Johannes Scott S. T. P. PRACTICAL DISCOURSES Concerning OBEDIENCE AND THE Love of God Vol. II. By IOHN SCOTT D. D. late Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-yard and S. Manship at the Ship near the Royal-Exchange in Cornhill MDCXCVIII To the Right Honorable DANIEL Earl of Nottingham MY LORD I Am very sensible that you are the known Favourer of Men of eminent Worth and Learning I only take this Opportunity of acquainting the World that You were so of the Author of these following Discourses that so you may receive in larger Measures those Tributes which are due to Publick Benefactors the Prayers and Praises of Mankind For they who have or shall be bettered by This great Author's Works are oblig'd in a peculiar Manner to remember that Right Honourable Person who by his Countenance did not only encourage him to be serviceable but did really endeavour to render him more useful to us by procuring for him a little Recess from the Toil and Labours of his weighty Employment Had this succeeded in all Humane Probability he had lived longer and then we should have seen that truly Pious and most sublime Design he intended to pursue and should have been well acquainted with that uncultivated part of Religion The Duties of Piety towards God And perhaps by Them we should have given a guess at the Praises and Hallelujahs of those blest Beings above when they had been managed with that Strength of Eloquence that Fervour of Spirit pois'd and temper'd with such a Judgment as his But he is gone to bear a part in the Heavenly Choir where if he knows what is done here below it will be a pleasing Prospect to my dear departed Friend to see Your Lordship and your Noble Family the Possessors and design'd Heirs of the Honours of both Worlds I am My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most devoted Servant HUMPHREY ZOUCH 1 JOHN V. 3 For this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous IN the first Verse the Apostle asserts that whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ that is so believes as to act suitable to his Belief is born of God he is become a Child of God by partaking of his Nature and stamped with his Likeness and every one that loveth him that begat i. e. God his Heavenly Father loveth him also that is begotten of him hath a true hearty Kindness for all that are God's Children And then in the second Verse by this saith he we know that we love the Children of God and consequently that we are born of God if we love God and keep his Commandments that is if we so love him as to keep his Commandments And indeed if we do not so love him we do not love him at all and consequently we do not love his Children nor are we his Children our selves of which he gives a full Proof in the Text for this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous In which Words you have First an Account of the Love of God what it is This is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and Secondly a Motive to engage us to the Practice of it and his Commandments are not grievous I begin with the first of these the Account of this Love of God what it is This is the Love of God that we keep his Commandments By the Love of God here we are not to understand God's Love to us but our Love to God as is plain by this because 't is placed in our keeping his Commandments This is the Love of God that is this is the natural Effect and proper Exercise of the Love of God for it is certain that keeping God's Commandments is not the Affection of Love to him but the Effect of it So that the Meaning of the Words is this this is the most genuine Expression and inseparable Effect of our Love of God that we obey his Laws And hence our Saviour makes this the proper Tryal and Proof of our Love to him If ye love me keep my Commandments John xiv 15 for this he tells us ver 23. is the necessary Consequence of our Love to him If any man love me he will keep my words i. e. this will most certainly be the Effect of his Love to me that he will be obedient to my Will And by this he plainly tells us he will judge of the Sincerity of our Friendship to him John xv 14 Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you From all which it is evident that the most proper and characteristical Expression of our Love to God is our keeping his Commandments And indeed considering that God is our Soveraign Lawgiver there are no Actions by which we can so naturally express our Affection to him as by those of Obedience and Submission to his Laws and therefore we find in Scripture that to love God and obey his Laws and to hate God and disobey them are generally used promiscuously for one another and that for very good reason for here our Love and Hatred of God are not considered as conversant about God as God in which sense perhaps there is no Creature in the World can be said to hate him but as conversant about him as Lord and Governour of the World as he gives Laws to Mankind whereby he commands them what to do and forbids them what to avoid And in this Sense to love God is to love him as Governing and Commanding and as such we can no otherwise express our Love to him but by keeping his Commandments But for the farther clearing of this I shall in Prosecution of the Argument do these two Things I. Shew you that wheresoever the Love of God is it will most certainly prove a Principle of Obedience to him II. That the Love of God is in it self the most perfect and effectual Principle of Obedience 1. That wheresoever the Love of God is it will most certainly prove a Principle of Obedience to him And this I doubt not will evidently appear if we consider that all the natural Expressions of our Love as it is terminated upon God do of their own accord finally resolve themselves into Obedience to his Will For Love wheresoever it is hearty and sincere always expresses it self in such Symptoms as these 1. In industriously endeavouring to resemble the Beloved 2. In conforming the Will Designs and Intentions to the Will and Designs and Intentions of the Beloved 3. In a solicitous Care of avoiding those Things which may any ways displease or distaste the Beloved 4. In a chearful Readiness to undergo any thing be it never so hard or difficult for the sake of the Beloved All which Expressions of our Love when it is terminated upon God do most naturally run into Obedience to his Will 1. If we love God our Love will
place having obtained eternal Redemption for us And in Virtue of this Blood which he poured out as a Sacrifice of our Sins upon the Cross he now pleads our Cause at the right Hand of his Father and ever lives to make Intercession for us So that you see the Death of Christ had in it all the necessary Ingredients of a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the World and having so what a prodigious Instance is it of the Love of God to us that rather than destroy us he would give up his own Son to be a Sacrifice for us I do not deny but if he had pleased he might have pardoned and saved us without any Sacrifice at all but he knew very well that if he should do so it would be much worse for us He knew that if he should pardon our Sins without giving us some great Instance of his implacable Hatred of them we should be too prone to presume upon his Lenity and thereupon to return again to our old Vomit and Uncleanness and therefore though it would have been more for the Ease and Interest of his blessed Son to have pardoned us without any Sacrifice at all yet such was his Love to us that because he foresaw that this Way of pardoning would prove fatal and dangerous to us he was resolved that he would not do it without being moved thereunto by the greatest Sacrifice the World could afford him and that no less a Propitiation should appease his Wrath against Offenders than the Blood of his own Son that so by beholding his Severity against our Sins in this unvaluable Sacrifice of the Blood of his Son we might be sufficiently terrified from returning again to them by the very same Reason that moved him to pardon them that we might not think light of that which God would not forgive without such a vast Consideration but might tremble to think of repeating those Sins the Price of whose Pardon was the dearest Blood of the Son of God Hence is that of the Apostle Rom. iii. 25 26. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness that is his righteous Severity against Sin for the remission of Sins that are past through the forbearance of God to declare I say at this time his Righteousness that he might be just that is sufficiently severe against the Sins of Men so as to warn them from returning and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus So that now he hath reduced Things to an excellent Temper having so provided that neither himself nor we might be damnified that we might not suffer by our doing again what we have done and that he might not suffer by our doing still the same that he might be what he is a pure and a holy Saviour and that we might be what we ought dutiful and obedient Subjects Now what an amazing Instance of God's Love is this that he should so far consult the good of his Creatures as to Sacrifice his own Son to their Benefit and Safety How inexpressibly must he needs love us that for our sakes could behold his most dearly beloved Son hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Blood forsaken by his Friends despised and spit on by his Barbarous Enemies that could hear him complain in the Bitterness of his Soul My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And yet suffer him to continue under that unsufferable Agony till he had given up his white and innocent Soul an unspotted Sacrifice for the Sins of the World Yea that notwithstanding the infinite Love that he bore him and the piteous Moans that his Torments forced from him was so far from relieving him that for our sakes he inflicted upon him the utmost Misery that human Nature could bear that so having an experimental Sense of the most grievous Suffering that Mankind is liable to and being touched with the utmost Feeling of our Infirmities and in all Points tempted like unto us he might carry a more tender Commiseration for us to Heaven and know the better how to pity us in all our Griefs and Extremities For in all things it behoved him saith the Apostle to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest Heb. ii 17 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth and let all the Creation attend with Astonishment to this stupendous Story of Love which so far exceeds all the heroick Kindnesses that ever any Romance of Friendship thought of that no less Evidence than that of Miracles could have ever rendred it credible Well then might the Apostle say herein is love not that we loved God for after such vast Obligations this is no great Wonder but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our Sins 1 Joh. iv 10 And thus you see what an unspeakable Instance of the Love of God his giving his only begotten Son is I shall now conclude this Argument with a few practical Inferences from the whole 1. From hence I infer what monstrous Ingratitude it would be in us to deny any Thing to God that he demands at our Hands who hath been so liberal to us as to give up his only begotten Son for our sakes O blessed God! If it were possible for us to do or suffer for thee a thousand Times more than at present we are able what a poor Return were this for the Gift of thy Son that unspeakable Expression of thy Goodness And can we deny thee any Thing after such an Instance of Love especially when thy Demands are so gentle and reasonable When he requires nothing of us but what is for our good and the Requital he demands for all his Love to us is only that we should love our selves and express this Love in doing those Duties which he therefore enjoyns because they tend to our Happiness and avoiding those Sins which he therefore forbids because he knows they will be our Bane and Poyson Can any of my Lusts be as dear to me as the only begotten Son was to the Father of all things And yet he parted with him out of Love to me and shall not I part with these for the Love of him How can we pretend to any Thing that is modest or ingenuous tender or apprehensive in humane Nature when nothing will oblige us no not this astonishing Love of God in sending his Son from Heaven to live and die Miserably for our sakes Lord What do thy holy Angels think of us How do thy blessed Saints resent our Unkindness towards thee Yea how justly do the Devils themselves reproach and upbraid our Baseness who bad as they are were never so much Devils yet as to make an ungrateful Return of such a vast Obligation 2 ly From hence I infer how desperate our Condition will be if we defeat the End of this Gift of the Son of God and render it ineffectual to us For God hath no
