his Friends besought him not to go to that City Paul rebuked his friends for their love to Him as seeming to derogate from his to Christ. What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart I am ready not to be bound only but to dy at Ierusalem for the name of the Lord Iesus Nothing wounded him so deeply as that what was his glory should be the cause of their grief So when our Lord put the Question unto some of his Disciples upon the Cowardize and Falsehood he saw in others will ye also go away they presently gave him such an Answer as imply'd their being wounded in the tenderest part of their Soul Lord to whom should we go thou hast the words of Eternal life Why dost thou kill us with such a Question as seems to scruple at our Loyalty and to derogate from our Love where is he in all the World whom we are able to leave thee for or what is that that we can Covet in exchange for Eternal life Can we be so besotted as to part with our Iewel in hopes of Dirt why then dost thou intimate that it is possible for us to leave thee or possible for us not to love thee or possible for us to love thy absence so again when he ask't no less than three times together Simon Peter lovest thou me Peter was grieved saith the Text because he had said to him the third time lovest thou me and therefore gave him such an Answer three times together as I cannot better express then by this short Paraphrase Lord when thou knowest that I love thee why dost thou ask if I love thee though all should forsake thee yet will not I. My love is stronger than Death it self Why dost thou grieve me with such a Question as wounds the honour of the love that I bear unto thee Sect. 2. Just so when our Saviour does say to us If ye love me keep my Commandments it ought to go somewhat neer us that we should give him any occasion of putting it to us with an If. Were we piously inamour'd with him who is fairer than the children of men did our Souls love Him who is the Lover of Souls in as passionate a manner as he deserves and were we as jealous of the honour of our Fidelity as we ought we would be ready to expostulate in such a case Blessed Lord dost thou by saying If ye love me imply it possible that we do otherwise behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God When we were Bondmen ready to perish not in Aegypt like the Poor Syrian but that other land of darkness even Hell it self it cost him himself to buy our Freedom And is it possible not to love him whilst we believe it to be true that he hath thus loved us and that he loved us first too Can we possibly be able not to love him at the Rebound Observe the force of those words in the best beloved of his Disciples We love him because he loved us first or let us love him because he loved us first For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does equally signifie them both It affirms and it exhorts It is at once of the Indicative and of the Subjunctive mood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we do love him and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us love him and if for no better reason at least for this because he lov'd us when we were Enemies and because he then lov'd us when we deserv'd nothing but hatred Sect. 3. But what a sad thing is this if we shall love him only for that for which the worst sort of men are wont to love one another For if we love them that love us what thank have we saith our Saviour do not even the Publicans the same nay do not the Devils do somewhat like it by being still at agreement amongst themselves never was Satan divided yet against Satan for then his kingdom had not continued It was a witless and foolish calumny rais'd by the Pharisees of our Saviour that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils For the Devils have more wit than to invade each others Rights And is not that a kind of Love by which as by a Bond they are kept together in Peace and Unity for mutual interest and preservation And then what great matter is it if we love Christ for this that he loved us first It is no more than we are tyed to by the law of good nature to return at least a little for the great deal we have receiv'd yet He desires no more of us than that we will pledge him when he begins to us that we afford him what he has bought and deerly paid for and at least that we will love him because he loved us first Now if we have no love to give him or spare him freely we should at least have some to sell him or some to retribute and restore him love for love obedience for obedience patience for patience and blood for blood Seeing the Publicans themselves do love their lovers how much worse must we be if we are no lovers of Him who lov'd us better than his Life Solomon thought it a great expression to say that Love is as strong as Death thereby meaning nothing more than the love of the Bride But the love of the Bridegroom was very much stronger as being that that overcame the sharpness of Death And shall we so much disparage either Him or our selves as to let a Peradventure or an if be made of it whether or no we have attain'd to such a secondary love as may suffice at least to prove us one degree better than Devils Shall we think it is sufficient to serve the turn to make us Competent Christians and good enough that we approve of Christs Innocence and own his Power have no aversion to his goodness and are glad if we can serve him with ease and Pleasure to the Flesh As when we Pray in his Name and make Profession of his word and sing Hosannas to his glory and never deny him but in our works nor ever forsake him but in his sufferings Sect. 4. Nay to shame ourselves yet farther out of the coldness we labour under shall an if be made of our love to Him the love of whom does most conduce to our greatest Interest and Advantage All the Promises in the Context are no more sequels of our obedience than our obedience is the Fruit and effect of Love From whence it follows that on our Love to the Lord Jesus Christ all his great and pretious Promises must needs depend for their performance For if we love him not enough how then can we delight in him And if we cannot delight in Him how much less in his Commandments and if not so how then can we obey him and if not that how then can we hope he
effect of discharging his duty and so 't is our duty to be happy and therefore an happiness to do our Duty The summ of our duty towards our Neighbour is to love him as our selves and the effect of this duty is full contentment and satisfaction For we are neighbours unto all for whom Christ dyed and he dyed for our enemies as well as Friends and if we love all the world for which Christ dyed with such a singleness of love as we love our selves with we cannot fail of observing that other Precept of our Saviour Matth. 7. 12. which is the doing unto others as we would that others should do to us And then by a consequence unavoidable we shall not covet another mans goods because we would not that another should covet ours And coveting nothing that is anothers we cannot choose but be satisfied and contented with our own And in contentment or satisfaction which are Synonymous it will be granted by all the world that real happiness does consist Sect. 20. Now if the loving of one another even as Christ hath loved us and as our selves do love our selves does infer our loving God with all our heart as S. Iohn does clearly intimate 1 Ioh. 4. 20. And if the Commandments of our Lord do amount all to this that we love one another with such a love as our Lord does clearly intimate in the 13 14 15 and 17. chapters of S. Iohn's Gospel then we discern the great reason of those expressions of S. Paul He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law And all the law is fulfilled in this one word thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self And if these things are so then all the moral law of Moses which is withal the law of Christ does make it our Duty to be content and by consequence to be happy and by consequence an happiness to do our Duty For he that saith in plain terms thou shalt not only not rob or defraud thy neighbour of his life his wife his goods or his good name but thou shalt also not coveâ—… any thing that is anothers doth clearly say in effect and substance thou shalt be satisfied with thine own thou shalt not be in any want of the things without but shalt have happiness within thee all thy desires shall be fulfill'd thou shalt have absolute contentment and satisfaction and the Angels of Heaven can have no more This is the precept which I command and this the Duty thou art obliged to perform Thou shalt not covet what is not thine that is to say in other words Thou shalt be as happy as I would have thee And thus at last I have proceeded unto the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or thing proposed to be prov'd Sect. 21. Another way whereby to prove it will be to argue from that Trichotomie in the 6. chapt of Micah at the 8. verse where the whole Body of the Commandments is compendiously divided into these three members to do Iustice to love Mercy and to walk humbly with our God The first of which bestows upon us a full Serenity of mind the most desirable felicity of being satisfied with our selves and so by consequence it yields us the greatest pleasure The second is not only to make our Donor to become our Debtor but to lend him our Riches upon Increase nor that for ten in the hundred but for an hundred-fold the Principal Mat. 19. 20. and by consequence it yields us the greatest gain The third is that which speaks us masters of our selves by speaking us servants to a master whose service is not only Freedom but Empire too Illi servire est regnare saith Espensaeus And giving us the advantage of that most honourable subjection which in Tacitus his judgment does place the Subjects above their Prince makes us Favorites in the Court of the King of Heaven and by consequence it yields the greatest Honour So that unless we are professedly Platonick Lovers of Disobedience all our Duties are conformable to the very unruliest of our Desires The doing of Iustice does comply with our Sensuality the loving of Mercy with our Avarice and to walk humbly with our God is very agreeable to our Ambition Sect. 22. Lest this should seem at first hearing to be but a phansiful way of arguing I shall shew it once more by a clearer light As for the first the doing of Iustice it entertains its entertainers with peace of Conscience which in the wise man's Judgment is a continual Feast It is so acceptable and pleasant to reflect in a mans Thoughts upon his having don well having wronged no man defrauded no man but dealt righteously with all that any man whose understanding hath not quite lost its Tast may make as pleasant a meal on a mess of Honesty I speak of likeness and not equality as if he had din'd that day in Paradise and taken his Supper in Heaven it self Sect. 23. The second the loving of Mercy is the giving our selves a Right to what we have by our parting with the possession For non videtur cujusquam id esse quod casu auferri potest saith Caius the Lawyer Nothing is properly our own which can possibly cease to be so by being entrusted unto a Treasurie where rust and moth can corrupt or where thieves break through and steal From whence it follows that 't is the Thrift if not the Avarice of a merciful man to make Heaven his Coffer and to Inventory his Goods by the number of the persons to whom he hath been a Benefactor For in propriety of speech we are worth no more than we have wisely given away And that the parting with our possession is no infringing of our Right appears not only by Gods but Iustinians Law For eum habere dicimus qui Rei dominus est aeque ac eum qui Rem tenet saith Ulpian And this Rule of the Civilians you may interpret out of S. Paul For when saith he we are poor by making many rich we are as having nothing and yet possessing all things Sect. 24. Lastly for the Third the walking humbly with our God it is not only the safest but noblest temper not only the most christian but the most hansome quality And thence is call'd by S. Peter not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is profitable or gainful in relation to God of whom it looks for its Reward but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too that is hansome or comly in the sight of men 1 Pet. 3. 4. Where having said wherein comliness does but negatively consist not in the plaiting of the hair or putting on of our apparel he proceeds to inform us wherein it positively consists to wit in the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible even the Ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit 'T is this that makes us like the Queens Daughter all glorious within And therefore when Celsus upbraided Origen with that degenerous modesty of the Christians for
is that loves to live a sober and righteous and godly life is most affectionately a servant to the Lord Iesus Christ and does bestow his whole Time in doing the things that he Commands Let the object of our Love be what it will whether God or the World the Flesh or the Spirit still the Rule of the Apostle will be unalterably true That to whom we yield our selves servants to obey His servants we are to whom we obey whether of Sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness Love is ever so sure to beget obedience that when our Saviour would give a reason why no one man can serve two masters meaning those two call'd God and Mammon he made his reason to stand in this that no one man can love two Masters For either he will hate the one and love the other or will hold to the one and despise the other So that if we love God we shall be sure to hate Mammon and if again we hold to Mammon we shall rebel against God Whereas if it were possible to love them Both it would also be as possible to serve them Both because by the persons whom we love we cannot but love to be employ'd The love of Christ doth constrain us saith our Apostle to his Corinthians And as Christ's love of us so ours of Him doth even press upon us and urge us to keep his Commandments and to do those things which are pleasing in his sight But let us farther make it appear by a fourth way of arguing For Sect. 4. Whatsoever we love the most is either present or absent And as when it is present we most delight in it so whilst it is absent we do long the most after it But the Apostle tells us expresly that whilst at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord for we walk by Faith and not by sight So that if we love Christ we shall long after his presence and if we truly long for it we shall indeavour its attainment And if we indeavour to reach the end there will be nothing more natural than to inquire after the means And finding the means to be obedience we shall undoubtedly obey The Helkesaitae prov'd nothing but that themselves were stupid sinners in conceiving it possible to deny Christ with the Mouth and yet to love him with the Heart For the Heart in a Man like the Spring in a Watch is that that sets all on work both Tongue and Eyes and Hands and Feet too If with the heart a man believeth unto righteousness 't is very certain that with the mouth he will confess unto Salvation He will obey his dear Master in every kind both by speaking and living and dying for him If he is but once mounted on the wing of pure Love he cannot choose but be transported by the wing of desire too and will incessantly be flying in every errand upon which his Beloved shall please to send him Which may once more appear by a fifth way of arguing For Sect. 5. Carnal fear is the greatest and strongest Barr to our Obedience But there is no fear in love perfect love casteth out fear 1 Iohn 4. 