that Love or Complacency of the Will which is the more completive part 3. But there is a Knowledge even of God which being separated from Love is sin and misery As the Devils and damned that believe and tremble and hate and suffer are not without all knowledge of God. So much for the first proof fetcht from the order of the faculties of the Soul. II. The second proof is fetcht from the Objects It is not meer Intelligibility that blesseth a man but Goodness which as such is the formal Object of the Will though the material Object of the Understanding It is a pleasant thing for the Eyes to behold the Sun And as pleasant it is good and also as useful to further pleasure of our selves or others Nothing maketh a man Good or Happy but as it is Good. Therefore the Goodness of God his transcendent perfection by which he is first Essentially Good in himself and amiable to himself and then Good and Amiable to us all is the ultimately ultimate object of mans Soul to which his Intelligibility is supposed III. The third proof is from the Constitution of these several 〈◊〉 a Knowledge being but an introductive act supposeth not Love as to its Essence though it produce it as an Effect But Love included knowledge in it as the number of two includeth one when one doth not include two Therefore 〈◊〉 â—ogether must needs be perfecter than one alone IV. The fourth proof is from express Scripture I will only cite some plain ones which need no tedious comment 1. For Love it 's said 1 Joh. 4.16 17 18. We have known and believed the Love that God hath to us God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Herein is our Love made perfect or in this the Love with us is perfected that we have boldness in the day of Judgment Because as he is so are we in this world There is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out fear He that feareth is not made perfect in Love. So that Love is the perfection of man. 1 Cor. 12.31 and 13.2 c. Yet shew I unto you a more excellent way Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not Charity I am nothing Charity never faileth 13. The greatest of these is Charity Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the Love of God c. Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Rom. 5.5 The Love of God is poured out on our hearts by the Holy-Ghost which is given to us Gal. 5.6 Faith which worketh by Love. Mat. 22.37 The first and great Commandment is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. Luk. 10.27 Deut. 10.12 and 11.1.13.22 and 19.9 and 13.3 and 30.6.16.20 Josh 22.5 and 23.11 Psal 5.11 and 31.23 and 69.36 and 119.165 and 145.20 Jam. 1.12 He shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that Love him So 2.5 Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me See Joh. 14.21 and 16.27 1 Joh. 4.19 Joh. 21.15 16 17. 1 Joh. 3.22 Heb. 11.6 c. And of Knowledge it is said Joh. 13.17 If ye knew these things happy are ye if ye do them See Jam. 2.14 to the end Joh. 15.24 But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father Luk. 12.47 Knowing Gods will and not doing it prepareth men for many stripes See Rom. 2. And as barren knowledge is oft made the aggravation of sin so true knowledge is usually made the cause or means of Love and Obedience 1 Joh. 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God. 2 Pet. 1.2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God. 2 Pet. 2.20 and many such like I conclude therefore that the knowledge of Creatures is not desirable ultimately for itself but as it leadeth up the Soul to God. And the knowledge of God though desirable ultimately for it self yet not as the perfect but the initial part of our ultimate act or end and as the means or cause of that love of God which is the more perfect part of that ultimate Perfection Chap. II. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known with Love by Him. THis is the second Doctrine contained in the meaning of the Text. Where is included 1. That all knowledge of Creatures called Learning must be valued and used but as a means to the knowledge and love of God Which is most evident in that the whole Creation is the work of God bearing the Image or Impress of his Perfections to reveal him to the Intellectual Creature and to be the means of provoking us to his love and helping us in his service To deny this therefore is to subvert the use of the whole Creation and to set up Gods works as an useless shadow or as an Idol in his place 2. It is included as was afore-proved that all our knowledge of God himself is given us to kindle in us the Love of God. It is the Bellows to blow up this holy Fire If it do not this it is unsound and dead If it do this it hath attained its end which is much of the meaning of James in that Chap. 2. which prejudice hindereth many from understanding 3. This love of God hath its degrees and effects Knowledge first kindleth but some weak initial act of love which through mixtures of fear and of carnal affections is hardly known to be sincere by him that hath it But afterward it produceth both stronger acts and the Holy Ghost still working as the principal cause infuseth or operateth a radicated Habit. So that this holy love becometh like a nature in the Soul even a divine nature And it becometh in a sort natural to us to love God and goodness though not as the brutish nature which is exercised by necessity and without reason And this new nature of holy love is called the new Creature and the Holy Ghost dwelling in us and the Spirit of Adoption and is our New-name the White-stone the Witness in our selves that Christ is the Saviour and that we are the Regenerate Children of God the Pledge the Earnest the First-fruits and the Fore-taste of Life Eternal And all the works of a Christian are so far truly holy as they are the Effects of holy love For 1. Holy love is but a holy will and the will is the man in point of Morality 2. And the love of God is our final act upon the final object and all other gracious acts are some way means subservient to this end And the end is it that informeth all the means they being such only as they are adapted to the end And in this sense it is true which is said in the Schools though many Protestants misunderstanding it have contradicted it that love is the form of all other Graces That is It is the heart of the new Creature or it is that by which the
