when we are hungry It makes him to have planted in us natural Appetites or desires which he intended we should gratifie and yet hath not permitted us to desire that which alone can gratifie them That he hath filled the Earth with his Blessings and given it to the Children of Man to no end that he hath caused the Herb to grow for the service of Man Wine to make glad and Bread to strengthen Man's heart and yet will not permit us to desire that Bread which gives us strength or love i. e. be pleased with that Wine which maketh our hearts glad Why therefore doth the good Lady enquire When shall we be so just to God and so kind to our selves as totally to withdraw every straggling desire from the Creature Is it justice to God to say that he requires us to Pray and Praise him for what he requires us totally to withdraw our desires from Has God required as an act of Justice that we shouâ—d not desire what he by promising as the rewaâ—d of our Obedience doth even couâ—t us to desire and by those Appetites he hath implanted in us doth even force us to dâ—siâ—e 〈◊〉 it kindness to our selves to hate our owâ—â—â—esh as the Apostle intimates he doth who takes not care to to nourish it Is it kindness to our selves not to desire for our selves that which is needful for the Body How then can it be Charity to give that to others which out of kindness we desire not to our own selves Again why doth she add That if we did consult either our Honour or Interest we should abandon all other desires it being as unjust so unsafe to give desire the least tendency towards any Object but him who is the only proper and adequate one Is it our interest not to desire Food convenient for us or is it for our Honour to think the Blessings God hath promised not worth a wish Can it be unjust to gratifie my natural Appetites according to the intention of the God of Nature Can the regular application of the Faculty of desire to such Objects as are agreeable to our Nature be either unjust or unsafe Why then doth she here give us this as the Definition of that Pleasure which she declares to be the grand motive to Action CHAP. II. The Contents To avoid the seeming Inconsistence betwixt the Love of God only and the love of my Neighbour as my self it is said That the Love of God with all our Heart enjoined in the First Commandment is the love of Desire the love of my Neighbour required in the Second is only Love of Benevolence § 1. To take off this Evasion it is proved First That the Love of God required in the Injunction to love him with all our hearts c. cannot be discharged by a love of Desire only but requires also a love of Benevolence § 2. Secondly That though the love of our Neighbour here enjoined be not love of Desire of him as our good yet neither is it love of Benevolence or wishing well to him only but to the due performance of it a desire of the Creature is necessary § 3. Thirdly That the love of our selves our Relatives our Neighbour and our Friend all which saith Mr. N. is love of Benevolence only is indeed that love which chiefly opposes and obstructs our love to God and is the rise of our inordinate Affections to the World § 4. Fourthly That though the Command to lâ—ve our Neighbour as our selves doth not requirâ— us to love our Neighbour as our good yet 〈…〉 only lawful but very commendable so to do 〈…〉 This Doctrine That the love of God is 〈◊〉 exclusive of all Love to and desire of the Câ—â—ature destroys the Foundation of these two 〈◊〉 Virtues Iustice and Charity § 6. It also casts a great Contempt upon the Works both of Creation and of Providence § 7. I Proceed now to my Second Head viz. to shew that this Exposition of the Precept to love God with all our hearts renders it contrary to the following Command enjoining us to love our Neighbour as our selves That this is a just Prejudice if true against this new Invention the Admirable Lady confesseth and confirmeth in these words It were I confess a strong prejudice against their way of stating the Love of God if it were in any measure injurious to the right Understanding and due performance of the love we owe to our Neighbour For since the Precepts of the Gospel are an exact and beautiful System of Wisdom and Perfection every one of whose Parts are so duly proportioned to the other that the result of all is perfect Harmony and Order I must needs conclude that when such a sense is put upon one Precept as causes it to clash and interfere with another it cannot be the genuine meaning of it and if I cannot make over the whole of my desire to God without defaulking from that portion of love he has assigned my Neighbour I must of necessity set the signification of that Precept to a lower pitch and find out some other Medium to interpret the first and great Commandment But then they think to salve the matter with the distinction of love into love of desire and love of Benevolence declaring that the former is due to God alone and is the thing required in the Commandment to love God with all our hearts the second only belongeth to our Neighbour and is the thing enjoined in the Command to love our Neighbour as our selves Thus Mr. N. 'T is most certain that the most entire love of God enjoined in the first Commandment does by no means exclude the love of our Neighbour enjoined in the second in case these two loves be of two different kinds the former suppose love of Desire and the latter love of Benevolence there being no manner of Repugnancy between the desiring none but God and the wishing well to Men. Thus saith he is it in this case for the word Love when applied to God in the First Commandment signifies desiring him as a good and when applied to Men in the Second it signifies not desiring them as a good but desiring good to them And cannot I thus love God only and my Neighbour too and so fulfil both Commands Cannot I desire but one thing only in the World and yet at the same time wish well to every thing else 'T is plain that I may and that the entireness of my love to God does no way prejudice my love to my Neighbour supposing the latter love to be of a different kind from the former Now in Answer to these Suggestions I shall endeavour to shew 1 st That the Love of God required in the Command to love him with all our hearts is not only a love of desire but of Benevolence also 2 dly That though the love of our Neighbour here enjoined be not love of desire of him as our good
yet neither is it love of Benevolence only but that to the due performance of it a desire of the Creature is requisite which is sufficient to consute the Hypothesis That the love of God required in the command To love God with all our hearts is exclusive of the love of the Creature 3 dly That the love of Benevolence allowed by Mr. N. and his good Lady is indeed that love which chiefly opposeth and obstructeth our true love to God and is the rise of our inordinate Affections to the World 4 thly That though this Precept Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self cannot be well supposed to command us to desire our Neighbour as our good yet is it not only lawful but very commendable so to do First Then I say That the Love of God required in the Injunction to love him with all our Hearts cannot be discharged by a love of Desire only but requires also a love of Benevolence For is the desire of Enjoying him all that he desires from us to testifie and express our love to him Doth he not require upon this account that we should be zealous in the promotion of his Honour That we should rejoice in every thing by which his Holy Name is Glorified That we should promote as much as in us lies the advancement of Piety and Holiness and Righteousness because these things are acceptable and well pleasing to him That we should endeavour the Repentance of the Sinner because this creates joy in Heaven and God is highly pleased with it Are we not therefore to be filled with the Fruits of Righteousness because they tend to the Praise and Glory of God Must not not our Works shine before Men that we may glorifie our heavenly Father Yea whether we eat or drink or whatever we do must we not do all to the Glory of God Should we not be grieved at and industrious to prevent whatever tends to the Dishonour of his Holy Name Doth he not enjoin us to do good to others for his sake to love his House his Ministers his Servants because they are related to him and require Servants to obey their Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with good well-doing service to the Lord and do we not by all these things testifie our good will to God When the Excellent Lady saith of the Divine Lover That where-ever his Beloved is interested his Soul is all on Fire he does not pursue his Service with a languid and frozen application but with the Diligence and Zeal of Love He will not see his Beloved affronted his Law contemned and his Designs opposed and tamely stand by and hold his peace nor does he regard what himself may suffer but only what service he may reasonably hope to do and never is chary of those things we usually call our own whether Fortune or Fame or Life it self but only deliberates how he may reserve them for the most opportune season of spending them freely in his Beloved's Service Doth she not in all this speak of the Love of Benevolence Are not all these Acts of Benevolent affection to God When we are thus zealously concerned for the Honour of our Neighbour when we desire he may be pleased and gratified and rejoice when he is so and are grieved when any thing is done to his Dishonour or by which he is much displeased when we love any thing related to him and treat it respectfully for his sake do we not by these things shew our love of Benevolence to our Neighbour Why therefore may we not be said to testifie and express our good will to God by doing the like things towards him The Excellent Dr. Barrow not only makes it one Property of true Love to God to bear the greatest good will towards him but also saith There wants not sufficient matter of exercising good will both in Affection and Action towards God for we are capable both of wishing and in a manner as he will interpret it and accept it of doing good to him by our concurrence with him in promoting those things which he approves and delights in and in removing the contrary Moreover when Christ saith He that loveth Father and Mother Wife or Children or his own Life more more than me is not worthy of me Doth not the comparison require that the Love mentioned should relate to the same kind of love If then the love of Father and and Mother be only that of Benevolence and the love of God and Christ be that of Desire only let Mr. N. tell us why they may not both be very well consistent as well as the love of God and of our Neighbour are upon that account believed to be so if the love of both be that of desire it follows in opposition to his Grand Tenet that Creatures may be loved with love of Desire but if the love here mentioned be that of Benevolence then is it certain that love of Benevolence is not only due to God but also that it is due to him in an higher measure than to any Creature And indeed this Matter needs to be explained a little and then it will scarce need a further Confirmation First Then we may consider God in his Divine Essence as an All-sufficient God infinitely happy in himself and incapable of any accession either to his Being or internal Happiness and in this sense to wish well to him or to desire to him Good is vain and impracticable and therefore considered thus he is incapable of Love of Benevolence But then we may consider him as the great Governor of the World giving Laws which he would have us to observe and by Obedience to which he is glorified by Men and is well pleased when they do chearfully and readily comply with them and is dishonoured and displeased when they affront him by their Disobedience We also may consider him according to his immitable Perfections and his communicable Attributes viz. his Holiness and Righteousness his Truth and Faithfulness his Goodness and Mercy Now these being the Excellencies and Perfections of his own Nature which he cannot chuse but love and delight in he is pleased to express himself as one who very much desires that all his Subjects should be like him in them and to delight in all that are so and who endeavours to make others so he being glorified by them who promote these Excellencies in themselves and others and as one who is highly offended displeased and even grieved when Men neglect these things and act in opposition to his great Design of promoting these Perfections in Mankind and thus he is very capable of our Love of Benevolence For whenever we do him service out of good will and pure desire to please him when we aspire to greater measures of Holiness and Righteousness and are Fruitful in good Works because these things are acceptable to God and tend to the promotion of his Glory when we endeavour that all
yet it is the Root of many and great Vices it is that which renders it exceeding difficult to obey the Laws of Christ when they once come in Competition with these Beloved's of our Souls for where there is by Nature the closest Union and the most intimate Affection it must be very difficult to burst these Bonds asunder and disingage our Hearts from them Hence that great Duty of Self-denial is still expressed by loving God more than these for He saith Christ that loveth Father and Mother Son or Daughter more than me is not worthy of me And by a comparative hatred of them for He saith Christ that hateth not Father and Mother Wife and Children Brothers and Sisters cannot be my Disciple Moreover doth not Experience convince us that from the excessive love we bear to our Relations beloved Sects and Parties mostly proceeds that Strife Debate and Variance those Quarrels and Contentions that Wrath Hatred Envy Bitterness of Spirit those Schisms Factions and Seditions those Animosities and Heart-burnings those Calumnies Detractions rash Censures which are in the World Is not this one great Root of that Avarice that scraping for the World that hoarding of it up that want of Charity we complain of that Men are very desirous to advance their Families and leave them in great Plenty and Splendor in the World Can it be therefore doubted Whether this love of Benevolence be one great thing forbidden in this Injunction To love the Lord with all our Heart c. or whether it be not inconsistent with it as that love of the Creature of Houses Lands joined with it in the Text which Men do often part with to preserve the Life of these Beloveds But will Good Mr. N. or the Lady hence conclude That the Love of God with all our Hearts is entirely exclusive of all Love of Benevolence to Father or Mother Wife or Children Fourthly That though this Precept thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self cannot be reasonably supposed to command us to desire our Neighbour as our Good yet is it not only lawful but very commendable so to do I say the Command to love our Neighbour cannot be a Command to desire him as our Good because the love of my Neighbour is this love of another as such the wishing well and doing good to another without a formal respect to my self whereas loving another as a Good to me is properly self-Self-love The true reason then why I cannot love my Neighbour in the Sense here required with love of desire as a Good to me is not because he is a Creature for I my self am a Creature and yet may love my self as I have proved with a love of Desire and I may love and desire those temporal good Things God hath promised though they be only Creatures but because whatsoever I thus love must be affected and desired from Self-love and not from love unto another Nevertheless it is very evident that I may and sometimes ought to desire my Neighbour as a Good to me For is there not such a thing as a good Friend a good Companion a good Neighbour a good Counsellor and may not I want and so have reason to desire this Friend Companion Neighbour Counsellor as a Good to me Are not such Persons very needful and beneficial to us in this Life And will not Self-love teach us to desire what is so needful and so beneficial to us May not the Parish of B. desire that Mr. N. may continue their Minister as being a Good to them When Great and Good Men are in danger to be taken from us by Sickness or the Casualties of War how heartily do we pray for the continuance and preservation of their Lives And do we not desire this as a publick Good And when we grieve for them as dead and gone into a State of Happiness can we do this out of Benevolence to them Or do we not so from the Sense of our own Loss of one so good and so desirable to us Did not Ioash weep over Elisha because he was the Charriot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof Did not all Iudah and Ierusalem mourn for Iosiah because they said Under his shadow we shall live among the Heathens Are not Good and Righteous Men the greatest Blessings to a Nation and may we not then desire the continuance and encrease of them as our Good Does not the Psalmist speak of God's Saints and Servants as the Excellent in whom was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all his desire Does not Mr. N. say There are some things which I love with great Passion such as are Conversation with select Friends Is not Vir desiderii the Scripture Expression for a Person highly beloved And may not Madam B. and Madam I. be to the Lady Mulier desiderii What though they cannot supply our Wants yet if they can supply any of them our want of good Company Instruction Learning Knowledge Health may they not be desired on that account What though they must seek their Felicity abroad and cannot be their own chief Good can this authorize us wholly to withdraw our Hearts from our Neighbour or from a faithful Friend who is better to us than a Brother and never to desire any Conversation with him for our Good 'T is therefore evident from those Considerations That we may not only desire Good to our Neighbour but that we may also desire him as a Good to us Thirdly I add that this Opinion That the Love of God is absolutely exclusive of all love to and all desire of the Creature destroys the whole Foundation of these two great Virtues Justice and Charity For 1. This is the natural Foundation of all Justice Thou shalt do to others as thou wouldst be dealt with If then the love of God obligeth me to have no love and no desire of the Creature it must oblige me to have no desire to preserve my own Life my Health my Goods my Wife my Servant or any other Creature that is mine and then no Obligation can be laid upon me from this Rule of Christ To desire to preserve the Life Health Goods Relations of my Neighbour or any other thing that is his Nor if I suffer them to be impair'd can I have any inward Sense that I do that to others which I would not have done unto my own self 2. All Charity or Love unto my Brother depends upon this Precept Thou shalt love thy Brother as thy self Now if this love to my self doth naturally produce within me a desire of all things that will do me good i. e. a desire of the continuance of my Being and so of all things necessary to my Being a desire of Ease when I lie under Pain of Supplies when under Want of Comfort when I am in Trouble of Pleasure when I may innocently enjoy it In a word a desire of every thing by which I may receive Advantage
that sufficient warrant so to interpret the other Particulars And since these words respect the Moderation of our Joy and Grief and we do joy and grieve according as we do affect the Objects of those Passions why should they not be also deemed to respect the Moderation of our Affection to or our desires of this World Secondly If we Deifie the Object that we love we Deifie every Woman that we love in order to Matrimony every Child and Relation we desire to preserve that so we may enjoy the Benefit and Comfort of their Presence we Deifie our selves when according to the Psalmist we desire life and love many days yea we Deifie all the Meat and Drink we love and therefore do desire to eat and drink of and if I love and desire a Cup of good Wine because it maketh glad the Heart of Man I am ipso facto an Idolater Thirdly I deny that it is necessary that he who loves i. e. desires any Creature suppose Meat when he is hungry or Drink when thirsty must suppose that Creature perfects his Being and is the cause of his Happiness or that it is able to act upon his Soul and affect it with pleasing Sensations 'T is only necessary that he should suppose those pleasing Sensations will follow upon the Enjoyment of those Creatures and are not to be had without them for put case a Sensual voluptuous Man were of your Opinion would he ever the less pursure the delights of the Flesh and of the sensual Appetites Is it not the Pleasure annexed to the Enjoyment of these things which all the World pursue And must they not then have the same reason to desire and pursue them while the same Pleasures are annexed to the Enjoyment of them whoever be the efficient cause of that Pleasure or whatever it be that acts upon the Soul and affects it with these pleasing Sensations Fourthly It cannot be Idolatry to suppose God acts upon my Soul by the virtue he hath put into a Creature rather than immediately by himself for then all the World must have been Idolaters before Mr. M. and Mr. N. made known this new Opinion to the World for he confesses that among the whole Tribe of Philosophers that went before them none of them thought any otherwise or any farther but universally held that Bodies had a power of producing such Sensations 'T is also evident that Children for a long time taste the Pleasures of the Creatures before they can be able to discern that God immediately produces these pleasing Sensations in them and that the Generality of the World are still uncapable of knowing that he doth so Now is not this to vilifie the Providence and Wisdom of God and to reproach his Goodness to say That he hath laid the World under a sad necessity of defrauding God of his Worship and committing that Sin of Idolatry which he that doth saith the Apostle shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Moreover all Idolatry implies an act of Religious Worship though misplaced now do we by desiring Meat when we are hungry or Drink when thirsty or by thus loving Meat and Drink as things which may gratifie our hungry or our thirsty Appetites by the virtue God himself hath implanted in them worship Bread and Drink All religious Worship proceeds from a direct immediate Intention either to give Honour to that which we conceive to be God or else ascribes to the Object worshipped some of the Divine Attributes or Essential Perfections but do we conceive Bread and Drink to be God by asking them of God that is desiring them or by rejoicing in them as his Blessing i. e. being pleased or affected with them as such or by conceiving he hath put any virtue into them to do us Good Do we ascribe unto the Creature any of the Divine Attributes or Perfections or say in effect they are Omnipotent by thinking God may enable them to raise pleasing Sensations in us or to work upon our Animal Spirits and by them upon our Souls Surely could there be any semblance of Idolatry in this case it must wholly lie not in conceiving that Creatures can move our Animal Spirits which is all we say or think they do but in conceiving that these Animals Spirits can act upon the Soul and that these Motions of them can be grateful or ungrateful to it The words of the Apostle Iohn run thus 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 For all that is in the World the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but is of the World And the World passeth away and the Lusts thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever Here you have again all Love of the World expresly forbidden as altogether inconsistent with the Love of God not the immoderate Love of the World only For 't is plain that the words import a great deal more namely That we are not to love the World at all that all Love of it is immoderate To this the Reverend Dr. Barrow Answers that The Apostle explains himself that by the World he means those things which are most generally embraced and practised in it the Lust or the desire of the Flesh that is Sensuality and Intemperance the Lust of the Eyes that is Envy Covetousness vain Curiosity and the like the Ostentation or Boasting of Life that is Pride Ambition vain Glory Arrogance Qualities as irreconcilably opposite to the Holy Nature and Will of God so altogether inconsistent with the Love of him begetting in us an Aversation and Antipathy towards him rendring his Holiness distasteful to our Affections his Justice dreadful to our Consciences and Himself consequently his Will his Law his Presence hateful to us And that this is the true import of the words is highly probable 1. Because these things saith the Apostle are not of the Father Whereas the moderate Desire of and Affection to the World 's Good things is of that God who hath implanted in us natural Affections and Propensions to them made them the Objects of our Desires and our Industry encouraged us to affect them by making the matter of his Promises and hath allowed us to rejoice in them 2. Because he saith He that loveth the World the love of the Father is not in him which cannot possibly be true of that Relative and Subordinate Love unto it which he hath made Provisions for Again if we understand by these things the desire of those things which gratifie our Appetites with Pleasure V. G. by the Lusts of the Flesh the desire of Meat Drink and voluptuous Enjoyments as they do gratifie the Flesh by the Lust of the Eye the desire of Gold Silver large Possessions noble Houses rich Furniture fair Gardens as they do gratifie the Eye By
