to be like our Saviour And that which perfects our love is an undaunted courage and resolution in professing the Faith of Christ whatever dangers and miseries it may expose us to in this World as St. Iohn tells us There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear 1 Joh. 5. 18. when we can hate Father and Mother Wife and Children Brethren and Sisters for the sake of Christ and sacrifice our lives also for him rather than abjure his Gospel or violate his Laws These are the proper expressions of our love to Christ which are summarily comprehended in believing his Gospel and obeying it for to be a true Lover of Christ signifies neither more nor less than to be a good Christian one who diligently obeys all the Laws of the Gospel This is a short account of the Nature of our Love to Christ which deserves a larger Discourse but I am now hastening to a conclusion and what I have already said is so plain and easie that it may be understood without a larger explication Our love to Christ is not such a subtil airy and metaphysical notion as some men represent it to be but is a vital Principle of Action which governs our lives and makes us fruitful in good works And indeed of all mistakes there is none more fatal and dangerous than to mistake the nature of our love to Christ because this is a practical Errour which hath an immediate influence upon our lives and one mistake in the Principles or Rules of Action is of greater consequence than a great many false Opinions which end in speculation And therefore for a conclusion of all I shall briefly take notice of those mistakes some men have been guilty of concerning the nature and expressions of our love to Christ. And first as they tell us that Christ falls in love with our Persons without considering any qualifications in us which may make us fit objects of his love so in requital to him we must love the Person of Christ. This I confess is as certain and evident as any demonstration in Euclide that if we love Christ we must love his Person for the Person of Christ is Christ himself and if we love Christ we must love him and if they would be satisfied with this the dispute would be at an end but this will not serve their turn and therefore we must examine what they mean by loving the Person of Christ Now they oppose our love to the Person of Christ to our love to him upon account of his benefits to our love to our selves and to our duties First we must love the Person of Christ in opposition to his benefits that is we must not consider what advantages we do or may receive from Christ what he haâ—h done or suffered for us but we must love his person purely for himself without any other considerations to endear him to us This matter is very gravely stated and determined by * W. B. who tells us 1. That it is a good and lawful thing to love Christ in reference to his benefits This is a very liberal grant that gratitude which hath hitherto been accounted a great and excellent vertue is now owned to be a lawful thing 2. It is our duty to love Christs Person to have our hearts drawn out with love to the very Person of Christ. This is so certainly true that even those men who love Christ for his benefits love his Person But 3. The excellency of Christs Person is not the object of my Faith but Christ crucified 4. Though Christ crucified be the object of my Faith yet the personal excellencies of Christ are the object of my Love yea it is a more excellent thing yet to love the Person of Christ than the benefits of Christ a more excellent thing to have my heart drawn out in love to the Person of Christ than to have my heart drawn out in love to him for his benefits Now what can be the meaning of all this but that the excellency and perfection of our love to Christ consists in loving him for no reason the proper object and reason of love is Goodness to love that which is good for nothing is the folly and degeneracy of love and it is as foolish and impossible a task to love a Person who hath been good to us not because he hath been good but for no reason Now this is the case here for if you separate the Person and Personal Excellencies of Christ from the consideration of his benefits his personal goodness from the expressions of his love and goodness to our selves and others it can be no object nor reason of our love for a goodness which doth no good or never did any or which is all one is considered as doing none is so far from being the object of our love that it is not the object of our understanding for we cannot understand what that goodness means which never did any good God challenges our love not upon account of an imaginary goodness of Nature which never did any good but for the real and sensible effects of his goodness in the works of Creation and Providence and the Redemption of Mankind by our Lord Jesus Christ and Christ himself challenges our love for the like reasons because he hath loved us and dyed for us and now intercedes for us and will at the last day bestow a Crown of Glory and Immortality on us but never as I can observe requires such an abstracted and metaphysical love to his Person without any respect to his benefits Indeed these men seem not to understand themselves when they oppose our love to the Person of Christ to our love to him upon account of his benefits for when you inquire what this Person of Christ is which is the object of our love then they describe his beauty and perfections the comeliness of his Person the sweetness of his disposition his great riches that he is a good suitable to all our wants that in him we shall find whatever we need if you be poor he is rich if you be foolish he is wise if you be out of the way I am the way saith he if you want a Director in the way I am the Truth if you be in the dark I am light if you be wicked and sinful he is Righteousness the Lord our Righteousness Now either all this signifies the benefits we receive by Christ or it signifies nothing and how then do these personal Excellencies of Christ differ from his benefits nay when they direct us how to attain to this love to the Person of Christ they bid us behold how Christ hath loved us and our persons how many impediments his love hath broken thorough how free it is so free that there was no reason for his love to us neither likeness benefit nor love c. and they teach us to use Christ much if we would love his person in any good thing you have
never come And when the Soul hath this particular call suppose it should suspect this call for a delusion what course can it take to satisfie it self that this is the call of the spirit of God and not the cheat and imposture of an enthusiastick fancy truly none that I know of if this calling by name will not satisfie it there is no other way but to call for the Book of Election and see whether its name be enrolled there the best of it is that all that are called must come and therefore they need inquire no further But secondly Though we know not how to get into Christ it would be some comfort to know that we are in him but this is as impossible as the other as the only foundation of our Faith in coming to Christ according to these mens notions is this special and particular call of the Spirit so the only infallible assurance any one can have that he is in Christ is the testimony of the Spirit that Spirit of adoption which teaches us to cry Abba Father and yet God does not afford this testimony of the Spirit to all but suffers many good Christians to walk in darkness and hides his face from them and conceals the evidences of his eternal love for no other reason but because they are desirous of it and would be quiet if they should know it this is somewhat hard measure but suppose you have or think you have this testimony of the Spirit how can you be sure that it is not a cheat and delusion the imposture of the Devil or of your own self-flattering imaginations To satisfie this scruple we are directed to marks and evidences and thus this infallible assurance from the testimony of the Spirit must in its last resolve be founded upon some moral evidence as it is with the Church of Rome who after a great noise and cry of infallibility are at last forc't to resolve their Faith into some motives of credibility or to dance round in an endless circle Well but let us consider what are the marks and evidences of our being in Christ and now you must inquire whether you have the Spirit of Christ and it is just as easie to know this as whether you be in Christ But are you true Believers is your Faith of the right stamp is it wrought by the Almighty Power of God or is it such an easie common presumptuous false Faith as that which is in the generality of men and this is as easie to know as either of the former for if there be such a false presumptuous Faith as takes Christ when he does not belong to us and rests and relies on Christ only for pardon life and Salvation and yet shall never have Christ how shall we know whether our Faith be true and genuine such as will make Christ ours and the answer to this brings us to that great mark of sanctification you must consider the effects of Faith doth it purifie your heart doth it overcome the World doth it work by love if any man be in Christ he is a new Creature are you then new Creatures is the state of your person changed from a Child of wrath to an Heir of Grace which is the thing to be proved or is your nature changed do you not think speak act as you did before do ye walk in newness of life c. have you crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts do you bring forth fruit as every branch in Christ which