And love is such a thing as every one may try himself by if he had named either giving or doing of this or that men might have sayd I cannot doe it or I cannot part with it but when he names love there is none but they may love The poynt considered was that There must be a qualification of those that heaven is provided for They must bee such as love God such as are altered and changed and sanctified to love him Because no uncleane thing shall enter in thither Because wee cannot so much as desire heaven without a change we cannot have communion there with Christ and those blessed soules without likenesse to them which must be by a spirit of love our natures must bee altered Therefore it is a vaine presumption for any man to thinke of heaven unlesse he finde his disposition altered For wee may read our eternall condition in heaven by our disposition upon earth The Apostle Peter sayth 1 Pet. 1. Blessed bee God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ that hath begotten us to a lively hope of an inheritance immortall and undefiled reserved in heaven So that the inheritance in heaven wee are begotten to it wee must be new borne we must have a new birth before wee can inherit it hee hath begotten us to an inheritance immortall c. Hee that is not a childe may not thinke of an inheritance Put case there bee never so many glorious things in heaven that eye hath never seene nor eare ever heard c. if our names be not in Christs will that we are not his and prove our selves to be his by the alteration of our dispositions what are all those good things to us when our names are not contained there It is called a hope of life a lively hope because hee that hath this hope purgeth himselfe it makes him vigorous and active in good if his hope of life make him not lively he hath no hope of life at all Therefore those that will looke for heaven that Sathan abuse them not by false confidence let them looke whether God have altered their hearts that the worke of grace be wrought in some measure For God hath not ordained these great things for his enemies for blasphemers that take Gods name in vaine that run on in courses contrary to his will and word that live in sinnes against the light of nature do you thinke he hath provided these great matters for them he hath another place for them Therefore let us not be abused by our owne false hearts to thinke of such a happy condition unlesse we finde our selves changed unlesse we be new borne we shall never enter into heaven Lord Lord say they Christ brings them in pleading so Lord Lord not that they shall say so then that is not the meaning but now they cherish such a confidence Oh we can speake well and we can pray wel Lord Lord. Oh thou vaine confident person thy confession and profession Lord Lord shall doe thee no good I will not so much as owne thee Away hence thou worker of iniquitie thy heart tels thee thou livest in sinnes against conscience away avaunt I will none of thee God in mercie to us will have the triall of the truth of our evidence in us The ground of all our salvation is his grace his free favour and mercie in his owne heart but we cannot goe thither he would have us to search within our selves and there we shall finde Love God hath prepared for those that love him In particular therefore Those that God hath provided so excellent things for they are such as love him They are such first of all that are beloved of him and shew that they are beloved of him by their love to him Therefore when the Papists meet with such phrases they think of merit he hath provided heaven for them that love him and shew their love in good workes But we must know that this is not brought in as a cause why but as a qualification of the persons who who shall inherit heaven and who shall have these great things It is idle for them to thinke that these things are prepared for those whom God foresees would doe such and such good workes it is as if we should thinke hee hath provided these happy things for those that are his enemies For how could he look for love from us in a state of corruption when the best thing in us was enmitie to him Is it not a vaine thing to looke for light from darknesse to look for love from enmity and hatred therefore how could God foresee any thing in us when he could see nothing but enmity and darknesse in our dispositions by nature And then as we shall see afterward this love in us it must bee with all our heart and soule and might it is required and commanded and when wee doe all this wee doe but what wee are bound to doe But they abuse such places upon so shallow ground that indeed it deserves not so much as to be mentioned To come then to the poynt it selfe the disposition of those that shal come to heaven then is they must be such as love God Now hee names this because these two goe alwayes together there goes somewhat of ours together with somewhat of Gods to witnesse to us what God doth There goes our choyce of God with his chusing of us our knowing of God with his knowledge of us our love to him with his love to us therefore because these are so connexed and knit together hee takes the one for the other and to make it familiar to us hee takes that which is most familiar to us our love to him Now hee names this above all other affections because love is the commanding affection of the soule it is that affection that rules all other affections hatred and anger and joy and delight and desire they all spring from love because all duties spring from love both to God and man therefore both Tables are included in love And when the Apostle would set downe the qualification of those that shall enjoy these things he sayth they are for those that love him Because it stirres up to all dutie and addes a sweet qualification to every duty and makes it acceptable and to rellish with God it stirres up to doe and qualifies the actions that come from love to bee accepted All duties to man spring from love to man and love to man from love to God it is the affection that stirres up the dutie and stirres up the affection fit for the dutie it stirres up to doe the thing and to do all in love Whatsoever wee doe to God or man it must bee in love all that God doth to us it is in love hee chuseth us in love and doth every thing in love and all that wee doe to God it must be in love Therfore he names no other affection but this because it is