up to him we love In his set Discourse upon those words of St Iohn Love nâ—t the World neither the things of the World he expresly declares That God doth not absolutely forbid us to love these things but only not to love them as our Happiness not so as to neglect our Creator that he requires us to use a mean in our Affection to them and not to enjoy what we should only use nor have our Affections cleaving to them In his Meditations which is one of his Devotional Tracts he observes how the World and all things in it serve both our Necessity and Delight but hence he will allow us to love them only as things Subject to and serving of us as the Gifts of God remembring that we owe them to him and must not love them for themselves but for him not with him but for him and should love him by and above them And this I think may be sufficient to acquaint us with the Opinion of St. Austin in this Matter I am only farther to acquaint the Reader that the Substance of many of these Arguments was sent to Mr. N. long before his Letters appeared in Print and seeing he thought none of them worthy of the least notice I humbly offer them to the Reader especially to the Ingenuous Author of the late Discourse concerning the Love of God to whom I own my self obliged and rest THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. The Question Whether we are obliged to love God so entirely as that we may love nothing else with a love of Desire § 1. This Assertion is shew'd to be contrary 1st To our Prayers for our daily Bread § 2. 2dly To God's Promises of temporal good Things § 3. And to his Threats of temporal Evils § 4. 3dly To the Representation of them as God's Gifts and Blessings and our good Things § 5. To God's Command to rejoice in them § 6. To the Industry required by God to procure these things and his Blessing promised to that Industry § 7. Proofs from Reason That God hath not absolutely forbidden the Desire of Pleasure of Honour or of temporal Enjoyments § 8. Corollaries 1. That this Doctrine is inconsistent with our Obligation to Pray and with the Prayers of our own and of Ancient Liturgies 2. With the Praises due to God for temporal Blessings and with the Thanksgivings for them used in our Liturgy 3. It tends to depreciate the Divine Gifts to teach Men to slight God's Promises and contemn his Threats 4. To destroy all Industry in our Calling 5. It lays the vilest Imputation upon the Dispensations of God's Providence towards us § 9. Page 1 CHAP. II. To avoid the seeming Inconsistence betwixt the Love of God only and the Love of my Neighbour as my self it is said That the Love of God with all our Heart enjoined in the First Commandment is the Love of Desire the Love of my Neighbour required in the Second is only Love of Benevolence § 1. To take off this Evasion it is proved First That the Love of God required in the Injunction to love him with all our Hearts c. cannot be discharged by a Love of Desire only but requires also a Love of Benevolence § 2. Secondly That though the Love of our Neighbour here enjoined be not love of Desire of him as our Good yet neither is it love of Benevolence or wishing well to him only but to the due performance of it a desire of the Creature is necessary § 3. Thirdly That the Love of our selves our Relatives our Neighbour and our Friend all which saith Mr. N. is love of Benevolence only is indeed that Love which chiefly opposes and obstructs our Love to God and is the rise of our inordinate Affections to the World § 4. Fourthly That tho' the Command to Love our Neighbour as our selves doth not require us to Love our Neighbour as our Good yet is not only lawful but very commendable so to do § 5. This Doctrine That the Love of God is entirely exclusive of all Love to and Desire of the Creature destroys the Foundation of these two great Virtues Iustice and Charity § 6. It also casts a great Contempt upon the Works both of Creation and of Providence § 7. P. 27 CHAP. III. The ordinary Exposition of these Words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart c. laid down in the Words of Mr. N. and of the Scoolmen viz. That we are obliged by them to love God above all Things 1. Appretiatively 2. Comparatively 3. Intensively and 4. So as to love other things only by way of Relation and Subordination to God § 1. That our Lord Christ hath approved of this Exposition is shewed § 2. The Censure which Mr. N. gives of this Opinion and the Abettors of it reflects very unbecomingly upon all the Prelates and Pastors of the Church of England which are not of his Mind and lays unworthy Imputations on them § 3. Some General Considerations offered to engage him to abate somewhat of his Confidence and his Censorious Reflections for the future § 4. Especially this That they who adhere to the common Exposition of these Words differ no more from him than he differs from his former self Sect. 5. The common Exposition further confirmed First From this Consideration That this Command was given to the Jewish Nation whose Promises were chiefly Temporal and therefore could not be exclusive of the desire of Temporal Blessings Sect. 6. That therefore it ought to bear that Sense which is the certain Import of the like Phrases in all the Old Testament where they are only to be found which Sense is plainly opposite to that which Mr. N. contends for Sect. 7. The true Sense of loving God with all the Heart and Soul in the Old Testament shew'd from that primary Relation and respect it hath to their owning God to be the true God in opposition to all strange Gods § 8. Secondly From this Consideration That this Love is required as the Condition of Salvation § 9. Thirdly That to love God with all our Mind cannot bear this Sense § 10. The common Exposition serves all the Designs of Religion in General and of Christian Religion in Particular as well as the Exposition of Mr. N. and the Lady § 11. P. 53 CHAP. IV. This Chapter contains an Answer to Mr. N.'s Arguments from Scripture for a Love of God exclusive of all love of Desire of the Creature as V. G. 1st From these Words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. Matth. 22.37 § 1. 2dly From those Words of St. James Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the Friendship of this World is Enmity to God Iames 4.4 § 2. 3dly From these Words of St. John Love not the World neither the things that are in the World 1 Iohn 2.15 § 3. And to his Arguments against the Relative Love of the Creature V. G. 1. That it is as much
to be received with thanksgiving for what we are obliged to thank him for is sure his Blessing and our good Secondly Hence we learn also That every Creature which is thus good for us must be desired of God it being Sanctified or fitted for our use 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Intercession to God for the Enjoyment of it Secondly God moves us to the performance of our Duty by the promise of these temporal good Things to walk in the ways of wisdom because length of days are in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour To Uprightness of Life because wealth and riches shall be in the house of the upright To Works of Charity because the liberal soul shall be made full and he that watereth shall be watered again and he that soweth plentifully shall reap plentifully and because He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord and that which he giveth will he pay him again To Meekness and Trust in God because such shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace To seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof that all these things may be added to us To live piously because Godliness hath the promise of this life as well as that which is to come Now can any rational Man deny That what God promiseth as the Reward of our Obedience is our Good or doth he not allow and even encourage us to affect and to desire what he doth promise We therefore by these Promises are taught of God to love and to desire the good things of this present Life Moreover our blessed Saviour promiseth to them who forsake Houses and Lands and Life for his sake and the Gospel's an hundred fold here and afterwards eternal life Now if none of these things are fit to be the Objects of our Love if they be not desirable to us why doth Christ promise such an immense Reward to those that do forsake and quit them for his sake Why doth he promise as an Encouragement to do so the Return of them an hundred fold since what we are not to affect or to desire at all of that we are not to affect or to desire the Encrease Or why doth Peter say to Christ We have left all these things and followed thee what shall we have Doth not the Question plainly suppose That leaving of these things was that for which they might expect a Recompence Which sure they could not do for leaving only that which was not in it self desirable which was not good and so could be no proper Object of their Love Wherefore by these Expressions our Saviour plainly doth instruct us that these are in some degree desirable and proper Objects of our Love Again when the Psalmist to engage Men to keep God's Commandments saith More to be desired are they then gold yea then much fine gold and testifies of himself thus I love thy Commandments above Gold yea above fine Gold do not these things suppose that Gold in some degree might be desired and loved When he saith Thy loving kindness is better then life it self And again The Law of thy mouth is better unto me then thousands of gold and silver When the Wise Man commends Wisdom to us by saying Wisdom is better then Rubies and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it Doth not the Comparison shew that these things in their kind are good Doth it not suppose that there be many things that may be desired In fine when Christ declares That he who loveth Father or Mother Wife or Children or even his own Life more then him is not worthy of him does not he tacitly suppose that 't is as natural to love and to desire the Continuance of Life as to love Father and Mother and that this Love is only Vicious when it exceeds or rivals that Affection which we owe to him 3. God threatens to deter Men from their Sins That he would as a token of his Indignation deprive them of these temporal Good things That they should then be cursed in their basket and store in the fruit of their body of their land of their kine and Sheep That they should serve their Enemies in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things and that the Lord would rejoyce over them to destroy them and to bring them to nought That he would inflict upon them his sore judgments the sword the pestilence the noysome beast and the famine Now if Life Plenty and the Fruits of the Earth their Kine and Sheep were not good and desirable things wherein consists the Curse and the sore Iudgment in being thus deprived of them Or why doth Solomon so earnestly desire That God upon their Prayer and their Repentance would grant Deliverance from the forementioned Evils Again this is one of God's Motives to engage his People to depart from evil That their iniquities witheld good things from them That therefore were the showers witheld and the latter rain fail'd That therefore the Heaven over them was staid from dew and the earth was staid from her fruit Now if these temporal Enjoyments were not indeed good things why is the witholding of them stiled the witholding of good things from them If they were not fit Objects of Desire where is the punishment in the withdrawing them or where is the motive to depart from evil that they might prevent these things 4. God hath sufficiently informed us That these things are truly good for and fit to be desired by us by declaring That they are his Blessings his peculiar Gifts That riches and honour come of him That he giveth corn and wine and oyl and that his blessing maketh rich and that he giveth power to get wealth That the enjoying of the Good of all our Labour is the Gift of God That God Gives to Man not only riches and wealth but also power to eat thereof to take his portion and to rejoice in the fruits of his labour and that this is the Gift of God and that 't is from the Hand of God that we enjoy the Good of all our Labour But if none of the fruits of our Labour be our Good how can we enjoy the Good of all our Labour or why should we rejoyce in them Can we more effectually depreciate his Gifts or undervalue his Blessings than by saying that there is nothing in them which deserves to be esteemed our Good or ought to be desired of those that love him Moreover how positive soever these Metaphysical Men are that these are not our Goods the holy Scripture is as positive to the contrary For in the Story of Lot we have twice mention of his Goods in the History of Iacob that he carried away all his Goods St. Luke saith Of him that taketh away thy goods ask
with whom we do converse may advance in them from the same Principle in all these cases we express our good will to him When we are zealous for his Honour rejoice to see it promoted are grieved at any thing which doth dishonour and displease him and are industrious to prevent it in this we we shew a Zeal for God and a displeasure against these things arising from a love to him And when we love his Servants for his sake and our Neighbour because made after the Image of God this is in Scripture represented not only as an Indication but an Expression of our love to him For God is not unrighteous saith the Apostle to forget your labour of love which you have shewed to his name in that you ministred to the Saints And forasmuch as you did it to one of these saith Christ you did it unto me And therefore Crellius and Carrellaeus do well inform us That the love of God is strictly and most properly taken for that affection by which we desire that those things which are grateful to God may be done by us and others For as love to others in the General is that affection by which we desire those things to another which are good and if that love be fervent endeavour as we are able to effect it and chiefly are concerned that he whom we love may enjoy what is grateful and profitable to him So Charity or Love to God only N B. those things which as we may say are good that is grateful and delightful to God as are all those things which conduce to his Honour or are otherwise according to his Will And indeed the desire of enjoying God as the chiefest good is so natural so deeply rooted in self-Love that it bears an affinity to that general desire of Happiness which Philosophers will not allow to be Virtuous or Praise-worthy because it is not free but natural but this Love of Benevolence to him is a more pure Flaâ—â— a more noble and disinterested Affection the desire that he may be Glorified by others and that he may not be Dishonoured by them is the desire of that on which our Happiness doth not depend and so it is a love which Centers upon God alone without respect unto our selves it also shews a stronger compliance of our Will with the Will of God a greater Sympathy of Affections a stronger Complacency in Goodness an higher Resemblance of Divine Perfections than our desire of the chief Good imports and so it renders us more partakers of the Divine Nature and so more acceptable and lovely in the sight of God Love of Benevolence is therefore due to God as well as to my my Neighbour and so the love of God and of Neighbour is not on that account of different kinds And if it cannot be denied that this is true and genuine love of God it cannot be denied that this love also is required in the Command To love the Lord with all our Heart and all our Soul and then it is demonstratively evident that Phrase cannot exclude the love of any Creature because it is confessed that with this love of Benevolence we are to love our Neighbour as our selves Secondly I add That the Duty of Love I owe to my Neighbour cannot be discharged by a love of Benevolence or by wishing well to him only but that it imports also a love of Beneficence or a sincere endeavour of doing all the good I can to him This is self-evident and confessed by Mr. N. when he saith It makes us ready not only to wish them but to do them all the good we can to wish and to do well to them to desire good to them all and to do them good as far as we have Opportunity And of this St. Iames sufficiently informs us when he saith That to wish well to our Brother to wish he may be warm and cloathed without affording him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things which are profitable to the Body is an unprofitable piece of Charity And yet how is it possible we should be able or even desirous to afford him what is necessary for the Body if we our selves may not desire the things that are so Let us reflect upon those acts of Charity to our Neighbour for which our Lord hath promised to us the Kingdom and we shall easily discern we cannot do them without desire of the Creature as their Good For can we feed the Hungry or give drink to the Thirsty without desiring to have Food and Drink to give them Can we take the Stranger in without desiring an House in which we may receive him Or Cloath the Naked without desiring to have wherewith to Cloath him 'T is therefore certain that we cannot discharge this Christian Duty to our Neighbour without a desire of and an endeavour also to enjoy the Creature and then it must be also certain that the Love of God is not exclusive of all love and all desire of the Creature Besides we by this Precept are obliged to love our Brother as our selves now are we barely to wish well to our selves and not desire Life Health Sleep Ease Comfort and all the Necessaries of this present Life If then we are to love our Neighbour as our selves that love must certainly engage us to desire for our Brother the continuance of Life Health Ease and Comfort and all the Necessaries of this present Life and also that we may have what will enable us to minister to him in these things But saith Mr. N. Our love of our selves is not love of Desire but Benevolence for whosoever reflects upon the love of himself will presently perceive that 't is not a desire of himself as his Good but a desire of some Good to himself as appears from the Vulgar Expression Charity begins at Home and from the Vice of Self-love by which we mean a Craving N. B. and seeking after more than comes to a Man's share without having any regard to the Community or a greedy pursuit of our Private Interest in opposition to that of the Publick I Answer Let this be granted hath he not in these words said enough to destroy his own Hypothesis That the Creature must not be desired as our Good For if Self-love be a desire of something good to my self if I may Crave and Seek after as much as comes to my Share If I may pursue my private Interest as far as I can do it without Opposition to the Publick then it will follow that if any Creature can be good for me if any portion of them may fall to my share if it may be for my Interest to pursue any of them I may so far Desire and Crave them and then my Love of God cannot exclude my Love or my Desire of them 2 dly Though Mr. N. saith 'T is most undoubtedly so that my Love of my self is not Love of Desire Both Scripture and Reason most
undoubtedly declare the contrary for Self-Preservation and the continuance of Life are the natural Desires of all Men Now these are truly a Desire of our selves that is of something of our selves which we have not already and yet this desire of Life and love of many Days being only the desire of what God doth promise as the Reward of our Obedience it is unquestionably the Desire of something Good for us and so of something which self-Self-love doth prompt us to desire When Christ requires us to love him more than Life it self and God enjoins his People to obey his Precepts that they may live do not all these things teach us That the continuance of Life is a thing desirable and that we may love many days Now this only Happiness to be the desire of some Good to us because the desire of our selves i. e. of the continuance of our Being is the desire of some Good to us and is at once the desire of our selves and the continuance of Good that is of Being to our selves And this we learn from Mr. N. himself in these very Letters whereof he saith That since our Being is in it self a Good and the Foundation of all the Good that we do or shall ever enjoy it can be no sooner received that it brings an Obligation of loving our Creator For if our Being is in it self a Good must it not be our Good Must not the continuance of it be the continuance of our Good Doth it not therefore lay an Obligation on us to love our Creator because we by receiving it have received Good from him And if our Being is the Being of our selves must not the love of it be the love of our selves and the desire of the continuance of it be the desire of the continuance of our selves Thirdly That the love of Benevolence is indeed that love which chiefly opposeth and obstructeth our true love to God and is the rise of our inordinate Affections to the World is also very evident For 1. That the love of our selves is love of Benevolence he and this Lady have informed us Now This saith the Excellent Dr. Barrow is the Root from which all other Vices do grow and without which hardly any Sin could subsist the chief Vices especially have an obvious and evident dependance upon it All Impiety doth involve a loving our selves in undue manner and measure so that we set our selves in our Esteem and Affection before God we prefer our own Conceits to his Judgment and Advice we raise our Pleasure above his Will and Authority From hence particularly by a manifest Extraction are derived those chief and common Vices Pride Ambition Envy Avarice Intemperance Injustice Uncharitableness Peevishness Stubbornness Discontent and Impatience For We overvalue our selves our Qualities and Endowments our Powers and Abilities our Fortunes and external Advantages hence we are so Proud that is so Lofty in our Conceits and Fastuous in our Demeanors We would be the only Men or most considerable in the World hence are we Ambitious hence continually with unsatiable greediness we do affect and strive to procure encrease of Reputation of Power of Dignity We would engross to our selves all sorts of good Things in the highest degree hence enviously we become jealous of the Works and Virtue we grudge and repine at the Prosperity of others as if they defalked somewhat from our Excellency or did Eclipse the brightness of our Fortune We desire to be not only full in our Enjoyment but free and absolute in our Dominion of Things not only secure from needing the Succour of other Men but independant in regard to God's Providence Hence are we so covetous of Wealth hence we so eagerly scrape it and so carefully hoard it up We can refuse our dear selves no satisfaction although unreasonable and hurtful therefore we so greedily gratifie sensual Appetites in unlawful or excessive Enjoyments of Pleasure Being blinded or transported with fond Dotage on our selves we cannot discern or will not regard what is due to others Hence are we apt upon occasion to do them wrong Love to our selves doth in such manner suck in and swallow up our Spirits doth so pinch in and contract our Hearts doth according to its Computation so confine and abridge our Interests that we cannot in our Affection or in real expression of Kindness tend outwards that we can afford little good Will or impart little Good to others Deeming our selves extreamly Wise and worthy of Regard we cannot endure to be contradicted in our Opinion or cross'd in our Honour Hence upon any such Occasion our Choler riseth and easily we break forth into violent Heats of Passion From the like Causes it is that we cannot willingly stoop to due Obeisance of our Superiors in Reverence to their Persons and Observance of their Laws that we cannot contentedly acquiesce in the Station or Portion assigned us by Providence that we cannot patiently support our Condition or accept the Events befalling us In fine if surveying all the several kinds of naughty Dispositions in our Souls and of Miscarriages in our Lives we do scan their particular Nature and search into their Original Causes we shall find inordinate Self-love to be a main Ingredient and a common Source of them all In particular the love of Life which is by them esteemed Love of Benevolence to what base Fears and sordid Actions doth it not expose us How many myriads have lost their Reputation Honesty their Conscience and their own Souls to save it This therefore is that piece of Self-denial so oft inculcated so vehemently pressed in Scripture that we may continue Christ's Disciples and may be Faithful to him to the Death The immoderate love of it being that which is especially pronounced inconsistent with the love of God and with Fidelity to Christ. Hence he so often saith He that findeth his own Life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it And if any Man come to me and hateth not his own Life he cannot be my Disciple Can therefore any Person doubt whether this self-love this love of Life be not as much forbid by the Command of loving God with all our Hearts as the desire of Houses Lands or any temporal Possessions or think it less obstructive of or inconsistent with it because it is love of Benevolence But will Mr. N. or his Good Lady by reason of the mischievous Effects of this self-Self-love this love of Life perswade the World that no Man ought to love himself at all or desire at all the Preservation of his Life And yet would they be pleased to revise their Arguments and those especially which are taken from the Consideration of the Danger of the Love of the Creature they would soon perceive they were of equal Force against all love of our selves and of our lives Again the love of Parents Children Husbands Wives Relations Friends is love of Benevolence and
