grace of Love What though thou hast obtained knowledge is not that knowledge without love to Christ vain knowledge What though thou art able to discourse of God and Christ and Heaven and the workings of the Spirit without love to Christ is it not though concerning such great and weighty matters yet vain discourse Have not all the calls of Mercy the workings of Conscience the wooings of Grace the pleadings of Ministers the intreaties of Love the knocking 's of Christ the strivings of the Spirit the waitings of Patience been all slighted and disregarded by thee Are not all thy Prayers lost and will not all thy Profession come to nothing and thy hopes of Heaven perish when for want of love to Christ thy Soul shall never enter into Heaven but perish everlastingly XVI Want of love to Christ Is it not a mark and brand of a graceless Man Is not the absence of love to Christ inconsistent with the presence of any other saving Grace Psal 31.23 O love the Lord all ye his Saints No love no Saint No Saint no Grace in thee If Loveless altogether Graceless for then 1. Thou art faithless for didst thou believe on him thou wouldst have sincere love unto him for where there is Faith it worketh by love Gal. 5.6 2. Thou art fearless of God Love and fear of God do sweetly concur Love is afraid to offend 3. Thou art sorrowless that is as to any holy godly sorrow For love to Christ would make thee sorrow for thy sin for the absence of Christ and love would cause thee to sorrow that thou lovest no more 4. Thou art also hopeless for there can be no solid ground of hope in him when there is no love unto him He that hopes for Heaven by the merits of Christ without love to the person of Christ his hope is a Fabrick without a foundation the Fools Paradise It is hope without a warrant and in the end when he misseth of the end of his expectation will be found to be no
consent of lost Souls to become the Spouse of his Son Jesus with this relief That if Sinners be not willing nor will accept the motion I shall be released from the Woe I have made preparation though less and weaker than such a weighty matter doth require and have Prayed that the Lord God would send me good speed this day And now I am standing by the Well of the Water of Life and some of the City are come to draw Water out of the Well of Salvation and upon enquiry made I find they are the Children of the Kindred of Jesus who forasmuch as the Children were partakers of flesh and blood himself also took part of the same to whom my message is so important that I can willingly forbear to eat till I have told my errand and therefore in your Audience desire to speak on saying I am the Lords Servant who is not made great or blessed by any other for he is great and blessed above all and over all for ever the earth and all that therein is is his the Sea and all therein is his the Heavens and all therein is also his And he hath a Son one only Son Jesus and he hath given him all that he hath even all power in Heaven and in Earth and hath set him at his own right hand far above all Principalities and Powers and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not only in this World but that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be Head over all things the Judge of all the World And this great Lord hath sent me to ask and beg your Hearts and Love in order to an indissoluble Marriage to his own only Son and now if ye will deal truly with my Master tell me if not tell me Oh now who saith the thing is of the Lord and proceedeth from his grace and mercy we cannot gainsay we will not refuse this Message And when you are asked who will have this Jesus Who will love this Jesus methinks one should say I will another should say and I will One and Another What! no more Methinks every one should say I will that there should not be another that should say but I will not Let who will but I will not No Why Because no better a Servant is sent to gain thy consent Or doth manage this great affair with no more zeal and skill Do thou pray for the pardon of my weakness and folly and I will pray that thou mightst have more wisdom to discern when a good proposal is made unto thee but whether thou regardest me or not regardest me I regard not so thou wouldst but have regard to Jesus Christ and to thine own immortal Soul If thou dost despise me do not despise my Master nor his Son for though I am not so good as Abrahams Servant yet my Lord and Master is better infinitely better and greater than Abraham to whom he was Servant and my Masters Son Jesus is better incomparably better than Isaac Abrahams Son and would certainly prove a richer match to thy Soul than Isaac was to Rebekah Consider therefore again before thou dost again deny him thy love for hast thou not denied him thy heart long enough already but wilt thou do so still Hath not thy love run waste upon the Creature to this day And shall it do so still Art thou not weary yet in loving of the World Art thou not yet tired in setting thy heart upon Vanity Hath it answered thine expectation Hast thou found that sweetness in the Creature which thou lookedst for when thou didst first set thy heart and love upon it Thou hast tried what is the love of the Creature oh now try what is the love of Christ and if thou dost not find it better if thou dost not find it sweeter than all thy former love provided thou lovest him sincerely return to it again Behold whose cause do I plead this day Christs or mine own For whom do I ask your Love for my self or for Christ Slight me as you will but do not slight Christ Vilifie