18. And as it casteth out fear so it establisheth a Hope too And Hope is evermore a Spur by which we are urged to our Obedience from its expectance of our Reward It was this Love and Hope which made S. Paul follow Christ through every rough passage by sea and land He was so amorous of his Saviour and so piously ambitious of the Glory to be reveal'd that he rejoyc'd in his afflictions and was readier to dye for the name of the Lord Jesus than to fail in any point of yielding Obedience to his Commands Nor is it truer of S. Paul than of all the meanest Souldiers in the Army of Martyrs That neither distress nor persecution nor nakedness nor famin nor peril nor sword nor life nor death nor any other Creature had any power to step in betwixt their Love and their Obedience The reason of it is obvious as t is to say that they were Members of Jesus Christ not only reputed but real members And 't is natural for a member as to love its own Head so to live in Obedience to its Direction Sect. 6. Thus I seem to my self to have made it evident that Love is ever that cause of which Obedience is the most natural and most inseparable effect 'T is still as ready to obey as water is to wet or fire to Burn. Nor can it better be represented than by the nature of that active and subtle Element Knowledge we may say is a kind of light but Love is more properly a sort of Fire and with that when the Heart is once sufficiently inflam'd it cannot but send up those sparks of Zeal and devotion to its Beloved which do inkindle a special Pleasure in doing the things that he commandeth The Psalmists Heart was hot within him so hot that he tells the fire was kindled and though he long held his Peace yet his love did so burn he was not able to suppress it and so at last he spake with his Tongue We may say therefore of Love what the spowse in the Canticles doth say of Iealousie which is but one of Loves Daughters The Coals thereof are Coals of Fire which hath so vehement a Flame that many waters cannot quench it neither can the flouds drown it Love indeed is such a flame as must evaporate or expire or burn out its way through all that labours to keep it in A thing so busie and industrious as that in truth it can no longer be called Love than it is doing somewhat or other in complaisance and compliance with its Beloved Sect 7. Having now passed through the Proof proceed we briefly to the use we are to make of this Inference And first of all let us consider that if Love and Obedience are two inseparable Companions the former as the Cause and this later as the Effect It concerns us as much as our Souls are worth to take a care that our Love be rightly fixt and directed For it transforms us into the Image of whatsoever thing it is that we love the most And according as our object is good or evil It either put 's us upon the noblest or meanest offices in the world If its object is right we are the best sort of men but if it is wrong the worst of monsters It being with love as it is with fire which in proportion to the matter on which it feeds doth send up the sweetest or noysom'st vapours If it feeds on such matter as Grass and Tallow it cannot choose but have a noxious and stinking breath if on Cinnamon and storax it fills the Air with a perfume And just thus it is with the flame of Love If it fixes upon Christ it breaths forth nothing but pure obedience and so abounds with good works which are
less the greatest which he requires Our obedience unto Christ like Christ's obedience unto the Father must not only be paid to some but to all his Commandments without exception All that Abigail could but say Christ Jesus acted For she desir'd to wash the feet of the servants of her Lord but He de facto did wash the feet of the servants of Himself who yet was their Lord and Davids too So very low went our Saviour in the Active part of his Obedience but his passive was lower yet not only to the Death which is the wages of disobedience but to the Death of the Cross too the worst of Deaths and the most terrible whether we consider its shame or torment By such incomparable Obedience both active and passive did the love of our Saviour express it self And shall not our love to Him express it self in our being clean In the keeping of our selves unspotted from the world Shall we adventure to be the worse for his goodness to us or violate his precepts with peace and comfort because we know he dyed our Sacrifice and is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for all our Sins No let us strive against sin though we resist it unto Bloud And resist it so much the rather because obliged to it by Him who is a God ready to pardon If He was prodigal of his life when he could spend it to our advantage why should we niggardly keep our Lives when 't is the thrivingst course to lose them That there is a certain case wherein we may save them to our loss and that again there is a case wherein we may lose them to our advantage is the peremptorie assertion of Christ himself He that will save his life shall lose it and he that will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it Now till we come to this pitch of being able in time of trial to lose a life for Christ's sake we have not satisfied the Text in its full Importance and by consequence till we have we stand in need of being taught from another Topick I mean we ought to be persuaded by seeing the terrors of the Lord or at least to be frighted by them And considering that S. Paul hath comprehended them all at once in that short pandect of Imprecations his dreadful Anathema Maranatha as also considering that the sins by which those Curses are all incurr'd do all arise from this Fountain a most unnatural want of love to the Lord Iesus Christ I cannot think of a fitter Text whereon to continue my Meditations than that Sentence of S. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And this I mean shall be the subject of the second part of my Design THE INTRODUCTION TO The Second Part. Sect. 1. AMongst the many obliging Titles which God in reference to Man vouchsafes to take upon Himself there is not any so apt to melt us as that of Eridegroom For whilst in other Relations to us he is the object of our Fear our Adoration our Admiration and the like still in the quality of a Bridegroom all he draws from us is Love And if we weigh the chief ingredients which are prescrib'd to make up and compound a Christian every grain of pure love will go as far as many pounds of our Awe and wonder Faith and Hope are great vertues but Love is greater And that as for many other reasons so in particular also for This that God was never yet said to be Faith or Hope nor is it possible for him to be so but S. Iohn hath said plainly that God is Love And therefore Love of all Graces makes us most to resemble the God that made us 'T is true indeed that Faith and Hope must help to carry us into Heaven But holy Love besides that will keep us company when we are there Our Love indeed shall there be perfected but only perfected into Love that though it shall cease to be incomplete it shall not cease to be it self Whereas our Faith and our Hope shall be for ever don away For that shall dy into experience and so shall this into Fruition Sect. 2. To fear and honour Him that made us is a most acceptable service Mal. 1. 6. But very passionately to love him does please him far beyond both It being absolutely in vain that we do honour him as a Father or that we fear him as a Lord unless we Love him as a Bridegroom who hath betrothed us to Himself Take away Love and Fear hath Torment Or take away Love and Honour degenerates into Hypocrisy Both are servil in themselves until our Love does manumit them and make them free Our Fear and our Honour are only welcom for our Loves sake whereas our sole or single Love is welcome to him for its own Sect. 3. Nor may you think that I have nam'd the utmost privilege of Love above other Graces For Love alone is that Motion or Affection of the Soul by which we render back to God though not ex aequo yet de simili a noble kind of Retaliation If he is Angry we are to Tremble not to be angry with him again If he Commands we must obey and if he censures we must adore him But by no means presume to return the like Nay if he saves us or sets us free we cannot thank him for it in kind we cannot make him a Retribution either of safety or of deliverance But when he condescends to love us we can and must love him without the Arrogance of taking too much upon us For to this very end does he begin to us in Love that though we never can requite yet at least we may pledge him with Love for Love Sect. 4. Again of all the Emanations or Affections of the Soul the Love of God is that alone which carries with it its own Reward I mean a Pleasure and Satisfaction which cannot admit of an allay by either Repentance or Satietie Indeed to love him for somewhat else is to receive no greater Pleasure than somewhat else has the luck to affect us with But to love him for himself is to possess the very end because the object of our Love For the greatest injoyment of such a Lover is still to love what he injoyes Hence it was that S. Austin did argue thus in his Confessions Thou hast commanded me Lord to love thee and dost threaten me with Hell if I love thee not Whereas 't is Hell enough to me that I cannot love thee enough For to love thee as I ought as thou deservest and I desire would be at once the greatest Duty and highest Reward to be imagin'd It would not only be my Task but my Heaven to love thee Sect. 5. Now when Interest and Honour conspire with Pleasure and Satisfaction to make us kind may it not seem a great wonder
of Humility with S. Paul of Obedience with Abraham and of chastity with Ioseph Nor let this pass for a meer fancyful and conceited way of reasoning For 't is confirm'd by the Judgment of old and Orthodox Divines Sanguinem si semel pro Christo ponere non potes saltem mitiori quodam sed longiori Martyrio pone If thou canst not all at once lay down thy life for the Love of Christ lay it down for him by a milder but longer Martyrdom For to forsake thine own will to send a Bill of Divorce to thy wedded pleasures to crucify thy Flesh with the Affections and Lusts and so to mortifie its members which are upon the earth is such a profitable and wholsom persecution of thy self and if it be any is such a prudent Abbreviation of thy life as does most of all tend to its Preservation 'T is better Policy saith the Father to lose thy life that thou mayest keep it than by keeping it for a time to lose it finally and for ever CHAP. II. Sect. 1. HAving already spoken enough touching the Nature and Degree of our Love to Christ 't will next be needful to consider the sad condition of the Curse to which the want of such Love is here affirm'd to make us liable And in order to the right understanding of it we are to know the three degrees of excommunicating sinners among the Iews which were accommodated of old to the use of Christians The first of these they call'd Niddui the second Cherem the third Shammatha And this last in signification is exactly the same with Maranatha in the Text. For Shem in the Chaldee imports as much as Marà n in Syriac And Athà we see is affixt to both Niddui signified an exclusion but for four paces only and from no greater privilege than that of ordinary converse Cherem signified exclusion with the addition of Imprecations out of which notwithstanding there was a hope of being freed by a sound Repentance Whereas Shammatha or Maranatha was not only a giving up but also a finally giving over the anathematiz'd person unto eternal condemnation Maran Atha is an expression under which the Lords coming and the most terrible of his Iudgments are Synecdochically contain'd And for the better clearing of it it may be explicated thus The Lord is come and hath suffer'd and he who now loves him not is for ever unworthy of his Love Or let the Lord come as Cornelius à Lapide or the Lord shall come to judge and punish him Or let such a sinner be Anathema at the coming of the Lord as Zegerus words it For though Atha is the Preterperfect tense yet 't is common amongst the Hebrews to set the Preterperfect for either the Present or the future or as here in an Optative which has also the force of an Imperative signification Sect. 2. So that the Duty and the Danger being thus explicated asunder will if we take them in conjunction admit of this Paraphrase If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ so as a Saviour does deserve with all his heart and his Soul so as to keep the very sowrest and most unpleasant of his Commandments as farr as the taking up his Cross and holding close to him in Times of Tryal if any man love him not so intirely as to hate his own life for the love he bears him let him sink under the weight of the heaviest Censures of the Church Let all the Curses light upon him which once were heard from Mount Ebal Let him not only be Anathema which answers to the Hebrew Cherem and notes a giving up to Satan for the destruction of the Flesh but Anathema Maranatha which notes an absolute cutting off an utter Excision or Extirpation from the Body of Christ. Let him not only be Anathema a severity intended to purge the sinner of his Sin but Maran Atha which is severer as being intended to rid the Church of a Sinner Let him be cast out of the Favour as well of the Bridegroom as of the Bride Let him for ever be destroy'd not only in this but the other world Sect. 3. And now by this time I suppose we all are well enough acquainted as well with the Duty we are under as with the Danger we are in as well with the nature of the Love which is here requir'd as with the quality of the Curse which is here denounc't Sect. 4. And if the danger is so great of not performing this duty of loving Christ what kind of means should we not use for the obtaining of the one and in consequence of that for the escaping of the other By fervent Prayers and Importunities and by watching thereunto with all Perseverance how should we wrestle and contend as Iacob did with the Almighty resolving never to let him go till he hath bless't us with an ability to love the Lord Iesus Christ as he requires if there are any wayes and methods if any stratagems of Reason if any Pulleys of the Will whereby to wind up our Affections to things above Lord how incessantly should we labour to put such Instruments into use How much more does it concern us than all the Riches and the Pomps of the world are worth to be as obstinate as it is possible not only in the use of the means of Grace but also in the practice of all those methods unto which we may be prompted by Art or Nature never abating of our Indeavours in using the Artifice and the Empire both of the Intellect and the Will untill we find that God's Grace hath crown'd our Indeavours with Success Or if we cannot love him so sensibly as we love many carnal and trivial things so as to spend all our Time in conversing with him or so as evermore to fasten our Thoughts upon him yet atleast let us so love him as to afford him all the offices and fruits of Love even by doing what he commands and by forbearing what he forbids and by thankfully induring what he shall suffer or appoint to be laid upon us For wheresoever these are they are the Arguments and the Proofs as well of our Faith as our Affection Sect. 5. But here perhaps some will say we cannot possibly be in love with the Lord Iesus Christ untill the Image of his Beauty shall have been character'd in our Souls because his Beauty is the Allective which is to draw up the Soul to a desire of its Fruition And we must certainly see our object e're we are able to affect it But our object being Invisible cannot possibly be seen unless it be by the Eye of Faith and Faith is intirely the work of Grace a Gale that comes from that spirit which only bloweth where it listeth Ioh. 3. 8. And seeing Love as well as Faith is the work of Grace which is not a thing at our own disposal how can we fasten our Affections on things invisible or how