mighty in power safe from fear free from the rod of God spending their days in mirth and wealth Whereas many were the afflictions of the Righteous they being plagued all the day long and chastned every morning That there is a just man who perisheth in his righteousness and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness That there be just men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked Again there be wicked men to whom it hapneth according to the work of the righteous Now had it not been generally received as a certain truth that these external things were our Good that they were proper Objects of our Desire and Affection and that the want of them was the want of what was good and fit to be desired there could have been no foundation for this Objection against Providence Whence it is evident that the Opinion which represents the Creature as no fit Object of our Desire and Affection and and denies them to be our Good doth contradict the general Judgment of Mankind CHAP. III. The Contents The ordinary Exposition of these Words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. laid down in the Words of Mr. N. and of the Schoolmen viz That we are obliged by them to love God above all Things 1. Appretiatively 2. Comparatively 3. Intensively And 4. So as to love other things only by way of Relation and Subordination to God § 1. That our Lord Christ hath approved of this Exposition is shewed § 2. The Censure which Mr. N. gives of this Opinion and the Abettors of it reflects very unbecomingly upon all the Prelates and Pastors of the Church of England which are not of his Mind and lays unworthy Imputations on them § 3. Some General Considerations offered to engage him to abate somewhat of his Confidence and his Censorious Reflections for the future § 4. Especially this that they who adhere to the common Exposition of these words differ no more from him than he differs from his former self § 5. The common Exposition further confirmed First From this Consideration That this Command was given to the Jewish Nation whose Promises were chiefly Temporal and therefore could not be exclusive of the desire of Temporal Blessings § 6. That therefore it ought to bear that Sense which is the certain Import of the like Phrases in all the Old Testament where they are only to be found which Sense is plainly opposite to that which Mr. N. contends for § 7. The true Sense of loving God with all the Heart and Soul in the Old Testament shew'd from that primary Relation and respect it hath to their owning God to be the true God in opposition to all strange God's § 8. Secondly From this Consideration that this love is required as the Condition of Salvation § 9. Thirdly That to love God with all our Mind cannot bear this Sense § 10. The common Exposition serves all the designs of Religion in General and of Christian Religion in Particular as well as the Exposition of Mr. N. and the Lady § 11. HAving thus establish'd and confirmed this Proposition That it is lawful to have some love for and some desire of the Creature and shew'd that the love of God cannot be entirely exclusive of all love or all desire of the Creature as our Good I now proceed to answer what is offer'd to the contrary from Scripture and from Reason And First The great Objection insisted on from Scripture ariseth from the words of Christ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind Now to fix the true sense of these words I shall 1 st Lay down the ordinary Exposition of them and offer some Arguments to confirm it 2 dly I shall consider and confute the Novel Exposition of Mr. N. and answer what he offers against the commonly received Interpretation Now the ordinary Exposition of these words saith Mr. N. is by the generality of Divines express'd thus 1 st That we are to love God with a superlative Affection so as to be ready always to prefer his Favour before all other things to chuse to obey him rather than man to please him rather than to gratifie our selves to enjoy him rather than any carnal Interest whatsoever and so as to be ready rather to lose any temporal good or suffer any temporal Evil than commit the least Sin against him 2 dly That we are to love other things only in a way of Relation and Subordination to God for seeing God requires us to love him with all our hearts our love to other things must be derived from and dependant on our love to God and we must only love them for his sake as they relate unto him or as they enable us to serve him or as they are instrumental to the Enjoyment of him This by the School-men and Systematical Divines is thus expressed First That we are to love God above all things Appretiativè i. e. so as to prize him in our Judgments above all things to esteem him more valuable in himself more beneficial to us than all things else we can enjoy according to that saying of the Psalmist Thy loving kindness is much better than is Life it self to esteem him as the only Felicity of our Immortal Souls their chief and most desirable Good the only Being in whom is perfect Rest entire Complacency and full Satisfaction to be found and consequently to look on all things else as Loss and Dung compared to him And whilst we retain this value for him we can never prize or be concerned for any thing so much as for his Favour nor refuse to part with any thing which tendeth to deprive us of it we can never value any other thing so much as to permit it to rival him who is exceedingly more precious in our Eyes and more desirable to our Souls and so we cannot overvalue any worldly thing This therefore may be truly stiled the loving him with all our Mind Secondly That we are to love God above all things Comparativè i. e. with a superlative Affection so as to be ready always to prefer his Favour before all other things And this Affection this cleaving of our hearts unto him must follow from the forementioned Estimation of him For if we fully are convinced that there is infinitely more Excellency in God more Happiness to be expected from him than all the Honours Pleasures Profits Interests Relations and Satisfactions of the World can tender and so the highest reason that he should always be prefered before them and that we should still cleave unto him in opposition to any other thing 'T is certain he can have no rival in our hearts nothing that stands in competition for our love nothing we do not truely hate and despise comparatively to his Favour nothing that can tempt us to depart from from him or
to do the thing which will hazard his Favour or provoke his Displeasure and may we not then be faid to love him with an entire and undivided heart Thirdly That we are to love God above all things Intensive that is our desires must be more ardently enclined towards his Favour and the Enjoyment of him we must long thirst and pant more after him rejoice more in his Favour than in any other thing be more concerned to retain it than to secure any worldly Blessing and be more satisfied in it than in Marrow and Fatness and what more can the love of God with all our Souls import For seeing such a prevalence of our Desires towards him and Delight in him will not permit us to desire any thing in opposition to him or against his Will and Pleasure but will constrain us to quit all other Interests that we may happily retain our Interest in him we thus desire and delight in above all other things It follows that by thus loving God with all our Souls our love unto or our desire of the Creature can never be inordinate or irregular and so can never be offensive to God and then it cannot be forbidden by the Command To love the Lord our God with all our Souls In these things seems to be implied or from them certainly will follow that endeavour above all things to please him that industrious care to serve and to obey him that vigorous Imployment of all our other Faculculties in his Service which will demonstrate that we comparatively do not labour for the Meat that perisheth do not permit our Secular Imployments or our pursuit of any temporal Enjoyments to impair our diligence in the securing our eternal Interests and therefore that in the true import of the Phrase we love God with all our might all other Senses of it being inconsistent with that Diligence in our Callings and that Industry in our Civil Affairs which God himself requires from us And Fourthly Hence it follows that we are to love all other things only in way of Relation and Subordination to God for if we do co-ordinately love any other thing we love it equally with God And certainly if God requires us to love him with all our Hearts and all our Souls our love to other things must virtually be comprised in our love to God or be independant on it or subservient to it or else we must deprive him of some portion of the Heart he wholly calls for Moreover God being our ultimate and chiefest Good all other things can only be Good as they conduce to the Enjoyment or Service of him and so are to be loved by him that is we must love them as they relate to him as they enable us to serve him as they are or may be Instrumental to his Glory or to our Enjoyment of him When therefore we desire the Creature only for God's sake viz. that we may have Food and Rayment to sustain that Life we have devoted to his Service Encrease of temporal Enjoyments that we may be more able to feed Christ's hungry and clothe his naked Members or more engaged to serve him with Ioy and Gladness of Heart for the abundance of all things when we desire Marriage or a Wife that we may not burn and Children that as Plato saith we may breed them up in the Fear and Nurture of the Lord and leave behind us a Race of pious Persons who may do him service when we are dead and gone and Honour that we may be more instrumental to promote his Glory and to do Good to others and lastly the Knowledge of the Creature that we may learn to Glorifie the Creator by viewing the Power Wisdom and Goodness he hath discovered in the Creation of them who sees not that this love of the Creature centers in the love of God and tends expresly to his Glory and therefore cannot be forbidden by this Command to love the Lord with all our Hearts and all our Souls And of this Exposition of these Words we cannot reasonably doubt if we consider that our Lord himself doth plainly seem to favour and approve of it making that Service and so that Love which he requires from us to consist in that prevalence of Affection which enables us in any competition betwixt the love of the World and the love of Him to cleave to God and despise the World This evidently is the import of these words No Man can serve two Masters when their Services and Commands do interfere for he will either hate the one and love the other he will cleave to the one and despise the other ye cannot therefore serve God and Mammon Mr. N. indeed saith Here we are plainly told we cannot divide between God and the Creature because we cannot love either of them but upon such a Principle as must utterly exclude the love of the other But 1 st the word Mammon doth not signifie the Creature in general but Riches and Money in particular Now will it follow that because I must not love Money that I may not love my Victuals or that because I may not desire Riches which Agur prayed against I may not desire Food convenient for me which he prayed for 2 dly When our Lord saith No Man can serve two Masters can this be so interpreted as to infer we cannot serve our Master Christ and be Servants to our Masters according to the Flesh in all things not forbidden by him Must I needs hate my Master if I love my Saviour or despise him if I cleave to my Lord Christ Must not then the words be necessarily Interpreted of Masters Co-ordinate or Masters whose Commands and Services do interfere 3 dly What is the Business of a Servant is it not to obey the Pleasure of his Lord and yield himself up entirely in Subjection to his Commands What therefore must it be here to serve God but to give up our selves entirely to his Service and the Obedience of his Will What to serve Mammon but to give up our selves to the pursuit of Riches and to obey the Desires and Cravings of our covetous and worldly Appetites Thus it is certain that we cannot divide betwixt God and the Creature or love the one but from a Principle which excludes the love of the other but a Subordinate Affection to the Creature is no more exclusive of our love to God then is the Service of an Earthly Master exclusive of the Service which we owe to Christ our Master Again Christ places the due love of himself in the prevalence of our Affections to him above other things saying He that loveth Father and Mother Son or Daughter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above me is not worthy of me whence it must follow by the Rule of contraries that he who loveth Christ more than Father and Mother Son or Daughter or any worldly Interest whatever must be worthy of him From these two places it is
therefore evident that to love God so as to despise and to forsake all other things to cleave unto him to love God superlatively so as to have our Affections more powerfully carried out after him than any other thing that is most dear unto us is in the Scripture Sense to love God with a whole and an entire Heart And surely if I love God so as to love nothing which is contrary to him or which he forbiddeth me to love I can do nothing contrary to the love I owe unto him If I love him so as to prize neither Friendship Relations Fame Honour Pleasures Riches Life or any temporal Concernments so as to offend him by preserving them I do not inordinately love them for Obedience being the true test of Love where there is no neglect of Obeeience there can be no want of love Moreover if I prize nothing in comparison with God in my mind if I cleave to nothing in competition with him in my will if I desire nothing in comparison with him in my Affections if I pursue nothing but with relation to his Glory and in Subordination to his Sacred Will how can I be wanting in my Duty to him And if I be not wanting in my Duty to him how can I sin against him That by this Exposition this precept is extended beyond the real import of it even beyond what any Person in this State of Imperfection doth or can do is very plausibly asserted by all the Romish Commentators I have read and by the most judicious of the Reformed who affirm it only doth require sincere Obedience and to aim at and endeavour to advance to that Intension and Superlative Affection which we cannot expect compleatly to attain to in this Life But that any Person should not be satisfied with all this but still be stretching of this Duty to a higher pitch charging the Authors of this Exposition with Insincerity and love unto their Lusts and the Exposition it self with the most odious Consequences this is just matter of our Admiration And yet this is so plainly and so confidently done by Mr. N. that in defence of their own Reputations and of the Reputation of their traduced Brethren all the whole Body of the Clergy who differ from him in these Sentiments stand bound to vindicate themselves from those vile Imputations which he casts upon them For First As to the first Part of the common Exposition That God must be loved with a Superlative Affection he Affirms that Sure the Authors of it could not but be sensible that herein they did not rise up to the Letter of the Text which manifestly requires a more elevated Sense namely that our whole Affections be placed upon God and that we love him so entirely as to love none but him That we ought to love God not only with the best and most but with the whole of our Affection that we love him entirely not only with Integrity of Parts but with Integrity of Degrees that we love him not only with every Capacity Passion and Faculty with the Understanding suppose Will and Affections but in every degree of every Power with all the latitude of our Will and with the whole possibility of our Souls that we bestow on him not only the highest degree of it but every degree of it the whole In one word that God be not only the Principal but the Only Object of our Love No less can he be supposed to require from us by Virtue of this Great Law when he bids us to love him with all our Heart with all our Soul and with all our Mind Secondly As to the second Branch of the ordinary Exposition That we are to love other things beside God only in a way of relation and subordination to God He is pleased to speak somewhat contemptibly of the Authors of it as if he pitied their Ignorance His words are these So it is said by some who think they strain the love of God to a very high pitch when they tell us we must love nothing but God or in order and relation to God So then according to these Men we are allow'd to love Creatures provided it be in a Relation and Subordination to God who upon this Principle is not to be the only but only the final and ultimate Object of our Love But methinks these Mens relative Love is very much like the relative Worship of the Papists they make God the only ultimate Object of Divine Worship and so do these Men make him the only last Object of divine Love but yet they allow of giving divine Worship to a Creature provided it be in a transitive and relative way And so these Men allow of bestowing our love upon a Creature provided it be for God's sake or in relation to God provided it do not stop at the Creature but run on till at last it fix upon God as its final Object In his Tenth Letter he speaks thus The Truth and Reasonableness of this Notion viz. That God only is to be the Object of our Love seems to me so very evident that as I cannot with-hold my assent from it my self so were it not a matter of Practice wherein our Passions and Interests are concerned as well as Theory that imploys our Understandings I should strangely wonder at all Rational and considerate Persons that can But this in great measure silences my admiration For this is the great disadvantage that all Truths of a moral Nature lie under in comparison of those that are Physical or Mathematical that though the former be in themselves no less certain than the latter and demonstrated with equal evidence yet they will not equally convince nor find a parallel reception in the minds of Men because they meet with their Passions and Lusts and have often the Will and Affections to contend with even after they have gained upon their Understandings Were I to deal only with the Rational Part of Man I should think the half of what has been said enough to convince that but considering the nature of the Truth I advance and what a strong Interest is made against it in the Affectionate Part of Human Nature I cannot expect to find the Generalâ—ty of Men over forward to receive it The other Precepts of Morality cross only some particular Interests of Man and fight only against some of his stragglings Passion but this engages the whole Body of Concupiscence and at once encounters the whole Interest of Prejudice all the Force that is or can be raised in Humane Nature which when I consider I cannot hope by the clearest and strongest Reasoning to reconcile the Generality of the World to a Notion so opposite to the Passions Customs and Prejudices of it only there may be here and there some liberal and ingenious Spirits who have in great measure purged themselves from the Prejudices of Sense disingaged their Hearts from the love of sensible Objects
God proportionably to his loveliness i. e. with an infinite Love and this Degree is peculiar to God himself The second is to love him not proportionably to his Loveliness but to the utmost Capacity of a Creature and this Degree is peculiar to Saints and Angels in Heaven The third is to love him not to the outmost Capacity of a Creature absolutely considered but to the outmost Capacity of a mortal Creature in this Life and this he says is proper to the Religious The fourth is to love him not proportionably to the outmost Capacity of a Creature but only so as to love nothing equally with or above him that is not to do any thing contrary to the Divine Love and this saith Mr. N. is an absolute indispensable Duty less than which will not qualifie us for the Enjoyment of God hereafter In his Treatise of the Theory and Regulation of Love he saith That as we are obliged to love God so ought we to love him beyond all other things whatsoever We may and must Prefer him in our Love Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart with all thy Soul with all thy Mind and with all thy Strength So runs the Commandment and very just we should for if even in particular Goods Order requires that the most lovely should be loved most N. B. much more ought we to love him who is the very Essence of Good Good it self beyond all Derivative and secondary Good In his Treatise of Heroick Piety he hath these words I know it is usually Objected That what is supposed to be thus Heroickly performed is inclusively enjoined by virtue of those comprehensive Words Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy Heart To which Objection he Answers thus I conceive that All which is intended by that Phrase amounts to no more than 1st a sincere love of God as 't is opposed to that which is partial and divided and 2dly such a degree of loving as admits of nothing in competition with him And thus far reaches the bounds of indispensable Duty it being impossible that he who does not love God in this Sense and Degree should keep his Commandments Now here I would crave leave to ask him whether when he wrote these things He could not but be sensible that he did not rise up to the Letter of the Text and that it manifestly required a more elevatâ—d Sense though to preserve his Heroick Piety he pretended to conceive it amounted to no more than loving God sincerely in opposition to a parâ—ial â—â—d divided love and so as to admit of nothing into competition with him Whether by these Savings he taught Men to love God less thâ—n â—e râ—â—â—ired to defraud him of his due to râ—sist his Wâ—ll c. Whether he only said these things as bâ—ing then under the Power of his Passions Lusts Interests Customs and Prejudices and not being in due measure purged from the Prejudices of Sense not disingaged from the love of sensible Objects not so far entered into the methods of true Mortification as to be capable of Conviction and of having his mind wrought upon by the light and force of Reason If not let him learn hereafter from his own Sense and Experience not to pass such severe and undue Censures on his Brethren Having premised these things I proceed 2 dly To establish and confirm the common Exposition from the Evidence of Scripture and of Reason Let it be then observed First That this Command was given to the Iewish Nation and is only cited by our Lord or by the Lawyer from Deut. 6.5 where the words runs thus Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and with all thy soul and with all thy might Now hence ariseth a demonstration that this Text cannot be expounded so as to exclude all love or all desire of the Creature For the Land they lived in was the Land of Promise stiled by God himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The pleasant Land or The Land of Desire Psal. 106.24 Dan. 8.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Land of Glory or the Glorious Land as being the Glory the most pleasant and desirable of all Lands to encourage them to go in and possess it it is represented to them as an exceeding good Land a Land which floweth with Milk and Honey a good Land a Land of Wheat and Barley and Vines and Figtrees and Pomegranates a Land of Oil-Olive and Honey a Land wherein they should eat Bread without scarceness and in which they should not lack any thing a Land which the Lord thy God careth for the eyes of the Lord thy God are upon it from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year And might they not desire what was the very promise made to the Seed of Abraham Might they not love or be pleased with a Land so glorious so pleasant and desirable Doubtless they would have marched but heavily through the Barren and Desolate Wilderness had Moses by this Precept forbid them to desire or be pleased with this Land flowing with Milk and Honey Moreover the Blessings of this Life were the chief things which God did promise to these Iews as the Reward of their Affection and Obedience to him whence he is said to give them Wealth that he might stablish his Covenant with them to make them plenteous in the Works of their hands for Good And the taking away of those outward Blessings was the chief thing threatned in the Law of Moses to deter them their Disobedience For saith God if you will hearken diligently to my Commandments to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul then will I give you the Rain of thy Land in due season that thou mayst gather thy Corn and thy Wine and thy Oil And I will send Grass in thy Field for thy Cattle that thou mayest eat and be full Ye shall serve the Lord thy God and he shall bless thy Bread and thy Water and I will take Sickness from thee and fulfil the number of thy days Ye shall do my Statutes and shall keep my Iudgments and ye shall dwell in the Land in safety and the Land shall yield her Fruit and ye shall eat your fill If ye walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments to do them then will I give you Rain in due season and the Land shall yield her increase and the Trees of the Field shall yield their Fruit and you shall eat your Bread to the full and dwell in your Land safely And I will give you peace in the Land and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid and I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful and multiply you If thou observe to do all the Commands which I command thee this day blessed shalt thou
did thus love him that love cannot require a Perfection of Degrees but only a sincere and prevalent Affection to him In a word in the Language of the Old Testament to serve God with the whole heart and Soul to walk before him with a perfect heart and with Integrity of heart hath an essential respect to the owning him alone to be the true God in opposition to all strange Gods and the continuing stedfast in his Service in opposition to the Service of the Heathen Idols or the Calves of Dan and Bethel Thus when God permitted a False Prophet to arise among them and to shew a Sign or do a Wonder to tempt them to desert him and go after other Gods he declares he did this for tryal Whether they loved the Lord their God with all their Hearts and all their Souls and therefore it must be sufficient to shew they did so that they were not prevailed upon by that false Prophet to decline from following after God but still cleaved stedfastly to him Hence of those Kings who with the true God served Idols or served him in an undue manner it is said they did not serve God with all their hearts V. G. Iehu took no heed to walk in the Law of the Lord his God with all his heart for he departed not from the sins of Ieroboam And of Solomon it is said That his Wives turned away his heart after other Gods and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God Of Abijam That his heart was not perfect with the Lord as the heart of David his Father for he walked in all the sins of his Father Rehoboam who forsook the Law of the Lord. And of Amaziah That he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not with a perfect heart because coming from the Slaughter of the Edomites he brought the gods of the Children of Seir and set them up to be his gods and bowed down himself before them and burnt incense to them Whereas the contrary is said of all those Kings who put away all Idolatry and served him according to the Law of Moses viz. of Hezekiah who removed the high Places and brake the Images and cut down the Groves it is said That he walked before the Lord in truth and with a perfect heart Of Asa who removed all the Idols which his Father had made That his heart was perfect with the Lord all his days And of Iosiah who put away all the Images and the Idols and the Abominations which were in the land of Iudah and in Ierusalem That he turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might acccording to all the law of Moses Thus of Iudah revolting from the Lord after the Punishment of Israel for her Idolatry it is said she turned not unto the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from her whole heart but feignedly And the advice of Samuel to Israel runs thus Serve the Lord with all your heart and turn you not aside after vain things From which Observation we may reasonably Collect that when we love God so as not to make an Idol of any thing by loving it in opposition to his will or equally with God or so as that it Rivals not him nor draws our Hearts from that Obedience we owe to him then do we in the prime import of this Phrase love God with all our Souls and Hearts and hence we learn how apposite the reason here assigned is for loving God with all our Hearts and Souls viz. That the Lord is one God or that he only is the Lord and therefore to him alone belongeth the superlative Affection of the Soul and Heart which is due from all Creatures to their God Thirdly The love required by this Text our Lord requires as the Condition of Salvation for the Question of the Scribe was this By doing what shall I inherit Life Eternal the Answer of our Lord is this Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. this do and thou shalt live i. e. eternally What therefore he requires in this Text he plainly doth require as the Condition of Salvation Now that cannot be love of God with that Perfection of degrees which excludes all Imperfection and so all Sin for were that made the necessary Condition of Salvation no Person could be saved the best of Men being Imperfect and subject to sin in this Life Moreover this new Exposition destroys the Covenant of Grace for that requires only sincere Obedience as the Condition of Salvation and introduceth again the Covenant of Works i. e. a Covenant requiring perfect Obedience in order unto Life Fourthly If to love God with all the heart import the loving him with all our love so as to have no other Object of our love or on which we may in any measure set out heart then to love God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all our Mind and all our Understanding must import that we must have no other object of our Mind no Knowledge no Understanding of any thing else nothing but God on which we may imploy our rational Faculties the reason being perfectly the same in both cases because the Command is so but this is manifestly absurd as being not only contrary to the Practice of all Mankind but destructive of all Sciences all Arts and Trades unless they are best learnt and acquired by thinking upon God alone Moreover this Exposition as it gives the truest import of these words so hath it also this to recommend it that it serves all the designs of Religion in the General and of Christian Religion in Particular as much as doth the Exposition of these words for which good Mr. N. and the Lady do so much contend For First Do Mr. N. and the Lady recommend unto us their Sense of this command as an effectual preservative against Sin Sure this is done as fully by that love which doth engage us to be always ready to lose any temporal Good or suffer any temporal Evil rather than commit the least Sin against God Moreover can his Understanding be prevailed upon to prize any thing or be concerned for any thing so much as to endeavour to obtain or to preserve it by displeasing God who values the favour of God infinitely above all other things and counts them loss and dung compared to him Can his Will be diverted from God by any temporal Concerns or any Charms of a Temptation who loves him so as still to cleave unto him in opposition to all other things and to admit of nothing which stands in competition with him for his love yea who has nothing he doth not truly hate and despise comparatively to his Favour nothing that can tempt him to depart from him or do the thing that will provoke his Displeasure can he
