that he provideth food for the creatures but from a further degree of love that he provideth Redemption for Man and from a further degree of love yet that he foundeth and fasteneth the Union and universal Communion between him and his Elect in Christ Now to search out this Love we must seek both into the Nature of it what kind of affection it is and into the grounds of it whereupon it is fastened as also into the degree and strength of it and into its several actings and the manner of its actings I. For the nature of it We know after our manner of knowledg that there is a twofold Love A natural love and a supernatural an earthly and an heavenly The natural love is that affection which God hath put between creatures from some suitableness among them There is an earthly affection which God hath placed in this Earth towards the things of this Earth which as they come all out of the same Earth so they are a kin and bear a natural affection to one another though in this hidden state even in the things of this world both the relation and affection is much unknown There is an universal love among all creatures even there where there appeareth an antipathy from some general likeness suitableness and connaturalness among them but this love is more especially to be discerned and taken notice of among creatures of the same kind This love is heightened in man above all other creatures according to the elevation of his nature It is a stamp upon his Soul suitable to the nature of his Soul It is a kind of more spiritual glue in him as his nature is more spiritual whereas it is but a corporeal glue in other creatures a tincture whereof still remains though much defaced in him by his fall as all his other excellencies of Nature are The supernatural love is that which grows in Gods own heart and which he writes with his own finger on the hearts of whom he pleaseth and in what degree he pleaseth It is that love of a spiritual nature which floweth from God the root into Christ the spiritual man and so through him into all the spiritual branches which are ingrafted into and grow in God and in Christ So that this love must needs be of a more excellent high pure nature then that which is naturally sown or can naturally grow in the heart of man There are all kind of natural excellencies which are the shadows of the spiritual in man naturally They are sown in the nature of the first Adam as the spiritual excellencies are in the nature of the second Adam There is a natural faith in man whereby man is able to beleeve upon good arguments layd before him but yet this is not THE FAITH this is not THE HEAVENLY GIFT So there is a natural love in the Soul of man whereby he cannot but love God and every thing that is lovely and excellent though he cannot but also hate them in those various dispensations and discoveries of them wherein God still crosseth his fleshly wisdom and desire but this is not this love This love is of a more inward of a more full of a more substantial nature then that which groweth in the Soul of man Now such was the love of Christ of this kind of nature Not that affection which did naturally belong to his Soul but that spiritual affection which came into his heart with that special grace which God gave him with that special nature which God breathed into him As his nature was different from the nature of Adam so was the faith of it and so was the love of it Every thing in him was of the same stamp with his nature His love was the very spiritual image and substance of that love which remains in the heart of God This is the nature of it in general whereby it is distinguished from all things which are not spiritual and more especially from that love which is naturally planted in the Soul of man But now we are to enquire into the nature of it yet further whereby we may distinguish it from all other spiritual things And that may be done by the common properties of love which are peculiar to it in and according to its kind as by its desire of union by its wishing well to the object beloved by its readiness to do for it c. There is nothing desires union but love Faith indeed unites but it doth not so desire union as love it doth not desire that kind of union which love doth Faith lays hold for help the desire of faith is help but the desire of love is union So take hope patience humility meekness c. they have their several other properties and operations agreeable to their nature but not this of uniting they leave this to love And nothing wisheth well to the object but love Faith wisheth good from the object Hope expecteth good from the object but 't is Love only that wisheth good unto it And it is love only that acts for it that acts for the good of it Faith will make a man work for his own good but it is love which makes him work for the good of another It is faith whereby we fasten on God for our own happiness but it is love that makes us eye his glory and work for him Or if faith also do this it is from that influence that love hath upon it so that still it is love love in faith love with faith love by faith This then is the love of Christ namely that spiritual affection planted in his new nature besides that affection planted in him as a man whereby he desireth union with and wisheth well to his and whereby he is ready to do any thing for them II. As touching the grounds whereupon Christ loveth them the grounds whereupon this love which is planted in Christ is drawn forth towards them They are these 1. The first is the Fathers love God the Father loveth them and therefore Christ the Son loveth them also As God has writ the same love in the heart of Christ as is in his own so it goeth forth the same way There are two ways wherein the heart of God goeth forth exceedingly and the heart of Christ followeth him in both which are himself and his people his own glory and his peoples welfare God loveth them both entirely and Christ treads in his very steps in each First for Gods glory It was the main thing Christ aimed at in all he did his greatest work was to honour his Father I honour my Father and ye dishonour me and Joh. 17.4 I have glorified thee on Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do His glorifying of God he looks upon and casts up as the sum of all he did or was to do And if any did wrong his Father he felt it the reproaches of them which reproached thee fell upon me What made him so zealous
often striving who should be greatest expecting fleshly pomp and advantage by him much failing in love to him what not watch with me one hour in so much as they left him when he had most need of them they hid themselves from him they denyed him they feared a little reproach or danger for his sake who feared nothing for theirs And yet how tender was he of them continually not upbraiding them for their unkindnesses nor neglecting any act of kindness towards them After his Resurrection he stayeth forty days from glory for then sakes to satisfie them about his Resurrection and his love to them and to give them full instructions about the ordering of his Kingdom here on Earth wherein their safety peace and comfort lay And now he is in Heaven he spends his whole time for them He is taking up still there what belongs to them He is keeping all surmises from the heart of God and dashing all pleas which the Devil craftily and maliciously is still entering in against them He is suing out warrants from God to have dayly bestowed upon them what grace can do for them for the best according to their conditions And he sends his best friend the Spirit out of his own bosom to bring him news how it fares with them and to look to their hearts while they are in this world and to be dayly working them up to blessedness And methinks I hear Christ ever and anon renewing his charge as he sends him Go look to my little ones see they want nothing that thou canst do for them See that they want no light in that dark world wherein they are See they want no life in the midst of that dead world See they want no comfort in the midst of those distresses which it pleaseth my Father to exercise them with Go and bear with their unkind actings towards thee Consider where they are consider what they are consider what they suffer and deal gently with them for my sake and what affronts they put upon thee or what injuries they offer thee I will make up to thee as I have already done unto my Father 2. Look on the actings of his love towards them under the variety of their conditions First In their unconverted estate in that most loathsom estate wherein he findeth them lying before he bringeth them home to God His heart doth not then loath them but is pitying them and contriving how he may bring them home with most advantage Other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring Joh. 10.16 He shews where his heart was when he said little namely upon his sheep his lost sheep his scattered sheep about bringing them into the fold where they may be safe and at rest 2dly In their converted estate and their several turns and changes there In all their sicknesses in all their relapses in all the miseries which befall them by their own folly in all their sinful actings against God in all their unkind actings towards him in the midst which goeth most to his heart of their grieving of his holy Spirit when they are stubborn and rebellious and act most unthankfully when they will not trust him nor by no means be perswaded of the love he beareth towards them but are interpreting that ill which he intended well striving against all the good which he is doing them and doing that most eagerly which his Soul most abhorreth in them yet then even then is he doing for them the best offices of love which possibly can be done As they then most need the care love and tenderness of Christ so he will be sure then to lay it out for them And when at any time he worketh in them by his own Spirit what is pleasing in his eyes he attributeth it to them and accepteth it from them as if it were their own Indeed they do nothing not so much as think a good thought of themselves but he doth all in them and yet he attributeth all to them If he put it into their hearts and enable them to feed or clothe any of his he setteth it upon their account and upon an high account too even as their feeding and clothing of him He thinks no ill of them he interprets every thing in the best kind concerning them He loves them so as nothing in them or from them can mitigate his affection to them or hinder him from doing the utmost he can for their good He takes occasion from all their unloveliness to stir up his heart to acts of love towards them suitable to that their state but never to decline thereby from them Here is love indeed It would be too tedious to instance in the several acts in the several kinds of it as in pity in care in bounty in delight c. wherein the high and noble strain of his love doth on every occasion put forth it self Let it suffice therefore to have given a little touch at it V. For the manner of his acting love Love acteth in him this fourfold way or he performeth the acts of love after this fourfold manner Primarily Purely Suitably and Fervently 1. Primarily He is first in love and first in every act of love What he speaketh of that one act of love viz. of Election Joh. 15.16 Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you he was first in it is true of every act else He doth not stay for acts of love from us before he performeth acts of love to us but we love him because he loved us first and we perform acts of love to him because we first learned them of him As Christ learned his love of the Father so we learn our love of Christ Yea before we can perform any act of love to him there must several acts of love go forth from him towards us he must both give us the grace and quicken it and draw it forth whensoever we act any thing with affection towards him They are not our prayers that move him but his love is before them and yet what can move him more but it is his love the spirit of his love from and according to his love that teacheth guideth and enableth us to pray 2. Purely not with by-ams or by-ends concerning himself but as he loves with pure affection so he loves in a pure manner As his love is spiritual love so it acts spiritually it hath no by-ends no by-ways but all its motions are like it self It s purity discovereth it self in these three respects 1. It will do nothing to dishonour God through love to them Though Christ love them unspeakably exceedingly desiring their happiness and his enjoyment of them yet he will not intrench upon God in the least in effecting of it Lo I come I delight to do thy will O my God And again I do always the things which please him And when he speaks of having finished his course Joh. 17. I have glorified thy Name saith he Though
