that it should die presently after its birth. When | any leak springs in the ship of Christian society, we should stop it with speed. The nearer the union is, the more dangerous is the breach. Bodies that are but glued together, may (if severed) be set together as beautifully as ever; but members rent and torn cannot be healed without a scar. What a shame is it that the bond of grace and religion should not more firmly unite us, than sinful leagues do wicked men! A true Christian, like the true mother, to whom Solomon gave the child, may be known by affection. As the spleen grows, the body decays; and as hatred increases, holiness abates, I John iii. 14; v. 1; iv. 7, 8, &c.

In sum, this love to the faithful must put forth itself both in distributing to them the good they want, and in delighting in them, and rejoicing with them, for the good they have. Both these, how profitable, how honourable, how amiable are they! Most honourable it is for the meanest Christian to be a priest to the high God, to offer a daily sacrifice with which God is well pleased, Heb. xiii. 16; to resemble God in doing, rather than in receiving good; to be the hand of God to disperse his bounty, to have God for his debtor, to lend to the Lord of heaven and earth. What likewise is more profitable than that our distribution to saints, like an ambassador, by lying lieger abroad, should secure all at home? that this most gainful employment should return us pearls for pebbles, jewels for trifles, crowns for crumbs; after a short seed-time, a thousandfold, measure heaped, shaken, thrust together, and running over? What, lastly, so amiable, as for members of the same body, children of the same Father, and who lay in the same womb, suck at the same breasts, sit at the same table, and expect for ever to lodge in the same bosom, to be at union with and helpful to one another? And on this side heaven where should our complacency centre itself, but upon the truly excellent, Psal. xvi. 3, noble, illustrious ones, who are every one kings, and more magnificent than ever were worldly monarchs? For their alliance, having the Lord of heaven and earth for their Father; the King of kings for their elder Brother; a queen, the church, the spouse of Christ, for their mother, Psal. xlv.; having for their treasures those "exceeding precious promises," 2 Pet. i. 4, " more to be desired than gold, yea, than fine gold," Psal. xix. 10; in comparison of which a mountain of gold is but a heap of dung. For their guard, having the attendance of angels, Psal. xxxiv. 7; nay, the wisdom, care, and strength of God. For their food, having bread that endures to eternal life, John vi. 27, drink better than wine, and a continual feast. For their apparel, having the robes of Christ's righteousness here, which makes them as beautiful as angels, all fair, and without spot, Cant. iv. 7; and attire to be put on hereafter, Rev. vii. 9, which will shine more gloriously than a hundred suns made into one. For their habitation, a palace of glory, "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," 2 Cor. v. l.

Having thus first explained this love here desired by the apostle in its several sorts, I come now,

II. To touch briefly upon those rare and excellent properties of this grace of love, both as it is set upon God, and upon man.

1. The properties of this grace of love to God. (1.) This grace of love set upon God, is true, Eph. vi. 24. cordial, and sincere; not in word or ἐν ἀφθαρσία. outward profession, but in truth, and in the inward man; not complimentary, but real; the inward purpose of the heart having an emphasis of love that hypocrisy and expressions cannot reach.

And the truth is, our loving God is not so properly said to be sincere, as to be our very sincerity. Then, and then alone, a duty is done in sincerity, when it is done in love; and herein stands hypocrisy, when, though there is much doing, yet there is no loving. The love of a hypocrite to Christ, like the shining of the glow-worm, is without any inward heat, and stands only in a glistering profession; or like some spices, which are cold in the stomach, though hot in the mouth; or like the fire in Moses' bush, it burns not while it blazes: it proceeds from human inducements of education, countenance, or commands of superiors, interest;-an apprehension of the love of Christ barely to mankind; or from this, that Christ is out of sight, and troubles not his lusts; or from some accidental, circumstantial ornaments which attend the ministry and truth, as wit, learning, expression, elocution, or credit of visible conformity to them; not from an inward apprehension of the proportionableness, suitableness, and fitness of Christ to all his desires and capacities, as being the fairest of ten thousand, Cant. v. 10, or from any real interest and propriety in Christ, which are the grounds of love, when true and sincere, Luke vii. 47; 1 John iv. 16, 19.