offend in his Affections to or his desire of any worldly Good whose love to God and his desire to enjoy him will not permit him to desire any thing in opposition to him or against his Will and Pleasure If then the Love we plead for will not permit the Lover to offend in Mind in Will Affection or Desire how can it suffer him to offend in Action How pure and chast then must his Soul be that is so thoroughly purged of all created Loves and in whom the love of God reigns so absolute and unrival'd as it does in such a Lover's Breast who never suffers any thing to stand in Competition with his Love and Duty to his God But when it once begins to do so hates and rejects it with the utmost detestation How secure must he needs be from Sin when he has not that in him which may betray him to it He has but one Love at all predominant in his heart and that is for God none but what is entirely subject to and governed by it and how can he that thus loves nothing but God be tempted to Transgress against him Secondly Do they represent the Sense which they impose upon this Precept as that which elevates the amorous Soul to the most noble Heights of Piety as an effectual means to secure Obedience and a strong Impellent to Good Will not that Love which will not suffer me to Sin against God preserve me holy pure and harmless before him in love Will not that Affection do the same which obliges me 1. to prize him above all things to esteem him infinitely more valuable in himself and infinitely more beneficial to me than all things else I can enjoy to look upon him as my chief Good the only Felicity of my Immortal Soul the only Being in whom its Everlasting Happiness and its true Satisfaction doth consist Oh! What can be too difficult to do to acquire a more perfect Enjoyment of what we thus love and prize What can be too hard to suffer for the sake of the chief Object which hath thus won our heart 2. Will not that Affection which so powerfully doth convince me That there is infinitely more Excellency in God more Happiness to be expected from him than all the Honours Pleasures Profits Interests Relations and Satisfactions of the World can tender engage me always to prefer his Service before these base and trivial Interests And 3. will not that Love which carries my Heart more ardently my Desires more fervently after God than any other thing make me long breath pant thirst more after him rejoice more in his Favour and be more satisfied with it than in Marrow and Fatness make me diligent and vigorous always abounding in the work of the Lord. Whilst this Devout Lover thus Contemplates the Divine Perfections whilst he looks on God as his exceeding great Reward and desires him accordingly is not his Obedience prompt and ready Does not his mind move with alacrity and unwearied vigour And are not all its Motions regular and pleasing Must not he who so zealously desires and so impatiently thirsteth after God be very well disposed and above all things industrious to unite himself unto God must not he who thus prizes him for his incomparable Excellencies think it his Happiness and Perfection and therefore make it above all things his endeavour to be like him Must not that secure our Obedience to him which constrains us always to prefer our Interest in his Perfections and in the Blessings he hath promised to the Obedient before all other things To obey him rather than Man to please him rather than to gratifie our selves to enjoy him rather than any worldly or carnal Interest whatever And forces us to say with the Psalmist Whom have I in Heaven like thee or what is there on Earth I can desire in comparison of thee What incentive can he want to engage him to walk before God unto all well-pleasing and to perfect Holiness in the fear of God and what a wonderful Progress must he needs make in it Whether will not this superlative Love of God carry him and to what degrees of Perfection will he not aspire under the Conduct of so Divine so Omnipotent a Principle If Obedience be the Fruit of Love then what an entire Obedience may we expect from so intire a Love as can admit of nothing into competition with it nothing which is not wholly subject to and governed by it And so can have no Suckers to draw off the Nourishment from it no other Love to check and hinder its Growth what is there that can hinder him who has so emptied his heart of the Creatures and devoted it so entirely to God that his desire of all other things is always comparatively none and when they hinder his desire of him are absolutely none from reaching the highest pitch of assumable Goodness Since therefore where-ever Obedience is found 't is a certain Criterion of Love and to derive universal Obedience from the Love of God or to argue from that Obedience to the entire N. B. Love of God is as sound a way of Argumentation as to prove any other Effect by its Cause or Cause by its Effect Hence from the universal Obedience which this Love must produce I argue demonstratively That it is that entire Love of God which is required by the Command To love God with all our hearts Seeing there is no better Diagnostick to discover our Love then by observing what is the most frequent Subject of our Thoughts and where-ever the weight of our Desire rests the stream of our Thoughts will follow it being certain that what I prize above all things and above all things desire must be still uppermost in my Thoughts and be the very thing on which the weight of my desire rests What better Diagnostick can I have to prove my Genuine Affection to that God I do so infinitely prize so fervently desire and in Affection do prefer before all other Objects If therefore we would come up to our Holy Religion if we would be those Wise and Excellent Creatures that God designs we should let us above all things fix our love upon its proper Object put it into a regular Motion and then do but allow it scope and faithfully pursue its Tendencies and we need not be afraid of doing amiss we should run the Race that is set before us with Chearfulness and Vigour in a direct Line and with unwearied Constancy For what wise Man would think much to relinquish a lesser for a greater Good Or shew any Inclination for lower Delights when courted to the Enjoyment of the Highest Thirdly Do they say the Love of God they plead for makes the best provision for our Pleasure Is not this as true of the measures of Divine Love assigned by us For have not we who Contemplate and Prize him as our Chiefest Good and our exceeding great
Reward compared to whom nothing is lovely or desirable the same Object still present with us And the same reason to fix the Eyes of our Understanding on and direct the Motions of our Will towards him May we not always Contemplate and Enjoy his Beauty asswage our Thirst at this Fountain and feast our hungry Souls upon his never-failing Charms And must not the Assurance of our Interest in so great a Good our Enjoyment of a Reward so Excellent our sight of such a Perfect and a Charming Beauty the Satisfaction which all our Appetites may find in sweet Communion with and in Enjoyment of him who is so able to replenish all our Faculties and gratifie all our Desires even Ravish our Hearts and fill our Souls with unspeakable Delight Must not these Sentiments be highly Ravishing and Entertaining must they not fill every Faculty with a full Tide of Ioy Must they not be Sweets that know no Bitter Ioys without Allay Pleasures that have no Sting Fourthly Do they add that by this Love we are secured from Disappointment Iealousies and all that long train of Pain and Grief which attends Desire when it moves towards the Creature While others are tormented with Fears and Cares unsatisfied Desires and unprosperous Attempts c. Are they not as entirely secured from any thing of this nature who love nothing and desire nothing but in relation to God i. e. as it enables us to serve him is instrumental to his Glory or to our Enjoyment of him or to perform the Duty we owe to others for his sake And 2 dly in Subordination to God so as that our Love to or our desire of them is wholly subject to and governed by our Affection to him And 3 dly with entire Resignation to his all-Wise Providence and full Submission to his Will so that we desire nothing but conditionally if Divine Wisdom see it good for us we ask nothing but with this Restriction if it be thy pleasure and are still ready to parâ—t with it when he who gave it is pleased to recal it and to say when he hath done so The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the Name of the Lord. For what more naturally tends to produce in us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Quietness that Smoothness and Tranquillity of Spirit in all Conditions and Events in which Philosophers have plac'd the Happiness of Man Is it not evident that he whose Will is thus resigned to the Will of God cannot be cross'd in his Desires and so he never can admit of a Disturbance or a Disappointment or be in Pain or an excess of Grief but whatsoever doth befal him can possess his Soul in Patience he fears not any thing which may betide him because he knows it must befall him by the Direction of that Providence which he is willing should dispose of all his Interests and Concerns nor is he troubled with distracting Cares for any thing he wants because he is contented to want what Providence sees fitting to deny him How happy therefore is the Man who can thus Order and Regulate the Master and leading Passion of his Nature That can thus love the Lord his God with all his Heart Soul and Mind how to be envied is that Man who can thus disingage his Affections from the Creature and settle his whole Love upon God That he loves nothing else but for his sake nothing but as 't is instrumental to his Glory nothing but with entire submission to his all-wise Pleasure That can force the Creatures to withdraw command their absence and wholly empty his heart of their love Yea can hate and despise them whenever they prove Temptations to or Hinderances of his Love to or his Enjoyment of God How ravishing and lasting are his Delights How solid and profound is his Peace How full and overflowing are his Joys How bright and lucid are the Regions of his Soul How entire and undisturbed are his Enjoyments What a settled Calm possesses his Breast What a firm stable Rest does his Soul find when she thus reposes her full weight upon God How loose and disentangled is he from the World and how unconcerned doth he pass along through the various Scenes and Revolutions of it how unmoved and unaltered in all the several Changes and Chances of this present Life Why therefore doth Mr. N. tell us That the Man that harbours Creatures in his Bosom and divides his Heart betwixt God and them will be always in great danger of being betrayed by them and though he should with great Care and habitual Watchfulness preserve for God a greater share in his Affections which is the most such a one can pretend to yet he will have such a weight constantly hanging upon his Soul that he will be never able to sore very high or arrive at any Excellency in Religion Can our Love of what God promises our Esteem for his Blessings our Desire of what he commands us to pray for that we may and to give thanks for when we have received be obstructive to our advancement in Religion Can that Heart be said to be divided betwixt God and the Creatures which never suffers the Creature to come in competition with him never loves it in opposition to him Can that Soul have any weight upon it obstructing its ascent to God which always infinitely prefers him in her Affections before all other things and is still ready to quit them for his sake In fine it may deserve to be considered that we cannot safely argue that a thing is may or should be so because it would be an advantage to Religion were it so For what an advantage would it be to Truth to have a living Infallible Iudge of it or that every Parson of a Parish or every Private Person were Infallible But must we therefore grant to the Papist such a living Iudge or to the Quaker such an Infallible Spirit What fine Harangues might Mr. N. and the Good Lady make of the Advantages to Religion which might arise from living without sleep or weariness or without the Body which presseth down the Soul and yet all their fine Rhetorick would be lost because this sutes not with that Nature God hath given us if then he hath given us a Nature subject to the same Necessities of other things as well as Sleep and Faculties which cannot but desire them so that we may expect as well to live without the Body as without them They must also spend their Rhetorick in vain when they endeavour to perswade us to banish all desire of the Creature from us CHAP. IV. The Contents This Chapter contains an Answer to Mr. N.'s Arguments from Scripture for a love of God exclusive of all love of Desire of the Creature as V. G. 1st From these Words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. Matth. 22.37 § 1. 2dly From those Words of St. James Ye
Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the Friendship of this World is enmity to God James 4.4 § 2. 3dly From these Words of St. John Love not the World neither the things that are in the World 1 John 2.15 § 3. And to his Arguments against the relative Love of the Creature V. G. 1. That it is as much Idolatry as the relative Worship of the Creature This Answered 1. ad hominem by shewing that it was formerly approved by Mr. N. 2. By shewing the Disparities betwixt the relative Love of the Creature and the relative Worship of Images § 4. Object 2. If Creatures be truly and properly lovely as being our true and proper Good they are to be loved absolutely and for themselves if not they are not to be loved at all Answered by shewing in what Sense they may be stiled our true and proper Good and be loved for themselves viz. as that imports a love of them only for that Goodness God hath put into them and how they may not be loved absolutely and for themselves viz. as that excludes the Subordination of that Affection to the Love of God § 5. AGainst this sense of the Words I plead for Mr. N. hath but one Objection from the words themselves and it runs thus The Text saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Mind but does he love God at this Rate who loves him only principally and more than any thing else Does this exhaust the Sense of this great Commandment Can he be said with any tolerable Sense to love God with all his Heart and Soul that only loves him above other things at the same time allowing other things a share in his love Can he be said to love God with all his Love N. B. who loves him only with a part What though that part be the larger part 't is but a part still and is a part of the whole What Logick or what Grammar will endure this To this I answer First That he assumes what never will be granted by Divines viz. That Scripture Phrases must be Interpreted not according to the Analogy of Faith and the import of the same words elsewhere occurring in the Holy Scripture but according to the Rules of Logick and of Grammar which supposition would render the Interpretation of Scripture very absurd in many places For instance 1. The Apostle saith All Men seek their own and not the things of Iesus Christ that is say Interpreters many or most Men do so The Gospel was Preached to all the World to every Creature under Heaven saith the same Apostle and the Faith of the Romans was spoken of in all the World when as then many Parts even of the Roman Empire had heard nothing of it Here therefore all Interpreters allow a Synecdoche totius pro parte i. e. the whole is put for the most celebrated Parts of the World and will he here ask Can that be said to be Preached to all and spoken of in all the World which is only Preached and spoken of in a part of it Is a part the whole 2. Again Children obey your Parents in all things Servants obey your Masters according to the Flesh in all things saith the Text. This Generality say Interpreters is to be restrain'd to all things honest to all things belonging to their Right as Parents or Masters to command and will he here cry out What Logick or what Grammar will endure this 3. In Precepts absolutely negative and even exclusive that which in Words is absolutely denied must be interpreted so as only to import that 't is denied not absolutely but comparatively not as to the whole but as to the degree as V. G. God saith I required Mercy and not Sacrifice when as yet the greatest part of Leviticus is imploy'd in giving Laws concerning Sacrifices Christ saith Fear not them which can kill the Body Samuel Only fear the Lord and serve him and yet saith the Scripture Fear the Lord and the King and Render to all their dues fear to whom fear so that the import of these Words must be this Fear not the one so much as the other fear not Man or Idols so as to incur the displeasure of God Labour not for the Meat that perisheth saith the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Work not for it and yet saith the same Scripture Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing that is good for he that will not labour shall not eat so that the import of that Phrase is only this Do not chiefly and primarily labour for the Meat that perisheth and will he here again cry out What Logick or what Grammar will endure this Secondly I ask what Grammar will not endure it I have already shew'd the Hebrew and the Greek of the Septuagint do use the Phrase in this Sense as for the Latins nothing is more common with them than to express an ardent Love by saying In amore est totus unicè amat toto pectore diligit omni studio aliquem amplectitur In French it is as common to say Ie vous aime de tout mon coeur We teach our very Children to say I love my Dad I love my Mam with my whole Heart nothing therefore being more ordinary in every Language than to use this Expression when we do not in the least intend to signifie the Person we thus love is loved exclusively of all others but only that he is very much beloved by us Why may not the Scripture say this of that God we are obliged to love above all things and before all things and so as to love other things only in Subordination and Relation to him loving none other with that Love which is due and proper to him For as we are commanded to serve him only and yet may serve our King our Master and our Friend to fear him only and yet may fear our Parents our Superiors and Masters because we do not serve them with that Religious Worship nor fear them with that Reverence which is due to God alone So may we love the Creature with a love of Desire and our Neighbour with a love of Benevolence and yet love God only with that Desire and Benevolence which is due to him alone When Mr. N. proposeth this Objection against his own Opinion That if the Love of God required our whole Affection we could not love our Neighbour as our selves he is forced to Answer thus that If the Love of God and of our Neighbour were of the same Kind that entire Love of the former would indeed exclude the latter but this is not the Case we are not here supposed to love God in the same Sense or with the same sort of love wherewith we love our Neighbour So say I is it in
the Creatures and not in the least to desire any of them as his Goods I farther suppose him to persevere in this disposition of Mind to the very last And then ask whether you can think such a Person hath any thing to Answer at the Bar of God's Justice upon this account or whether you think God will Damn or eternally Separate such a one from his Presence as defective in his Duty meerly for not making the Creature his Good and the Object of his desire This Rhetorical Harangue is indeed somewhat affecting but hath nothing of Argument in it For when he saith Conscience doth never reproach us for our indifferency to the Creature what thinks he of the Prodigal who is so indifferent towards it as that he cares not tho' he spend that in Gaming or squander it away in Prodigality which had he been more concerned to keep it might have preserved himself and his Family from Want and Misery What thinks he of the Tradesman who is so indifferent towards the Creature that he will not give himself the trouble to consider whether he thrives or decays in his Trade or Calling till at last he breaks and robs many who had Dealings with him of their Right How easie is it to put twenty Cases of like nature in some of which an indiscreet Piety and Love to a Party joined with this indifference hath contributed not a little to their Want and Beggary And since he will be putting Cases why stopped he here where he did I will suppose saith he a Man to place his whole Affection upon God so as to withdraw his Love from all the Creatures and I suppose him to persevere in this disposition to the last And there he stops I go on therefore to suppose this Man to want Health Sleep Clothes and all things needful to the Body and to the Preservation of his Wife and Children and yet so employed in Love to God that he desires not Rest Health nor any thing else needful either for his Body or his Family and that he perseveres in thus withdrawing his Love from the Creatures to the last and then ask whether he may not have something to answer for at the Bar of God's Iustice upon that account I suppose this Man to be one of the Alambrados or a Quietist so intent upon his Mental Prayer Divine Contemplation and Union with God as that he hath withdrawn his Desires wholly from the Concerns of his Estate his Family or his own Body I suppose lastly that this Man withdraws himself thus from the Desire of the Creature out of a Principle of Religion either that of the Euchitae that we are not to labour for the Meat that perisheth or that of Mr. N. that the Love of God is exclusive of all Love and Desire of the Creature and that he cannot Love the Creature too little And then I ask again Whether this Man may not be defective in his Duty for not making the Creature the Object of his desire Whether he may not fall down upon his Knees and say Lord I have been so indifferent towards those Creatures which are thy signal Blessings and thy gracious Gifts to which all Mankind owe the Preservation of their Souls in Life that I have not thought them worthy of the least desire or been concerned to pray to thee for my daily Bread I have thought it my Duty to love thee so entirely as to withdraw my Love from my Wife Children Relations Friends and Neighbours by withdrawing it from those Creatures which could alone enable me to afford them what was needful for the Body and by so doing I have neglected to provide for those of my own House and to work with my hands that which is Good that I might have to give to others as thou hast commanded me I have so loved thee with all my Soul as not to suffer it to desire the Food which was necessary to sustain my Life And so have hated that Flesh and Body I stood bound to nourish and to cherish and so as to neglect my natural Rest and Health and thereby to contribute to the destruction of that Life which thou hast given me I have done all this from such a Principle of Religion as tends to depreciate thy great Goodness in affording them to vilifie thy Blessings and to make Men slight thy Promises as unworthy of the desire of the Man that truly loves thee and to lay this vile Imputation upon thy All-wise Providence that it hath planted in us natural Appetites and Desires which it would not have us gratifie 2 dly To return Question for Question When did Conscience upbraid him for praying for his daily Bread or asking with Agar food convenient for him or for desiring to procure it by honest Industry I suppose a Man to love the temporal Blessings God hath promised and so to make his desire of enjoying them one motive to obey and serve him to desire Life to love many days that he may see Good and therefore to depart from evil and do good to desire all things needful for the Body which he is to nourish and for that Family he stands bound to provide for Yea when God hath given him Riches and Wealth to desire to eat thereof to rejoice in it and to take his portion of it and to make his Soul enjoy Good in his Labour I suppose also that he perseveres in this disposition of mind to the end and then ask Whether you can think such a Person hath any thing to Answer for at the Bar of God's Iustice upon that account Or whether you think God will Damn or eternally Separate such a one from his Presence as defective in his Love to him meerly for making the Creatures his Good and the Object of his desire His last and in his own Opinion his strongest Argument for this entire and exclusive Love of God runs thus If God be the only true Cause that Acts upon our Spirits and produces our Pleasure then he only does us Good he only perfects our Being and makes us happy And if he only does us Good then he only is our Good then he only is lovely then 't is plain that we ought to love none but him and him entirely Or to Argue backwards we are to love nothing but what is lovely nothing is lovely but what is our Good nothing is our Good but what does us Good nothing does us Good but what causeth Pleasure in us nothing causeth Pleasure in us but God therefore we are to love nothing but God In Answering this Objection I shall first shew that it is not agreeable to the Sentiments of Holy Scripture And 1. Is this Doctrine consistent with all those Exhortations the Scripture every where affords us to do Good to our needy Brother and charitably to contribute to the Relief of his Wants for by abounding in these Alms we are said to abound in Good