life wastes and the Soul runs further and further into the danger of the fire which by faith alone is avoyded Thirdly Hereby ye may have what ye will If ye abide in me and my words abide in you if your faith remain and your obedience also ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you And therefore he bids them also look to their Obedience for that was the way both to glorifie God Vers 8. and to abide in the love of Christ Vers 9 10. As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue ye in my love If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Fathers Commandments and abide in his love Not as if Christ did love them simply for their obedience no more then God did love him for his obedience simply but as this was the way wherein the power of the Father led him to remain in the love of the Father so this is the way Christs power guides them in to abide in his love for God and Christ must be just in dispensing their love even to their own according to the Rule of that dispensation which they set up and under which they put their own Now Christ tells them plainly vers 11. the ground why he did thus vehemently urge these things upon them which was double 1. That his joy might remain in them that that joy which he had in them from their obedience in and unto the faith might remain that he might still find the same cause of joy in them 2. That their joy which they had in him might be filled that they might have not only joy but fulness of joy in Christ which ariseth from the other for our joy in Christ is filled from Christs joy in us When he delights in us in our state temper and motions in the dispensation wherein he sets us then he spreadeth himself abroad so sweetly and pleasantly in us as causeth us abundantly to delight in him both these are mentioned in the 11 vers These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full As if he had said 'T is true though ye should be negligent of these things and run into great dangers thereby yet I might bring you to Heaven at last nay I would not lose you but I should have no great delight in you here nor would ye take any great delight in me neither would God get any great honour by you according to verse 8. But now I would not only bring you to Heaven at last but take great delight in you here and fill your hearts with joy too and therefore would I have you abide in me and keep my Commandments which is the only way thereunto These are the very ends that I so press these things thus earnestly upon you for Now if ye would know what Commandments I mean this is it I chiefly intend namely of love one to another This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you In the words we may take notice of three particulars 1. The Command it self That ye love one another 2. The rule of this command the rule whereby the love that answers this command must be squared and that is Christs love it must be squared by the love which Christ had in him and which he manifested unto and exercised towards his As I have loved you 3. Christs peculiar owning of both both of the command and the rule or of the command according to the rule This is my commandment This is my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you To glance a little at the sence of the words That ye love one another That ye Ye my disciples whom I have cherished all my days and am now about to dye for for whom I came from Heaven and for whom I go again to Heaven Ye who were mine before the world was Ye who are mine and have been mine throughout my whole ministry Ye who shall be mine for ever and ever That ye love Love in heart love in word love in action Bear a tender affection to them in the bottom of your souls Speak well of them and good for them both to God and men and do any service of love for them Let them have all the interest in you and power with you that love can command Think it not much to suffer with them nay to suffer even death it self for them Love is the continual drinking in and the continual letting out of desire delight and service Our desire is still after our delight is still in our service is still about what we love And love though it be still busie about what it loves yet it can never drink in enough nor let out enough towards it Two things make it unsatisfiable Want of fulness to vent upon its love and want of ability and skill to vent what it hath upon its love One another This is the extent the bounds of this love it must reach to all that belong to Christ and it is no difficult matter no hard task for it is only to them that have the same image the same nature the same life the same beginning the same end If thou lovest thy self aright if thou lovest Christ aright then thou wilt also love these who are truly part of thy self and part of Christ I know the world will hate you and I do not bid you love it for there is none of this kind of loveliness in it nothing in them to receive this love nothing in them for you to fasten this love upon but I bid you love one another The world is not to draw forth your love not to partake of this love be it never so excellent nor must any of these miss of it be they never so weak never so vile As I have loved you Just as I have caused my heart to go forth toward you as I have ever been tender of you and passed by all manner of weaknesses in you as I have ever thought well of you my self and spoke well of you to the Father not taking notice of any of your sins or frailties further then for your good as I have performed all manner of services to you I have descended that ye might ascend I have fallen that ye might arise I have not stuck at giving my very life for you and all my strength and glory to you so true so great so strong hath my love unto you been even so after this manner do ye kindle affections and so act them one towards another This is my commandment This is that commandment which is properly mine This is that commandment which of all other I will own This is that especial commandment which God in this his ministration by me towards you giveth you This is that commandment which my soul which my heart which my nature is most in This is that which I most
desire to find in you which I from my self from my own heart and soul enjoyn you This is my commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thy self these were Moses commandments but that ye love one another this is my commandment That man should love the Lord who made him and his neighbor whom he made like him that the Jews should love God who made them in that their dispensation a vessel of Glory beyond all Nations and that they should love their fellow-brethren in that dispensation yea and in nature too This was Moses commandment But that he who hath the seed of the new-life in him should love him who is a partner with him in the same life This is Christs commandment The love to this brotherhood is from the nature and by the command of Christ The words do naturally and plainly signifie and hold forth thus much unto us Observ That for the Saints or Disciples of Christ to love one another upon such grounds and in such a way as he loved them is a thing his heart is very much upon It is the main thing he hath commended to them it is the great injunction he hath layn upon them As it was the especial Command which God gave Christ to love his Saints and that which his heart was most upon of all the Commands which ever he gave him which if he had neglected the keeping of all the rest would have been of no value So it is the especial Command which Christ hath given to his people and which he most eyeth them in that they love one another This is my Commandment Among all the Commandments I have dispensed to you I shall observe you most in this Ye must keep them all to remain in my love vers 10. but this is the most principal of them all this is that which I understandingly and most affectionately give you in especial charge as mine This is my Commandment To evidence how much the heart of Christ is in this Commandment we need go no further then this place for the illustration and demonstration of Consider but his giving out the Commandment observe but the circumstances of it and it will very clearly appear There are three things very observable about it The time of his giving it out The manner of his giving it out and his vehement pressing of it both then at his first enjoyning of it and again and again in this his farewel Sermon First For the time There are two things eminent in that One is in that it was when his love had been well grown towards them after it had had long duration and frequent exercise this was particularly taken notice of by this Evangelist just before his relation of it Chap. 13. 1. Having loved them constantly having loved them from first to last having loved them as his own with a love suitable in strength to the relation having thus loved them unto the very end what doth he for them how doth he shew it Why he addresseth himself to the imposing of this Command in the most engaging manner that could be as may be read in the following Verses The other is that it was just afore his passion when he was about to do the greatest act of love for them that could be done for greater love could no man shew as he tells them Chap. 15. 13. and answerably had been strengthening his affections towards them that he might do it the more willingly even then when his heart was most operative in love towards them then he gives out this Command as it is observed by this Evangelist John Chap. 13. 1. Now before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father having loved his own which were in the world he loved them unto the end And Supper being ended c. Having his eye upon his Passion and his heart upon his Disciples for whom he was to dye and whom he was now to leave the strength of his Soul works it self out in love towards them and the strength of his love thus vents it self in contriving how he might most effectually imprint this Command upon them Having so great things to suffer and his eye being upon it for he knew that his hour was come one would have expected that his thoughts should have been taken up about them and so they are but yet not so as to divert him from his contrivance and dispatch of this which that he should now be so busie and industrious about it shews plainly how much his heart was in it 2. For the manner of his giving out this Commandment It is very observable for it was both by example by precept and accompanied with reason backing both 1. It was commended to them by his own example he taught it them by his own practise which is the most effectual way of teaching He would not barely by word of mouth issue out this Command but he sets his own pattern first before them He would do it himself before he would impose it on them And his example is very full For 1. That service of love which now he did set his example before them in viz. washing the Saints feet was one of the lowest acts of service We are all apt to perform honorable acts of service nay perhaps some low acts of service to them that are far above us in gifts and graces or to persons in a sick and weak condition but to persons that are in health and to persons that are beneath us in degree love will carry very few to perform such an office of love as Christ did here yet these Disciples of Christ were far below him in the graces and gifts of the Spirit of God besides that present relation wherein he stood as a Lord and Master unto them 2. He did it in the lowest manner with the towel girded about him vers 4. as a servant they sitting and he standing vers 12. and in a ready manner for he rose from the table to do it and took the towel and girded himself 3. He did it to Judas who was no Saint which takes off that great objection which is so ready to rise in mens spirits viz. If I knew he were a Saint I could do it but I fear he is an hypocrite Why Christ did it to an hypocrite to one whom he knew to be an hypocrite That Judas was there may appear by this it was not the Passover night but the night before Chap. 13. 1. and Christ after this gives him the sop vers 26. Lastly he did it not in the meanness and lowness of his spirit being now cast down with the sight of that misery which was hastening upon him but with the view and consideration of his own greatness as appears vers 3. Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he
was come from God and went to God He riseth from supper c. He had not forgot how great he was before this Ministration how great he was in this Ministration and how great he should be immediately again but his eye was fixed upon his glory and greatness in and from and with God when he did this to them 2. There was not only example but precept added to example and that again and again and that in a very sweet way telling them that they ought to do it and that his doing of it was but to teach them their duty It was not necessary for him to do it only he chose this way of imprinting his instruction the better upon them 3. He adds a forcible reason that he being their Lord and Master and having made known to them his pleasure and that both by his own command and pattern they cannot be excused if now they neglect it Vers 13 14 15 16. Ye call me Master and Lord c. 3. For his vehement pressing of it He doth not only lay it before them but he presseth it home upon them 1. He shews them that it is their duty Vers 14. Ye ought also to wash one anothers feet 2. He tells them that the meaning of this piece of service in this abased manner was to commend it to them so closely that they might not avoyd it or think much of it Vers 15. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you 3. By enforcing the reason of his example Vers 16. Verily verily I say unto you The servant is not greater then his Lord neither he that is sent greater then he that sent him The greatest among the Saints are such as are sent by Christ and yet they are not greater then Christ who sent them and therefore need not think much of that as of an inferior piece of work which Christ did 4. By pronouncing blessedness upon them according as they did observe it Vers 17. If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them Happy are ye if ye learn from this pattern if ye take out this copy if ye practise the duties of this Law of Love according to it The happiness of the Disciples of Christ consisteth much in knowing and practising the duties of love even in the meanest offices of it one towards another Thus he drives home this duty here He urgeth it again in this same Chap. v. 34. where he calleth it a new Commandment to set their spirits more eager upon it A new Commandment I give unto you And what is this new Commandment That ye love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another He had been telling them of his departure from them and that very affectionately in the foregoing Verse Little children yet a little while I am with you Ye shall seek me c. My little children I must leave you Poor sweet babes poor little brats I must be gone I cannot stay with you But when I am gone remember this Commandment ye little think what sweetness ye will find in it that ye love one another with the same love and after the same manner as I have loved you performing the same services of love with the same willingness and delight And then in the following Verse he knocks in another nail to drive it yet more home By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another He makes it the badg of Discipleship that whereby men should be distinguished to appertain to him to be retainers to him By this shall all men know c. It is a great priviledg and dignity to be known to be a Disciple to Christ to be taken notice of by men as a retainer to Christ as one who doth not meerly pretend but hath indeed learned of him And love to the Brethren such love as Christ expressed is an unquestionable character a distinguishing badg such as the world cannot but acknowledg to be a peculiar property of a Disciple which you have had from Christ and which none else can attain In the 14 Chapter he perswadeth them very affectionately to keep his Commandments Vers 15 21 24. and so again Chap. 15. 10. If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love c. declaring unto them in the next Verse that his intent in this vehement Injunction Exhortation and Perswasion of his was entirely for their good Vers 11. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full And then immediately in the very next words vers 12. sheweth what Commandment he did chiefly mean all this while This is my Commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you These things I speak I thus vehemently press obedience upon you for your own good that I might have joy of you which will be very profitable for you and your hearts might be full of joy But this is the Commandment which I principally intend and which I most especially expect obedience unto This is the Commandment which is peculiarly and properly mine which my joy will be greatest in seeing observed and the observation of which will conduce most towards the filling of your hearts with joy This is my Commandment that ye love one another c. How he proceeds yet further to fix it upon their spirits by very close considerations in the following part of the Chapter as vers 14. and 17. I shall not need to make mention of it being already so fully and clearly evidenced Out of the abundance of the heart out of the vehemency of his desire in this particular hath his mouth uttered all these things For the further opening of it these two particulars following are to be enquired into 1. How Christ loved his Saints with what kind of love what his love was and how it went forth towards them and so we shall see the rule whereby our love is to be squared one towards another 2. Why the heart of Christ is so much set upon this to have his Disciples thus love one another why of all other he maketh this his especial Commandment Touching the former What the love of Christ to Saints was or how Christ loved his Saints Love we know is that glue which unites things together or at least makes them desire study and endeavor union causing them both to wish well and do well one for another according to the nature and degree of it As hatred is that which dissevers things and makes them wish ill and do ill one to another according to the nature and strength of it So love which is contrary to it doth the clean contrary What maketh God to hold a kind of union with all his creatures and to wish well to them and do good for them according to their several ranks but his love to them in its several degrees It is from Gods love