Holy Light is that Knowledge and Belief which kindleth Love and causeth a Holy Life Holy Love is that complacency of the Will in God and Goodness which is kindled by Holy Life and Light and operateth in Holy practice Any one of these thus described where Love is the Heart of all is an infallible mark of Holiness But all other Graces and Duties which are but the Integrals of Holiness are in all Characters and Promises to be understood with a caeteris paribus that is supposing them to be animated with Holy Love and caused by Holy Life and Light Knowledge and Belief And that God doth most certainly Love all that Love him besides the forementioned proofs from Scripture is further evident 1. The Love of God and Goodness is the Divine Nature And God cannot but Love his own Nature in us It is his Image which as in its several degrees he Loveth for himself and next to himself 2. The Love of God is the Rectitude of Man's Soul its soundness health and beauty And God Loveth the Rectitude of his creatures 3. The Love of God is the final perfect operation of the Soul even that end which it was created and redeemed for And God Loveth to have his works attain their end and to see them in their perfection 4. The Love of God is the Goodness of the Soul it self And Goodness is Amiableness and must needs be Loved by Him that is Goodness and Perfection Himself 5. The Love of God is our uniting adhesion to him And God that first draweth up the Soul to this Union will not himself reject us and avoid it 6. Love is a pregnant powerful pleasing Grace It delivereth up our selves and all that we have to God It delighteth in duty It conquereth difficulties It contemneth competitors and trampleth on temptations It accounteth nothing too much nor too dear for God. Love is the Soul's nature appetite and pondus according to which it will ordinarily act A man's Love is his Will his Heart himself And if God have our Love he hath our selves and our all So that God cannot but Love the Soul that truly Loveth him as God. But here are some Doubts to be resolved Q. 1. What if the same Soul have Love and Sin mixed or sincere Love in a degree that is sinfully defective and so is consistent with something of its contrary God must hate that Sin How then can he Love that Soul Ans Remember still that Diversity is only in us and not in God Therefore God's Will is related and denominated towards us just as its object is All that is Good in us God Loveth All that is Evil in us he hateth Where Goodness is predominant there God's Love is predominant or greatest from this Relation and Connotation Where Sin is predominant God's aversation displicency or hatred is the chief And we may well expect that the effects be answerable Obj. But we are beloved as Elect before Conversion Ans That was answered before That is God from Eternity purposed to make us Good and Amiable and Happy if you will call that as you may his Love. Obj. But we are beloved in Christ for his Righteousness and Goodness and not for our own Ans The latter is false The former is thus true For the Merits of Christ's Righteousness and Goodness God will pardon our sins and make us Good Holy and Happy and will Love us as the Holy Members of his Son that is both as Related to him and as Holy. Obj. But if God must needs Love sincere imperfect Lovers of him as such with a predominant Love which will not damn them then sin might have been pardoned without Christ's death and the sinner be loved without his Righteousness if he had but sincerely loved God. Ans The supposition is false that a sinner could have Loved God without Pardon and the Spirit purchased by the Death and Righteousness of Christ God perfectly Loveth the perfected Souls in Glory for their own holy perfection But they never attained it but by Christ And God Loveth us here according to the measure of our Love to him But no man can thus Love him till his sin be pardoned for which he was deprived of the Spirit which must kindle Love. And imperfect Love is ever joyned with imperfect Pardon whatever some falsly say to the contrary I mean that Love which is sinfully imperfect Quest 2. Doth not God's Loving us make us Happy And if so it must make us Holy. And then none that he Loveth will fall away from him Whereas the fallen Angels and Adam Loved him and yet fell from him How then were they beloved by him Ans I before told you that God's Will or Love is first Efficient causing Good and then Final being pleased in the Good that is caused God's Efficient Will or Love doth so far make men Holy and Happy as they are such even efficiently But God's Will or Love as it is our Causa finalis and the termiting Object of our Love and is pleased in us and approveth us is not the Efficient Cause of our Holiness and Happiness but the objective and perfect constitutive Cause Now you must further note that God's Benevolent Efficient Will or Love doth give men various degrees of Holiness To Adam in Innocency he gave but such a degree and upon such terms as he could lose and cast away which he did But to the blessed in Glory he giveth that which they shall never lose These degrees are from God's Efficient Love or Will which therefore causeth some to persevere when it left Adam to himself to stand or fall But it is not God's Final Love of Complacency as such that causeth our perseverance For Adam had this Love as long as he Loved God and stood and he after lost it so that it is not that Final Complacency which is the Terminus of our Holiness and Constitutive Cause of our Happiness which alone will secure the perpetuity of either of them Obj. Thus you make God mutable in his Love as Loving Adam more before his fall than after Ans I told you Loving and not Loving the Creature are no changes in God but in the Creature It is Man that is mutable and not God. It is only the Relation of God's Will to the Creature as varying in it self and the extrinsick denomination by connotation of a changed Object which is changed as to God. As the Sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your Eyes Nor a Pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand and sometimes on your left 5. Lastly It must be noted as included in the Text That our own Loving God is not the only or total notion of our end perfection or felicity but to be Known and Loved by God is the other part which must be taken in to make up the total notion of our end In our Love God is considered as the Object But in God's Complacential Love to us
which is desireable When one man nameth GOD he hath an orderly conception of his several Attributes in which yet all men are defective and most Divines themselves are culpably ignorant When another man conceiveth but of fewer of them and that disorderly And yet these must not be accounted Atheists or denied to believe in the same God or refused Baptism nor is it several Gods that men so differently believe in I. He that knoweth God to be a most perfect Spirit most powerful Wise and Good the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator of the world our Owner Governour and most Amiable Lover Benefactor and End I think knoweth as much of God as is of necessity to Baptism and Church Communion II. He that knoweth that Jesus Christ is God and man the Redeemer of the sinful world and the Mediator between God and Man who was conceived by the Holy-Ghost in the Virgin Mary fulfilled all righteousness was crucified as a Sacrifice for mans sin and being dead and buried rose again and ascended into Heaven and is the Teacher King and Intercessor of his Church and hath made the new Covenant and giveth the Holy-Ghost to sanctify believers and pardoneth their sins and will raise our Bodies at last and Judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel and will give everlasting happiness to the Sanctified I think knoweth as much of Christ as is necessary to Baptism and Church Communion III. He that knoweth that the Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father and the Son the sanctifier of Souls by Holy Life and Light and Love by the Holy Gospel of which he is the Inditer and the Seal I think knoweth all that is necessary unto Baptism concerning the Holy Ghost IV. And as to the Act of Knowing this Trinity of Objects there is great difference between 1. Knowing the Notions or Words and the matter 2. Between an orderly