is not rejected by him doth that is you must prove your justification by your sanctification your Faith by your Works It must be acknowledged that these are some of those marks and Characters which the Scripture gives of good Christians by which we may as certainly know what our state is as the Tree is known by its Fruit and since it is no better I am heartily glad it is no worse that good works and a holy life may at least put in for marks and evidences of a justified state though the truth is this is a meer complement to holiness and as they order the matter a holy life can no more be the sign of a justified state than it can justifie us For first since holiness is not necessary to our Union with Christ it can be no necessary sign of it we are united to Christ before we are holy as appears from what I have already discoursed and therefore an unholy man may be united to Christ and how then can holiness be the only sure mark of our Union to Christ indeed they tell us that holiness does necessarily follow our Union to Christ but no man knows how long it may be before it follows and yet all this while such a Person is united to Christ at best this gives evidence but to one part of the question a holy life may be a good evidence that such a man is in Christ but the want of it is no certain evidence that a man is not in Christ and therefore this mark may be rejected by any one who hath no mind to it Nay secondly According to these mens principles we cannot tell whether we are holy or not till we know whether we are in Christ or not our Union to Christ must be an evidence of our holiness not our holiness an evidence of our Union to Christ till we are united to Christ we can do nothing to please God the best actions of Christless and unregenerate men are but splendida peccata glittering impieties which may appear so fair and lovely that they may deceive both other men and themselves for the true fruits of the Spirit but yet are odious and abominable to God because the person who does them is out of Christ our persons must be first accepted in Christ and then our services we cannot judge of holiness by the external performance of any duty nor by the inward sense of our own minds but must first know whether we are in Christ whether our persons be accepted in him before we can tell whether any thing we do be good and acceptable to God and this is a plain demonstration that holiness cannot be an evidence of our Union to Christ because we must first know our Union to Christ before we can know that we are holy And thirdly At other times these men make the work of sanctification in this life so imperfect and so like an unsanctified state that it is impossible to distinguish a sanctified and unsanctified man and upon this account holiness and sanctification must needs be a very sorry evidence of our Union to Christ when it is so imperfect that it cannot be known for that which is an evidence of another thing ought to be very evident it self An unregenerate man is under the Law of Sin under the reigning power of it and a regenerate man as they describe him is in a state as like this as one Egg is like another for a regenerate man may
this is a wonderful love but wherein the excellency of it consists I cannot see I am sure we account that man a Fool who loves at this rate we who are reasonable Creatures think that we are bound to govern all our actions and the passions of our mind too by reason and we account it a reproach to a man to act either against reason or without it to do any thing of which he cannot give a reasonable account and how that should come to be the perfection of the love of God which is a reproach to men is above my apprehension Indeed were this true it would undermine the very foundations of Religion for the great end of Religion is to please God and to procure his love and favour but if God and Christ love for no reason then it is a vain thing for us to think of pleasing God or procuring his love by any thing we can do whether we obey him or disobey him it is all one as to this Case for if he please to love us without any reason our sins cannot hinder it and if it does not please him to love us our Holiness and Obedience cannot alter him when our acceptation with God depends wholly upon a Soveraign and unaccountable will nothing we can do can either hinder or promote it and therefore all Religion is in vain The foundation of this mistake is a Philosophical nicety that God must act wholly from himself and therefore must not be moved by any external cause whereas should he love us because we are holy and obedient to him or hate us because we are wicked his love and hatred would depend upon an external cause viz. the holiness or wickedness of Creatures which unbecomes an Independant being to depend upon any thing else the sum of which reasoning is this that because God is the first cause of all things on whom all other things depend and he on nothing therefore he must love and hate his Creatures without any reason but his own unaccountable will for this is all the inconvenience they can object that when God loves or hates rewards or punishes his Creatures the reason of this difference he makes between his Creatures must be fetcht from the persons themselves whom he thus loves or hates and so it must of necessity be if he have any reason at all for the reason of love or hatred ought to be in the object not in the person who loves or hates and yet in propriety of speech God cannot be said to depend on his Creatures or any thing without himself for the reason of his love or hatred but his own nature is the reason of it he is infinitely holy and therefore loves holiness and hates sin and his natural love to holiness is the reason why he loves holy men and his natural hatred to sin is the reason why he hates wicked men his own holiness is the reason why he loves holy men but the holiness of a Creature is the reason why he determines his love to any particular person and if they will call this a depending on Creatures we must acknowledge that God does thus depend on his Creatures in the administration of his Providence in the distributions of rewards and punishments and he should not be wise and holy and just and good if he did not that is if he did not put such a difference between things and persons as their natures require It is a strange notion of an Independant Being that he must have no other reason for what he does but his own arbitrary will which is so far from being a perfection that it destroys all the other perfections of the divine nature Secondly These men tell us too that the love of Christ is immutable that having once fixt his love upon us though without any reason he can never alter that sin it self cannot separate us from the love of Christ as there was nothing in us that was the ground of his planting his love on us so there is nothing that shall be able to overturn the thoughts of his love when once they are fixt on us though this is no certain demonstration for he who loves for no reason may give over loving for none if sin fore-seen were not able to hinder him from planting his heart on us how then shall it that is sin committed be able to overturn the thoughts of his heart when once they are fixed on us this is a strong and fixed love indeed which sin it self cannot alter but how wise and holy a love it is let any man judg herein Dr. Owen tells us the depth of Christs love is to be contemplated that whereas his holy Soul hates every sin it is a burden an abomination a new wound to him and his poor Spouse that is sinful Believers are full of sin failings infirmities he hides all covers all bears with all rather than he will loose them He adds indeed by his power preserving them from such sins as a remedy is not provided for in the Covenant of grace I suppose he means the sin against the Holy Ghost for there is a remedy provided for all other sins in the Covenant of Grace and all other sins a Believer it seems may be guilty of and Christ will hide all cover all rather than lose him now this is as down right Antinomianism as ever Dr. Crisp or Saltmarsh vented There have been and are to this day a great many wise and learned men who contend earnestly for the perseverance of the Saints that those who are once in a state of Grace shall always continue so but then they found this not on such an immutable love as sin it self cannot alter for this is not reconcileable with the holiness of the divine nature nor with those threatnings in the Scripture against such back-sliders when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that a wicked man doth shall he live all the righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Ezek. 18. 24. And if any man turn back my Soul shall have no pleasure in him which is a plain demonstration the truth of which is acknowledged by all sober Writers that if such men can be supposed to relapse into a sinful state God also will cease to love them and therefore they found the immutability of Gods love to them on their perseverance in doing good God loves all good men but if they cease to be good he also must cease to love and herein the immutability and unchangeableness of Gods love consists not that he always loves the same Person but that he always loves for the same Reason for it is no perfection to be so fixt in our kindness that where we love once we will always love whatever reason there may be to alter our affection for