(2.) This love to God is superlative; it surpasses all other love: the soul in which it abides, seeing infinitely more loveliness in one God, than in all the combined, assembled excellencies of all worldly objects, loves him infinitely more than them all. It often not only steps over them, but kicks them away; not only laying them down as sacrifices, but hating them as snares, when they would draw from Christ. When Christ and the world meet (as it were) upon so narrow a bridge, that both cannot pass by, Christ shall go on, and the world shall go back. Christ in a Christian shall have no rivals; as Christ bestows himself wholly upon a Christian, wholly upon every one, as every line hath the whole indivisible point, so a Christian gives himself wholly to Christ; he shares not his heart betwixt him and the world; all within him he sets on work to love Christ, keeping nothing back from him, for whom all is too little. The greatest worth that it sees in any thing but Christ is this, that it may be left for Christ; ever rejoicing that it has any thing to which it may prefer him. To a soul in which is this love, Christ is as oil put into a vial with water, in which, though both be never so much shaken together, the oil will ever be uppermost; or as one rising sun, which drowns the light of a numberless number of stars. It loves the world as always about to leave and loathe it; not as that for which it lives, but as that without which it cannot live. The world has not the top and strength of its affection; it loves nothing much but Him whom it cannot love too much. It lodges not the world in its best room, and admits not such a stranger into the closet of the heart, but only into the hall of the senses.

(3.) It is a jealous or zealous love; suspicious lest any thing should, and burning in a holy heat of indignation against any thing that does, disturb the soul's Beloved. Love is a solicitous grace, and makes the soul account itself never sufficiently trimmed for Christ's embraces, never to think that any thing done is well enough done. All the soul is and can is esteemed too little for him, who is its optimus maximus, its best and greatest. The more brightly shining the beams of love to Christ are, the more motes and imperfections the soul ever sees in its services. Its fear only is, lest by sin, and unsuitable carriage, it stirs up and awakes the Beloved, Cant. iii. 5. It cannot put up a disgrace, expressed by the greatest, against Christ. It zealously contends for his word, ways, worship, worshippers, kingdom, Gal. iv. 16, 18;

Acts xv. 2; xvii. 16; xviii. 25; xix. 8; Jude 3. All its anger is against those intercurrent impediments that would stop it in advancing Christ; it labours to bear down those hinderances of God's glory with a flood of tears, if it cannot with a stream of power. The meekest soul in love with God knows how to be holily impatient; and, like Moses, though when with God to pray for men, yet when with men to contend for God. Every sin by how much the nearer to it, by so much is it more detested by it. Of all sins therefore its own have the deepest share of hatred; for what it cannot remove, it mourns heartily, crying out of the body of death, the sin that doth so easily beset it, Rom. vii. 24; Heb. xii. 1, as of the constant company of a noisome carcass; endeavouring that every sin may be more bitter to remember, than it was ever sweet to commit; looking upon the want of sorrow after sin, as a greater argument of want of love than was the sin itself.

(4.) It is a chaste, a loyal love; not set upon what God has, so much as upon what God is; not upon his, but him; not upon his rings, but his person; not upon his clothes, but his comeliness; upon a Christ, though not adventitiously adorned: his gifts are loved for him, not he for them; he is sweet without any thing, though nothing is so without him. Love desires no wages, it is wages enough to itself, it pays itself in seeing and serving the beloved. A nurse does much for the child, and so does the mother; but the former for the love of wages, the latter for the wages of love. Love carries meat in the mouth: the very doing of God's will is meat and drink to one who loves him. A heart in love with Christ is willing, with Mephibosheth, that others should take all, so it may behold the King. Worldly comforts shall not fallere, but monere; only they shall be used to admonish how much worth is in Christ, not to bewitch the soul from Christ; as spectacles by which the soul may read him the better, or as steps by which it may be raised up to him the nearer and no further shall they be beneficia domini, delighted in, than as they are pledges ut arrham Sponsi. of, or furtherances unto, the enjoyment Aug. Med. of him. Should God give all to one who loves him, and not give himself, he would say, with Absalom, What doth all avail me, so long as I see not the King's face? 2 Sam. xiv. 32. Communion with God is the heaven of him who loves God. It is heaven upon earth for God to be with him, and the heaven of heaven for him to be with God.

