CHAPTER IV. Another motive to obedience deduced from God's great love in giving his Son to die for
word is used)? What doth this glorious God, after all this love manifested, fall a-petitioning thee for (as though God did beseech, as the apostle hath it, 2 Cor. 5:20)? What doth he ask again of thee, as in answer to all this love? Nothing but thy love and thy obedience, which by the law of justice is a debt from equals, namely, to requite love with love, Rom. 12:8. He requires nothing but love, which (as Christ says) sinners, the worst of sinners, the most notorious sinners in the world, pay mutually: 'Publicans and sinners love those that love them,' Mat. 5:46, Luke 6:32.
CHAPTER IV
Another motive to obedience deduced from God's great love in giving his Son to die for us.—That he requires nothing in requital of so inestimable a gift, but that we should love, obey, and serve him.—
Other considerations of God's love urged, as motives to obedience; that he delights in loving us, and therefore it should be our delight to love and obey him.—The eternity and immutability of his love, urged as motives to faithful and constant obedience.
The greatness and immenseness of God's love in electing us was such, that he designed to shew it by a gift answerable: and that was the gift of his Son to death, to be a propitiation for our sins; and for this let us return again to that scripture in 1 John 4:10; 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' And then it follows, 'Beloved, if God so loved us', &c., he puts a so upon it, as leaving it to the Holy Ghost to heighten this so by him unutterable. Our Saviour had done the like:
John 3:16, 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son'—a gift so great, that he hath nothing now left he values: 'He that
spared not his Son, how shall he not with him give us all things?'
Rom. 8:32. Now then consider, O man, what doth this God, that designed to give so great a gift merely to commend his love, require of thee again? What! 'Thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, thy first-born in requital of his first-born?' He twice renounceth all or any of these, both in Ps 50 and Micah 6. What is it the Lord asks of thee (says Moses also, Deut. 10:12)? It is all a diminutive: alas! as good as nothing to him. It is but thy love, thy service, which when thou hast returned to him to the utmost thou art able, fall down on thy knees, and say, thou art an unprofitable servant. All of it is that which he hath no need of, of which he might say as of sacrifice, 'If I had need thereof, would I ask thee?' It is that God who asks thy service, who might command it, and it is a favour that he gives thee leave to love and serve him. And it is but that love and service, which the worth and excellency of this God, if known by thee (though his love to thee were as yet unknown), would draw it from thee, and move thee to fear him that is so great, ver. 17, to love him that is so good and loving, ver. 15, 16, and to serve him, namely, in outward obedience, by walking in his ways, who commands all he doth command for thy good, ver. 14, and so thou servest, providest for thyself most in serving him. And as for that which he desires thee to part with for him, what is it but what is merely an hindrance to this love and service of him according to his greatness and excellency? and to part with it is for thine own good: 'Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiff-necked,' Deut. 10:16. It is an inference from what he had said before. Now what is that foreskin that makes thee thus stiff-necked? It is inordinate self-love.
Self-love is the sum of the law of sin, as love to God is the sum of the laws of God. The laws of sin tell thee, thou shalt not fear God, nor worship him; thou shalt take his name in vain, thou shalt kill, steal, or commit adultery, &c. And if there be any other commandment of sin, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, engrafted so deep in all
men's hearts, 'Thou shalt love thyself above all things whatsoever.'
But the law of God commands love to God, and obedience to him springing thence, and requiring the whole soul and strength (as Christ speaks) to love God above one's self, as by the proportion
Christ sets is evident, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, therefore God above thyself. Hence this self called flesh, which opposeth true love to God, is enmity with God and his law, Rom. 8, and must be therefore cut off and cast away, ere we can love him and be subject to his law, as the apostle there speaks. And to this purpose the same Moses, preaching the gospel in another place, speaks, Deut.
30:6, 'The Lord will circumcise thy heart, to love thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul.' What is it that this great God, that hath out of his love given a gift so great, and so dear to him, requires of thee?