the ground the first borne affection of the soule Therefore Christ sayth it is the great commandement to love God it is the great commanding commandement that commands all other duties whatsoever it is the first wheele that turnes the whole soule about Againe it is such an affection as cannot bee dissembled a man may paint fire but hee cannot paint heat a man may dissemble actions in religion but he cannot affections love is the very best affection of truth a man may counterterfeit actions but there is none that can love but the childe of God God hath prepared these things for those that love him Then againe without this all that we doe is nothing and wee are nothing wee are nothing but an emptie Cymball whatsoever we doe is nothing all is emptie without love My sonne give me thy heart that is if thou wilt give mee any thing give mee thy affections or else they are still-borne actions that have no life in them If wee doe any thing to God and doe it not in love hee regards it not that is the reason why hee mentions love in stead of all It is so sweet an affection and so easie what is more easie than to love It is comfortable to us to consider that God hath made this a qualification of those that hee brings to heaven they are such as love him But why doth he set down any qualification at all and not say for Christians Because profession must have expression when God sets down a professor of religion hee sets him downe by some character that shall discover him to be as hee is termed How doest thoâ— know thou art good Doest thou love God or call upon God as it is in other places To all those that call upon his name To let us know that religion and holinesse is a matter of power Wouldst thou know what thou art in religion Doest thou love God or call upon God It is not to be tolerated to be Christians to professe as Demas oh no but they must bee such as from the heart root are good such as love God Therefore darke disputes of election predestination at the first especially let them go how standest thou affected to God and to good things look to thy heart whether God have taught it to love or no and to relish heavenly things if he hath thy state is good and then thou mayest ascend to those great matters of predestination and election but begin not with those but goe first to thine owne heart and then to those deep mysteries afterward If a man love God hee may looke back to election and forward to glorification to the things that eye hath not seene nor eare heard c. But see first what God hath wrought in thy heart what affection to heavenly things thence from thy affections to goe backward to election and forward to glorification there is no danger in it To come therfore to expresse more particularly this affection of love which is the disposition that God requires and workes in all those that hee intends heaven to Let us search into the nature of this love to God What it is to love we need not bee taught for all men know it well enough it is better knowne indeed by the affection than by discourse what it is to love is knowne by those that love better than by any books or treatises whatsoever for it is the affection that is in all men Naturall love it is in those that have no grace at all and civill love in those that are evill men They know what it is to love by reason of that wilde fire that carnall love that is in them that transports them A man may see the nature of it in those as well as in any for set aside the extravagant nature of it in such kinde of persons we may see the nature of it therefore I wil not meddle with that poynt it is needlesse I come therefore to this love of God to shew how this streame of affection shold be caried in the right chanel to God the right object of it who onely can make us happy by loving of him Other things by loving of them they make us worse if they bee worse than our selves for such as we love such we are Indeed our understandings make us not good or ill but our love doth By loving God heavenly things wee become good our affections shew what we are in religion There bee foure things in this sweet affection in true naturall love There is an estimation valuing of some good thing especially when the love is to a better when it is not between equals Now there is a great distance betweene God and us There is a high esteeme in common love love will not stoope to nothing there cannot be love maintained but upon sight of a supposed excellencie love will not stoope but where it sees somewhat worth the valuing therefore there is a high esteeme of somewhat as the spring of it And that is the reason that wee say a man cannot bee wise and love in earthly things because love will make a man too much to value those things that hee that apprehends better would not In the second place there is a desire to be joyned to it that we cal the desire of union In the third place upon union and joyning to it there is a resting a complacencie and contentment in the thing to which wee are united for what is happinesse it selfe but fully to enjoy what we love when we love upon judgement and a right esteeme to enjoy that is happinesse and contentment indeed In the fourth place where this true affection is there is a desire of contentment to the party loved to please him to approve our selves to him to displease him in nothing Every one knowes that these things are in that affection by nature Look to carnal self-love a man may know what it is to love the affection is all one in both Take a man when hee makes himselfe his Idoll as till a man love God hee loves himselfe above all hee is the Idoll and the Idolater hee hath a high esteeme of himselfe and those that doe not highly esteeme him hee swels against them Againe selfe-love makes a man desire to enjoy himselfe and to enjoy his content to procure all things that may serve for his contentment Now when the Spirit of God hath purged our hearts of this carnall Idolatry of selfe-love and selfe-seeking and sufficiencie contentment in himselfe then a man puts God in stead of himselfe grace and the Spirit doth so and in stead of highly esteeming of himselfe hee esteemes highly of GOD and of CHRIST and religion then in stead of placing a sufficiencie in himselfe and the things of this life and resting in them there is a placing of sufficiencie in GOD All-sufficient And in stead of seeking his owne will and content in all things Mens mihi pro regno My minde