about the Temple but because it was his Fathers house which though expiring and growing out of date was as yet his Fathers and therefore more worthy then to be so prophaned The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up Yea the very end for which he desired his own glory was that he might be the more able to glorifie his Father Father glorifie thy Son that thy Son also may glorifie thee And for the people of God Christs heart goeth forth in wonderful love towards them He loved them all his life long even to the very last Joh. 13.1 Having loved his own which were in the world he loved them unto the last His heart was ever working towards them He never thought any thing too good for them yea he layd down his very life freely for them and while he was doing it his thoughts ran more upon them then upon himself God had expressed perfect love to them in that he had chosen them as his peculiar treasure which he would enrich suitably to himself and enjoy in himself and make happy with himself for ever He chose Christ but to bring this about who in that respect is beneath them though as he is the chiefest part of this treasure and the head of it to them he is far above them Now Christ having just such an heart as his Father had could not chuse but entirely love that which his Father so loved before him Having the same love with his Father he could not chuse but act towards the same object as his Father did The love in Christ is the same still in him as it was first in God and therefore cannot but behave it self as the same Christ doth what he seeth the Father do Now seeing the Father do this so eminently he cannot but do it as eminently also His love is a copy of the Fathers love and his actings forth of it are a draught of the Fathers actings This ground Christ himself intimates Joh. 17.20 That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them Christ desires perfect union with them to be perfectly in them that is the prime and compleat operation of love yea but what is the rule whereby what is the attractive which he desires might draw him into them why that he himself tells you is the Fathers love Let thy love the same love wherewith thou hast taken possession of me take possession of them also and then I will immediately come after and dwell in them too It is from thy love that I love them and therefore I must first see thy love go before and then I will soon follow And for this cause take I such pains with them that I might make them a fit habitation for thy love and then that I my self might dwell and enjoy them in the same love and the same love in them 2. Another ground of Christs love to them is his Fathers will His Father gave them him to love and commanded him to love them yea and gave him that love wherewith he should love them As the Father giveth Christ to us to love so he gave us to Christ to love And as there are a great many duties we owe Christ but love is the main So of all the duties Christ did owe us as to leave all his glory and come into this world and seek us out and to dye for us to arise for us to ascend for us to take possession of our life and inheritance for us in Heaven and to take care of us here on Earth love was the main and that which fitted him for all the rest even as it fitteth us for all our duties both towards God towards Christ and towards one another Yea as this was the especial command which Christ gave us to love one another so it was the especial command God gave Christ to love us In this 15 Chapter of this Gospel of John Christ telleth his Disciples That if they keep his Commandments they shall abide in his love even as he kept his Fathers Commandments and abode in his love And of all his Commandments he picks out one presently in the 12 Verse following as if he would commend it unto us as that which will have the most especial influence of all to keep us in his love which is this of loving one another Now how cometh Christ to pick out this of all the rest but that his Father had set him such an example he had picked it out for him it was the main thing he had given him in charge and the main thing he expected from him as he intimates in the 10 Chapt. of this Gospel vers 17. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again He had been speaking vers 15. of laying down his life for the sheep from his knowledg of the Father from his knowledg of the heart and will of the Father As the Father knoweth me even so know I the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep The Father knoweth me whom he hath entrusted and I know him who hath entrusted me and want neither love to him nor them but lay down my life for them And other sheep he had to take care of besides those of this fold which he would take care of also vers 16. Now says he therefore my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I might take it again This is that act of love in me this is that act of obedience from me to the will and command of the Father which draweth and engageth the heart of the Father so exceedingly to me Therefore my Father loveth me because I lay down my life so readily in such a way of love in such strength of love to my sheep that I might take it again to perfect their Salvation So that God gave Christ this especial command as well as Christ giveth it us and his heart was so much in it that his love went out towards Christ as Christs heart went out in love towards his sheep This was the motive the attractive of the Fathers love to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore or for this my Father loveth me because I lay down my life c. And could God do less then give Christ a command to love them when he gave them him to this very end and therefore gave them unto him in all such relations as might draw love as as his brethren wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren as his own children behold I and the children which thou hast given me as his own most proper Spouse as the very natural members of his own body What could his meaning be in all this but that he should exceedingly love and cherish them And surely his Father would never have given them him unless he had had very good assurance that he would love them well And therefore to put that out of doubt he gave him love first before
have full joy Joh. 14.11 These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full Thus he tells them and he tells God the same Joh. 17.13 And now I come to thee and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves I am coming to Heaven to thee where I shall have joy enough to sit at thy right hand where is fulness of joy but for all that I shall never be at rest unless my Saints on Earth be full of joy also and for that very end I speak these things here at my departure and press thee thus earnestly in their behalf for those things which their hearts most desire and which are most necessary for them that it might conduce somewhat that way namely to the filling of their hearts with joy when I am gone So likewise for the other world he wisheth them the best thing there viZ. the full and perfect enjoyment of God It was his very design and the very end for which he underwent all miseries in this world to bring them near to God even into his presence that they might be filled with all the fulness of God as every thing which is there is and he will never leave till it be done This is that he hath undertaken to bring them to in eternal life or this is that eternal life which he is fitting them for and will not fail to bring them into viz. the enjoying God in perfection the perfect enjoying of a perfect God to enjoy God as he himself doth which is as much and as fully as he can be enjoyed They must be fellow-heirs have the same inheritance with him the same Kingdom the same Crown the same Life the same Glory the same Immortality punctually the very same inheritance which inheritance is God for he is the sole portion of Christ and of all his people And then shall Christ see of the travel of his Soul and be satisfied in and concerning his seed when he hath perfectly redeemed them and layd them in the bosom of God to suck in and enjoy all that is to be enjoyed there when he hath fitted their hearts to receive God even the fulness of God and hath seen the fulness of God poured out into their hearts and doth himself taste and enjoy it there The Lord could never rest in the way of his operation till he had emptied himself fully into Christ and Christ can never rest till he hath emptied himself with all that fulness into them and till he hath brought them into himself and through himself into God and so both ways into all that fulness And that God might take delight in them and be as much with them and do as much for them as is possible in this time and day of separation and distance he plants waters and causeth to spring up in them the light the life the love of God and whatsoever else God delights to be in and with both to cherish with his presence and to fill with his appearance Joh. 17.26 This is the first thing wherein the strength of Christs love discovers it self viz. in wishing well to them His desires of their good and welfare are extended to the utmost degree and therefore his love from whence they proceed must needs be very large 2. The strength of Christs love appeareth further in his desire of union with them Every thing desireth union with what it loveth according to the nature and degree of the love it bears If therefore we would know how strong Christs love is let us see what kind of desire of union there is in him Now his desire of union with them is as large as his well-wishes to them He desireth the most perfect and compleat union with them that possibly can be and as soon as may be He would have the union present and growing large and lasting Not to follow these heads particularly consider how full an union he desires and the largeness of his desire but in these four respects 1. He desireth to have them with him to have them be where ever he is If there were a person whom we could never endure to have out of our sight but he must still be where we were in the room with us at board with us in bed with us if we could never abide to go any whither or do any thing without that person every one who saw this would conclude there to be a great strength of affection in us towards that person Why thus it is with Christ Do the Father what he will for them take he never so much care of them c. it will not serve Christs turn it will not satisfie Christs heart but they must be with him in his Country in his house at his board in his bed they must walk up and down with him in the fulness of the Father And this little momentany absence of his from them it is meerly out of judgment knowing it to be good both for himself and them and for the glory of his Father but it is as much as his heart can do to bear it And he professedly tells his Father it must not be so always Joh. 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am c. Did ye ever observe Christ to use such a manner of praying before Father I will as if he had said If I would abate somewhat of my former petitions and should be content that thou shouldst not preserve them from the evil of the world but let them tumble a little in the mire so that thou didst them good by it Though I might like this well enough yet this of their being with me I cannot I will not Father I will Thou hast made me a King and this is my will and pleasure in reference to them which I cannot vary from I must have them with me I do so love them that I cannot live long here without their company My glory is no glory to me unless they see and enjoy it with me If therefore thou meanest to keep me in Heaven thou must bring them up to Heaven for I cannot I will not live there without them 2. It will not serve Christs turn to have them with him but he must also have them in him A strange kind of union What we love we hug in our bosoms Now as Christs love is more inward and intense then any other love So he must have more inward expressions too he must hug them in the inside of his bosom They must be in him He must have them within his very heart to make much of them there Joh. 17.21 That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us This desire this request Christ putteth up for them all he would have them all both in God and in himself This is the thing he