Not any part of what is truly and substantially love unto thyself; he permits the whole of it in substance still to remain, and requires only the superfluity of it. The Hebrew word used for the foreskin, which is to be cut off, signifies a superfluity, as that part of the skin which the Jews in circumcision did cut off is. And therefore Ainsworth emphatically translates it so here, and usually elsewhere, circumcise the superfluous foreskin; and by the choice of that superfluous skin to be the subject of circumcision, was fitly signified how little and small a matter it is that God requires of self-denial in us. What doth the Lord require of thee? Not to cut off self entirely, but only the inordinacy, the excrescency; and so some have understood that of James 1:21, 'Lay aside all superfluity of naughtiness.' God requires no more than that thou shouldst part with what will hinder thy loving him above thyself; and the word in its signification suiteth this also, for it signifies a stoppage that hindereth, and so is to be cut off, as that which letteth thee in thy loving and obeying him. And upon the whole to conclude, consider that in Deut. 10:12, 13, it is expressed, that 'it is for thy good that thou art to serve the Lord with all thy soul, to keep the commandments which he commands thee for thy good.'
These words, 'for thy good,' are added to this thy loving and serving him; and so to bring this further home to the thing in hand, herein thy love and obedience unto God doth but fitly and meetly answer as an imitation of that his love in election, and the contrivements of it, as was observed. For as God in that his loving us had eminently and above all a respect to his own glory, Eph. 1:6, 'to the praise of the glory of his grace,' yet so as he did withal take in such conspicuous affections of love to our persons, that he is said to have delighted to love us, and to love us most in this, that he makes himself, and his love and glory, our happiness and highest end, and accordingly so contrived his designs therein, as to hold forth both these, decreeing all for our good, as well as his own glory; thus in the like proportion and subordination, in imitation of this love of his, he allows us to love ourselves in loving him, and to that end hath given all his commands for our good, as out of Moses was observed; yet so as to set him up above ourselves, and make his glory, and the praise of it, our chiefest and greatest good. And thus Moses concludes that 10th chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 21, 'He is thy praise, and he is thy
God.'
Let us proceed on to whatever other singularities or rarities are to be found in this love, and shew how we should answer them all in love and obedience, and that all and each should become the highest and most inflaming motives to us. Concerning all which let me premise this general consideration once for all, that by the same reason that the apostle urgeth this circumstance in God's love, viz., the priority of it, that God loved us first, as a motive to obedience to his commands,
1 John 4:19–21, and as Moses urged the peculiarity of this love, Deut.
10, by the same reason may and should any other consideration that commends it move us.
Therefore consider that God, in choosing thee, not only loved thee, but delighted to love thee. It was not barely an act of will that he would choose some, he cared not whom, as being indifferent about it; but it was an act of love, and not of love only, but of good pleasure,
Eph. 1, and of delight too, as you heard, Deut. 10. How should the consideration of this sweeten obedience to thee, not only to do his will, but to do it willingly? This love should make not only the commandment not grievous, 1 John 5, but a delight. It is hard to find an instance of this in the hearts of the ordinary sons of men; only in Christ our head we may find and have the great example. How reedy and willing did the fore-mentioned consideration make him to do
God's will in all things, to fulfil all righteousness, and to make this work his meat and drink! 'I have a baptism to be baptized with,' says he, 'and how do I long till it is accomplished.' And what was one spring and motive hereunto? It was even the consideration that God had chosen him and delighted in him, which made him his servant and obedient: Isa. 42:1, 'My servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delighteth.' And therefore he took courage and resolution to go through with the work he was chosen to. Thus it follows, 'He shall not fail, nor be discouraged,' ver. 4. The sense and apprehension which Christ had, that God had written his name as the head, at the top of his book of life, and that his name was also engraven deeply on his heart, made him speak thus in Heb. 10:7,
'Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.' But if you consult the place this is taken out of, there is more of the disposition of his spirit added: Ps. 40, 'I delight to do thy will, O God.' And in both places this it was that moved him,
'In the volume of thy book, thus it is written of me.' God had predestinated him as a man before all worlds, 1 Peter 1:20; God had delighted in him, as thus decreed, before his works of old, Prov. 8:30.
