not tasting that sweet relish of devotion which have been usually afforded thereto if love reside in the heart it will surely dispose it to a sensible grief it will inspire such exclamations as those of the Psalmist How long Lord wilt thou hide thy face hide not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies draw nigh unto my soul and redeem it Even our Saviour himself in such a case when God seemed for a time to withdraw the light of his countenance and the protection of his helpfull hand from him or to frown and lay his heavy hand upon him had his soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extreamly grieved and full of a deadly anguish neither surely was it any other cause than excess of love which made that temporary desertion so grievous and bitter to him extorting from his most meek and patient heart that wofull complaint My God my God why hast thou forsaken me But especially when our iniquities have as the Prophet expresseth it separated between our God and us and our sins have hid his face from us when that thick cloud hath eclipsed the light of his countenance and intercepted his gracious influences when by wilfully offending we have as the Israelites are said to have done rejected our God cast him off and driven him from us so depriving our selves of propriety in him and the possession of his favour then if any love be alive in us it will prompt us with those good men in their penitential agonies to be grievously sensible of and sorely to bewail that our wretched condition there will not if we so heartily love God and value his favour as they did be any soundness in our flesh or rest in our bones our spirit will be overwhelmed within us and our heart within us desolate Our heart will be smitten and withered like grass upon the consideration and sense of so inestimable a loss Love will render such a condition very sad and uneasie to us will make all other delights insipid and distastfull all our life will become bitter and burthen some to us neither if it in any measure abides in us shall we receive content till by humble deprecation we have regained some glimpse of God's favour some hope of being reinstated in our possession of him Farther yet 5. Another property of this Love is to bear the highest good will toward God so as to wish heartily and effectually according to our power to procure all good to him and to delight in it so as to endeavour to prevent and to remove all evil if I may so speak that may befall him and to be heartily displeased therewith Although no such benefit or advantage can accrue to God which may increase his essential and indefectible happiness no harm or dammage can arrive that may impaire it for he can be neither really more or less rich or glorious or joyfull than he is neither have our desire or our fear our delight or our grief our designs or our endeavours any object any ground in those respects yet hath he declared that there be certain interests and concernments which out of his abundant goodness and condescension he doth tender and prosecute as his own as if he did really receive advantage by the good and prejudice by the bad success respectively belonging to them that he earnestly desires and is greatly delighted with some things very much dislikes and is grievously displeased with other things for instance that he bears a fatherly affection toward his creatures and earnestly desires their welfare and delights to see them enjoy the good he designed them as also dislikes the contrary events doth commiserate and condole their misery that he is consequently well pleased when piety and justice peace and order the chief means conducing to our welfare do flourish and displeased when impiety and iniquity dissension and disorder those certain sources of mischief to us do prevail that he is well satisfied with our rendring to him that obedience honour and respect which are due to him and highly offended with our injurious and disrespectfull behaviour toward him in commission of sin and violation of his most just and holy commandments so that there wants not sufficient matter of our exercising good will both in affection and action toward God we are capable both of wishing and in a manner as he will interpret and accept it of doing good to him by our concurrence with him in promoting those things which he approves and delights in and in removing the contrary And so surely shall we do if we truly love God for love as it would have the object to be its own as it tends to enjoy it so it would have it in its best state and would put it thereinto and would conserve it therein and would thence contribute all it is able to the welfare to the ornament to the pleasure and content thereof What is it saith Cicero to love but to will or desire that the person loved should receive the greatest good that can be Love also doth reconcile conform and unite the inclinations and affections of him who loves to the inclinations and affections of him who is beloved Eadem velle eadem nolle to consent in liking and disliking of things if it be not the cause if it be not the formall reason or essence as some have made it 't is at least a certain effect of love If then we truly love God we shall desire that all his designs prosper that his pleasure be fulfilled that all duty be performed all glory rendred to him we shall be grieved at the wrong the dishonour the disappointment he receives especially we shall endeavour in our own practice with Holy David to perform 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that God wills desires or delights in to eschew whatever offends him Our desire our delight our endeavour will conspire with and be subordinate to his for it would be a strange kind of love that were consistent with the voluntary doing of that which is hurtfull injurious or offensive to that we love such actions being the proper effects the natural signs of hatred and enmity If any man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a liar saith Saint John and If any man seeth his brother need and shutteth his bowels toward him how doth the love of God abide in him He that in his affections is so unlike so contrary unto God he that is unwilling to comply with God's will in so reasonable a performance he that in a matter wherein God hath declared himself so much concerned and so affected therewith doth not care to cross him to displease and disappoint him how can he with any shew of truth or with any modesty pretend to love God Hence it is that keeping of God's Commandments is commonly represented to us as the most