clear and a dark and more confused Knowledge 3. And between apt significant words and such as any way notify a necessary true conception of the mind 4. Between such a Knowledge as maketh a man Willing and Consent to give up himself to this Trinity in Covenant and that which prevaileth not for such consent And so 1. It 's true that we know not the Heart immediately and therefore must judge by Words and Deeds But yet it is the Knowledge of the Things as is aforesaid that is necessary to Salvation because it is the Love of the Things is chiefly necessary But by what words to express that Love or Knowledge is not of equal necessity in itself 2. There being no man whose conceptions of God Christ the Holy Ghost the Covenant c. are not guilty of darkness and disorder a great degree of darkness and disorder of conceptions may consist with true grace in those of the lowest rank of Christians 3. The second Notions and Conceptions of things and so of God our Redeemer and Sanctifier as they are verba mentis in the mind itself are but Logical Artificial Organs and are not of that necessity to Salvation as the conception of the matter or incomplex objects 4. Many a man in his studies findeth that he hath oft a general and true Knowledge of Things in themselves before he can put names and notions on them and set those in due Order and long before he can find fit words to express his mental notions by which must cost him much study afterward And as Children are long learning to speak and by degrees come to speak orderly and composedly and aptly mostly not till many years use hath taught them So the expressive ability is as much matter of art and got by use in men at age And they must be taught yet as Children to speak of any thing new and Strange and which they learned not before As we see in learning Arithmetick Geometry and all the Arts and Sciences Even so men how holy internally soever must by study and use by the help of Gods Spirit learn how to speak of holy things in Prayer in Conference in answering such as ask an account of their Faith and Knowledge And hypocrites that are bred up in the use of such things can speak excellently in Prayer Conference or Preaching When true Christians at first that never used them nor were bred up where they heard them used cannot tell you intelligibly what is in their minds but are like men that are yet to learn the very Language in which they are to talk in I know this by true experience of my self and many others that I have examined 5. Therefore I say again if men cannot aptly answer me of the very Essentials of Religion but speak that which in its proper sense is Heresie or unsound and false Yet if when I open the questions to them my self and put the Article of Faith into the question and ask them e. g. Do you believe that there is but One God or are there many Doth God know all things or not Is he our Owner or not Doth he rule us by a Law or not c If they by Yea or Nay do speak the truth and profess to believe it I will not reject them for lack of knowledge if the rest concur I meet with few censorious Professors to say nothing of Teachers that will not answer me with some nonsense or falseness or ineptitude or gross confusion or defectiveness if I examine them of the foregoing Notions of the very baptismal Covenant As what is a Spirit what doth the word God signifie what is Power in God what Knowledge what Will what Goodness what Holiness what is a Person in the Trinity what is the difference between the three Persons How is God our End Had Christ his humane Soul from the Virgin or only his flesh Had he his Manhood from Man if not his Soul which is the chief essential part what is the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature wherein different from the Union of God and Saints or every Creature with an hundred such In which I must bear with ignorant false answers from eminent Professors that separate from others as too ignorant for their Communion And why then must I not bear with more in those that are new beginners and have not had their time and helps 6. But if a man can speak never so well and profess never so confident a belief if he Consent not to the Covenant and Vow of Baptism to give up himself presently and absolutely to Christ I must reject that man from the Communion of the Church But if these two things do but concur in any 1. The foresaid signification of a tolerable Knowledge and Belief by yea or nay Dost thou Believe in God c. as the Ancient Churches used to ask the Baptized 2. And a ready professed consent to be engaged by that holy Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost I will not deny Baptism to such if Adult nor after Church
our Enemies conquered our fears removed our wants supplied our Bodies and all that is ours under the protection of Almighty love and we are secured by Promise that all our Sufferings shall work together for our good And what will cause love if all this will not When we perceive with what love the Father hath loved us that of Enemies we should be made the Sons of God and of condemned Sinners we should be made the Heirs of endless Glory and this so freely and by so strange a means we may conclude that this is the Doctrine of Love which is taught us from Heaven by love it self 3. And especially this work of love is promoted by opening the Kingdom of Heaven to the foresight of our Faith and shewing us what we shall enjoy for ever and assuring us of the Fruition of our Creators Everlasting Love yea by making us fore-know that Heaven consisteth in perfect mutual endless love This will both of it self draw up our Hearts and engage all our Reason and Endeavours in beginning that work which we must do for ever and to learn on Earth to love in Heaven 4. And besides all these objective helps Christ giveth to Believers the Spirit of Love and maketh it become as a nature in us which no other Teacher in the World could do Others can speak reason to our Ears but it is Christ that sendeth the warming Beams of holy Love into our Hearts If the love of God and holiness were no better than common Philosophical Speculations then Aristotle or Plato or such other Masters of names and notions might compare with Christ and his Apostles and Athens with the Primitive Church and the Schoolmen might be thought the best Improvers of Theology But if thousands of dreaming Disputers wrangle the World into misery and themselves into Hell and are ingenious Artificers of their own damnation and if the love of God and Goodness be the healthful constitution of the Soul its natural content and pleasure the business and end of life and all its helps and blessings the Soder of just Societies the Union of Man with God in Christ and with all the Blessed and the Fore-taste and First-fruits of endless Glory then Christ the Messenger of Love the Teacher of Love the Giver of Love the Lord and Commander of Love is the best Promoter of Knowledge in the World. And as Nicodemus knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could do such works unless God were with him so may we conclude the same because no man could so reveal so cause and communicate Love the holy Love of God and Goodness unless the God of Love had sent him Love is the very end and work of Christ and of his Word and Spirit Chap. IX The fifth Inference What great cause men have to be thankful