drives at concerning them and this is the reason why he begs so much the care and protection of God over them in the foregoing part of the Chapter that they all may at length come to a perfect union in God and in him Indeed the station of Beleevers here is in Christ they are graffed into him planted into him seated in him in him to abide and in him to grow as the branch is in the Vine But this is not the perfect kind of union or at least not perfect in its kind they are not all thus in him nor are any that are but thus in him perfectly in him There is a sweeter a fuller a compleater being and abiding in him which he longeth and prayeth for to fill him to be his fulness to be all to him and suck all from him 3. Nay thirdly This will not serve his turn neither but he must also be in them They must be with him and in him and he with them and in them They must live in his Kingdom in his Spirit within his Life and he must be live dwell in their Spirits in their country Now this is such an union as was never heard of for one to be in that which is in him But Christs love is a strange kind of love and therefore may well produce a strange kind of union even so strange as he that is not acquainted with this love cannot apprehend possible For that to be the continent which is contained to be in that which it doth contain in it self how can this be Yet the Scripture is express for it Joh. 17.23 I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And again Vers 26. That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them He cannot be satisfied only to have them lie in his heart though that liketh him very well but he must also lie in their heart He must have the same place in them that he giveth them in himself As he prepares a bosom for them so he cannot be content unless he find a bosom in them They must be his house his home his Tabernacle his dwelling yea his resting place as he is theirs I in them No where must they be but in Christ no where will Christ be but in them He can be no where else He can live no where else He can rest no where else He can enjoy himself no where else What Christ is to God we are to Christ we come from him and yet he cannot be without us As we cannot live but in him so he cannot live but in us He doth not reckon his life as life until he come to enjoy us His life doth as it were wither while it is banished from us it lives alone it doth not bring forth fruit nay it doth not enjoy it self But when it cometh to be set up in us then it will be life indeed and then it will live indeed 4. Neither will all this serve but that nothing might draw him from them and he might have full and only content in them he must have all of God all that ever he can need to look after or desire in them As he placeth all that they shall need or can desire of God he placeth all this in himself that they shall not need to seek for any thing out of him So he placeth all that he can desire in them that he may have no temptation to move his eye or spirit any further in the least The fullest enjoyment of God that ever his heart shall meet with he desires to have in them That he may have no cause of stirring out from them to seek any thing of God he will have all of God in them He doth as it were let go God as he himself grew out of him to cleave to God as he that is God groweth up in them This is the great Mystery the Mystery of that spiritual affection which is between Christ and the Church They forsake God to enjoy one another They can delight no where in nothing of God but in one another Ephes 5.31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they two shall be one flesh This is a very mysterious thing That a man should leave that tye and relation which is natural to make up another which is artificial That a man should loosen himself from that which is nearest to him to unite himself to that which is far off from him That a man should leave his own father who begat him and his mother which bare him and go cast all his love upon a wife which was a meer stranger to him Yea saith the Apostle but I speak concerning Christ and the Church This is a great Mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the Church vers 32. There 's a Mystery indeed That Christ should leave his Father as it were that no communion of Christ with his very Father will serve him but in his Church that what ever sweetness God will give him to taste of he must put it into his Church and let him taste it there that he is not satisfied with his Fathers house and presence in any other way of enjoyment but in his Spouse and will leave it every other way but as he can have it and enjoy it in her This is wonderfully mysterious and is a little shadowed out in that common relation between man and wife where we find such a kind of passage as this is And this may be the reason why Christ desireth that the love of God may be in them even that very love wherewith God had loved him Joh. 17.26 That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them I would fain be in them and yet I would lose nothing of thee by it therefore I would have that very love wherewith thou hast loved me be in them that I may find it there As God hath placed all his love in Christ for us and there we come to it So Christ would have God place all his love in us for him that he need not go any further then us for any thing of God Christ knoweth that if he hath the love of God he hath all and that he would have in us because he would constantly and perfectly be centred in us Because he would be fixed there he would have every thing there that his heart can desire and that only is the love wherewith God loved him which he was contented to part with that he might take it up again This is the second thing wherein the strength of Christs love appears His desire of union which being so vast what is the spring which nourisheth it 3. The strength of Christs love appeareth yet further in his readiness to do any thing for them Love is active it is ever in doing for that it loves according to the degree of it Now the greater and
he was always full of affection of strength to them and did every thing in great love to them yet it never carried him aside from the honour of his Fathers Name 2. It will neglect nothing that may be for their good though it never so much offend them If they want a chiding if they want reproof if they want rods yea if they want scorpions they shall have them And if they grow froward and cry out Christ doth not Love me for if he did he could not thus deal with me all this shall not save them but he will lash and sting them so much the more not out of ill will or passion but because the condition of their froward spirits requireth so much the more which cannot as the state stands be abated without prejudice Christ doth not love them with a doting love to let them see nothing but what they will call acts of love but he will do that which he knoweth to be an act of love how ever they interpret it 3. It will do nothing which may be for their hurt Though they are apt to nourish humors yet Christ will never be drawn through his love to them to nourish those humors Hence it is that the Soul though it beg never so hard for some one mercy and that a spiritual mercy using all its interest in Christ to obtain it yet in some cases it can by no means come neer it but the mercy doth as it were run the further from him by how much the more he seeketh it This proceedeth from the purity of the love of Christ who knoweth what condition they are in and how ill this mercy would suit them in their present condition Perhaps it would feed some lusts whereof they are not aware which stand ready to prey upon it and fatten themselves with it so soon as it should be given in Perhaps it would lift them up in their own thoughts and so either that or some other way interrupt their naked dependance upon God and any such evil consequence which they may not fear but suppose that the mercy it self might preserve them from would do them more harm then the enjoyment of the mercy could do them good 3. Suitably Christ puts forth such acts of love and so as their need requireth Sometimes he putteth forth acts of pity sometimes acts of help sometimes acts of delight Not all at all times but what our present estate and every thing considered together doth call for The not understanding of this causeth Christians so often to question the love of Christ towards them If he be not continually putting forth acts of delight in them and giving testimonies of sweetness to them they are apt to think that his love at least declines whereas there are heart-workings of love in Christ which they cannot perceive but only know by faith that they must needs be nor is it fit that they should perceive them in the condition that they sometimes are in But as Christ hath revealed his love to be ever constant and strong to them so they should ever beleeve it to be so and it is the glory of faith so to judg of it when as nothing of it appears in the view of sense To what end hath God given them faith if they notwithstanding esteem of things by and according to sense But what ever condition they are in though Christs love may not discover it self to them in the way they expect and desire yet it always goeth forth in the most suitable way In all their miseries he is not only pitying them but bearing them company He bears their burdens with them he helps them he supports them he contrives and prosecutes their rescue and redemption and if he may not do it openly yet he will not fail to do it effectually though secretly and unseen by them What ever their distress be whether outward or inward whether by sin from within or by affliction from without even when they have caught a grievous fall by their own folly and head-strongness yet even then is he mourning over them and considering how he may raise them up again with most advantage Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy though I fall I shall rise again In our lowest ebb he is certainly thus with us doing this for us though we cannot possibly imagine Nevertheless I am still with thee thou holdest me by my right hand said the Spirit of Christ in David when he had seemed to himself neglected and removed from the care and love of God beyond the common sort of the world In their weaknesses he is still condescending to them he bears with all their infirmities yea he apologizeth for them in his own heart The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak He considereth both what frail flesh they are and what a strong body of corruption hangeth about them in this their weak estate When ever they do well he is delighting in them A father will not stroke or be pleasant with his child when he behaveth himself untowardly Christ knoweth it is unfit to express delight in them then Therefore Christ telleth his Disciples in the 10 verse of this 15 Chapter of John that if they kept his Commandments they should abide in has love that is in part in the sensible expressions of it they should find him delighting in them vers 11. 4. Fervently He performeth every act of love in a warm manner He burneth his heart boileth in every act of love As his love is strong so he performeth every act of love with the strength of it His bowels yern and roul within him when he pities He helpeth with all his might He vehemently gaspeth after union with them and enjoyment of them He delighteth in them with his whole heart and with all his Soul His heart leapeth within him in acts of delight He never expresseth more to them then is in his heart nay he never expresseth so much he letteth them only see what is profitable for them to see This is the manner of the acting of Christs love And thus we see the love of Christ after a sort in a weak dark manner opened Behold then the Rule ye are to set before you the Copy which ye are to write after in loving one another Thus hath Christ loved his and thus are they who are Christs to love one another which to imprint the better I shall a little briefly recite as 1. With a love of this nature not with carnal love but with spiritual love not with the love of your own old nature but with the love of the new nature not with your own natural affection which ye have from Adam but with that new affection which God hath given you from and in Christ 2. Upon such grounds Not for the loveliness of their persons the sweetness of their disposition and carriage or their kindness to you or your c. Alas these are too carnal grounds for that love which is truly
spiritual to move upon These may move your natural affections and those indeed such kind of things as these should move but the love which is here called for is spiritual and so must the grounds be even such as Christs own love moveth upon as The Fathers love to them and Christs love to them If thou partakest of the divine nature and hast the same love with the Father and with Christ let it follow them in acting Love what they love and love because they love The Fathers will and Christs will that thou shouldst love them Let that Will which is the Former of thy love be the guide and ground of thy love Their relation to the Father and to Christ yea and to thee too in the Spirit and Body of Christ As thy love is spiritual so thou mayst found it upon thy spiritual relation Their likeness to the Father and to Christ yea and to thy self too in that which is best in thee If thy love be not spiritual and fastened upon spiritual grounds it will not last If thou lovest them for sweetness of disposition nay for the gifts of God which appear in them when these shall at any time fail thy love wanting its ground-work will also fail but if it be well-founded it will then be as firm and as full as ever when all such considerations and motives sink from under it O take heed of loving Saints for gifts not for meer grace or for the outward lively actings of grace not for the inward substance of grace in their hearts 3. With such strength of love Come as neer the degree of Christs love towards them as thou canst Let thy well-wishes be large towards them be ever praying for them thy desire of union and communion with them strong thy readiness to do them good even to the laying down of thy life for them great 4. Let the actings of thy love remain vigorous towards them in all the varieties of thy conditions and in all the varieties of their conditions We are very unlike Christ in this respect Our own conditions seldom change our brethrens conditions seldom change but our love varieth towards them 5. Love in such a manner as Christ did Be first in love Aim at a precedency in all the acts of love who shall first pity and who shall first pardon c. Do not stay for the workings of their affections to measure or let out thine by this is a rule corrupt nature hath set up not grace but kindle and inflame theirs by thine And be sure to love purely Love one another with a pure heart Never dishonor God never do any thing which may hurt them by any act of love Never forbear doing them good for fear of crossing them Cross them as much as thou wilt so thou manage it with wisdom and tenderness proportionable for their good Let all thy oppositions against them appear to be the oppositions of love formed by love brought forth with love and only continued in love Sweet and wholesom are those wounds which love measures out And act love suitably When they are in distress pity them When thou seest them heavy loaden help to bear their burden with them Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ this is a great part of the Law of this Love which is Christs Law which is his Commandment the bearing of one anothers weights and pressures whether of sin or sorrow Wherein they are over-layd bear for them wherein they are weak bear with them condescend to their lowness to their shallowness in the things of God what is above their strength do not admit them unto by no means how angry soever they may be thereupon him that is weak in the faith receive but not to doubtful disputations not to the judging and discerning of such things as require a greater strength of eye-sight then is dispensed to him Where thou seest their hearts act plainly towards God express delight in them but take heed of manifesting delight in them when they are stubborn to Christ for thou art not left at liberty to act love to them as thou shalt think good but in a way suitable to their conditions When thou seest the flesh prevail in them thou must warn and check them and complain to the Church of them if need be Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him Levit. 