the same without the least Addition or Substraction And yet when Things were in this Posture when he had no Self-interest to serve upon us no Motive but his own Benignity to endear him to us then did he begin to love us and to express the Earnings of his Heart and Bowels towards us And now how can we think of this and not be affected with it How can we any longer avoid being captivated with the Thoughts of such a generous Kindness Consider O my Soul thy God gains nothing by all his Love to thee but thou gainest infinitely by thy Love to him by loving him thou glorifiest thy self and crownest thy own Desires with Happiness But he is not one jot the better for loving nor would he have been one jot the worse if he had never loved thee at all and yet out of pure generous Goodness he loves thee a thousand times more than thou lovest thy self or art ever able to love him and canst thou be such a wretched Thing so lost to all that is ingenuous and modest as not to return him Love for Love 5 thly He began to love us to such a Degree as to think nothing too dear or too good for us Considering how little we deserve his Love how much we have deserved his Hatred and how uncapable we are to make him any valuable Requital it is sufficient Matter of Wonder that ever he could prevail with himself to love us in the least Degree but that in the midst of so many Reasons to the contrary he should not only begin to love but to be so liberal of his Kindness to us is Matter of just Astonishment It was a mighty Kindness in him to create us what we are and make such a plentiful Provision for our comfortable Subsistence here for wheresoever we direct our Eyes whether we reflect them inwards upon our selves we behold his Goodness to occupy and penetrate the Root and Center of our Beings and discern the lively Characters of his Love in the incomparable Frame and Structure of our Natures or whether we extend them abroad towards the things about us we may perceive our selves like Fortunate Islands surrounded with an Ocean of Blessings containing whatsoever is necessary for our Sustenance convenient for our Use and pleasant for our Enjoyment And is it not wondrous Love in him to make such liberal Provisions for such undeserving Guests But this is the smallest Part of his Kindness for he hath inspired us with immortal Minds and Stamp'd them with the most fair Impresses of his own Divinity viz. a Knowledge of Truth and a Love of Goodness and a forward Capacity of the highest Perfection and purest Happiness and to fill and gratify these our noble Faculties and Capacities he hath prepared for us a Heaven of immortal Joys and furnished it with all the Delights that this our Heaven-born Mind is capable of and lest we should fall short of it he hath sent his blessed Son from Heaven to reveal it to us and shew us the Way thither to die for our Sins and obtain and ratify the Promise of our Pardon thereby to encourage us to return to our Duty and Allegiance without which we are incapable of ever enjoying that beatifical State And lest all this should not be sufficient he is always present with us to promote our Happiness present by his Providence to reclaim by his Angels to sollicit us and by his Holy Spirit to excite and co-operate with our Endeavours So extreamly careful is he not to be defeated of his kind Intentions to make us everlastingly happy O Blessed God! To what a Degree must thou love us who thinkest none of these Things too dear and good for us That dost not think thy Son too good to redeem us thy Spirit to Sanctify thy everlasting Heaven to Crown and Reward us And now can our Hearts hold when we think of this Can we be cold and indifferent in the midst of such a vigorous Flame Good God! What are we made of What senseless stony stupid Souls do we carry about us that can be Love-proof against so many Charms and Endearments that can listen to so many Wonders of Love with such unconcerned such unaffected Minds Methinks if we had but the common Sense and Ingenuity of Men in us it would be impossible for us in the midst of so much Love not to be melted into a reciprocal Kindness 6 thly And lastly He so began to love us as to condescend by all the Arts of Importunity to court us to accept of his Love That notwithstanding all our Unworthiness he should begin to love us and that to so strange a Degree is a most amazing Instance of the infinite Benevolence of his Nature but that he should condescend to address himself to us to court and woo us as he doth to accept of his Love and to be as happy as he would have us is enough to astonish the most insensible Soul and even to dissolve a Heart of Rock into Love For thus the Scripture in the most pathetick Strains describes the Addresses of this great Lover of Souls borrowing Metaphors to express his Love to us from all that is kind and loving in the Creation even from the most melting Passions in Mankind from the Relentings of Fathers and Yearnings of Mothers Bowels towards their dearest Off-spring It paints him in all the charming Postures of an imploring beseeching and importunate Lover wooing and intreating us to be happy even with Tears of Pity in his Eyes with Charms of Love in his Mouth and Tenders of Mercy in his Hands And when with all the Rhetorick of his Love he can't prevail with us to live it represents him weeping at our Funerals and like a tender-hearted Judge pronouncing our Sentence with the Tears in his Eyes By which Metaphorical Descriptions he represents to us his infinite Concern for our Happiness how much his Heart is set upon it and how hardly he can bear a Defeat in his kind and merciful Intentions towards us For what but an infinite Love could ever have made the King of Heaven and Earth to stoop so low to his rebellious Subjects as to beseech them to lay down their Weapons of Hostility with which they can injure none but themselves and to listen to his Terms of Mercy and accept of his Crowns and everlasting Preferments One would have thought it had been enough for him barely to have told us how he loved us how willing he was to Pardon and Advance us and that this had been enough for ever to recommend him to the dearest Affections of his Creatures but that he should moreover condescend to supplicate our Acceptance to beseech us not to spurn his Love and frustrate its Designs of Mercy to us Lord how can we think of this without being all inflamed with Love to thee 'T is true he doth not come in Person to us because we are not able to bear the immediate Approaches of his Glory
should not perish but have everlasting life I. I begin with the first of these viz. the Greatness of the Gift by which the Greatness of his Love to us is measured God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave him that is he delivered him up from out of his own Bosom and everlasting Embraces for so Eph. v. 2 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gave himself for us or delivered up himself for us for so we render the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was delivered for our offences Rom. iv 25 Now what a stupendous Expression of God's Love this was will appear by considering these six Things which are all of them expressed or implied in the Text 1. That he gave him up who was not only the greatest but the dearest Person to him in the whole World 2. That he gave him up for Sinners 3. That he gave him up for a whole World of Sinners 4. That he gave him up to become a Man for Sinners 5. That he gave him up to be a miserable Man for Sinners 6. That he gave him to be a Sacrifice for the Sins of Sinners that so he might not only with more Effect but with more Security to us interceed for our Pardon 1. The Greatness of God's Love and Goodness towards us appears in this that he gave up for our sakes not only the greatest but the dearest Person to him in the whole World for as the Text tells you it was his only begotten Son Which Phrase doubtless imports a much higher signification than his being begotten in the Virgins Womb by the Overshadowing of the Holy Ghost For though it cannot be denied but in Scripture he is called the Son of God sometimes upon the Account of this his divine Generation in the Virgins Womb and sometimes upon the Score of his being ordained by God to the Messiaship sometimes because he was raised by God from the Dead and sometimes because he was installed by him into his Mediatorial Kingdom Yet upon neither of these Accounts can he be properly called the only begotten Son for upon the three last Accounts sundry others have been as properly begotten by God as our Saviour some having been installed by him into great and eminent Offices others raised from the Dead others truly ordained by him his Messiah's or anointed Ones so that upon neither of these Accounts can he be stiled the only begotten Son others having been thus begotten as well as himself And as for the first his being conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Virgins Womb this was not sufficient neither to intitle him the only begotten because though it was indeed a miraculous Production yet was it not so much above the Production of the first Man as to place him in that singular Eminence For the forming of Adam out of the Substance of the Earth was altogether as miraculous a Production as the forming of Christ out of the substance of the Woman and therefore since Adam is called the Son of God Luk. 3.38 because God immediately formed him of the substance of the Earth he had thereby as good a Right to the Title of God's only begotten Son as Christ himself had because God immediately formed him of the substance of a Woman Wherefore his peculiar Right above all others to this glorious Title of God's only begotten Son must necessarily be founded upon some higher Reason than this that is upon some such Reason as is wholly peculiar to himself For if he be really and truly God's only begotten Son all other Persons whatsoever must necessarily be excluded from that Claim and consequently he must be so begotten of God as no other Person is or ever was And to be so begotten of God is to be begotten by him by a proper and natural Generation which is nothing else but a vital Production of another in the same Nature with him from whom it is produced even as a Man begets a Man and every Animal begets another of the same Kind and Nature with it self And thus to be begotten of God is to be begotten into the same divine Nature with himself to derive or communicate from him the infinitely perfect Nature and Essence of a God And in this Sense only our blessed Saviour is the only begotten Son of the Father as being generated by him from all Eternity into the same Nature and communicating from him his own infinite Essence and Perfections in which sense he is truly the only begotten Son because in this Sense and in this only none is or was or ever shall be begotten of the Father but himself When therefore it is said that he gave his only begotten Son the Meaning is this he gave up that infinitely great and dear Son of his that is his natural Image and Resemblance that only Son to whom from all Eternity he hath communicated his own most perfect Essence and Nature If then it was so great an Instance of Abraham's Faith and ardent Love of God at his Command to offer up his only Son Isaac a Son who though how hopeful soever yet who fell infinitely shorter of the Perfection of our Saviour than the Light of the Glow-worm doth of the Light of the Sun what an astonishing Miracle of Love was it in the great Father of the World to give up his only begotten Son a Son whom he had begotten in his own divine Nature and to whom he had communicated all the infinite Perfections of his own Being a Son who was the most perfect Image of himself who was infinitely powerful and wise and good and differed from him in nothing but only in being his Son who had the Fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him and whom being infinitely perfect as himself he loved as infinitely as his own Person and consequently could as easily have given up himself for us as he did that dearly Beloved in whom his Soul was so well pleased Who but a God of infinite Love and immeasurable Inclination to do good to his Creatures would have given them such an inestimable Jewel out of his Bosom a Jewel wherein all the Brightness of the Divinity did sparkle and which upon that Account was as dear and precious to him as his own Life And hence we find the Apostle valuing the Greatness of God's Love to us by the Greatness and Dearness of the Person whom he gave up for our sakes in this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World that we might live through him 1 Joh. iv 9 And indeed without this Consideration of his being the only begotten Son of God by eternal Generation and Communion of Nature with him God's Love in giving him up for us would not be comparably so considerable as it is For if according to the Doctrin of the Socinians he should only have caused a Man to be born for us after another manner than