Si ista terrena diligitis, ut subjecta diligite, ut munera amici, ut

αγάπη, from

soie.

(5.) It is an active, stirring, exayav oliv, say pressive love. The fire of love cannot be held in, it will break out at lips, hands, feet, by speaking, working, walking, John xiv. 23; Psal. cxix. 111, 140, 159. Love saith, as Elijah to Obadiah, "As the Lord liveth, I will show myself," 1 Kings xviii. 15: the strength of love will have a vent. "The love of Christ constraineth," 2 Cor. v. 14, and, as the word ouvex, used by the apostle, signifies, hems in, shuts up, pinfolds the heart, that it cannot wind out from service, and cannot choose but do for Christ. Love is a mighty stream, bearing all before it. It cares not for shame or loss; it carries away these, as did Samson the other, gates upon its shoulders, Judg. xvi. 3. "It is strong as death," Cant. viii. 6. A man in love with God, is as a man who is carried away in a crowd, who cannot keep himself back, but is hurried without his own labour with the throng. Love with ease despatches great employments: the commands of God are not grievous to it. Love is the wing, that weight and holy proclivity of the soul, which, if it finds not, makes a way; nay, it is so speedy and present an affection, that it endures no delays. It accounts not

the least time little in which God is withdrawn. It follows hard after God, and puts not off its pursuits of duty or comfort till to-morrow, or to a more con

venient time.

(6.) It is an expensive, bountiful, costly love. It will not offer that which cost it nothing; even the meanest gift (as, alas, how much below Christ is all we are or do!) comes from a kingly heart. Love contends after excellency and perfection in attending upon that object which it loves under the apprehension of the greatest good. How willingly did those converts lay down all their goods at the apostles' feet! Acts iv. 35; and those afterwards burn their books of curious arts, though of great value! Acts xix. 19. How great was David's expense for the temple, 1 Chron. xxii. 14-16, and his desire that his purchase which he bought of Araunah should be (being for his God) costly! 2 Sam. xxiv. 24. How bountiful was that formerly sinful woman in her expression of love to Christ! How freely were her tears, hairs, kisses, ointment employed! The greatness of the debt forgiven her made her love much, and the greatness of her love made her spend much, Luke vii. 45, 46. What, save love, made Zaccheus part with half of his goods to the poor, and a fourfold restitution to the wronged by false accusation? Luke xix. 8. Love will make Peter willing to feed the sheep of Christ, John xxi. 15-17, and Paul not to account his life dear to him to finish his ministry, Acts xx. 24. Joseph loved Benjamin most, and gave him a mess five times so much as any of the rest, Gen. xliii. 34. He that loves God most will lay out most for God. More than once we read in the Scripture of the labour of love, 1 Thess. i. 3; Heb. vi. 10. Love rests in its labour, and then rests most when it labours most. Nothing labours more, or thinks it labours less, than love. I have heard of one that was asked for what sort of men he laboured most; he answered, for his friends. He was again asked, for whom then he laboured least; he answered, for his friends. Both answers were true; for love made him think he did least for those for whom indeed he did most.