the more you use it the more you prize it and the more you prize it the more you love it if you have a good friend the more you use him the more you prize him and the more you prize him the more you love him if you have a good Horse the more you use him the more you prize him c. if you have a good Knife the more you use it c. if you would love Christ use him much and then the more you will prize him and the more you will love him Now to let pass the rudeness of the Comparisons this using Christ must signifie his benefits and to prize and love Christ much because we use him much is to love him because we make great advantage of him and receive many benefits from him which is neither better nor worse than to love him for his benefits The occasion of all this contradiction and confusion in these mens discourses is that they do not distinguish between loving the benefit and loving the person upon account of his benefits It must indeed be acknowledged to be very bruitish and barbarous to delight in the gift and to take no notice of the giver to solace our selves in the effects of the divine bounty and goodness and to make no returns of love and thankfulness and duty to God this is to love the benefit but not the person who bestows this benefit but those blessings and benefits we receive from God and Christ are the true reasons why we are bound to love them and could we be supposed to love God and Christ for no reason or as these men phrase it purely for themselves without respect to those many blessings we have received from them it would not be accepted because this is not a reasonable love but an unaccountable and foolish passion The love we owe to God and Christ is no other than gratitude because God loved us first and our love is only a return of his now thankfulness and gratitude includes a necessary respect to those blessings and benefits we have received it is peculiar to God who wants nothing and can receive nothing from his Creatures to love without any respect to benefits but the love of indigent and dependent Creatures is a love of thankfulness is a grateful acknowledgment of those many blessings we receive from God Secondly These men oppose our love to the person of Christ to our love to our selves the first destroys the reason and the object of our love and this destroys the principle of it it is made the Character of a wicked man who wants an inward principle of love to God and Christ that though he seeks to honour God never so much yet all that he doth is done out of love to himself and therefore God abhors all that he performs All the good things such a wicked man doth are for himself either for self credit or self-ease or self content or self-safety he sleeps prays hears speaks professeth for himself alone hence acting always for himself he committeth the highest degree of Idolatry makes himself a God c. Hence the same Author thus exhorts Sinners away then out of your selves to the Lord Iesus go to him and take hold on him not with the hand of presumption and love to thy self to save thy self but with the hand of Faith and love to him to honour him and a little after describing the easie ways to Heaven all which lead to Hell he reckons among the rest the way of self-love whereby a man fearing terribly he shall be damned useth diligently all means whereby he shall be saved Here is the strongest difficulty of all to row against the stream to hate a mans self our own Souls and eternal Salvation and then to follow Christ fully now is not this a hard case that before we can love God and Christ as we ought we must root out the very principle of all love that we must learn to hate Salvation and eternal happiness before we can close with Christ for Salvation he might well say that this is the strongest difficulty of all for indeed it is impossible love to our selves is the foundation of our love to all other things even to God himself he that does not love himself will love nothing else he that hates himself and his own Soul and despises eternal Salvation will not care for Christ nor Salvation by him all the motives and arguments of the Gospel to perswade us to love and fear and obey God are founded on self-self-love for how is it possible that we should be affected with a due sense of Gods goodness to us that we should be excited and quickned by the hopes of such great rewards that we should be restrain'd and govern'd by the fears of punishment if we did not love our selves if we did not care what became of us whether we were happy or miserable for ever It is a vain thing to perswade a man not to love himself for this is as natural and necessary as it is for the fire to burn or Sun to shine it is not matter of our choice it is not in our power to do otherwise and all that such discourses as these can do is either to make men Hypocrites to pretend to do that which they cannot do or to make honest men who cannot thus cheat and delude themselves despair of their Salvation because they cannot find themselves contented without Salvation that Christ without Comfort and without Salvation cannot satisfie them It is true when men set up self in opposition to God when self-love tempts them to disobey God to despise his Counsels to renounce their Faith and Religion this is a very vicious and mistaken self-self-love such men neither love themselves nor God in a proper sense because it is our interest as well as duty to obey God such men are Idolaters as our Author speaks because they set up self above God and in opposition to him but when our love to our selves teaches us to love God and in all things to submit our selves to his will and pleasure we do as we ought to do and they who separate our love to God from our love to our selves from the care of our own happiness and Salvation do plainly declare that they neither understand the nature of man nor the Gospel of Christ. Thirdly They oppose our love to Christ to our own duties that is they oppose our love to Christ to the most proper and natural expression of our love to him herein Dr. Owen places the chastity of our affections to Christ which you know is a great marriage duty in not taking any thing as our own righteousness into our affections and esteem for those ends and purposes for which we have received Christ and God forbid that any Christian should for our own righteousness and duties cannot be our Mediators and Advocates cannot expiate for our past sins nor merit Heaven for us which Christ hath
certainly be expiated by the Death of the Sinner Especially considering how holy our Priest and Sacrifice was we cannot reasonably conceive that he died or that he intercedes for incorrigible Sinners The Sacrifice of his Death extends no farther than the example of his life he was made manifest to destroy sin and in him was no sin Now though I dare not be so bold as to say what infinite Wisdom can do yet it is not imaginable how God could have contrived a more effectual way to reform the World which contains so many powerful obligations such forceable endearments such ravishing charms which makes such a pleasant and inviting representation of God to the World which so confirms our Faith and encourages our hopes and enflames our love and awakens our fears and excites our emulation which doth even affect our senses with the arguments of Religion and storm the lower and more bruitish faculties of our Souls and captivate them to the love and obedience of Christ. From hence it is easie to understand what is the true method of a Sinners recovery by Christ and what returns of love and gratitude we owe our Lord and Saviour When we are so affected with all the powerful arguments to a new life which are contained in his Incarnation and life and doctrine and example and miracles and death and resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and his Intercession for us as to be sensible of the shame and folly of sin and to be reconciled to the love and practice of true piety and holiness then we partake in the merits of his Sacrifice and find the benefit of his Intercession and have a title to all the blessings and promises of his Gospel this was the design of Christ's coming into the World not to distract our guilty minds with the terrours of the Law and the inexorable justice of God not to bring us under a Legal dispensation of fear and bondage but to encourage us to forsake our sins and reform our lives by all the endearments of love and goodness and the lively hopes of a blessed Immortality mixt with an awful regard and Reverence for God who is a holy and righteous Judge and an irreconcileable Enemy to all sin This is such a method of converting Sinners as is proper to the Person of Christ and the manner of his appearance which was not designed to cause tempests and Earthquakes in our minds like the Thunder and Lightning from Mount Sinai but to work a reformation in the World by more silent and gentle methods and in more humane ways If our Faith in Christ have reformed our lives and rectified the temper and disposition of our minds and made us sincere Lovers of God and goodness Though we are not acquainted with these artificial methods of repentance have not felt the workings of the Law nor the amazing terrours of Gods wrath nor the raging despair of damned Spirits and then all on a sudden as if we had never heard of any such thing before have had Christ offered to us to be our Saviour and heard the woings and beseechings of Christ to accept of him and upon this have made a formal contract and espousal with Christ and such like working of a heated fancy and religious distraction though our conversion be not managed with so much art and method and by so many steps and gradations we are never the worse Christians for want of it For indeed this must needs be the effect of