hazards when they endured such hardships not onely for them but from them being requited with hatred and misusage for endeavouring to reclaim them from sin and stop them from ruine May not the Holy Apostles seem to have loved mankind beyond themselves when for its instruction and reformation for reconciling it to God and procuring its salvation they gladly did undertake and undergo so many rough difficulties so many formidable dangers such irksome pains and troubles such extream wants and losses such grievous ignominies and disgraces slighting all concerns of their own and reliquishing whatever was most dear to them their safety their liberty their ease their estate their reputation their pleasure their very bloud and breath for the welfare of others even of those who did spitefully maligne and cruelly abuse them Survey but the Life of one among them mark the wearisome travels he underwent over all the earth the solicitous cares which did possess his mind for all the Churches the continual toils and drudgeries sustained by him in preaching by word and writing in visiting in admonishing in all pastoral employments the imprisonments the stripes the reproaches the oppositions and persecutions of every kind and from all sorts of people which he suffered the pinching wants the desperate hazards the lamentable distresses with the which he did ever conflict peruse those black catalogues of his afflictions registred by himself then tell me how much his charity was inferiour to his self-love did not at least the one vie with the other when he for the benefit of his disciples was content to be absent from the Lord or suspended from a certain fruition of glorious beatitude resting in this uncomfortable state in this fleshly tabernacle wherein he groaned being burthened and longing for enlargement did he not somewhat beyond himself love those men for whose salvation he wished himself accursed from Christ or debarred from the assured enjoyment of eternal felicity those very men by whom he had been stoned had been scourged had been often beaten to extremity from whom he had received manifold indignities and outrages Did not they love their neighbours as themselves who sold their possessions and distributed the prices of them for relief of their indigent brethren did not most of the ancient Saints and Fathers mount near the top of this duty of whom it is by unquestionable records testified that they did freely bestow all their private estate and substance on the poor devoting themselves to the service of God and edification of his people Finally Did not our Lord himself in our nature exemplifie this Duty yea by his Practice far out-doe his Precept for He who from the brightest glories from the immense riches from the ineffable joys and felicities of his celestial Kingdom did willingly stoop down to assume the garb of a servant to be cloathed with the infirmities of flesh to become a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief He who for our sake vouchsafed to live in extream penury and disgrace to feel hard want sore travel bitter persecution most grievous shame and anguish He who not onely did contentedly bear but purposely did chuse to be accused to be slandered to be reviled to be mocked to be tortured to pour forth his heart-bloud upon a cross for the sake of an unprofitable an unworthy an impious an ingratefull generation for the salvation of his open enemies of base apostates of perverse rebels of villainous traitours He who in the height of his mortal agonies did sue for the pardon of his cruel murtherers who did send his Apostles to them did cause so many wonders to be done before them did furnish all means requisite to convert and save them He that acted and suffered all this and more than can be expressed with perfect frankness and good will did he not signally love his neighbour as himself to the utmost measure did not in him vertue conquer nature and charity triumph over self-love This he did to seal and impress his Doctrine to shew us what we should doe and what we can doe by his grace to oblige us and to encourage us unto a conformity with him in this respect for Walk in love saith the Apostle as Christ hath also loved us and hath given himself for us And This saith he himself is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you And how can I better conclude than in the recommendation of such an Example Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our father who hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work The Fourth Sermon MATT. 22. 39. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self I Have formerly discoursed on these words and then shewed how they do import two observable Particulars first a Rule of our Charity or that it should be like in nature then a Measure of it or that it should be equal in degree to the love which we do bear to our selves Of this latter interpretation I did assign divers reasons urging the observance of the Precept according to that notion but one material Point scantness of time would not allow me to consider which is the removal of an Exception to which that interpretation is very liable and which is apt to discourage from a serious application to the practice of this duty so expounded If it may be said the Precept be thus understood as to oblige us to love our neighbours equally with our selves it will prove unpracticable such a charity being meerly romantick and imaginary for who doth who can love his neighbour in this degree nature powerfully doth resist common sense plainly doth forbid that we should doe so A natural instinct doth prompt us to love our selves and we are forcibly driven there to by an unavoidable sense of pleasure and pain resulting from the constitution of our body and soul so that our own least good or evil are very sensible to us whereas we have no such potent inclination to love others we have no sense or a very faint one of what another doth enjoy or endure doth not therefore nature plainly suggest that our neighbours good cannot be so considerable to us as our own especially when charity doth clash with self-love or when there is a competition between our neighbours interest and our own is it possible that we should not be partial to our own side is not therefore this Precept such as if we should be commanded to fly or to doe that which natural propension will certainly hinder In answer to this Exception I say first 1. Be it so that we can never attain to love our neighbour altogether so much as our selves yet may it be reasonable that we should be enjoined to doe so for Laws must not be depressed to our imperfection nor rules bent to our obliquity but
