3. Nor let us judge ourselves by any passionate fits of love, which
Spirit in a more close, familiar, and strict communion, and more certain possession. Where there are the actings of love, though there should be no sense of any new income, this grace would bring a satisfaction in the very exercise.
Now for the trial of this love.
1. Let us not judge ourselves by a general love. As there is a general love of God to man, a general love of Christ to mankind in dying, and giving a conditional grant of salvation upon faith and repentance, and a particular love to the soul of a believer, so likewise in man there is a general assent, and a particular serious assent to the truth of God, and accordingly a general love upon the apprehensions of what Christ hath done in general. There is a common love to God, which may be so called, because the benefits enjoyed by men are owned as coming from that fountain; a love arising from the apprehensions which men commonly have of the goodness of God in himself, and a common love wrought in them to God, as to other things that are good. Again, men may have a false faith, and a false apprehension of pardon of sin, when indeed no such pardon is granted to them; so they may have proportionally a false love upon such an ungrounded belief.
2. Nor let us judge ourselves to be lovers of God because of our education. Many have no higher reason of their love to Christ, but because their forefathers professed him; and so upon the same score that any heathen loved his idol, an Egyptian his Apis and onions, or a Turk his Mahomet, or a papist his images, do many titular Christians love Christ. As among the papists many cleave to the popish principles, because their fathers did so, so among us, many have no other reason of their adhering to the Christian profession, and seeming affection to Christ, but the tradition handed to them by their parents.
3. Nor let us judge ourselves by any passionate fits of love, which may sometimes stir in our souls. There is a love in the sensitive part
which is the passion of love, a love rather stumbled on than judicially taken up; and those violent kinds of affections, whether of love, joy, or sorrow, are not long-lived. But there is a love in the will, which is a rational love, which consists in a consenting to, and choosing of,
Christ, and is always accompanied with a true faith.
But let us examine, (1.) The motives and object of our affection. Do we love God for himself, or for his benefits? To love Christ for the loaves, is common to the multitude. To love God for his outward mercies, is a natural love; to love him for himself, is a gracious love; to love him for his benefits, is rather to love ourselves, and love our own ends, than to love God. When the inducements to it are human, and not divine, it is a human and not a divine love. Many love Christ's dowry, but not his beauty; his merit, but not his person; as in marriages, many love the portion without affecting the person. True love is between person and person, not between person and estate; that is a true moral love, the other is a true physical love, but is defective in the due grounds and ends of it. Not but there is and may be a love of what God hath and promises, and the benefits he confers; this is a love of the reward. But when we love God merely for this, it is then amor mercenarius; when we love God for himself, and the reward in order to him, it is a genuine love; it respects other things for God, and God for himself. True love is grounded upon a sight of God, a serious and deep consideration of him, comparing him with other things, viewing those immeasurable excellencies which are in him, upon which the soul doth judiciously conclude, that there is infinitely more sweetness and amiableness in God and Christ, than in all the pleasures and profits of this world. Thus the spouse compares her beloved with other beloveds, Cant. 5:9, 10. She considers what the world affords, and wherewith it allures; and after a diligent inquisition, the object of her love is Christ's person, the motive of her love is Christ's excellency; and such a love will embrace a crucified as well as a glorified Christ, a condemned as well as an adored Christ.
Where God is loved for himself, everything of God is highly valued,
his word, his ways, his ordinances. Christ in his whole latitude is beloved in all his offices. In his death as a sacrifice, in his life as a pattern; the power of his death, as well as the propitiation by it.
(2.) What is the nature of our love?
[1.] In regard of the prevalency of it. Do we love Christ solely, supremely; doth this affection swallow up all other affections; as Moses his rod turned into a serpent, did the rods of the Egyptian magicians? Doth it, like the son, obscure the light of the lesser stars?
As God is the chief good in himself, he must be so in our esteem. A true conjugal affection to Christ excludes all other things from an equal interest in it; an equal affection to' Christ and the world are as inconsistent and prodigious as two suns in the world. The heathens knew the necessity of a prevailing love to their idols, to be at an expense for them. If the Israelites begin to be fond, though of a calf, they will deprive themselves of their jewels to serve it. This prevalent love of Christ is so necessary an ingredient, that it was the main lesson he pressed upon his disciples, Mat. 16:24, Luke 14:26. Self must be denied, if we follow Christ; all relations must be hated in comparison of Christ, if we be Christ's disciples. The soul of a man is too narrow and limited to be intensely affected with, and strongly to pursue, at one and the same time, two different objects. The heart must be a throne reserved for Christ, where other things must sit at his feet. For as Christ gives himself wholly to the soul, the soul must bestow itself wholly on Christ; and as Luther, Mallem ruere cum
Christo, quàm regnare cum Cæsare, I would rather perish with the interest of Christ, than reign in grandeur with Cæsar. A hypocrite wills Christ in subordination to inferior goods. A sincere votary to Christ wills inferior goods in subordination to Christ. Do we thus love Christ in that which crosseth most the carnal inclinations and interest of corrupt nature?