ignorance not of an acquaintance with Christ which suggests so many encouraging considerations to return to God as to a merciful and compassionate Father and not to tremble at his presence as a severe and inexorable judge And hence we learn that the truest expression of love to our Saviour is not some fond and amorous passions but obedience to his Laws and the greatest honour we can do him is to imitate his example and to express the power of his death and resurrection in the exemplary holiness of our lives for this best answers the end of his coming into the World is the fruit of his intercession for us and the greatest glory and ornament of his spiritual Kingdom Thus I have given you a brief Scheme and Hypothesis of Religion from an acquaintance with Christs Person and if they will owne this a safe way to build Religion on an acquaintance with Christs Person they must owne what I have now discoursed which is much more agreeable to the Person of Christ and the design of his appearing and more easily and naturally deduced from it than their own wild and fantastical conceits If they do not like this I must advise them to quit this way as the which will serve others as well as themselves and let us all fetch our Religion from the plain Doctrines and Precepts of the Gospel of Christ not from any pretended Personal Acquaintance with him SECT IV. How men pervert the Scripture to make it comply with their fancies THere is a very obvious objection against this whole discourse the answering of which will further discover the ill consequences of frameing such fanciful Idaeas of Religion from an acquaintance with Christ's Person And that is this that though these men deduce their Religion from an acquaintance with Christ yet there are no men that so abound in Scripture proofs to confirm what they say and therefore they do not lay the Foundation of their Religion on such uncertain conjectures and the truth is if you consult these mens Writings you shall find their Books stuffed with Scripture or if you talk with them their whole discourse is little else but Scripture phrase but that Reverend Doctor confessed the plain truth that their Religion is wholly owing to an acquaintance with the Person of Christ and could never have been clearly and savingly learn't from his Gospel had they not first grown acquainted with his Person And then it is no wonder if they can accommodate Scripture expressions to their own dreams and fancies For when mens fancies are so posfest with Schemes and Idaeas of Religion whatever they look on appears of the same shape and colour wherewith their minds are already tinctured like a man sick of the Jaundies or that looks through a painted Glass who seeth every thing of the same colour that his eye or Glass gives it all the Metaphors and Similitudes and Allegories of Scripture are easily applyed to their purpose and if any word sound like the tinkling of their own sancies It is no less than a demonstration that that is the meaning of the Spirit of God and every little shadow and appearance doth mightily confirm them in their pre-conceived opinions As Inenaeus observes of the Valentinians that they used one Artifice or other to adapt all the speeches of our Saviour and all the Allegories of Scripture male composito phantasmati to the ill contrived sigment of their own brain and thus the minds of men are abused with words and phrases and the
be possest with the same love of vertue and goodness which appeared so eminently in him which is much to the same sense with that expression of Christs being formed in you Gal. 4. 19. My little Children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you that is till you be thoroughly instructed in the Doctrine and Religion of Christ and are thereby moulded into his likeness and image Hence in the 1 Cor. 6. 17. the Apostle tells us He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit that is herein consists our Union to Christ that we have the same temper of mind which he had for there can be no Union betwixt Souls and Spirits without this that they are acted by the same Principles and love and chuse the same things bodies are united by an external adhesion of parts but Souls by an harmony and consent of wills This makes two one Spirit when there is a perfect likeness of disposition when they agree in the same designs as much as if the same Soul animated them both when we love God and men as our Saviour did when we are meek and humble and patient and contented as he was we are as closely united to him as if he dwelt in us and we in him as if we had but one Spirit in us both But Thirdly there is a closer Union still which results from this which consists in a mutual and reciprocal love When we are transformed into the image of Christ he loves us as being like to him and we love him too as partaking of his nature He loves us as the price of his blood as his own workmanship created to good works and we love him as our Redeemer and Saviour Now love is the great Cement of Union which unites interests and thereby does more firmly unite hearts hence when our Saviour had told his Disciples At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Joh. 14. 20. he explains the meaning of it in v. 21. He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self unto him That is God and Christ and Christians are all united by a mutual and reciprocal love founded on a likeness of dispositions and actions on obedience to those Laws which are but a Copy of the Original Holiness of God and of the life of Christ. To the same purpose Christ prays for his Disciples Ioh. 17. 21. that they may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Which refers to their agreement in doctrine and love Thus according to the Scripture phrase love makes us one with God and Christ and with each other Fourthly This Union is exprest in Scripture by resembling the Christian Church to Gods Temple wherein he dwells as formerly he did in the Temple at Ierusalem while that typical and ceremonial Worship was in force God was pleased to dwell in a Temple made with hands there he placed the Symbols of his Presence from thence he gave forth his Oracles there he received their Sacrifices and Oblations and returned an answer to their prayers But since Christ hath introduced a more manly and spiritual Worship God dwells no longer in a Temple of wood and stones by such visible signs of his presence as formerly he did but hath chosen the society of devout minds and pure souls for the place of his residence and abode Thus in the 1 Cor. 3. 16. Know you not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you and Chap. 6. vers 19. Know you not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and 2 Cor. 6. 16. Ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in or among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people To the same purpose we find in Rev. 21. 3. that after the description of the Holy City the New Ierusalem coming down from God out of Heaven which signifies the state of the Christian Church there was heard a great voice out of Heaven saying Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their God Now all this must be expounded in allusion to the Temple at Ierusalem that as the Temple was the place of Gods peculiar presence with that people signifying that he was always ready at hand to assist them in their distress to supply their wants to defend them from their enemies to hear all the pious prayers they put up to him that is that he would be their God and they should be his people as the Apostle expounds it thus it is now with the Christian Church they are the only society of men whom God hath a peculiar regard for with whom he is always present whom he protects and defends by a vigilant and more particular providence whom he hath chosen for his peculiar people to dwell among them And as in the Temple God placed the Mercy-seat and the Cherubims as Emblems of his Majesty and Presence for which reason he is so often said to dwell betwixt the Cherubims so he hath now bestowed his holy Spirit on the Christian Church which is a surer pledge of his dwelling among them than those Types and Shadows were as the Apostle speaks Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you or among you that is this is a sufficient evidence that ye are the Temple of God in that God hath given his Spirit to dwell with you which primarily refers to those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which God in that Age bestowed on the Christian Church this was the true Shecinah or divine glory resting on them for which reason he is called the Spirit of Glory 1 Pet. 4. 14 The Spirit of Glory and of God resteth on you that is that Spirit of God which is the visible manifestation of his glory in the Christian Church of which that visible glory which sometimes filled the Jewish Tabernacle was an Emblem Hence S. Paul tells us that the glory of the new Covevant which is the ministration of the Spirit which was confirmed by such miraculous and plentiful effusions of the holy Spirit did far exceed the glory of the first Covenant written and engraven in stones though that was so glorious that the Children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance 2 Cor. 3. 7 8. for this was a glorious manifestation of a divine Presence with the Church that God did indeed dwell with them and walk among them and though these extraordinary gifts are now ceased yet
