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spirit_n father_n love_n love_v 5,814 5 7.1381 4 false
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A42834 The way of happiness represented in its difficulties and incouragements, and cleared from many popular and dangerous mistakes / by Jos. Glanvill ... Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680. 1670 (1670) Wing G835; ESTC R23021 46,425 190

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earnestly of the love of Christ and express a mighty love to his name yet this may be too without any real conformity unto him in his Life and Laws The Jews spoke much of Moses in him they believed and in him they trusted Iohn v. 45 His name was a sweet sound to their ears and 't was very pleasant upon their tongues and yet they hated the Spirit of Moses and had no love to those Laws of his which condemned their wicked actions And we may see how many of those love Christ that speak often and affectionately of him by observing how they keep his Commandments John xiv 15 especially those of meekness mercy and universal love Thus imperfect strivers may imploy themselves in the external offices of Religion I have instanced only in Three the like may be said of the rest And to this I add That they may not only exercise themselves in the outward matters of duty but may arrive to some things that are accounted greater heights and are really more and spiritual and refined To instance SECT V. I. THey may have some love to God Goodness and good men The Soul naturally loves beauty and perfection and all mankind apprehend God to be of all Beings the most beautiful and perfect and therefore must needs have an intellectual love for him The reason that that love takes no hold of the passions in wicked men is partly because they are diverted from the thoughts of Him by the objects of sense but chiefly because they consider him as their enemy and therefore can have no complacency or delight in him who they think hath nothing but thoughts of enmity and displeasure against them But if once they come to be perswaded as many times by such false marks as I have recited they are that God is their Father and peculiar Friend that they are his chosen and his darlings whom he loved from eternity and to whom he hath given his Son and his Spirit and will give Himself in a way of the fullest enjoyment Then the Love that before was only an esteem in the understanding doth kindle in the affections by the help of the conceit of Gods loving them so dearly and the passion thus heated runs out even into seraphick and rapturous Devotions while yet all this is but meer animal love excited chie●ly by the love of our selves not of the Divine Perfections And it commonly goes no further then to earnest expressions of extraordinary love to God in our Prayers and Discourses while it appears not in any singular obedience to his Laws or generous and universal love to mankind which are the ways whereby the true Divine Love is exprest for This is the love of God that we keep his Commandments saith the Apostle 1 Iohn v. 3 And as to the other thus If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 1 John iv 12 And on the contrary If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar John iv 20 Charity then and universal obedience are the true arguments and expressions of our love to God and these suppose a victory over corrupt inclinations and self-will But the other love which ariseth from the conceit of our special dearness to God upon insufficient grounds that goes no further then to some suavities and pleasant fancies within our selves and some passionate complements of the Image we have set up in our imaginations This Love will consist with Hatred and contempt of all that are not like our selves yea and it will produce it those poisonous fruits and vile affections may be incouraged and cherish'd under it So that there may be some love to God in evil men But while self-love is the only motive and the more prevalent passion it signifieth nothing to their advantage And as the imperfect striver may have some love to God so he may to piety and vertue every man loves these in Idea The vilest sinner takes part in his affections with the vertuous and religious when he seeth them described in History or Romance and hath a detestation for those who are character'd as impious and immoral Vertue is a great Beauty and the mind is taken with it while 't is consider'd at a distance and our corrupt interests and sensual affections are not concern'd 'T is These that recommend sin to our love and choice while the mind stands on the side of vertue with that we serve the Law of God but with the flesh the law of sin Rom. vii 25 So that most wicked men that are not degenerated into meer Brutes have this mental and intellectual love to goodness That is they approve and like it in their minds and would practise it also were it not for the prevalent biass of flesh and sense And hence it will follow likewise That the same may approve and respect good men They may reverence and love them for their Charity Humility Iustice and Temperance though themselves are persons of the contrary Character yet they may have a great and ardent aff●ction for those that are eminently pious and devout though they are very irreligious themselves The conscience of vertue and of the excellency of Religion may produce this in the meer natural man who is under the dominion of vile inclinations and affections and therefore this is no good mark of godliness neither Our love to God and goodness will not stead us except it be prevalent And as the love described may be natural and a meer animal man may arrive unto it So II. He may to an extraordinary zeal for the same things that are the objects of his love Hot tempers are eager where they take either kindness or displeasure The natural man that hath an animal love to Religion may be violent in speaking and acting for things appertaining to it If his temper be devotional and passionate he becomes a mighty zealot and fills all places with the fame of his godliness His natural fire moves this way and makes a mighty blaze Ahab was very zealous and 't is like 't was not only his own interest that made him so 2 Kings x. 16 The Pharis●es were zealous people and certainly their zeal was not always personated and put on but real Though they were Hypocrites yet they were such as in many things deceived themselves as well as others They were zealous for their Traditions and they believ'd 't was their duty to be so St. Paul while a persecutor was zealous against the Disciples and he thought he ought to do many things against that name And our Saviour foretells that those zealous murderers that should kill his Saints should think They did God good service in it John xvi 2 So that all the zeal of the natural man is not feigning and acting of a part nor hath it always evil objects The Pharisees were zealous against the wickedness of the Publicans and Sinners Zeal then and that in earnest for Religion may be in