And now that his time came to shew his love to God, and work for him, this infinitely quickened him; and therefore, having run his race
and despatched his work, he says, John 17:4, 'I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.' And it follow, ver. 5, 'And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was;' which is interpreted by that verse 24, 'The glory thou hast given me' (and so ordainedst it) 'before the world was: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.' You may easily discern by the connection of the 4th and 5th verses, interpreted by the 23d, what had set him on work, and what he had in his eye, in despatching all his work on earth so willingly, so eagerly: it was God's everlasting love, that had designed to him so great a glory, which therefore as soon as now his work was done, he utters as that the thoughts of which, and of his having been eternally ordained unto it, out of so great a love, had set him a-work. Now, then, hath God rejoiced over thee from everlasting, in his intentions to do thee good, with his whole heart and his whole soul (as Jeremiah speaks)? How should this consideration draw out, suck out thy whole heart from thee, to love and serve the Lord with all thy heart and with all thy soul! Was his whole soul thus delighted to love thee? Deut. 10:12, 15. Was it a pure act of good pleasure in him? Oh how shouldst thou strive, Col. 1:10,
'to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.'
5. Consider that this love hath been from everlasting, Jer. 31:3. This antiquity of it, that it is of so long continuance, of so long a standing, should have its distinct influence also upon thee. This is therefore inserted, Eph. 1:3 'who hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, to be holy before him in love.' Paul minds the Thessalonians of it also, to move them to holiness: 2 Thes. 2:13, 'God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.' 'From the beginning.' that is, from
everlasting: 1 John 1:1, 'The Word of life, that was from the beginning.' This consideration hath much in it to move us.
(1.) When one hath had his eyes and his heart long upon a thing which he desires to see accomplished, how greedy of it, how delighted in it is he, when he sees it begun to be accomplished! As Christ sitting in heaven, and expecting till his enemies be made his footstool, when he sees any new degree of it accomplished, how doth it rejoice him! If God hath so long since, even from eternity, designed out holiness for his children, he expects earnestly to have holy obedience and service from them.
(2.) Consider, that as this hath been in his eye so long, so how little a time it is since thou wert holy, or begannest to look towards it. His eyes and heart were toward thee before the foundation of the world; and it hath been half thy time perhaps before thou begannest to look after him or his ways, or to set thyself to be holy before him. And when thou didst begin after so long time, thou didst find thyself enwrapt in the designs of eternal love upon thee, that ordained thee to this very thing before the world was. Oh how should this quicken thee to hasten thy work, and to make speed, as one born out of time!
God loved and chose thee from the beginning, 2 Thes. 2, and had no other thoughts nor stirrings of affections but of love and kindness to thee; but thou from thy beginning hast had no other but thoughts of provocation and enmity against him, for thy thoughts had been only evil from thy infancy, Gen. 6:5. As therefore when David would move
God not to cut him off in the midst of his days, what says he? Ps.
102:24, 25, 'I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth.' This speech of David I turn into an exhortation unto thee. His love hath been to thee before he laid the foundation of the earth, and throughout all generations; thy being
and existence was but as this morning unto him, and it was the midst of thy days ere thou brokest off thy iniquities by repentance. Thy time of love is short, and thou hast already shortened it; Oh now fall to work and ply thee, and make, if possible, the rest of thy life an whole life to him. Peter had a touch of it, 1 Peter 4:3, yet without upbraiding; for our God is so good, as he upbraideth no man that turns to him from his former sins. Well, what says Peter? 'The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.' He says no more, yet it is enough to quicken us; yea, it is the scope of the apostle to do it. The consideration of this, with the other of God's love, he sets together on purpose to press this exhortation, that those that have believed should maintain good works. He fetcheth his rise from the third verse: 'We ourselves were sometimes' (too long a time) 'foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts;' and yet God loved us all that while. So ver. 4, 'When the love of God appeared, that had been hidden,' &c. You therefore that served nothing but sin before, should be the more diligent now in serving
God, &c.