more Sons to bestow upon us he being the only begotten of his Father Heaven and Earth are not able to furnish him with such another Gift to bestow upon us and if he should lay a Tax upon all his Creation to raise one great Contribution to the Happiness of Mankind and exact the utmost of every Creature that it is able to Contribute it would all fall infinitely short of what he hath done for us in this inestimable Gift of his own Son So that if this prove ineffectual it is beyond the Power of an omnipotent Bounty to relieve us For though God can do all Things that can be well and wisely done and do not imply a Contradiction yet this can be no Relief at all to us who reject his Son and refuse to be made happy in the gracious Method which he hath prescribed to us For after this mighty Gift of his own Son to save us according to the Method of his Gospel there remains nothing more to be done for us but either to save us whether we will or no or else to make us happy in our Sins and save us notwithstanding our Continuance in them the former of which can neither be well nor wisely done because by saving us against our Wills he must deal with us in such a Way as is repugnant to that Law of Liberty that is implanted in our Natures and use us not as Free but as Necessary Agents And if considering all things it was best and wisest that he should make us free Agents then it can neither be well nor wise to govern us as necessary ones since by so doing he must alter the Course of our Nature and consequently swerve and decline from what is best and wisest which would be to do Violence to the Perfection of his own Nature And then as for the latter he cannot do it because it implies a Contradiction For to make Men happy in their Sins is to make them happy in their Miseries Misery being as inseparable from Sin as Heat is from Fire and as intimately related to it as the Son is to the Father and consequently he may as possibly make a Father without a Son as a Sinner without Misery When therefore God hath done all for us that can possibly be done and we by our own Obstinacy have rendred all ineffectual we are beyond the Power of Remedy and must necessarily perish in our Sins And when we have no other Hope to depend on but this that the All-wise God will undo his own Workmanship and unravel our Nature by governing us contrary to the most wise Constitution of it or that the All-powerful God will effect Impossibilities and do that for us which is not an Object of Power how deplorable and desperate must our Condition be Wherefore as you would not run your selves beyond the Reach of all Mercy and excommunicate your own Souls from all Hope of Salvation be now at last persuaded to comply with Christ's Coming which was to reduce you from the Error of your Ways and to bring you to a serious Repentance JOHN III. 16 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life IN these Words you have the Love of God measured by a twofold Standard first by the Greatness of the Gift which he hath bestowed upon the World God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son Secondly by the blessed End for which he did bestow him that whosoever believeth in him should not perish c. The first of these I have already gone through and now I shall proceed to the Second viz. The blessed End for which he gave his only begotten Son That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life In which Words you have also two very great Instances of God's infinite Love and good Will to Mankind the First is his imposing upon us such a gentle and easie and merciful Condition That whosoever believeth in him Secondly His proposing such a vast Reward to us upon our performing of this Condition I begin with the first viz. His imposing upon us such a gentle and easie and merciful Condition That whosoever believeth in him should not perish In the Management of which I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you what it is that is included in this Condition whosoever believeth in him 2. How good God hath been to us in making the Condition which he hath imposed upon us so gentle and merciful 1. What is it that is included in this Condition To which I answer in general that believing in Christ doth not only denote a naked Assent to the Truth of this Proposition That he is the Son of Cod and the Messenger of Gods Mind and Will to the World and the Saviour of Mankind but that it also includes whatsoever is naturally consequent thereunto For thus it is very ordinary with the Scripture to express the natural Effects and Consequents of things by their Causes and Principles This is the love of God saith the Apostle that we keep his Commandments 1 Jo. v. 3 whereas in strictness of Speaking our keeping his Commandments is only the Effect or Consequence of our loving him So Prov. viii 13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil whereas indeed this is only the Effect or Consequence of the Fear of the Lord. Thus by knowing and hearing and remembring of God the Scripture usually expresses the consequent Effects of them Thus Act. xxii 14 The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his Will that is that thou mayst not only know it but by thy Knowledge mayst be suitably affected with it for it was not to a bare contemplative Knowledge of it that St. Paul was chosen and then it follows and see that Just one and shouldst hear the voice of his Mouth that is that hearing the Voice of his Mouth thou shouldst thereby be induced to obey it for he was not meerly to hear Christ speaking to him out of the Heavens but that hearing him he might submit to his Will and become his Apostle to the World Many other Places I might easily give you where the natural Effects and Consequents are in Scripture expressed by their Causes and Principles And thus also Faith or Believing whensoever it is used in Scripture to signify the Condition of the Gospel-Covenant always imploies its natural Effects and Consequents that is sincere and universal Obedience to those Rules of Holy Living which the Gospel prescribes for this is the most natural Effect of our believing in Jesus Christ. And hence it is called the obedience of Faith Rom. xvi 26 that is the Obedience which springs from Faith as from its Cause and Principle And accordingly Rom. x. 16 you find that to believe and to obey the Gospel signifies one and the same Thing But they have not all obeyed the Gospel saith he for Esaias saith Lord who hath believed our report that is who hath believed it so
their Testimony by laying down their Lives for it which was as high a Confirmation as could possibly have been given of the Truth of it But lest after all the World should suspect them God also furnished them with the Gift of Miracles and continued that Gift as an Heirlome to their Successors for Three Hundred Years together that so as the Testimony of the first Eye-witnesses was confirmed not only by their Martyrdoms but by their Miracles also so it might still be handed down from them through the successive Generations in the same infallible manner till it was spread over all the World and needed no farther Martyrdoms or Miracles to confirm it O blessed God! What care hast thou taken first to provide and then to secure the Evidences of our holy Religion that all Generations might have sufficient Motives of Credibility and that Mankind might still have abundant Reason to believe in thy Son to the End of the World when they shall see him come down from Heaven to Judgment How easie therefore hath God rendred the Condition of our Salvation to us when he hath not only rendred the Performance of it so necessarily consequent to our believing in Jesus but also to beget this Belief in us hath given us such abundant Evidence How can we sufficiently admire and adore his Goodness that hath been so infinitely solicitous to secure our Happiness and hath so contrived Things that we cannot heartily believe his Gospel and not be persuaded by it to comply with the Terms of our Salvation nor yet impartially consider the Evidence of his Gospel and not heartily believe it And yet as if all this were not enough 5 thly And lastly to render this Belief operative and effectual he hath engaged himself to assist actuate and enliven it by his own immediate Concurrence Provided we use our own honest Endeavour he hath assured us again and again that he will give his Holy Spirit to every one that asks that he will work in us to will and to do if we will but take care to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling and that to him that hath i. e. makes an honest Improvement of that Strength that he hath it shall be given and he shall have more abundantly So that though one would have thought he had done sufficiently for us before in giving us such abundant Evidence to beget in us an hearty Belief of his Gospel and such prevalent Motives to persuade us to submit to it and comply with his gracious Proposals yet such was his Goodness to us such his importunate Care of our Welfare that he could not stop here nor think that yet he had done enough for us till by an irrepealable Promise he had obliged himself to us to co-operate with us and by the immediate Influences of his Grace to bless and succeed our honest Endeavours So that we can no sooner attempt our own Restauration no sooner set our selves in the way to our Happiness but the good God is immediately present with us exciting our Fath fixing our Consideration animating and encouraging our poor Endeavours and supplying us with all manner of Grace and Assistance that our State and Necessities require Nay and many and many a Time while we are Sleeping on in our wretched sinful Security he comes in Pity to visit us and ever and anon suggests good Thoughts to our Minds to rouse and awake us out of those fatal Slumbers to enliven our Faith and call up our Consideration nay and oftentimes he doth so urge and second and repeat those Thoughts to us that by being so haunted with their Importunities we are forced to fix our Minds on them whether we will or no. And though we like ungrateful Wretches do many times stifle his good Motions and turn a deaf Ear to his Calls and gracious Invitations to Happiness yet doth he not presently give over but whilst we are running away from him we hear a Voice behind us calling after us to return and though we still run on yet still he follows us with his Importunities through the whole Course of our sinful Life till either he hath brought us back or we have run our selves past all Hope of Recovery These are Things I dare say that every Man in the World one Time or other hath had sensible Experience of And is not this a strange Condescention of Goodness to see the God of Heaven and Earth thus courting and wooing a Company of impotent Rebels to lay down their Arms and accept his Grace and his everlasting Preferments And though they reject his Motions and stop their Ears to those still Whispers of his that secretly invade their Souls yet to consider how he still solicits and importunes them as if he would take no Denyal and were resolved not to let them alone till he had persuaded them to be happy O good God! what prodigious Stories of Love are these What strange amazing Condescentions to thy wretched undeserving Creatures And now after all this what can the Lord our God do more for us that is consistent either with his own Wisdom or with the Freedom of our Natures He hath done all that can be done to draw us to Heaven and if that will not do it is by no Means fit that he should drag us thither since it would be a most mean unreasonable Condescention in him to force us to be happy when we are unwilling to accept it and to prostitute the Reward of Piety and Virtue to those that scorn and reject it And now to conclude this Argument from hence I infer how monstrously ungrateful those Persons are who complain of the Difficulty and Burthensomeness of this gentle and merciful Condition of our Salvation When in so many Instances it is apparent how merciful God hath been in imposing such a Condition upon us In the Name of God what would you have Sirs would you have Heaven drop into your Mouths while you lie still and do nothing Or can you think it is fit that so vast a Reward should be prostituted to the lazy Wishes of such Drones and Sluggards as do not think it worth the labouring for That those golden Fruits should hang down from Heaven to us on an overladen Bow to be cropt by every idle Wanton Hand that will stretch forth it self to take and eat it Surely no reasonable Creature can be so senseless as to entertain such a wild and fond Conceit Well then would you have God admit of such a Condition of Salvation as includes in it a Licence to enjoy your Lusts and gives you Liberty to be as wicked as you please But alas if God should be so fond of your Salvation as to offer Violence to his own Nature and Government by yielding to your Sins and granting you a free Dispensation to enjoy them yet it is impossible in the Nature of the Thing because your Salvation will not consist with it For to be saved from Misery whilst we
into the Flames of Hell So careful hath the good God been to plot and contrive for the Welfare of his Creatures that he would not so much as pardon them when they had offended him but in such a Way as was most for their Security and Good 3 dly His consenting that his own Son should submit himself to this Suffering is another great Instance of his Goodness towards us in this method of pardoning us That he should not only admit of a Sacrifice to bear our Transgressions and suffer in our Stead but that himself should provide one for us and such a one too as his own most dear and precious Son is such a Miracle of Love and Goodness as the whole Creation cannot parallel For though Mankind had provoked him to that Height that none but a God of infinite Patience could have born it yet such was his Unwillingness to inflict that direful Punishment upon them which he had justly threatned and they had justly deserved that notwithstanding all their Demerits he was still vehemently inclined to be propitious to them But then how to save them and at the same Time so to manifest his Severity against their Sins as was needful to preserve the Authority and Honour of his Laws that had threatned Destruction to them was the great Difficulty for should he have wholly omitted the Punishment he would have very much undervalued the Authority of his Laws in the Esteem of his Subjects the main security of their Authority being the Punishment annexed to them but on the contrary should he have exacted the utmost of the Punishment he must have destroyed the whole Race of Men we being all Offenders in his Sight In this Extremity therefore that he might pardon such a World of Sinners with safety to his Government it was highly necessary for him to exhibit to the World some dreadful Example of his Severity against them such as might be sufficient to prevent Offenders from taking any Encouragement from his pardoning them to offend again But to make a Sinner such a great Example of his Severity against the Sins of others was impossible because his own Sins may deserve the utmost Severity that God can inflict upon him and therefore among our selves who were all Sinners there was no Person could be found fit to be made such an Example of his Severity against the Sins of the whole World And if an innocent Angel should have freely offered up himself to bear our Punishment and Suffer in our Stead his Suffering in our Room would not have so sufficiently expressed Gods Severity against the Sins of a whole World of Sinners as was convenient for what great Severity would it have been to have exacted the suffering of one innocent Angel in lieu of that eternal Punishment that was due to a whole World of Men Wherefore it being highly convenient that the Dignity of the Person who suffered for us should be such as might render his Suffering in some Degree proportionable to the