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cause_n good_a love_n love_v 4,903 5 6.7044 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A62084 The book of nature translated and epitomiz'd. By George Sikes. Sikes, George. 1667 (1667) Wing S6322B; ESTC R220778 50,008 113

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union with god's to his unspeakable advantage is signified to him by such natural and advantageous transmutations as are observable in inferiour creatures Things of the lowest degree are changed or tranform'd into things of the second things of the second into those of the third and all into man the only creature in the fourth The elements are transform'd as they run-together into the composition of trees and plants These with their fruits roots c. are transform'd into things of the third degree whereby they receive a more noble being in the life of sense And all are farther advanc'd by way of transformation into the life of man in whom they do attein a yet more noble and excellent kind of being And man by rightly placing his love upon God so as to live in his will advances all in his own person and nature into unchāgable union with God By this last transformation do all things in man attein the most excellent kind of being that is possible for them to have If man be not induced freely to yield up himself to the will of God by this last and utmost transformation he thwart's the naturall order and course of the whole universe to his own destruction Inferiour things do most orderly attein their advance by quitting their own form's and ascending into personal union with rational nature in him If he refuse to quit the naturall activity life and freedom of his rationall powers to live in the transcendently more excellent freedom and power of the mind and will of God as partaker of the divine nature he for whom all the rest were made is the only disorderly creature to his own eternal damage and confusion Chap. 9. Section I. Two first loves or chiefly beloveds THere are properly but two principal loves or beloveds God and self his will or our own The love of God carries our will forth to a right general universal love of all things as the works of his hands loved and approved by him If our own will be by way of reflexion upon itself our chiefly beloved such a narrow private love will not carry us forth to a right love of any other things but will cause us to regard or value them no otherwise then as relating or subservient unto the great idol self-interest We shall love only ourselvs in them not them as the works of God's hands related to and approved by him To these two chief loves of God or self are all other loves reducible as flowing from the one or other of them There can be but one thing chiefly beloved for whose sake only other things in connexiō therewith or as related thereunto are loved All other subordinate loves to all other things considered as in harmony correspondence union and connexion with the chief beloved are included in the first love as the basis and cause of all the root and fountain whence they do pullulate and arise All are but as one love centring in and relating to the chief beloved T is the chief beloved only that is properly loved in all other things Whatever is in conjunction with that must necessarily be loved and whatever is against it or contrary to it will as certainly be hated It is so strongly and intimately united with the will does so vehemently and intirely draw and engage it unto itself that it suffers it not to love any other thing but for it's sake as in harmony with and subserviency thereunto By necessary consequence so many particular hatreds wil be begotten in the will as there are things contrary to or against its chief beloved and as many particular subordinate and secondary loves as there are things in harmony and union therewith If the radical or chief love be good just and orderly all the rest are so too if evil corrupt and disorderly so are the rest As is the root such are the branches as the fountain so are the streams issuing there-from Self-love is a narrow private unlawfull destructive thing the fountain and root of all false and unlawful loves of other things If the love of God be not the chief the love of the creature is And amongst the creatures that which is most neer and dear unto the will wil be its chief beloved and that is the will itself which can reflect its love upon itself as the most dear lovely and desireable thing to itself If then God be not a man's chief beloved his own will or himself most certainly is And then he loves neither God nor any other creature but as conducible to the gratifying and pleasing of his selfish private narrow will If he do seem to have some regard unto God so as to pray to him he does in such demeanour but make use of God in a subserviency to his own selfish will He askes things of God to consume upon his lusts Jam. 4. 3. He regards not God any body or any thing else but as conducible and helpful towards the bringing in provisions for his flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 14. In the first sin of Adam we all turn'd away from God into the love of our own will in distinction from and opposition to his Such self-love can never be destroy'd or eradicated but by the irresistible grace of God which alone can cause man's will freely to draw off and disengage its love from every thing else in order to the receiving of the omnipotent creatour in the room of a fraile impotent creature as its chief beloved By receiving God for its beloved it is furnish'd with the power and armour of God ha's the power of godlines in it whereby to withstand all the powers and works of darkness No created being can bear up against a man that 's thus furnished with power from on high If God be for us in us with us who can be against us Rom. 8. 31. SECT II. THese two chief loves are capital enemies of each other contending for primacy The primacy is due to god alone and he has no enemy to contest with but self love As he is infinitly above all so ought he to be loved above all The prerogative and honour of being our chief beloved does on all accounts belong to him alone Whatever then stands in competition with or oppositiō to him in this point ought to be look'd upon and handled as the capital enemy of god Self-love is an unjust false tortuous inordinate love contrary to god to truth to the good of man to the order and voice of nature in the whole universe T is the root of all other evil loves of all vice injustice iniquity To deny God the first place in our hearts and to place our selvs in his room is a high contempt of him a denying and jusslling him out of what is his due by the law of nature When a man bestow's his chief love on himself he offends God both as he is the giver and receiver of his own love He gives and receiv's that unto