6. Consider that this love of God hath been constant to thee and unchangeable, ever since and all along from the beginning, the same,
2 Thes. 2:13, and so continues to the end, John 13:1. Yea, it is such as nothing can separate from it: Rom. 8:38, 39, 'I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.' And this should move to constancy and continuance in well doing always, in which we should suffer nothing to interrupt us, nothing to separate us from it. The apostle (in that 2 Thes. 2, from verse 13 to the end, and chap. 3:5) improves this consideration of the everlastingness, unchangeableness of God's love (for this place speaks at once to
both) to move them to stability in every good word and work, and to cleave fast to all the doctrines and commandments both by faith and obedience. He had spoken before how God would give up the reprobate number of professors of Christianity to antichristian doctrine and unrighteousness (in plain wards), 'that they might be damned.' But (says he, ver. 13) 'We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth;' both these two being necessary to salvation. 1st, It is necessary to believe the truth as it is in Jesus;
2dly, to be sanctified and made holy men by it, and God from the beginning hath chosen you to be saved through both. Therefore, says he, vers. 15–17, 'Stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus
Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.'
It is therefore an exhortation, seconded with a prayer for their establishment in faith and holiness, ver. 16, 17, manifestly founded upon and deduced from what he had spoken, ver. 13, now alleged,
God hath from the beginning chosen you. In verse 16, he makes use of it as a prayer, 'God, even our Father, who hath loved us, and given us everlasting consolation, establish you in every good word and work.' The sum of which is, that God hath out of love chosen us from the beginning or everlasting, and thereby hath given us consolation everlasting; the object of it being his unchangeable love, his love which hath been from everlasting, and will be to everlasting.
Consolation is put chiefly for the object matter, that might and doth afford everlasting consolation, as the doctrine of faith is called faith.
And thus it is rather to be taken, because his petition thereupon in the 17th verse is, 'Comfort your hearts,' namely, with this which is so comfortable a ground of everlasting comfort; as also because he adds
in the 16th verse, 'And good hope through grace.' He might well say so, for the matter and ground of consolation is founded on the pillars of eternity, on that unchangeable love of God of which he speaks, whose love and gifts are without repentance. Now the things he suitably exhorts to and prays for, as that which is and should be the fruit and operation of that love in our hearts, are two. The first is, ver. 15, to stand fast against all opposition made against the truth delivered, as soldiers that keep their ground. The second exhortation is, to lay hold, sure hold, and hold fast with strength, κρατεῖτε; therefore the Syriac adds fortiter, as Judas bade them hold Christ:
Mat. 24:40, 'Whom I shall kiss, hold him fast.' Be you as stable, fast, and immoveable in your faith and obedience, as God is in his love, who hath loved you from the beginning, from everlasting. God hath held you fast, and none can, or shall pull you out of his hands; do you hold as fast to his commands. The word signifies also studiously and carefully to observe, Mark 7:3, 4, and so it relates to commands given for practice and obedience, and imports withal constancy therein.
And by the way, as for their direction to know what was truth to hold, and duties and ordinances to be observed by them, what to stick to when in those times antichristian dreamers should come to draw them away from the truth with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, he refers to what they had been taught, either by word or by epistle, so leaving nothing to revelation immediate as their rule. Now they had then the apostle's teaching by word of mouth; we wanting that, are left to stick to what is written as sufficient for us, and as having nothing else to have recourse to, and therefore we must not leave the Scripture, or admit any other during all the time that antichrist is to deceive the world (for this is the only direction that is given for the whole of those times), and we are sure antichrist is not yet out of the world. Now this standing fast in the doctrines, and holding fast the observation of these traditions given them, he further interprets to be constancy in well-doing: chap. 3:4, 'And we have confidence in the
Lord touching you, that you both do and will do the things which we command you;' that is, will be constant and immutable in your obedience, which still in the enforcement of it hath a correspondency with, an aspect upon, and an inference from, that love of God from the beginning. This is in his exhortation. Then, 2dly, in his prayer, by which he further insinuates their duty, this inference may yet a little further also appear; for he grounds his petition upon those acts of God's eternal love: 'God, even our Father, that loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.'