Punishment due to our Sins that so his Suffering in our stead might be as exemplary to the World as if we our selves had suffered to the utmost of our Desert and there being no Creature of that Dignity either in Heaven or Earth in this Extremity the eternal Son of God himself interposes and freely offers to unite himself to our Natures and therein to suffer in our Stead upon Condition that on our unfeigned Repentance and Amendment a free Charter of Pardon might be granted for all our past Provocations So that now an Expedient being proposed by which God might both pardon our Sins and sufficiently manifest his Severity against them to secure the Authority of his Laws and deter us from sinning again though he saw how dear an Expedient it would prove that it would cost him the most precious Blood of his own Son yet such was his tender Pity towards us so great his Unwillingness to ruin us forever that he freely complyed with the Motion and consented that his Son should be sacrificed for the Sins of the World And hence it is said that he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all Rom. viii 32 And the Reason why he deliverd him up as he tells us v. 3 of the same Chapter was to condemn Sin in the Flesh that is to pronounce in the Suffering of his own Son for it what a dreadful Punishment it deserved and how much his Soul was incensed against it that would not pardon it without such a mighty Propitiation How inexpressibly gracious therefore hath God been to us that when for the securing the Authority of his Laws it was so necessary to condemn our Sins rather than condemn them in our own personal Punishment he should chuse to condemn them in the sufferings of his own Son It was a great Instance of his Goodness towards us to admit of another to suffer for us in our stead but to admit of his own Son who is the Darling of Heaven and the Delight of his Soul and not only so but freely to give and deliver him up for us and amidst all the yearnings of his fatherly Bowels towards him not to spare his precious Life when it was to be made the Price of our Redemption is such a Miracle of Love as transcends all Hyperboles 4 ly and lastly his choosing to grant Pardon to us upon the Sufferings of his Son as a Sacrifice for our Sins is also another great Instance of his Goodness to us in this Way of pardoning us For the End of granting Pardon to Sinners upon their Repentance being to encourage them to repent it was highly convenient to grant it to them in such a Way and upon such Reason as might most effectually assure them thereof And considering what was the general Persuasion of Mankind in this Matter there was no such effectual Way to secure them of Pardon upon their Repentance as this of granting Pardon to them upon the Motive of a Sacrifice for their Sins For however it came to pass I know not but it was a Principle generally received by Men of all Nations and Religions that to appease the incensed Divinity it was necessary First that some Sacrifice should be made to him for their Sins and then that some high Favourite of his should intercede with him in their Be half upon which were founded those two great Rights of Propitiatory Sacrifices and worshiping of Demons which made up a great Part of all the Heathenish Religions in the World For as for Propitiatory Sacrifices they were generally used not only by the barbarous but by the most civiliz'd Heathens which Sacrifices they devoted unto God to be their Proxies in Punishment to undergo the Punishment that was due to them for their own Sins And hence is that of the antient Poet Cum sis ipse nocens moritur cur Victima pro te When thou thy self art the Offender for what Reason should the Victim die for thee And
love one another and so there would be no Need of the Apostles Counsel and then the Words will be wholly impertinent to the Argument which as I have shewed is to excite us to the Love of God and thereby to engage us to love one another but what need he excite us to do that which he himself confesses we did already If therefore we render the Word subjunctively as it seems most reasonable we should this will be the Sense of the Text We are bound in duty to love God because he first loved us according to which Sense here is First a Duty We ought to love God Secondly a Reason of it because he first loved us I. I begin with the Duty We ought to love him In handling of which I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you what it is to love God 2. In what Degrees and Measures we are bound to love him And in explaining what this Love of God is I shall shew you First Wherein the Being and Essence of it consists Secondly What are its essential Chararacters and Properties 1. Wherein the Being and Essence of our Love of God consists To which I answer in general that this Love of God consists in a rational fixed affecting Delight and Complacency in the divine Goodness and Perfections But that we may the better understand the Nature of this heavenly Virtue and more exactly distinguish it from those wretched Counterfeits that commonly usurp its Name and are too to often mistaken for it it will be necessary to explain the several Terms whereof its Definition is composed 1. Therefore I say 't is a Delight and Complacency 2. It is a rational one 3. A fixed 4. An affecting one 5. 'T is terminated on the divine Goodness and Perfections 1. The Love of God consists in Delight and Complacency And indeed this is the proper Act of Love as it is distinguished from all other Passions For we find by experience that the first Act of our Minds upon the Apprehension of a lovely Object is Delight and Complacency in the View or Contemplation of it and when any amiable Object presents it self to our Sense or to our Minds or Fancies it causes our Thoughts to pause and stay themselves a while upon it till we have viewed it round about and drawn its Picture in our Minds and when we have done the very first Expression of our Love to it is to be well pleased with the Contemplation of it and while we review it over and over to be sweetly ravished and delighted with the charming Prospect of its Beauty And from this prime and essential Act of Love arises all those consequent Affections of Hope Benevolence and Desire of Fruition For the reason why we wish well to hope for or desire to enjoy any Object is because we are well-pleased with it and do find a sweet Content and Satisfaction in that Picture or Idea of it which we have drawn upon our own Minds So that the very Essence of Love you see consists in a Well-pleasedness arising from the apprehended Goodness and Congruity of the Thing beloved and 't is meerly by Accident that there is any other Emotion intermingled with this grateful Affection For if it were not for the Want of what we love if there were no Distance between us and the Objects of our Affection our Love would be all but one pure continued Act of Complacency and Delight for if all our Needs were fully satisfied we should love without either Desire or Hope both which imply Want and Absence from the Objects of our Love which is a plain Evidence that Complacency is the very Essence of Love since there may be Love without Hope or Desire or any other Passion mingled with it but without Complacency there can be none 'T is true the Degrees of Love's Complacencies are much greater in the Fruition of its Objects than they are in the Pursuit of them but still 't is of the same Kind for 't is the Delight we take in an Object that makes us desire to enjoy it but in the Enjoyment our Desire expires into an higher Degree of Delight and Satisfaction For Desire and Delight are only the Wings and Arms of Love those for Pursuits and these for Embraces but 't is the Arms that give the Wings both Motion and Rest the Delight we take in the Objects of our Love that both inflames and quenches our Desire So that though in this indigent State Hope and Desire are inseparable to our Love yet that is by Accident but as for its Essence and Definition it wholly consists of Delight and Complacency And therefore if our Love of God hath the common Notion of Love in it as questionless it hath it must necessarily consist in our being well-pleased and delighted in the Beauty and Goodness and Perfection of his Nature And accordingly we find in Scripture that our Love to God and God's Love to us is expressed by delighting in one another so Prov. iii. 12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a Father the Son in whom he delighteth i. e. whom he loves So also our Love to God is expressed by delighting in him Psal. xxxvii 4 Delight thy self also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine Heart 2 ly The Love of God is a rational Delight and Complacency in him by which it is distinguished from those sensible Emotions of bodily Passion which many times are nothing else put the natural Effects of an over-heated Fancy For I make no doubt but a Man may be wrapt even into an Extasy of sensible Delight and Complacency in God that is upon an amiable Representation of God his Spirits may be made to flow in a sweet and placid Torrent to his Heart and by their nimble Motions about it to sooth and tickle it into a most sensible Pleasure till it opens and dilates its Orifices and the grateful Flood breaks in and drowns it in Delight and Ravishment And yet in all this mighty Storm and Commotion of Passion there may not be the least Spark of sincere Love to God For all this not only may be but many times is nothing else but the mere Mechanism and Natural Effect of a warm and vigorous Fancy which being flushed with such brisk and active Spirits as are most apt to be figured into amorous Phantasms and Ideas can with these without any Assistance from Reason raise great Commotions of Joy in the Heart especially where the Temper is soft and the Passions easie to be wrought upon And of the Truth of this the Histories of the Devotos of all Religions will furnish us with sufficient Experiments For even among the Turkish and Heathen Saints there are as notorious Instances of these sweet Incomes and Manifestations as among our own and the same sensitive Complacencies which ours too often mistake for the Sealings and Witness of the Spirit they frequently experience in their Communion with Mahomet Bacchus and
Apollo So that to conclude that we love God from those corporeal Passions is very unsafe and dangerous and we may almost as certainly judge of the Hunger of our Souls after Righteousness by the Hunger of our Bodies after Bread as of the Love of our Souls to God by our bodily Ravishments and Passions For bodily Passion differs according to the Temper of the Body some Tempers are so soft and impressive that the most frivolous Fancy will affect them others so hard and sturdy that the greatest Reason will hardly move them and consequently Persons of this Temper though they should love God much more than the other and have a much higher Esteem of and more rational Complacency in his divine Perfections yet will have much less of corporeal Passion intermingled with it I do not deny but even this sensitive Passion when prudently managed may be of great Advantage to a rational Love for the Passions being soft and easie and apt to follow the Motions of the Soul do naturally intend and quicken them and render them more vigorous and active and we have very much Cause to bless God even for that sensitive Joy and Complacency which accompanies our Love to him since this I doubt not is many times excited by his own blessed Spirit to quicken and invigorate our rational Affection and render it more active and vivacious But that which I aim at is only this if possible to beat Men off from measuring the Strength or Weakness the Truth or Falshood of their Love to God by any corporeal Passion whatsoever since Men may we see and many times have a vehement Passion without any Reason and all those Ticklings and Ravishments of Heart which too many Men mistake for the Love of God are very often nothing else but the necessary Effects of a chafed and overheated Fancy But that which is really the Love of God is always founded in a rational Conviction of the Beauty and Goodness of his Nature and proceeds from an high Esteem and profound Veneration of his Perfections For no Man loves God but can give very good Reason why he loves him he is not moved to it by a Musical Tone or a gaudy Metaphor or an unaccountable Impulse of Fancy but by the real Charms and Attractions of the divine Goodness and Perfections which darting through his Mind like the Sun-beams through a Burning-glass have kindled his Affections and made him love with infinite Reason so that 't is his Vnderstanding that inamours his Will and that which makes him a Lover of God is the deep Sense of his Reason how much he deserves to be beloved He hath seriously considered how lovely God is in himself how kind and loving unto all his Creation and what particular Obligation God hath laid upon him to return him Love for Love and this gives Fire to his Love and affects his Will with Delight and Complacency and though perhaps he may not feel those passionate Soothings and Expansions of Heart which sensitive Joy is wont to produce yet he finds himself highly pleased with God and his Will acquiesces in the Thought of his Goodness and Perfections with a Calm and even Complacency And thus his Will is inflamed with the purest Light of his Understanding and his Love is nothing else but the warm Reflection of his Reason Thus Psal. cxvi 1 I love the Lord saith David and then he goes on to enumerate the vast and important Reasons why he loved him because he hath inclined his Ear c. And in the 1 Cor. viii 3 If any Man love God the same i. e. God is known of him intimating that all true Love of God is founded in the Knowledge of him 3 dly The Love of God is a fixed as well as rational Complacency in him by which I distinguish this heavenly Affection from those short and transitory Fits of