ordered the matter it is made to serve a great many evil purposes and to overthrow the main Designs of Christianity And to make this appear I shall as briefly and plainly as the matter will bear represent to you those other opinions concerning our Union to Christ which are now in great vogue in the World and do very unjustly challenge to themselves the name of Gospel-Mysteries As first when we inquire what this Union betwixt Christ and Believers is they answer in general that it is a mystical Union through the Spirit and Faith This Mystical is a hard word and therefore to explain it they tell us that this mystical Union is an Union of Persons where yet Persons and Natures are distinct As there is an Union of three Persons in one Nature in the Trinity and of two Natures in one Person in Christ which is the Hypostatical Union so the mystical Union is an Union of Persons where both Persons and Natures are distinct and it is an Union of Persons but no Personal Union The Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer and the person of the Believer is united to the Person of Christ as it must needs be where the Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer which Union is made by Faith which receives the Person of Christ and therefore must unite to the Person of Christ I doubt that consequence is not good for men are not united to every thing they receive but yet what follows may help it out as it is in the Marriage-Union which joyns person to person This is not very clear yet and therefore as a fuller explication of it the same Author describes it thus This mystical Union is that supernatural spiritual intimous Oneness and Conjunction which is betwixt the Person of Christ and the person of Believers through the bonds of the Spirit and Faith upon which there follows mutual and reciprocal Communion with each other This Oneness and Conjunction are hard words still and therefore to explain them you must observe that Christ and Saints are united how why in respect of that Oneness and Conjunction that is between them This now is as plain as one could wish they are one by their Oneness Union is Union and Christ is Christ and Believers are Believers and Oneness is Oneness and thus Christ and Believers are united by their Oneness But what are the bonds of this Union though it had been convenient first to have understood the Union better why they are the Spirit and Faith the Spirit unites Christ to us and Faith unites us to Christ and who can deny this to be a very mystical Union But besides this mystical Union there is a Legal or Law-Union betwixt Christ and Believers as he is their surety and a moral Union the foundation of which is Love of which more in its proper place and thus the Person of Christ and the person of Believers are united mystically legally morally The design of all these distinctions is to prove the Union of Persons betwixt Christ and Believers and because I find this Author hath bewildred himself I will endeavour to help him out for it is a very plain case if Christ and believers are united their Persons must be united too for the Person of Christ is Christ himself and the Persons of believers are the believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves but then they are united by mutual relations as the Persons of a Prince and his Subjects of a Husband and his Wife are united or by mutual affections or common Interest not by a natural adhesion of Persons but because I find it doth not satisfie these men that Christ and believers are united unless their Persons be united too it makes me suspect that there is a greater Mystery in this Union of Persons than every one apprehends and therefore Secondly Let us inquire what they mean by the Person of Christ to which believers must be united And here they have out-done all the metaphysical subtilties of Suarez and have found out a Person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and Manhood for there can be no other sense made of what Dr. Owen tells us That by the Graces of his Person he doth not mean the glorious excellencies of his Deity considered in it self abstracting from the office which for us as God and Man he undertook nor the outward appearance of his humane nature neither when he converst here on Earth nor yet as now exalted in glory But the graces of the Person of Christ as he is vested with the office of Mediation His spiritual eminency comeliness beauty as appointed and anointed by the Father unto that great work of bringing home all his Elect into his bosom Now unless the Person of Christ as Mediator be distinct from his Person as God Man all this is idle talk for what Personal Graces are there in Christ as Mediator which do not belong to him either as God or Man there are some things indeed which our Saviour did and suffer'd which he was not obliged to either as God or Man but as Mediator but surely he will not call the peculiar duties and actions of an office Personal Graces His Personal Graces fitted him for the discharge of his Mediatory office but whatever Personal Graces are in Christ belong to his Person still are seated either in his Divine or Humane Nature and he hath no Personal Graces as Mediator which he hath not either as God or Man And the Doctor himself when he accommodates the Description the Spouse gives of her Beloved to Christ tells us That he is white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy in the preciousness of his humanity because white is the complexion of glory and ruddy is very applicable to his humanity because man was called Adam from the red Earth whereof he was made which are excellent proofs but however white and ruddy belong to his divine and humane nature and that without any regard to his Mediatory office for he had been white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy with the red Earth of his humanity whether he had been consider'd as Mediator or not And in his first digression concerning the excellency of Christ Iesus to invite us to Communion with him in a Conjugal relation he tells us that Christ is exceeding excellent and desireable in his Deity and the glory thereof He is desireable and worthy our acceptation as consider'd in his Humanity in his freedom from sin and fulness of Grace c. Now though this look very like a contradiction to what he said before that by the graces of his Person he meant neither the excellencies of his divine nor humane nature yet he hath a salvo which will deliver him both from contradiction and from sense that he doth not consider these excellencies of his Deity or Humanity as
in for a share at least in being the Fountain of Grace though the Dr. is pleased to take no notice of him But how excellent is the Grace of Christs Person above the Grace of the Gospel For that is a bounded and limited thing it is a strait gate and narrow way that leadeth unto life there is no such boundless mercy as all the sins in the World cannot equal its dimensions as will save the greatest the oldest and the stubbornest transgressors Thus the Love of Christ is an eternal Love because his Divine Nature is eternal and it is an unchangeable Love because his Divine Nature is unchangeable and his love is fruitful for it being the love of God it must be effectual and fruitful in producing all the things which he willeth unto his Beloved he loves Life Grace Holiness into us he loves us into Covenant loves us into Heaven This is an excellent Love indeed which doth all for us and leaves nothing for us to do we owe this discovery see you to an Acquaintance with Christs Person or rather with his Divine Nature for the Gospel is very silent in this matter All that the Gospel tells us is that Christ loved sinners so as to dye for them and that he loves good men who believe and obey his Gospel so as to save them and that he continues to love them while they continue to be good but hates them when they return to their old vices and therefore I see there is great reason for sinners to fetch their comforts not from the Gospel but from the Person of Christ which as far excels the Gospel as the Gospel excels the Law But methinks this is a very odd way of arguing from the Divine Nature for if the love of Christ as God be so infinite eternal unchangeable fruitful I would willingly understand how sin and death and misery came into the World For if this Love be so eternal and unchangeable c. because the Divine Nature is so then it was always so for God always was what he is and that which is eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this eternal and unchangeable and fruitful love as well preserve us from falling into sin and misery and death as Love Life and Holiness into us for it is a little odd first to love us into sin and death that then he may love us into Life and Holiness which indeed could not be if this Love of God were always so unchangeable and fruitful as this Author perswades us it is now for if this Love had always loved Life and Holiness into us I cannot conceive how it should happen that we should sin and dye Not that I deny that the Love of God is eternal unchangeable fruitful that is that God was always good and always continues good and manifesteth his love and goodness in such ways as are suitable to his Nature which is the fruitfulness of it but then the unchangeableness of Gods love doth not consist in being always determined to the same object but in that he always loves for the same reason that is that he always loves true vertue and goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceases to love any person till he ceases to be good and then the immutability of his Love is the reason why he loves no longer for should he love a wicked man the reason and nature of his Love would change And the fruitfulness of God's Love with