A DISCOURSE OF THE Love of God SHEWING That it is well consistent with some Love or Desire of the Creature And Answering All the Arguments of Mr. Norris in his Sermon on Matth. 22.37 And of the Letters Philosophical and Divine to the Contrary By DANIEL WHITBY Chantor of the Church of Sarum I suppose that All which is intended by that Phrase Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart c. amounts to no more than 1st a sincere Love as 't is opposed to that which is partial and divided and 2dly such a degree of Loving as admits of nothing into Competition with him Mr. Norris's Treatise of Heroick Piety p. 282. LONDON Printed for Awnsham and Iohn Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row 1697. TO THE READER I Think I have sufficiently considered all that is material both in the Sermon and in the Letters of Mr. N. and the Lady In his Preface he endeavours to vindicate his Exposition from Singularity appealing 1. to the Books that are written after the Mystical and Spiritual way i. e. those Phanatical Pretenders to extraordinary Visions and Illuminations to passive Unions and Deiform Funds of the Soul a State of Introversion and a Superessential Life who talk of being baelosed in the Midhead of God and in his Meek-head and his Benignity and in his Buxomness And sure it is not much for his Glory that such Persons speak like him 2. To some French Poets and Divines which neither can we envy him But 3. Whereas he calls in the Suffrage of the Reverend and Learned Bishop Lake a Man too Great to be overlook'd he is the very Person whose sense of the words contested I have given Chap. 3. § 1. and who in his Seventh Sermon is most express against him in these words But mistake me not All other things besides God are not excluded of our Love Wherefore for the farther understanding of this Entireness of the Love of God we must not take other things oppositè but compositè we must exclude nothing from our Love that doth not enter into competition with God and oppose it self against the Love of God 2 dly If there be any thing that may be loved jointly with God it must not be taken as Coordinatum but Subordinatum it must not share equally with God but keep its distance and receive our Love by a reflection from God 3 dly Upon this Inequality must our Love ground an unequal Estimate of things and we must love God above all Appretiativè we must account all in comparison of God to be as Dung to be very Loss 4 thly Finally according to the Estimate must the heat of our Affection be we must love God above all Intentivè also we must love other things as fit to be used not fit to be enjoy'd yea we must use all the World as if we used it not but we must love God as him whom we would not only use but enjoy also Again There be many things and Persons which we are allow'd to love but we must love them only until they come to the Comparison If then the Question be Whether of the two we love more to Whether of them we will stick in a case where both cannot be held or upon which of them we will fall foul when it is not possible for us to keep in with both if then we can with Moses esteem the Reproach of Christ greater Riches than the Treasures of Egypt we conform our selves to Christ's first Rule Thus if we love God we love him as we ought that is we love him above all things and we love him for himself for that must needs follow when we love him for no other thing no not for our own sakes but are willing to hazard all even our selves and all for the love of him This I hope is sufficient to shew that Excellent Prelate is an Adversary to the Exposition of Mr. N. and an Abettor of the Vulgar Exposition He appeals 4 thly to St. Austin in his Devotional Tracts Now true it is that St. Austin hath said many things which to one unacquainted with his use of Phrases may mislead him into this Imagination tho' as he doth explain them it is evident they are nothing to the purpose V. G. He inveighs very much contra cupiditatem mundi but then he lets you know that we are then only Guilty of it when our Souls move towards themselves their Neighbour or any other thing without respect to God For otherwise he informs us that the Fault we commit in the use of these transitory things is not in the nature of the things themselves but from the cause of using and the manner or degree of desiring them Sometimes he will not allow us diligere terrena but then it is because dilection is a word that is used properly only for the love of better things Sometimes he will also tell us we must not amare love Earthly things but then to love them is in his Language only to affect them for themselves for otherwise saith he Non prohibet te Deus amare ista sed non deâ—igere ad beatitudinem God doth not absolutely forbid thee to love these things but he forbids thee to love them as thy Happiness He also oft informs us that we must not enjoy but only use these things but then he adds That we enjoy that only which we love for it self and in which we place our Happiness and make the end of our Ioy but if by enjoying be only meant that using them with delight and so as to pass from them to that in which we ought to rest this he allows of Take St Austin without his own Interpretation of the words Love Dilection Concupiscence Enjoyment and he seems oft to favour Mr. N.'s new Notion but if he be permitted to be his own Interpreter he will be found to have said nothing to his purpose of which we cannot have a fuller Evidence than his own Exposition on the words urged by Mr. N. for his own Opinion For 1. St. Austin in his First Book of Christian Doctrine sets himself expresly to the Consideration of the words of St. Matthew Chap. 22.37 and in his Discourse upon them expresly grants That the love of our selves and the love of the Body and of Provisions for it is included and for this saith he we need no Precept the Law of Nature teaching us and the Beasts thus to love And when he comes to give us the sum of what he had discoursed upon this Subject he begins it with this Advertisement That there needs no Precept to engage us to love our selves and that we may know and do this the whole temporal Dispensation of Providence saith he was designed which we are to use not with a permanent Love and Delight but only with a transitory as being the way the Vehecles the Instruments the things by which we are carried
Idolatry as the Relative Worship of the Creature This Answered 1. ad hominem by shewing that it was formerly approved by Mr. N. 2. By shewing the Disparities betwixt the Relative Love of the Creature and the Relative Worship of Images § 4. Object 2. If Creatures be truly and properly lovely as being our true and proper Good they are to be loved absolutely and for themselves if not they are not to be loved at all Answered By shewing in what Sense they may be stiled our true and proper Good and be loved for themselves viz as that imports a love of them only for that Goodness God hath put into them and how they may not be loved absolutely and for themselves viz. as that excludes the Subordination of that Affection to the Love of God § 5. P. 91. CHAP. V. Mr. N. grants That we may seek and use sensible things for our Good but saith he we must not love them as our Good and that we may approach to them by a bodily Movement but not with the Movements of the Soul This is Examin'd and Confuted § 1. Argument 1. That God is the sole Cause of our Love and therefore hath the sole Right to it Answered § 2. Argument 2. The Motion of the Will is Good in General i. e. to all Good and therefore to God only Answered § 3. Argument 3. God is the end of our Love since he cannot act for a Creature but only for himself or move us to a Creature but only to himself Answer'd § 4. Argument 4. That God cannot be loved too much nor the World too little Answered § 5. Argument 5. That God having called us thus to the Love of himself cannot afterwards send us to a Creature § 6. Argument 6. A Man cannot repent of placing his whole Affection upon God or have any thing to Answer for on that account Answered § 7. Argument 7. God only is to be loved because he only acts upon our Spirits produceth our Pleasure and he only does us Good Answered § 8. What the Lady offers on this Subject briefly Considered and Answered § 9. P. 114 ERRATA PAge 2. Line 7. in the Margin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 3. l. 25. greater worth p. 7. l. 5. affect p. 8. l. 20. our p. 9. l. 2. fat p. 16. l. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 17. l. 3. add our p. 24. l. 27. add are p. 35. l. 17. add desires p. 44. l. 25. add as p. 45. l. 6. the p. 46. l. 25. add all p. 49. l. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 51. l. 18. add giveth p. 52. l. 6. add fatness p. 58. l. 17. dependent p. 66. l. 19. dele him p. 67. l. 5. entreat p. 69. l. 25. accuse p 73. l. 25. add from p. 74. l. 15. add be p. 75. l. 28. affect p. 104. l. 11. them p. 106. l. 14. the p. 111. l. 32. the p. 121. l. 14. be p. 139. l. 8. Iustice p. 143. l. 10. of p. 153. l. 21. us A DISCOURSE OF THE Love of God CHAP. I. The Contents The Question Whether we are obliged to love God so entirely as that we may love nothing else with a love of desire § 1. This Assertion is shew'd to be contrary 1st To our Prayers for our daily bread § 2. 2dly To God's Promises of temporal good Things § 3. And to his Threats of temporal Evils § 4. 3dly To the Representation of them as God's Gifts and Blessings and our good Things § 5. To God's Command to rejoice in them § 6. To the Industry required by God to procure these things and his Blessing promised to that Industry § 7. Proofs from Reason that God hath not absolutely forbidden the Desire of Pleasure of Honour or of temporal Enjoyments § 8. Corollaries 1. That this Doctrine is inconsistent with our Obligation to Pray and with the Prayers of our own and of Ancient Liturgies 2. With the Praises due to God for temporal Blessings and with the Thanksgivings for them used in our Liturgy 3. It tends to depreciate the Divine Gifts to teach Men to slight God's Promises and contemn his Threats 4. To destroy all Industry in our Calling 5. It lays the vilest Imputation upon the Dispensations of God's Providence towards us § 9. THE love of a Being infinitely Excellent in himself and infinitely Beneficial to us is so much our Duty and so much our Interest 't is such an excellent preservative against the Charms of sinful Pleasures and all the Lures of those Temptations which tend to the destruction of our precious Souls such a powerful incentive to that Obedience and Holiness which will most certainly conclude in everlasting Happiness such a constraining motive to that assimulation to God which renders us partakers of the Divine Nature and by the Heathen Moralists is truly stiled The Perfection of Man 'T is such a Treasury of inward Satisfactions and ravishing Delights such a Feast of Marrow and Fatness such a soveraign Antidote against the Miseries and Evils of this present Life such a Spring of sweet Contentment under all Conditions and of entire resignation to the Will of our Beloved that a good Man cannot without Reluctancy of Mind and secret Regret seem to dislike any Opinions or Hypotheses which are honestly designed to advance it to the highest pitch And did I not certainly believe that the Measures of Divine Love I approve of and contend for serve all those glorious Ends and minister as properly and fully to kindle and advance within us this divine Affection as do those high and impracticable Stretches to which my worthy Friend and this Incomparable Lady with so great Beauty of Expressions and with as hearty Zeal have laboured to scrue it up and that they do all this without those Inconveniencies to which their singular Hypothesis seems evidently exposed and without those Temptations it may minister to Men not well affected unto Piety and without those Misbodings it may create in those who are religiously enclined I should not have given my self the uneasie task of contradicting the Opinions of Persons I so highly and so justly love and honour or the Fatigue of canvasing the ensuing Question so fully as these Papers do I hope without offence to either of the Persons concerned because with all the Deference I can shew to their great Endowments and their great Works The Question then is this Quest. Whether the Scripture doth require us to love God so entirely as that we may love nothing else with a love of desire though it be only with Subordination to him So the philosophical and divine Letters dogmatically do assert declaring That the love of God is exclusive of all other love that it requires us in Iustice to withdraw every straggling desire from the Creature and that it is clear from the letter of the Commandment that God is not only the Principal but the sole Object of our Love Whence it must follow that every degree of desire
of any Creature is a sin as being a transgression of this Precept 2 dly Hence it must follow that this sin is plain Idolatry for Idolatry consists in giving that Reverence and Affection to the Creature which is due only to the Creator If therefore no degree of love or of desire be due unto the Creature but to the Creator only by loving or desiring the Creature in any degree whatsoever we must give the affection to the Creature which is only due to the Creator and therefore must be guilty of Idolatry Hence sutably to their Opinion 't is asserted That the Creatures are no more our Goods than our Gods and we may as well worship them as love them And again p. 77 78. As to worship the Creature though but relatively is to give that worship to the Creature which is proper to God so to love the Creature though but relatively is to give that love to the Creature which is proper to God I cannot see why one should not be reckoned Idolatry as well as the other Now Idolatry in the New Testament is frequently declared to be a damning sin which they that do shall not inherit the Kingdom of God No Idolater having any inheritance in the Kingdom of God or of Christ but in the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death So that according to this new Divinity if I desire Fire as my good when I am starved with cold I shall be cast into Hell fire And if I love a Woman and so desire her for a Wife I must be excluded from Heaven because I love and I desire a Creature Moreover these Letters lay this down for certain That he that desires any thing besides God whatever he pretends or however he deceives himself does not truly love God And that whenever the Soul moves toward the Creature it must necessarily forsake the Creator and that it can never truly turn to him without a dereliction of all besides him Now if it cannot truly love him it never can be loved by him if it can never truly turn to him it can never be converted and so it never can be saved if it forsake the Creator by desiring or moving towards any Creature it must perish for saith the Prophet all that forsake thee shall be ashamed and consumed Now is it not strange Doctrine to affirm as certain That we cannot truly love God if we desire our daily bread that I forsake God if I move towards meat when I am hungry or drink when I am thirsty Such Doctrines as these tend plainly to perswade Men that God requires what they find opposite to their very Constitution and Being in this World and so impossible for them to perform and live and this must render the highest act of our Religion the divine Love ridiculous to some and drive the weaker sort of People into despair by giving them occasion to think they do not love God truly or as they ought because they by experience find they love a Dish of good Meat and a Cup of good Drink and cannot but desire the one when they are hungry and the other when thirsty In opposition to this new Opinion I shall endeavour to shew First That it is manifestly and expresly contrary to the plain Dictates of the Holy Scripture and the Experience and Reason of Mankind Secondly That it is contrary to the Commandment which enjoins us to love our Neighbour as our selves Thirdly That it virtually destroys the Foundation of those two great moral Virtues Justice and Charity Fourthly That it casts a vile contempt upon the Works of God to wit his Works of Creation and of Providence Fifthly That it is attended with many other pernicious Consequences Sixthly That it hath been expresly and manifoldly contradicted even by him who now so hotly contends for it Seventhly And lastly I shall endeavour to return a plain and satisfactory Answer to all that 's offer'd for this Doctrine from Scripture or Reason First It is manifestly and expresly contrary to the plain Dictates of the Holy Scripture and the Experience and Reason of Mankind To make this evident I lay this down as the Foundation That love of Concupiscence and of Desire are the same Desire being in English the same which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Concupiscentia are in Greek and Latin Love is saith Mr. N. a motion of the Soul towards Good and thus considâ—red it is what we call Concupiscence or Desire Now hence it necessarily follows that what I desire I do also love and that I may innocently love what I may lawfully desire to have or to enjoy Now God himself by divers Methods hath instructed us that we may lawfully desire the Creature He hath himself obliged us to desire and therefore moderately to effect the World 's good Things For 1. He hath made the desire of them the matter of our daily Prayer requiring us to address unto him daily for our daily Bread Now under the name of Bread it is agreed by all Interpreters that I have met with that all things needful to the sustaining and the comfort of this present Life are comprehended of which nature are Meat Drink and Clothing For saith our Saviour your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of All these things Moreover the Reason why we are to desire Bread being this because 't is needful for the Support and Comfort of this present Life it follows that we have the same reason to desire of God what ever else is needful to the Support and Comfort of this Life And so to beg his Blessing not only on our honest Labours and endeavours to obtain and to preserve what is needful for the Support and Comfort of our selves and our dependants but also on our Flocks and Herds and on all those Fruits of the Earth he hath provided for the use of Man Prayer therefore being the desire of some good thing from God two things are evident which destroy the Foundation of this Imagination 1. That our Bread is our Good 2. That we may lawfully desire and therefore love all that in this Petition is comprehended under the name of daily Bread Again St. Paul condemns those Hereticks who taught Men to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them who believe and know the truth viz. that nothing is unclean of it self Rom. 14.14 For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving For it is sanctified by the word and prayer By the Word giving us Authority to eat of every Herb and every living Creature And by Prayer asking these good Creatures of him who is the giver of every good Thing Here then again we learn First That every Creature of God is good i. e. is good for Food to be received by us and therefore for our Food and consequently for good and why else is it
want All which things shew even without a Revelation That Divine Wisdom did intend that we should live in the Exercise of Industry to procure these things and not well without it having so many Desires to be appeased so many Wants to be supplied so many Troubles to be removed so many Appetites and Senses to be gratified by our Care and Industry in the pursuit of these things But now imagin these temporal Enjoyments not to our good not proper Objects of our Desire not worthy of the name of temporal Blessings you cut off all Motives to this Industry for where there is no proper Fruits of Industry nothing which is Operae pretium worth the labour there can be no cause of Labour Now where there is nothing good for me nothing desirable no Blessing to be obtained by Labour 't is certain that there is no ground or motive unto Labour And therefore to excite us to this Industry God hath engaged to give to the diligent pursuit of these things 1 Prosperous Success declaring That the soul of the diligent shall be made fat whilst the sluggard desireth and hath nothing 2 Plentiful Accommodations for our Sustenance for as The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness so hath God assured him of Satisfaction from it for he that tilleth his Land shall be satisfied with bread 3. Encrease of Wealth and Riches for tho' the blessing of the Lord maketh rich yet he conveighs that Blessing to us by the hand of Diligence for 't is the hand of the diligent that maketh rich and he that gathereth by labour who saith the wise Man shall encrease Now surely that which God doth promise to us as a Blessing and Reward for a just motive to our Industry must be something desirable to us and good for us and so our good But had we no such evidence of these things from Scripture even Reason and Experience would powerfully convince us First That God hath not forbidden the Desire or denied us the Enjoyment of any worldly Pleasure which is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Pleasure that doth call for no Repentance because his all wise Providence hath made such liberal Provisions for them For wherefore hath he given to us Organs capable of great and exquisite Delight in all our Senses Wherefore hath he caused the fruitful Earth to furnish us with things so grateful to the Palat so fragrant to the Smell so pleasant to the Eye Did he not give us the free use of these Enjoyments provided that we take this freedom with Moderation and Discretion use it with Thankfulness and with Submission and Subordination to the Glory of the Donor Therein consisting our iniquity not that we do at all love Pleasures but that we love them more than God This is apparent to a demonstration from the very definition of Pleasure contained in these Letters viz. That Pleasure is the Gratification of natural Appetites according to and not exceeding the intention of Nature For this definition takes it for granted That the God of Nature intended the Gratification of our natural Appetites that is our Pleasure Moreover what are these natural Appetites but natural Desires What is it that gratifies them but the Enjoyment of the thing desired I must have therefore implanted in me by the God of Nature as many natural Desires of the Creature as I have natural Appetites which may and only can be gratified by the Enjoyment of the Creature What therefore doth the good Lady mean when she affirms so positively That if he desire the Creature as the true cause of our Pleasure it is so far from being our good that it certainly becomes our evil Does she mean that I sin if I desire drink as the true cause of the pleasure that I find in quenching my Thirst or Wine as the true cause of making glad my Heart This she can only mean upon the account of that new Invention of Mr. Mal Branch's That God is the immediate and efficient Cause of all our pleasing Sensations Now that being but an invention of yesterday spick and span new Philosophy not discovered till this last Age all precedent Ages according to this Doctrine lay under a necessity of sinning And so must all at present whose heads are not cast in Metaphysical Moulds they being thought uncapable of this fine Speculation and therefore forced still to believe the Scripture when it saith that Wine maketh glad the heart of man and that bread comforts his heart And when it speaks of pleasant Bread and pleasant Fruits and of Chambers filled with all precious and pleasant Riches and of the sweetness of the Honey and the Honey-comb Secondly He cannot absolutely have forbidden the desire of Honour for if so why hath he planted in us such a natural thirst after it Why doth he promise it so oft as the reward of Wisdom Why hath he told us A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches that it is better than the precious Ointment Why hath he made it our Duty to pursue whatever is praise-worthy honourable and of good report Why hath he made it a commendation of Faith that by it the Elders obtained a good report Why hath he ordered matters so as to render a good Reputation and an honourable Esteem so highly instrumental to promote his Glory and so beneficial to our selves and others that great and good things can scarce successfully be done without it And Thirdly As for temporal good Things he by making such rich Provisions of them for the Sustenance of our lives and by framing our Bodies so as not only to relish and delight in them but also to be nourished and sustained by them hath sufficiently intimated that it is his pleasure that we should in reasonable measure desire and enjoy them otherwise his care would have been vain and his works useless yea he might seem to have laid an ill design to tempt and ensnare us and draw us off from himself by them In fine when we come into the World in the want of all things with Appetites which have no other use but to desire them and cannot but be pleased with them when we have Natures that cannot long or conveniently subsist without them when the Organs of our Senses are so framed as naturally to be delighted with them when the wise Providence of God hath framed the whole Earth for satisfaction of those Appetites when by the Order of Providence from the Creation all Men do pursue them and even good Men pray unto God and do praise him for them can it be needful to spend more words in confutation of a Paradox which all Men do renounce in Speculation or in Practice or to evince that God hath not entirely forbid all love and all desire of the World 's good Things Now hence it follows First That this Doctrine is inconsistent with our Obligation to pray for