[2.] In regard of the restlessness of it. Can nothing but Christ and the enjoyment of him content us? Are there inquiries after him, industrious pursuits, unutterable groans, that nothing can satisfy us,
no, not all the world, without him? Are we importunate, that he may be as a seal in our hearts, as well as we as a seal in his heart, that there may be clearer engravings, stronger impressions? A true lover rejoiceth that he hath any love to give to God, and grieves that he hath no more to bestow. His life is bound up in Christ, as Jacob's was in Benjamin. An hundred worlds cannot content him without his beloved. He is upon his watch and guard against all temptations which may disturb his affection or enjoyment, and accounts the missing of Christ worse than hell itself; all other things will be abhorred, and accounted as loss and dung, Philip. 3:8.
[3.] What are the effects and concomitants of our love? Are we careful to please him, though with our own shame? Christ's love made him take the form of a servant to pleasure man; the soul's love will make it take up the meanest shape to please the Redeemer.
Christ cared not how much he was emptied, so he might discover his love; the soul cares not how much it is humbled, so it may testify its affection. It is like the string of an instrument strained to the same height with another, which will move when the other is touched. A true affectionate soul will be conformed to Christ in its motions: Gal.
1:10, 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' In the state of unregeneracy he pleased men, but now as a servant he would please Christ his Master. Are we in our bent and resolution careful to please God, without regard to the oppositions of the world? as the sun holds on its race, though the clouds gather to hinder the shining of it. Are we desirous of his glory, as well as our own happiness? Would we rather lose what we desire, than defraud God of his right? Our own happiness is but a created good, and therefore ought not to be loved for itself. Nor must we prefer the gift before the glory of the giver; the glory of God is incomparably more amiable than our own happiness can be. If a man doth all for his own happiness more than for God's glory, it is certain he loves that more than God; and if he serves God only for happiness, he sells his service to God, and he serves himself not God, for he intends only to advantage himself, not to glorify God. It was plain that Delilah loved not Samson, when all her projects were to enrich herself, and gratify
the Philistines in betraying him; so if our projects be to satisfy ourselves, we are not lovers of God. Are the duties he enjoins delightful to us? Do the commands which were before burdensome cease to be grievous to us? 1 John 5:3. Are our duties not so much pressed by natural conscience, as sweetened by love? Do we esteem lightly of every service we do? True love never thinks it can do enough. Are we tender of his honour? Do we account the enemies of God our enemies? Ps. 119:21, 22. The Philistines loved their Dagon, when they would not tread upon the threshold where he had received a disgrace, 1 Sam. 5:4, 5. How is it as to constancy? True love will not be quenched by the waters of afflictions: Cant. 8:7, 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' It is a fire that triumphs over the waters of the sharpest dispensations. When storms hang over the head, there is no repentance that ever his love was bestowed upon Christ. In this there is a suitableness between Christ's affection and the soul, in regard of the constancy of it. The creature's love hath its ebbs and floods. It is sometimes circumvented by temptations, in regard of the acts and exercise, though not of the habit, which recovers itself; as Christ's love hath intermissions in regard of the discoveries of it, though not in respect of the reality and truth of it; both are constant.
Another grace to be examined is love of God's people. This is the badge of a disciple: John 13:34, 35, 'A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.' This is the livery whereby men are known to belong to Christ, as a prince's servant is known by the badge he bears. It is not, as Erasmus notes, if you use this or that ceremony, have this or that habit; if you nee the same meat, have the same title, but if you have the same affection. This
Christ left as his last will and testament, as that which lay most peculiarly upon his heart to be observed by them. When Moses was to leave the conduct of the people,* he gives them a commandment not to depart from the law of God. When John the Baptist quitted his function, he recommended to his disciples the disposing themselves, by the baptism of repentance, to receive the Messiah; and by the observing this and their fasts, they were marked to be John's