me but do not undervalue Christ Count me unworthy of your love or look but do not so by the blessed Son of the most glorious God Say I am not fit to be regarded I bless God I have learnt to bear it but I beseech you say not so of Christ Revile and hate me if you will if you will but love that Jesus that out of Love did dye for you If you would but love him that then would certainly save you and bring you to eternal Glory and Happiness for ever If you love the World never so much can the World do so much for you If you love your Honours your Pleasures your Relations never so much can they bless you as Christ will bless you Nay the more you love them the more miserable the love of them will make you Should I call you to love the World you would do it or your Pleasures Self or Sin you would do it Nay when I or any more skilful than I am have called to you to wean your Love from these yet still in love you cleave unto them What! Is Christ the only unlovely object in your Eyes Can you find Love for any thing but Christ What is it in Christ that doth displease you What do you see in him that is offensive to you Either love him or give a reason why you will not Do you blame me for my Importunity I thought since I began this Use you did refuse because I was not urgent enough with you You will not love except you be entreated if that were it that you love to be entreated to Love and would love Christ after much intreating I would study Night and Day to think how I might entreat you and what Arguments to use to prevail and obtain your love for Christ But why should you look for such long entreaties Do you know who it is that doth entreat you Is it I or God himself by me I pray you view one Text and then let him that doth entreat you wait no longer for your answer and for shame put him not to entreat you longer What place is that It is 2 Cor. 5.20 Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God What say you now I from God and God by me beseech you A Minister of God stands among you in Christs stead to beg entreat beseech that from you which if Christ stood in this place this day he would Preach unto you and desire and command from you that ye would be reconciled unto God after the enmity to him you would love him God Christ by his Servant doth beseech entreat pray you to love him Oh the astonishing condescention of the holy God! That he will iâ—treat Oh the amazing stupidity and folly of the sinful Sinner that
he will not be entreated Surely the infinite distance that there is betwixt God and Man might fill us with wonder that God should become a Suiter to man for his love when there is not so much distance between Man and Nothing as there is between God and Man and yet he is pleased to stoop so low to urge us to consent to him that we might be advanced as high as Heaven who else must be plunged into the depths of Hell On what is this that the Creator should seek to be loved by the Creature The Lord to be loved by the Servant The King of Saints to the Subjects of Sin that he might have our Heart and Love Whereas if we did consider that our striâ—test Service to him would be our largest Liberty our having of him our only Happiness our missing of him our greatest Misery we should know it were our Interest to prostrate our selves at his Feet to lye at his Door with Prayers and Tears with Cries and Calls with Grief and Groans to make it our daily Suit to him that he would love us and give us an Heart to love him Man was first in departing from God and in removing of that love that at first there was betwixt God and Man yet God is first in seeking the renewing of Love else Man would always hate and never love him And that God should seek to Man for his Love and be denied might be astonishment to the Angels in Heaven and make matter of joy if they be capable of any joy to the Devils in Hell that Men that may love Christ and will not might be as miserable as themselves to whom he is not propounded as an object of Faith Love or Hope But whether you will love or not love him God hath commanded me and others of his Ministers to lye hard at you for your Love he hath given us a Commission to make a motion of love betwixt Christ and you in order to your matching with him Mat. 22.2 3 4 c. and hath committed to us the Word of Reconciliation and made it our Work to Wooe you for your love unto his Son and to try to gain your consent 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. And if you will love him to espouse you to him 2 Cor. 11.2 This is my Message and for this end am I come this day If I do not ask you I hazard my Soul if you deny you lose yours God therefore grant that I might so ask that you may not deny that both your Souls and mine might Love and so be Saved For the gaining of your Love for Christ I shall use these Arguments propounded by way of Question and when you have given a right Answer to them I hope Christ will have a good Answer from you CHAP. XI Twenty Motives or Pleas that Christ might have the Love of your Hearts I. CAN you find a more excellent object for your Love than Christ If you search through the whole Creation of God is there any like to Christ Whatsoever you think who dare say there is Are Riches Honours Pleasures Relations which you have loved comparable to Christ whom you ought to love If Good be only the object of Love is not the best Good the best object Can you love the lesser Good and not the greater Yea the greatest of all Is not all the Goodness in the Creature but as a drop to the Sea as a Candle to the Sun as a Sand to a Mountain if compared