himself which is indispensabiy and undeniably due to God alone So on both accounts as giver and receiver thereof is he the direct enemy of God If he should bestow his chief love on some other creature and not on himself he would be the enemy of God only as the giver away of his right unto another but not as the receiver thereof By self-love man preferr's his own will to God's and so makes himself his God In pursuit of self-interest he will desire to annihilate God which is the highest enmity to him imaginable His will by self-love assum's an absolute primacy refusing to follow or obey another will which is the incommunicable prerogative of God alone T is peculiar to him only to follow his own will and not be subject unto or lead by any other When a man has once proudly set up his own will in the room of God's he wil also rob God of his other dues He will desire his own honour his own glory his own praise not God's When he hath presumptuously made himself his God he will desire all those things for himself that are due to god Self-love erects a new Kingdom dominion and soveraignty within man out of God and against him which renders man a direct capital enemy of God Man's love of God or himself is the root and cause of all he does The love of God in him is the root and fountain of all good actions 'T is also the fountain of all other right love of all true friendship courage rest peace comfort light joy gladnes and whatever is truly good for man Self-love then as the capital enemy of the love of God is the root of all evil actions of all injustice sin blindnes ignorance and so of all sorrow's and evils incident unto man He that by selflove exalt's his own will into the roō of god's find's this false god to be but a weak indigent thing This puts him upon agreedy and eager pursuit after innumerable vanities corruptible transient things for the support of his impotent false God himself and so render's him subject unto those things which by nature are inferiour to him Such a man must needs be in continuall sollicitude and tribulation his false God and all the supports thereof being but feeble fickle unstable indigent things and the true omnipotent all-sufficient God being all along against him Thus have we seen how selflove renders a man the capital enemy of God evil and perverse in himself exposed to all evils and slavishly subject to abundance of transitory things inferiour to his own nature The love of God render's the will divine universal communicative and bountiful to others Selflove renders it narrow private incommunicative to others all for itself The love of god makes the will just holy righteous meek good peaceable friendly humble Selflove makes it unjust evil perverse proud unquiet litigious ful of discord tumult and confusion The love of God gives the will of man dominion over all inferiour creatures Self-love brings it into bondage and captivity under them The love of God makes the will unmoveable firm stable and fixed self-love renders it a fluctuating unstable variable thing In a word the love of God makes it beautiful and lovely Self-love makes it filthy deformed and detestable He then that know's what the love of God is know's all the good of man He that know's what self love is know's all the evil of man He that 's ignorant of both know's neither the good nor evil of man in the two distinct roots and causes of all He that has the love of God in him is thereby so illuminated that he know's what that is and what self-love is together with the comfortable consequents of the former and sad consequents of the latter But he that lives in self-love is thereby darkned blinded and confounded as to the making any right judgment of himself He neither know's what the love of God is nor what self love is nor what are the good or evil consequents of the one or other unto man The root of all evil in and to man self love is the greatest evil but the most lurking hidden undiscern'd thing of all the rest It obscures and blind's the mind of man that it may not be discovered in its native ethiopian hiew SECTION III. Two principal parts of self-love MAn having two principal parts in his constitution a soul and a body has distinct desires in reference to each but all centring in self-interest The soul desires praise honour and the like in reference to itself In reference to the body it desires and affects sensual delights Self-love then puts a man upon the seeking and looking after his own honour and bodily pleasur's as his two principal goods And from these two principal branches of self-love do arise the secondary loves of all other things as tending to the encrease defence or preservation of his own honour and sensual pleasur's On these accounts he must needs love desire and seek after outward riches as conducible both to his honour and pleasures He will also desire and seek after humane sciences offices and dignities as tending to the advance of his honour Thus from self-love do arise these vicious evil corrupt loves in man pride which is the love of his own honour with a glorying in it luxury and gluttony which is the love of bodily delights covetousnes which is the inordinate love of outward things And he that loves his own honour and pleasur's does by necessary consequence hate every thing that tends to the diminution or destruction thereof Hence arises anger which is a love and desire of revenge against those that endeavour to diminish his honour or bodily pleasur's Hence also spring's up another monster envy which contein's in it a hatred of any other 's good as it tend's to the obscuring or diminution of his as also a love of and delight in another's evil if it diminish not but rather tend to the encrease of his good From the love of bodily pleasures do arise negligence sloth intemperance incontinency and the rest Thus may we se how that all vices do arise and spring up from self-love CHAP. X. The love of God causes union amongst men self-love division and strife LOve does most intimatly unite the will with the thing chiefly beloved If then the thing first loved be one and satisfactory to all that love it they that unite with fix and center in that one beloved will have love and union amongst themselvs All that deny and quit the single motion of their own private wills and agree to live in the will of god must needs have union with one another But all that live in their own will making that their chiefly beloved in opposition to the will of God have so many distinct chief beloveds ●s they are men Every one is for his own will his own praise honour and bodily pleasur's in distinction and seperatiō from all others and therefore can no