respect to the Methods of his Grace and Providence doth not consist in producing what he loves by an omnipotent and irresistible power for then sin and death could never have entred into the World but he governs and doth good to his Creatures in such ways as are most suitable to their natures He governs reasonable Creatures by Principles of Reason as he doth the material World by the necessary Laws of Matter and bruit Creatures by the Instincts and Propensities of Nature From hence he proceeds to shew how desirable Christ is in his Humanity by reason of his freedom from all sin both Original and Actual and his fulness of Grace that all Grace was in him for the kinds thereof and all degrees of Grace for its perfection This indeed doth represent him as a very excellent Person a spotless Sacrifice and a great Example to the World but these personal perfections cannot pass out of his Person to become ours But then Thirdly you must consider That all these perfections of the Divine and Humane Nature are united in one Person and this made him fit to suffer and able to bear whaetever was due unto us which no Creature could do for if the weight of our sins had been laid upon a meer innocent Creature how would they have overwhelmed him and buried him for ever out of the presence of God No doubt the Sacrifice of Christ who was God-Man was of greater value than the Sacrifice of any meer Creature could be but I know not what this is to his purpose and do as little admire his Philosophy But his being God and Man made him an endless bottomless Fountain of Grace to all that believe This he was as God as we were told before and his Grace was never the more bottomless for becoming Man The design you see of all this is to make the Person of Christ the Fountain of all Grace from whence we must drink pardon and mercy as long as we need any and such mercy too as his Gospel is unacquainted with he hath a fulness of all Grace in himself and from thence we must receive the communications of it And this brings me to the second sort of the Personal Graces and Excellencies of Christ his fulness to save from the Grace of Communion or the free consequences of the Grace of Union As for this Grace of Communion as he is pleased to call it though it sounds a little harsh to be a Personal Grace and yet communicated whereby Christ communicates his fulness to Believers I shall reserve it for its proper place and shall at present only consider what this Personal fulness in Christ is which he calls all the furniture he received from the Father by the Unction of the Spirit for the work of our Salvation and near of kin to this is his third Personal Grace his Excellency to endear from his compleat suitableness to all the wants of the souls of men There is no man whatever this sounds like universal Redemption that hath any want in reference to the things of God but Christ will be unto him that which he wanteth is he dead Christ is life is he weak Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God hath he the sense of guilt upon him Christ is compleat Righteousness the Lord our Righteousness many poor Creatures are sensible of their wants but know not where their remedy lies Indeed whether it be life or light power or joy all is wrapt up in him Now
be a Fool though having none is the surest way not to be sensible of it and to take up his eternal rest in Christ and to be contented with Christ without Comfort and without Salvation And now I shall conclude this Section with a remarkable passage in the Sincere Convert whereby it will evidently appear what these men think of sanctification there we have an account what course some men take to secure their eternal happiness that when they find themselves tired and weary of themselves and hearing that only Christ can save them they go to Christ to remove those sins which tired and loaded them that he would enable them to do better than formerly if they get these sins subdued and removed and if they find power to do better then they hope to be saved here is the evidence of sanctification whereas as he adds thou maist be damned and go to the Devil at last though thou dost escape all the pollutions of the World and that not from thy self and thy own own strength but from the knowledge of Iesus Christ wo to you for ever if you die in this state with your sins mortified and subdued by Christ and the reason is because this is to come to Christ to suck juice from him to maintain his own Berries his own stock of Graces alas he is but the Ivy he is no member nor branch in this Tree and hence he never grows to be one with Christ. So that holiness and obedience is no evidence of our Union to Christ though we fetch strength from Christ to do his will we may only grasp about Christ all this while as the Ivy doth about the Oak but never be united to him and become one with him so that now we must return where we began and stick to the testimony of the Spirit without any external evidence that is to private Enthusiasms for sanctification can be no evidence of our Union to Christ. Good God! Into what mazes and Labyrinths do these men lead poor distressed Souls they can direct them to no certain way of getting into Christ nor how to know whether they are in Christ or not and now we may plainly see what friends these men are to a holy life they all agree that holiness is not antecedently necessary to our Union with Christ but they only pretend to make it a necessary mark and evidence of our Union and yet they will not allow it this priviledge neither to be a certain evidence of our Union to Christ it may prove us united to Christ as the Ivy is to the Oak not as a branch is united to the Vine and I hope this will justifie any mans zeal against such opinions as undermine the very foundations of Christianity The Gospel method of Salvation is very plain and easie those great Miracles our Saviour wrought and his Resurrection from the Dead are the foundation of our Faith a sufficient reason to believe that he came from God and declared his will to the World a publick profession of this Faith in our Baptism makes us the visible members of his body which is his Church and a sincere obedience to his Gospel makes a real Union between Christ and us and entitles us to all the promises of the Gospel and every man may as certainly know whether he be thus united to Christ as he can feel the motions of his own mind as he can know what he loves and hates and chuses and what the course of his life and actions are and there is no need of any revelation of any private testimony of the spirit to assure men of this no more than there is to assure them of any thing which is evident to their outward or inward senses The testimony of the Spirit concerns the general adoption of Christians for the Sons of God not to testifie to any particular man that he is a good Christian or in a state of Grace that is it is not a private but a publick testimony given to the whole Christian Church that Holy Spirit which God bestowed upon the Apostles and Primitive Christians which enabled them to work miracles and to speak Languages which they had never learnt and to Prophesie was a plain argument to all the World that God now owned the Christians not the Jews for his chosen and elect people for his Sons and Children for this was the great dispute of those days whether Jews or Christians were the Sons of God whether God now owned the Jewish or the Christian Religion and the Apostles decide this controversie by the testimony of the Spirit for God could not give a greater testimony to the Christian Church than the gift of the Holy Spirit for it was a plain argument that he owned them for his Sons when he bestowed the Spirit of his Son on them as the Apostle argues Gal. 3. 2. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith That is did God bestow his Spirit on you while ye were Jews or upon your Conversion to Christianity for if God bestowed his Spirit only on Christians this is a sufficient seal to the Christian Religion This is very plain and intelligible the testimony of the Spirit assures us that all Christians are the Sons of God and Heirs of his Promises and every mans own Conscience will tell him whether he be a Christian that is whether he heartily believe and obey the Gospel of Christ and herein consists our Union to Christ and fellowship with him let us then leave those other dim notions to men who can believe what no man can understand who despise every thing that can be understood as if it were no better than carnal reason CHAP. V. Concerning the Love of Christ to Believers SECT 1. I Have now finisht the greatest part of my design and shall discourse more briefly of what remains Next to our Union with Christ follows our Communion with him for though Communion and fellowship in the Scripture notion of those words signifie no more than what we call Union as I have already proved yet in these mens Divinity they are very different our Union to Christ is represented by our marriage to him our Communion with him by consequential conjugal affections the only thing I shall at present take notice of for a Conclusion of all is that mutual and reciprocal love which is betwixt Christ and Believers Christs love to Believers and the Believers love to Christ. First Christs love to Believers the Scripture doth very justly magnifie the love of Christ as the greatest example of goodness that was ever known in the World and the greatest expression of the love of Christ was his dying for us he is that good Shepherd who giveth his life for his Sheep Iohn 10. 11. and our Saviour himself tells us greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend and therefore when the Apostle designed to mention the greatest