Love that like Flashes of Lightning come and go appear and vanish in a Moment For thus upon some affecting Providence or passionate Representation of the Divine Goodness it is very ordinary for Men to be chafed into an amorous Fit and touched with very tender Resentments of the Loveliness and Love of God so that at present they seem to be in Raptures of Affection and with the Spouse in the Canticles to be wondrous sick of Love but alas It commonly proves but a sudden Qualm that after a Pang or two goes over and so they are well again immediately for upon their next Encounter with Temptation or Intermixture with secular Affairs their hot Love begins to languish and quickly dies into a cold Indifferency and notwithstanding all the Reasons and Obligations that they have to the contrary their fickle Hearts unwind again and by Degrees decline and sink into their old habitual Aversation to God and Goodness which is a plain Evidence that that which at first lookt like the Love of God in them was only a sudden Blush of Passion and not the true Complexion of their Souls For when once a Man is brought to love God upon Principles of Reason and Consideration 't is much more difficult to extinguish this than any Virtue whatsoever because of all the Virtues of Religion this is founded in the greatest Reason and accompanied with the strongest Pleasure For Love it self consisting in Delight and Complacency where the Object of it is an infinite Good there is not only infinite Reason to Love but infinite Occasion of Pleasure and Complacency When therefore our Love of God is back'd with so much Reason and sweetned with so much Pleasure how is it possible we should extinguish it without doing the greatest Violence to our selves For I am verily persuaded that one of the hardest moral Changes that can be made upon a rational Creature is from a Lover to become an Enemy to God for wheresoever this heavenly Affection is it sweetens and endears it self by its own appendent Pleasures which are in themselves a sufficient Counter-charm against all Temptations to the contrary So that when once it is kindled in the Soul like a subtil Flame 't will by Degrees insinuate farther and farther till it hath eaten into the Center of the Soul and turned it all into its own Substance Wherefore this we may certainly conclude upon that he who can suddenly or easily entertain an Aversation to God and Goodness did never truly Love for Love saith the Wise Man is strong as Death and many Waters cannot quench it Cant. viii 6 7. Wheresoever it lights it clings and can never be torn away again without violent Spasms and Convulsions So that whatsoever Passion we may have for God we can never conclude it to be hearty Love till it fixes and settles in our Souls till our Wills are habitually pleased with God and do entertain the Thoughts of his Love and Loveliness with a constant Complacency and Delight and then we may venture to call it Love and to rejoyce in the Nativity of this heavenly Flame within us 4
the Nature of Love in general the Properties whereof when it is determined on a Person are chiefly these four 1. Benevolence to the Person beloved 2. Desire of enjoying him 3. Imitation of his Perfections 4. Conformity to his Will 1. Benevolence is an essential Property of our Love of God by which I do not mean wishing of any additional Good or Happiness to God which yet he wants for that is Extravagance to wish that a Being who is infinitely happy should be more happy than he is since his Happiness would not be infinite if it could admit of Addition or Increase By our Benevolence to God therefore I only mean our hearty Desire that he may be pleased by our selves and others that all his Creation may conspire to serve and glorify him in that Method which he hath prescribed and that his Will may be done upon Earth as it is in Heaven And this must necessarily be the hearty Wish of every sincere Lover of God and when he sees himself defeated of his Wish by the wicked Lives and Manners of Men when he considers how God is offended every Day how his Authority is affronted his Laws trampled on his Name vilified and blasphemed by bold and insolent Sinners he cannot forbear grieving at it to see him his Soul loves loaded with so many Indignities and Dishonours For thus did David that great Lover of God Rivers of tears run down mine Eyes because Men keep not thy Law Psal. cxix 136 So that what the brave Portia said to her dear Brutus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that can every Lover of God say Lord Thou knowest that I sympathize in all thy Pleasures and Displeasures when thou art pleased I rejoyce and when thou art offended I am grieved 2 ly Another Property of divine Love is an earnest Desire of enjoying God For so when we love a Friend we desire to enjoy as much of him as we are able that is we would fain be more intimately acquainted with him we would love him more and be more beloved by him and resemble him in all those amiable Qualities for which we love and admire him And thus if we have chosen God for our Friend we shall still be breathing after a more intimate Fruition of him our Thoughts will be often imployed in the Contemplation of his Beauty and Glory and our Minds will be perpetually longing after a clearer Knowledge of and more intimate Acquaintance with him We shall never think we love him sufficiently and never think we can do enough to endear our selves to his Favour but shall always feel in our selves both Want of Love to him and Want of Desert to be beloved by him We shall incessantly covet more and more to resemble him in those adorable Perfections for which we love him that so if it were possible he might have the same Reason to love us as we have to love him We shall earnestly hunger and thirst after Righteousness and vehemently wish that all those amiable Characters of Purity and Justice Mercy and Goodness for which we do admire and love him were more fairly imprinted on our own Natures that so by partaking of these Perfections we may grow more and more god-like till we are arrived to a most perfect Resemblance and Conformity of Natures with him Thus to enjoy God must needs be the Desire of every true and hearty Lover of him And indeed this is the only Enjoyment we are capable of for we cannot enjoy God's Essence because we cannot possess it it being neither communicated nor communicable and therefore all that our Enjoyment of him can include is to know and love and be beloved by him and to resemble him in those charming Beauties of Purity and Goodness which render him so infinitely lovely and it is essential to every faithful Lover of him thus to desire to enjoy him 3 ly Imitation of his Perfections is another essential Property of Love to him and this is necessarily consequent to the former for if we love God it is either for the good he doth us or for the Beauty and Loveliness of his Nature If we love him for the good he doth us we must needs be sensible that it is a lovely Thing to do good and this must strangely incline us to imitate him in doing all the good we are able If we love him for the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature we cannot but desire to be like him because whatsoever we esteem lovely in another we desire to partake of out of love to our selves and if we desire to partake of what is lovely in another that must needs engage us to imitate him since we have no other Way to partake of anothers Excellencies but only by a constant Imitation of them So that 't is impossible we should love God for the Beauty and Perfection of his Nature and not hearily desire to partake of it and 't is impossible we should heartily desire to partake of it and not endeavour to transcribe it by a constant and vigorous Imitation So that whatsoever good Reason we love God for it must necessarily terminate in our Imitation of those amiable Actions or Perfections for which we love him and therefor any Man to pretend to love God while he acts contrary to the Reasons for which he loves him is plainly to contradict himself and baffle his own Pretensions For to say that I love God for doing good or for being just holy and benevolent while I take no Care to do good my self but take Pleasure in Impurity Injustice or Vncharitableness is to say that I love him for those Things which I plainly declare I do not love If therefore we heartily love God as we pretend to do it will be visible in our Imitation of him for unless we endeavour to be pure as he is pure and holy as he is holy and just and merciful as he is just and merciful all our Pretensions of Love to him are Cheats and fulsom Hypocrisy 4 thly and lastly Complyance with the Will of God is another essential Character and Property of our Love to him For if we sincerely love a Person we must needs desire to please him that so thereby we may endear our selves to him and if we really desire to please him to be sure we shall readily comply with his Will in whatsoever is just and reasonable And hence the Scripture makes our Obedience to the Will of God essential to our Love of him For this saith St. John is the love of God that we keep his Commandments 1 Joh. v. 3 and this is love that we walk after his Commandments 2 Epist. vi If ye love me saith our Saviour keep my Commandments Joh. xiv 15 that is give me this Token that ye love me for without this I can never believe that you have any real Kindness for me whatsoever Pretensions you may make for so Vers. 23. he adds If any Man love me he will keep my Commandments intimating that
a plain Token that we do not heartily desire to be more beloved of God and consequently that we do not love him So that in fine the Sum of all is this The Law of Perfection requires us to love God with all our Might and with all our Strength that is as much as we are able in every Period of our Growth and Progress in Religion and by how much we love him less than we are able by so much less shall be the future Reward of our Love But then for the Law of Sincerity that only requires of us such a Degree of Love to him as doth together with the other Motives of Religion effectually incline us to obey him sincerely and to endeavour to improve our Obedience into farther Degrees of Perfection and so long as we fall short of this we are bad Men and the Wrath of God abides upon us And so I have done with the First Part of the Text We should or ought to love God 2. I proceed now to the second Part viz. the Reason why we ought to love him and that is because he first loved us which though it be but short in Words yet is extreamly comprehensive in Sense containing in it such puissant Motives and endearing Obligations as cannot but affect us if we have any Spark of Tenderness or Ingenuity remaining in us For in this Argument or Reason these six Things are implyed 1. That he began in Love to us 2. That he began before we could any Way deserve it 3. That he began to love us when we deserved his Hatred 4. That he began when he foresaw he could never make any Advantage by it 5. He began to love us to such a Degree as to think nothing too dear or too good for us 6. That he so began to love us as to condescend by all the Arts of Importunity to court us to accept his Love All which are very powerful Considerations to engage us to return him Love for Love 1. He began in Love to us Had he only engaged himself to re-love us whensoever we began to love him and in the mean Time remained indifferent in his Affection towards us this would have been a mighty endearing Obligation For the great Majesty of Heaven to take Notice of the Loves of such poor Worms as we and much more to engage himself to repay them with a correspondent Affection is in it self a noble Expression of his great and generous Goodness but that he should not only take Notice of and return our Love but forestal and anticipate it that he should condescend to make the first Address and Tender of Love to us is such an Expression of Goodness as is sufficient to inflame the most stupid and insensible Soul For he that loves another lays an Obligation upon him and renders him extreamly beholding he lends him his Heart and Soul which are much more valuable than Money and he becomes his Creditor and acquires a just Claim to be repaid with mutual Affection For not to repay Love for Love is equally unjust and ungrateful He therefore that begins to love doth thereby render the Person beloved his Debtor and acquires a just Right to be Beloved by him again though he should have no other Pretence to or Interest in his Affections especially if he be one who is much our Superiour in all endearing Perfections and Accomplishments because this must needs render his Love more valuable and consequently augment our Obligation to re-love him When therefore the great God himself shall begin to love us who doth so infinitely excel us in all Manner of amiable Perfections how deeply are we obliged and beholding to him What infinite Sums of Love must we owe him If he had laid no other Obligation upon us had neither made nor fed nor clothed nor provided for us if he had no other Claim to our Love but only this that he first loved us yet this is such as we cannot frustrate without being extreamly unjust and ungrateful For he is so much afore-hand in Kindness with us hath so much gotten the start of us in Love that we shall never be able to overtake him He loved us long before we had a Being when we existed only in his own Decree to make us Men and to provide for our Happiness so that now we are so far behind-hand in Arrears of Love to him that we shall need as well as have an Eternity to discharge them and should we from henceforth every Moment love him more and more to the longest imaginary Period of Duration yet we shall still owe him all that Eternity of Love that was due before we began to love him And shall we grudg to pay him a Mite to whom we are indebted Millions And is it not high Time for us to begin to love him now who hath loved us so long already for nothing without the least Shadow of Requital 2 ly He began to love us before we could any ways deserve it For it is impossible for a Creature that ows all to God the Fountain of its Being to deserve any Thing at his Hands because he hath every Thing from him and so can render him nothing but what is his own already by an unalienable Propriety But the noblest and most acceptable Sacrifice that we are able to render unto God is our hearty and unfeigned Love and if it were possible for us any way to deserve his Love who is so much above us and hath such an absolute Dominion over us it would doubtless be Offering up our Souls to him inflamed with Love and Affection for t is this alone that consecrates all our Services and renders them valuable in the Eyes of God If Love like an universal Soul be not diffused throughout all our Religion and doth not act and animate every Part of it in God's Account all our demure Pretences are nothing but the lifeless Puppits and Images of true Religion which though they may speak and move and act like that which they represent and imitate yet want that inward Form and Principle that gives it Life and Motion and to have nothing of Religion but merely the Shape and Outside is as bad at least in God's Account as to have none at all Since therefore 't is Love that gives Worth and Value to all our other Services and renders them acceptable to God it hence necessarily follows that it self is the most grateful Thing we can render to him and that when this is wanting we are so far from being capable of deserving his Love that nothing we do can be pleasing or acceptable in his Eyes Wherefore since he loved us before we loved him it is plain that it was not our Desert but his own Goodness that first endeared him to us for when we did not love him we could have neither Form nor Comliness to attract his Love our Love to him being the only Beauty that can render us amiable in his Eyes So that he