create within our selves a passionate Love of the Lord Jesus by any Stratagems or Engines of Will or Reason If we do already love him in that degree that is requir'd all this Preaching might have been spar'd or at least have been spent to another purpose And if we want of such love in such a measure as is needful what can we do unto ourselves whereby to make our selves love him Or what can any man do to us for the increasing of the love which we bear unto him who is he that can add one cubit to our stature or make an hair of our heads grow white or black Nor are these the more peculiar Effects of Nature than Faith and Love are the Fruits of Grace which Grace if he denies us we cannot love him though we desire it and which Grace if he will give us we shall not be able either to quench or resist our Love Can a man preach us into Affections which we bring not with us to Church or dispute us into a Love of what we see not nor comprehend we come not hither with a Belief that we can possibly be the better for whatsoever can be spoken by any skilful Ecclesiastick but only because 't is a commanded and so a commendable performance to which by custom and duty we stand oblig'd For as touching our Affection and Love to Christ that can neither be more nor less than was decreed to be given us from all Aeternity even according as we are destin'd to Heaven or Hell Which decree of our End being unconditional infers the means conducing to it as unconditionally decreed too And therefore let us not be told of winding up our Affections to things above For we deny the Possibility of being made to love Christ by such human means There is not a Science or an Art of habits insused and divine Nor is the Grace of God acquir'd by the Dexterities or diligence of learned men Sect. 6. Thus indeed it may be easily and succesfully objected against a sort of well-meaning but erring Christians who conceiving that the Regenerate have Grace irresistible from which they say it is impossible for them to fall and that none besides them have Grace enough to do them good but only enough to make them utterly unexcusable do unawares inferr Preaching to be a thing of no use Of none at least unto the People who are but Hearers of the word preach't however temporally useful to them that preach it And in good earnest could we believe as not a few in their writings contend to have us that all things are as they must be and that they must be as they are through the eternal Necessitation of a most peremptory Decree we should conclude it wholly useless as to the future state of Souls either to give or to take advice And rather than continue to preach in vain that is to say without the hope because without the possibility of winning Souls we would betake our selves straight to some other Calling as judging nothing more sordid than to sell our Instruction for Tithes or Stipends or for any thing less precious than the Glory of God and the good of Souls But we do seriously believe the blessed Apostle was in earnest when he exhorted his Philippians both to work and work out their own Salvation Nor can we think he was impertinent in charging Timothie to stir up the Gift of God which was in him But that S. Peter spake sense when he exhorted all Christians to give all diligence for the making of their Calling and Election sure And that God to good purpose gave command unto his Rebels to turn themselves from their evil wayes And accordingly we our selves are extremely serious in our exhortations to the love of the Lord Iesus Christ. And though our labour is very often yet we believe it is not always or unavoidably in vain when we excite mens Indeavours of loving Christ in such a measure as to escape the dreadful Sentence of Anathema Maranatha For though we cannot so love him untill it is given us from above through the sanctifying Grace of the Holy Ghost yet 't is a Duty incumbent on us to use the means which God hath given us to seek his Grace when it is absent and to receive it when it is offer'd and to retain it when it is given and to improve it being retain'd and to recover it when it is lost and lastly to keep it when 't is recover'd with perseverance unto the end The ground and bottom of this Assertion 't is very obvious to observe in several passages of Scripture Repent saith S. Peter to graceless Simon the Sorcerer and pray to God And to what purpose should such a Person be so exhorted by S. Peter if 't were impossible for a Magician to seek for Grace when it is absent Let us have Grace saith the Apostle to the Hebrews And what is that but to receive it when it is offer'd Be strong in Grace saith S. Paul to Timothy And what can that be but to retain it when it is given Grow in Grace saith S. Peter And what is that but to improve it being retain'd Be reconciled unto God saith S. Paul to the Corinthians and wash ye make you clean Return ye Return ye saith God to Israel And what is that but to recover it when it is lost Now that ye are clean abide in me saith our Blessed Saviour Nay 't is said of Paul and Barnabas that speaking to the Christians who dwelt at Antioch they perswaded them to CONTINUE in the Grace of God And what else can that imply but perseverance unto the End Sect. 7. Now from all this together it seems to follow that to attain to such an Habit and Pitch of Grace as to be cordially affectionate to the Lord Jesus Christ we may not reckon it sufficient that we speak to him in our Prayers and hear him speaking in his word and feed upon him in his Sacrament unless we also make use of all other means that we have heard of and employ our best wits to discover more and begg the help of our Teachers in this Inquiry For though indeed we cannot add one cubit to our Stature or make an hair of our heads grow white or black yet we are taught by our Experience that we can add unto our Industry and put a Bridle upon our Wills and set a trig to the Cariere of our vile Affections It is we know as unavoidable that we should be both of the Stature and the Complexion that we are of as that the Fire should tend upwards or water down But 't is not sure as unavoidable to hear a Sermon or give an alms or to have any degree of love to the Lord Iesus Christ. Of which what reason can be render'd so plain and satisfactory as this that the former is proper to us as we are Natural Agents only but the later
lovely but loathsom too when abstracted from the part which is immaterial and for this reason it is that the zealousest Lover of what is worldly and who hath nothing in him of Christ whereby to qualifie and inable him for Spiritual love He I say would not be able to love the Body above the Soul if the Beauty of the Soul did not shine through the Body And if we do not only hear this but lay it up in our Hearts too nor only assent to it as True but consider it also as useful it will be sure of great moment first for the raising of our Thoughts and after that of our Affections from the things that are seen which are temporal to the things that are not seen which are eternal And then believing with S. Paul for without such Belief no such love can be imagin'd That our Life is hid with Christ in God we shall be still making thither to find it out Our Love of Christ will not leave him for being but gon out of our sight but will rather soar up in pursuit of him as far as Heaven and find him out pleading for us at the right hand of God And there beholding him as he is full of Grace and Truth and unimaginable Glory such as eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath ever enter'd into the heart of man to conceive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Longings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plotinus what Exiliencyes of Soul will then transport us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with what weightiness of Bliss shall we then be smitten whilst we love him as he is Good we shall desire him as he is lovely and never cease from desiring till we enjoy him as he is Blessed I mean as the Fountain of Bliss and Glory If any man shall here ask by what means he may behold the unspeakable Beauty which is above that so beholding he may be ravish't with the sweet violence of its Attractions the answer to it may be had from the same Plotinus No man saith he can see true Beauty but by casting the sight of his eyes behind him And again saith that learned and pious Heathen we are to fly from those Pleasures which are but common to us with Brutes as once Ulysses from the charms of Circe and Calypso which if he had not wisely don he had never gone back to his native Countrey And we must do exactly like him if we are bound for that Countrey from whence we came and would fain see the place of our first extraction Now what but Heaven is our Countrey there dwels our Father from thence we came and what we commonly call our life is indeed our Pilgrimage For in the words of the Psalmist we are but strangers upon Earth So as the way to go thither from whence we came in a kind of Exile is to leave both our Horses and Feet behind us saith the Platonist And swiftly mounting up ourselves on the wings of Love and Desire guide we our course with those Eyes which are not without us but within us and with which if any of us are not accustomed to see it is not because we want such Eyes but only because we will not use them Unless we are got into their Classis in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds in which case only our eyes are darkned that we not only will not but cannot use them But this is so wilful a Disability that whatsoever are the occasions we ourselves are the Causes of it For when a people are abandon'd to vile affections and severely given over to a reprobate mind it is because of their refusing the fear of the Lord and because of their not liking to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1. 26 28. where S. Paul's expression is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They did not think good to have God in their acknowledgment But till then the Apostle tells us the invisible things of God are clearly seen v. 20. not indeed with those eyes we carry outwardly in our Heads but with those other more Angelical which we have inwardly in our Hearts To sum up all in a word Our affections in themselves are indifferent things apt to be cleaving to any object whether evil or good as they shall happen to be directed by carnal Appetite or Reason And if it were not in our power to set our love upon the world in despight of God's Grace or to take it from off the world by making use of its assistance the Apostle would never have exhorted us with so much earnestness as he does To love neither the world nor the things in the world To set our Affections on things above and not to set them on things below To mortifie in our selves our earthly members To cast off the old man to put on the new To cloath our selves with Love as with the bond of Perfection To let the Peace of God reign in our Hearts To afford the word of God an Habitation and Dwelling within our selves From all which together 't is very natural to inferr that if we have not yet wasted the Talent of Grace which God hath given us which undoubtedly of itself is sufficient for us and does competently arm us with Ghostly strength we can see and we can love and can delight in the Lord Jesus and by consequence if we will we can escape the sad effects of being Anathema Maranatha But now 't is time that after the first we put in practice a second instrument whereby to raise up our Love to the Lord Iesus Christ. That is as much as in us lyes we must provoke our selves to jealousie and a religious Aemulation by considering how others have lov'd our Saviour to whom he could not be a Saviour with more obligingness than he is ours We find S. Paul was so inflam'd with the love of Christ who yet a little while before had been a virulent Blasphemer and Hater of him and did so long after a time of being admitted into his presence that in comparison of Christ he counted all things but loss and all things Gain on the contrary which might any way help him in his approach That though there is nothing in the world which Nature hates more than the terrible Face of a Dissolution yet there was nothing which that Apostle did so much long for Not at all for the love of a Dissolution which he detested in one sense whilst he desir'd it in another but for the love of that Christ from whom he was absent in the Body and could not so well be present with as by the favourable Help of a Dissolution That indeed was his Cordolium There it was his shoo pinch't him 'T was his most passionate aspiring to be with Christ which made him groan so very earnestly under the Burden of
higher than by reflecting much and often on him who lov'd us in such a measure I might have said so out of measure as to have hated even Himself in a comparative signification For neither was his life so dear nor was his Bloud so pretious to him but that he was prodigal of them both when both might fall to our Advancement Methinks there is nothing more expressive of God's obliging us to love him than that word of S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He SPARED not his own Son but delivered him up for us all We know his Son was Himself as to the unity of the Godhead yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did not spare him Should we not think that Father cruel and void of natural Affection who would not spare his own Son no not his Beloved and only Son no not when 't was in his choice and his power to spare him yet when Abraham being commanded was ready to Sacrifice his Isaac 't was not his Cruelty but his obedience and that was the fruit of such a Faith as did work by love I mean a love of his God and not at all of his Isaac whom in that case he was to prosecute with a comparative Detestation And in like manner when the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ could not so wisely shew his Mercy for all aeternity upon us as for a time by shewing none upon the Lord Iesus Christ it was the highest and best expression not of his Cruelty but of his Love For he could never have spared us his adopted Sons if he had spared that Son who was his only-Begotten Nor could it be Cruelty even to Him not to be spared by his Father because volenti non fit injuria he was willing yea and desirous not to be spared for a Time rather than millions of men and women should certainly fail of being spared to all aeternity What then shall we return him for so astonishing a Love as is now describ'd Shall we spare any thing that is ours when 't is well-pleasing unto Him that we should not spare it Suppose he would not be pleas'd unless we gave our first-born for our Transgressions the fruit of our Body for the sin of our Soul Should we spare our own child in so great a Case How then comes it to pass we are so sparing to our lusts and do so grumble to be parted from our Destroyers Are those enemies of our Souls so extreamly dear to us as that we cannot find in our hearts either to send them out of our Bosomes or to deliver them up to a Crucifixion no not in love to that God who sent his Son out of his Bosom and delivered him to be crucified in love to us Sure if our Souls were all Flint yet being smitten with such a love they should yield some Fire Or if our Hearts were all Iron yet one would think that such a load-stone should draw them up Or however if it will not yet let us try a Fourth Engine for the winding up of our Affections Let us shame our selves out of our Coldness and Indifferency to Christ by duly reflecting upon our warmth to Inferiour things Not inferiour only to Him but to the Dignity of our Nature A Nature common to us with Him being consider'd in his Humanity and by so much the worthier both of our Care and our Respect too What Love do we bestow upon the vanity of the Creature to please a Palate an Eye an Ear a Fancy And shall we have so much love to fasten