-- Tit. 2. Directions for true Loving the children of God
Tit. 2. Directions for Loving the Children of God Direct. I. 'Once get the love of God, and you cannot choose but love his children.' Therefore first set your hearts to that, and study the Directions for it, Part i. God must be first loved as God, before the godly can be loved as such; though perhaps this effect may sometimes be more manifest than the cause: fortify the cause and the effect will follow.
Direct. II. 'Get Christ to dwell in your hearts by faith.' And then you will love his members for his sake. The study of the love of God in Christ, and the belief of all the benefits of his love and sufferings, will be the bellows continually to kindle your love to your Redeemer, and to all those that are like him and beloved by him.
Direct. III. 'Cherish the motions of God's Spirit in yourselves.' For he is a Spirit of love; and it is the same Spirit which is in all the saints; therefore the more you have of the Spirit, the more unity and the more love you will have to all that are truly spiritual. The decays of your own holiness, containeth a decay of your love to the holy.
Direct. IV. 'Observe their graces more than their infirmities.' You cannot love them unless you take notice of that goodness which is their loveliness. Overlooking and extenuating the good that is in others, doth shew your want of love to goodness, and then no wonder if you want love to to those that are good.
Direct. V. 'Be not tempters and provokers of them to any sin.' For that is but to stir up the worser part which is in them, and to make it more apparent; and so to hide their amiableness, and hinder your own love. They that will be abusing them, and stirring up their passions, or oppressing wise men to try if they can make them mad, or increasing their burdens and persecutions to see whether there be any impatience left in them, are but like the horseman who was still spurring his horse, and then sold him because he was skittish and unquiet: or like the gentleman that must needs come as a suitor to a
beautiful lady, just when she had taken a vomit and purge, and then disdained her for being unsavoury and loathsome.
Direct. VI. 'Stir up their graces, and converse much with them in the exercises of grace.' If Aristotle or Socrates, Demosthenes or Cicero, stood silent by you among other persons, you will perceive no difference between them and a fool or a vulgar wit: but when once they open their lips and pour out the streams of wisdom and eloquence, you will quickly perceive how far they excel the common world, and will admire, love and honour them. So when you converse with godly men about matters of trading or common employments only, you will see no more but their blamelessness and justice; but if you will join with them in holy conference or prayer, or observe them in good works, you will see that the Spirit of Christ is in them. When you hear the longings of their souls after God, and their heavenly desires, and hopes, and joys, and their love to piety, charity and justice, express themselves in their holy discourse and prayers, and see the fruits of them in their lives, you will see that they are more than common men.
Direct. VII. 'Foresee the perfection of their graces in their beginnings.' No man will love a seed or stock of those plants or trees which bear the most beautiful flowers and fruits, unless, in the seed he foresee the fruit or flower which it tendeth to. No man loveth the egg aright, who doth not foreknow what a bird it will bring forth.
Aristotle or Cicero were no more amiable in their infancy than others, except to him that could foretel what men they were like to prove. Think oft of heaven, and what a thing a saint will be in glory, when he shall shine as the stars, and be equal to the angels; and then you will quickly see cause to love them.
Direct. VIII. 'Frequently think of the everlasting union and sweet agreement which you must have with them in heaven for ever.' How perfectly you will love each other in the love of God! How joyfully you will consent in the love and praises of your Creator and Redeemer?
The more believingly you foresee that state, and the more you