Comfort Honour and Delight then must my Obligation to love my Neighbour as my self engage me to desire all those Creature-Comforts by which I am enabled to do him Good But if as these Philosophers inform us The Love of God is exclusive of all love of and consequently all desire of the Creature If he that loves God as he ought as he cannot so he need not love and therefore not desire any thing else If he be obliged in Iustice to God and in kindness to himself to withdraw every straggling desire from the Creature if Creatures ought not to be thought desirable if the desire of God and of the Creature are in their own Natures incompatible then can no true lover of God desire any of those Creatures whereby he may be able to do good unto his Brother and so he never can be able to perform those acts of Charity and Beneficence this love unto his Neighbour doth require though he hath no Temptations to these Sins which otherwise obstruct his Benevolence to him Fourthly By stretching this Commandment to an exclusion of all desire of or affection to the Creature a great Contempt is cast upon the works both of the Creation and of Providence For 1. As to the Works of the Creation they are generally and truly said to be a Declaration not only of the Power and Wisdom but of the Goodness of God but if there be not one of all his Works which is good to us and so our good not one of them we should desire or love that is be pleased with what Indication can they afford of Divine Goodness to us Moses informs us That God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very Good The Hebrew word saith Mr. Ainsworth is extended to that which is is goodly fair sweet pleasing profitable commodious and causing Joy The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Schindler Non tam bonum esse substantialiter quam amabile volupe jucundum utile gratum esse significat Accordingly it by the Septuagint is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And wherein doth the Goodness of these things consist but in their fitness to serve the ends for which these Creatures were created Now is it the Herb only which was created for the Service of Man was not the Host of Heaven made to give him Light and Heat and benign Influences and for Signs and for Seasons and for Days and for Years Was not the Earth made to be inhabited by him Was it not given to the Children of Men for their use Was not the Air made for him to breath in the Fire to warm him the Water to afford him drink Were not the living Creatures given him for Food as the Herb The Ox the Ass the Horse for Travel and for Tillage of the Earth the Flocks and Herds to feed and clothe him The Fruits of the Earth to sustain him The Corn Wine and Oil to comfort and make glad the Heart of Man Are not all these things made in such an Order and Dependance by Divine Wisdom as that the Influence of the Heavens should render the Earth fruitful and that the fruitful Earth should yield her Corn and Wine and Oil and these should minister to the Support and Comfort of Man's Life Is not this the true import of that Promise The Heavens shall hear the Earth and the Earth shall hear the Corn and Wine and Oil and they shall hear Iesrael When the Psalmist calls upon the Sun and Moon the Heavens and the Waters that are above the Heavens the deeps and the Whales swimming in them the Mountains and Hills fruitful Trees and Cedars the Beasts and Cattel creeping things and flying Fowl to Praise God doth he not in effect invite and stir up Man to praise God for the Benefit he hath received from these things and for the kindness God designed to him by them Now if there be nothing in the whole System of the Creation which is our Good which we may love i. e. be pleased with and desire how came these Creatures to be stiled very Good and that in reference to one great end of their Creation the Service of Man Wherein consists the kindness of God designed in Creation of them And whence ariseth the Obligation to such Praises and Thanksgivings for them Moreover the same Moses informs us That God created the Woman to be an help meet for the Man because it was not good for Man to be alone and that he Blessed them both and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth Now is there comfort in the Society of a Bosom Friend nothing desirable in a help meet for the Necessities and Uses of this present Life or may I not desire what is so comfortable and so helpful If it be better to marry than to burn must it must not be good to desire a Wife that I may not burn If it be a Blessing to be Fruitful and an Infelicity and Judgment to be Barren may I not when I have a Wife desire Children by her because they are Creatures The Providence of God respects his Preservation and his Government of all things and with relation to both these we have have just cause to say The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. For he preserveth Man and Beast and this he doth by giving and continuing to them Life and Breath and all things Hence to the memory of God's great Goodness the Psalmist hath declared That the eyes of all things wait upon him and he giving them their meat in due season He openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness On this account he is by the Apostle said Not to have left himself without a witness of his Philanthropy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by doing good to all in giving them fruitful Seasons and filling their hearts with Food and Gladness Now if the giving Life and all things needful to sustain it if the filling all things living with plenteousness and our Hearts with Food and Gladness be not giving us any thing that is our good any thing we may love or be pleased with any thing we should desire or move towards wherein consists the great goodness of all these Acts of Preservation As for the other Act of Providence God's Government of Mankind who knows not that the great Objection made against it both by Iew and Heathen was this That it so often hapned to the Wicked to abound in temporal good Things and to the Good to be afflicted with great Misery and Want That such was the Prosperity of the wicked that their eyes stood out with fulness and they had more than heart could wish that they prospered in the world and encreased in Riches That the way of the wicked prospered and they were happy who dealt very treacherously That they continued to old age
in the City blessed in the Field blessed in the Fruit of thy Body of thy Ground of thy Cattle in the encrease of thy Kins and the Flocks of thy Sheep in thy Basket and thy Store The Lord shall command the Blessing upon thee in thy Store-Houses and all that thou settest thy hand unto The Lord shall make thee plenteous in Goods in the Fruit of thy Body of thy Cattle and thy Ground The Lord shall open to thee his good Treasure the Heaven to give thee Rain unto thy Land in its season and to bless all the work of thine hand If thou obey the voice of the Lord he will make thee plenteous in every work of thine Hand in the Fruit of thy Body of thy Cattle and of thy Land for Good for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for Good as he rejoiced over thy Fathers These temporal good things he declares to be his Gifts for these he requires them to bless the Donor saying When thou hast eaten and art full then shalt thou bless the Lord thy God for the good Land he hath given thee commanding them to rejoice in every good thing he hath given them Moreover upon their Disobedience he threatneth the removal of all these Blessings and to strip them of all these good things that he would shut up the Heavens that there be no Rain that the Land yield not her Fruit and that they should perish quickly from the good Land that God had given them that they should be cursed in their Basket and Store in the Fruit of their Body of their Land of their Kine and Sheep that he would send upon them Cursing Vexation and Rebuke in all they put their hand unto and that they should serve their Enemies in Hunger and in Thirst and in Nakedness and in want of all things Now if God by requiring them to love the Lord with all their Hearts and Souls had enjoined them not to desire or affect any of these outward things to what purpose doth he promise what he forbids them to desire Or what Encouragement can such Promises afford them thus to love him If these things were in no sense their good why are they stiled God's Blessings and his Gifts And why are they commanded to rejoice in them and so bless him for them Yea why are they said to be blessed in them But if they were their good things why might they not desire or effect them proportionably to the Goodness that was in them Yea lastly if they were not good and desirable things wherein consists the hurt and Curse in being stripped and deprived of them 'T is therefore manifest that this Interpretation as it casts a slur and a reproach on all God's temporal Blessings as having in them nothing good nothing fit to be desired or worthy to be loved and therefore tends to rob him of the Praises due unto him for them so doth it also impair the force of all the Promises by which God did endeavour to engage his People thus to love him and of those threats by which he did deter them from their Disobedience this therefore cannot be the genuine import of these words Again from this Consideration That this Command was given to the Iewish Nation it follows that it ought to bear the Sense which is the certain import of it in all those other places of the Old Testament where it only doth occur it being only found in the New Testament as a Citation thence 'T is therefore certain that it doth not require us to love God in perfection of degrees or in the elevated Sense contended for but only to love him with a sincere and a prevailing love For First God's Servants entred into a Covenant to serve the Lord after this manner Thus Asa gathered all Benjamin and Iudah and they entred into Covenant to seek the Lord God with all their Heart and with all their Soul And good Iosiah with all his People made a Covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his Commandments with all their Heart and with all their Soul Now if in this Covenant they promised to love God with every degree of every Power with the whole possibility of the Soul to bestow on him not only the highest Degree of it but every Degree of it the whole and to make him not only the Principal but the only Object of their love they promised what they knew they never could what to be sure they never did perform And why then is it said That the People stood to the Covenant and that God wus found of them But if they only promised love of Sincerity and love to God above all other things and that they would adhere to him and his Service then may this Phrase Import no more Secondly This God required them to do to render them the Objects of his Grace and Favour promising to have Mercy on them in their Captivity on this Condition If from thence saith Moses thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy Heart and all thy Soul And again if thou shalt return to the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul then the Lord thy God will turn thy Captivity and have Compassion on thee and will bring thee into the Land which thy Fathers possessed and thou shalt possess it and he will do thee Good And upon this Condition only doth Solomon desire this Mercy saying If they turn to thee with all their Heart and all their Soul in the Land of their Enemies then hear thou their Prayer and their Supplication Now is it reasonable to conceive that God required such an absolute Perfection of Degrees in their Affection and Obedience to qualifie them for his Favour under their Captivity If so they must for ever have continued Captives Would he promise to restore them to their good Land and to do them Good upon a Condition that would not permit them either to desire that pleasant Land or any other Temporal Enjoyment as their Good Sure the Suspension of his Favour upon this Condition is a clear Evidence that this Phrase bears a milder Sense Thirdly God doth acknowledge that some of them did actually love him thus That King David had kept his Commandments and followed him with all his heart saving in the matter of Uriah and yet we find him Guilty of Mistrust of God's own Promise by saying I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul of Lying to Abimelech of a rash Oath in Swearing to cut off the House of Nabal of Injustice in giving a deceitful Ziba half the Goods of Mephibosheth and of Pride in numbering the People God also testifies of good Iosiah That he turned to the Lord with all his Soul and all his Heart and all his Might since therefore God himself declares of Men thus subject to Imperfection that they
our case we do not love the Creature with the same sort of Love or in the same Sense in which we love God i. e. not with a Religious Affection but with a Natural only not as our Spiritual but as our Temporal Good not as the Good of our Immortal Souls but our Frail Bodies not as our End our Rest or our chief Good not for its own but for God's sake whereas we love God with a religious Affection as the Spiritual and Eternal Good of our Immortal Souls as our End Rest and our chief Good and even for himself For this he doth saith the Excellent Bishop Taylor who loves God above every thing else for all that supereminent Love by which God is more loved than all the World all that Love is pure and for himself For the Philosophers were wont to say A Man loved Virtue for Virtues sake if he loved it when it was discountenanced when it thwarted his temporal Ends and Prosperities and what they call loving Virtue for Virtuâ—s sake the Christian calls loving God for God's sake And had Mr. N. when he said There are but two sorts of Love that of Desire and Benevolence considered that this love of Desire may be branched into religious and natural Desires desire of things Spiritual and Temporal of things good for the Body and for the Soul of things to be used here and to be enjoyed here and hereafter of things as necessary for our being and our well-being of things to be desired for their own and for God's sake He would have discerned as great a difference betwixt one Love of Desire and another as betwixt Love of Desire and of Benevolence or at the least would not have thought that he who desired the Creature in a sense thus limited desired him in the same sense or with the same sort of Desire with which his Love and his Desire is carried out towards his Great Creator So that I need not now to advertise him that he should not insist so much on the English Particle with since the Original Greek from whence these words are cited ran thus Thou shalt love the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the whole Heart now sure we may love one thing ex animo from the whole Heart and desire it entirely and yet may also sometime imploy our desires upon other things The Second Objection from Scripture is taken from the words of the Apostles Iames and Iohn the words of the Apostle Iames are these Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the Friendship of this World is enmity to God Whosoever therefore will be a Friend of the World is an Enemy to God Whence he infers that in St. Iames's account our Heart is so much God's Propriety and peculiar and ought so entirely to be devoted to him that 't is a kind of Spiritual Adultery to admit any Creature into Partnership with him in our Love I Answer That as a Woman becomes not an Adulteress by any Affection to or Friendship with another Man for she ought to love her Friend and Neighbour and Relations and to shew Friendship to them but only by loving Friend or Neighbour with the love proper to her Husband with that love which comes in competition with and invades that conjugal Affection which belongs to him alone So neither doth all love of the Creature make us guilty of Spiritual Adultery but only that love of the Creature which is proper to God and stands in competition with him and makes us Idolize the Creature by giving it that share in our Affections which is due to God alone as is evident from the very words Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses for that Phrase as often as it Metaphorically occurs in the Old Testament imports the declining of the Iews to Idolatry and the giving that Worship and Service to Idols and false Gods which belongs only to the true and consequently that Friendship of the World which rendred the Persons here represented Guilty of Spiritual Adultery must be that inordinate Affection to the World which made it Rival God and Rob him of the Service and Obedience due to him and this the Context clearly shews for the Friendship of the World there reprehended was such as proceeded from the Lusts which were in their Members and caused them to desire the World 's Good not to supply their wants but to consume them on their Lusts and such a love of the World as produced Wars Fightings and even Murther that they might obtain the Worlds good things ver 1 2 3 4. But saith Mr. N. Every lover of the Creature is in proportion an Idolater upon our former Principle for by loving Creatures we suppose them our Goods that they are able to act upon our Souls and affect them with pleasing Sensations that they perfect our Being and are the causes of our Happiness which is to suppose them to be so many Gods so that there can be no such thing as loving the World with moderation since we ought not to love it at all for we Deifie the Object of our Love and to affect the Creature in any degree is so far to Idolize it To this I Answer First If there can be no such thing as loving i. e. desiring the Creature with moderation why doth the Scripture prescribe this Moderation as to the things of this World by saying Let your moderation as to these things be known unto all the Lord is at hand Be careful for nothing but in every thing by Prayer and Supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God Are not our Petitions of these things from God our desires of them Is not our dependance on that Providence for them which will give good Things to them that ask them the Remedy here prescribed against our anxious Cares for these things And must not then the Moderation here required Respect the same things Again Brethren saith the Apostle the time is short it remaineth that both they that have Wives be as if they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it For the Fashion of this world passeth away Here do not all the Ancient Commentators agree that the Apostle prescribes mediocrity as to these transitory Things we can enjoy but for a short time And that by commanding us to have and use them as if we did it not he only doth enjoin us not to have our hearts affixed and our chief care imployed about them and that to abuse the world is thus to use it to the Satisfaction of our Lusts or so as to imploy all our Studies and Affections on it doth not the Apostle himself thus explain our weeping for our lost Friends viz. That we should not do it immoderately and is not
the Pride of Life the desire of Places of Dignity Noble Titles all the Honour and Glory of the World as they gratifie our Thirst of Honour Hath he not told us That the pleasing Sensations which produce these desires in us are not of the World i. e. the things contained in it but of the Father that they are the natural genuine and direct Effects of God that 't is of the proper Nature of God to produce them that he wills them for themselves and naturally delights in them and therefore sure would have us to will and delight in them and consequently to desire them What then remains but that we should understand by the love and desire of these things that immoderate love and desire which tends to captivate our Affections to them and to prevail upon us to transgress the Will of God that we may enjoy or preserve them that is the immoderate love and desire of these things I proceed now to consider what Mr. N. objects from reason against our Relative Affection to the Creature i. e. our love of it in Relation to God Now as saith he to worship the Creature though but Relatively is to give that Worship to the Creature which is proper to to God so to love the Creature though but relatively is in like manner to give that love to the Creature which is proper to God and if this be thought a sufficient reason to disallow of a Relative Worship I cannot see why we should not for the same reason give Sentence against this Relative Love or why one should not be reckoned Idolatry as well as the other To this I Answer 1. That Mr. N. was formerly of another mind for in his Discourse of Platonick Love he speaks thus Because God is of too sublime and refined Excellency to be fastned on immediately by our Love Plato recommends to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a method of Ascent which is from loving the Beauty which we see in Bodies to pass on to the love of that Beauty which we see in the Soul from the Beauty of the Soul to the Beauty of Virtue and lastly from the Beauty of Virtue to the immense Ocean of Beauty and these saith he are the Steps of the Sanctuary Now do we not find here all that Mr. N. condemns in our Relative Love viz. the love of the Creatures by way of Relation to God not as the only but the final and ultimate Object of our Love a love of that Creature for God's sake or in Relation to God provided that it do not stop and fix at the Creature but run on till at last it fix upon God as its final Object Again We ought saith he to make God the direct and primary Object of our Love and to love nothing for it self but only in and for God In his Aspiration he speaks thus My God I will love thee as thou teachest me the first and direct Motion of my Love shall be towards thee and whatever I love besides thee I will only love in and for thee And doth he not here say that he is taught of God to love other things besides God for his sake In his Essay upon Contemplation and Love he saith God ought to be the ultimate end of all our Actions and we ought not in any of our Actions and therefore not in our Love to stop short of this Center but in all our Actions to make a farther Reference either actual or habitual And again An end may become evil by being rested in when it is not the last without any farther respect or reference So that 't is the want of this respect and reference which renders the love of the Creature evil And now to shew what little cause he had to parallel this Relative Love of the Creature with the Relative Worship we condemn in the Church of Rome and so unhappily to pronounce all Christians Guilty of Idolatry who love any thing besides God for his sake I need only to remind him of a few things which had they been considered would have put him out of love with this Comparison viz. First That the distinction of Relative Worship is proper to the Worship of Images which can deserve no Worship for themselves but as they represent some Object which deserveth Worship Now to say thus of all inferior good things that they can deserve no Love or cannot be desirable for any real Goodness God hath put into them is to beg the Question Secondly That we only charge them with Idolatry in Worshipping the Cross and the Images of God and Christ with Latria i. e for giving the same Worship which they give to God and Christ to the Cross and to the Image which is a Creature of their own making Now can Mr. N. charge us with giving the same love to the Creature which we give to the Creator Moreover we charge them with Idolatry for doing this with the same Individual inward and outward Act now can Mr. N. charge us with loving the Creature by the same Individual desire with which we love God Thirdly The Relative Worship which they do give to Images is plainly forbid in the Second Commandment but as this cannot be said of this Relative Love without begging the Question so I have sufficiently proved already that it is highly approved in the Holy Scriptures That God hath made Provisions for it accepts of it and doth encourage us to perform it as will be still more evident by an Instance proper to this Subject viz. Mr. N. doth and must allow a Relative Love of Benevolence to the Creatures Christ having so expresly said for the Encouragement of our Charity to his Servants For as much as you did it to one of these little ones my Brethren you did it unto me And again Whosoever shall give you a Cup of cold Water in my Name because you belong to Christ shall not lose his reward And the Apostle that God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love that you have shewed to his name in that you have ministred to the Saints and do minister And Solomon that He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord. In all which cases there is a love of the Creature for God's sake or in Relation to God a love of the Creature in a Relative transitive way a love of them terminating upon God and Christ and yet a Love highly acceptable to God and such as he hath promised richly to reward but then it is not love of the same kind with that Affection which I owe to God as being not an Elicite or an immediate Act of Religion as is the love of God but only an Imperate Act of it as the Schools speak it proceeds not from the same act which carries me directly to God the love of God being the Cause that of Man the Effect it is not done by any act of