to the Goodness there is in Christ If David were worth ten thousand of others 2 Sam. 18.3 is not Christ Davids Lord better than all the World Read Cant. 2.3 5 16. Prov. 3.14 15. Phil. 3.8 Dost thou waver in thy thoughts or hesitate about this Tell me First Is not Christ a Good most suitable for thee Is Liberty so suitable to a Captive Man or Bread to an Hungry Man or Health to a Sick Man or Ease to a Pained Man as Christ is to a Sinsul Man For 1. Art thou not lost undone in danger to be Damned Christ will be thy Saviour thy Keeper and Recoverer Luk. 19.10 The son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them Isa 63.1 Mighty to save 2. Art not thou ignorant dark and blind knowest not the way to Heaven and eternal Happiness and mightâ—st weary thy self to find the Gate of Life and yet miss of it when thou hast done all He will be thy Teacher and thy Guide and direct thee Infallibly to it He will Anoint thine Eyes and cause thee to see such things as never yet thou sawest ver 3.18 If he Anoint thine Eyes with his Eye-salve though thou wast born blind thou shalt have thy sight 3. Art thou not Sick and full of Spiritual Diseases Abounding with Soul Distempers Even sick to Death Nigh unto eternal Death He will be thy Physician who is so able and so skilful that never any yet that he undertook to Cure Died under his Hands for rather than thou shouldst dye of thy Disease he will make thee a Potion of his own Blood which if thou Drinkest thou shalt certainly recover Therefore he came to be a Soul Physician and gave this as a reason why he did converse with Publicans and Sinners That he might cure them Mat. 9.12 4. Art thou not indebted Owest thou not Millions to God Hast thou a Mite to pay If God demand satisfaction from thee will it not prove thy Damnation If Justice pursue thee Death Arrest thee will not Devils seize thy Soul and hale it to the Prison of Hell from whence thou shalt not be delivered till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing which will never be This Christ if thou wilt but love him will be thy Bail become thy Surety and make payment of thy Debt and give thee a Discharge 5. Art thou not polluted and unclean Hath not the Leprosie of Sin overspread thy Vnderstanding Will Conscience Memory and all thine Affections So that thou art defiled all over liest wallowing in thy Blood art cast out to the loathing of thy person and canst thou in this filthy case enter into the holy Kingdom of God If thou wilt give him thy Love he will take away thy silthy Rags and give thee change of Raiment Zac. 3.1 2 3. If thou wilt come to him with Faith and Love and say Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean he in Love to thee will say I will be thou clean Mat. 8.2 3. He will make for thee a Bath of his own Blood and his Blood shall cleanse thee from all thy Sins 1 Joh. 1.7 Yea though they be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll Isa 1.18 6. Art thou not a Captive to Satan and to Sin Drudging Elbow deep in
strength of your love on Worldly things where the return of love is not only not actual but impossible But would ye love Christ ye should have more love from him than ye give unto him if ye strive with all your might to love him with the utmost love ye can Joh. 14.21 23. Prov. 8.17 3. Is it not great folly to love that which can never satisfie you and not him that would satisfie your Souls for ever Did these things ye love ever fill your desires Did they ever give you full content How should they When God hath made your Souls capable of the enjoyment of an infinite good how can that which is finite fill them It is only an infinite good and not finite that can satisfie your Souls though they be finite all the Creatures cannot fill one For the Will of Man though it be subjectively finite yet it is objectively infinite that is for to be easie and plain in such a place as this and in such matters as these before you is best because for you most profitable and edifying though the Will in it self and in its own Nature because a Creature is finite and limited yet it is capable of making choice of God for its chiefest Good that is infinite and unlimited And God hath put into the hearts of Men desires after good that is eternal for they desire to be eternally happy but God hath not put this eternal goodness in any in all the things of this World for they are all transitory Therefore when ye look for satisfaction in the Creatures that ye love or in the loving of them ye look for that which God never put into them and nothing can give more than it hath and nothing hath more than God hath given it therefore to look for more from it than God by making it hath put into it may yield you vexation enough but no satisfaction at all Eccles 5.10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase This is also vanity 4. Is it not great folly to love that which ye must shortly part with and not him that ye might enjoy for ever Though ye have your heart full of Love to other Earthly things you shall not earry an handful of them into the other World Eccl. 5.15 As he came forth of his mothers womb naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his labour which he may carry away in his hand 1 Tim. 6.7 We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out but Death that carrieth the Lovers of the World quite away from the things they love shall set the Soul of a Lover of Christ nearer to him Phil. 1.23 For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better The Soul that loveth Christ when by Death it is absent from the Body it