And chap. 3:3, he interprets this establishing to be keeping them from evil: 'But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you and keep you from evil;' and he adds in ver. 4, 'And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you;' that is, will be constant, immoveable, uninterrupted in the doing of them. You both do and will do as God hath loved you and will love you evermore; so then, to be stable in every good word and work is to keep themselves from evil, both for the present and for time to come for ever. This becomes those who profess to hope that God hath chosen them from the beginning, that God hath loved them with everlasting love, and thereby given them matter of such everlasting consolation. And look what arguments Paul in prayer useth unto God to grant this to them, which are thus suited to the matter of his petition, as you may discern; the same may be turned upon us as motives to move us thereunto; for what we would move
God with in prayer, God expects should move us in practice. Now it is the eternity, stability, and the immutability of that love, which he useth as a motive, to stablish them in every good word and work.
The very same exhortation to constancy, diligence, and unchangeableness in well-doing, if I mistake not, the apostle in like manner foundeth upon the immutability of God's counsels towards
the heirs of salvation, expressed in his promises to them, out of the coherence of Heb. 6:11–13, 17, 18 verses compared, 'We desire' (says he, ver. 11), that is, exhort, 'that every one of you do shew forth the same diligence,' which out of love they had formerly and at first shewn, ver. 10, 'to the full assurance of hope to the end.' He provokes them to diligence with constancy, that they be not slothful, but laborious, ver. 10, in every good work, and 'followers of them who, through faith and patience,' or constancy in well-doing, joined with patient suffering for it, 'inherit the promises.' And what promises are they he lays before them, and what is more eminently held forth in the promise? As he had exhorted them to diligence and constancy without slackening, so suitably he lays before them that in the promise which answereth thereto as on God's part, citing the great promise made to Abraham the father, in the name and for the behalf of all the heirs of promise: ver. 13, 'For when God made promise to Abraham,' who after he had patiently endured, obtained the promise, ver. 15. And in the promise the apostle, to quicken them hereto, singleth out (with an eminent observation) the faithfulness and immutability of God's counsel, which is the point in hand, and unfoldeth in the tenor of the promise the oath annexed to it,
'Wherein,' says he, 'God willing more abundantly to shew to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it with an oath,' ver. 17. As God therefore cleaves to us in his love without separation, we should in obedience cleave to him therein 'with full purpose of heart,' Acts 11:23. As God hath stuck to us, and would suffer none to divert his love, we should inviolably stick to his commands, as David did: Ps. 119:31, 'I have stuck unto thy testimonies.' And as nothing shall or can separate us from the love of God in Christ, as on his part; and as none of all those millions of heroes far excelling us, that have been in all generations, so took his heart as to alter his purpose of love towards us, or to allure him from us; so neither let anything ever separate us throughout our course
from pursuing after communion with that love in keeping his commands. Let not wife, children, honours, riches, pleasures, temptations on the left hand or right hand, or whatsoever can fall out or present itself unto us, ever separate us from the love and service of God. He that forsakes not these, being wooed by so great a love (as hath been described), he is not worthy of him and his love, nor of the least beam of it. An heart inflamed with this love will do or suffer anything. I make a great observation of this in the instance of Paul, when Christ had brought him first upon his knees, and had humbled him, having struck him off his horse. 'Lord,' said Paul then, 'what wilt thou have me do?' But when afterwards this love of God had fired his heart, then what was it he was not content to do and suffer?
And when (in this Rom. 8) the tide and full sea came in and overflowed his heart, insomuch as he cries out, 'Who shall separate me from the love of God in Christ?' then it was that he was willing to have been himself separated from Christ, accursed from Christ, as Christ was from God on the cross, for the glory of God in the conversion of his brethren. Now nothing but this love could have raised up his heart thus high.
