(2.) Secondly, True love to the saints is appreciating. A gracious soul sets the highest price and the greatest value and esteem upon those that are gracious, Ps. xv. 4. He honours them that fear the Lord ; he looks upon the wicked as lumber, but upon the saints as jewels ; he looks upon the wicked as dross, but upon the saints as the gold of Ophir ; he looks upon the wicked as chaff, but upon the saints as wheat ; he looks upon the saints as sons, but upon the wicked as slaves ; he looks upon tiie saints as heirs of salvation, but upon the wicked as heirs of damna- tion, Ps. cxix. 119; Ps. i. 4 ; John i. 12; Heb. i. 14. Gracious souls do not value persons by their great places, offices, names, professions, arts, parts, gifts, gay clothes, gold chains, honours, riches, but by what they are worth for another world. As the great God, so gi'acious souls look not how rational men are, but how religious ; not how great, but how gracious; not how high, but how holy ; and accordingly they value them. * My goodness extends not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight,' Ps. xvi. 3. ' The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour,' Prov xii. 26. It is grace that differences one man from another, and that exalts one man above another. A gracious man, though never so poor, and low, and contemptible in the world, is a better man than his wicked neighbour, though he be never so great or rich in the world ; in the eye, account, and esteem of God, angels, and saints, there is no man to the gracious man. The sun doth not more excel and outshine the stars, than a righteous man doth excel and outshine his unrighteous neighbour. 'Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich,' Prov. xxviii. 6. A gracious man prefers a holy Job upon the dunghill, before a wicked Ahab upon the throne. He sets a higher price upon a gracious Lazarus, though clothed with rags and full of sores, than upon a rich and wretched Dives, though be be clothed gloriously, and fares sumptuously every day, Luke xvi. This is, and this must be for a lamentation, that this poor, blind, mad, besotted world rates and values men according to their worldly interest, greatness, glory, and grandeur; but gracious souls, they rate and value men by their graces, by their inward excellencies, and by what they are worth for eternity. In the eye of a gracious man, there is no wife to a gracious wife, no child to a gracious child, no friend to a gracious friend, no neighbour to a gracious neighbour, no magistrate to a gracious magis- trate, no minister to a gracious minister, no master to a gracious master, nor no servant to a gracious servant. Internal excellencies carries it Avith a gracious man before all external glories.* The Jews say, that those seventy souls that went with Jacob into Egypt, were as much worth as all the seventy nations in the world. Doubtless, seventy gracious persons, in the esteem and judgment of those that are gracious,
' Ps. xlv. 13. Wicked men may higLly prize and admire at tlie common gifts of the saints, as Pliaraoh admired at the wisdom of Josepli, and Nehuchadnezzar admired at tiie wisdom of Daniel ; but tliey never prize nor admire at th6ir graces. ' Every one thak doth evil hateth the light.' John iii 20.
Chap. II.] a cabinet of jewels. 375
are more worth than a whole world, yea, than seventy worlds of graceless persons. Well sirs, remember this: No man can truly prize, and highly value ofrace in another, but he that hath grace in his own heart. Some prize Christians for their wit, others prize them for their wealth ; some prize them for their birth and breeding, others prize them for their beauty and worldly glory ; some prize them for the great things that have been done by them, others prize them for the good things that they have received from them ; some prize them for their eagle eyes, others prize them for their silver tongues, and others prize them for their golden parts; but he that is truly gracious, he prizes them for the grace of God that is in them, he sets the highest value upon them for theii" holiness, &c. But,
(3.) Thirdly, True love to the saints is universal, to one Christian as well as another, to all as ivell 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 Josejjh as well as to a raised Jacob, to a despised disciple as well as to an exalted apostle : Eph. i. 15, ' Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints' ; CoL L 4, ' Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints.' Faith in Christ Je.sus maketh love to all the saints ; therefore they go commonly coupled in Paul's Epistles. It was the glory of the Ephesians and Colossians that their faith and love reached to all the saints. Their love was not a narrow love, a love confined to some particular saints, but it was universal to all saints : Philip, iv. 21, ' Salute every saint in Christ Jesus ;' the meanest as well as the richest, the weakest as well as the strongest, the lowest as well as the highest, and those that have many infirmities as well as those that have fewer infirmities, and those that have but mean parts and gifts as well as those that have the strongest parts and the most raised gifts, Eph. i. 21-23 ; 1 Pet. ii. 17- All saints have the same Spirit, the same Jesus, the same faith, &c. ; they are all fellow-members, fel- low-travellers, fellow-soldiers, fellow-citizens, fellow-heirs, and therefore must they all be loved with a sincere and cordial love. Love is set upon the brotherhood, upon the whole fraternity of believers, and not here and there upon one. Divine love casts an eye of favour upon grace in rags, upon a dunghill, in a dungeon, a den, a prison, a fiery furnace. Grace is as lovely in the illiterate as in the greatest scholar, in the servant as in the master, in the maid as in the mistress, in the child as in the father, in the subject as in the prince, in the buyer as in the seller, &c. Look, as aU our delight must be in the saints, so our delight must be in all the saints. It is sad and sinful to contemn our poor brethren ; and yet this was the very case of the Corinthians, for they in their love- feasts carried it so unequally, ' that one was hungry,' to wit, the poor, ' and another was drunken,' to wit, the rich. And this made the apostle put that question to them, 'What! have ye not houses to eat and drink in ? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?' 1 Cor. xi. 21, 22, or put them to shame that have nothing. And the apostle James doth very roundly reprove and con-