19.17 So when thy brother offends thee thou art first to tell him of his fault between him and thee then to take two or three with thee and at last to acquaint the Church with it Mat. 18. This is not to be done simply to get thy self righted but rather in love to thy brother for the good of whose Soul as well as for the peace and safety of the Church this Ordinance is appointed But there is a vast difference between these things being done from the truth and purity of love and from a fleshly selfish spirit the one seeking its brother the other it self in these things Act love also fervently Let love burn within and let all the motions and operations of it come forth boiling hot Pity fervently pray fervently for them put forth thy helping hand with ardency of affection Let there be such an heat in the spirit as may cause the whole course of love sweetly and warmly to flow from the new nature that the motions and operations of it may not come unkindly and coldly forced out of the old nature Is any afflicted and I burn not saith Paul and how was he in travel again with the Galatians Love one another with a pure heart fervently Lastly Be sure thou let nothing in or from them mitigate thine affections towards them It may mitigate thy expressions in some kinds but it may not dull thine affections but whet and sharpen them to fit them for that which is now proper for them Though thy brother trespass against thee thou must not be provoked by him but forgive him till seventy times seven times Seventy times seven times trespass of thy brother against thee must not put thee out of a forgiving temper toward him but thou must be as ready nay more ready to forgive then he can be prone to offend Thou must not say 't is carelessness or obstinacy in him or he might have avoyded it if he would no not at his seventy seventh time of his tresspassing against thee but thou shouldst be as ready to forgive him as thou wast or couldst be the first time We should not be murmuring against any miscarriages of our brethren but bless God who hath taught us and given us grace to pity them to pray for them and to be otherwise sweetly and meekly helpful to them in love towards raising and restoring of them And thus the first Question is dispatched How Christ loveth the Saints The second is now to ensue which is Why the heart of Christ is
attends it and the contrary thereunto must needs be most uncomely O how comely is it for brethren to live together in unity for Jews for true Jews who are brethren in Christ to live together in the union and love of Christ who can express how comely how sweet how pleasant it is 3. It is a profitable duty As it is of the most excellent nature of all graces so it is the most profitable bringing forth fruit answerable to the excellency of its nature It is profitable to others It is profitable to themselves It is profitable to others and that to all sorts of men whatsoever whether a friend or an enemy whether in an unconverted estate or in what condition soever being converted 1. To men in an unconverted estate There is a double profit may arise unto them from the actings of love 1. It will make them take more notice of Christ and of his ways This kind of love exercised among the Saints will make the world begin to perceive that their life is more sublime and weighty then the life which is in the world is it will help to convince them and force them to see what their eyes are shut against namely the reality of the life and power of Christ and the truth of their relation to him By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another Joh. 13.35 2. If exercised towards the world as it cannot but break forth that way also it cannot but melt them Harsh ways harden but sweet ways melt Passion breaking forth seldom doth good but acts of affection are very powerful This is an heaping coals of fire upon their head which will assuredly melt them at last Rom. 12.20 for none is able to stand before the inchantments of the truth and power of love Yea this the very worlds sight of the exercise of love of the brethren among themselves may in a great degree produce though not so fully as if it were exercised much and several ways towards the world it self 2. To men in a converted estate There is nothing more useful to them in what condition soever they be then love What ever faith it self can do for them love must quicken and give vent to Faith worketh by love Love as it is generally serviceable and profitable so especially to fellow-Saints and to them it cannot but be profitable what ever they be where ever they be how ever it be with them Be they weak or strong standing or falling sweet or sullen in their spirits any other way rightly tempered or distempered how ever inclined or acted love rightly going forth towards them is very fit to do them good which will easily appear if we consider these few properties in love 1. It hath an edifying property The great use both of offices and gifts in the Church is the edification of the Church but love is more profitable to edification then all gifts whatsoever The Apostle setteth up prophecying above all other gifts in this respect and yet layeth that also flat before love 1 Cor. 13. We do not take a right course so much to bewail the loss of gifts we should first and chiefly bewail the loss of love We might do well enough without gifts if we had but love enough but we could not possibly edifie without love had we never so many gifts They are not gifts simply but grace which edifieth which love is whereas gifts are not so And gifts when they do edifie must be subordinated under and ordered by grace It is not thy gift but the grace of Christ in thy brother which maketh him edifie by thy gift Therefore though thy gift be never so large and never so well improved and employed yet if the heart of thy brother be not in a gracious frame he is not edified thereby Yea further it is not the learning more of the knowledg mysteries of Christ which is the proper end of gifts but love which edifieth A man may be swelled up by knowledg but it is love whereby he both edifieth and is edified Knowledg puffeth up but love edifieth It is not simply the use of a gift but the gracious use of it the use of it in love which edifieth in so much as that a little delivered in a sweet gracious manner will edifie much more then a great deal delivered by vertue of a gift Gifts without grace dispose us rather to slight and cast off persons then to take that pains which is necessary to edification the will whereunto and skill wherein only love hath 2. It hath an assisting property Love is ever ready to aid and assist Love will set its shoulder to every burden lend its hand to every work What is there or can there be to be done which love will not help to do 3. It hath an encouraging and strengthening property Love delighteth to be encouraging and strengthening the faint and the weak Weak Saints may make much use of a Soul where there is much love Thus Christ taught Peter by the exercise of his own love to him When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren 4. It hath a recovering property What made God recover sinners but his love Had he not loved them he would have let them lie for ever in their lost estate And he who hath the same love in him cannot rest till he hath raised and restored his fallen brother Into what traveling pangs did love put Paul in for the Galatians towards the recovery of them 5. It hath a communicative property and that in a sweet distilling way Love is ever communicative it will reserve nothing but impart every thing God loving his can withhold nothing from them This maketh love so edifying because it cannot but impart whatsoever it hath that may tend to edification or to the good of another in any kind And it doth not barely impart but in the sweetest way It doth distill and drop into another making insensible impressions stealing into the heart and overcoming it before the party is aware Love hath every property suitable to communicativeness and to a sweet way of communication as in the Apostles description of it in 1 Cor. 13. may easily be Thus useful and profitable to others is love And it is also profitable unto themselves The practise of this duty of love to the brethren is very profitable to them in whom it is and from whom it issueth which may evidently appear in these several particulars following 1. It will teach them to love both God and Christ in the fullest manner Our happiness consisteth in loving of God The knowledg of God is but a means to make us love him It is not either Gods bare knowing of us or our bare knowing of him which most advantageth or satisfieth either but the meeting of our affections together which all the discoveries and knowledg of each other do but make way for And there would be no want of any thing to us were there
arms into the hands into the shoulders c. so that every motion in every one of them will be easie and delightful It is the setting about duties without love which makes them so heavy How can that be done without love which is only to be done with love This is the great difference between our motions now adays and the motions of the primitive Christians theirs did issue from a Spring we go about to force out ours with artificial engines They had love kindled in them and love drawn forth in them by vertue of the same life which kindled it We reason love into our hearts and reason out the practises of it and alas how weak is this But had we of a truth love enough enough of that love and the art of proportioning out love enough to every duty we should fail in none nor complain of any Thus exceedingly profitable to our selves is love exercised by us toward the brethren Where by the way we may take notice of the strength of Christs love to us It is love in him to us which maketh him so strictly to lay this Commandment upon us of loving one another He knew how useful it would be for us and therefore in a more then ordinary manner he enjoyneth it unto us And thus we see the Reason why Christ beateth so much on this subject why his heart is so much in it why he maketh it his Commandment It is a thing which his Father much desireth and is much for his Fathers honour It is exceedingly useful to his Saints both them that practise it and all to whom they practise it and can you blame Christ in laying so much weight upon it To propose now a little Application of all this Is the heart of Christ so much in this thing is this his especial Commandment his peculiar Commandment the Commandment of his choyce which his Soul so thirsteth after to have observed by us That we should love one another as he hath loved us Then 1. What shall we say to our Lord Jesus Christ when we come to stand before him and his Father in the presence of all his Saints and Angels for our so gross neglect of this duty When this Law shall be read before us This is my Commandment that ye love one another c. and the often pressings of it by Christ himself and by his Apostles throughout all the New Testament and when our hearts and actions shall be looked into and so little of it found in either When the Saints in the Apostles times shall rise up and their hearts shall be opened which were so full of love and entireness that they could spend and be spent one for another When the Saints under the ten Persecutions shall arise whose love is reported to have been so firm and large that the very Persecutors themselves did bear witness unto it and were amazed at it When the hearts of worldlings shall be ripped up and stronger love appear there towards their fellow-worldlings then in the Christians of this generation towards their fellow-Christians When men directly-wicked shall appear to have loved the image of the Devil better in one another then we the image of God and of Christ Yea when our own hearts shall be ripped up and the actings of our natural affection being made visible it shall appear concerning our selves that we gave scope to that but the new nature and the powers of love in it have been rather choaked in us then drawn forth towards one another What shall we say in our own behalfs We can blame one another very sorely now in cases of far inferior consequence but how shall we answer this our selves before the Judg We own the life of Christ in one another but alas where is our love to that life We say Christ is our Lord why this is his great Commandment that wherein his very heart and soul and spirit is where is our obedience who can answer this in his own spirit now and if not now how will he be able to acquit himself then when the light shall be perfectly clear and all the fig-leaves wherewith we now so cunningly cover the evil of our hearts ways motions and actions from our own eyes quite taken away and made altogether unable from affording any shelter to us 2. It may occasion an enquiry why love should be so barren so dead among Christians so backward in its growth so prone to decay That little life and vertue which it had among us once where is it I shall not prosecute this enquiry so far as it lieth open to me but mention only these two causes from whence it may very well arise 1. From a decay of grace in us from our decay in love to Christ or at least from the weakness of it where it is not decayed Were grace strong were love to Christ strong we could not chuse but love those that are Christs more If we did not fail in love towards him who doth beget we should better love those who are begotten by him 2. From a carelessness in acting the duty We are not careful to draw out a spiritual affection and a natural affection will not do it and upon spiritual grounds and with a spiritual fervency and in a spiritual manner but we go to love Saints as we do other men We do not simply love grace in them There must be somewhat besides grace to draw forth and continue our affections or else they warp Our love goeth forth in flesh and not to the pure life but partly towards flesh which it many times missing of there presently groweth a faintness and decay of love If love were more pure in us and were drawn forth more purely from us towards its own pure object it would be more lasting 3. It speaks out a very strong Exhortation of it self inviting and vehemently perswading Christians to press hard after this duty and never to give their spirits rest till this duty be as much in their hearts and lives as it is in the heart of Christ concerning them For the prosecution of this Exhortation I shall propound some few Motives to it some Directions concerning it and likewise some Helps towards it To begin with the Motives Though all that hath been said be of a stirring attractive nature yet it may not be amiss at last cast to drive in two or three nails again First then Consider this well that this is the way which Christ himself hath appointed us to express our love to him in If ye love me keep my Commandments and what Commandments This is my Commandment that ye love one another Peter lovest thou me feed my Lambs If thou lovest me shew it and if thou wilt shew it shew it in thy love and care of my Lambs what thou dost to them thou dost to me Our goodness cannot reach God or Christ but the Saints Psal 16.2 2. Remember that this will yeeld unto Christ matter of joy in you He