but many a Message of Love he hath sent us transcribed from his very Heart He sent his Son from Heaven to us and clothed him in our Natures that therein we might be capable of conversing freely with him and all his Errand was to deliver a Message of Love to the World and to court and importune them to listen to and comply with it And when he returned again to his Father he instituted an Order of Men to supply his Room and in his Stead to woo the World to be happy For we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 So that you are set upon the Throne and not only Men but God himself lies prostrate before your Foot-stool beseeching you to lay down your Arms and to be reconciled to your best Friend that never did you the least Injury unless that be one that he hath loved you better by a Thousand Degrees than ever you loved your selves And can we be such barbarous Wretches as not to listen to him when he thus humbles himself before us and even comes upon his Knees to us for Reconciliation How justly may the whole Creation be astonished to see the great Majesty of Heaven condescend so low as to beseech and entreat a Company of rude disdainful Rebels whom he could every Moment frown into Nothing to accept of his Love and at last comply with Terms of Friendship Who would ever imagine but that sad Experience evinces the contrary that among reasonable Beings there should be found such Monsters of Ingratitude as to persist in Enmity to God after he hath thus humbled himself and made so many lowly Addresses only to court and woo us to be happy And thus you see how many puissant Motives to Love are comprehended in these few Words because he first loved us which are such as nothing can ever be able to resist but a Heart that is steeled with Impudence and Ingratitude So that if after all these Obligations which God hath laid upon us we do not at last surrender up our Hearts unto him our Baseness and Ingratitude is such as nothing but our eternal Ruine will be able to expiate For when with all the Endearments of his Loving kindness he finds he cannnot prevail on us to love him the very Consideration how much he hath obliged us and what unworthy Requitals we have made him will but incense him the more against us till it hath converted his Kindness into implacable Fury and when once the Heats of wronged Love take Fire and kindle into Wrath it will be a quenchless Flame and everlasting Burning Wherefore in the Name of God Sirs let us endeavour to affect our Souls with the Sense of this dear Love to warm our Affections at this heavenly Fire till it hath insinuated it self into them and converted them into its own Substance And that we may be succesful herein let us take with us these following Directions 1. Let us season our Minds with good Opinions of God For since 't is his Goodness that is the most immediate Object of our Love to him whatsoever Opinions do reflect upon that or any way tend to cloud and disgrace it must necessarily Damp our Affection towards him Whilst therefore we look upon God as a mere arbitrary Being as one that conducts all his Actions by a blind Omnipotent Self-will and governs the World and dispenses Rewards and Punishments to his Creatures according to a certain fatal Decree which he made without Foresight or Consideration as one that exacts Impossibilities of his Subjects commands the Lame to run the Blind to see and without ever enabling them thereunto is resolved to damn them forever for Non-performance Whilst I say we look upon God through such false Opticks as these they must needs represent him exceeding unlovely in our Eyes For though I doubt not but there are many Men that love God heartily notwithstanding they have entertained these sower and gastly Notions of him yet I must seriously profess had I such black Opinions of him I should never be able heartily to love him though I were sure to be damned for ever for neglecting it Wherefore if we would kindle in our Souls the Love of God let us take Care as much as in us lies to purge our Thoughts of all ill Opinions of him and to represent him fairly to our Minds what he truly is and what the Scripture represents him to be viz. a most bountiful Benefactor unto all his Creation and an universal Lover of the Souls of Men one that heartily desires our Welfare and is always ready to contribute to us whatsoever is necessary thereunto Let us firmly persuade our selves that he desires not our Ruine but would have all Men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth that when he finally destroys any particular Offender it is in great Mercy to the Publick that he loves not Punishment for its own Sake and never inflicts it but for some gracious and merciful End These are such Thoughts of God as are truly worthy of him and infinitely apt to endear him to all considering Minds 2 ly Let us frequently consider and revolve in our Minds the numerous Reasons and Engagements that we have to love him For all Virtue whatsoever begins in Consideration and it being a rational Accomplishment cannot be otherwise acquired but only by Reason and Discourse that is by considering the Reasons and pressing our selves with the Arguments upon which it is founded And thus we must do in the Case before us if ever we would attain to a hearty Love of God we must be often entertaining our Thoughts with the Consideration of those great Obligations he hath laid upon us to love him how deeply we are engaged by all the Ties of Gratitude and Ingenuity to repay him in his own Coin and to return him Love for Love Nor will it be sufficient to affect our Hearts with the Sense of those Obligations now and then to reflect a few slight and transient Thoughts on them but with holy David we must muse on till the Fire Kindles we must fix and stay our Thoughts upon the Consideration of God's endearing Love to us urge and press them again and again till we have wrought and chafed them into our Souls and a heavenly Warmth diffuses from them and enflames our Hearts with a divine Affection Wherefore let us frequently revolve such Thoughts as these in our Minds O my Soul How infinitely art thou obliged to love thy God who hath been such a tender Friend and liberal Benefactor to thee who loved thee before ever thou wast capable of thinking a Thought of Love towards him yea and when thou didst most justly deserve to be excommunicated from his Favour for ever and who had no other Aim in loving thee but to do thee good and make thee happy and thought nothing too good for thee
that could either promote or compleat thy Happiness but is so importunately concerned for thee as to beseech and intreat thee not to reject his Favours And canst thou be cold and insensible in the midst of so many prevailing Endearments Suppose that thy Fellow-creature had done for thee but a thousandth Part of what thy God hath done and thou hadst repayed his Kindness with nothing but Affronts and Indignities wouldst thou not call thy self a thousand ungrateful Wretches and acknowledge thy self infinitely unworthy of his Favours And is it less criminal to be ungrateful to God than to thy Fellow-creature Suppose thou hadst a Friend that began to love thee as soon as thou wast born and had persisted to love thee notwithstanding thou hadst offered him a thousand Provocations to the contrary that had done thee all the good he was able and constantly repaid thy Injuries with Favours Would not thy Conscience fly in thy Face and all that is humane in thee upbraid thy monstrous Baseness And hath not thy God obliged thee infinitely more than the best Friend in the World How then canst thou excuse thy Coldness and Indifference to him Consider O my Soul the Eyes of all the spiritual World are upon thee Angels and Saints are looking down from their Thrones of Glory to see how thou wilt acquit thy self under all these mighty Obligations which if any mortal Friend had laid them upon thee and thou shouldst have so ill requited him all the World would have hissed at thee for a Monster of Ingratitude And is it less infamous to be an ungrateful Wretch towards God than towards a mortal Friend With what Confidence then wilt thou lift up thy head among those blessed Spirits who have been Spectators of thy Actions who have seen thy foul Ingratitude towards thy best Friend and must therefore brand thee for an inglorious Wretch abandoned of the common Sense and Modesty of humane Nature And if after you have pressed you Souls with all this mighty Weight of Love you should be still to learn to re-love the blessed Author of it I know no other Expedient but to send you to the Brutes to be their Scholars to call for your Spaniels and bid them teach you and by their kind Returns of your Favours instruct your cold ungrateful Hearts to make proportionate Returns of Love to your dearest Lord and Master Thus let us frequently argue with our selves and repeat these Considerations upon our Minds and certainly if we have any Sense of Obligations they cannot fail of warming and affecting our Hearts 3 dly Let us endeavour so much as in us lies to moderate our Affections to the World Love not the World saith St. John neither the things that are in the World If any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him 1 Epist. ii 15 that is if we inordinately love and dote upon the World if we suffer its Pleasures Profits and Honours to creep into to hamper and inveagle our Affections into an excessive Delight and Complacency in them that will so forestal and prepossess us that we shall find no Room for the Love of God in our Souls Our Hearts will be so soaked and moistened with sensual Desires and Complacencies that the pure Flame of divine Love will never be able to take hold of or kindle upon them For whilst we immoderately dote upon the World that will so ingross our Thoughts so perpetually importune our Desires that no Friend from Heaven will ever be able to come at us no good Thought or Consideration that comes to court and woo our Souls for God will ever find Admittance to them or if now and then they obtrude upon us and force themselves into our Minds the World will be so buisy about us that we shall not be long at Leasure to attend to them but whilst they are addressing to us and importuning our Affections we shall feel a thousand Rival Thoughts swarming and buzzing about us and this will be holding that pulling the other clasping it self about us and wooing us not to leave and forsake them And though between these Competitors for our Love our Hearts may now and then be a little wavering and irresolute yet our fond Partiality to the World will so vehemently incline and biass us that we shall soon reject those divine Thoughts that would so fain court us to a contrary Affection Wherefore if ever we would acquire this noble and heavenly Virtue of divine Love we must endeavour as much as in us lies to wean and withdraw our selves from the World to rescue our selves from under it's Tyranny and Dominion into our own Power that so we may be able to dispose of our Time our Thoughts and Hearts as shall seem to us most fit and reasonable For till we have recovered our Hearts from the World into our own Disposal how can we resign them to God Before we can give him our selves we must be in our own Power which no Man can be so long as he is inthralled to the World Wherefore if we would become hearty Lovers of God we must labour so much as in us lies to get such a Sovereignty over our earthly Desires and Affections as that whensoever we are minded to retire from the World and converse with God we may be able to keep them off at such a Distance as that they may not be able to intrude upon us to mingle themselves with our Contemplations and divert our Eyes from the endearing Prospect of his infinite Love and Loveliness And then our Thoughts will stay and dwell upon this ravishing Theme like Bees upon a sweet Flower and never rise till they have extracted thence the Honey of Canaan the delicious Sweets of heavenly Love and Complacency then we shall muse on till the Fire burns and never take off our Eyes from God till we have gazed our selves into Captivity to his Love and Beauty 4 thly If we would attain to the Love of God we must endeavour by the constant Practice of what is agreeable to his Nature to reconcile our Minds and Tempers to it For whilst our Minds are averse to the Perfections of his Nature to the Justice Purity and Goodness of it the most powerful Motives of his Love and Benevolence will never be able to beget in us an hearty Complacencey in him We may admire his Love to us and be sometimes moved by the consideration of it into mighty Transports of sensitive Passion but 't is impossible we should ever attain to a fix'd and permanent Delight in him till we are reconciled to his Nature For all true and constant Love is founded in a Likeness of Natures and therefore till we are in some Measure god-like till we are pure as he is pure just as he is just good and merciful as he is good and merciful we have not as yet so much as laid the Foundation of divine Love nay we are so far from that that we are under a