upon the Surface and outside of Dust and Ashes whilst so little for a Saviour as to permit it to be a Doubt if we have any for him or not All the noble men of Greece would ly like dogs at the door of the Corinthian Harlot and pay obedience to Her Commands notwithstanding they did lead in the paths of Death And shall a Question be made of our love to Christ whose very deformities make him fairer than the children of men I mean his wounds and his Bruises which should to us be more lovely than all the Roses of Sharon and the Lillies of the Valley as having been wholly suffer'd by him on our Account Or shall a Question be ever made of our obedience to his Commands which if a man do he shall live in them yet how many Trifles do we love and with what vehemence of Affection of which the best consequent is this that we shall heartily repent our having lov'd them and what a madness what a shame what a disparagement and a discredit must it needs be unto our Reason to lay out the Treasures of our Love upon those Allectives which we cannot but hope we shall be heartily sorry for because we cannot but fear that if we are not both truly and timely sorry we shall be hopelesly sorry when 't is too late but how much a greater madness is it to be so negligent and illiberal in our Affection towards Him whom the longer we shall love we shall love so much the more and shall have nothing to repent of but that we ever lov'd him less and that withal it was so late before we lov'd him shall we be able to say less of our Love to Christ than the Apostle S. Paul could say of his to his Corinthians observe him speaking to that unkind and ingratefull People Most gladly will I spend and be spent for you though the more abundantly I love you the less I be lov'd 'T was strange on their parts that they should love so much the less the more abundantly they were lov'd But somewhat more strange on His that he should spend and be spent and both most gladly notwithstanding the discouragements of their Return which was of nothing but of Hatred for the excesses of his Goodwill Lord how happy were it for us had we but half so much love for the Lord Iesus Christ as that expression of S. Paul does amount unto it is impossible for our Saviour to love us the less the more we love him So very far he is from that that he did spend and was spent and both most gladly for the love he bare to us when we had none And therefore the least that we can do is both to spend and to be spent to part with all that we have and with all we are too for the love we bear him who so dearly loves us It is an hard heart indeed which is so far from bestowing that it will not repay or return Affection We will spend and be spent for our darling sins although they love us the less the more abundantly we love them for the more we still love them the more degrees of Damnation they threaten to us Let us therefore even for shame have as much kindness for our Preserver as we have had for these Authors of our Destruction If in a very free manner we have been
all things for himself Next when he see 's that of himself he cannot be or be happy and that he depends upon his maker not more for his being than for his bliss he then begins to love God though yet 't is only for himself and his private Interest But when in time upon occasion of his several exigences and wants he is compell'd to seek God for several comsorts and supplies his conversation with the Almighty becomes so customary and natural by his frequenting God's house by his addresses to God in Prayer by getting knowledge out of God's word and by admiring him in his works that what was hitherto but easy does now grow pleasant And so at last having tasted how good and gracious his Maker is he does advance to love God for God's sake only So as nothing does now remain but that degree of perfection in loving God at his being bid to enter into the joy of his Lord when 't is for God's sake alone that he loves Himself And though 't is hard if not impossible whilst we are in this world to love ourselves for God only and not at all for ourselves yet 't is a duty indispensable to love Him especially for himself and far above the consideration that 't is our interest to love him The Reason of it does stand in This that whosoever loves God not especially for God but more especially for himself does by a necessary consequence love himself above God Because in such a case as that God is only one of the objects and himself the final cause or the end of love For if God were that end he would rather love himself for God than God for himself And that for which we love any thing must needs be lov'd by us the most of any because it is the very cause meritorious or final for which we love it For propter quod unumquodque tale illud magis is the maxim made use of by S. Austin himself upon this occasion And therefore he that loves God not so much for Gods sake as for the sake of somewhat else which either comes from or depends upon him such as the comforts of this life or the Promises of the next does indeed but use God and injoy the Creature And how much soever he may appretiate or put a value in his judgment on what he uses yet no doubt he loves most what he most injoyes Bonaventure made it a wonder how 't was possible for a man not to love that Creator with all his Heart who when he might have left him without a being or have made him either a Toad or any other sort of Animal was rather pleas'd to make him capable to understand and to love and injoy his Maker yea and when man had even forfeited all his Interest in God by an abuse of those Favors conferred upon him was farther pleas'd to reconcile and appease himself not by accelerating our miserie but by providing for our Amendment suppose saith Bonaventure thou hadst but lost one of thine Eyes which is a very small part of thy outward man couldst thou abstain from loving Him with a perfect love who should not only find it out but put it again into thine Head too and not only so but make it as useful to thee as ever How then canst thou forbear to love the Lord Iesus Christ with an equal Love who when thou hadst lost thy whole self both Soul and Body had both the kindness and the skill to find thee out and to restore thee and to make thee as much as ever a Vessel of Honour and Immortality Certainly nothing can make thee able not to love him for himself and with all thy soul unless thy want of converse and Acquaintance with him For as the Fire of thy Affection if fed with any unclean Fewel produces nothing with its ardour but smoak and stentch so if the fewel it feeds upon shall be pure and spiritual it will yield both a bright and refreshing Flame And if the love converts the Lover into the Nature of the thing that is dearly lov'd 't is plain that such as is the object such must also be the Act and the Agent too To fix thy love upon the world is ipso facto to be a worldling To fix thy love upon Christ is ipso facto to be a Christian. And to be really a Christian is to be such a one as Christ. For both he that Sanctifieth and they that are Sanctified are all of one And thence He is not ashamed to call them Brethren Heb. 2. 11. Nay he is not asham'd to own them in a more intimate Relation than that of Brethren For by vertue of that unitive and inebriating love which our mystical Theologists are wont to speak of real Christians and Christ do interchangeably inhabit the one the other They do dwell and abide not only with but in each other They in Him and He in Them as both Himself and S. Iohn that Disciple of his Bosom do oft assure us And since 't is so that our Bodies are call'd his Members 1 Cor. 6. 15. Sure our Souls cannot want much of being transfus'd into Himself For S. Paul saith expresly to shew how Christ is to the Christian just as the Bridegroom to the Bride that as the Husband and the wise are made one flesh so he that is joyned to the Lord is ipso facto one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. The Apostles word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that is caemented or solder'd ferruminated or glued that is to say he that cleaveth to the Lord Iesus Christ as fast as one board of Firr cleaves to another to which 't is glued in so much that you may burn them but can never break them asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is one and the same spirit as his own Blessed spirit is pleas'd to phrase it that is he minds the same things which his beloved Lord minds desires the same things that his Lord desires Injoyes and suffers after the measure that his Lord suffers and Injoyes In a word he hath such an union as is expresst by an Identity since he that cleaveth to the Lord is not only said to have but to B E one spirit S. Bernard speaks it more than once in a very bold Paraphrase Divino ebriatus amore animus oblitus sui factusque sibi ipsi tanquam vas perditum totus pergit in Deum adhaerens Deo unus cum eo spiritus fit The mind saith he being drunk with the love of God and grown forgetful of itself yea wholly lost unto itself and all its secular concernments does so pass over into God as to become one spirit not only one in itself but one with God 'T is true the Father there speaks touching that last degree of Love whereby the Soul is so transported with the converse of its beloved as to be emptied out of itself and in a manner quite annull'd
That God in Christ may be All in All which how can he be saith the holy Father if any thing of man be left in man If the Souls of the just are not drown'd and drunk up in the fathomless Sea of Aeternal light If humane affections do not dissolve and melt away from themselves and become so transfus'd into the sole will of God as to be like a drop of water in a great quantity of wine wherein departing from it self it wholly puts on the colour and taste of wine or as an Iron red-hot does make a defection from itself by putting on the whole Nature and Form of fire if I say it is not thus after the general Resurrection in what sense can it be said and said it is by S. Paul that God in that day shall be All in All But in the place before cited from 1 Cor. 6. 17. S. Paul does not speak however S. Bernard apply's his words touching the union we shall injoy after the general Resurrection through the perfection of our love to the Lord Iesus Christ. For when he saith he that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit he seems to mean no other cleaving than was commanded even by Moses Deut. 10. 20. where to * fear and * serve God is to cleave unto him And so we are properly said to cleave unto the Lord Iesus Christ when the Caement of our union is an indissoluble Affection and such an obstinate Resolution not to depart from his Commandments that Death it self cannot seperate 'twixt us and them This alone is the Love which Saints are capable of on Earth and here is exacted under the penalty of Anathema Maranatha The other is competent to none but Saints Beatified in Heaven Sic affici Deificari est in the bold Dialect of S. Bernard This Love is our Duty whereof that other is our Reward And therefore this is commanded but that is promised For this we are prays'd for that admir'd This is difficultly had in a state of Grace whilst that we cannot but have in a state of Glory For as this does not expire but rather is perfected into that so by the Tenor of the New Covenant it does entitle us to its Fruition And therefore stoutly let us resolve so to cleave in our Affection to the Lord Iesus Christ and so to express our cleaving to him by keeping close to his Commandments as that before we have possession we may not fail to have a Right to the Tree of Life That in the day when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire when the Elements shall melt with fervent heat and the Heavens be shrunk up like a scrowl of Parchment when every Valley shall be filled up and every Mountain brought low we may be able to appear before the Judge with great boldness and whilst they that would not love the Lord Iesus in sincerity shall send forth weepings and wailings and gnashings of Teeth all alluded to in the sentence of Anathema Maranatha we may be called to bear a part in the quire of Angels and with the ten thousand times ten thousand which are round about the Throne of the Lord Iesus Christ who hath redeemed us to God unto whom he hath made us both Kings and Priests we may never rest from singing with unimaginable delight Blessing Honour Glory and Power to Him that liveth forevermore THE INTRODUCTION TO The Third Part. WHAT hath hitherto been praemis'd touching Christ's Love to us and ours to Him cannot better be succeeded in point of pertinence or use than by that which now follows touching our Love to one another A subject which is the rather to have its place in this Volume because our Love to one another is recommended to us in Scripture as much as God's love to us and ours to God And as that which does make us most like our Maker 'T was recommended to us by Christ in his last Will and Testament and that as one of the richest Legacyes that he was able to bequeath us The ever-blessed Testator as the Author to the Hebrews does fitly call him being to take his last leave in a farewel Sermon to his Disciples and having prepar'd them with an assurance that the time of his leaving them was at hand to make them ponder what he was speaking and lay it up as the speech of a Dying man And being resolv'd not to leave them without some Legacy some special Token of his Solicitude both for their present Consolation and future Bliss Peace saith he I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world a few good words in Civility or at the most a kind wish and therefore let not your heart be troubled at the sudden departure of my Person for as a supplement of That I leave you my cordial and solid Peace But knowing well that His peaee could never quietly rest with them in case of War and Division amongst themselves and being not able to indear them with a greater Testimony of His love than by obliging them strictly to the constant loving of one another He therefore bequeathed this Royal Precept as a previous part of their Patrimony whereby to fit them for all the rest That their reciprocal kindness should be like His that they should all be so affected as they had Him for an Example that just as He had been to All they should be All to one another for so runs the Instrument whereby he convey'd his good Pleasure to them a new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another even as I have loved you But then to gain their Acceptance of his Bequest and their religious Execution of what he commanded them to observe He shew'd them the value of such a Legacy as did accordingly tye them to such a Love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. By this all men shall know ye are my Disciples if ye love one another In which words of our Saviour there are two things suppos'd and a third is Taught First of all it is suppos'd that All to whom the words are spoken either are or ought to be Christs Disciples And that not only in profession but in singleness of heart not only verbally and by name but very really such This is easily collected from three words in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are my Disciples It is secondly suppos'd that such as are really Christs Disciples not in hypocrisy but in deed ought to endeavour to make it known to all THE WORLD that they are such Their light must shine before men by their Procope and Growth in the SCHOOL of Christ. This is apparent from two words more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All men shall know it And were it not so in good earnest the Master would never have directed them as here he does to the infallible means of it's attainment For We