rejoyceth in working this love in you and he will rejoyce more in the continuance growth and exercise of this love These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you saith he in the very next words to this Text vers 11. of the 15 Chapt. It will continually administer joy to the Spirit of Christ to find love flourishing in you one to another 3. Remember also that it will be an occasion of filling your own spirits with joy so it is also expressed in that vers 11. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full It is incredible what fulness of joy streams along in the sweetness of love besides it is the delight of Christ to fill his spirit with joy whose spirit he hath already filled love Quest But how may I attain this duty I find my spirit much inflamed with it O that I might be a little guided to it Ans If thou beest not better provided apply thy self to the observation of these few Directions 1. Set this duty clearly before thine eyes Consider well what kind of love it must be upon what grounds it is to be fastened and carried on in what degree what must be the actings of it and in what manner it is to act Christians commonly do not understand what they do when they buckle to this duty nor how purely and firmly this affection must move notwithstanding all manner of discouragements from them we love which cannot but cause them much to falter in the performance of it 2. Be working up thy heart to it dayly Be working it up to a spiritual love be working spiritual grounds into thy heart that thy spirit may be engaged and move spiritually Thou must be a kind of husbandman to the seed of the life of God in thee thou must receive it thou must cherish it and thou must provoke it unto motion This thou must be doing though thou canst not do this nor any thing else that is spiritual Wonderfully strange and mysterious is the operation of God in the Gospel He works all in us of his own pleasure and yet so as if we moved and wrought all our selves The Lord lieth hidden in all the motions of our spirits and by an unseen strength vertue and influence doth all there yea even that which we seem to do our selves and yet we must up and be doing every thing though we can do nothing 3. Intreat God to write this Law in thy bowels God wrote it in Christs heart and he must also write it in thine if ever it be found there Therefore pray to God to write it there and to write it there abundantly that as he hath bid thee love all Saints so he would give thee love large enough to go forth fully towards all Saints We must be taught of God to love one another if ever we learn this Lesson 4. Intreat God to draw forth this love when ever thou art to act it If we see a thing to be duty we presently set about it and blame our hearts if they fall short in it This we should do indeed but we should also when this is done or rather while this is in doing go to God in whom all our strength lies to perform it in us And this we might do at first if we were but sensible enough of our own weakness without a practical experiment but therefore God puts us continually upon endeavoring our selves because we forget how weak and unable we are to do any thing any longer then we find it in our utmost strivings Go therefore to God who hath promised not only to write his Law in our hearts but to cause us to walk in his ways What ever way of God there is God will not only write the Law of it in the hearts of his people but he will make them walk in it He will put such affections and strength into them that they shall not be able to forbear walking therein Quest But are there no Helps which may further me herein Those which are skilfully practical know how to lead another into that path wherein they themselves have walked If you have met with any knowledg or experience in this kind O do not hide it from us but help us a little in this track which is so auk and difficult to the spirit of man Ans What I have found most beneficial unto and powerful with my self herein I shall very willingly impart unto you in whom this desire is kindled Therefore from my own proof and experience I shall commend unto you these four Helps 1. Would you love the Saints as Christ hath loved both them and you Then in the first place Look upon them in Christ and there thou shalt ever see them full objects for thy love Thus God looketh upon us in our wretched estate even in Christ or he could never continue loving us O how lovely are the Saints in Christ They are imputatively perfect in him at present God reckons so and why shouldst not thou reckon so and they shall be absolutely perfect ere long They shall be made perfectly like Christ and have all those spots taken away which now thou espiest in them which are left upon them at present not to make them unlovely in thine eyes but for a design which God hath for his own glory the good of all Saints and thine in particular If a pure spiritual eye were always thus fastened upon them a pure spiritual heart would always love them 2. Expect all manner of weaknesses and imperfections in them Look for distempers upon them and all manner of evil breaking forth and taking its swinge in them so far as God leaves them Dost thou not find it so in thine own heart This is another means whereby God strengthens his heart in loving us He expects no manner of good from us but what he himself works in us He expects all manner of evils and distempers which he himself doth not prevent And all the evil that issueth forth he attributeth not to us but to sin that dwelleth in us Why go thou and do likewise and thou wilt love as God loveth Paul doth thus concerning himself The good I would do I cannot nor avoyd the evil which I would not do but what I hate that do I oh wretched man c. I can expect no good from my self I can hinder no evil in my self but yet 't is not I but sin that dwells in me It is the unlovely part that which I am to hate not that which I am to love which doth this There are two great faults in us We do not labour enough to be holy our selves and we expect it too much in others If we did look for holiness more in our own hearts and expect it less in others this duty would be far easier then it is But when we expect much what ever falleth short of our expectation displeaseth us and
well rooted in the Truth may easily be shaken from the Truth and he whose root is not good will certainly be cut down root and all when the Ax is layd to him If the Lord have a time to pluck up what he himself hath planted to break down what he himself hath built alas what will become of the plantations and fabricks of man in his own spirit when the Lord shall come to deal with him O Sirs Look to your selves Look to your Life Look to your Salvation Look to your Happiness Look to your Crown Think of that advice which was given to the Gentiles upon this very consideration wherewith I shall conclude this Preface BE NOT HIGH-MINDED Be not over-conceited of the excellency of your own light Do not push with your horns at others Be not always so busie in engaging the powers of this world against your poor afflicted brethren nay do not so much as judg them in your own spirits ye are not to sit in the seat of Judment to judg others but to come to the throne of Judgment your selves to have sentence passed upon your light upon your life upon your heart and all the motions of it which are not yet justified how justifiable soever in your own eyes BUT FEAR fear what the Lord can do fear what the Lord may do fear what the Lord will do Be not exalted above others but fear concerning your selves Be not proud because of your present station but fear your fall Lift not up your selves above others in your own spirits but throw down your selves at his feet who is a laying all flat because he finds so much fault with every height that he will have nothing exalted any more and this ye will find your best security in the cloudy and dark day which how far soever ye may put from you or how far soever it may seem from you maketh haste THE Life of a Christian JOHN 15.12 This is my Commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you CHrist being now to leave his Disciples his time drawing very near begins to break the matter to them to let them understand the necessity of his departure from them and to prepare them for those directions he was about to give them how to behave themselves in this world during his absence In the 33 Verse of the 13 Chap. He tells them he must be with them but a little while and what he said to the Jews they should find true also namely that he was going whither they could not follow him Little children yet a little while I am with you Ye shall seek me and as I said unto the Jews Whither I go ye cannot come so now I say unto you The whole 14 Chapter is taken up with this argument wherein he explaineth unto them many things about it The end of his going Vers 2. I go to prepare a place for you The certainty of his return to them Vers 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also Their own knowledg both concerning the place whither he was going and the way thither which if they could retire inwardly enough into their own spirits they would be sensible of Vers 4. And whither I go ye know and the way ye know His care of them in the time of his absence that they should want nothing but have what ever they can desire he would speed all their prayers nay he would fulfil them himself Vers 13 14. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name that will I do Neither would he leave them destitute here on Earth but send his entirest bosom Friend to dwell continually in their bosoms Vers 16. And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever Who should do great things for them Vers 26. He shall teach you all things and bring things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Lastly he would give them a very rich blessing at his parting given after such a manner of way as the world cannot give Vers 27. Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid Hereupon he tells them how they ought to part with him with what temper of spirit which love to him upon a right understanding would work in them namely with joy and not with grief For we willingly readily and joyfully part with that which we entirely love for its advancement especially if it be very great and also very beneficial to us This he urgeth Vers 28. Ye have heard how I said unto you I go away and come again unto you If ye loved me ye would rejoyce because I said I go unto the Father for my Father is greater then I. Now there are two things Christ most especially bends himself to urge upon them to leave imprinted on their spirits at his departure The one relates to Faith the other to Obedience That they would look to their Faith and to their Obedience that they would beleeve on him and keep his Commandments He had bid them look to their Faith in the first Verse of this 14 Chap. Beleeve in God and beleeve in me And he had bid them look to their Obedience in a very affectionate strain of expression Vers 15. If ye love me keep my Commandments If ye love me do it If ye love me ye will do it His commands are ever forcible with us whom we entirely love He followeth this consideration being a very close one Vers 21 23 24. professing that he that loveth cannot but do this that he that doth this doth love that he that doth not love cannot do this and he that doth not this doth not love In this 15 Chapter he proceeds to urge both again He begins with Faith Vers 4. Abide in me and I in you I have told you these things that ye might beleeve Chap. 14. 29. and I am your Vine whereinto ye are ingrafted from and in whom ye have your life abide in me When I depart from you with my bodily presence do not let your faith depart from me but as ye came to me by faith so stay with me by faith abide in me and I in you stay in me by faith and keep me in you by faith He presseth this upon them from divers considerations as first there is no bringing forth of fruit else Vers 4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me Secondly without this ye will be in danger of your Souls nay of a truth ye will miscarry Vers 6. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned As faith declines