my mind joining God and the Creature together as one integral Object but it is love to the Creature for that Relation which it hath and bears to God and Christ and therefore 't is not a forbidden but a very acceptable kind of Love though it be plainly Relative And so it is also in our Love of Desire to the Creature for I love them for God and for Christ's sake when I desire them that I may have wherewith to feed Christ's hungry and clothe his naked Members and in all the other Instances fore-mentioned 'T is therefore evident that this Relative Love and the Papists Relative Worship of Images are so far from being exactly Parallel as Mr. N. asserts that they have nothing common to each other but this that both are stiled Relative which also happens in that love of Benevolence for God's sake he allows of But saith Mr. N. Either Creatures are truly and really lovely as being our true and proper Good or they are not if they are then a Relative Love is too little we ought to love them with more than a Relative Love we ought to love them absolutely and for themselves but if they are not then even a Relative Love is too much for what is not truly lovely is always loved too much if it be lov'd at all So that either way there is no pretence for admitting this last Expedient of our Concupiscence the Relative Love of the Creature To this I Answer That when he saith The Creature is not our true and proper Goods this may be taken in the most elevated Sense in which God only is our true and proper Good and then his Argument runs thus Either Creatures are to be loved as our God or else they are not to be loved at all and this Consequence I hope is not as clear as the day or it may be taken in a large sense for that which is the Good of the whole Man Soul and Body and then also I deny that what is not thus lovely is not to be loved at all for I may love because I may desire my daily Bread though it be not the proper Good of my Soul but of my Body only Or lastly our true and proper Good may signifie that only which is some way conducing to our Good to the Advantage and Comfort of this present Life as being instrumental to the Sustentation and the Contentment and Pleasure of this Life or to our Preservation from those afflictive Evils which are incident to us in this Life and all that in this lower sense is lovely may be loved and yet not loved absolutely and for it self as that excludes the Subordination of that Affection to the love of God since thus we are not to desire Life it self but as this Life conduceth to God's Glory which is the soveraign end of all our Actions Secondly Therefore I add That Creatures may be said to be loved absolutely and for themselves either as that imports only for the Goodness God hath put into them the Good they do the Pleasure they afford to our natural Appetites and in this sense I have proved they may be loved absolutely and for themselves and this I also learn from these words of Mr. N. The Great Author of Nature hath made Provisions for the Entertainment of our natural Faculties and particular Appetites all our Senses Seeing Hearing Tasting Smelling and Touching have their proper Objects and Opportunities of Pleasure respectively and the Enjoyment and Indulgence of any of those Appetites is then only N. B. and in such Circumstances restrained when the greater Interests of Happiness are thereby crossed and defeated Now sure I may desire that Pleasure of Appetites which God hath made provision for and consequently may desire those particular Objects which afford that Pleasure since otherwise that Provision God hath made for the Entertainment of our Animal Falculties must be made in vain Again if the Enjoyment of and the Indulgence of these Appetites is only then restrained when the great Interests of Happiness are thereby cross'd and defeated then the Enjoyment of and the Indulgence to them is not wholly restrained and then the desire of that Enjoyment and Indulgence to them is not entirely restained and therefore in some measure and in some Circumstances is allow'd He also owns that Some repast may be found in the Creature and that it is Good to be chosen though not to be rested in and may I not then desire that Repast May I not love what is Good to be chosen with a love of Concupiscence But 2 dly to love Creatures absolutely and for themselves may signifie to love them exclusively of a Relation to and the Subordination of that love to God and in this sense they are not to be loved absolutely and for themselves 1 st Not exclusively of a Relation of them and our affection to them to God's Glory seeing whether we eat or drink or whatever we do we are to do it all to the Glory of God 2 dly Not exclusively of the Subordination of the love of them to the love of God because we must still love them with that Moderation and Indifferency which will not permit our Affection to them to hazard or obstruct our pursuit of the Supreme Good For saith Mr. N. Whenever we turn the edge of our Desire to Created Good 't is Prudence as well as Religion to use Caution and Moderation and gage the Point of our Affection least it run too far Where again he plainly allows of some affection to and some desire of Created Good and if Prudence and Religion require Caution and Moderation in the use of those Affections and Desires they by so doing do approve them in some measure for there can be no Caution or Moderation of our Affections and Desires to that which must not be at all affected or desired CHAP. V. The Contents Mr. N. grants That we may seek and use sensible things for our Good but saith he we must not love them as our Good and that we may approach to them by a bodily Movement but not with the Movements of the Soul This is Examined and Confuted § 1. Argument 1. That God is the sole Cause of our Love and therefore hath the sole Right to it Answered § 2. Argument 2. The Motion of the Will is to Good in General i. e. to all Good and therefore to God only Answered § 3. Argument 3. God is the end of our Love since he cannot act for a Creature but only for himself or move us to a Creature but only to himself Answered § 4. Argument 4. That God cannot be loved too much nor the World too little Answered § 5. Argument 5. That God having called us thus to the Love of himself cannot afterwards send us to a Creature § 6. Argument 6. A Man cannot repent of placing his whole Affection upon God or have any thing to Answer for on that account
Answered § 7. Argument 7. God only is to be loved because he only acts upon our Spirits produceth our Pleasure and he only does us Good Answered § 8. What the Lady offers on this Subject briefly Considered and Answered § 9. HAving thus considered the Arguments produced from Scripture against the common Interpretation of this Great Commandment and for a love of God wholly exclusive of all love to and desire of the Creature even so far and so unhappily exclusive of it that we are told That he that desires any thing besides God whatever he pretend or however he deceive himself doth not truly love God That the desire of God and desire of the Creature are in their own Nature incompatible even so incompatible that whenever the Soul moves towards the Creature it must necessarily forsake the Creator I now proceed to the Examination of those Arguments from Reason by which Good Mr. Norris and the Lady endeavour to establish this Opinion only premising for the better stating of the Question What he and the Good Lady grant to us And First They own That we may seek and use those sensible things to which by the Order of Nature Pleasure is annexed That they may be innocently sought for and used though they must not be loved That we may seek and use sensible things for our Good but we must not love them as our Good Which in plain terms is affirming and denying the same thing as is demonstrable from Mr. N.'s definition of the love of Concupiscence for Pleasure saith he is Good even our Good seeking Pleasure must suppose a desire of it and that desire is Love or the effect of Love for it supposeth a motion of the Soul towards it and Love saith he is only a Motion of the Soul towards Good Again seek and use sensible things for our Good we cannot whilst we suppose they are not Good for us i. e. that they will do us no Good if then we may seek and use sensible things for our Pleasure and our Good they must do us Good and so be our Good For That saith he is our Good which does us Good Moreover it may be enquired why he is so indulgent to our seeking of these things who will not permit us to love them in the least measure and who contends for an utter annihilation of all desire of the Creature does not our Saviour say as expresly Seek not what you shall eat or what you shall drink as St. Iohn doth love not the World Does not his Apostle say as expresly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no Man seek his own things And can he tell us any reason why of two things equally prohibited we may be allowed the one and not the other or why the Prohibition of loving or desiring the Creature should be entirely exclusive of all love and all desire of the Creature and yet the prohibition of seeking and minding the Creature should not be as exclusive of all seeking and all minding of it But to proceed This saith he in his Letter I farther illustrate thus you are to distinguish betwixt the Movements of the Soul and those of the Body the Movements of the Soul ought not to tend but towards him who only is above her and only able to act in her but the Movements of the Body may be determined by those Objects which environ it and so by those Movements we may unite our selves to those things which are the Natural or Occasional Causes of our Pleasure thus because we find Pleasure from Fire N. B. this is warrant enough to approach it by a Bodily Movement but we must not therefore love it for Love is a Movement of the Soul And that we are to reserve for him who is the true cause of that Pleasure which we resent by occasion of the Fire who as I have proved is no other than God by which you may plainly perceive what 't is I mean by saying that Creatures may be sought for our good but not loved as our Good But this saith he is more intelligible than practicable But 1. Is this Philosophy suitable to the Language of the Holy Ghost doth he speak as if we sought and approach'd the Creature only by a Bodily Movement and not with any Movements of the Soul Doth not he say Notwithstanding thou mayst kill and eat flesh in all thy Gates whatsoever thy Soul lusteth after according to the Blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy Borders and thou shalt say I will eat flesh because thy Soul longeth to eat Flesh thou mayst eat Flesh whatsoever thy Soul lusteth after Thou shalt kill of thy Herd and of thy Flock which the Lord hath given thee and thou shalt eat in thy Gates whatsoever thy Soul lusteth after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all the desire of thy Soul thou mayst eat saith the Hebrew thrice Thou must do it only by the Movements of the Body saith Mr. N. Again Thou shalt bestow thy Money for whatsoever thy Soul lusteth after for Oxen or for Sheep or for Wine or for strong Drink or for whatsoever thy Soul desireth Where again we find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the desire of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Concupiscence of the Soul allowed to go forth towards Oxen and Sheep and Wine and strong Drink The Preacher also laments the Folly of the Man who having Riches Wealth and Honour in such abundance that he wanteth nothing which his Soul can desire and yet he hath not an heart to enjoy them freely and delight himself in the Good of them See Isa. 58.11 12. Rev. 18.14 So plainly doth the Holy Ghost contradict this New Philosophy 2 dly Is it suitable to the Sentiments of Mr. N. when he saith There are some things in the World which I love N. B. with great passion such as are Conversation with select Friends or Men of Harmonical and Tuneable Dispositions Reading close and fine-wrought Discourses solitary Walks and Gardens the Beauty of the Spring and above all Majestick and well composed Musick these I delight in with something-like satisfaction and acquiescence and the last could I enjoy it in its highest Perfection would I am apt to phansie terminate my Desires and make me Happy Now could he do all this without any Movement of his Soul towards them Are none of these things truely and really lovely because they are Creatures Or must he love them too much if he love them at all 3 dly He is here speaking of seeking the Creatures for our good Now hath the Body any apprehensions of what is for our good Can it desire or seek any thing under that Notion Hath it any apprehension of the Objects that make Impressions on it as the natural or occasional Causes of our Pleasure Doth that find Pleasure from the Fire
we never can put off Now if God be the only Author and Cause of our Love has He not then the Sole Right and Title to it If He does as much Produce my Love as He doth my Being why hath He not as much Right to my Love as to any part of my Nature This Argument proves nothing to the purpose by his own Confession for it only proves that God is the Cause of all that Love which is a necessary Adherent to our Beings such as is all over invincible and irresistible of that motion of Love in which we are purely passive over which we have no more Command than over the motion of our Heart and Pulse which we can never controul can never be without never can put off which the Devils and Damned Spirits saith he have as well as Glorified Saints Now is this the Love God calls for in this Text Is it a purely passive Love which it is not in the Power of Devils to withhold and in which the greatest Saints cannot excel them Is God concerned that we should not want that which is a necessary Adherent of our Beings That which we never can put off never can be with without Doth he require that only which no Man can defraud him of Mr. N. is sensible that the Text is not at all concerned in this Love confessing that our Free Love is the only Love that falls under Command and the only one that is in our Power And why then doth he argue from such a Love to that Free Active Love which too many are without and too many do put off or from that Love which cannot be to that Love which is commanded Moreover This Argument plainly destroys the thing it was designed to establish For he lays down his Thesis thus That our whole Affections are to be placed on God and that we are to love him so intirely as to love none but him This saith he I shall endeavour to establish upon this double Basis 1. That God is the only Author or Cause of our Love And will it not hence follow that he is the only Author and Cause of our Natural Love Bent and Inclination to every thing besides himself And can he be the only Author and Cause of our Love to all other things and yet forbid that very love which he alone produceth in us God saith Mr. N. is the Author of all my Love he hath produced it all 't is therefore highly just and reasonable he should have it all God say I then is the Author of all the Love of my self and of my Preservation my love of Food Drink Cloths of Honour Riches Pleasure Life my love of Women and of Sensual Delights and of the Gratification of all my Natural Appetites according to and not exceeding the Intention of the God of Nature which is acknowledged to be Pleasure And the natural tendency we have to them being from the Author of Nature must needs be right it being impossible saith Mr. N. that God should put a Biass upon the Soul If therefore it is the Perfection and Duty of every Rational Creature to conform those Determinations of his Will that are free to that which is natural or to take care that the Love of his Nature and the Love of his Choice conspire in one that they both agree in the same Motion and concenter in the same Object as he saith it is then 't is the Duty and Perfection of our Nature to chuse to Love or freely to affect the Preservation of our Life and Being our Food Drink Cloths Honour Riches Pleasure and the Gratification of all our Natural Appetites according to and not exceeding the Intention of the God of Nature Again God is the Cause and Author of all my Love of my self of my desire of Self-Preservation and of all that I judge needful for and pleasant to me He is the Author of all that natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we bear to our Relations and also of that love we owe unto our Neighbour as having made him in all considerable Respects the same with us or equal to us and therefore equally deserving our Affection and having founded it on this clear Principle of Nature That we should deal with others as we would be dealt with Will therefore Mr. N. say That because God is the Author of all this Love of Benevolence 't is just and reasonable he should have it all No sure the utmost that he can reasonably hence conclude is this that it is just and reasonable we should only love our selves our Relatives and Neighbouâ—s in relation to God or in Subordination to him And this is likewise all he can rationally conclude from God's being the Author of our Love of desire viz. That we should desire nothing but with Relation to or in Subordination and Submission to him In a word as God is the sole efficient Cause of my Intellectual Love in the true Philosophical Sense by giving me the Faculties and the Liberty by which I chuse Intellectual Good so also on the same is he the cause of all my sensual Love i. e. of my Love of the Body of all the Conveniences and innocent Delights of it as also the sensual Love of Beasts And must he therefore be the Proper and Immediate yea the Sole Object of this Love Do you not call that a sensual Desire whose Object is a sensual Good And is God such a one A Man saith Mr. N. is in Love that is he hath a sensual Desire toward a sensual Good And this saith he cannot be evil for then 't would be a sin to be in Love and consequently there would be a necessity of sinning in order to Marriage because no Man not therefore Mr. N. is supposed to Marry but whom he thus loves and so Mr. N. being Married had once a sensual Desire of a sensual Good without Sin and therefore was not obliged by this Commandment to make God the only Object of his Love of Desire And indeed 't is palpably absurd to say I do God Injury or Injustice in loving or desiring those things which he hath given me Faculties on purpose to love and desire which have no other use but to desire which cannot be satisfied without the Enjoyment of what we desire which if he did not intend we should Gratifie he gave them only as Snares and Torments to us God's Right therefore in this Case can be only this that I never love any sensual Good against him or to the Dishonour of him but rather that I love it only in Relation or in Subordination and Submission to him not that I love it not at all I lay down this an evident and undeniable Proposition that the natural Motion of the Will is to Good in General But now how can the Will be moved towards Good in General but by being moved towards All Good for to be moved
towards Good as Good is to be moved towards All Good And how can the Will be moved towards All Good but by being moved towards an Universal Being who in himself is and contains All Good This is a piece of Sophistry and a meer Fallacy for when we say the Will is moved to Good in General the meaning of those words is only this That nothing but what is Good in reality or appearance can move the Will or that it is always moved by some or other of those things which are contained within the Compass or the Sphere of Good not that in all its Motions or Elections it desires all that can be called Good V. G. I desire to eat when I am hungry to drink when I am thirsty to take my rest when I am sleepy not that I think All that is Good is contained in my Food Drink or Sleep Moreover to be moved towards Good as Good is not to be moved towards All Good but to be moved towards any particular Object sub ratione boni under this Prospect that it is some way or other Good for me to enjoy that Object even as to be moved towards Evil as Evil i. e. sub ratione mali is not to be moved to all that is evil but to be moved to evil under the Apprehension or Conviction that it is evil or pernicious to me And this we cannot do not because we have no motion from God towards it but to the contrary which Mr. N. phancies to be the only reason why we cannot possibly Will or Love evil as evil For that would prove as much that we cannot love Evil at all under the false appearance of Good for sure we have no motion to it from God under that false appearance but to the contrary Sure the desiring of Evil can in no sense be the natural and proper effect of that great Impression whereby God moves us continually towards himself But the plain reason of it is because to Will Evil as Evil is to desire it because it is not desirable which is to move towards it without a motive And 2 dly because 't is to desire what is pernicious to me because it is so which is contrary to the first Principle of self-Preservation God hath planted in us And hence ariseth also a demonstration that the Will is not always moved to Good in General or towards all Good because it is so often and so powerfully moved to Good apparent only which being in it self Evil and only in appearance Good we can have no motion to it from that God whom saith he we move to by moving towards Good in General nor can it be the effect of that General impression by which God moves us continually to himself Mr. N. farther argues thus That as God is the Author of this motion so is he the end of it too and he moves us to good no otherwise than by moving us towards himself For can God move us towards the Creature Can he move us from himself Can he act for a Creature Can he make a Creature his end Does not God make all things for himself Is he not always his own end Hath not this the evidence of a first Principle that God acts only for himself In his Tenth Letter this is offered anew in a great Croud of Pompous and Obscure Expressions V. Gr. God cannot act but by his Will that 's most certain i. e. not by his Power not by his Knowledge not by his Wisdom but only by his Will wonderful confidence But now the Will of God is not as in us an Expression that he receives from without himself i. e. I suppose the Word expression may be the Printers not the Authors fault and which accordingly carries him out from himself but an inward self-centring Principle that both derives from and terminates in himself as V. G. his Will to create the World and all things in it his Will to Redeem Mankind his Will to Judge the World For as God is to himself his own Good his own Center and beautiful Object so the Love of God can be no other than the Love of himself Whence it will follow that as God must therefore be his own End and what ever he Wills or Acts he must Will and Act for himself so that the Love that is in us to Cherries must be the effect of that very Love which God hath for himself there being no other Principle in the Nature of God no Wisdom Power Knowledge c. by which he is supposed to Act. Now not to insist on many other Mistakes contained in this Argument and briefly hinted in the Parenthesis I answer First That whether God can act only for himself or for a Creature may easily be determined from these excellent Words of Mr. N. in his Treatise concerning Perseverance in Holiness viz. When God perswades Men to be Holy he perswades every man to that which is best for him I say best for him for God being already possessed of all possible Perfection cannot act any thing for any â—elf-advantage and therefore whatsoever he doth is for the Good of his Creatures And doth not he act for a Creature who doth all he doth for the Good of his Creatures And therefore saith he as God did not at first speak this World into Being to raise himself a monument of Power and Divine Architecture so neither doth he govern the rational part of it by the Precepts of Religion out of any self-design Now where he hath no self-design he can have no self end For can a man be profitable to God as he that is wise may be profitable to himself Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous or is it gain to him that thou makest thy way perfect No certainly And therefore when he chalked the ways of Righteousness and Holiness for men to walk in it could not be for any self end but purely for the Good of Man Now I am apt to think that he who acts not for any self end acts not always for himself that he who acts purely for the Good of Man acts for a Creature because he acts for the Good of a Creature and so he acts not only for himself Moreover he saith God hath declared that he is only so far pleased with our Services to him as they are beneficial to our selves Whence it is easie to conclude this is the only end of that Command to serve him for had God any other end he would be pleased with the obtainment of it Furthermore I ask what doth he mean when he saith The Love of God can be no other than the Love of himself He hath confidently told us There are but these two sorts of Love love of desire and love of Benevolence and hath delivered it for certain That as Indigence in the Lover is the ground of his loving with the Love of Concupiscence so Indigence
in the Person loved is the Ground of loving him with the Love of Benevolence And thence he hath concluded that God cannot be loved by us with a Love of Benevolence because there is nothing we can wish to God which he hath not already And is not this as much a demonstration that God cannot love himself with a Love of Benevolence For what can he wish to himself that he has not already Nor can God love himself with a Love of Desire For what Indigence in him can be the Ground of this Love of Concupiscence What can an infinitely perfect and necessary Being farther desire to himself How can either of these kinds of self-love derive from him in whom can be no Indigence or terminate in him who is capable of no addition to his infinite and necessary Perfection and as incapable of any diminution from them Again when he saith God Wills and Acts for himself what doth he mean Is it that he Wills and Acts for that which he hath already and cannot chuse but have or for what he hath not If the latter the Question returns What can he who is infinitely and necessarily happy Will or Act for that he hath not already If the first why should he Will or Act for what he hath already and cannot chuse but have Can he have it the more for doing so So unintelligible is this inward self-centring Principle of Mr. N. Doth not the Scripture say God hath made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 I answer It doth so according to our Translation but in the Hebrew the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the words may be thus rendred the Lord hath made all things to answer to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aptly to refer one to another even the wicked for the day of Wrath according to that descant of the Learned Grotius Singula Deus ordinat ad id quod singulis convenit ordinat impium ad diem calamitosum The Targum and the Syriac render the words thus The Lord doth all things for them that obey and reserveth the wicked for the evil day The Bishop of Ely renders them thus The Lord disposeth all things Lammaanthu according to his Will even the Wicked for the day of wrath i. e. to be then the Executioners of it In a word had the Hebrew word been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it might have been well rendred for himself but being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it seems not to admit of that Translation Nevertheless would he be content with the old Divinity That God loves Himself with a Love of Complacency and that God doth all things for his Glory and that in this Sense all things are of him and to him Rom. 11.36 1 Cor. 8.6 Col. 1.16 he would have no Adversary Only they would be ready to inform him That as it seemed to many of the Antient Fathers and Philosophers so doth it seem to them a vain Imagination to conceive the great design of any of God's glorious Works and admirable Dispensations should be only this to be admired and applauded by us worthless Creatures that he may gain Esteem or a good Word from such vile Creatures as we are We take too much upon us if we imagine that the All-wise God can be concerned whether such blind Creatures as we are approve or disapprove of his Proceedings or that he really can suffer any diminution of his Glory by our dislike or is advanced in honour by our approbation of his Dispensations We think too meanly of and we detract from his Great Majesty if we conceive that he is tickled with Applause and chiefly aims at Reputation from us in all his glorious Designs this being such a weakness in our fellow-Creature as is stiled Ambition and loving of the Praise of Men a Crime which he will punish in them and so it cannot be the great Design of all the Dispensations of his Providence That therefore such as we should think well of him can be no farther his concern than as it serves the nobler Ends of his great Goodness viz. that these Conceptions may engage us to that Affection to that Imitation of him and that Obedience to him which tends to the promotion of our Happiness God therefore acteth for his Glory when he discovers to the World those Excellencies and Perfections of his Nature which are just motives to the performance of that Duty which we owe unto him or when he doth display before us those imitable Perfections in which it is our Glory to be like him But then it farther is to be observed that God in the discovery of these Divine Perfections to the World designs as well the Benefit and Happiness of Man as the advancement of his Honour For when he doth discover all those Attributes which represent him Good and Merciful kind and obliging to the Sons of Men he doth it with design and in a manner very proper to lay the highest Obligations on us to Returns of Love and Gratitude and to engage us to that Imitation of his Goodness and Mercy to our fellow Creatures which renders us partakers of the Divine Nature and helpful to others in all their Exigencies and Distresses When he gives signal Demonstrations of his Almighty Power and of his great Wisdom he designs by this to teach us that he is able to foresee and to divert those Evils which may at any time befal us to rescue us from all our Miseries and to confer the greatest Blessings on his Servants that so he may encourage us to place our Trust in him at all times to repair by humble Suppliâ—ations to the Throne of Grace for suitable help in time of need and to serve him faithfully in expectation of his Favour and Protection When he manifests himself to be a God of Truth and Faithfulness one who will punctually perform his promises to and execute his Threats upon us he doth this chiefly to affright us from those Sins which make it necessary for his Justice to be severe upon us and to provoke us to the performance of those Duties to which he hath annexed the greatest Blessings When he informs us that his Holiness and Justice cannot permit the Wicked to escape his Vengeance or any upright Soul to want the tokens of his Love or the reward of his sincere Obedience his great design in all this is that Sin which is the rise of all our Miseries may be avoided and Holiness which is the true advancement and the best accomplishment of Humane Nature may be more earnestly pursued by us So that God's acting for his Glory is also acting for the Good of his most noble Creatures 't is only recommending himself to their good Liking and Affection that so he may the more effectually promote their Happiness Nor is his Will that we should act for his Glory any self-centring Principle terminating in himself but 't is a Principle of great