Shall we convert that noble liberty which he hath given us into looseness And take occasion to be Rebellious from His leaving us to be free Shall we so very ill requite him for his great Favour and Partiality as to become the very worst of all his Creatures under Heaven because He made us the very best Methinks it should melt us into Obedience that God is pleas'd to deal with us as noble Creatures as Creatures capable of Friendship as Creatures made of the most liberal and most ingenuous Constitutions That he is pleased to persuade where he hath power to Compel and so far forth to command us as still to leave us Free-men That he is pleas'd to speak to us as here he does not in the stile of an absolute Soveraign If ye cannot resist me nor in the stile of an Angry Iudge If ye stand in fear of me but rather in the stile of a zealous Bridegroom If ye love me keep my Commandments This is most for our Glory as well as His that we be not only punctual but cheerful also in our duties and that we give him our Obedience as the natural Issue of our Love It being a bravery of Devotion and a generous nobleness of Spirit to be afraid of Disobedience to the Lord Jesus Christ not so much because a Iudg able to terrifie and drive us from our Corruptions as because he is a Saviour who rather draws us to himself by the Bands of Love But now 't is time that I proceed to another Emphasis of the words from whence will arise another Inference That having shew'd how our Obedience is the greatest Expression of our Love I may prove it in the next place an unavoidable Effect too And that as it appears already to be the best and the most solid so it may also be found to be the most Inseparable instance of our Affection CHAP. IV. Of Love and Obedience in a Christian as two inseparable Companions every whit as inseparable as the Cause and the Effect or whatsoever else they are whereof the one doth of necessity infer the other Sect. 1. AND first because there is a Fallacy which many impose upon themselves whilst they think it as possible to love their Saviour without the keeping of his Commandments as to know or apprehend him without the keeping of his Commandments I shall begin with the great Difference betwixt the two natures of Love and Knowledge The end of Knowledge is to possess that which is True but the end of Love is to possess that which is Good Knowledge is an act of the Understanding but Love a motion of the Appetite Knowledge is seated in the Head but Love especially in the Heart Both are possessed of their objects by way of union but the union of Knowledge seems meerly passive as being made in the understanding which being possest of its object is quite at Rest. Whereas the union of Love is wholly Active as being made in the Appetite and by consequence in the Heart which being possessed of its object by an Intentional union is so very far from resting content with That that it employs every Faculty to gain the object that is belov'd not only by an intentional but real union So great and wide is the difference 'twixt Love and Knowledge that knowledge is but an idle unfruitful thing till it is quickned by the Industry and Heat of Love Our Knowledge of Christ as we are taught by sad experience is often Barren But 't is as evident by experience that the Love we bear to him is ever Fruitful and the Fruit it brings forth is ever the keeping of his Commandments For Sect. 2. Secondly This we are taught by the light of Nature That to perfect our union with what we love by our Injoyment of its possession we are to use the best means whereby to make ourselves lovely that so the person whom we love may himself be a Lover as well as we And sure the most effectual means whereby to make our selves lovely is our Conformity to the Humour and Disposition of what we love For a reciprocated love implyes a Harmony and Concord between two parties whereby each object is Agent too and each person lov'd becomes a Lover by the Conformity which he finds unto all his own humours in That which loves him Nor need we labour after this as a thing gainable by Art for nothing but flattery can stand in need of such help and flattery is no more than the Ape of Love just as Art is no more than the Ape of Nature But if indeed we do intensely and truely Love it will not be an artificial but a most natural issue of it To frame our manners and Conversations in proportion to the temper of our Beloved Now if Christ is the object we truely love we shall long after an union and earnestly labour to possess him by being first possessed by him Because till he stoops to our embraces we cannot possibly rise to His. And being convinc t he will not have us until he finds us worth the having or at least in a capacity of being Had how shall we search after the means whereby to be fitted for his Acceptance we shall incessantly cast about which way to please him and frame the course of our Lives to what we think He loves best We shall strive and contend after the knowledge of his Will with this intent only that we may do it And having found that his Commandments are the Transcriptions of his Will we shall compose our whole selves to the keeping of them And having don all we can shall never think we have don enough for that our Love being Infinite can never satisfie itself with any expressions which are not such So that if we love Christ with the whole Treasure of our Affection our obedience will know neither end nor measure but will be coveting to demonstrate itself as Infinite as is that object which doth attract it And this will farther appear by a Third way of arguing For Sect. 3. Whatsoever 'tis we love we love as Beautiful and Good Goodness is Beauty in its perfection The Soveraign beauty then of Goodness does by an absolute kind of Empire command Affection at least from as many as have eyes whereby to behold it as it is And seeing that which is so strong as to command our Love must needs predominate over all that our Love Commands Therefore to love is to be subject and as being in subjection to pay Obedience The truth of this universally may be the better understood by a few particulars For whâ—…soever loves Honour or worldly greatness does live a Feudatorie or Vassal to his Ambition Whosoever loves mony is basely a servant unto his Avarice and to that is most ready to pay obedience He who loves the hansom outside of dust and ashes lives in subjection to his Lust and does but go in those Errands on which It sends him So whosoever he
he was purged from his old Sins v. 9. Which is as much as to say that the keeping of the Commandments is all in all for if we keep them we are happy and if we break them we are undon I say we are happy in case we keep them because by keeping them we make our Election sure I do not say we make our selves infallibly sure of our Election and that by ordinary means too without immediate Revelation as an Assembly of Divines have made profession of their Belief For as Faith is a good man's so infallible assurance is God's peculiar And it implyes a contradiction to say a man may be infallible in what he does but yet believe For as infallibity implyes a knowledge in perfection so belief implyes strongly a knowledge only in part that is in some measure a want of knowledge Which infers a fallibility in him that wants it When we say we do believe we shall never fall and that we do believe we are vessels of Election our meaning is we do not doubt it not at all that we cannot or may not err When Adam stood in a state of Innocence he did believe without doubt he should so continue When Lucifer stood in a state of Glory he did not doubt in the least of his being safe But the event does shew plainly in Him and Adam the possibility of their falling before they fell So as long as we stand in a state of Grace and do so love our Saviour as to keep his Commandments we have reason to be confident of our Election but not infallibly assur'd because we are not omniscient yea do not know our own Hearts and cannot tell what a Day or what an hour may bring forth Whilst we are militant here on Earth we do Hope for Heaven but shall then only be sure when we shall take it into possession They who urge S. Peter's words for an infallible assurance 2 Epist. chap. 1. ver 10. where the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and notes the sureness of the Election not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying assurance in the Elect do prove no more from that Text than that they quite mistake its meaning Not through an Ignorance of the original but a forgetfulness to consult it It may suffice for our comfort that God himself is infallible though we may err And though we know not what we are much less what we shall be yet this we know surely That all the paths of the Lord are Mercy and Truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies Psal. 25. 10. We are infallible in our knowledge that God is faithful so as he cannot fail possibly to make good his promise if we shall manfully persevere in our performance of the condition And sure the sum of the Condition is briefly this that we love him so farr as to keep his Comandments Again that this is the Test of our Love to Christ and the means whereby to make our Election sure may be as easily collected from Heb. 6. 10 11 12. Where the Apostle having premis'd the work and labour of their love which they had shew'd to Christ's Name in their ministring to the Saints v. 10. He does immediately desire them to shew the same diligence to the full assurance of Hope unto the end v. 11. And not to be slothful but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the promises v. 12. From which words of the Apostle we are to gather four things First that he does not say infallible but full assurance of Hope Nor is it He but our Translation which saith so much For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a fulness of Hope not at all a full assurance unless by full assurance is mean't a fulness and nothing else Next a diligence is requir'd for the attainment of this Hope and this must be unto the end The promise that we shall reap is on condition that we faint not We must therefore so run that we may obtain Thirdly Our diligence must be shew'd too that men may see it and be the better and glorifie God in our behalf It must be shew'd in a laborious and working Love a Love exhibited to Christ by being employ'd upon his Members The Love of Christ if it is true will be shew'd in this that instead of being idle or empty-handed it hath its work and its labour is ever diligent and industrious in the keeping of his Commands Lastly the promises are not inherited through Faith alone which S. Iames calls a dead and a worthless Faith but through Faith mixt with patience which is not a barren but a fruitful not an idle but working Faith Such as worketh by Love impartial obedience to the Commandments And such as worketh by patience with perseverance unto the end Thus we prove by our obedience the real solidity of our Love and by our Permanency in both make our Calling and Election sure It were easie for me to argue from a very great number of such like Topicks of which the old and new Testament afford much plenty But that the proof of this Doctrin may not keep us too long from the Application I shall conclude with what I find in the 8 th chapter to the Romans And thence the Point I am upon may be irrefragably evicted For they are true lovers of Christ and real vessels of Election to whom there is no condemnation There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus v. 1. They alone are in Him who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And what other can they be than such as keep his Commandments That this indeed is the evidence of our being in Christ does farther appear by the three Ifs in the 10 11 and 13 verses of that chapter If Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Iesus from the Dead dwell in you he also shall quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you And if ye live after the Flesh ye shall dye but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live Now by the Deeds of the Body are meant the Breaches of the Commandments And how are they mortified but by obedience We have the same in S. Iohn but a little more plainly Hereby we know that we know him even by keeping his word 1 John 2. 5. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as he walked v. 6. Now we know that Christ Jesus was so subjected to the Law that that was constantly the Path wherein he walked And when 't is said by S. Paul that the end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned The Heart is imply'd to be impure the Conscience evil and the Faith but hypocritical which is not
evidenc'd by charity and the keeping of the Commandments All agreeable to the words of our Blessed Saviour that men do not gather grapes from Thorns and every Tree is known by its fruit But the fruit of all Graces is the keeping of the Commandments and therefore by that we may know them all Now then let us consider that if the keeping of the Commandments is the true Touchstone of our Love whereby alone we may prove it to be sincere and withal the great Requisite for the making of our Callling and Election sure then is the keeping of the Commandments the sum and upshot of all that is call'd Duty So that when Solomon being penitent turned his Throne into a Pulpit and of a King became a Preacher He was not able with all his wisdom either to teach or to learn either a plainer or higher lesson than Fear God and keep his Commandments For this saith he in the next words is the whole Duty of Man Men may spend their whole lives in inventing Sermons and Systems and other discourses of Divinity both from the Pulpit and from the Press But the sum and conclusion of all is This Fear God and keep his Commandments It concerns us therefore extreamly to make a strict examination whether we find within our selves such a sincere love of Christ as does not only shew it self in our mouths and fancies but especially in our Hearts and our Conversations Such a love as carries with it a ready obedience to his Commands and does by consequence amount unto the whole Duty of Man It being so natural for a Lover to seek the benefit or pleasure and satisfaction of his Beloved by doing that which he desires that obedience and love disobedience and hatred are promiscuously used in holy Scripture For what S. Paul expresseth thus in his Epistle to the Corinthians Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments the same S. Paul expresseth thus in his Epistle to the Galatians Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but Faith which worketh by Love So that Faith is all in all as it worketh by Love And Love is all in all as it brings forth Obedience to the Commandments of Christ. But obedience to his Commandments is all in all as including and supposing both Faith and Love Christianity it self is nothing worth without Faith nor Faith it self without Love nor Love it self without obedience to the Commandments of Christ. For being not kept they must needs be broken And they that break his Commandments are said to hate him as they that keep them are said to love him Exod. 20. 5 6. So the carnal mind of man is called enmity to God Rom. 8. 7. And that for this very reason in the next words following Because it is not subject to the law of God And This may prompt us to descend unto a second consideration that seeing love and obedience disobedience and hatred are terms equivalent put the one for the other in holy Writ then as we hope not to be reckoned amongst the enemies and haters of God in Christ we must employ our utmost study upon the keeping of his Commandments And keep them we must with the greater care because like Porcellane they are of very great worth and the soonest broken Besides which they have a property of being so wholsom or so destructive that whilst we keep them intire they keep us too in our integrity and if we customarily break them they grind us certainly to powder The Prophet David had so smarted by having broken two of the number the one with Bathshebah and the other against Uriah as to have made a new Covenant with God Almighty that if he would teach him once more the way of his statutes he would not fail for the future to keep them whole unto the end And to the end he might keep them the more exactly he laid them up in a sure place wherein the serpents piercing eye should not be able to find them out He lock't them up in a Cabinet of which God only could keep the key For so we have him speaking to God himself Psal. 119. 