Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n
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A25478
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A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically resolved by sundry ministers; Morning-exercise at Cripplegate. Supplement.
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Annesley, Samuel, 1620?-1696.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing A3240; ESTC R13100
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974,140
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814
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and with all the soul and with all the mind and how may we be able to do it In short we must love God as near as it is possible infinitely For directions in this Case I shall follow this method 1. Shew you what it is to love God with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the mind 2. I shall endeavour to demonstrate that it is our unquestionable and indispensable duty so to love God 3. I shall acquaint you what Abilities are requisite for the well-discharging of this duty and how to attain them 4. I shall give you directions how to improve and augment all the abilities we can get that we may have a growing love to God 5. I shall close with the best perswasives I can think of that you would be graciously ambitious of such qualifications and vigorously diligent in such duties 1. What is it to love God with all the heart soul and mind We must not be too curious in distinguishing these words the same thing is meant when the words are used singly as a 1 King 14.8 David is said to follow God with all his heart and doubly b 2 King 23.3 Josiah made his people as well as himself to covenant to walk after the Lord with all their heart and all their soul and where three words are used as c Deut. 6 5. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and when four words are used as d Mark 12.30 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength Love to God must go through and possess our whole nature and all the powers of it The mind must think of God the will must delight in God in short e Bucer our whole strength must be employ'd to please him We must love nothing more than God nothing equal with God we must love God above all and that for himself but all other things in God and for God We must be willing to lose all yea life it self rather than to admit any thing contrary to the love of God * Gerhard Harm All these expressions denote the intensness of our affections the unexpressibleness of our obligation and the contemptibleness of every thing that shall challenge a share in our love All these expressions admonish us of our infirmity provoke us to humility and set us a longing after a better life 'T is a notable expression of one g Auth. impers operis The love of the heart is not understood but felt the love of the soul is not felt but understood because the love of the soul is its judgment He that loves God as he is here commanded believes that all good is in God and that God is all that is good and that without God there is no good he believes that God is All Power and Wisdom and that without God there 's neither Power nor Wisdom c. But notwithstanding all that hath been spoken no doubt but there is a singular emphasis in the words and the Holy Ghost intends a more full declaration of the manner of our love by these several expressions Though to be over-critical in the distinguishing of these words will rather intricate than explicate this great command yet to follow a plain Scriptural interpretation will give light into the duty Let 's enquire therefore 1. What it is to love 2. What it is to love God 3. What it is to love God in that manner here express'd 1. What is love Love is an affection of union whereby we desire What love is or enjoy perpetual union with the thing loved h Mar. L. It is not a carnal love I am now to speak of the Philosopher could observe that there can be no true love among wicked men It is not a natural love for that may as well be brutish as rational and divine love is transcendently rational It is not a meerly moral love for that consists in a mean but divine love is alwayes in an extream Divine love is a compound of all the former but it adds infinitely more to them than it borrows of them Divine love is supernaturally natural it turns Moral virtues into Spiritual graces It engageth men to attempt as much for the glorifying of God as all the creatures besides from the highest Angel to the most insensible Stone 2. What it is love to God Methinks a lax description best suits my design This Divine love 't is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God What it is to love God 't is the extasie and ravishment of the heart in God 't is the Soul's losing its self in God 't is the continual working of the heart towards God every faculty of the Soul is actually engaged The Mind is musing and plodding how to please God and enjoy him the Will is graciously obstinate the policy of hell cannot charm it off it's object the Affections are all Passions in their eager motions towards God the Conscience is a busie-body necessitating the whole man to a jealous watch I said this love 't is the enlargement of the heart towards God when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart 't is as the breaking of a Ball of lightning it sets all on a flame immediately It is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God the highest Rhetorick is too flat to express it as is obvious in that Song of Songs that Song of loves I have no way to set this out unto you but by words the plainest and most intelligible expressions I can give you shall be by several similitudes which I shall pursue till they leave me to admiration I shall borrow Metaphors from things without life from Plants from sensitive Creatures from Man 1. The Soul's love to God may be a little shadow'd forth Metaphors to illustrate what it is to love God by the love of the Iron to the Loadstone which ariseth from a hidden quality though to say so is but the hiding of our ignorance the motion of the Iron toward the Loadstone is slow while at a distance but quick when near and when it but touches it it clings so fast that unless forc'd 't will never part and when it is parted 't will to the farthest part of the World retain the vertue of its touch so the soul while at a distance from God it moves slowly but as the Father draws it runs and when once it comes to be graciously united the Apostle asks i Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of God not only who shall hinder us from partaking of Gods love but who can take us off from our loving of God Christ gives the answer k John 10.28.29 their union with God their enjoyment of God is inseperable and though they may as sometimes they will in their