to God for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson SO excellent and every way suitable to our case is the Religion taught and instituted by Christ as should render it very acceptable to Mankind And that on several accounts 1. The brevity and plainness of Christian Precepts greatly accommodateth the necessity of Mankind I say his necessity lest you think it is but his sloth Ars longa Vita brevis is the true and sad complaint of Students Had our Salvation been laid upon our Learning a Body of true Philosophy how desperate would our case have been For 1. Mans great Intellectual weakness 2. His want of leisure would not have allowed him a knowledge that requireth a subtile wit and tedious studies 1. Most men have wits of the duller sort Such quickness subtilty and solidity as is necessary to great and difficult studies are very rare So rare as that few such are found even amongst the Preachers of the Gospel Of a multitude who by hard Studies and honest Hearts are fit to Preach the Doctrine of Salvation scarce one or two are found of so fine and exact a wit as to be fit judiciously to manage the curious Controversies of the Schools What a case then had Mankind been in if none could have been wise and happy indeed but these few of extraordinary capacity The most publick and common good is the best God is more merciful than to confine Salvation to subtilty of wit Nor indeed is it a thing it self so pleasing to him as a Holy Heavenly Heart and Life 2. And we have Bodies that must have Provision and Employment We have Families and Kindred that must be maintained We live in Neighbourhoods and publick Societies which call for much Duty and take up much time And our sufferings and crosses will take up some thoughts Were it but Poverty alone how much of our time will it alienate from contemplation whilst great necessities call for great care and continual labour Can our common poor Labourers especially Husbandmen have leisure to inform their minds with Philosophy or curious Speculations Nay we see by experience that the more subtile and most vacant wits that wholly addict themselves to Philosophy can bring it to no considerable certainty and consistency to this day except in the few Rudiments or common Principles that all are agreed in Insomuch that those do now take themselves to be the chief or only wits who are pulling down that which through so many Ages from the beginning of the World hath with so great wit and study been concluded on before them and are now themselves no higher than new Experimenters who are beginning all anew again to try whether they can retrieve the errours of Mankind and make any thing of that which they think the World hath been so long unacquainted with And they are yet but beginning at the Skin or Superficies of the World and are got no further with all their wit than Matter and Motion with Figure Site Contexture c. But if they could live as long as Methusalem it is hoped they might come to know that besides Matter and Motion there are Essential Virtues called substantial Forms or active Natures and that there is a Vis Motiva which is the cause of Motion and a Virtus Intellectiva and Wisdom which is the cause of the Order of Motion and a Vital Will and Love which is the perfection and end of all In a word they may live to know that there is such a thing in the World as Life and such a thing as Active Nature and such a thing as Sense and Soul besides Corporeal Matter and Motion and consequently that man is indeed man. But alas they must die sooner perhaps before they attain so far and their Successors must begin all anew again as if none of all these great attempts had been made by their Predecessours and so by their method we shall never reach deeper than the Skin nor learn more than our A B C And would we have such a task made necessary to the Common
Love of God You say if such and such men be suffered this and that disorder and inconvenience will follow But is it a greater thing than Love that you would maintain Is it a greater evil than the destruction of Love that you would avoid Did not Christ prefer mercy before Sabbath rest and before the avoiding familiarity with sinners Pretend nothing against Love that is not better than Love. Obj. But what is this to the Love of God which the Text speaketh of Ans As God is here seen as in a Glass so is he loved He that Loveth not his Brother whom he seeth daily how shall he Love God whom he never saw He that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Liar What you do to his Brethren you do as to Christ If you can find as full a promise of Salvation to those that observe your Canons Ceremonies Orders or are of your Opinion and Sect as I can shew you for them that Love Christ and his Servants then prefer the former before Love. I know that the Love and Good of Church and State and of many must be preferred before the love and good of few But take heed of their hypocrisie that make these also inconsistent when they are not and make publick good and peace a meer pretence for their Persecutions on one side or their Schisms on the other Love is so amiable to nature itself that few of its Enemies oppose it but under pretence of its own interest and name It is as in love to the Church to mens Souls that the Inquisition hath murdered so many and the Laws de Hereticis comburendis have been made and Executed But this Burning Hanging Tormenting and undoing kind of Love needeth very clear proof to make good its name and pretences before impartial men will take it for love indeed Whatever good you seem to do by the detriment of Love to God and Man you will find it will not bear your charges Chap. 18. Exh. Bend all your Studies and Labours to the exercise and increase of Love both of God and Man and all good works THE greatest best and sweetest work should have the greatest diligence This great Commandment must be obeyed with the greatest care The work of love must be the work of our whole life If you cannot learn to pray and preach no nor to follow a worldly trade without study and much Exercise how think you to be proficients in the love of God without them Do this well and all is done O happy Souls that are habituated and daily exercised in this work Whose new nature and life and study and business is holy Love. 1. How Divine how High and Noble is this life To live in a humble friendship with God and all his holy ones All animals naturally Love their like and converse according to their Love And men as men have as much sociable Love to men as the love of sin and inordinate self-love will allow them And they that truly love God and Holiness and Saints do shew that they have some connatural suitableness to these excellent Objects of their love Nothing more aptly denominateth any man Divine and Holy than Divine and Holy Love. How else should Souls have Communion with God His common Influx all creatures receive In him all live and move and have their being But when his Love kindleth in us a reflecting Love this is felicity itself Yea it is much nobler than our felicity For though our felicity consist in Loving God and being Beloved of him yet it is a far more excellent thing by reason that God is the Object of our love than by reason that it is our felicity Gods interest advanceth it more than ours And though they are not separable yet being