11. Thy word have I hid within my heart that I might not sin against thee Exactly so did blessed Mary by the sayings of Christ her Son and Lord too which she kept saith the Text and laid them up in her heart After the very same manner let us manifest the love which we bear to Christ and demonstrate the esteem which we pretend to his Commandments first by keeping them in our eyes that we may evermore see and be mindful of them next by fixing them in our Heads that we may rightly apprehend them lastly by hiding them in our Hearts that no thievish lust may deprive us of them Let our love be the ingraver to carve his Commandments in our Souls to carve them in such deep and indelible characters as no kind of Engin or Tool of Satan may be able to efface them or raze them out Are not they bold people who dare be damn'd who take the confidence to sleep amidst the breaches of the Commandments whilst their Calling and Election are not only not ensur'd but even neglected and undervalued as if so cheap and so easie as to be got only by gaping that is by saying Lord Lord or upon any cheaper terms than those of keeping his Commandments Let us religiously beware that we be none of their number And because S. Iames tells us that whosoever will be a Friend of this present world is not only not the Friend but the Enemie of God Tremble we most at those Felicities which are most generally courted Take we heed of nothing more than of our living too much at ease If we are serious lovers of Christ let us not laugh and be merry with them that hate him but rather shut up ourselves in such a solitude and silence as in which we may enjoy him without disturbance or interruption Whenever we suffer in his behalf from our selves or others let this be one of our Rewards that he tells our sighs and counts the number of our attritions puts our Tears into his Bottle and enters our sorrows into his Book Let our Ambition be to please him by all means possible by observing his precepts by accusing our selves before him for any precept unobserv'd by importuning him incessantly for ghostly strength and by thanking him for that which we now injoy by hating our Rebellions already pass't and by making him vowes of new obedience Which Vowes having made let us not fail to pay them all how deerly soever they may cost us Let 's not reckon it enough to be almost-Christians with King Agrippa nor yet with King Saul to give God the Refuse of what we owe him But as we are debtors to him for all so let us not niggardly withhold the least things from him which he expects much
that such a thing should be suppos'd as that a Christian should not love the Lord Iesus Christ Let us examin if you please how very natural 't is to love him that so our wonder may be the less at the severity of the Curse which our Apostle thunders out against as many as love him not Sect. 6. First 't is natural for us as men to love the gifts of the Almighty because by them we have the pleasure of staying our hunger and our thirst the pleasure of giving Satisfaction to all our Appetites and Needs Next 't is every whit as natural to love that Love of the Almighty from whence those gifts are derived to us And then how natural is the Transition from our love of his Love unto a yet greater love of Him that loves us For such a free Lover of Souls must needs Himself be more lovely than all his Love as much as the Agent than the Act or the Cause than the Effect Sect. 7 Again be we never so debauch't we cannot possibly abstain from being kind unto ourselves And as little from being kind unto the benefits and Blessings which we injoy And being so kind unto the benefits we should as little methinks abstain from being kind to the Benevolence from which those Benefits must needs proceed How much less should we be able to abstain from being kind to the Benefactor who is the Sourse and the Fountain of that Benevolence Certainly nothing can be viler than to love the meer Gifts above the Giver nothing more contumelious to him that Gives them Sect. 8. And if 't is natural for us as men to love our God as God only or at least as the Giver of our Injoyments how much more as God in Christ Reconciling us all unto Himself He is the Maker and the Preserver and so at least the Benefactor of all things else but the Redeemer the Restorer the Reconciler only of us As God Incarnate he conversed with men on Earth and as such in special manner we still converse with him in Heaven I therefore say in special manner because to address our selves to God as he is Infinite and Invisisible a self-subsisting Existence from everlasting to everlasting is not only apt to dazzle but to distract our understandings Our Thoughts are lost in this Ocean as the drops of a Bucket And where our Thoughts are hardly fixt 't is hard to fasten our Affections But now to address ourselves to God in the man Christ Iesus as he is manifest in the Flesh and hypostatically united to human Nature to settle our Affections and Thoughts upon him both as our Sacrifice and our Priest our Elder Brother and our Advocate as one incessantly pleading for us and reconciling us to Himself This is to take him at the advantage of his descending to our Infirmities and as it were to lay hold both on his Majesty and his Mercy whilst he is thus stooping down to our low embraces And therefore if any man shall be found so void of Grace and good Nature as not to love the God of Heaven both as a Bridegroom and a Redeemer who never had bought but to espouse us and courts our kindness under the Title of The Lord Iesus Christ he cannot deserve a milder Curse than that of Anathema Maranatha Which though the frightful'st and the most dismal that any poor Caitiff can undergo is yet the mildest and the most gentle that our Apostle could in Conscience condemn Them to who should be found NOT TO LOVE the Lord Jesus Christ. Should the very Souls of men be wholly dissolv'd into Love â—…twould be no more than He deserves for the excess of whose Love to the Souls of men the Holy Ghost hath affirmed that He is Love And considering how much the Cause is more noble than the Effect as I said before 't is very evident that our Saviour should be much dearer to us than our Salvation The name of Iesus a Saviour how delicious to our mouths ought it to be when e're we speak it How melodious to our Ears when e're we hear it And what a Iubily to our Hearts whensoever we do ruminate or think upon it Having therefore such a name as is above every name the name of Iesus a Saviour nor that temporal but eternal he needs must challenge such a Love as is above every Love not only of our Sins but of our selves too And therefore well might S. Paul upon the foulest supposition that can be made of a Malefactor pronounce the formidabl'st Sentence that can be uttered by any Iudge If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha Sect. 9. These words of the Apostle which I have thought a fit Subject for the second Part of my Design are first of all to have a general and then a more special Consideration Their Parts in the General are briefly Three First the necessary Duty which is incumbent on a Christian and that is the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Next the Latitude or Extent of the obligingness of the Duty which does not reach only to some but to all in general And this is imply'd in the Indefinite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man love him not Thirdly the dreadfulness of the Danger to whosoever shall despise or neglect the Duty And this is expressed in the sentence of esto Anathema Maranatha So that in order to the more plain and useful handling of the Text which is propos'd only to profit and not to please us we are to fasten our present Thoughts upon these three subjects of Meditation First the Nature of the Love which is here requir'd Next the Quality of the Curse which is here denounc't Thirdly the means we are to use to attain the first and in consequence of that to escape the second CHAP. I. Sect. 1. TO understand the first aright we are to view the Grace of Love by several steps of Gradation First of all we are to view it as it is fasten'd upon God and so is contradistinguish't to all other Love Such as is the love of men whether our Neighbours or our selves the love of our Bodies and of our Souls and so of all other Creatures not only such as are unlawful and under a special prohibition but also such as are commanded and of necessity to be lov'd It must be opposite to the former and hugely transcendent unto the later And then it is the Grace of Love as fastned in general upon God But we are secondly to consider it in its particular application I mean its Appropriation to the Lord Iesus Christ. And this again in a threefold respect as he is Dominus the Lord who is to rule and reign over us and as Iesus the Saviour who is like Ioshua and the Iudges at once to deliver and to conduct us and as Christ the Messias in all his Offices at once in that of Teaching and Blessing and Swaying his Scepter
over our Hearts This is properly the love of our Lord Iesus Christ. And this again must be considerâ—…d in that degree of perfection wherein 't is taken in the Text. As a love of Christ unto the Death a love which casteth out Fear and such as does not wax cold in the sharpest winter of Tribulation For the curse which here follows seems to relate unto the Gnosticks and to as many of their posterity as should at any time be infected by their opinion Such as were Prodicus and the Adamites and the Sect of the Helkesaitae who were totally for a prosperous not for a persecuted Religion zealous Followers of Christ in Times of Peace but in Times of Persecution Forsakers of him Sect. 2. The sum and upshot of all is this The Love of Christ which is requir'd for the escaping of the Curse is such a Love of his Person as is attended with a Love of his precepts too And such a love of his precepts as shews it self in an Obedience without Exception or Reserve and obedience both active and passive too Nor with respect only to some but in the words of the Psalmist unto all his Commandments Our love of Christ must be set off with a comparative detestation of all below him For if any man come to me saith Christ himself to his Disciples and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brother and Sister yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple Luke 14. 26. There we see though we are bound to love our livelihood and our Lives yet we are bound to hate Both in comparison of the Love which we owe to Christ. And that so high a degree of love is indispensably required many parallel words of Christ do put it out of all Question As He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal Whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven Is any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow me For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own Glory and in his Fathers and of the holy Angels And when 't is said by the Apostle If we suffer we shall reign it is imply'd we shall not if we do not suffer As therefore he who puts to sea let his design be what it will is to resolve before hand to run the risque of the foulest weather and not to go but to be carried nor so much whither the Pilot shall please to steer him as whither the wind and the waves shall be pleased to drive him so before we do resolve to ingage our selves in Christianity we ought in prudence to make a Reckoning as well of the Price that it will cost us as of the Profit and Advantage 't will bring us in If we conceive that our Reward though yet but future and invisible will yet prove at last an abundant Recompence for whatsoever we can do or suffer here for Christ's sake then resolve we with S. Paul to reckon all things but Dung for the winning of it Ever pressing towards the mark by Mortifications and Self-denials and laying aside the every weight which doth so easily beset us by a fellowship with his sufferings and a conformity to his Death for the Prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Iesus But if on the other side we esteem it too hard a bargain which Christ hath made in the New Testament And that to drink of his deadly Cup will be a bitterer potion than all his Love and his Promises will be able to sweeten then let us never so much as enter into a Covenant with Christ but rather than begin and only begin to do him service fairly leave it unto those who have the patience and the courage to go quite through it He is a mad kind of chapman who makes a contract with Christ for a participation of his Kingdom without resolving upon his Cross too Himself hath told us what 't is like Luke 14. 31. It is just like a King who going to war against another King doth not first sit down and consult whether he be able with Ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with Twenty thousand For even so saith our Saviour at the 33. verse of that chapter whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath be it his Pleasure his Reputation his livelihood or his life he cannot be my Disciple Sect. 3. Yet let not any man here object against his hope of Salvation and ground of Comfort Infoelix ego sum infausto tempore natus sad and evil is my Condition because I live in good times I cannot possibly be a Martyr for want of a Nero or a Domitian a Dioclesian or a Cromwel whereby to evidence my Love of the Lord Jesus Christ and to exercise my Faith with a fiery Trial. For that I may take him out of the Agony which he possibly may be in whilst he considers how great a Love is indispensably requir'd for the escaping of the Curse which is here denounced any man living however prosperous may be a Confessor or Martyr by a generous Resistance of his Prosperities by being under a persecution he wisely brings upon Himself by destroying his wicked Appetites though dearer to him than his Eyes and by retrenching those darling habitual lusts which are as hardly parted with as his hands and feet Be not therefore like King Polycrates too much afflicted with thy Prosperityes nor like the Emperor Mauritius so much terrified from within for want of Troubles from without as to conclude thy self a Bastard in God's account through a defect of that chastisement which is the character of a Son For if thou usest those Talents of Grace and Reason which God hath given thee thy Ambition may be the Nero whom thou resistest unto Bloud Or thy Avarice the Domitian by whom thou art plagu'd for thy Non-compliance Or thy lust the Dioclesian from whom thou suffer'st for thy Dissents Or thy Cruelty may be the Cromwel whom thou refusest to obey at thy great Expense Wilt thou know by what martyrdom thy Love to Christ may be expressed in Times of Peace and how to suffer for God though never persecuted by men Be but contented with all Events and ever rise with an Appetite from the most warrantable Injoyments Envy no mans preferment nor ambitiously covet to make it Thine pay Obedience to thy Superiours though they may seem never so froward do whatever God bids thee though it shall seem never so hard resist the Dalliance of the Flesh though never so pleasant or Importuning and then in all these together thou art a Martyr of Patience with holy Iob of Abstinence with Daniel