shall be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 5. Is it not great folly to love that which might leave you while ye live and not that Christ that would never leave you nor forsake you As ye are fure these things which ye love will be none of yours after Death so ye are not sure they shall be yours while ye live May ye not be rich to day and poor to morrow Well to day and sick to morrow In honour to day and in disgrace to morrow Was it not so with Haman Esth 6.10 11 7.9 10. When ye have Riches and love them ye are not sure to hold them Prov. 23.5 Wilt thou set thine eyes thine Heart and Love upon that which is not for riches certainly make themselves wings and fly away as an Eagle towards heaven The Hebrew Text is Wilt thou cause thy eyes to fly upon that which is not Riches fly away and the Worldly mans Heart and Love fly after them and though his Heart and Love be swift in their motion after Riches yet sometimes Riches fly so swiftly that their Lover cannot overtake them The pleasures of Sin and so the profits of the World are but for a Season Heb. 11.25 and when the Season is over they are gone but Christ would never leave you nor forsake you Heb. 13.5 6. Is it not great folly to love that which may prove an hinderance to your everlasting happiness and not him that is the purchaser and the promoter of it To love that which is often hurtful to the owners and always hurtful to the over-lovers of it and not him that never did his Lover harm but good Eccl. 5.13 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the Sun namely Richer kept for the owners thereof to their hurt This Solomon had seen and many have seen but that Christ should hurt any Man that hath him for his own was never seen Riches are thick Clay and Clogs to the Minds of Men and keep them down to Earth that they cannot rise to Heaven nor get so high while they live nor their Souls when their Bodies dye that they make Salvation exceeding difficult Mat. 19.23 Then said Jesus to his Disciples Verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of heaven 24. And again I say unto you it is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a Needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God but to love Riches and not Christ while a Man doth so doth not make Salvation only hard but impossible but the love of Christ makes Salvation not only possible but certain and easie 7. Is it not great folly to love that which cannot comfort you at Death and not Christ that both can and would Love what ye will besides Christ and not Christ it cannot be a stay to your departing Souls what will ye look to at Death for comfort your Riches Why ye are going from them with an heart full of love to them to love them and yet must leave them to leave them in loving of them will torment and vex you not support and comfort you To Pleasures that ye loved When ye lye a dying they are fled and past and gone To your Friends When ye are dying ye are taking your last leave of them To Christ Alas him ye never loved and the thoughts of that will be a sting more painful than the sting of Death V. Can ye do any thing less than love Christ or can ye do any thing more Is it not a small thing that Christ should have your Love for all those great things ye have and hope to have by Christ And yet Christ stands upon your love as greatest of all and all without love is nothing If Christ had asked you to lay down your Life for him had he required more from you than he himself hath done for you Had he called you to give your Bodies to be burned for him should ye not have done it How
but you can if you would for have you not the means to help you to love him Is not he Preached to you Is not the Spirit striving with you Will you say you cannot love him though you would That I utterly deny for if you were really willing to love him you could love him nay if you do unfeignedly Will to love him you do love him for what is Willing but Loving And what hinders you from Loving but your not willing to love him Will you say you want power What power do you mean The Natural faculty or power of the Will That you have how else do you Will any thing you do Will you say you want a power of Willing to love Christ What is that but that you are unwilling to love him And if you cannot because you will not the more you plead your Cannot the more you aggravate your Will not A Natural Power God hath given you that is a Will if you lye under a Moral Impotency that is your Sin and what is this Moral Cannot or Impotency but the averseness of the Will from Christ Therefore though without the powerful workings of the Grace and Spirit of God you cannot love Christ sincerely yet this Cannot is your Will not for if by the Grace of God you were enabled to Will you could and if you were as willing to love Christ as some now are that once were as unwilling as now you be you could love him as well as they Why should you stand off and say If it were possible for me to love Christ I would How Possible What! Is there no difference betwixt you and a Devil Betwixt you and the Damned in Hell You can love the World can you do that You can love your Self can you do that Yes And I suppose you can love Sin too can you not To our Grief and your Shame we find it But why can you love World and Self and Sin Is it not because you will Do you do it against your Will I wish you did then there might be more hopes you would be perswaded to love Christ You can and do love Sin because you are willing have but as great willingness to love Christ as the World and Sin and then it may