expression of Christs Love he instances in this Eph. 5. 25. Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it and when the same Apostle represents the constraining power of Christs love to captivate our affections and to engage us to live to him he argues from his love in dying for us 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again and the most surprizing circumstance of all which gives a new luster to the love of Christ is that he died for us while we were Enemies Rom. 5. 6 7 8. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly for scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die but God commendeth his love towards us that while we were yet Sinners Christ died for us But though this be the greatest it is not the only expression of Christs love herein indeed was the love of Christ perfected that he died for us but he expresses the same good will in all the methods of his Grace and Providence for Christ being our Lord and Master the most proper expression of his love to us is in an easie and gentle Government and a kind and watchful Providence not in such a fondness of passion as is sometimes seen among equals this I told you was exprest by those metaphors of his being a Shepherd a Husband a Head a Friend and our Saviour assures us that his yoke is easie and his burden light that he is a mild and gentle Governour meek and lowly in mind that he hath declared to us the secrets of Gods Counsel concerning our Salvation with the same freedom and plainness that a man useth to his friend henceforth I call you not Servants for the Servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you Friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Iohn 15. 15. He pities our weakness and infirmities and is ready to help and succour us he is now ascended up into Heaven where he personally intercedes for us and with his own hand dispenses all those blessings to us which we want and pray for in his name he is a gracious and merciful High Priest who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities being in all things tempted like as we are yet without sin Hebr. 4. 15. And now it is no wonder if he who died and who intercedes for us take pleasure in good men and dwell with them as one friend dwells with another Iohn 14. 21. He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self unto him and in Ver. 23. If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him That is Christ will in a more peculiar manner be present with such good men who are careful in all things to obey him and will give very sensible demonstrations of his presence with them not that he will make any new revelations to them for he hath already revealed the whole mind and will of God in such a plain and familiar manner that every one may understand it who will but exercise the same reason in it that he does to understand the Laws of his Prince but yet when a Soul is transformed into the likeness and image of Christ it many times feels such strong and vigorous motions to that which is good and such great and ravishing delights in all the acts of Religion as infinitely excel all the pleasures of sense and are a plain demonstration of a more peculiar presence of God in such a Soul these divine joys are by the Psalmist compared to the Feasts upon Sacrifices Psalm 36. 8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy House and thou shall make them drink of the Rivers of thâ— pleasures that is they shall relish aâ— great pleasure and satisfaction in thâ— sense of thy goodness and in paying their just praises and acknowledgment to thee as those do who Feast upon thâ— Sacrifices which are offered in the Temple for it is very reasonable to think that a Soul which is made one with God by a participation of his nature should feel such divine impressions from God as may both quicken its motions and sweeten its work there is a secret sympathy between things which are alike two unisons will move when either of them is toucht and two Souls which are of the same make and united by a strong and intimate friendship do many times feel each others passions at a distance by a secret and unaccountable power of nature and can we think then but that a Soul which heartily loves God and passionately breaths after a greater likeness to him and fuller enjoyment of him must needs sometimes feel such divine touches and impressions as are the effects if I may so speak of a mutual love and sympathy of natures some such thing our Saviour hath promised and good men experience not in equal degrees indeed nor equally at all times but in proportion to their attainments in true Piety and vertue and to the present frame and disposition of their own minds This is a short and true account of the love of Christ which deserves forever to be admired and adored and it must needs be a very hearty trouble to all good men to see so great and so generous a love so miserably abused and misrepresented by childish and romantick descriptions too many there are who cloath our Saviour with all the passions and follies of mortal men and think they honour him very much the more extravagant they make him in his love It were easie to expatiate in this argument and to give such a character of the love of Christ as I believe these very men will think prophane when they find it in any Books but their own and possibly it might do good service to Religion and tend much to the honour of our Lord and Master to put them out of conceit with it but I fear the Reader would think me prophane in doing it though in their own words and therefore I shall chuse rather only to take notice of two things which these men much insist on in their discourses of the love of Christ and so dismiss them First then the love of Christ is a love to the Person of a Believer without considering any other qualifications than that he is such an individual Person that is the excellency of Christs love consists in this that he loves for no reason now I confess
by this means we may love undeserving objects which is the greatest degeneracy of love but the perfection of love consists in loving deserving objects and in loving upon honourable reasons and the immutability of love consists in loving always for the same reason which is the only foundation of a vertuous immutability The reason of Christs love to any Person is his Holiness and Obedience if any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Iohn 14. 23. and the unchangeableness of his love is seen in this that he will continue to love while we continue to obey him if ye shall keep my Commandments that is continue to do so ye shall abide in my love I will continue to love you as I have kept my Fathers Commandments and abide in his love Iohn 15. 10. This is the immutability of the divine nature that God always acts upon steddy and constant principles that whatever changes there are in the World which may occasion very different administrations in his providence yet he is the same still and never changes whereas should God always love the same Person however he changed and alter'd God must change and alter too because though he still loves the same Person yet he must love for different or contrary reasons or for none at all and that is the much greater change of the two to alter the reason than the object of love if God love a good man because he is good and continue to love him when he is wicked his love is a mutable thing which can love goodness or wickedness which can love for none or for contrary reasons but if God always love true goodness and good men and never loves any other whatever change there be in Creatures God is the same still and unchangeable in his love Thus you see while these men pretend to admire and magnifie the love of God and Christ they make it a despicable and worthless thing such as a wise man would be ashamed of and such as a good man cannot be guilty of to love for no reason and to continue to love contrary to reason And as this is a great reproach to God and to our Saviour so is it a great injury to men too for it must of necessity make them careless of pleasing God and secure in their sins when they are perswaded that sin cannot hinder God from loving them nor alter his love towards them that if ever he love them it is for no reason but because he will and when once he is resolved upon it the immutability of his nature makes it necessary for him to continue to love that now sin it self cannot separate us from the love of God if this were true the worst man living would have as much reason to be secure of Gods love as the best men have nay if the depth and mystery and glory of the love of Christ consists in loving for no reason or contrary to reason the worse men are the fitter objects are they of the love of Christ. SECT II. Concerning the Believers love to Christ. HAving showed you wherein the Love of Christ consists I shall now consider what are those returns of love which we owe to our Lord and Saviour I take it for granted that all men who believe that Christ came into the World to save Sinners are of the Apostles mind if any man love not the Lord Iesus let him be Anathema Maranatha the only dispute is how we are to express our love to Christ now love primarily signifies the inward affection of the mind but is made visible by outward actions as for the affection of the mind we must consider that Christ is our Superiour our Lord and Master and therefore our love to Christ ought not to express it self in a fond and familiar passion such