distinguishable we should love God far more as God and perfect goodness in himself than as he or this love is our own felicity 2. This life of love is the true improvement of all Gods Doctrines Ordinances Mercies Afflictions and other Providences whatsoever For the use of them all is to lead us up to Holy Love and to help us in the daily exercise of it What is the Bible else written for but to teach us to Love and to exercise the fruits of Love What came Christ from Heaven for but to demonstrate and reveal Gods love and loveliness to man and by reconciling us to God and freely pardoning all our sins and promising us both Grace and Glory to shew us those motives which should kindle Love and to shew us that God is most suitable and worthy of our Love and to fill us with the Spirit of love which may give us that which he commandeth us What is it that we read books for and hear Sermons for but to kindle and exercise holy Love What joyn we for in the Sacred worship of the assemblies but that in an united flame of holy love we might all mount up in praise to Jehovah What is the Lords day separated to but the tidings of love the Sufferings Victories and Triumphs of our Saviours love the Tasts and Prospects of Gods love to us and the lively and joyful exercise of ours to him and to each other What use are the Sacraments of but that being entertained at the most wonderful Feast of Love we should tast its sweetness and pour out the grateful sense of it in holy Thanksgiving and Praise and the exercise of uniting love to one another What are Church Societies or Combinations for but the loving Communion of Saints Which the primitive Christians expressed by selling all and living in a Community of love and stedfastly continuing in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and breaking of bread and Prayer What are all Gods mercies for but that as by Love tokens we should tast that he is Love and Good and should by that tast be inclined to returns of Love Nay what are Civil Societies but loving Communions if used according to their natures Did they not love each other so many Bees would never hive and work together nor so many Pigeons dwell peaceably in one Dove-house nor fly together in so great flocks What is the whole Christian Faith for but the doctrine of holy love believed for the kindling and exercise of our love what is faith itself but the bellows of love What is the excellency of all good works and gifts and endowments but to be the exercises of love to God and man and the incentives of our brethrens Love Without love all these are dead Carkasses and as nothing and without it we our selves are as nothing yea though we give all that we have to the poor or give our bodies like martyrs to be burnt or could speak with the tongue the Orthodoxness and Elegancy of Angels we were but as sounding brass and as a tinkling Cymbal James knew what he said when he said that Faith without works is dead because without love it is dead which those works are but the
it so wisely and so well as they Men will compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte and Tares and Weeds are as much inclined to propagation as the Wheat There is a marvellous desire in the Nature of man to make others of their own Opinion and when it is governed by Gods Laws it is greatly beneficial to the World. And even in Affections as well as Knowledge it is so We would have others love those that we love and hate what we hate Though where by the insufficiency of the narrow Creature Men must lose and want that themselves which they Communicate to others selfishness forbiddeth such Communication And doubtless all the Creatures in their several Ranks have some such Impresses from the Creator by which his transcendent perfections may be somewhat observed That God is now so Communicative as to give to all Creatures in the World whatever Being Motion Life Order Beauty Harmony Reason Grace Glory any of them possess is past all question to considering sober reason Which tempted Aristotle to think that the World was Eternal and some Christians to think that though this present Heaven and Earth were Created as in Gen. 1. is said yet that from Eternity some Intellectual World at least if not also Corporeal did flow from the Creator as an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause or an Eternal Accident of the Deity Because they could not receive it that a God so unspeakably Communicative now who hath made the Sun to be an Emblem of his Communicativeness should from all Eternity be solitary and not communicative when yet to all Eternity he will be so But these are questions which uncapable Mortals were far better let alone than meddle with unless we desire rather to be lost than to be blessed in the Abyss of Eternity and the thoughts of infinite pregnant LOVE But it is so natural for man and every Animal to love that love and goodness which is beneficent not only to us but to all rather than a meer self-lover that doth no good to others that it must needs conduce much to our love of God to consider that he is good to all and his mercy is over all his works and that as there is no light in the Air but from the Sun so there is no goodness but from God in all the World who is more to the Creation than the Sun is to this lower World. And a Sun that lighteth all the Earth is much more precious than my Candle A Nilus which watereth the Land of Egypt is more precious than a private Well It is the Excellency of Kings and publick Persons that if they are good they are good to many And O what innumerable Animals in Sea and Land besides the far greater Worlds of nobler Wights do continually live by one God of Love Study this Universal Infinite Love. Direct 3. Especially study Divine LOVE and Goodness in the Face of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and all the Grace which he hath purchased and conferreth As we may see that magnitude of the Stars in a Telescope which without it no Eye can discern so may we see that glory of the love of God by the Gospel of Jesus which all common natural helps are insufficient to discover to such minds as ours LOVE is the great Attribute which Christ came principally to manifest as was afore-said Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.1 c. And love is the great Lesson which he came to teach us and love is the new nature which by his Spirit he giveth us And love is the great duty which by Law and Gospel he requireth of us Love hath wrought its Miracles in Christ to the posing of the understandings of Men and Angels There we may see God in the nearest condescending Unity with Man In Christ we may see the divine wisdom and word incorporate in such Flesh as ours conceived in a Virgin by the power of the Spirit of Love by which Spirit this Incorporate Word did Live Preach Converse familiarly with Man work Miracles heal Diseases suffer reproachful Calumnies and Death Rising Triumphing Ascending Interceeding sending the Embassies of Love to the World calling Home the greatest sinners unto God reconciling Enemies and making them the Adopted Sons of God forgiving all sin to penitent Believers quickening dead Souls illuminating the Blind and sanctifying the Wicked by the Spirit of Life and Light and Love and making it his Office his Work his Delight and Glory to rescue the miserable Captives of the Devil