Tenthly, That love that accompanies salvation, shews itself by work- ing the heart to be affected and afflicted with the least dishonours that are done to Christ. Love is curious of little things ; it is as much afflicted with an idle word or with an impure dream, as lovers of Christ are with adultery or blasphemy. David did but cut off the lap of Saul's gar- ment, and his heart smote him, 1 Sam. xxiv. 5 ; though he did it to convince Saul of his false jealousy, and his own innocency. Love will not allow of the least infirmity. Rom. vii. 15, ' That which I do, I allow not.' Love will make a man aim at angelical purity and perfect in- nocency ; love will be getting up to the top of Jacob's ladder ; love can rest in nothing below perfection ; love makes a man look more at what he should be than at what he is ; it makes a man strive as for life, to imitate the highest examples, and to write after the choicest copies. Love fears every image of offence, it trembles at the appearance of one, it doth not, it cannot allow itself to do anything that looks like sin ;' it hates ' the garment spotted with the flesh ;' it shuns the occasions of sin as it shuns hell itself This is the divine curiosity and glory of a Christian's love. Love says it is better to die with hunger than to eat that which is offered to idoLs.'
• Cicero, De Amieitia.—Q.
* The sin, and the coat of sin, is to be hated, saith Ambrose. ' Melixu morifame, quam idoLothylis vetci. — Augustine.
488 HEAVEN ON EARTH. [ROM. VIII. 32-34.
I have read of a holy man,' who, out of his love to Christ and hatred of idolatry, would not give one halfpenny toward the building of an idol's temple, though he was provoked thereunto by intolerable torments. Love knows that the least evils are contrary to the greatest good ;* they are contrary to the nature of Christ, the commands of Christ, the spirit of Christ, the grace of Christ, the glory of Christ, the blood of Christ. Love knows that little dishonours, if I may call any sin little, make way for greater, as little thieves unlock the door and make way for greater. Love knows that little sins multiplied become great. As love knows that there is nothing lesser than a grain of sand ; so love knows that there is nothing heavier than the sand of the sea, when multiplied.
Eleventhly, That love that accompanies salvation, will shew itself by keeping the doors of the heart shut against those treacherous lovers that would draw the heart from Christ. Love is a golden key to let in Christ, and a strong lock to keep out others. Though many may knock at love's door, yet love will open to none but Christ : Cant. v. 6, ' I opened to my beloved ;' and viii. 7, ' Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it : if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned ;' Boz Jabuzu, contemn- ing it would be contemned. When the world would buy his love, he cries out with Peter, ' Thy money perish with thee,' Acts viii. 20. Love makes a man look with a holy scorn and disdain upon all persons and things, that attempt either to force or flatter her out of her love and loyalty to her beloved.^ It is neither force nor fraud, it is neither pro- mises nor threatenings, it is neither the cross nor the crown, the palace nor the prison, the rod nor the robe, the hempen* halter nor the golden chain, that will make love embrace a stranger in the room of Christ. Go, says divine love, offer your gold and empty glories to others ; your pleasures and your treasures to others ; put on your lion's skin and fright others ; as for my part, I scorn and contemn your golden offers, and I disdain and deride your rage and threats. Love makes a man too noble, too high, too gallant, and too faithful, to open to any lover but Christ, to let any lie between the breasts but Christ : Cant. i. 13, * A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me ; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.' When Basil was tempted with money and preferment, he answers, Pecuniam da quce 'petmianeat, ac continuo duret, gloriam qucB semper floreat : Give money that may last for ever, and glory that may eternally flourish. Love makes a man cry out when tempted, Let not any man think that he will embrace other men's goods to for- sake Christ, who hath forsaken his own proper goods to follow Christ.* Love makes a man cry out when tempted, as that worthy convert did, £go non sum ego, I am not the man that I was ; when my heart was void of divine love, I was as easily conquered as I was tempted. Oh but now he hath shed abroad his love in my soul, I am not the man that I was, I had rather die than fly, or fall before a temptation.
Twelfthly, That love that accompanies salvation, shews itself by
* Marcus Arethusius, in Julian's time. [Clarke, as before. — G.]
• The Nicene fathers would not gratify Arius, no, not in one tittle.
• So did Luther, Galeacius [Carraciolus], that noble Italian. [Cf. Sibbes, vol. i., pp. 289, 290, note rf.— G.] * Spelled • hempton.'— G.
* Plato, saith Pliny, took as much delight and glory in those dignities and honour* he denied, as he did in those he did enjoy. It is just so with the saints.
Rom. VIII. 32-34.] heaven on earth. 489
secret visits, by secret expressions of love. A soul that truly loves Christ, loves to meet him in a corner, to meet him behind the door, Cant. ii. 14, to meet him in the clefts of the rock, where no eye sees, nor no ear hears, nor no heart observes. Mat. vi. 6. Feigned love is much in commending and kissing Christ upon the stage ; but unfeigned love is much in embracing and weeping over Christ in a closet. The Pharisee loved to stand praying in the market-place and in the temple. Mat. vi. 2 ; but Nathanael was with Christ under the fig-tree, John i. 48 ; and Cornelius was at it in the corner of his house. Acts x. ; and Peter was at it on the leads ; and the spouse was at it in the villages. Cant. vii. 11. Souls that truly love Christ, are much in secret visits, in secret prayer, in secret sighing, in secret groaning, in secret mourn- ing, &a True love is good at bolting of the door, and is always best when it is most with Christ in a corner. The secret discoveries that Christ makes to souls, do much oblige them to closet services.
Arcesilaus in Plutarch,^ visiting his sick friend, and perceiving his necessity that he wanted, and yet his modesty that he was ashamed to ask, that he might satisfy the one and yet salve the other, secretly con- veyed money under his pillow, which his friend finding after he was gone, was wont to say, ' Arcesilaus stole this.' So Christ steals secret kindnesses upon his people, and that draws them out to be much in secret, in closet services.