he gave him them and when the Law was in his bowels then he calls him forth to take care of them Psal 40.7 8. God first writ the Law of Love in his heart and then he gave him these to love And this is a second ground which doth much prevail with the heart of Christ and would sway exceedingly with him had he no affection of his own unto them It is his Fathers will and pleasure it is the great command of the Father to him that he should love them very truly fully and heartily even as the Father loved him But thirdly 3. Christ loveth them because of their relation to the Father and himself They belong to the Father and they belong to him they are Gods proper goods and his proper goods Thine they were and thou gavest them me They are the children of the most High the sons and daughters of his own Father his brethren and sisters by generation his Spouse the Spouse which his Father prepared for him and brought him the Spouse which he himself purchased with his dearest blood There is the strength and sweetness of the choycest relations to draw his love and these relations set off too with all the commendable accents that can be Now we know Relations carry love with them though there be no other ground of love besides the relation It is not deformity or any other unloveliness in others eyes which can eat out the love of relations A man loveth his brother his sister his wife his child though black though crooked though weak in body and mind And this is another ground why Christ loveth his it is because they are his and the Fathers it is because of their relation to the Father and him 4. There is yet a further ground why Christ loveth them which is because of their likeness to himself and the Father because his image which is also the image of the Father is implanted in them and shall be perfected upon them Likeness is the greatest attractive of love that can be for it most naturally draweth it forth Likeness in nature likeness in feature likeness in disposition c. are strong drawers Now there is the greatest likeness in the Saints to Christ that can be There is no such likeness to him any where else to be found and therefore no such love can go forth from him any whither else They have the same nature the same lineaments the same course the same end with him They have grace for grace with Christ They are like to him in every respect There is not one thing admirable in him but there is the likeness of it in them Is he wise holy full of faith love all spiritual wisdom and excellency why they have not only a share in these but they have also a copy of them writ on their own hearts Did he descend suffer dye c. They follow him in the same steps they take the same course with him and are changed and perfected by him through these after the same manner as he was changed and perfected by his Father who made him perfect through sufferings 2 Cor. 3.18 so that every day they grow more like him It is no marvel therefore if Christ love them so how can he chuse they being already so far in and growing so continually further and further into his likeness And they are like his Father too And next likeness to our selves the image of our parents doth exceedingly take us in any and it takes Christ as much as his own likeness because he loveth the image of his Father as well as himself These are the grounds whereupon the love of Christ is drawn forth towards the Saints III. For the degree and strength of it it is the greatest that can be It is not only the most excellent kind of love but it is advanced and drawn forth likewise to the utmost kind of degree He loveth them with all his heart and with all his soul Greater love there cannot be then Christs nor can love go out with greater strength And therefore Christ when he would express how he would have us love our brethren to the utmost degree of our love of that love God hath placed in us he bids us love one another as he hath loved us The strength of Christs love to his appears in these three things In his wishing well to them in his desire of union with them in his readiness to do any thing for them According to the degree and strength of these is the degree and strength of love For these as they flow from love so they rise in height life and vigor according to the degree and strength of love 1. The strength of Christs love appeareth in his wishing well unto them We ever wish good to the party we love according to the degree of love we bear them Now Christ wisheth to his the greatest good that can be Look what ever is good for them in this world what ever is good for them in the other world he wisheth unto them in the fullest manner and measure There are three things chiefly good for his in this world in that station wherein they stand and in that course which they are to run here which are these Preservation from the evil of the world Communion with their God and to joy in God through him Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil It is good for me to draw nigh to God Rejoyce evermore And all these he wisheth to his very heartily and fully See how vehemently he urgeth that request that God would preserve them from the evil of the world Joh. 17. He urgeth it so far that he is fain to make an apology for it that it was not so much in reference to him as to them and their state it was not so much to draw the thing down from him as to draw up their hearts to beleeve the certain descent of it Vers 13. Then for Communion with God He did not only begin it but he hath taken all ways to preserve increase it He hath layd the foundation of it between them he hath entred them into it and hath appointed Ordinances for the exercise and continuation of it that therein God and they might still be meeting He receives God on the one hand and them on the other hand and knits them both in himself causing them to flow into and live in each other He knows God will abide in him and thither he bringeth them and biddeth them abide there also Joh. 15. that they may still be sucking the sweetness of God through him that being the only way for as they come at first to enjoy God by Christ so they must ever draw the sweetness of God through Christ And for joying in God he would always have them be doing it and therefore leads them the ready way to it Joh. 14.1 Let not your heart be troubled beleeve in God and beleeve in me Yea he would have them
so much in this thing why of all Commandments Christ picketh out this Command as his and driveth it home in such a forcible manner upon them as here he doth Ans It is not for nothing or upon no consideration that the Spirit of Christ is thus earnest for there is a weight in the spirit of the thing which draweth him The practise of this is of mighty concernment in this dispensation of life which God is pleased to minister by him and that both in respect of God and in respect of the duty it self In respect of God There are some considerations in reference to him which cannot but incline Christs heart very much unto it as 1. Christs heart is set so much upon this thing because the heart of God is so much in it Christ came but as Gods Minister and gave Commandments in Gods Name The words which he spake and the commands which he gave were not his own primarily but his that sent him as he often saith Now the Apostle who lay in Christs bosom and was continually searching into his heart and learning the mind of God there expresly telleth us that this is Gods Commandment This is his Commandment that we should beleeve on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us Commandment 1 Joh. 3.23 There were two things which Christ especially applyed himself unto first to bring men to beleeve on him and afterwards to love one another and the reason was because these were the especial things which God required They were first Gods chief Commandments and then Christs chief Commandments 2. Because it is so much for the honour of God To have his children his family full of love living in love acting love in strength one towards another is greatly for his honour It is a dishonour to a Master of a family to have his servants quarrelling and his children falling out It doth not become the God of Love to have his children destitute of or short in love especially one among another Hatred becometh the Devil and the men of this world but it is a dishonour to God to have it found in his children towards one another Christ came with love and Christ came to give and teach love and it is an honourable badg of them who are taught by him to know God and his Gospel It is an honour to them an honour to him who hath thus dignified and qualified them In respect of the duty it self There are some considerations there too which were great attractives in the eye and to the heart of Christ to move him vehemently to desire it in them and so strictly to enjoyn it to them as namely Its excellency in its own nature its comliness in them and its profitableness both to them and others Christ loving them so much cannot but much desire to find in them that which is exceeding excellent that which is so wondrous comely and that which cannot but be so richly profitable wheresoever it is 1. It is a duty of a most excellent nature Love is the most excellent of all graces the Apostle ranks it in the first place of the most choyce graces the greatest whereof he affirmeth to be love 1 Cor. 13.13 therefore the actings of love must needs be the most excellent of all actings That grace which is of the most excellent nature and which hath the strongest influence into all the work we are to do for God is love and answerably the actings of love have the most noble and lively operations in them It is both the most quickening and most mortifying grace having least of self most of God in it Faith goeth out much for self for its own safety and salvation for the supply of its own wants but love always for another And in loving one another the clearest purest and excellentest acts of love do shoot forth because there often appeareth that in this object which would take away or at least stop love in its current if it were not very clear pure and excellent There are always infirmities there at least if not corruptions and perhaps unkind actings towards us also which have too too much influence upon the best in damping their love God is such an object of love that even the eye of Nature seeth loveliness in him and calleth for love towards him and that so strongly that it hideth the natural enmity that is in men against him from their own eyes in so much as they think they love him and cannot but love him though in truth they hate him but as for the Saints there are abundance of unlovely things in them hardly any thing lovely but the grace of Christ and commonly that also covered with much unloveliness There is likewise usually that in this object of love which most setteth off the actings of faith What is it most commends the actings of faith but its duration and activity in the midst of that which is contrary and dangerous to it As when God distresseth the Soul appearing as an enemy seeming even to kill faith it self taking away all visible ground of hope in him for faith now to continue yea and act still in strength exceedingly commends the vertue and excellency of its nature Why love hath this tryal very frequently It hath still almost somewhat or other in the Saints to slacken it if not quite to eat it out much unloveliness of their own appearing amidst a little loveliness of grace yea and perhaps that little grace hid too and nothing but corruption visible So that love towards this object thus held on is an excellent duty indeed 2. It is a comely duty O how comely is it for brethren to live together in unity to love and cherish one another There are two things which much adorn Religion obedience to God and love to our brethren It is an uncomely thing to see men fall out because they are of one nature which is a strong bond of agreement yea stronger and more extensive then is in the rest of the creatures but O how uncomely is it to see Saints fall out who meet in the bonds of so excellent a nature as theirs is To see the world hate them and make a prey of them is no more wonder then to see a Wolf persecute and prey upon a Lamb yet if they were of the world the world would love them If ye were of the world the world would love its own Joh. 15.19 It is such a piece of uncomeliness as the world is ashamed to be guilty of not to love its own do ye not see every thing throughout the world tender of its own how much more uncomely is it for you who have a closer union then this world knoweth of to hate one another Every nature hath a love proportionable suited to it which is comely and the contrary whereof is uncomely This is the most excellent nature and therefore hath the highest love suited to it and the greatest comeliness
not want of love in us There is life enough in God and were there but love enough in us we could not but draw out and take in enough of it The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord and thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayst live Deut. 30.6 There would be no want of spiritual life in us or of the motions of this life in and towards God were there not a want of love unto him Now loving of the brethren will teach us to love God both because there is that more abundantly in God which we love in them and because in him it is pure without that imperfection which attends and soils it in them If we love the image though so full of spots how can we chuse but love the substance which is without any spots much more He that loveth him which begets loveth that which is begotten and by loving that which is begotten he groweth more and more in love with that which did beget The frequent practise of love towards that which is weak and imperfect will advantage it both in skill and strength towards that which is perfect and compleatly able to receive and answer all the touches of it 2. It will teach them to interpret things well from God This one thing doth us most harm of any thing our harsh interpretations of the good ways of God towards us It is not only very unnatural and unkind in us and most irksom to the heart of God but it is also most prejudicial to us for in a degree so far as it goeth it withdraweth our spirits from the fountain of our life and strength It puts a stop to our spirits in our drawing of that which at that time we most want Now love to the brethren will teach us otherwise for this ever accompanieth love namely a good interpretation of the actions of those we love Let any one tell us of what an ill turn our friend hath done us Surely he did it not saith Love or If he did it it was with no ill intent towards me Though it hath proved ill he intended it wel Love thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13.5 yea vers 7. It beleeveth all things it hopeth all things Though sense and experience say otherwise yet if saith or hope can put a good interpretation upon it it will receive it if it can but find any ground to beleeve otherwise or to hope otherwise it is glad of it and it is a very hard case wherein there is room neither for faith nor hope Love it very incredulous of any ill though God continually found the Jews a lying generation whose heart was not right with him neither were they ever stedfast in his Covenant yet his love made him upon all occasions say and think concerning them Surely they are children that will not lye Isai 63.8 Where we are so apt to surmize or beleeve surmises there must needs be great want of love But how doth this teach us to interpret things well of God Why thus A man that accustometh himself to interpret things well concerning his brother shall find very great benefit in it He shall find himself delivered from many harsh and evil thoughts of his brother which otherwise would attend him He shall find many times how he had wronged his brother if he had judged otherwise and though his brother should prove faulty at length yet it will be time enough to judg it so then Why now hath he not much more cause of interpreting things well from God Cannot a man repent of interpreting things well of his brother and shall he ever repent of interpreting things well of God Besides the practise of this duty towards his brothers will enforce him to observe it in the same degree at least if not further towards his God also Shall a man not dare to beleeve any thing ill of his brother until it evidently appear and shall he judg his God so soon as Satan puts him upon it 3. It will teach them to bear any thing from Gods hand We shall have enough to bear from our brethren and yet love will not refuse to bear be it never so much Love beareth all things 1 Cor. 13.7 We shall never have that to bear from God which we dayly meet with and have reason to expect from our brethren We have ground to expect from them unkind froward injurious actings towards us besides their prejudicial actings to their own Souls which will wound no more then the former if we be spiritual all which we must bear and yet proceed on in every act of love towards them We shall find none of these things in God but only pure wise actings for our good And can a man bear the weaknesses of men and yet grumble at the wisdom of God 4. It will teach a man to look the better to his own heart The observing and helping to cure the evils of other mens hearts will teach us to espy and prevent the evils of our own This is the great benefit which attends the practise of all the duties of love to the brethren namely that what we do but endeavor to do to them we do to our selves insensibly While we are teaching them we are imprinting truths on our own hearts while we are watching over them we are looking to our selves c. So that though others should reap no benefit by our care and pains yet we our selves shall have no cause to repent of it 5. It will make us very feelingly to admire the wonderful strength and vertue of the love of God and that will be a very profitable thing to us for as our stability the certainty of our state is in the love of God by its laying hold of us and comprehending us so our sweetness our rest our content our satisfaction is by beholding it and reposing our selves in it Now the practise of this duty of love to the brethren cannot chuse but very effectually work up the sight and admiration of this in us when we shall continually see so many failings and loathsom things in our selves and in others as this will draw us to do and yet God notwithstanding all these to entirely so fully so constantly so perfectly still loving us all 6. It will make all duties of one towards another easie Love is a quickening ingredient which putteth life into the spirit and maketh every thing light with which we have to do What made Jacobs hard servitude so easie but his love to Rachel What made Christ so lightly trip through those intricate thorny paths through which he passed but his entire love to his Saints The weightiest service of love is easier then the largest liberty in the very kingdom of enmity That which is a great load to a weak back alas what is it to him who abounds with strength Strength of love in the heart will put strength into the feet into the