of Honesty or Justice but all the Virtues or Virtue in the general in its utmost Compass and Latitude For so in the sacred Dialect it is very usual to express the whole Duty of Man by Righteousness So Prov. 14.34 Righteousness exalteh a Nation but Sin is a reproach to any People where the Opposition plainly implies that by Righteousness we are to understand all that is contrary to Sin that is all that is contained within the Compass of our Duty So also Heb. 1.9 thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity where Righteousness being opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transgression of the Law in general must according to the Rule of Opposition be understood in the same Latitude to signify all Obedience to the Law in general And indeed all our Duty being a natural and eternal Due either to God our Neighbour or our selves the whole may very well be expressed by Righteousness the Performance of every one of them being an Act of strict Justice the Payment of a due Debt either to our selves or others The Meaning therefore of the Words is this God who himself is infinitely pure and holy and good is a constant hearty Lover of Purity and Goodness in others wheresoever he sees or finds it In the Management of which Argument I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you upon what Principles and Reasons God is a Lover of Virtue and Goodness 2. What Indications he hath given to the World that he is so 1. I shall shew you upon what Principles and Reasons God is a Lover of Virtue and Goodness and they are principally these Four 1. He loves Righteousness or Goodness as it is an essential Perfection of his own Nature 2. He loves it as it is the main Principle and Foundation of his own Happiness 3. He loves it as it is that which exalts all other Creatures into his own Likeness and Resemblance 4. He loves it as it is the Spring or Cause from whence the highest Happiness of his most beloved Creatures is derived 1 st God loves Righteousness or Goodness as it is an essential Perfection of his own Nature For supposing God to be a reasonable Being as all acknowledge him to be who acknowledge him at all he must be in all Respects most perfectly reasonable otherwise he would be deficient of that natural Perfection which the very Notion and Idea of God implies and if he be perfectly reasonable he must be supposed to govern himself his Choices Motions and Actions by the truest best and purest Reason And herein consists the perfect Holiness and Righteousness which the Essence and Notion of God implies in a perfect Conformity of all his Choices and Actions to the eternal and infallible Reason of his own Mind in chusing to do every thing which right Reason requires and refusing to do any thing which it forbids And this is so essential to God that to exclude it out of the Notion of him is in Effect to deny his Being or which is worse to fancy him an Almighty blind Polyphemus that hath an Arm of infinite Force but no Eye in his Head to guid or direct it When therefore we submit all our Choices and Actions to the Conduct and Government of right Reason we stear our Course by Gods Compass and live and move by the self-same Rule whereby he governs himself and all his Motions And when we do what God would have us we are sure to do what right Reason requires because we are sure he would have us do nothing but what is agreeable with the infallible Reason of his own Mind When therefore we submit our Wills to God's our Wills and his are governed by the self-same Reason even by the most perfect Reason of his All-comprehending Mind which never can deceive or be deceived And when our Wills Affections and Inclinations are once reduced under the Government of God's Reason we are of the same Temper with God because we are formed and tempered by the same Reason we are affected and inclined as he his and are made Partakers of his divine Nature we are pure as he is pure and holy as he is holy and do communicate with him in all that Righteousness and Goodness which is the essential Glory and Perfection of his own Nature So that Holiness and Righteousness in us being only a Ray and Representation of God it is no more Wonder that he loves it than that he loves himself it being nothing but himself derived his own Perfection copyed out and transcribed into our Temper and Natures Were the Sun a living Being we cannot imagine but as he would be infinitely pleased with his own inherent Brightness so he would be greatly delighted to behold that vast Sphere of Light which he diffuses round about him to see his own out-stretch'd Rays shining through this Spacious World and glorifying with their quick Reflections all those dark and opaque Bodies that are continually moving round about him How then can we imagine that the living God who is infinitely glorious in Holiness himself and loves himself infinitely for being so can without vast Delight and Satisfaction behold his own Beauty Light and Purity shining on the Face of his Creatures that he should not be enamoured with the Reflexions of that which is the Brightness of his own Being and take infinite Complacency when he looks down from his Throne and beholds his Creatures gilded with his Rays and glorifyed with his own Glory For if God love himself he must love what is suitable to himself and consequently since himself is Righteous he must love Righteousness or quarrel with the Perfection of his own Nature And this Reason of his Love of Righteousness is implied in the very Words The righteous Lord loveth righteousness 2 ly He loves Righteousness and true Goodness as it is the main Principle and Foundation of his own Happiness For if he were not just and holy and good he would be a miserable Being notwithstanding all his Power and Knowledge for though by these he might defend himself from all foreign Hurt or Injury yet could he not secure his own Content by them or enjoy himself with any Peace or Pleasure For perfect Holiness as I have shewed you consists in an exact Conformity of Actions to the eternal Rules of Reason but God having a full and perfect Comprehension of the eternal Reasons of Things could never be satisfied with himself if he should act Unreasonably because his Reason would condemn his Practice and his own Knowledge would libel and upbraid him For whenever he reflected on himself his own All-seeing Eye would detect him and by unmasking the Deformity of his Actions would render him an inglorious Spectacle to himself How then could he enjoy himself whilst in the Glass of his own Omniscience he beheld himself so odiously Represented What Content could he take in his own Choices and Actions whilst his own infallible Reason disapproved them and their Unreasonablness exposed them
should be such as did clearly argue and evince his righteous Severity for otherwise it would have no Force in it to prevent our Presumption And what Motive of Pardon could better evince his Severity than the Suffering of some other in our Room especially the Suffering of his own Son the greatest and dearest Person in the whole Creation For not to be moved to grant a publick Pardon to us upon our hearty Repentance unless this blessed Person would engage to die for us whose infinite Greatness gave such an inestimable Value to his Sufferings as rendred them adequate to what we had deserved to suffer was as great an Argument of his inflexible Severity against Sin as if he should have destroyed at one Blow the whole World of Sinners So that as he hath expressed an infinite Mercy to us in admitting his own Son to die for us so in refusing to pardon us upon any less Motive than his precious Death he hath expressed an infinite Hatred to our Sins and so that very Death which moved God to pardon us moves us to stand in Awe of his Severity the Death of the Son of God upon which we are pardoned being the most terrible Instance that ever was of the Desert of our Sin and God's Displeasure against it Thus our blessed Lord hath not only given us the greatest Encouragement by procuring our Pardon to return from our Iniquities but by procuring it in such a formidable way he hath given us the most dreadful Warning of God's Severity against them So that now we cannot think upon the Reason for which our past Offences are forgiven without being vehemently moved to future Obedience And thus the main Design you see both of Christs Life and Death was to recal us from Sin to the Practice of Righteousness And hence he is said to have given himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity and to purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Tit. ii 14 And then he arose again from the Dead to confirm that righteous Doctrine which he had revealed to the World and visibly ascended into Heaven to give us an ocular Demonstration of the heavenly Rewards of Righteousness and there he now sits at the right Hand of God to assure us that if we persevere in Righteousness we shall be continually befriended in the Court of Heaven through his all-powerful Intercession and hath assured us that at the End of the World he will come to Judgment and faithfully distribute those Rewards and Punishments which here he promised and threatned to righteous and unrighteous Persons Thus the main Drift you see of all these great Transactions of our Saviour was to advance the Interest of Righteousness and true Goodness What a mighty Evidence therefore is this of God's great Love of Righteousness that he should send his own most blessed Son upon its Errand to transact such mighty Things on its Behalf For by sending Christ into the World and exposing him to Misery for Righteousness Sake he did in Effect declare that he valued the Interest of Righteousness more than the present Happiness and Enjoyment of his most dearly beloved and only begotten Son and we may most certainly conclude that had not Righteousness been infinitely dear to him he would never have authorized his dearest Son to take such infinite Pains to promote it 4 thly Another supernatural Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his promising such vast Rewards to us upon it and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us if we despise and neglect it For besides all those temporal Rewards he hath proposed to us if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the Righteousness thereof he hath erected a Heaven of immortal Joys and Felicities to crown and entertan it a Heaven that contains in it all the Beatitudes that humane Nature is capable of all that Truth that the most capacious Mind can comprehend and all that Good that the vastest Affections can either crave or contain In a word a Heaven whose Blisses are all as large as our immense Desires and all as lasting as our immortal Beings For 't is a Heaven which consists in an eternal Fruition of the Fountain of infinite Truth and Goodness whose everflowing Streams are abundantly sufficient to quench the Thirst and make glad the Heart of every Being that understands and loves How much therefore God loves Righteousness you may easily guess by these vast Preparations he hath made to entertain it For he built Heaven on purpose to lodge righteous Souls and that they may see he thinks nothing too dear for them he is himself their Feast there as well as their Entertainer He feeds them with his own Perfections and they live for ever as happily as their Hearts can wish upon the Sight and Love and Imitation of his Beauties So vehemently is his Heart set upon Righteousness that he will have every righteous Soul dwell with him and live upon him and partake of all those heavenly Joys in which his own Beatitude consists But as for Vnrighteousness how much his Soul abhors it is evident by those dire Punishments he hath denounced against it by those dark and dismal Abodes which he hath condemned unrighteous Souls to to languish out a woful Eternity to burn in Flames there that never consume and be gnawn with Worms which never devour them to be scared and haunted with Devils without and Furies within and perpetually worried Day and Night without any Ease or Intermission with all the Horrors Griefs and Vexations that an everlasting Hell imports O thou merciful Father of Beings How couldst thou have found in thy Heart to condemn thy Creatures to so wretched a State had not their unrighteous Practices been infinitely odious in thine Eyes No certainly the good God would never have made Hell for a Trifle for the sake of any Thing that his Nature could have endured or dispensed with nor would he ever have cast any unrighteous Creature into it were it not for the implacable Abhorrence he hath to all Unrighteousness And therefore since he hath not only made Hell but warns us of and threatens us with it we may be sure he infinitely abominates that for which he made and threatens it and consequently that he is infinitely concerned for the Cause and Interest of Righteousness 5 thly And lastly Another supernatural Indicaton of God's Love of Righteousness is his granting his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness First he sent his Son to propagate Righteousness by his Ministry his Life and Death and upon his Return to Heaven he sent his Spirit to supply his Room and carry on that dear Design of which his Son had already laid the Foundation For in Christ's personal Absence his Spirit acts in his Stead and was sent down from the Father by Virtue of his Intercession to be his Vicegerent in the World to promote and inlarge his heavenly Kingdom to conquer our