be said Not only that you can but do love Christ However though I am no Asserter of the Liberty and Power of the Will in things Supernatural nor an opposer of the necessity of the workings of the Spirit to enable a Sinner to love Christ yet it is most manifest that your unwillingness is the hinderance of such Love and this unwillingness is your weakness since then your unwillingness certainly by Grace might be removed your Love is possible therefore cease not till it be actual Are ye at length convinced of the Necessity of love to Christ And are ye at length perswaded to seek it and willing to get love to him I shall then next proceed to the Directions whereby ye might through Grace fall in love with Jesus Christ CHAP. XII Ten Directions to get sincere Love to Christ shewing the way of Love to him I. CLearly understand and be throughly convinced of thy lost Estate and miserable Condition for Conviction sight and sense of Sin and of our lost Estate thereby usually goes before the setting of the Heart and Love upon Jesus Christ though God doth not deal with all Sinners in all circumstances alike in working and begetting in them consent and love unto his Son in divers persons the measure of Conviction is different as in the Natural Birth some are born after more pangs and throws than others are so in the Spiritual Birth in which the Love is turned unto and set upon Christ the day of this Birth being the day of Espousals some God dealeth with more gently with some more roughly Some he melts like Wax and some he hews like knotty Wood some he carrieth by the Gates of Hell to the Door of Heaven and some he brings to Christ and leads to Heaven with lesser Terrors To gain your love to Christ he expresly threatens Damnation that is so great it cannot be fully expressed and lets the Sinner know that Consent and Love he must or be Damned he must He doth let in such light into the Mind that the Soul doth see there is is no way to escape the darkness of Hell than by consenting to Christ that came from Heaven and Christ presseth hard upon the Conscience of the Sinner whom he Wooeth for his Love saying Poor Sinner What dost thou mean To be Damned rather than to have me for thy Saviour To go to Hell with thy Lusts than to Heaven with me the Lord What wilt thou do Shall I have thy Love or No Wilt thou at last consent or wilt thou still refuse I tell thee plainly if I and thou part Hell and thou must meet I have been Wooing long and Waiting long but now it is come to a parting or a closing point and it is time for thee to come to a resolution This is the Case Deny my Suit and God will Damn thy Soul If thou hear not me thou shalt howl in Hell If I leave thee God will leave thee and Mercy will leave thee and all Misery will come upon thee Poor Sinner Consider the issue of thy final refusal of me and of denying thy love to me 1. Will it not be thy being cast into pain of greatest extremity And how wilt thou do to bear it If God do but touch thee with his Finger thou dost sigh and sob thou dost cry and roar and canst not rest O how wilt thou rest when God shall lay on blows with his Almighty Arm If pain in thy Head or sickness at thy Heart or Gripings in thy Bowels make thee cry out like a Distracted Man what wilt thou do to bear the wrath of God in a place prepared on purpose to shew his indignation against Christ-refusing Sinners When the sorest affliction in this Life is but as the pricking of a Pin to the piercing of a Sword if compared to the Torments of the Damned 2. Will it not be Misery joined with endless Eternity And hadst thou rather bear pains extream and eternal too than Love me that would deliver thee from them Doth not a small affliction make one Day or Night seem long much more if it be heavy Then in the Night thou askest Is it not Day Thou countest the Clock thou numberest the Hours and think'st that Time doth pass but slowly on Would it were but break-a-day that I might rise But all the time between the Creation and the Dissolution of the World is but a moment to Eternity Where there is no striking of Clocks no telling of Hours no returns of Night and Day but always Night and never Day never shall be break-a-day A thousand years shall pass and never the less to come Nay nothing past and nothing to come and yet more to come than is already past an everlasting
the swarms of men therein that have no sincere Love to Jesus Christ Let all among you this day that are not Sensual Beasts or Incarnate Devils that have the Understanding and Hearts of men stand and wonder that tho Devils will not love the Lord Jesus Christ that a Man should deny him his Love Good Lord What a thing is this What cursed Wickedness is this What wonder that thou dost behold such a fight as this a Man without love unto thy Son and suffer him to continue to be a man or dost not make him a sick man a poor man a tormented pained man on earth or a Damned man in Hell But tho thou bearest with such a man is he not a wretched miserable man tho he be a rich and prospering man Oh what Punishment waiteth for him How do Devils hope for his Death that they might drag him down to that Hellish Crew where there is not one Lover of Christ amongst them all But what is he What shall he be that Loves not Christ What Anathema Maran-atha What is that The Explication will tell you SECT II. The Explication of Anathema Maran-atha Anathema where found in Scripture is usually Translated Accursed Acts 23.14 And they came to the chief priests and elders and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have bound our selves under a great