and the actions of our neighbour we may thence obtain a true opinion and just esteem of him and secluding gross folly or flattery of our selves how can we in that respect or instance be more kind or benign to our selves Is it not also within the compass of our ability to repress those passions of soul the eruption whereof tendeth to the wrong dammage and offence of our neighbour in regard to which practice Saint Paul affirmeth that the Law may be fulfilled Love saith he worketh no evil to his neighbour therefore love is the fulfilling of the law And what more in this respect can we perform for our selves 3. We may consider that commonly we see men inclined by other principles to act as much or more for the sake of others as they would for themselves Moral honesty hath inclined some ambition and popularity have excited others to encounter the greatest dangers to attaque the greatest difficulties to expose their safety to sacrifice their lives for the welfare of their Countrey Common friendship hath often done as much and brutish love that mad friendship as Seneca calleth it commonly doth far more for what will not a fond Lover undertake and atchieve for his Minion although she really be the worst enemy he can have yet for such a Snake will he not lavish his estate prostitute his honour abandon his ease hazard his safety shipwreck his conscience forfeit his salvation what may not a Delilah obtain of her Sampson a Cleopatra of her Anthony how prejudicial soever it be to his own interest and welfare Why then may not a principle of Charity grounded on so much better reason and backed by so much stronger motives be conceived able to engage men to the like practice why may not a man be disposed to doe that out of hearty good-will which he can doe out of vain conceit or vicious appetite why shall other forces overbear nature and the power of charity be unable to match it 4. Let us consider that those dispositions of soul which usually with so much violence do thwart the observance of this Precept are not ingredients of true self-love by the which we are directed to regulate our charity but a spurious brood of our folly and pravity which imply not a sober love of our selves but a corrupt fondness toward an idol of our fancy mistaken for our selves A high conceit of our worth or ability of our fortune or worldly state of our works and atchievements a great complacence or confidence in some endowment or advantage belonging to us a stiff adherence to our own will or humour a greedy appetite to some particular interest or base pleasure these are those not attendants of natural self-love but issues of unnatural depravedness in judgment and affections which render our practice so exorbitant in this regard making us seem to love our selves so immoderately so infinitely so contracting our souls and drawing them inwards that we appear indisposed to love our neighbour in any considerable degree If these as by serious consideration they may be were voided or much abated it would not be found so grievous a matter to love our neighbour as our selves for that sober love remaining behind to which nature inclineth and which reason approveth would rather help to promote than yield any obstacle to our charity if such perverse selfishness were checked and depressed but natural kindness cherished and advanced then true self-love and charity would compose themselves into near a just poise 5. Indeed which we may further consider our nature is not so absolutely averse or indisposed to the practice of such charity as to those may seem who view it slightly either in some particular instances or in ordinary practice nature hath furnished us with strong instincts for the defence and sustenance of our life and common practice is depraved by ill education and custom these some men poring on do imagin no room left for charity in the constitution of men but they consider not that one of these may be so moderated and the other so corrected that charity may have a fair scope in mens heart and practice and they slip over divers pregnant marks of our natural inclination thereto Man having received his soul from the breath of God and being framed after the image of his most benign parent there do yet abide in him some features resembling God and reliques of the divine original there are in us seeds of ingenuity of equity of pity of benignity which being cultivated by sober consideration and good use under the conduct and aid of heavenly grace will produce noble fruits of charity The frame of our nature so far disposeth us thereto that our bowels are touched with sensible pain upon the view of any calamitous object our fancy is disturbed at the report of any disaster befalling any person we can hardly see or reade a Tragedy without motions of compassion The practice of benignity of courtesy of clemency at first sight without any discursive reflexion doth obtain approbation and applause from us being no less gratefull and amiable to the mind than beauty to our eyes harmony to our ears fragrancy to our smell and sweetness to our palate and to the same mental sense malignity cruelty harshness all kinds of uncharitable dealing are very disgustfull and loathsome There wanteth not any commendation to procure a respect for Charity nor any invective to breed abhorrence of uncharitableness nature sufficiently prompting to favour the one and to detest the other The practice of the former in common language hath ever been styled humanity and the disposition from whence it floweth is called good-nature the practice of the latter is likewise termed inhumanity and its source ill-nature as thwarting the common notions and inclinations of mankind devesting us of our manhood and rendring us a sort of monsters among men No quality hath a clearer repute or is commonly more admired than generosity which is a kind of natural charity or hath a great spice thereof No disposition is more despised among men than niggardly selfishness whence commonly men are ashamed to avow self-interest as a principle of their actions rather fathering them on some other cause as being conscious to themselves that it is the basest of all principles Whatever the censurers and detractours of humane nature do pretend yet even themselves do admire pure beneficence and contemn selfishness for if we look to the bottom of their intent it is hence they are bent to slander mankind as void of good nature because out of malignity they would not allow it a quality so excellent and divine Wherefore according to the general judgment and conscience of men to omit other considerations our nature is not so averse from charity or destitute of propensions thereto and therefore cherishing the natural seeds of it we may improve it to higher degrees 6. But supposing the inclinations of nature as it now standeth in its depraved and