and to make Heirs of Heaven of those that were condemned to Hell and had forsaken Life in forsaking God. As this is shining burning love so it is approaching and self-applying love which cometh so near us in ways and benefits so necessary to us and so exceeding congruous to our case as that it is easier for us to perceive and feel it than we can do things of greater distance The clearer the Eye of Faith is by which we look into this mysterious Glass the more the wonders of Love will be perceived in it He never knew Christ nor understood the Gospel that wondered not at Redeeming saving love nor did he ever learn of Christ indeed that hath not learned the Lesson Work and Life of love Direct 4. Keep as full Records as you can of the particular Mercies of God to your selves and frequently peruse them and plead them with your frozen Hearts These are not the chiefest reasons of Christian love because we are such poor inconsiderable Worms that to do good to one of us is a far smaller matter than many things else that we have to think of for that end But yet when love doth chuse a particular Person for its object and there bestow its obliging Gifts it helpeth that Person far more than others to returns of thankfulness and love It 's that place that Glass which the Sun doth shine upon doth reflect its Beams rather than those that are shut up in darkness Self-love may and must be regulated and sanctified to the furthering of higher love It is not unmeet to say with David Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication We should say as heartily I love the Lord because he hath prospered recovered comforted my Neighbour But this is not all so easie as the other And where God by personal application maketh our greatest duty easie we should use his helps Obj. But if it be selfishness as some tell us to love one that loveth us better than another of equal worth who doth not love us is it not selfishness to love God on so low an account as loving us God may say well I love those that love me Prov. 8.17 because to love him is the highest virtue but to love us is as inconsiderable as we are Ans 1. You may love another the more for loving you on several accounts 1. As it is a duty which God requireth him to perform but so you must love him equally
on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe
it thus with extraordinary diligence but with different successes And Lyra with other old ones turn all quite another way And then come Grotius and Dr. Hammond and contradict both sides and make it all saving a few Verses to have been fulfilled many Ages since And can the unlearned or the unstudied part of Ministers then with any modesty pretend a certainty where so many and such men differ I know it is said Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things which are written therein But that proveth no more than 1. That some of it as ch 1 2 3. is plain and commonly intelligible 2. That it is a desirable thing to understand the rest and worthy mens endeavour in due time and rank and he that can attain to certainty may be glad of it I pass by the darkness of many Types and Prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and how little the Jews or the Apostles themselves till after Christs Resurrection understood them With very many other obscurities which yet are not written in vain nay which make up the true perfection of the whole IX There are very many proverbial Speeches in the Scripture which are not to be understood as the words properly signifie but as the sense of those Proverbs then was among the Jews But disuse hath so totally obliterated the knowledge of the sense of many of them that no man living can certainly understand them X. There are many Texts which have words adapted to the Places the Animals the Utensils the Customs the Coins the Measures the Vegetables c. of that place and time which are some hard and some impossible now to be certainly understood And therefore such as Bochart Salmasius Casaubone Scaliger c. have done well to add new Light to our conjectures but leaving great uncertainty still XI Because the Jewish Law is by Paul plainly said to be ceased or done away it remaineth very difficult to be certain of abundance of passages in the Old Testament how far they are obligatory to us For when they now bind no otherwise than as the continued Law of nature or as reassumed by Christ into his special Law where the latter is not found in the former there is often insuperable difficulty For most lyeth upon the proof of a parity of Reason which puts us upon trying cases hardly tryed unless we knew more of the reason of all those Laws As about Vows and Dispensations Num. 30. about prohibited degrees of Marriage and such like which makes Divines so much differ about the obligation of the Judicials of which see Junius vol. 1. p. 1861 c. de Polit. Mos observ and about Usury Priesthood Magistrates power in Religion and many such XII There are abundance of Texts which only open the substance of the matter in hand to us and say nothing about abundance of difficulties of the manner and many circumstances as the manner of the Divine influx and the Spirits operation on the Soul c. And here all that which is unrevealed must needs be unknown XIII There are many Precepts which were local personal particular and so temporary and bind not universally all Persons at all times afterwards Such as the Rechabites Precepts from their Father and such as the Love Feasts the Kiss of Love Womens Veil and long Hair Mens being uncovered c. Now it is very hard to know in all instances whether the Precepts were thus temporary or universal and durable which makes Divines differ about the Anointing of the Sick the Office of Deacons and Deaconesses the Power of Bishops and Extent of their Diocesses the Eating things strangled and Blood against which Chr. Beckman in his Exercit. hath abundance of shrewd Arguments though few are of his mind In these cases few reach a Certainty and none so full a Certainty as in plainer things XIV It is very hard to be Certain when and how far Examples of holy men in Scripture bind us Though I have elsewhere proved that wherever the Apostles practice was the Execution of their Commission for setling Church Orders in which Christ promised them the help of his Spirit their Practice was obligatory Yet in many instances the obligation of Examples is very doubtful Which occasioneth the Controversies about imitating John Baptist's Life in the Wilderness and Anna and about Lent and about Baptizing by dipping over Head and about the Lords Supper whether it should be Administred to a Family or at Evening only or after Supper or Sitting or in a private House c. And about washing Feet and many Church Orders and Affairs XV. There are many things in Scripture that are spoken but once or twice and that but as on the by and not very plainly And we cannot be so Certain of any Doctrine founded on these as on passages frequently and plainly written XVI There are so many seeming differences in Scripture especially about Numbers as that if they be reconcileable few or none in the World have yet found out the way If we mention them not our selves such paultry Fellows will do it as Bened. Spinosa in his Tractatus Theolog. Polit. I will not cite any but desire the Learned Reader to consider well of what that Learned and Godly man Ludov. Capellus saith in his Critic Sacr. l. c. 10. and l. 6. c. 7 8. I own not his supposition of a better Hebrew Copy used by the Sept. I think an impartial considerer of his instances will confess that as God never promised all or any of the Scribes or Printers of the Bible any infallible Spirit that they should never write or print a word falsly and as it is certain by the various Lections that many such there have been in many and most Books so there is no one Scribe that had a promise above the rest nor any one Hebrew or Greek Copy which any man is sure is absolutely free from such miswritings For how should we be sure of that one above all the rest And I wish the Learned Reader to consider Bibliander's Preface to his Hebr. Grammar and Casaubone's Exercit. 