curse that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul i.e. with a Curse we have Cursed that is grievously Cursed or bound our selves with direful Curses Vers 21. The same word used Gal. 1.8 But tho we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let him be Anathema accursed Repeated verse 9. Mark 14.71 But he began 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to curse and to swear saying I know not this man of whom ye speak Rom. 9.3 For I could wish my self Anathema were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh 1 Cor. 12.3 Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus Anathema accursed Not to love Jesus is to carry our selves towards him as tho he were Anathema but forasmuch as he is God over all blessed for ever whosoever loves not him shall be Anathema for ever This Greek word is used as the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cherem which is Translated utterly to destroy viz. 1 Sam. 15.9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and would not utterly destroy them but every thing that was vile and refuse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they destroyed utterly The Greek Verb signifieth such Cursing as when a man either sweareth voweth or wisheth himself to dye or to be given to the Devil except he And the Hebrew word that answereth to it signifieth Utterly to destroy to devote to destruction As much as to say If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be utterly destroyed devoted to destruction let the Devil take him and so he will by God's own Order and Command Mat. 25.41 Then shall he say unto them on the left hand Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Luk. 12.20 But God said Thou fool This night thy soul shall be required of thee In the Greek They shall require demand fetch away thy soul They What they The Devils that seize the souls of all that love not Christ whenever they dye 2. Maran-atha two Syriack words as some take them Maran that is our Lord. Nun finale est affixum primae personae ex pronomine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mar with Aleph is a Chaldee word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mara Lord and Nun only litera paragogica then Maran both in Chaldee and Syriack signifieth Lord. Atha written thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Hebrew word written thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Chaldee thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Syriack word thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Arabick in all signifieth To come A man that loves not the Lord Jesus Christ shall be Cursed in all Nations in all Languages by all People all the world shall account that man to be Anathema Anathema Maran-atha some render it Let him be accursed till the Lord come or when the Lord comes or he shall have due Vengeance from the Lord when he comes Some thus Let him be accursed even till the coming of the Lord to his death's day even for ever and hath reference to that Prophecy of Enoch recorded Jude ver 14. Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these saying Behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord comes with ten thousand of his Saints 15. to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have angodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him And all for want of Love unto him Learned men conclude That here is an allusion to the Jewish manner of Excommunication of which there were three sorts or degrees The Lesser The Middle Sort. The Greatest 1. The Lesser called Niddui Put out and in the New Testament they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Put out of the Synagogue and they hold that Cain was excommunicated this way 2. The second was called Cherem or Anathema when a scandalous sinner with Curses out of the Law of Moses was in the publick Audience of the whole Church without any limitation of time excluded from the Communion of it This thought to be the same called a delivering up unto Satan With this sort of Excommunication was the Incestuous person censured 1 Cor. 5.4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ 5. To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 3. The greatest of all they called Samatha so called from Sem a name which they put for Nomen Tetragrammaton or Jehova and Atha comes Others derive it from Sham There and Mitha Death as if they should say There and then shall be death to the Non-Lovers of Christ The Syrians call it Maran-atha by which form added to the two former the excommunicated person as desperate and forlorn without all hope of pardon or restitution was left to the hands of the Lord to receive from him an heavy doom at his coming implying that they summoned the Excommunicated before the dreadful Tribunal at the last coming of the Son of God They say this sort of Excommunication the people of God used against the Amalâ—kites And with this highest degree of Excommunication