(7.) It is a submissive, stooping, patient love, bearing from, and forbearing for, the beloved any thing. It puts us upon things below us, to please him whom we love; it make us undertake that which another may esteem weakness and indecency. David's love to God's presence transported him to leaping and dancing, thereby (though Michal esteemed it baseness) to honour God. Parents, out of love to their children, play, and lisp, and stammer: Christ himself emptied and humbled himself (Phil. ii. 8) for our sakes. Love flies not, like chaff, in the face of him that fans. The soul that loves is reconciled to God, though it sees not that God is reconciled to it. It has a child-like ingenuity to have and stay with a father that scourges it, not a servile unsubmissiveness, to threaten, presently after stripes, departure. It iratum colere numen, follows a frowning father. It lives contented with God's allowance. It will patiently be without what he thinks either fit to remove, or not fit to bestow; and all this not upon force, but upon choice. It loses its own will in God's, and had rather will as doth God, than understand as doth an angel. It takes with joy the spoiling of its goods. It ever thinks it hath enough left, so long as God takes not away himself. It bears the indignation of the Lord, and accepts Omnia quæ horrithe punishment of its iniquity, and is bilia audis, serwilling to receive evil as well as good, vire, mori, exbecause from the hand of a God whom sunt amori. Nier. it loves. For his sake it is willing to be killed all the day long, Psal. xliv. 22; Rom. viii.

piata et sancta

de art, vol.

(8.) It is a conforming love. The will of God is the compass by which it steers. It fashions not itself according to the world. It walks not by example, but by rule. The heart will be set like a watch which goes not by other watches, but by the sun. It walks not by precedent, but precept. It regards not what is either its own, or other men's, but what is God's will. Its will and God's are like two strings of an instrument tuned in unison, if the one be struck and sounded, the other also stirs and trembles when God's will is declared, the will of him that loves God moves accordingly. It is much more solicitous to understand duty, than to avoid danger. It desires to have a heart according to God's heart, to be moulded according to Scripture impressions; to love what God loves, and hate what he hates; to think and will the same with God.

(9.) It is a sociable love. It moves to the full enjoyment of God, as its centre. Converse with God is its element. The soul where this love is, debarred from prayer, hearing, is as the fish on dry land. It restrains not prayer from the Almighty. It walks with God. It sings in the absence of Christ, no more than did they in a strange land. It loves to have its bundle of myrrh all the night between its breast. It delights in every thing in which Christ may be seen; the word, sacraments, conditions, society, ministers; and the more these have of Christ's presence, the more it loves them: the closest, purest, most powerful, most sin-discovering, sin-disturbing preaching it loves best. The holiest and most exact walking saints it loves best. The sacrament or prayer wherein Christ smiles most sweetly it loves best. The condition, though outwardly bitterest, wherein it sees the face of Christ most clearly, it loves best. Chiefly is the sociableness of love discovered in longing after the second coming of Christ; in counting it best of all to be with him, Phil. i. 23; in loving his appearance, 2 Tim. iv. 8; in hasting to the coming of the day of God, 2 Pet. iii. 12. The unwillingness to have that day come, proceeds from a Christian's unrenewed part: so much soreness as is in the eye, so much loathness is there in a man to see the light, and proportionable to our love to sin is the disaffection to Christ's appearance; and the fear which is in a gracious heart of Christ's second coming, rather proceeds from a sense of its own unfitness to appear before Christ, than an unwillingness to have Christ appear to it; and more from a desire to be made meet for him, than to remain without him.

without hypocrisy. Love in deed and in truth, not in word and tongue, 1 John iii. 18; a love from the heart. It is not like the love of Joab and Judas, who outwardly kissed, and inwardly, at the same time, designed to kill. It contents not itself in giving, like Naphtali, "goodly words," Gen. xlix. 21. The apostle speaks of soundness in charity, Tit. ii. 2. Unsound charity is courtship, not Christianity. Of all things, dissimulation does worst in love, as most corrupting it, and contrary to its nature; and appearing love is nothing but Christianity acted, and religion painted: some sins scratch the face of love, but hypocrisy stabs it at the heart.