1. § 28. and Pellicanus his Preface to his Coment on the Bible Hierom on Mic. 5.2 is too gross de Matth. 2. Quod Testimonium nec Haebraico nec 70 Interpretibus convenire c. Let him read the rest that will which is harsher he that will not confess miswritings of numbers and some names and words heretofore as well as some misprintings now doth but by his pretended Certainty tempt men to question the rest for the sake of that and injureth the Sacred Word XVII We have not the same degree of Certainty of the Canonicalness or Divineness of every Book of Scripture Though they are all Gods Word they have not all the same Evidence that they are so The New Testament had a fuller Attestation from Heaven for its Evidence to man than most of the Old had And of the
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
The Lord deliver us from such wit and learning Is it not enough to refuse Heaven and choose Hell in the certain causes to lose the only day of their hopes and in the midst of light to be incomparably worse than mad but they must needs be accounted wise and learned in all this self-destroying folly As if like the Physician who boasted that he killed men according to the Rules of art it were the heighth of their ambition to go learnedly to Hell and with Reverend gravity and wit to live here like brutes and hereafter with Devils for evermore Chap. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly world hateth Holiness and not Learning FRom my very Child-hood when I was first sensible of the concernments of mens Souls I was possest with some admiration to find that every where the Religious godly sort of people who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other mens Salvation were made the wonder and obloquy of the world Especially of the most vitious and flagitious men so that they that professed the same Articles of faith the same Commandments of God to be their Law and the same Petitions of the Lords Prayer to be their desire and so professed the same Religion did every where revile those that did endeavour to live according to that same profession and to seem to be in good sadness in what they said I thought that this was impudent Hypocrisie in the ungodly worldly sort of men To take them for the most intolerable persons in the Land who are but serious in their own Religion and do but endeavour to perform what all their Enemies also vow'd and promised If religion be bad and our faith be not true why do these men profess it If it be true and good why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practice of it if they will not practise it themselves But we must not expect Reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world and the concord of the Word and Providences of God I took it for a notable proof of mans fall and of the verity of the Scripture and the supernatural Original of true Sanctification to find such an universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed and to find Cain and Abels case so ordinarily exemplified and him that is born after the Flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian Faith. But that which is much Remarkable in it is that nothing else in the world except the Crossing of mens carnal interest doth meet with any such universal enmity A man may be as learned as he can and no man hate him for it If he excel all others all men will praise him and proclaim his excellency He may be an excellent Linguist an excellent Philosopher an excellent Physician an excellent Logician an excellent Orator and all commend him Among Musicians Architects Souldiers Seamen and all Arts and Sciences men value prefer and praise the best Yea even Speculative Theology such wits as the Schoolmen and those that are called great Divines are honoured by all and meet as such with little Enmity Persecution or Obloquy in the world Though I know that even a Galilaeus a Campanella and many such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors that was not so much in enmity to their Speculations or Opinions as through a fear lest new Philosophical notions should unsettle mens minds and open the way to new opinions in Theology and so prove injurious to the Kingdom and Interest of Rome I know also that Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucan and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of Tyrants But that was not for their Learning but for their opposition to those Tyrants Wills and Interests And I know that some Religious men have suffered for their Sins and Follies and some for their medling too much with secular affairs as the Councellours of Princes as Functius Justus Jonas and many others But yet no Parts no Excellency no Skill or Learning is hated commonly but honoured in the World no not Theological Learning save only this practical Godliness and Religion and the Principles of it which only rendereth men amiable to God through Christ and saveth mens Souls To know and love God and live as those that know and love him to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to walk circumspectly in a holy and heavenly Conversation and studiously to obey the Laws of God this which must save us this which God loveth and the Devil hateth is hated also by all his Children for the same malignity hath the same effect But methinks this should teach all considering men to perceive what Knowledge it is that is best and most desirable to all that love their happiness Sure this sort of Learning Wit and Art which the Devil and the malignant World do no more dispraise oppose and persecute though as it is sanctified to higher ends it be good yet of it self is comparatively no very excellent and amiable thing I know Satan laboureth to keep out Learning it self that is truly such from the world because he is the Prince and Promoter of darkness and the Enemy of all useful light And lower Knowledge is some help to higher and speculative Theology may prepare for practical and the most gross and brutish ignorance best serveth the Devils designs and turn And even in Heathen Rome the Arts prepared men for the Gospel and Learning in the Church Reformers hath ever been a great help and furtherance of Reformation But yet if you stop in Learning and Speculation and take it as for it self alone and not as a means to holiness of Heart and Life it is as nothing It is Paul's express resolution of the case that if we have all Knowledge without this holy Love we are nothing but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13. But surely there is some special excellency in this holy knowledge and Love and Obedience which the Devil and the malignant World so hate in high and low in rich and poor in Kindred Neighbours Strangers or any where they meet with it It is not for nothing This is the Image of God this is it that is contrary to their carnal Minds and to their fleshly Lusts and sinful Pleasures This tells them what they must be and do or be undone for ever which they cannot abide to be or do Let us therefore be somewhat the wiser for this discovery of the mind of the Devil and all his Instruments I will love and honour all Natural Artificial acquired Excellencies in Philology Philosophy and the rest As these expose not men to the Worlds Obloquy so neither unto mine or any sober mans In their low places they are good and may be used to a greater good