degrees of Love might be considered in a twofold respect 1. In respect of other Lovers of Christ of which one might have degrees of Love that is sincere more and above what another man might have whose Love is yet sincere And of this More or degree of Love is Christ's question to Peter to be understood John 21.15 Simon son of Jonas Lovest thou me more than these viz. Other Disciples love me where the comparative More respects THESE as other Agents in Love or Lovers and therefore Peter answers in the Positive I love thee not in the Comparative More than they all do love thee But the Comparative More doth not respect THESE as the Object of Peter's Love as if Christ had asked Lovest thou me more than thou lovest these To which doubtless Peter could have readily replied Yea Lord I love thee more than I love these or all men or things in this world And in this sense God doth not damn any for want of more degrees of Love or other Graces 2. Degrees of Love might be considered in respect of the things loved or the object of our Love That the word More means Do you love Christ more than the World Sin Self or do you love These more than Christ And then I say this Doctrine is so far from being offensive that I judge it is of great concernment and necessary for every man that hath a Soul that must be damned or saved to know and understand For I do not fear to say for want of these degrees of Love whereby a man's Love is less to Christ than to the World and Sin and carnal Self God will surely damn him Doth this grate upon any Christian ears That a man that loveth not Christ more than Sin and more than Pleasures and Profits hath no sincere Love to Christ nor shall be saved by him Surely such a man would judge in another case if he had a Wife that loves him yet loves another man more than himself she had not sincere Conjugal Love to him 3. The plainest fullest and I hope no offensive Answer shall be the Words of Christ himself shewing wherein sincerity of Love to him doth consist Mat. 10.37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me 38. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me 39. He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it And all the love to all inferior things in comparison of the degrees of love we should have to Christ more than unto these is rather Hatred than Love Luke 14.26 If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple What Interpretation can these words bear This That no real Disciple of Christ may or ought to have true love to Father or Mother Brother or Sister Wife and Children or to his own Life Absurd and irreligious sense being contrary to the Law of Nature and Christ's constant Doctrine in his Word What then This That a true Disciple of Christ must and ought to love these things less than Christ and Christ with more till they be prevailing degrees and Love in the heart to Christ be like the Biass to the Bowl that make it incline more to Christ than to all other things This is that which is asserted and being the sense of Christ's Words I hope will not offend any that have more Love to Christ than to all these things and for the rest that love these things more than Christ they shall find that for this very thing Christ with them will be offended SECT IX The Eighth Requisite in Love to Christ EIghthly This Love chuseth Christ for himself and for the Excellency of his own Person tho not with the exclusion of our own Benefit and Salvation by him Our own Benefits by Christ might be looked at by the returning soul at first as ordine prima but not quoad dignitatem praecipua ultima The Soul might first be allured and drawn to look after Christ and to love him by the consideration of the matchless Good and Benefits it might have by him which the convinced sinner seeth he can find in no other but in process of time and in his progress in the way to Heaven he learns and sees that Excellency and Beauty in Christ that he is in himself more amiable than all the Objects of his former Love To ask therefore Whether we are to love Christ for himself or for his Benefits we have by him is to propound a question which yet I have not observed in the Scripture nor disjunctively answered therein for one is subordinate to the other and subordinata non sunt opposita nec pugnant I am to love Christ for himself and for the Goodness Excellency and Amiableness of his own Person and I am to love Christ for the good I have received by him and for the benefits I hope further for his sake to be made partaker of and the one is an help unto the other Though I am to love Christ more for himself than for my advantage by him yet in loving of him I do not conceive I am to cast away the consideration of the benefits by him As we should not put the seeking of God's Glory and our own Salvation in opposition but in subordination tho God's Glory and the pleasing of his Will be the ultimate end and our Salvation to be sought by us in order thereunto Wherefore in seeking after an evidence of Grace and Title to Heaven I think it is a needless and unwarrantable puzzling of our selves and that which hath sorely afflicted some gracious persons and filled them with unnecessary doubts and fears and torments of mind to demand of our selves Whether we could be content to be damn'd to go to Hell to suffer everlasting Torments and the burning fiery flaming Wrath of God poured out upon the damned so that God may be thereby glorified I shall forbear to judge the state of my Soul by this as a Character of Grace and Preaching of it unto others till some shall shew me this is propounded in the Gospel as a Condition of the Pardon of my Sin and the Salvation of my Soul which hitherto I have not observed For how can I earnestly desire to be Saved and yet be willing and content to be Damned Long to be with him and yet content to be for ever separated from him I do find God threatens men with Hell to awaken them to look after Heaven and deliverance from Hell but I do not find God propounding as a condition of Salvation to be content to go to Hell that we might be received up to Heaven That I leave and loathe my sin repent and turn to God believe and love him