is the reason that sometime meaner Christians have more loving soules then great Schollers men of great parts one would thinke that knowledge should increase love and affection So it doth if it be a cleare knowledge but great wits and pates and great Schollers busie themselves about questions and intricacies and so they are not so much about the affections A poore Christian oft times takes those things for granted that they study and dispute and canvasse and question there is a heavenly light in his soule that God is my Father in Christ and Christ God and man is my Mediator hee takes it for granted and so his affections are not troubled whereas the other having corruption answerable to his parts great wit and great corruption he is tangled with doubts and arguments he studies to informe his brayne the other to be heated in his affections A poore Christian cares not for cold nicities that heate not the heart and affections he takes these for granted if they be propounded in the Scripture instead of disputing hâ—e beleives and loves and obeys and that is the reason that many a poâ—re soule goes to Heaven with a great deale of joy when others are tangled and wrapped in their owne doubts so much for satisfying of these things To goe on therefore to give a few directions how to have this heavenly fire kindled in us to love God considering such great things are provided for those that love God It is a matter of consequence as we desire Heaven we must desire this holy fire to bee kindled in us Let us know for a ground as it were that it is our duty to aime at the highest pitch of love that wee can and not to rest in the lowest The lowest pitch of loving GOD is to love GOD because he is good to us that is good the Scriptures stoupes so low as to allow that God would have us love him and holy things for the benefit wee have by them but that is mercinarie if we rest there but God stoupes to allure us by promises and favours though wee must not rest there But we must love God not for our selves but labour to rise to this pitch to love our selves in God and to see that we have happinesse in God and not in our selves our being is in him we must love our selves in him and be content to be lost in God that is so to love God that if he should cast us away his kindnesse is better then life doe others what they will we will love him and our selves for his excellencies and because we see our selves in him and are his children we must labour to rise to that and that is the highest pitch that we can attaine to we must know that for a ground And know this for another that when we speake of the love of God we speake of love incorporate into our conversations and actions not of an abstracted love and affection but of love in our places and callings and standings love invested into action Therefore the Scripture sayth wee must love God with all our minde with all our heart with all our power and strength that is in our particular places To make it cleare When we speake of love to God we speake of love to him in our particular callings He loves God that is a Magistraâ—e and executes justicâ— for Gods Sake and he that is a Minister and teacheth the people conscionably for Gods Sake and shewes them the way to Heaven He loves God as a man in the common Wealth a states man c. That in that place seekes the glory of GOD and the good of the Church and Religion Shall men talke of love to GOD and their affections are stirred up I know not whereabout No it is an affection that is discovered in actions How can wee love God with all our might except as farre as our might extends our love extends How farre doth thy activitie thy power thy sphere that thou canst doe any thing stretch so farre must thy love and thou must shew thy love in all the powers and abilities that God hath furnished thee with For a man that hath great place and opportunity to doe good and to thinke it enough onely to love God in his Closet c. This is not the love wee speake of A man must love God with all his might as hee stands invested in relation this way or that way The love of God in a private man will not serve for a Magistrate or a publik man hee must shew hi love in his place by standing in the gappe to hinder all the ill and to doe all the good hee can every man must doe so but such a one more especially because God hath truâ—â—ed him with more Well these things premised to come to some directions how to come to love God First of all the way to love God is to have a heavenly light to discover what wee are in our selves and our emptinesse for being as we are we can never love God till wee see in what need wee stand of his favour and grace that wee are damned Creatures else Now when we come to have our eyes opened to see our sinfulnesse and emptinesse we will make out to God and make out to his mercy in CHRIST above all things Indeed the first love is the love of dependance before we come to a love of friendship and complacency with God a love to goe out to him and to depend upon him for mercy and grace and all A love that riseth from the sense of our misery and goes to him for supply There is a sweet concurrence of misery and mercie of emptinesse and fulnesse of beggery and riches Now when wee see our owne misery and beggery and sinfulnesse and then a fulnesse in God to supply of riches to enrich us every way then this breeds a love this is the way to all other loves that follow And where this is not premised and goes before a man will never delight in God In Luke 7. That good woman she loved much why much was forgiven her many sinnes were forgiven her So when the soule shall see what need it hath of forgiving mercy of pardoning mercy and how many great debts GOD hath forgiven us in CHRIST there will bee a great deal of love because there is a great deal forgiven And we must begin indeed with seeing the infinite mercy of GOD before any other attribute of God and then we shall love him after This is the first thing There is no soule that ever loves God so as the poore soule that hath been abased with the sense of sinne and its emptinesse â—â—at it is empty of all goodnesse and then sees a supply in the mercy of GOD in Christ those soules love GOD above all Another way to love God is to consider of his wonderfull goodnesse to meditate and thinke of it he is good and doth good it is a Communicative goodnesse Let us thinke of