(2.) It is an expressive, open-handed love: though it arises at the heart, yet it reaches to the hand. Love is a fruitful grace; it bears not only the leaves and blossoms of words and promises, but the fruit also of beneficial performances. If love be in truth, it will also be in deed, 1 John iii. 18. Words, though never so adorned, clothe not the naked; though never so delicate, feed not the hungry; though never so zealous, warm not the cold; though never so free, set not the bound at liberty: our faith must work by love, Gal. v. 6. Love must be seen, felt, and understood verbal love is but painted fire. Love is so beautiful a grace, that it is willing to be seen. The apostle saith, "Love worketh no ill," Rom. xiii. 10; it is a diminutive expression; there is more intended, even doing all the good the law requires, and therefore he adds, "Love is the fulfilling of the law."

(3.) It is a forward, cheerful love. It is not drawn or driven, but runs: it stays not till the poor seeks it, but it seeks for him. Onesiphorus sought out Paul diligently, 2 Tim. i. 17. It relieves not with an evil eye, Prov. xxiii. 6. It makes men given to hospitality, Rom. xii. 13: the water of bounty flows from it as from a fountain, and goes not out, as from a narrow-mouthed bottle, with grumbling. It is not like the sponge that sucks up the water greedily, but gives it not out unless it be squeezed. Ingenuous poverty rejoices in this forwardness of love as much as in the gift itself; for Hoc ipso amplius thereby not only its want, but bashful- peres, quum pauness is relieved. It is a double bene- Pertati eorum ficence when we give, and give cheer- et pudori. Leo. fully. The mind of the receiver is eleemosyna, et more refreshed with the cheerfulness quia da nus, et quia hilariter of the giver, than is his body with the damus. greatness of the gift.

gaudent pau

cousultum fuerit

Serm. 4. Duplex

(4.) It is an extensive, universal love. 1. Universal in respect of duties; it shuns no performance that may benefit the body, name, mind, or soul of another. Love is a Pandora, abounding in every good work and gift; it is therefore called the fulfilling of the law, Rom. xiii. 10. Love is the decalogue contracted, and the decalogue is love unfolded. Love is a mother; the ten commandments her ten children; and she forgets none, neglects none. 2. It is universal in respect of persons; it remembers the apostle's rule, to do good to all, Gal. vi. 10: even wicked men it loves, though not as wicked, yet as men; the men, not their Non peccatorem, sed justum in manners. The love of the Colossians paupere nutrit, qui in illo non was extended to all the saints, Col. i. culpam, sed na4: wherever there is grace, love will turam diligit. Gr. follow, for grace is beautiful wherever it is. The ointment of love falls even upon the skirts of the garment, as well as the head. Love is set upon the brotherhood, I Pet. ii. 17, the whole fra

2. I proceed to the properties of love to man. (1.) It is a love unfeigned, I Pet. i. 22, without dissimulation, Rom. xii. 9. ladeλøía ávvπókρirn, love

3. past.

Holy love regards grace in its working-day clothes, James ii. 1; upon a dunghill, in a prison; grace in the idiot, as well as in the scholar; in the servant, as well as the master. As all our delight must be in

the saints, Psal. xvi. 3, so our delight must be in all the saints.

(5.) It is a religious and a holy love. It is from, in, and for holiness. From it: he that loves his brother, first loves God; first he gives his heart to God as a son, before he reaches out his hand to man as his brother. His love is said to be out of a pure heart, 1 Tim. i. 5. First he gives himself, then his. Secondly, in holiness, and holy ways: it joins not hands with any in a way of sin; for this is not unity, but faction: it has no fellowship with unfruitful works, but reproves them, Eph. v. 11: it makes a man most angry with the sin of him whom he loves most. He fears not only to be fratricida, but fideicida: he doth not so love a man as to be an enemy to religion. Thirdly, for holiness: this love is set upon holy ones, because they are so; not because they are great, but good. God's image in them is the loadstone of our love, 1 John v. 2.