spending upon our sins both to nourish and to adorn them with Food and Rayment Let us spend upon our Saviour in a more liberal proportion and that in such manner as he directs us Let us spend out of our Treasures to feed and cloath him in his members Let us spend to pay him Homage in as many of his members as under Him are our Heads And let us be spent for him as freely like Epaphroditus and S. Paul both by watching and fasting by meditating and praying by suffering paines and persecutions whensoever he shall call or expose us to them not by the leaving of our lives for the paying unto Nature her common Debt but by the laying of them down for the paying to our Saviour our Debt of Grace And as we may help to shame our selves into a love of the Lord Iesus by reflecting on our love to inferiour things so our love to the Lord Iesus just as our love to other things is very apt both to be bred and to be very much nourish't by conversation For Ignoti nulla Cupido We cannot possibly desire him whilst we are ignorant of his beauty And of that we must be ignorant whilst we are strangers to his converse So that the reason why most Professors are wont to love Christ so little doth seem especially to be This their having so little of his Acquaintance Enough of that will so charm us as to beget in us a loathing of all that makes a separation 'twixt Him and us Unto how many things and persons are many men passionately addicted if not absolutely enslav'd for which they can give us no better reason than that of their having been wonted to them let us but wont our selves as much unto an heavenly conversation and we shall find it just as harsh to be weaned from it Hence it follows that we must read and not only read but strictly search into the Scripture not only resting in its literal but also diving into its moral and soaring up too into its mystical significations whereby to acquaint ourselves throughly with the Lord Jesus Christ and more and more to comprehend the great variety of his Perfections And then to the end that his Perfections may so affect us as they deserve nor only float in our Brains but deeply sink into our Bowels we must imprint them within our selves by mental Prayer and Meditation To each of which we must be resolute to be so wonted and inur'd as not to be able without regret to admit of any long Avocation from them Nor can we pardonably excuse our gross neglects of conversing with Jesus Christ by alledging our Inability of taking delight in his converse For conversation must be made easie ere it can possibly be delightful And the easiness of any thing must come by use First 't is the diligence of our converse by which we come to love Christ and then 't will be natural for our Love to make us delight in his converse It argues a shallowness of Reason and a great want of perspicacity to think there are not any Pleasures upon the Mount of Contemplation as Gerson calls it because we cannot yet perceive them at the Foot of the Hill or in the Act of contending to climb up thither 'T is as great weakness as to conclude against the Pleasure of reaping a goodly Harvest from the labour of Cultivation and charge of seed Or to inferr there is no contentment in inhabiting a pleasant and well-built house from the cost of the Materials and Care of putting them together Nemo Montis Cacumen uno faltu conscendit The Hill of Sion is a fair place and Mount Tabor is a delicious one But we must not think to reach the Top of either at a Leap For as the lower and more earthy our pleasures are they must needs be attain'd with the greater ease so we must use the greatest patience and we must take the greatest paines to overcome the steep ascent of the highest pleasures All the Duties of a Christian I mean the Acts and not the Habits are so many steps and degrees to the Hill I speak of Which Acts of Duty whilst they are yet but Acts only will cost the natural man Pain and make him see he hath need of patience But after a competent tract of Time as soon as the Acts have been so numerous as to produce their respective Habits the Acts arising from those Habits will requite the said Patience with ease and pleasure Shall I exemplifie what I say by any one important duty which at first gives us Trouble and after rewards us with Delight I cannot instance in a fitter than that of Prayer because 't is one of the chiefest means whereby to enter and to continue and to complete our conversation with him that bought us How many are there in the world who turn their backs on this Duty upon no better Ground than their erroneous Imagination that 't is of no use to pray till they can do it with Devotion A way of reasoning as irregular as if a man who is very cold should conclude it wholly useless to make a Fire till he is warm Want we Devotion in our Prayers we are to pray for Devotion and Devotion is apt to grow from our customary Praying for other things From when in spite of our Indifferency and perhaps our Averseness to such a Duty we use the Empire of our Wills in the work of Prayer and casting our selves upon our Knees are very resolutely bent to perform the Duty how much soever against the stream of our Inclinations God will reward our Resolution by turning our Labour into delight and so will make it as great a Pleasure in time to come as it has been in time pass't a self-denial If any man shall here ask how we can possibly converse with things invisible or have a Languor after him whom we never saw let them answer saith S. Ierom who have read the answer to it in the Book of Experience and have not been able to forbear crying out with David Wo is me that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech O that I had wings to fly away and be at rest my soul is athirst for the living God And even panteth after Him as the Hart panteth after the water-Brooks O when shall I appear before the Presence of God! Devout S. Bernard himself confess 't that in the beginning of his Conversion he was frequently of an hard and frigid Heart who yet being accustomed to converse with Christ by Grace could not but thirst with great impatience to injoy him also in his Glory Yea that love which of necessity does begin in the Flesh may saith he by Degrees be well consummated in the Spirit For not to mention the seven degrees which are assign'd by Ubertinus as being too nice to be truly useful First 't is natural for a man as he is carnal and depraved to love himself above all things and above
are thirdly to observe the important Lesson which here is Taught and which is now of all Lessons the most worth learning especially if we reflect on the Times we live in by what certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or way of proof we may make men to know we are Christs Disciples This is deliver'd in the first and last words of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall know it even by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If ye bear love to one another From these three parts there are as many Propositions into which the whole Text is very naturally resolv'd That all who are Auditors of Christ or all to whom he is reveal'd do stand oblig'd by that means to be really his Disciples That their Discipleship if it be real will be eminent also and exemplary so far forth as to be known and taken notice of by All. That the surest Testimony and Proof of sincere Discipleship under Christ and the principal Instance or effect wherein its eminence doth consist and that which by Christ is here pronounced as an unerrable mark or Criterion of it is this Divine Qualification of mutual Love And this alone must be the Subject upon which I am to fasten the following part of my Design because it seems to comprehend I say not only the prime but whole Importance of the Text as we may judge by comparing the proposition with the fourfold Emphasis which may be put upon the words For first our Saviour does not say Men shall guess or conjecture that ye are mine but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall know it Nor secondly does he say Your Discipleship shall be known as a special Secret to very few but as the Sun in his Meridian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All men shall know it Nor thirdly does he say All men shall know ye seem to be by a Disguise but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye are my Disciples without a fiction Last of all he does not say Your Discipleship shall be known by such deceivable Tokens as your Assembling your selves in the House of Prayer your crying Lord Lord your doing wonders in my name your being Orthodox in Judgment and jumping together in Opinions but by This it shall be known as by a Token which never fails 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If ye have Love for one another CHAP. I. Sect. 1. THE Proposition to be consider'd though last in order is first in dignity And being as the Heart of the whole Body of Christianity deserves to be like the Heart in the body of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first thing that lives and the last that dyes in our consideration For can there be any thing in the world of greater consequence than This which gives us a Token whereby to know we have an Interest in Christ and such a sure token too as cannot possibly deceive us yet even such is that Love of which I am now about to treat and which if we take into our hearts as well as into our memories It will I doubt not carry with it that peace of Conscience which is to all that feed on it an endless Feast Sect. 2. But since there is hardly any word that is more equivocal than this I must Anticipate an Objection by shewing what Love it is which our Saviour meant when he appointed it for the measure by which his Scholars are to be scann'd Sect. 3. And to shew the better what it is I must first shew what it is not For all sorts of men pretend to Love not only Christians but the professed Enemies of Christ and the nominal as well as real Christians Nay in one kind or other they all have Love in their possession and many times the worst in the greatest measure For greater Love than this our Saviour tells us there is none that a man lay down his life for his friend And plentiful store of this Love we commonly find in our reading amongst the Heathen Their great Philosophers did prescribe it and not a few of their people obeyâ—…d the Precept Sect. 4. To save a Friend ready to perish we find Episthenes in Xenophon ready to lay down his life And such was the love of Artapates to Cyrus Iunior that he perfectly hated his own life as soon as Cyrus had quitted His. Nor would Lucius Petâ—…onius out-live his friend Pomponius Laetorius dyed a couple of Martyrs for Caius Graâ—…chus And Titus Volumnius followed Lucullus into his grave Terentius preferrâ—…d the life of Brutus by many degrees before his own And Valerius tells us of divers servants who for the saving of their Masters destroyed themselves What transcendent lovers of one another were Menedemus and Hipsides Cleonymus and Archidâ—…mus Agasias and Xenophon Bagooâ—… and Mentâ—…k Hippoclides and Polystratus Asclâ—…piodotus and Soranus 'T were easie to name as many more as would make a man weary to heart them nam'd Nor do I speak only of Couples but of Societies and Sects whose astonishing Love to one another hath rais'd them Monuments in story will last as long as the Sun and Moon Such as the Cimbri and Celtiberians in Valerius Maximus the friends of Cyrus in Xenophon the Athonians in Thucydides the Megalopolitans in Polybius the men of Saguntum and Petellia the many Societies reckon'd up by Alexander ab Alexandro who had all things in common of every kind and as well their Sufferings as their Injoyments Insomuch that if one did lose a limb by any accident all the rest were to cut off theirs that in every Circumstance of Adversity they might all be equall and alike Sect. 25. Thus there were multitudes of men who lov'd each other unto the Death and some beyond it as far as Hell Yet very far were those Pagans from being known by such love to have been either the Disciples of Christ or Moses 'T was little better than the love of King Porus his Elephant and other generous beasts which have expos'd their own lives to save their Rider's There is a natural kindness and Generosity which is common to men with the meanest Creatures and so hath nothing of affinity with what is intended in the Text. Sect. 6. Nay if we reflect upon our selves upon whom the name of Christ is call'd we must not imagin we have attain'd unto that excellent Love which is here requir'd because we find upon inquiry that we are loving to our friends or because we have often our solemn meetings or stand fast to one another as drivers-on of a design For as there are many sorts of love which are not rational and pure as not proceeding from a right principle so there are many things too which are but the Counterfeits of love and yet are call'd by that Name because they look extremely like it The Devils themselves have their combination are still
us such a love as never was thought upon before much less deliver'd under precept to any Sect or Society of Iewes or Gentiles Had his Commandment been no more than that we love one another it had been old with a witness no doubt I may say as old as Adam But because he added a Sicut Ego that we must love one another even as he hath loved us which was with such a new Love as till he came into the world was never heard of he had reason to call it a New Commandment 'T was said by Moses to the Iewes Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self But our Saviour saith farther that we must love one another even as He hath loved us which was not only as but beyond Himself For his loving us to the Death was in the comparative sense of Scripture to hate his own life for the love he bare us And although S. Iohn saith Brethren I write no New Commandment but an old Commandment which ye had from the Beginning he means no more by that last word than the first Beginning of Christianity which was with the preaching of the Gospel by Iesus Christ. Remember we therefore what Love this is which is the Badge and Cognisance of our profession the mark of difference betwixt the Sheep and the Goats and which is not exacted from Men as Men but from Christians as they are Christians We must not love as They do who corrupt one another as S. Austin speaks with a meerly seditious or schismatical Love nor must we love as they do who only love one another for filthy Lucre much less as They do who love one another for filthy Lust Nor must we love as They do whose love consisteth only in this that they agree in the hatred of some third Party Nor must we only love as they do who love one another as they are Men only that is as they are sociable and civil Creatures But we must love one another as being Lovers of God and as being such whom God loves as being Children of the Highest and younger Brothers of our Redeemer as being all made Consorts of the very same Hope and all Co-heirs of the very same Kingdom Our Love must imitate both the manner and the Degree of Christs Love For we must venture our Lives for the good of others and even in spight of all Dangers which may happen to the Body we must own and propagate and defend the Doctrines of the Gospel which is the utmost we can do for the good of other mens Souls and that which makes us most like a Saviour The Gospel I may say is the Christian School thither it is we go to learn Christ is the Master of it in chief all Christians are School-fellows or Condisciples The Love I have hitherto describ'd is the highest lesson which there is taught Those Titular Christians who do not attain to this Love are so many Dunces and Truants fit to be turn'd out of the School It is indeed an hard Lesson for us to love one another even as Christ hath loved us a Lesson only to be found in the School of Christ. But yet how Difficult soever 't is not impossible to be learn't For God is faithful and expects not to reap but after the measure that he hath sown He will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able If there is in us a willing mind He accepts according to what we have and not according to what we have not The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us And we can do all things through him that strengthens us And therefore let us not despair of getting the Mastery over our Lesson For we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians immediatly taught it by God himself Sect. 16. Now the more largely I have discover'd both what it is not and what it is to love one another as Christ requires the fewer words will suffice to make it clear as the Sun at Noon that by this we must be known to be Christs Disciples For such a Love as This is is the fulfilling of the Law So saith the Law-giver himself Matt. 22. 