yet the true ultimate end of all things is God himself And the love of God is the highest love And Gods Justice is not without that love of himself and tendeth to that good which he is capable of receiving which is but the fulfilling or complacency of his own will which is but improperly called his Receiving 2. And we little know how many in another World or in the renewed Earth are to be profited by his Justice on the damned as Angels and Men are by his Justice on the Devils 1. LOVE is the Life of Religion and of the Soul and of the Church And what can be a just pretence for any to destroy or oppose the very Life of Religion the Life of Souls and the Life of the Church of Christ Physick Blood-letting and Dismembring may be used for Life But to take away Life except necessarily for a Good that is better than that life is Murder And what is it that is better than the Life of Religion in all matters of Religion Or than the life of the Church in all Church affairs Or than the life of mens Souls in all matters of Soul concernment 2. LOVE is the great command and summary of all the Law And what can be a just pretence for breaking the greatest command yea and the whole Law 3. LOVE is Gods Image and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God who is LOVE and God in him And what can be a pretence sufficient for destroying the Image of God which is called by his name 4. There is nothing in man that God himself loveth better than our love And therefore nothing that as better can be set against it And yet alas what enmity is used in the World against the Love of God and Man and many things alledged as pretences to justify it Let us consider of some few of them 1. The great Tyrants of the World such as in several ages have been the Plagues of their own and neighbour Nations care not what havock they make of Religion and of mens lives by Bloody Wars and Cruel Persecutions destroying many thousands and undoing far more thousands of the Country Families where their armies come and sacrificing the lives of the best of their subjects by butcheries or flames And what is the pretence for all this Perhaps they would be Lords of more of the World and would have larger Kingdoms Or more honour Perhaps some Prince hath spoken a hard word of them or done them some wrong Perhaps some subjects believe not as they bid them believe or forbear not to worship God in a manner which they forbid them Perhaps Daniel will not give over praying for a time or the Apostles will not give over preaching or the three Confessors will not fall down to the Golden Image and so Nebuchadnezzar or the other Rulers seem despised And their wills and honour are an Interest that with them seemeth to warrant all this But how long will it seem so I had rather any friend of mine had the Sins of a Thief or Drunkard or the most infamous Sinner among us to answer for than the Sins of a Bloody Alexander Caesar or Tamerlane 2. The Roman Clergy set up Inquisitions force men by cruelties to submit to their Church Keys whose very nature is to be used without force and they silence yea torment the faithful Ministers of Christ and have murdered thousands of his faithful people raised rebellions against Princes and Wars in Kingdoms and taught men to hate Gods Servants as Hereticks Schismaticks Rebels Factious and what not And what pretence must justify all this Why the Interest of the Pope and Clergy called in ignorance or craft by the name of the Holy Church Religion Unity and such other honourable name But must their Church live on Blood and holy Blood And be built or preserved by the destruction of Christs Church Must their doctrine be kept up by silencing faithful Ministers and their worship by destroying or undoing the true worshippers of Christ Are all these precious things which die with Love no better than to be sacrificed to the Clergies Pride and Worldly lusts 3. Among many Schismaticks and Sectaries that are not miscalled so but are such indeed their Discipline consisteth in separating from most other Christians as too bad and that is too unlovely to be of their Communion and their Preaching is much to make those seem bad that is unlovely that are not of their way and their worship is much such as relisheth of the same envy and strife to add affliction or reproaches to their Brethren or to draw the people from the Love of others unto them And their ordinary talk is back-biting others for things that they understand not and reporting any lie that is brought them and telling the hearers something of this Minister or that person or the other that is unlovely as if Satan had hired them to Preach down Love and prate and pray down Love and all this in the name of Christ And the third chapter of James is harder than Hebrew to them they do not understand it but though they tear it not out of the Bible they leave it out of the Law in their Hearts as much as the Papists leave the Second Commandment out of their Books And it is one of the marks of a good man among them to talk against other parties and make others odious to set up them And what are the Pretences for all this Why Truth and Holiness 1. Others have not the Truth which they have And 2. Others are not against the same Doctrines and Ceremonies and Bishops and Church Orders and ways of worship which they are against and therefore are ungodly antichristian or men of no Religion But Truth seldom dwelleth with the Enemies of Love and Peace They that are Strangers and Enemies to it indeed do often cry it up and cry down those as Enemies to it that possess it The wisdom that hath bitter envying and heart-strife is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish I admonish all that care for their Salvation that they set up nothing upon love killing terms If you are Christs disciples you are taught of God to love each other you are taught it as Christs last and great Commandment You are taught it by the wonderful example of his life and specially Joh. 13.14 By his washing hiâ— disciples feet You are taught it by the Holy Ghosts uniting the hearts of the disciples and making them by Charity to live as in Community Acts 3. and 4. You are taught it by the Effective operation of the Spirit on your own hearts The new nature that is in you inclineth you to it And will you now pretend the necessity of your own Interest Reputation your Canons and things indifferent your little Church orders of your own making yea or the positive institutions of Christ himself as to the present exercise against this Love Hath Christ commanded you any thing before it except the