(6.) It is a just and righteous love. It bestows gifts, not spoils; it hurts not some to help others; it buys not a burying-place for strangers with the blood of Christ; it is not bountiful upon any other's cost. The people of God must be blameless and harmless, Phil. ii. 15; not having in the one hand bread for one, and in the other a stone for another. We must not build God's house with Satan's tools: the poorest saint wants not our unrighteousness to help him.

(7.) It is a prudent, discerning love. It loves all, yet with a difference; it is most set upon those that are the fittest objects either for want or worth. It beats not the poor from the door, while it makes strangers drunk in the cellar. It is not like the oak, which drops its acorns to swine. It loves God's friends best; the wicked with a love of pity, the godly with a love of complacency. True Christians shall have a Benjamin's portion of love. It does good especially to the household of faith, Gal. vi. 10. Brotherly love is set upon brethren. Christ loved the young man, a Pharisee, by showing loving respect toward him, Mark x. 21; but he loved Lazarus, a godly man, with a dear, intimate love: the best men shall have the best love, John xi. 3; v. 11. There is a prudence also in the measure of expressing love, so to love to-day as we may love to-morrow. We sow not by the bushel, but the handful.

(8.) It is a mutual, reciprocal love. Hence it is that there is so frequent mention of loving one another, John xiii. 34; Gal. v. 13; Col. iii. 13; Gal. vi. 2; James v. 16; 1 Thess. v. 11. Giving and receiving benefits is by some compared to the game at tennis, wherein the ball is tossed from one to the other, and if it falls, it is his forfeit who missed his stroke. His disposition is very bad, who if he will not provoke, will not repay love: where affection, there gain is reciprocal. The pole sustains the hop, and the hop adorns the pole; the wall bears up the roof, and the roof preserves the wall from wet; the wise directs the strong, and the strong protects the wise; the zealous inflame the moderate, and the moderate temper the zealous; the rich supply the poor, and the poor work for the rich. Love must have an echo to resound and return.

κατὰ τὸ παν

(9.) It is a fervent, burning love. Avann. 9 aye Purity and fervency of love are joined together, 1 Pet. i. 22; and, I Pet. iv. 8, "Have fervent charity among yourselves." It must be a love to the utmost, not remiss and faint; not a love of courtesy, and civil correspondency, but of entireness, and holy vehemency; such a love as was between Jonathan and David, surpassing the love of women. The fervency of it must be so great, as that it may burn and consume all intervening occasions

of hatred and dislike, by bearing with infirmities, covering of sins, construing men's meanings in the better part, condescending to those of lower parts and places; like the fire that fell from heaven upon Elijah's sacrifice, which licked up a trench full of water, 1 Kings xviii. 38. A love that overcomes the greatest difficulties for the good of others, and triumphs over all opposition.

(10.) It is a constant and unwearied love. A love that must abound more and more, Phil. i. 9. A love that must be like that of Christ's, who loved his to the end, John xiii. 1; xv. 12. Love is a debt always to be owed, and always to be paid: it is a debt which the more we pay, the more we have; and which herein differs from all civil debts, that it cannot be pardoned. When we have well chosen our love, we should love our choice, and be true Scripture friends, to love at all times; not fawning upon our friends when high, and frowning upon them when low; not looking upon them as dials, only when the sun of success shines upon them: we should love them most when they want us, not when we want them most.

This for the explication of the third and last blessing, "love," which the apostle requests for these Christians.

The observations follow.