I shall conclude this part of this discourse with what Paul concludeth his in the 2d and 3d chapters of the 2d Thessalonians. He had exhorted them to constancy, praying for stability in every good word and work, laid before them the eternal love of God to move them, and also put the Lord in mind of it to move him to grant it to them, and had expressed his confidence herein: chap. 3:4, 'And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that you both do and will do the things that we command you.' But how should we attain this? might they say, and what is the best, the readiest way of all other to arrive thereunto? He immediately adds, 'And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God!' So prays he, and in praying thus for them suggests the most effectual way to attain to this obedience. By the
coherence before mentioned, I understand it of the love of God towards them, that love spoken of chap. 2:16. And this is that single, and only, and all-sufficient direction Paul gives them unto all obedience, viz., to have their hearts guided into that love, and the comprehension of the heights and depths of it, as elsewhere he prays for the Ephesians. And this is to be obtained no way but by prayer to the Lord to lead them into this. When you hear any duty pressed, you presently call for directions; and those are usually as difficult to practise and attain as the things or graces they are prescribed for.
Paul here prescribes but one, but it is a sovereign one, and withal the only way to attain it, viz., prayer. The Lord or person he prays unto is the Holy Ghost, manifestly distinguished from God, namely, the Father and Jesus Christ. The love of God the Father, and the longing after and waiting for the revelation of Christ in his glory, are here made the subject matter, the journey's end, the sight, the enjoyment, the object of the Spirit's giving them. And so elsewhere it is made the proper office of the Holy Ghost, to lead us into all truth, John 16, to guide our feet into the ways of peace, and as meetly it is appropriated to him here to direct our hearts into the love of God, and longings after Christ. For as he it is who is given us of God, to communicate the love of these other two, who sustain the consideration of objects to be revealed and communicated by him, so, Rom. 5, 'the love of God' is said to be 'shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,' whom he hath given unto us, as on purpose to that end. So then you have all three persons in this small verse, and a prayer is made to the Holy Ghost under the title of Lord, which some deny to be found in the Scripture. The word that is here translated to direct is κατευθυνὰι, that is, to guide you by a straight way, or by a right line.
It hints this further to me, which hath been in my heart from other considerations, that of all ways and means that tend to work and keep us, the love of God apprehended, and inflaming love in our hearts to God again (for so I take the love here, both passively and
actively, for he leads us into love unto God, by discovering the love of God), is the direct straightest way of all other; the shortest cut, as we use to say, for it is by a straight line. There are other motives and persuasives that have done victoriously, but this excels them all. As I use to say of that way of living by faith immediately, in comparison of poring upon graces in ourselves, and importing assurance therefrom, that this latter is rather a going about, and fetching a compass with a great deal of difficulty and uncertainty; but that other way of faith is as the north-east passage to the Indies, the shortest and speediest way of comforting and upholding the heart when found out. The love of God shed abroad will contribute more in a moment towards our comfort and peace, than all other considerations in a man's whole life. And therefore pray as Paul did, that 'the Holy Ghost would direct your hearts into the love of God. And withal, this prayer informs us, that our hearts do of themselves seek out other ways to encourage and uphold them in obedience, and other motives are more suited to the natural disposition of them, and we are apt to neglect these considerations of God's love; therefore it is that he so solemnly prays to the Holy Ghost to guide and direct them into it, because otherwise they would never find this way, or light upon it.
And observe lastly, that the subject of this the Spirit's guidance is said here to be the heart, for indeed that is the proper seat and vessel for God to shed abroad his love into, as, Rom. 5, the apostle doth in like manner express it. It is the heart, and not the understanding (for this love passeth knowledge). And I having upon occasion of handling the greatness of this love (on Eph. 2:6), viewed all that I could find in the Scripture to set out the greatness of this love by, found little to what might have been expected, to exaggerate and greaten a subject of that magnitude this is of. I resolved the reason of it into this, that it is left to the Spirit to make an immediate report of this love by impressions of it, rather than by notions, or rational