Now, because many mistake in their love to the saints, and the con- sequences that follow that mistake are very dangerous and pernicious to the souls of men, I shall therefore briefly hint to you the properties of that love to the saints that accompanies salvation. And,
(1.) The first property. The first is this, true love to the saints is spiritual; it is a love for the image of God that is stamped upon the soul. Col. i. 8, 'Epaphras hath declared to us your love in the Spirit.' A soul that truly loves, loves the Father for his own sake, and the children for the Father's sake. Many there are that love Christians for their goods, not for their good ; they love them for the money that is in their purse, but not for the grace that is in their hearts. Many, like the Bohemian cur, fawn upon a good suit. Love to the saints, for the image of God stamped upon them, is a flower that grows not in nature's garden. No man can love grace in another man's heart but he that hath grace in his own. Men doth not more naturally love their parents, and love their children, and love themselves, than they do naturally hate the image of God upon his people and ways.^ True love is for what of the divine nature, for what of Christ and grace shines in a man. It is one thing to love a godly man, and another thing to love him for godliness. Many love godly men as they are politicians, or potent, or learned, or of a sweet nature, but all this is but natural love ; but to love them because they are spiritually lovely, because they are ' all glorious within, and their raiment is of embroidered gold,' Ps. xlv. 13, is to love them as becometh saints ; it is to love them at so high and noble a rate that no hypocrite in the world can reach to it. The wasps fly about the tradesman's shop, not out of love to him, but the honey and the fruit that is there. This age is full of such wasps.
(2.) The second property. Secondly, True love to the saints is uni- versal to one Christian as well as another, to all as well as any;^ to poor Lazarus as well as to rich Abraham, to a despised Job as well as to an admired David, to an afflicted Joseph as well as to a raised Jacob, to a despised disciple as well as to an exalted apostle. Philip, iv. 21, ' Salute every saint,' the meanest as well as the richest, the weakest as well as the strongest, the lowest as well as the highest. They have all the same Spirit, the same Jesus, the same faith ; they are all fellow- members, fellow-travellers, fellow- soldiers, fellow-citizens, fellow-heirs, and therefore must they all be loved with a sincere and cordial love.
^ Jerome professed how much he loved Christ in Augustine, and Augustine in Christ.
* Remember, wicked men, God himself is wronged by the injury that is done to his image. The contempt and despite is done to the king himself, which is done to his image or coin.
' Eph. i. 16, Col. 1. 4. It was the glory of the Ephesians and Colossians that their faith and love reached to all the saints ; it was not narrow, and confined to some par- ticulars, but it was universal.
Rom. VIIL 32-34<.] heaven on earth. 485
The apostle James doth roundly condemn that partial love that was among professors in his days, James ii. 1 , 2. Not that the apostle doth absolutely prohibit a civil differencing of men in place from others, but when the rich man's wealth is more regarded than the poor man's god- liness, and when men carry it so to the rich, as to cast scorn, contempt, disgrace, and discouragement upon the godly poor; this is a sin for which God will visit the sons of pride.'
Pompey told his Cornelia, ' It is no praise for thee to have loved PoTnpeium Magnum, Pompey the Great, but if thou lovest PoTnpeium Miserum, Pompey the Miserable, thou shalt be a pattern for imitation to all posterity.' I will leave you to apply it.
Romanus the martyr, who was bom of noble parentage, entreated his persecutors that they would not favour him for his nobility : * For it is not,' said he, ' the blood of my ancestors, but my Christian faith, that makes me noble.' ^
Verily, he that loves one saint for the grace that is in him, for that holiness, that image of God, that is upon him, he cannot but fall in love with every saint that bears the lovely image of the Father upon him ; he cannot but love a saint in rags, as well as a saint in robes ; a saint upon tlie dunghill, as well as a saint upon the throne. Usually the most ragged Christians are the richest Christians; they usually have most of heaven that have least of earth, James ii. 5. The true diamond shines best in the dark.^
(3.) The third property. Thirdly, Our love to the saints is right, when we love them and delight in them, answerable to the spirittual causes of love that shiTie in them, as the more holy and gracious they are, the more we love them : * Ps. xvi. 2, 3, ' My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.' This is most certain, if godliness be the reason why we love any, then the more any excel othere in the love, spirit, power, and practice of godliness, the more we should love them. There are those that seem to love such godly men as are weak in their judgments, low in their principles, and dull in their practices, and yet look with a squint eye upon those that are more sound in their judg- ments, more high in their principles, and more holy in their practices, which doubtless speaks out more hypocrisy than sincerity. Verily, he hath either no grace, or but a little grace, that doth not love most where the spiritual causes of love do most shine and appear. Surely those Christians are under a very great distemper of spirit, that envy those gifts and graces of God in others, that outshine their own- John's disciples muttered and murmured, because Christ had more followers and admirers than John ; and John's disciples are not all dead, yea, they seem to have a new resurrection in these days. Well,
• Non gent led mens, non genus sed genius, not race or place, but grace, truly sets forth a man. * Clarke, as before, p. 63. — G.
3 Yet there is a love of familiarity, which we may lawfully shew more to one godly man than to another. Thus Christ loved John more than the other disciples.
* Yet this must be granted, that grace in a rugged, unhewn nature, is like a gold ring on a leprous hand, or a diamond set in iron. As a gold ring is most pleasing and taking, wh^n it is on a neat clean hand, and as a diamond when it is set in a ring of gold ; so grace is most pleasing and taking to us in a sweet nature, and not so much when it is in a rugged, unhewn nature ; the beauty and glory of it being clouded and darkened by a rugged nature.
486 HEAVEN ON EARTH. [ROM. VIII. 32-34.