disgraces the most righteous Religion and introduces the most gross Unrighteousness Again Thirdly 'T is a common Principle of Christianity that true Repentance is indispensably necessary to the Salvation of Sinners upon which they have superstructed their Sacrament of Pennance which joyned with Absolution is of such Sovereign Virtue as to Transubstantiate a Sorrow proceeding from the Fear of Hell into true and saving Repentance By which Doctrin they have most directly superseded all the Obligations of Righteousness For what need I put my self to the Trouble of a holy and righteous Life when for allarming my self before I go to Confession into some frightful Apprehensions of Hell I can be dubbed a true Penitent and receive the Remission of my Sins For now my old Score being all wiped off I may Sin on merrily on a new Account and when I make my next Reckoning 't is but being afraid of Hell again and I am sure to receive a new Acquittance in full of all Demands and Dues And when I have spent all my Life in this Round and Circle of Unrighteousnss 't is but sending for a Priest at my last Breath confessing my Sins and dreading the Punishment of them and with a few magical Words he shall immediately conjure me to Heaven or at least out of Danger of Hell Once more it is a common Principle of Christianity that the Wages of Sin is eternal Death upon which they have introduced their Doctrins of Purgatory and Indulgencies which like Simeon and Levi Brethren in Iniquity do both conspire to render Righteousness a needless Thing For by the Sacrament of Pennance the eternal Punishment of Hell is changed into the temporary one of Purgatory and by Indulgencies especially plenary ones the temporary Punishment of Purgatory is wholly remitted and extinguished so that the first lessens the Punishment of Sin and the last annihilates it And by this Means are Sinners mightily imboldened to go on being assured that upon the Sacrament of Pennance they shall commute Hell for Purgatory and that upon plenary Indulgence they shall exchange Purgatory for Heaven Many other Instances of this Nature might be given but it would be endless to enumerate all those unrighteous Principles with which their Casuistical Divinity abounds the Frauds and Falsifications the Treasons and Murders the Slanders and Perjuries which their Guides of Conscience do not only tolerate but commend For I will maintain that there is scarce any Villany in Nature so notorious which by the Principles of some or other of their allowed Casuists may not be wholly vindicated or at least extenuated into venial Crimes So that considering the whole Frame and Structure of the Popish Religion I do most seriously believe it to be one of the most effectual Engins to undermine and tear up the Foundations of Righteousness that ever the Devil forged or made use of and were it not for those common Principles of Christianity that are intermingled with it and do allay and sometimes I hope overpower the Venom of it I am verily persuaded that the Religion of Heathens would sooner make Men righteous than that of Papists For I do affirm that there is not one Principle of pure Popery that is either a Rule of Righteousness or a Motive to it but contrariwise that the most of its Principles seem to have been purposely calculated to affront Men's Reason and debauch their Manners and if so then we may easily guess whether this be a true Religion or no which in all its Parts is so repugnant to that which God most dearly loves 2 dly Hence I infer upon what Terms a Man may safely conclude that he is beloved of God for if he hath that amiable Quality within him which is the eternal Reason of God's Love he may be sure he is beloved of him If our Souls be adorned with that Righteousness which the righteous Lord loves we may safely conclude that we are his Favourites and shall never cease to be so whilst we continue so adorned For 't is as impossible for God not to love righteous Souls as not to be righteous himself for whilst he continues so his own Nature must needs incline him to love all those in whom he finds his own most amiable Image and Resemblance Let us not therefore persuade our selves that we are beloved of God either upon any inward Whispers and Suggestions or upon any particular Marks and Signs of Grace for both these may abuse and deceive us and flatter our Minds into false and groundless Assurances We may think 't is the Spirit of God that whispers to us when all of a suddain we feel our selves surprized with joyous and comfortable Thoughts and yet this may be nothing else but a Frisk of melancholy Vapors heated and fermented by a feverish Humour For those suddain Joys and Dejections which are so often interpreted the Incomes and Withdrawings of the Spirit of God do commonly proceed from no higher Cause than the Shiverings and Burnings of an Ague and I am very sure that Histerical Fits are very often mistaken for spiritual Experiences and that when Men have most confidently believed themselves overshadowed by the Holy Ghost their Fancies have been only hagged and ridden with the Enthusiastick Vapours of their own Spleen And sometimes I make no doubt but this suddain Flush of joyous Thoughts proceeds from a worse Cause even from the Suggestion of the Devil who though he hath no immediate Access to the Minds of Men can yet doubtless act upon our Spirits and Humours and by their Means figure our Fancies into spritely Ideas and tickle our Hearts into a Rapture And this Power of his we may reasonably suppose he is ready enough to exert upon any mischievous Occasion when he finds Men willing to be deceived and to rely upon ungrounded Confidences Let us not therefore build our Hopes of the divine Favour upon any such uncertain Foundations but impartially examin our selves whether we are really righteous for unless we are so it is not more certain that God is righteous than that these our pretended spiritual Incomes and Inundations of Joy and Comfort are either the Freaks of our own Temper or else the Injections of the Devil For how can you imagin that the God of all Righteousness and Truth can without infinite Violence to his own Nature either love or pretend Love to an unrighteous Soul But then you will say by what Signs and Tokens shall we know whether we are righteous or no To which I answer that there is nothing can be a true Sign and Token of Righteousness which is distinct from Righteousness it self For Righteousness is its own Sign and if any Man judges himself righteous by any Mark which is not an Act or Instance of Righteousness he deceives and abuses his own Soul But then we must have a Care that we do not argue from any one particular Mark or Instance of Righteousness to our being righteous in general For you may as well argue that
you are not blind because you hear well or that you are not deaf because you taste well or that you have all your Senses because you have one as that you are righteous in the general because you are so in this or that particular and you may as reasonably conclude your self in a State of Health because you have a fresh Colour as that you are in a State of Grace because you have this or that particular Sign of it Well but then how shall we resolve our selves in this most material Enquiry Why do but consider what it is to be righteous and then reflect upon your own Motions and you will quickly feel whether you are righteous or no. Now to be righteous is in the general to intend righteously and to act accordingly If you ask again how you shall know whether you so intend and act I shall only answer that 't is an unreasonable Question and that you might as well ask me whether you are hungry or thirsty for you do as naturally feel the Motions of your Souls as you do the Motions of your Bodies and for you to ask another Man what your own Intentions are is to make him a Conjurer instead of a Casuist Would it not look extreamly ridiculous for a Man to ask his Creditor or Customer good Sir how shall I know whether I intend to pay my Debts or am sincerely resolved not to over-reach you Should any Man ask me such a Question I should only bid him consult himself and if then he suspected his own Honesty I should shrewdly suspect he had too much Reason for it If you intend righteously you intend it knowingly and if you knowingly intend it you cannot but know that you intend it If you cannot know whether you intend and act righteously you cannot know how to do it and if you cannot know how to do it you are not Subjects capable of Morality but must of Necessity live and act at Random and blunder on like Travellers in the dark without being able to determin whether you go backward or forward If therefore you would know whether you are righteous Men or no do not go about to perplex and intangle your selves in the Wilderness of Signs and Tokens for if you had a thousand Signs of Grace you can never safely conclude you are righteous till upon an impartial Review of your selves you do feel that you intend and act righteously and then and not till then you may build upon it that God loves you For God's Love is a constant and immutable Thing and in this the Constancy of it consists not that it is always fixt upon the same Person but that 't is unchangeably determined to the same Motive and this Motive is Righteousness So that if he find this Motive in us he will be sure to love us so long as it continues but if from Righteous we become Vnrighteous he must either change in his Affection or else cease to love us For should he still love on when the Reason is ceased for which he loved us he must either love us for no Reason or for a Reason that is directly contrary to that for which he loved us first and consequently his Love must either be a blind Fondness or else a fickle and inconstant Passion If therefore Righteousness be the Reason that moves the righteous Lord to love we grossly flatter and abuse our selves if we presume that he loves us while we are unrighteous Wherefore as we would not ruin our selves with relying upon vain Hopes Hopes that will sink underneath us and leave us eternally desperate and miserable let us never conclude that we are beloved of God till upon an impartial Tryal of our selves we can conclude that we are sincerely righteous 3 dly From hence I infer what grand Encouragement we have to be righteous for that God loves Righteousness is a plain Demonstration that 't is the most amiable thing in the World and that it best deserves the Affections of all rational Beings since it hath won his who never loves but upon the best Reason And what a most glorious thing is it to be adorned with the best of Beauties which by such an invincible Charm endears the Heart of the most glorious Being in the World If there be so much Honour paid to a Beauty that can smite and inslave an earthly Potentate what is there due to that that can constrain the God of Heaven and Earth to fall in love with us For what higher Mark can our Ambition aim at than that of being beloved by the greatest and most lovely Being Doubtless to be God's Favourite and Image is the highest Advancement that any Creature can aspire to and were I born King of all the Kings of the Earth and had all their Crowns and Scepters at my Feet I am sure my Reason would tell me that to be beloved of God would be a greater Glory to me than to be obeyed from Pole to Pole and should I entertain a Thought of exchanging the Honour of being a God-like Creature and the Favourite of Heaven for the Crown and Empire of the World my Conscience would tell me that I degraded my self and prostituted my own Glory for next to that of being a God my self the highest Glory I can think of is to be a Friend to God and this I am sure to be as soon as ever I commence a righteous Man And shall I stand so much in my own Light O foolish Creature that I am as to refuse his Friendship when I may have it on such reasonable Terms and shall need no other Endearment to introduce me into his Favour but only that of Righteousness O thou most excellent Beauty with whose Charms the God of Heaven is inflamed What shall I do to make thee mine How shall I obtain to be adorned with thy heavenly Luster I will go to the blessed Fountain from whence thou art derived and with a Heart hungring and thirsting after thee beseech him to infuse thy Streams into my Soul I 'll shun whatsoever is contrary to thee and do whatsoever thou commandest me and never cease Writing after thy fair Copies till I have transcribed thee into my Nature And who would not that sets any Value upon the Glory of being dear to God For besides the Honour of being his Favourites what an infinite Advantage may we expect to reap from it For what may we not promise our selves from the Grace and Favour of the great Sovereign of Beings who doth whatsoever pleases him in both Worlds and hath the absolute Disposal of all the Blessings that either Heaven or Earth affords Doubtless we may safely promise our selves every Thing both from below and above that can either do us good here or contribute to our Happiness hereafter For so the Psalmist tells us that such is his Love of Righteousness that he will give both Grace and Glory and that no good Thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly