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
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
tells us that all must be sold to buy it Mat. 13. 44 Whatsoever that Treasure shall stand us in be it our Pleasures or Reputations be it our Livelyhoods or our Lives 't is plain the Master of the Treasure is still to have his own Asking and if we resolve upon the Iewel we must not stand upon the Price When our Master does vouchsafe to liken himself unto a Merchant and Eternity in a Parable is put to sale Love and Obedience are the two Talents wherewith Eternity is to be Purchac't Not that the Iewel is worth so little but the Merchant exacts no more That is to say without a parable Love and Obedience are the Conditions on which the Promises are made And obedience is the Criterion by which alone we are enabled to know our Love So that as soon as a wealthy Ruler put this Question to our Saviour What shall I do that I may inherit Eternal life our Saviour gave him this in answer If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments And no sooner had He made this glorious Promise to his Disciples That he would give them whatsoever they should ask in his name but straight he added the Condition which was the way to its Attainment If ye love me keep my Commandments Sect. 3. Which words though they are few are so full of matter that here is hardly any word which is not weighty and emphatical and hardly an Emphasis on a word which affords not matter of Meditation Let us put our first Emphasis upon the Particle If a conjunction conditional For 't is not Peremptorily said my Love to you hath been so great and my Favours to you so many as that ye cannot choose but love me or ye must love me of necessity but the Proposal is ex hypothesi Our Saviour does not say Because but If ye love me thereby making it a question whether we love him or love him not And this deserves to be the Subject of no small Trouble or Humiliation whilst we pretend to be the Followers and Friends of Christ that we should be of such barbarous and inhuman dispositions as to be able to be cold in our affection towards Him who is inflamed towards us in His affection A second Emphasis is to be put on the Pronoun me If ye love me keep my Commandments One would have thought he should have said If ye love your own selves if ye love your own souls if ye will escape the Payns of Hell or if ye will attain the Ioyes of Heaven and so if ye love your own Interest keep my Commandments For what is it to Him whether we keep them or keep them not He is not the better for our obedience and sure our Rebellions can much less hurt him Hath He need of our Salvation to make him happy no no more can our Injoyments improve his Bliss than can our Miseries interrupt it And yet he saith if ye love me keep my Commandments From whence ariseth this second Inference That the greatest expression of our Lords love to us is his taking it as a kindness that we be kind unto Our selves that we will love him at least so well as to do our selves good that we will not once meddle with that which hurts us but let miserie alone and apply our selves wholly to do those things wherein our only true happiness must needs Consist Let us put a third Emphasis upon the keeping of his Commandments as that relates in this place to the supposed Love we bear him And let this our third Emphasis be subdivided into three For it will easily afford us a threefold Importance of the words and thence will follow a threefold Inference First the words may be thus pronounced If ye love me if ye have any the least affection or kindness for me do so much as observe what I have appointed you to Perform And this is as if the words were spoken in the Optative mood O that ye were wise that ye knew those things which do belong unto your Peace that ye would but so love me as to keep my Commandments from which Acception of the words the Inference certainly must be this That the best Instance and Expression of our Love to Christ is to do those things which he Injoyns us Or else the words may be accented thus as if indicatively spoken and by way of Asseveration If ye love me in good earnest not in word but in Reality If ye affect me from the Heart and not from the Teeth-outwards ye will be sure to do whatsoever I Command you Your obedience then will be infallible I shall not miss of its Emanations And hence ariseth this other Inference That Love and Obedience in a Christian are two inseparable Companions every whit as inseparable as Hippoclides and Polystratus or as the Parent rather and the Child the Cause and the effect or whatsoever else they are which are Relata secundum esse whereof the one does of necessity infer the other Or the words may be read and expounded thus as being in the Imperative mood If ye love me be sure ye keep my Commandments make it evident that ye love me give me the Proof of your Affection by doing that which I require No other Love will I accept than what does prove its own Truth by the constant keeping of my Commandments From which Acception of the words the Inference cannot but be This That our obedience to the Precepts of Jesus Christ is the only warrantable Touchstone whereby to try and examin the love we bear unto his Person This will teach us what mettle our Love is made of And because by the force of our Love to Christ if it is solid and sincere there is a mutual Cohabitation betwixt Him and Us He in us as our Head and We in Him as his Members this will also become a Rule which cannot possibly deceive us as other Rules are wont to do in what it most of all imports us to labour in without Error even the making of our Calling and Election sure Having thus far proceeded in laying out the several matters in which I think is swallow'd up the whole Importance of the Text I shall begin my Contrivance with the Conjunction Conditional and try how much to our Advantage a word so commonly overlook't may be made to serve CHAP. I. A Question made of our Love to Christ. Sect. 1. INdeed if we never have been Lovers we may hear those words with unconcernment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If ye love me But if we are any whit acquainted with what it is to be in love if we have any kind jealousies any Pantings and yernings and gaspings of soul after Him who is the Bridegroom of all our Souls we cannot choose but take it tenderly that the sincerity of our Love should once be question'd When Agabus prophesyed of the Bonds which Paul should suffer at Ierusalem and thereupon
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
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