God

Obs. 1. Love to God flows not from nature. is not only the object, but the author of it, 1 John iv. 7. From him, for these Christians, the apostle desires it. The affection of love is natural; the grace of love is Divine. As love is the motion of the will toward good, it is in us by nature; but as it is the motion of the will toward such an object, or as terminated upon God, it is by grace. Love is one of the graces to be put on, Col. iii. 14; and we are no more born with it in us, than with our clothes on us. Wicked men are haters of God, Rom. i. 30, and that, as the word signifies, with the greatest Θεοστυγεῖς abhorrence; they so hate him, as to Ervé, abhordesire he were not, that so they might reo, unde Styx. live without the limits of his law, and the reach of his justice. God is only by them looked upon with fear as a Judge; and whom men fear as hurtful, they hate, and wish they were taken out of the way, Psal. cxxxix. 21; 2 Chron. xix. 2; 1 John iii. 13; John xv. 18, 20. Men's hearts, and God's holiness, are very opposite: "The carnal mind is enmity against God," Rom. viii. 7. The very reason of it, the best thing that is in corrupt nature, even Lady Reason herself, is not an enemy only, but enmity, and irreconcilable. There is in it an enmity against every truth, preferring before it human mixtures and traditions; and undervaluing God's mercy, and the way of obtaining it in his Son; misjudging all his ways as grievous and unprofitable; accounting all his servants base and contemptible. An enmity there is in affection against his word, wishing every truth which crosses its lust razed out of the Scripture; quenching the motions of the Spirit; refusing to hear his voice; rejecting the counsel of God: against his people, his messengers; hating them most that speak most of God, either with the language of lip or life. Enmity in conversation, holding the truth in unrighteousness; by wilful disobedience, forsaking the ways of God, to walk in those of nature; casting off his yoke, and refusing to be reformed. And all this hatred is against God, though man by it hurts not God, but himself; man being God's enemy, not by hurting his will, but resisting it. The consideration whereof should humble us for our folly and danger in hating so good and great a God. It should also teach from whom to beg renewed inclinations. Lord, whither should we go but to thee? and how, but by thee?

Obs. 2. Love is the best thing which we can bestow upon God. It is our all, and the all which the apostle desires these Christians may return to God, who had bestowed upon them mercy and peace. Love from God is the top of our happiness, and love to God the sum of our duty. It is that only grace whereby we most nearly answer God in his own kind: he commands, corrects, comforts, directs, pities, sustains, &c., in these we cannot resemble him; but he loves us, and in this respect we may and must answer, returning love for love. Love is the best thing that the best man ever gave his God. Love is a gift, in bestowing whereof hypocrites cannot join with the faithful: there is nothing else but they may give as abundantly as the most upright in heart; they may give their tongue, hand, estate, children, nay life, but love with these, or these in love, they cannot give. And the truth is, not giving this, they give to God, in his esteem, just nothing. The best thing that a hypocrite can bestow is his life, and yet Paul tells us, that though he gave his body to be burned, and had not love, he should be nothing, 1 Cor. xiii. 3; nothing in esse gratiæ, in point of truth, worth, and grace. Love is the beauty of our performances; their loveliness is love to God in doing them. Love is the marrow of every duty. Love is dwpor adepor. the salt which seasons every sacrifice; the most exquisite service without it is but as a dead carcass embalmed. God delights in nothing which we give him, unless we give ourselves first. He more regards with what heart we give, than what we give. God accepts no duty when we do it because we dare not do otherwise, but when we do it because we love to do it, it is acceptable to God. He who wants love, though he do the thing commanded, yet he breaks the law commanding. He who loves keeps the command evangelically, while he breaks it legally.

Εχθροῦ δῶρον,

Obs. 3. Love set upon other things beside God is wrong placed. The world must often be left and loathed; at the most but used, never loved. So to love it, as thereby to lessen thy love to God; so to love it, as to be excessive either in grief for wanting it, or joy for having it, and to be over-earnest in using it, and injudicious in preferring it before thy God; is to love it unduly and sinfully. If at any time the creature be beloved innocently, it is beloved in and for God; as a pledge of heaven, as a spur to duty. Among all the creatures there cannot be found a helper fit for man. Between the soul and them there can be no match with God's consent. He that is wedded in love to the creature, is married to one that is poor, base, vexing, false.