40. and so his principal Apostle Rom. 13. 8 9 10. where he speaks of Love in a Christian as Demosthenes did of Pronunciation in an Orator As if it were not only the first Thing but also the second and the third and so indeed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the All in All of a Christian. For mark the words of that Apostle whom we cannot accuse of vain or needless Repetition He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law v. 8. All the Commandments of the Law are comprehended even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self v. 9. Love worketh no evil to his Neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law v. 10. Three times in a breath without so much as a Parenthesis love is reckon'd to be the Pandect of all things requisite to make a Saint Sect. 17. Nor let any man say within himself How can this be Since Gods word tells us that so it is And yet I think it is easie to shew you How too For the whole Body of the Law moral doth consist of ten Members which are commonly call'd the Decalogue or ten Commandments of the Law The Lord Jesus hath reduced those Ten to these Two Thou shalt love thy God with all thy Heart And thy Neighbour as thy self On these two Hinges the very Door of Salvation doth clearly turn For on these two Precepts hang all the Law and the Prophets Matt. 22. 40. But S. Paul hath reduced them all to One. For thus he speaks to the Galatians All the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self The reason is because the Love of our Neighbour in the high degree I here speak of does carry along with it the Love of God Either of them saith Austin is inferr'd by either for if we really love God we shall obey him when he commands us to love our Neighbour and if we really love our Neighbour it is for the Love which we bear to God Observe the Logick by which S. Iohn argues both backwards and forwards By this we know we love the Children of God when we love God and keep his Commandments 1 Joh. 5. 2. There he argues from the first Table to the second Now observe how he argues from the second to the first and that two waies both in the Negative and the Affirmative In the Negative thus He that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen 1 John 4. 10. He that shutteth up his Bowels of Compassion from his brother how dwelleth the Love of God in him 1 John 3. 17. Again he argues it in the Affirmative We know that we have passed from death unto life if
will receive us with an Euge well don good and faithful servants What heart has a servant to do his work when he neither loves the Master nor has pleasure in his Commands And yet what hope has a servant to earn his wages who for want of affection neglects his work It is therefore for our Interest the most that may be to love our Saviour and our Prince to whom it belongs to reward or punish and so to love him as to keep his Commandments Sect. 5. But suppose it were not useful to love this Saviour and that nothing were to be got by being loyal to this Prince yet he being so lovely as well as great that whilst he awes us with his Commands he seeks to melt us with his Intreaties methinks we should be so charm'd as still to love him only to love him And shall we niggardly put him off with such a mercenary love as with which Diana's Silver-smiths did love their Idol or as the Daughters of the Horse-leech are wont to love Blood rather because we live and thrive by the love we bear him than because he is so lovely as to make us dy for him with ease and pleasure Those words of Iob were the most suitable to a Lover although he kill me yet will I trust in him And as in those words of Iob speaking them heartily as he did consisted the Triumph of his Faith to wit that Faith which overcometh the world So for us to be able to say as heartily of Christ that we would love him though he should hate us This alone would be of force to shew the Triumph of our Affection And sure we ought to love our Saviour seeing pure love indeed hath eyes behind it rather because he hath already deserv'd our love than to the mercenary end that he may reward it Indeed 't is most for our Interest as well as honour to love him simply for what he is and not for what he brings with him by way of Dowry because in the conduct of our love the less we look on our Advantage the more advantageous our love will be Sect. 6. I confess this is more than He does rigidly exact Because he is an High Priest who has a feeling of our Infirmities and as in his Person he once did bear them so for that very reason he does the rather with them He does not look for such a perfect and disinteressed love as stands in need of no helps for its Improvement or support Carry's not water in the one hand wherewith to extinguish the Flames of Hell nor a Firebrand in the other whereby to burn up the Ioys of Heaven like the woman so met by Bishop Ivo in the streets to the end that we may love him the more sincerely without fear of the first and without hope of the second He knows that Hell is very useful for the driving us off from the love of Evil and that Heaven is as useful for the drawing up our love to the Soveraign Good And as he desires that we will love him upon any rational Terms So would he have our love cherisht by any means to be imagin'd even the hope of Reward in case we do and fear of Punishment if we do not He would have us to reflect on our own advantage and afford him some love for the love we bear unto our selves Sect. 7. 'T is true indeed if we consider that in Him is all goodness and that goodness is Beauty in its Perfection and that Beauty is not the Common but the more proper object of Love as Colours are of sight and Sounds of hearing And that Beauty in its Perfection is Loves last object and resort the very Center wherein it rests and wherein when it rests it cannot possibly go astray all extravagance of desire being quite lost into Fruition and by consequence that there is nothing more natural to a Christian than to place his whole Love upon Jesus Christ if I say we consider such things as these it may be matter of some Amazement how a true member of Christ can make a shift not to love him and not to love him for Himself too And yet we see by Christ himself 't is but indefinitely propos'd it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if ye love me Though Jesus Christ is the Head and we do hope we are his members and 't is natural for the members to love the head though Jesus Christ is the Vine and we conceive we are the Branches and 't is natural for the Branches to cleave in love unto the vine yet it seems a thing questionable whether we love him or love him not And since 't is impossible for a true member not to love its own Head we may know by this Token whether we are members of Christ or not S. Paul saith expresly that as many as are members of Jesus Christ are members of his Body his Flesh and Bone and that no man yet did ever hate his own Flesh. So that if it is a question whether or no we love our Saviour it must be also another question whether or no we are his members Whether members of his mystical or 〈◊〉 of his visible Church only whether genuine and natural or counterfeit Branches of the Vine And herein lyes the sadness of our condition so far forth as we fail in our love to Christ that if we suspect we are not his members we can yet be so well satisfied or unconcern'd in our unhappiness as not to take any great thought what shall happen to us hereafter and if we think we are his members that we can seek out occasions of slacking our love towards a Saviour in loving whom we must confess our endless happiness does consist Sect. 8. In the beholding of an Interlude or in the reading of a Romance men will be often so affected with the lively representation of some incomparable Lover and of his Admirable sufferings for the dear object of his Love as to let fall Tears at the Solemnity Now what other reason can be given why men should thus be real Lovers of an Imaginary vertue and unfeignedly concern'd in another man's Fiction whilst they know and consider 't is but a Fiction but that it is in the nature of man as man before he degenerates into a Brute both to love the vertuous and to compassionate the miserable To espouse the cause of the best-deserving and to side with Innocence in her Afflictions From whence it follows unavoidably that he who cannot love goodness without any reference to himself his private Interesses and ends hath deerly bought that disability which he could never have got at a lower rate than that of parting with his Humanity and plucking up by the Root those Flowers of Paradise which the God of good nature had planted in him And if these things are so Lord how strange is the Impiety and how mysterious the unhappiness to be less affected with the Beauty and
bleeding Innocence of a Saviour than with the Tragical Chimaeras of a Dramatick Poem How great and manifold is the guilt of being niggardly and cold in our love to him whom to love is so easy so advantageous nay whom 't is hard not to love What a sin against nature not to love them that love us What a sin against Reason not to love such an object as we confess is most lovely What a sin against Grace not to love even Him who hath poured out upon us the Spirit of love and so hath offer'd us at least the Grace to love him What a sin against Gratitude not to love Him who so loves us as that he loves to forgive us the scandalous littleness of our Love What a sin to be wanting in love to Him who dyed to expiate our want of love to him What a barbarous sin is it to love him lamely and with indifference who stands knocking at our Door and importunes us to open with much Intreaty and that from morning till midnight until his Head is fill'd with Dew and his locks with the drops of the night what an amazing sin is it and almost incredible to love our Saviour any whitless than we love our sins To have a much weaker love for the Proper object of our love than we are wonted to bestow on the proper object of our Hatred Yet is there any thing more usual than for many not to love Christ who are called Christians and to demonstrate they do not love him by their not keeping his Commandments So very great reason there is to put a strong Emphasis on the Particle If that even the best of us perhaps may call our love into Question whether it is such as will serve the turn whether such as does employ us in the due keeping of the Commandments Sect. 9. And therefore for a conclusion let us thus reckon within our selves That in as much as without Faith it is impossible to please God and seeing no Faith is true but that which worketh by love and seeing no love will prove effectual but that which brings forth obedience to the Commandments of Christ in which respect 't is called fitly the fulfilling of the Law seeing also we must know that Christ is in us or among us which we can very hardly do but by the love we bear to him as well as by the love which he bears to us Shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which he hath given us And seeing by consequence that our love appears to be one of the greatest Hinges upon which the very Door of our Hope does turn it concerns us as much as Salvation comes to that we raise up our hearts to things invisible and future and that we work up our affections towards the right hand of God where Jesus sitteth and is inthron'd by all the Instruments and Engines to be imagin'd Never must we cease from our work of Faith which is obedience from our labour of love which is Industry and diligence in that obedience from our Patience of Hope which is indurance unto the end in that industrious way of obedience until the Flame of our Affection has burnt up all unclean Fires obstructing the passage 'twixt us and Christ and made its way to Immortality in contempt of all Ifs or Peradventures that it may never more be said If we love him but because we love him and because we cannot but love him we are resolv'd not to be able not to keep his Commandments Sect. 10. For by the Custom of our obedience that I may touch before hand on what will properly be handl'd in other places we shall contract unto our selves so great an easiness to obey that 't will be difficult and hard to be disobedient We shall be ready to object to any masterful temptation what Ioseph did to his tempting Mistress how can we do this great wickedness and sin against God wilful sin will become such a stranger to us we shall so lose its acquaintance by discontinuing to commit it that we shall neither have the heart nor the Face to own it I say by a long and constant practice in the keeping of the Commandments and going on a great while in the path of Righteousness we shall forget the way back to our old Rebellions and shall arrive at an averseness to those enticements with which we were wont to converse with Pleasure Ever saying when we are tempted with the spouse in the Canticles we have cast off our coat how shall we put it on We have washt our feet how shall we defile them An inveterate habit of the soul like such an habit of the Body as it is not quickly gotten so when it is it is hardly lost And as the habit of living wickedly turns our wickedness into our nature that to cease from doing wickedly all things in us must become new so the habit of doing well does so rivet and ingrain the love of Piety in our hearts that 't is well nigh as difficult to raze it out as for a Leopard to change his spots or an Aethiop his skin Is there any among us who has been so accustom'd to any sin as that it has got the dominion over him let him but have the Curiosity to make an obvious experiment for the sole want of which he understands not the pleasures of vertuous living and my life for his it will set him free Let him accustom himself as much to the keeping of the Commandments as he has don unto the Breach and Transgression of them and he will find himself as perfectly an humble servant unto Righteousness as before he was a servant and slave to sin Righteousness will get the Dominion over him 't will Rule and Reign in his mortal body it will so lift up his reason above his Passions and so bring down his Appetite to a subjection under his Will as that the law in his members will but timorously war against the law in his mind He will be passionately in love both with the Burthen and the yoke as with the Beauty and the Love of his master Christ. And like the Bondman in Exodus at the great year of Manumission will rather be bored through the ear than be free from Christ. The Apostles word is He will be a new Creature and even those which heretofore were his most formidable Duties will now at last so become his supream delights that as he will not indure to do the things which he abominates so as little will he be able to abstain from the duties he so much loves Thus at last he will be brought into that blessed disability of wilful sinning of which S. Iohn speaks in his first Epistle He that is born of God sinneth not neither can he saith the Apostle and that because he is born of God That is he cannot sin wilfully so as still to be regenerate