as we have for our friends and equals but in a great reverence and devotion Superiours must be treated with honour and respect which requires that we keep our distance and therefore our love to our Parents and Superiours is called honour in the fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother and the same religious affection to God which is sometimes called love is at other times called fear which signifies a reverential love or a love of honour and reverence and devotion which includes a great delight in the thoughts of God a devout sense of his greatness and Majesty a great admiration of his Excellencies and perfections a religious awe and reverence for him and all those affections of the Soul which are expressive of love and honour As for the external expressions of our love they are as various as the expressions of honour are and herein we must have a peculiar regard to the nature and condition of the Person and that relation we stand in to him thus Christ being the only begotten Son of God we must have regard to the greatness and excellency of his Person that our returns may bear some proportion to it Christ having condescended to come into the World in our nature to suffer and die for us it becomes us to admire his love and goodness to extol and praise him to celebrate the memorials of his Death and Passion in that holy Feast which he hath on purpose instituted to be a thankful remembrance of our Crucified Lord since he is our Mediator and Advocate the truest expression of our love and honour is to confide and trust in him to depend on his intercession for us to offer up all our Prayers to God in his name and to expect an answer to our Prayers for his sake and when we consider him as our Prophet and Law-giver we must express our love to him in a stedfast belief of his Gospel and in a sincere and hearty obedience to all his Laws love to equals who have no authority over each other but what love gives them makes them very flexible and obsequious to each others desires and requests but our love to Superiours to our Prince or Parents includes obedience in its own nature and therefore this our Saviour makes the principal tryal of our love to him if you love me keep my Commandments and he that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me but he that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings you are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you Joh. 14. 15. 23 24. and in Chap. 15. vers 14. for there cannot be a more proper expression of our love and honour to a Law-giver than to obey his Laws And when we consider our Saviour as our Guide and Example the truest expression of our love and honour is to imitate him to live as he lived in the World For there is nothing more natural than to imitate what we love and reverence which is the plainest demonstration of the greatest honour in that we think it our perfection and happiness
Iesus Christ fast and pray and get a full tide of affections in them to carry thee to the Lord Iesus Christ that is to get more love of him more acquaintance with him more Union with him so sorrow for thy sins that thou maist be more fitted for Christ that thou maist prize Christ the more use thy duties as Noahs Dove did her Wings to carry thee to the Ark of the Lord Iesus Christ Or as it is with a poor man that is to go over a great water for a treasure on the other side though he cannot fetch the Boat he calls for it and though there be no treasure in the Boat yet he useth the Boat to carry him over to the treasure so Christ is in Heaven and thou on Earth he doth not come to thee and thou canst not go to him now call for a Boat though there is no grace no good no salvation in a pithless duty yet use it to carry thee over to the treasure the Lord Iesus Christ. When thou comest to hear say Have over Lord by this Sermon when thou comest to pray say Have over Lord by this Prayer to a Saviour c. So that it seems the whole business of our love to Christ and Evangelical Righteousness consists in some flights of fancy and imagination in admiring and valuing the person of Jesus Christ in getting an acquaintance with him and Union to him and the business of all Religion is to have over to Christ that we may love and prize his person and personal Righteousness above all things in the World It is not so much the business of Sermons to acquaint us with the nature and attributes works and providences of God and to instruct us in our duty to him and to encourage us to the practice of it by all the motives and arguments of the Gospel as to have over to Christ to acquaint us with his fulness and Righteousness and alsufficiency to save us without such a legal Righteousness of our own the design of Prayer is not so much to affect our Souls with a sense of the divine Majesty and greatness to worship and adore the great Creator of the World and to express our trust and affiance in him as to have over to Christ to fetch pardon and life and health and Righteousness from him that sorrow for sin is not so much to imbitter sin to us and to confirm and strengthen our resolutions against it as to teach us to prize and value the person of Christ more who is our Righteousness in a word the nature and design of Religion is now changed from being the homage and worship of God the certain means of pleasing him and transforming us into his nature and likeness which is the natural end of Religion into a Cock-Boat or Skuller to wast us over to Christ. Here we see the true reason why these men do so much despise morality in comparison with those Gospel duties of hearing Sermons and Prayer and Confession and Humiliation and Fasting c. Because as they handle the matter the practice of moral vertues cannot have us over to Christ cannot apply the Righteousness and fulness of Christ to us nor ravish our fancies with glorious images and Idaeas of his person and since all the duties of Religion are such pithless things which have no grace no good no salvation in them but as they have us over to Christ poor morality must needs be a worthless thing Thus I have finisht my designed task and upon a review of it it makes me amazed to think how strangely these men have transformed the Religion of our Saviour and disfigur'd the Gospel of Christ how they have undermined the fundamental design of the Gospel which is to make men good and vertuous and like to God how they have misrepresented the ends of Christ comeing into the World and abused his expiation and Sacrifice and Righteousness and Intercession to the Patronage of Vice and Wickedness how they have laid snares to betray some men to a licentious life and to entangle others in endless troubles and perplexities of mind how under a pretence of advancing the person of Christ they have in effect through ignorance and mistake and want of consideration for I am not willing to suspect any worse cause banisht his Religion out of the World I have faithfully and impartially stated the case examined their proofs from Scripture and reason and the result of all is no more but this that the only way to please God and to save our Souls is to obey the Precepts of the Gospel trusting in the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ who having perfected the work of our redemption is become the Author of Eternal Salvation to all them that obey him FINIS See Ch. 1. concerning the significa of the name Christ. Digr 2 Of the Excellency of Christ Iesus p. 89 〈…〉 Digr 2. p. 93. Ibid. p. 95. Ib. p. 97. P. 110. P. 112. P. 117. Digr 2. p. 119. Shepards sound Believer p. 80. * Watson's Christs Loveliness pag. 462. Watson's Christs Loveliness p. 467. Watson's Christian Character p. 60. The Spiritual Vine p. 167. Shepards sincere Convert p. 77. Watson's Christs Loveliness p. 462. I. O. Communion p. 63. * Of the Knowledge of Christ p. 19. Watson's Christs Loveliness Idem Watson Ibidem 〈◊〉 1 Watsons Christs Loveliness Idem Christs Loveliness Watson ibidem Watson's true brazen Serpent Watson's Spiritual Vine Watsons Christs Loveliness Watson Mystery the Lora Supper p. 64. Idem p. 65. Ibidem Dr. Owen's Communion with Christ Ch. 8. I. O. Excellency of Iesus Christ. Digr 2. p. 113. Ibidem p. 119. I. II. Thomas Vincent III. IV. Dr. Jacomb on Rom. 8. pag. 42. Pag. 45. Pag. 48. Pag. 49. Commun with Christ pag. 51. Ibid. p. 52. Pag. 64. Communion with Iesus Christ pag. 53. Communion p. 54. Communion with Iesus Christ. p. 55. Brooks Riches of Christ. Dr. Owen Com. 1. Dr. Owen Com. p. 60. Dr. Iacomb Rom. 8. p. 85. 2. Ibid. Communion with the Son Chap. 6. p. 182. Communion with the Son p. 178. Commun pag. 182. Pag. 184. Pag. 183. Pag. 181. Communion p. 183. Communion p. 182. Communion p. 185. Communion p. 167. Communion p. 184. * Dr. Owen's Communion p. 193. * Sound Believer p. 321. * P. 318. * P. 212. * Sound Believer p. 68. * P. 86. P. 85. P. 82. * P. 12◠P. 125. P. 141. * P. 128. P. 130. P. 152. P. 173 P. 185. * Chap. 3. * Sound Believer p. 126. * P. 133. * P. 137. * P. 138. * P. 144. * P. 145. P. 153. Sincere Convert p. 75. Ibidem P. 85. * Sound Believer p. 246. Ibidem p. 215. * Sound Believer p. 130. Dr. Iacomb Rom. 8. p. 65. * Rom. 8. p. 182. * Ibidem Shephards Saints Iewel pag. 192. Shephards sincere Convert p. 94 c. P. 167. * Ch. 4. Sect. 1. P. 186. * Ch. 4. Sect. 1. * Com. p. 158. W. B. Christs Personal excellency the object of our love p. 15. W. B. ibid. Shephards sincere Convert p. 4. ed. 1672. Pag. 84 Pag. 109. Communion p. 165. Shephards sincere Convert pag. 197. Sincere Convert pag. 170. I. O. Com. p. 63. Ibid. pag. 154. Pag. 140. Chap. 4. Sect. 2. Shephards sincere Convert pag. 173 Pag. 178.