(1) Poor. The whole world is but a short and unsatisfying good: the sieve in the water has something in it; pulled thence, it is empty: the creature_apart from God is empty of all loveliness; it is a breast filled with nothing but wind. Should the whole world be cast into our treasury, it would hardly be a mite. Hagar out of Abraham's house found nothing but scarcity; and all plenty which is not God, is but penury. Earthly blessings, like to numbers, cannot be so great, but still we may reckon, and our desires reach some one beyond them. Men in their contentions for the world prove it a scanty thing, and that it cannot satisfy all. A lover of the world can endure no rivals, as knowing how scanty an object he contends for. So large a good is God, that he who loves him delights in company.

(2.) Base and ignoble. Whatsoever is below God is below our soul; it is as unfit to rule our hearts, as the bramble to rule the trees. What we love subdues us to itself, and we are always below it: to love these earthly, drossy comforts, is to make thy soul a

Love

vassal to thy vassal, a servant of servants. leaves the impression of the thing beloved upon the soul; if thou lovest the earth, thou hast the impression of vileness upon a noble soul. The impression gives denomination: a piece of gold is called a Jacobus, an angel, a serpent, a lion, according to the stamp it bears: if therefore earthly objects have by love set their impression upon thy soul, what is that golden, excellent, heaven-born creature, but a lump, a clod of earth? The earth should be under our feet, not upon our heart.

(3.) Vexing and unquiet love set upon the world has more of anguish than love; it ever wrangles with us for not giving it enough. Peace is the only product of the enjoyment of God. If Christ be not in the ship, the storms will never cease; nor can any thing but his presence bring a calmness upon the soul. Rest is peculiar only to God's beloved. Love never stings but when you disturb, anger it, and hinder it from resting in God; in him, its hive, it is always and only quiet and innocent.

finita venustas

Neiremb.

(4.) False and inconstant. They are but lying and flying vanities. A soul that loves the world is matched to that which soon will break and run away; none are so foolishly prodigal as the covetous man, who assures all to that which can assure nothing, no, not his own, again to him. The world is like Absalom's mule, that runs away when its lovers most want relief; it is not able to love again those that love it most. The love of that which is inconstant and weak is the strength of our misery. The best of earthly blessings have their moth and their thief, Matt. vi. 20; they "make themselves wings, they fly away as an eagle towards heaven," Prov. xxiii. 5. Obs. 4. God is an object very meet Plus bonitas, for our love to be set upon. Much he quam beneficendeserves it, even for what he is. His . Expiat inown lovely excellencies are so great, omnem injuriam. that even for these our hearts should be set upon him, although his hatred were set upon us. Goodness is more than beneficence. God is a bundle, a heap of all worth and perfections; all the scattered excellencies of the whole creation centre and meet in him: a flower he is, in which meet the beauties of all flowers. Suppose a creature composed of all the choicest endowments of all the men that were since the creation of the world, famous in any kind; one in whom were a meek Moses, a strong Samson, all the valiant worthies of David, a faithful Jonathan, a beautiful Absalom, a rich and wise Solomon; all the holy men of God eminent for any grace; nay, all the angels of heaven, with their understandings, strength, agility, splendour, spiritualness, and holiness; and suppose this creature had never known us, helped us, benefited us, yet how would our hearts be drawn out towards it in desires and complacencies! but this, alas, though ten thousand times more exquisitely accomplished, would not amount to a shadow of divine perfection. God had in himself assembled from eternity all the excellencies which were in time; and had not he made them, they had never been. If every leaf, and blade of grass, nay, all the stars, sands, atoms in the world, were so many souls and seraphim, whose love should double in them every moment to all eternity, yet could not their love be enough for the loveliness of our God. There is nothing in God but what is amiable: "He is altogether lovely," Cant. v. 16; nothing to cause loathing, fulsomeness, or aversion, though we enjoy him to all eternity. And it should much draw out love from us, to think what God does for us. Man does but little, and it is counted much; God does much, and it is counted little; and whence is this dis