(5.) Fifthly, Our love to the saints is right, when we love them best and most in whom the spiritual and supei^natural causes of love are mx)st sparkling and shining. Where grace draws the affections, there the more grace we see, the more we shall love : Ps. xvi. 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.' There are saints, and there are excellent saints. The Hebrew word that is here rendered excellent, signifies magnificent ones, noble ones, glorious ones, wonderful ones. O sirs ! there are some saints that are magnificent in grace, noble in grace, glorious in grace, wonderful in grace. Now this is certain, if grace be the true reason why we love any, then the more excellent, the more magnificent any are in grace, the more highly we shall prize them, and the more dearly we shall love them, and the more abundantly in our hearts we shall honour them, Ps. xv. 4. Look, as grace rises higher and higher in the same person, so we shall rise higher and higher in our love to the same person. Daniel was greatly beloved, Dan. ix. 23, and John was singularly beloved, John xxi. 20. And why, but because they were more eminently gracious than others were ? Where there is most grace, there God is most honoured, and there Christ is most exalted, and there the Spirit is best pleased, and there religion is most adorned, and there Satan is most dethroned, and there the world is most conquered, and there sin is most subdued, and there duties are most exactly performed ; and therefoi'e there the gracious soul can't but love best and most. There are some that seem to love sucli and such godly men, whose
878 A CABINET OF JEWELS. [ChAP. II.
judgments are weak, and light Kttle, and parts low, and grace small, who yet look with a squint eye, an envious eye, upon every sun that out- shines their own, upon every one's graces and excellencies that are more sparkling than their own. Though pride and envy have received their death's wound at the soul's first conversion, yet they are not quite slain in a believer. There is an aptness even in real saints to grudge and repine at those gifts, graces, and excellencies in others that outshine their own. John's disciples muttered and murmured because Christ had more followers and admirers than John, Luke vii. 16-23, and that spirit that lived in John's disciples is still alive to this very day. This is, and this must be, for a lamentation. Well, sirs, look, as the fairest day hath its clouds, the finest linen its spots, the richest jewels their flaws, the sweetest fruits their worms, so when many precious Christians are not themselve.s, when they are in an hour of temptation, when their corruptions are up and their graces down, they may, and too often do, envy and repine at those graces, excellencies, and abilities, that do overcast, cloud, darken, and outshine their own. Num. xi. 29. The best of men are but men at the best, and there is still those bitter roots of pride, vain-glory, self-love, envy, &c., remaining in them that occasions their hearts to rise and swell, yea, sometimes to cast disgrace upon those excellencies in others that themselves want, Heb. xii. 15, as that great man that could not write his own name, and yet called the liberal arts a public poison and pestilence.^ This spiritual disease is mostly to be found among Christians that are got into some of the highest forms in Christianity. Take your ordinary common Christians, and they com- monly rejoice most where they see most grace. And so do your Christians in a higher form too, when they come to themselves, and to make up their accounts, and have wept over those cursed roots of bitterness that are so apt to be sprouting out. Now, there is no greater argument that our grace is true, and that we do love others for grace's sake, than our loving them best that have most grace, though they have but little of the world. A pearl is rich if found on a dunghill, though it may glister more when set in a ring of gold ; so many a poor believer is rich in grace, and precious and glorious in the eye of Christ, and should be so in ours, though like Job he sits upon a dunghill. Though in the eyes of the world he may seem to glister most when adorned with riches, honour, and outward pomp, if grace be the true reason why we love any person, then the more grace that person hath, the more we shall love him. A godly man loves all that are godly, but he loves them most that excel most in the power, purity, and practice of godliness, &c. But, (6.) Sixthly and lastly, True love to the saints is constant, it is per- manent: 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 'Love never faUeth;' Heb. xiii. 1, 'Let brotherly love continue.' It is a love like that of Christ's, who loved his to the end : 1 John iv. 1 6, ' He that dwelleth in love, dwellcth in God, and God in him.' John xiii. 1, and xv. 12, &c., Our love to our brother must not only lod^e with us a night and away, but we must dwell in brotherly love. Look, as our love must be sincere without hypocrisy, so it must be constant without deficiency. That love was never true that is not constant. True love, like the jjulse, will still be
^ Eusebius speaks of him in Lis Ecclesiastical History, &c. [Namely, Licinus, as before: see iiidex, sub nomine- — Gj
Chap. IL] a cabinet of jewels. 379