the old heart will never love Therefore we must with all the meanes that may be used begge the spirit of sanctification especially beg the discovery of Gods love to us for our love is but a reflection of Gods love we cannot love God except he love us first now our love being a reflection of Gods love we must desire that he would give us his spirit to reveale his love that the spirit being a witnesse of Gods love to us may thereupon be a spirit of love and sanctification in us And let us labour to grow more in the assurance of Gods love and all the evidences of it let us dwell long in the meditation of these things the dwelling in the meditation of Gods love it will make us to love him againe as many beames in a burning glasse meeting together they cause a fire many thoughts of the many fruites of Gods love in this World and what hee intends us in the World to come our hearts dwelling on them these beames will kindle a holy fire in our hearts Many are troubled with cold affections and wish oh that they could love they forget the way how to love they will not meditate and if they doe meditate they thinke to worke love out of their owne hearts They may as well worke fire out of a Flint and water out of a stone our hearts are a barren Wildernesse Therefore let us begge the spirit that God would alter our hearts with meditation and all other helpes that God would sanctifie us and discover his love to us and that hee would give us his spirit for hee doth the one where he doth the other when God doth so then wee shall bee enabled to love him Wee must not thinke to bring love to God but we must fetch love from God wee must light our Candle at his fire thinke of his love to us and begge the spirit of love from him love is a fruit of the spirit That is the course wee ought to take for GOD will teach our hearts to love Now to stirre us up the more to adde some motives and incouragments to labour more to get this affection Let us consider seriously that without this love or God we are dead and whatsoever comes from us it is still-borne it is dead without love wee are nothing without love all that comes from us is nothing without love I am as a tinkling Cymball sayth Paul For a man to be nothing in Religion and all that comes from him to be dead and still-borne to bee abortive actions who would bee in such a cafe Therefore let us labour before we doe any thing that is good to have our hearts kindled with the love of God and then we shall be somebody and that that we doe will be acceptable for love sweetens all performances It is not the action but the love in the action as from God it is not the dead favour that comes from him that comforts the soule of a Christian so much as the love and sweetnesse of God in the favour that is better then the thing it selfe when we have favour from God in outward favours Consider the sweetnesse tast and see how gracious the Lord is Psal. 34. The tast of the love and favour of God in the blessing is better then the thing is selfe for it is but a dead thing And so from us back againe to God what are the things wee performe to him they are dead but when they are sweetned with the affection of love done to him as a father in Christ he tasts our performances as sweet love makes all wee doe to have a relish and all that he doth to us therefore wee should labour for this sweet affection And with all consider that we may be called to doe many things in this World surely there are none of us but wee have many holy actions to performe wee have many things to suffer and indure in the World many temptations to resist what shall or will carry us through all Nothing but love if we have loving and gracious hearts this affection will carry us through all good actions through all oppositions and temptations for love is strong as death Considering therefore that there are so many things that will require this affection this blessed wing and winde of the soul to carry us along in spight of all that is contrary through all opposition let us labour for love and that affection will carry us through all Indeed if we have that it is no matter what a man suffers a man can never be miserable that hath this affection of love if this heavenly fire be kindled in him he cannot be miserable take him in what condition you will take him upon the wrack S. Paul in the dungen sung at midnight in the dungeon in the stocks at an uncomfortable time and place when he had been misused his heart was inlarged to sing to God out of love Nay every thing increaseth it the things we suffer increaseth this flame let a man love God whatsoever he suffers in a good cause it increaseth his love hee shall find his love increased with it the more hee loves the more he can suffer and the more he suffers the more he loves God and the more he increaseth in a joyfull expectation of the times to come and love is alway with joy hope and other sweet affections it drawes joy with it alwayes and hope of better things and as joy increaseth and hope increaseth so a mans happinesse increaseth in this World Therefore it is no matter what a man suffers that hath a gracious and loving heart enlarged by the Spirit of God let him never thinke of what he suffereth of paine of losses and crosses if God discover his fatherly breast and shine on him in Christ and he looke on God reconciled and tast of the joyes of Heaven before hand if you tell him of sufferings you tell him of that that incourageth him It is an argument I might be long in and to great purpose for if we get this holy fire kindled once we shall need little exhortation to other duties it would set us on worke to all and like the fire of the Sanctuary that never went out so it is such an affection that if it bee once kindled in the heart it will never out It is a kinde of miracle in ill when we love other things besides God baser then our selves it is as much as if a River should turne backward For man that is an excellent Creature to be carried with the streame of his affection to things worse then himselfe it is a kind of monster for a man to abuse his understanding so What a base thing is it for a man to suffer such a sweete streame as love a holy current to run into a sinke who would turne a sweete streame into a sinke and not rather into a garden into a sweet place to refresh that Our love is the best