yet they pretend to do all in his Name Mat. 7.22 23. but are not owned by him I Answer It is one thing to pretend to do a thing in the Name of Christ another thing to do it indeed that is by true Faith in his Name by which they are made one with him 2. There was in that Age a Faith of Miracles which though it were an Extraordinary gift and common both to Believers and Reprobates they might be said to do those great things in Christ's Name that is by a Power derived from him though they were not in Christ neither did own him as their Saviour nor were owned by him Ponum non nisi ex integra causa malum ex quolibet dâ—fâ—ctu 3. What is done properly in his Name in the sence of the Text must take into its compass all the foregoing particulars mentioned else it will not be accepted it must be done in the Name of Christ as Mediator Many things may be done in the Name of Christ even Mountains may be removed 1 Cor. 13.2 and yet not be done by Faith in his Name as has been said The third thing propounded was how we may come to do all in the Name of our Lord Jesus and this may be instead of a Use of Direction to us 1. We must be supposed to be in Christ before we can do any thing in Christ's Name according to that in John 15.4 5. where he tells us that except we abide in him that supposeth that they are in him first we can do nothing v. 5. for he compares our being in him to that of a Branch in the Vine which cannot bear Fruit of it self unless it abide in the Vine Luther enquiring into the reason why so many ordinary things done by the Saints are set down in Scripture with a mark of Honour upon them and yet the moral vertues and famous deeds of the great Philosophers and others are passed by Answers that the reason is because their Persons are not in Christ and therefore their actions are not accepted and saith Si vel Cicero vel Socrates sanguinem sudasset tamen propterea non placeret Deo If Socrates or Cicero had sweat drops of blood their actions had not pleased God Coment in Gen. 29. 2. Supposing we are one with Christ we must Exercise Faith upon him and have constant recourse to him in all that ever we do for the supplyes of his Grace and Spirit 1 Pet. 2.20 By Faith resigning all to him casting all our burdens and cares upon him committing our selves and all our affairs to him and fetching in all our strength from him Christ tells us Whatever we ask the Father in his Name shall be given to us John 15.16 John 16.23 26. For whatever we ask in Prayer believing we shall receive Mat. 21.22 Jam. 5.15 So that if we would be enabled to do all in the Name of Christ we must Exercise Faith in his Name in Prayer to God for all things for he is in Office in Heaven for this purpose Heb. 7.25 for he ever Liveth to make Intercession for us The hand of Faith put forth in Prayer though but in ejaculatory Prayer draws vertue from Heaven as we read when he was on Earth those that did but touch him drew vertue from him Luke 6.19 Luke 8.46 3. Living close and secret Communion with the Lord Jesus in the use of all his Ordinances by and through which he communicates himself in the fulness and freeness of Life Light Love and Grace to our Souls for they be the Golden Pipes spoken of Zach. 4.12 by which the Golden Oyl is convey'd to our Souls for his Name is an oyntment poured forth in dayes of Holy Communion Cant. 1.3 By this means we come to have further acquaintance with him and peace from him to see his Power and Glory and our Souls to be satisfied as with marrow and fatness Psal 63.5 and to be changed into his Image 2 Cor. 3.18 and to be refreshed with fuller tasts of his love which is better than Wine 4. Exercise your thoughts much upon him and be much taken up with him in the course of your lives but in a special manner upon singular occasions The Psalmist Psal 73.23 saith I am continually with thee that was in his heart and thoughts Let your thoughts be taken up much in the consideration how to manage your affairs so as may be according to the mind of Christ by strength derived from him and for his honour that we may be accepted in our works Perhaps you will object that it is impossible we should in every business of our lives have actual thoughts of Christ and his Glory or go actually to him for assistance and guidance in every particular business I answer 1. There may and must be an habitual gracious holy frame of heart in us wrought by the Spirit by which we may be strongly inclined to the Lord Christ and his Word as our Rule and his Glory as our end so that we do in the full purpose of our hearts resolve to trust in him and commit our selves to him and rest upon him for help assistance guidance acceptance and success in all things What David pray'd for for himself and people when they were in a good frame of heart is the desire and endeavour of every believer 1 Chron. 29.18 viz. that the Lord would keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of their hearts and prepare their hearts unto him This is the habitual preparation of the heart for God this frame of heart is the New Creature in us 2. When we have especial and particular work to do for Christ then there ought to be an actual preparation of our hearts for him and stirring up the grace that is in us an actual making out after him and laying hold on him for strength and grace from him in time of need Heb. 4. last This is especially to be done upon more solemn and momentous occasions then we must in an especial manner think upon that word that was spoken to Israel Amos 4.11 Prepare to meet thy God We read Exod. 40.30 31. there was a Laver before the Altar in which they were to wash before they went into the Congregation for service We cannot sanctifie God in an Ordinance except we prepare for him which is all one with sanctifying of God Levit. 10.3 1 Sam. 16.5 Samuel when he came to sacrifice to the Lord said to the Elders of Bethleem Sanctifie your selves and come with me to the Sacrifice 3. The more frequent actual thoughts we have of Christ and his Word and our eye upon the Rule and his Glory as our end it is the better ever therefore we should often call upon our selves as Deborah did Judges 5.12 Awake Deborah awake c. There must be an actual excitation of our selves and exercising of our Graces when we have some special duty to perform It is said of Sampson Judges 16.20 That he went