dampeth our affections 3. Be ever stirring up their graces in them and mark the workings of their graces in the midst of their distempers This will still keep thine eye upon their loveliness at all times and so will still draw forth love towards them 1. Be ever stirring up their graces in them Grace is the proper attractive of spiritual love the sight whereof cannot but kindle it Thus Christ makes the flowers and spices in his garden to yield their savour and then falls in love with their scent We think it is the duty of others to give forth their light and discover their graces to us but we are apt to forget that it is also our duty to be drawing forth their light and stirring up their graces This was Pauls practise that great Lover of the Saints Rom. 1.11 12. For I long to see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end you may be established That is that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me This was his design and course when ever he came among Saints to see what grace they had in them to search out and stir up grace that he might draw forth his own love in enjoying of them in delighting in them and in adding somewhat to them suitable to their state and condition 2. Observe the workings of their graces in the midst of their distempers We are usually exceedingly faulty in this We never consider the distempers in Christians but look they should always act as if they were in a right temper though we expect they should consider our distempers And then in their distempers we mark the stirrings of their corruptions but though grace strive and help much to the keeping of them down we take little notice of that Whereas God considers the least distempers in us and cherisheth and is delighted with the least motions of grace in us in our distempers If it were otherwise what would become of us 4. Consider thine own weaknesses and sins Doth any evil befall thy brother which thou canst avoyd Doth thy brother neglect any good which thou canst do He hath fallen into this or that evil who hath kept thy heart How long wilt thou keep out of the same evil into which thy brother is fallen if God leave thee to the same temptation Consider therefore the breakings forth of thine own heart in sin where God doth suffer it and how far it would break forth if God did not hinder it And take heed of murmuring against thy brother as one that falls into sins breeds troubles hinders mercies interrupts the sweetness of communion c. There is a very notable place to this purpose Jam. 5.9 Groan not one against another Brethren lest ye be condemned behold the Judg standeth before the door Our spirits will be very apt to groan one against another O such an one hath hindred much good if it had not been for him things might have gone well Take heed the Judg stands at the door who will come and rip open thy heart and thy ways and shew thee somewhat which thou little thoughtst of and so thou who groanest against another wilt be condemned thy self Nay though thou hast spoken to them in the Name of the Lord as he carrieth it vers 10. and they may seem to have despised thy message nay have really both despised thee and the Lord in whose Name thou hast spoken yet take heed of so much as groaning against them lest the Judg also find matter against thee It is not fit for one guilty person to breathe out complaints against another Therefore consider thine own heart well and observe the failings there Are there not more there then in thy brothers all things considered And consider if thou wouldst be willing to have Christ withdraw his heart from thee or whether thou wouldst have him take occasion hereby to exercise towards thee such acts of love as thy need now requires as to pity thee to stand ready to help thee to take that course which may best help thee c. If so go and do so to thy brother If thou wouldst have him keep that Law of Love which God hath given him concerning thee do thou by his strength improve his grace to the keeping of that Law of Love which he hath given thee concerning thy fellow-Saints and this is his Commandment that we love one another as he hath loved us Now for a close that he that readeth may understand All this is but an exercise by way of Discipline to the seed in its childhood as indeed all other things also are The threatnings the rewards the promises the comforts the enjoyments c. in every dispensation are suited to the state of the child When the day dawns the shadows will fly away When Truth appears that which did represent it as an image of it must give place Yet these images or representations are not such as either Satan or the mind of man frames which are vanity and a lye but true and substantial representations of Truth But though they are truth in their kind yet they must not stand for ever but only their appointed season which is till Truth of a deeper kind come or at least till the night before the day of Truths discovery It were good for every one that he knew his dispensation and what is proper for him in it that he might both bear the yoke and enjoy the sweetness of it not leaping out of it before he be led This over-much haste will cost him dear for all the ground he treads after this rate he must traverse back again before he can come to that forwardness wherein he was even under that dispensation out of which he thus slightly passed There is a true death in and to a dispensation which there is no redemption from There is no more life to be had in or under that dispensation by him whom God hath truly slain in and unto it But there are deadnesses in and under ministrations which are not so much as degrees of this death nay there are deaths also which are not this death which the life in those that are under those ministrations is to recover out of or they must suffer loss thereby In the most lively ministration among Christians Love hath still been the life and in that way wherein they yet are these things may be useful But yet there is a more excellent way and more excellent things then are now thought of which will be manifested in due time But it is very dangerous striving to ascend up to them aforehand the sweetest and safest way is to wait the season of their descent The deep sense of the want whereof with an assured expectation and quiet waiting and groaning for is the best strain of Religion of the purest stamp of any I know extant Life is now wrapped up coming very little forth yet most in these motions to the sence
and they fall out afterwards as they did before and so their end prove worse then their beginning A. No for Christ undertaketh to preserve them to keep them safe from all evils and dangers in so much as they shall not fall upon them further then shall be for their good to work in them and for them all their works to keep off wrath that it shall seize no further upon them then he himself in wisdom and love seeth good to let it out In a word God shall never have more to say to them but from him nor they never have more to do with God but through him who loveth them perfectly and who as he began so he will continue meerly from the strength of his own love to perfect his own work in them which though his wisdom may cause him to carry on very mysteriously yet his love will not let him fail doing of it very safely Q. What must he do who is instated in this Salvation in and for whom this Redemption is begun by Jesus Christ A. He must be continually sacrificing himself by the Spirit of the Lord in which he that is in Christ lives and moves and acts until he become an whole burnt-offering unto the Lord until all his light all his life all his will be swallowed up and perfectly lost in the Light in the Life in the Will of the Lord. Not only until his corruption be dissolved and consumed but till his very nature and being in all the powers motions and operations of it be changed into the Nature and Being of the Lord until the new creature hath wholy spred it self all over him and he be become wholy a new lump This he who is not truly changed cannot do and he who is truly changed cannot but do A Postscript about Religion THere have always been two kinds of Religions in the world besides the several strains in each and the several ways of jumbling each together which the vain heart of man hath invented to entangle and vex it self withall The one Heathenish or Devilish The other Heavenly or Divine The one wrought out of the Earth by the assistance of Satan The other let down into the Earth by the Spirit of the Lord. The whole Earth is still taken up about Religion It is both natural and artificial and that about which the whole strength of Nature and Art is most employed There hath not been any part of the Earth so barbarous wherein there have not been some strains of devotion found There is every where where the nature of man appears where the art of man is exercised and where there is any breath either of God or Satan stiring some kind of seed and some kind of culture of Religion The main end of Religion in reference to us is Salvation Not only present relief and protection in our present feeble estate but Salvation in a future estate which the very nature of man pointeth him unto and teacheth him to look after We are at present involved in misery we feel it Every creature feeleth it according to its kind and we according to our kind There is some future estate of things unto which we all are passing And this present estate though it be wholy vain in reference to us as we now are yet it cannot be at all vain in reference to that but that which is perfect must of necessity order every thing perfectly to its end so that nothing be lost not any one motion of any creature in any kind Now this is most evident That though all men almost expect Salvation yet the attainment of it will be very rare The common paths of Heathenish Worship will not lead to it and in the midst of the Dispensations of God there are few who truly walk to it How few of the Jews under the Dispensation of the Law did truly walk towards Salvation And how many Disciples under the Gospel ran so as they could not obtain Many shall say Lord Lord open to us but the Lord shall answer them Verily I know you not They shall speak like persons well acquainted with the Lord and very sure of entrance but the Lord will disown them and tell them publiquely Of a truth I know you not Doth it not then behove every one to look about him It is very ill trifling about Eternity Thou wilt one day be ashamed O confident Soul who hast sought for the treasure in the wrong field who hast layd out thy mony for that which is not bread and thy pains for that which will not satisfie Wouldst thou but consider how unable thou art to justifie thy Religion now I speak to the most strict to the most exact persons living I say bring thy Religion to that touchstone which may now be held forth how wilt thou manifest it to thine own spirit to be weighty Thou knowest thou beleevest thou lovest thou obeyest Very good But how wilt thou justifie any of these I dare boldly affirm that unless thou hast seen the stamp of God with the eye of a true understanding 1 Joh. 5.20 thou canst not be able to say that these are of his stamp and unless they be of the stamp of God and have the very Nature and Life of God in them I am sure they shall not save thee Ah foolish man Because thou hast lighted upon the Scriptures and readest and hearest and prayest and conformest thy life as well as thou canst to the directions thereof yea prayest for the help of the Spirit acknowledging thine own weakness and unprofitableness c. dost thou think to be saved Dost thou not know that the root of all this is rejected by the Lord and can any of the fruit be accepted I can assure thee the spirit of man will do this and the spirit of man in thee may do this The Lord hath written this in the nature and present state of man and when he pleaseth he may draw it out And seeing with God it is all one to will as to do the spirit of man which is universally willing unto this shall be as well accepted herein as thine He who would have been wrought upon to do this is as justifiable before God as thou who hast been wrought upon and hast done it And thou who art uncircumcised in heart for that which thou callest the circumcision is no more it then that which the Jews called so art as loathsom before God as those who are uncircumcised in their outward practises and professions Let me plead a little further with thee Dost thou know what the spirit of man can do when his whole nature when all his understanding his affections and passions are purified and heightened It is a dull frothy stupified spirit which can please it self in this drossy world a spirit a little sublimated a little enlightened a little quickened cannot but mind things of another nature even such as are suitable to its inward part and the future estate thereof And what