Good-will and kindness to Mankind and terminating in his Happiness Whereas Mr. N.'s account of God's Love his Will and Actings doth render him the most selfish Being that we can imagine one who can love nothing but himself will and do nothing but purely for himself Our Charity must be such as seeketh not our own things it must engage us not to seek our own but every Man anothers Good and to please him for his Good Our Friendship purely must respect the Welfare of our Friend and when we exercise our Charity or pretend Friendship purely from prospect of our own Advantage our Friendship becomes Mercenary and our Charity degenerates into Self-love And to this Charity and Friendship we are incited chiefly by the Example of our God and yet it seems his Love terminates only in himself and can be no other than the love of himself and how then can it oblige me to the forementioned Charity and Friendship to my Neighbour for his sake To this Question therefore Can God move us towards a Creature Can he move us from himself I Answer Yes he doth move us towards the Creatures by all those Appetites Affections and Desires he hath implanted in our Natures to them by all the Commands he hath laid upon us to pray for our daily Bread to be industrious to procure them and to bless him for them Does he not move the hungry Appetite to desire Meat the thirsty Drink the naked to desire Cloths the Poor supply of his Wants c. And doth he not in all these Cases move us towards the Creature Hath not God made these things the matter of his Promises and his Encouragements to Duty entailing upon Godliness the Promises of this Life and engaging to them who seek first the Kingdom of God that all other things shall be added to them We therefore are by him moved towards the Creature as a motive to the Enjoyment of himself And sure thus moving us to the Creature is not to move us from himself but to himself by means very proper to excite us to love obey and cleave unto him who doth thus load us with his Blessings and poureth his Benefits upon us as the whole Book of Psalms and the whole Law of Moses testifies The Love here discoursed of and recommended is the Love of a God that is of all that is Good of all that is Perfect of all that is Lovely of all that is Desirable in short of all that truly is and can any Love be too great or too high for such an Object Or rather doth he not deserve infinitely more than we or any of his Creatures can bestow upon him What can infinite Good be loved too much Or is any degree of Love too high for him who is infinitely lovely and who infinitely loves himself And why then should it be thought such a stretch of the Love of God to make it intire and exclusive of all other Loves Can we love God too much or Creatures too little To this I Answer First That what I have discoursed is sufficient to evince that this is such a stretch of the Love of God as renders it inconsistent with our Duty and Obligation to pray for any temporal Blessings which we want That it tends to depreciate the Gifts of God and to impair the sense of Divine Goodness in them to destroy all our Industry in our Callings and all pursuit of Temporal Enjoyments by our honest Labours That it removes the natural Foundation of all Injustice and cramps all charitable Beneficence That it casts a vile Contempt upon the Works both of Creation and of Providence And lastly that it casts this imputation upon the Just and Holy God that he hath made that our Sin which is Natural and Necessary As sure it is to desire Food when we are hungry that he will not allow us to desire what he knows we have need of It makes him to have planted in us natural Appetites and Desires which he intended we should gratifie and yet hath not permitted us to desire that which alone can gratifie them And sure if this Hypothesis do all or any of these things it by so doing must stretch this Duty of the Love of God beyond the bounds prescribed to it by our God and Saviour Secondly If God be all that truly is all that is not God truly is not and what is not can have no Love to God or any other thing So that this stretch of Metaphysicks destroys that Love he recommends Moreover to say that God is all that is Good is to contradict God himself who said of all the Creatures that he made that they were very Good To say that he is all that is lovely all that is desirable is to beg the Question Again that God deserves infinitely more than we can bestow upon him that an infinite Good cannot be loved too much i. e. more than he deserves is very true but not pertinent for we can be no more obliged to love God than we are to serve him as he deserves which we can never do For he deserves to be served answerably to the Reward that he hath promised but can we perform such Service He deserves Perfect and Angelical Obedience but are we therefore in this State of Imperfection obliged to it The Question is not What is too much for him if we could perform it but What he hath made our Duty and therefore doth expect we should perform Now hath he made it our Duty so to love him as not to love our selves not to love Health and Pleasure not to desire Food and Raiment or any other Blessing he hath promised as the Reward of our Obedience If not 't is evident that Duty of Affection which we owe unto him cannot be exclusive of all love of the Creature But Thirdly the Absurdity of this way of Arguing will best appear by the propounding of some Parallel Instances as 〈◊〉 The Messalians or Euchitae stretching those words of Christ which command us to pray always and not to faint and those of the Apostle pray without ceasing as Mr. N. doth the Command to Love God with all our Heart c. declared That they who would be saved must be continually employed in Prayer so as to do nothing else till they had found their Sins sensibly expelled by them and going out from them as an Evil Spirit and the Holy Ghost as sensibly entring into and dwelling in their Souls And this said they was the true Communion of Christians one with another Hence they declared themselves to be the Men who had wholly renounced the World left all things and had no Possessions upon Earth as Epiphanius saith of them And misunderstanding those Words of Christ Labour not for the meat that perisheth they held it unlawful to work for the sustaining of this present Life And therefore they stiled themselves Spiritual Men or the Poor in Spirit and spent that
time in Idleness and Sleep which was not spent in Prayer They also neglected both the Hearing and Reading the Word of God and contemned the use of the Sacraments as thinking That the Soul could not be purged by them but only by the Prayer they magnified so much Now as the Scriptures on which they grounded these Practices in their Grammatical Import are as full for Praying always without ceasing and against Labouring for the Meat that Perisheth as is the Text under contest for loving God exclusively of any Love of the Creature so is it easie to Harangue in Favor of these Hereticks after the manner of Mr. N. viz. The Duty which we recommend is the desire of Happiness and Salvation that is of all that is truly lovely and desirable of the truest Riches the Divinest Honours the most Ravishing Delights of the Vision of God in Glory the Enjoyment of him the being made like him and seeing him as he is And can any desire be too Great or too High for such an Object or rather doth it not deserve infinitely more than we are able to bestow upon it What can an Endless Happiness and Immense Glory be desired too much Why then should it be thought such a stretch of the Desire of Happiness to make it Intire and Exclusive of all Labour for the World Can we love Happiness too much or the World too little I appeal to the Judicious Reader whether the Argument of the Massalian Heretick be not as like to that of Mr. N. as one Egg is to another and whether it be not of equal strength with that which he hath here produced What he has more to say upon this Subject is directly levelled against those Persons if there be any such in the World who conceive the Love required in the Command to love our Neighbour as our selves is a love or desire our Neighbour as our Good which I have shewed to be a Contradiction in adjecto the desire of our Neighbour as our Good being not properly love of our Neighbour but our selves and therefore though some Divines do and reasonably may say that Mr. N.'s Exposition of the First Command renders it inconsistent with the Second which requires me to love my Neighbour as my self because it excludes me from the desire of those Creatures by which I may do good to him and give him the things needful for the Body as I do to my self yet I desire one Instance of one of those many who ever said that the Love of our Neighbour in this Precept signifies the desiring him as a Good or of those Objectors who are pleased to presume this that so he may in some measure account for his Imagination that the World runs so generally upon this Notion But though neither I nor I believe any Body else is concerned in any thing he said as it relates to that Particular yet because he so discourses on that Subject as seems to render it as absurd to Love or desire any other Creature as our Good I will single out and accommodate those Passages to this matter and then return an answer to them He therefore enquires thus Is it once to be thought that God who is Infinitely Good Infinitely desirable Infinitely deserving of our highest Affections nay of our whole Love and withal Infinitely able to satisfie and reward it should command us to love and desire a Creature as vain and infirm and as much a shadow as our selves Is it to be thought that he should first call us to himself and then as if he alone were not able to suffice for us and to satisfie the enlarged Appetites which he had given us should call in the Creatures to part of the Expence and send us from himself to them Are these thoughts worthy of God What means he by these Questions Does he not know that the same Jesus who said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Soul and Mind commanded us to say unto him Give us day by day our daily Bread And hath he not then commanded us to desire and so to love what he commandeth us daily to ask of him whom we thus love with all our Hearts Was it not usual with him when he had fed his Hearers with the Bread of Life the Food that abideth to Eternal Life to feed their Bodies also with his Creatures and so to send them from the one Food to the other as knowing well the Bread of Life was never designed to suffice for the Body or to satisfie those Bodily Appetites which he had given them Again does he not know that God commanded his own People to love and serve him with all their Hearts and Souls encouraging them to do so by this Promise that then he would give them Corn and Wine and Oil and they should eat and be full That the Blessed Jesus exhorts us to seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof and then all these things Meat Drink and Clothing should be added to us by our Heavenly Father who knoweth we have need of them Doth not St. Paul excite us to live Godly because Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of this Life Doth not the Psalmist say O fear the Lord all ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him The Young Lions do lack and suffer hunger but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing And again The Lord will give Grace and Glory and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly And hath not God by these Expressions first called us to himself and then sent us to his Creatures as his Blessings on our Obedience Do not those Promises suppose in us a Love of and a desire to enjoy the Blessings promised And then doth he not send us to these Creatures for satisfaction of those Appeties he hath implanted in us towards them As knowing Spiritual Nature was never designed to satisfie the Body and that these Creatures were by his Wisdom and Goodness purposely provided to satisfie our bodily Appetites so that this pompous Rhetorick serves only to Arraign the Providence of God in making us with Appetites which not be satisfied without the Creature and his Wisdom in drawing us to Love and serve him by the promise of these outward Blessings Our Conscience doth often upbraid to us the Love of the Creatures but never that I know of doth it reproach us for our indifferency towards them or prompt us to repent of it And indeed it would be a strange kind of Repentance for a Man to fall upon his knees and confess to God as a Sin that he had withdrawn all his Desires from his Creatures and fixed them upon Him I will suppose a Man to place his whole Affection upon God and so to love him with all his Heart Soul Mind and Strength as to withdraw his Love from all
hateful and the proper Object of our hatred then 't is plain we ought to hate none but him and him entirely Or to Argue backward we ought to hate nothing but what is hateful nothing is hateful but what is our hurt nothing is our hurt but what does us hurt nothing doth us hurt but what causeth pain in us nothing causeth pain in us saith Mr. N. but God therefore we are to hate nothing but God The Good Lady had urged something of this nature though not with that strength that I have given to the Argument let us see now what he Answers to it When you speak saith he of God's being the cause of pain either you mean as to this Life or as to the next if as to the next that has nothing to do with the Duty which we owe him here if as to this present Life the pain that God inflicts upon us here is only Medicinal and in order to our greater Good and consequently from a principle of kindness I grant the Pains of the next World have nothing to do with the Duty we owe to God any otherwise than as they are incentives to it that we may avoid them but yet they have something to do with his Argument for are not the Pains and Griefs of the Damned a modification of the Soul are not all modifications of the Soul immediately caused by God and by him only And must not then the Pains and Miseries of the Damn'd be according to this Philosophy immediately caused by God and by him only And if these Pains and Miseries be the hurt and evil which the Damn'd suffer is not that God who doth immediately cause them the immediate Author of their hurt and evil And if he only does them hurt he only by your Argument is their hurt and then he only is hateful and the proper Object of their hatred then 't is plain they ought to hate none but him and him entirely and then their hatred of him cannot be their Sin If then it be an absurdity to say the Damned ought to hate God entirely and him only his Argument and Hypothesis from which that absurdity so naturally flows must be absurd Whereas we who conceive that Mens Damnation is of themselves that they are their own Tormentors by their reflection on their own Actions that they have excluded themselves from the Beatifick Vision which would have made them happy by making themselves incapable of enjoying a God of infinite Purity that they have rendred themselves unworthy to be snatched out of the Flames of the Earth when all the things that are in it shall be burned up and so shall suffer in that Fire which is kept for the Day of Iudgment and of perdition of ungodly Men whilst the Just shall then be caught up into the Air and be for ever with the Lord. We I say are not at all concerned in this Objection though Mr. N. imagines that it lies equally against us Moreover is it true that all the Pains which God inflicts upon the Wicked in this Life are Medicinal and in order to their greater Good What thinks he of the Despair Horror the Agonies both of Soul and Body some desperately wicked Persons lie under at the hour of death Of the Pains the bloody Hector suffers in a Duel by a mortal Wound Of the wicked Soldier mortally wounded in the Field The horrid Criminal presently put upon the Rack and there exspiring The Atheist or Debauched Person taken away by a sudden stroke or by a violent Death Do they suffer these Pains in order to a greater Good Though I acknowledge Pain saith he to be as truly the effect of God as Pleasure yet it is not after the same manner the effect of God as Pleasure is Pleasure is the natural genuine and direct effect of God but Pain comes from him only indirectly and by accident for first 't is of the proper Nature of God to produce Pleasure as consisting of such essential Excellencies and Perfections as will necessarily beautifie and and make happy those who are by being in their true rational Order duly disposed for the Enjoyment of him but if this same excellent Nature occasion pain to other Spirits this is only indirectly and by accident by reason of their moral indisposition for so soveraign a Good Again when God causes Pleasure 't is because he wills it for it self and naturally delights in it as comporting with his primary design which is the Happiness of his Creatures but when he causes Pain 't is not that he wills it from within or for it self but only from without and for the sake of something else as it is necessary to the Order of his Justice for had there been no Sin there never would have been such a thing as Pain which is a plain Argument that God wills our Pleasure as we are Creatures and our Pain only as we are Sinners but now in measuring our Devoirs to God we are not to consider how he stands affected to us as Sinners but how he stands affected to us as Creatures Here it is plain the Good Man shifts the Scene deserts his Subject and his Argument at once that he may seem to avoid the Consequence which follows from it for evident it is that in his Sermon he was discoursing of those Pleasures and Pains only which by the impressions the Creatures made upon us were by God produced in us the Pleasures of the Senses the Eye the Palate the Smell Taste and Touch and the Pains incident to them and from these only is it that he makes his Inference That Creatures are not to be loved or desired at all as being not the Causes but the Occasions of these Pleasures and that God only is to be loved because he only causes them Now is this true of these sensual Pleasures of the Palate and the Throat and the Belly of the carnal Pleasures of the Men of the World of the Pleasures of Envy and the Pleasures wicked Men take not only in doing evil themselves but in seeing others do it of the Pleasure they take in Rioting in the day time that 't is of the proper Nature of God as consisting of such essential Excellencies and Perfections to produce them rather than to produce in us that Godly sorrow which works Repentance unto Life the pangs of the New Birth or those afflicting Pains he lays upon his Children for their profit to make them partakers of his Holiness and which are the Fruits of that Love which is the chief of his Perfections When God causeth Pleasure saith he he doth it because he wills it for it self and naturally delights in it as comporting with his primary design which is the Happiness of his Creatures does he mean the pleasure of tickling or of scraching when I have the Itch or the sensual Pleasures which the Drunkard finds in swallowing down his Liquor or the Glutton in
and so far entred into the methods of true Mortification as to be capable of Conviction and of having their minds wrought upon by the light and force of Reason And lastly he adds That Men are backward not only to pay that entire Love which they owe to God but even to acknowledge the Debt and are not only loath to obey the Command but even to understand it will use a thousand Arts and Devices to shift off and evade the genuine force of it and rather than fail will say That though God in the most plain and express terms calls for whole Love yet he means but a part of it Strange and amazing Partiality and Presumption But of this general Backwardness to receive the Sense of this plain Command as plain as Thou shalt have no other Gods but me I have already hinted an account in the former part of this Letter I shall not return that Answer to these reflecting Words which they deserve but shall content my self First To offer to Mr. N. some General Considerations which may be proper to move him upon second thoughts to abate him somewhat of his Confidence and be more moderate in his Censures of his Fathers and Brethren if not out of respect to them yet out of regard to his own dear Self who in his other Writings hath plainly and expresly taught that very Doctrine and Exposition which he now Condemns Secondly I shall further establish the common Exposition and confirm it by the clearest Evidence of Scripture and of Reason And Thirdly Shall endeavour to return an Answer to his pretended Demonstrations for his new elevated Sense of this Command And First Whereas he saith The common Interpreters sure could not but be sensible that herein they did not rise up to the Letter of the Text which manifestly requires a more elevated Sense Let me instruct him to consider whether Christian Charity will permit him thus peremptorily to pronounce that before him and Mr. Malbranch and all Commentators gave such a Sense of this great Commandment of which they could not but be sensible that it fell short of all Mens Duty or of what God required them to do that they might live and that they thus deviated from the Sense which the Text manifestly required that is that the Interpretation they delivered as the true import of the Text was contrary to the manifest Sense of it and to the inward Sentiments of their own Consciences Secondly Whereas he adds That they could not advance higher without building in the Air and were therefore forced to cramp the Sense of this great Commandment and to put such a Construction upon it not as the express words of it require but as their Hypothesis would bear And that only he and Mr. Malbranch have thought otherwise or any further Let me entreat him to consider whether it be reasonable to conceive that God left all Men ignorant of the true Grounds of this Command till he and Mr. M. appeared to instruct the World in the true meaning of it that though all Men were obliged by the light of Nature all Jews and Christians by the light of Scripture to love God with all their Hearts and Souls yet they had no just Ground or Reason so to do till he and Mr. M. bless'd the World with this new Invention that our Lord hath given us another reason of this Precept is evident from these words Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. And I hope he will not dare to say that he built Castles in the Air for want of his Philosophy or gave us only such a reason as forced us to cramp the Sense of this Commandment Thirdly Let me entreat him to consider the plain Consequences of this his singular Opinion and Interpretation of these words viz. That all Interpreters before him have taught all Men to love God less than he required of them by virtue of this great Law to do God great Injury and Injustice to defraud the Creator of what was due to him to cross the Order of Nature and resist the Will of its Great Author to be Idolaters i. e. to worship the Sun and to give every Creature a share in our Religious Acknowledgments to commit Spiritual Fornication and Adultery to Deifie and Idolize the Creature to do what is as much Idolatry as is that Relatiâ—e Worship which the Papists do ascribe to Images Now can he indeed believe all Christians and Jews of former Ages were and that all at present besides Mr. Malbranch and those few who embrace his Sentiments are Guilty of these horrid Crimes If not he must be so Uncharitable as to think they do not act according to their Principles or must confess that these things do not follow from them Fourthly When he saith his Exposition is so very evident that it is matter of just Admiration that any Rational and Considerate Person can with-hold his assent from it and that the reason why we do not see or seeing will not own it is because it thwarts our Passions Interests and Lusts Customs and Prejudices Because we have not purged our selves from the Prejudices of Sense disingaged our Hearts from the love of sensible Objects nor entred so far into the Methods of true Mortification as to be capable of Conviction That they who allow not of it are Guilty of strange and amazing Partiality and Presumption unwilling not only to obey the Command but to understand it and rather willing to shew a thousand Arts and Devices â—o shift off and evade the genuine force of it I say when he useth such Expressions let me entreat him to consider whether it doth become him thus to bespatter all his Adversaries and tell them to their faces if they will not yield assent to his odd Notion they must have Lusts and Passions which obstruct the Evidence of Truth to cause all his Fathers and Brethren who comply not with his Sentiments which scarce any of them do as Guilty of strange and amazing Partiality as Men not purged from the Prejudices of Sense not disingaged from the love of sensible Objects not entred so far into the Methods of true Mortification as to be capable of Conviction Fifthly Because it may be some Inducement to him to shew more moderation in his Censures of those that differ from him in this Matter to consider that the Great Mr. Norris was formerly of the same Opinion with them and that they differ no more from him than he now differs from his former self I shall proceed to shew that in his former Treatises he hath conspired with us in this matter For 1 st In his Idea of Happiness discoursing of the Degrees of the love of God he saith The Computation of Bellarmine is accurate enough who reckons Four The first is to love