[5.] You will see a need of denying worldly and fleshly lusts ; you will see nothing can be done in the spiritual life without mortification, that being dead to all things here below, you may be alive to God. That this must be your daily work, your necessity will sufiiciently show. Are there no rebellious desires to be subdued ? No cori'upt inclinations to be broken ? Do not you feel the bias of corruption drawing you off from God ? David did, therefore he saith, ' Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.' Do not you find the sensitive lure ])revail upon you, enticing your minds, and drawing yoH from the })urity of your hopes, and strictness of conversation ? ' Every nian is drawn away, when he is enticed by his own lusts,' James i. 14.
[G.] Consider the sad condition of a believer that is under the correc- tive discipline of God, though he do not vacate his justified state. A sinning believer, that bath made bold with forbidden fruit, how doth
2 TlIES. III. O.] THE SIXTH SERMON. 235
he smart for sin ? "What a wound in the conscience will wilful heinous sins make ? Witness David, Ps. xxxii. and li. He gives an account how uneasy his heart did sit within him, he was afraid of God, who before was his joy and delight, and speaks as one ready to be cast out of his presence-
SERMON YI.
And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. — 2 Thes. III. 5.
There are two things keep religion alive in the soul — a love to God, and a hearty intent upon the coming of Christ. These are the two necessary graces which the apostle j)rays for in the text. Here is the love of God, that is the first grace, and the earne.st or patient waiting for Christ. Love respects God, because he is the chief object of it, jjrirnum amahile, as being the first and chiefest good ; but hope or patient expectation respects Christ, who, at his glorious coming, will give us our full reward. Love is the life and soul of onr present duties, and by patient expectation we wait for our future hope. The love of God urgeth us to the duties of religion, and hope strengthens us against temptations, whether they arise from the allurements of sense or the troubles of the world. Love is our breastplate that guards the vitals of Christianity, and hope is our helmet that covers our head, that we may hold up our head in the midst of all the troubles and son-ows of the present life, 1 Thes. v. 8. Both graces are necessary, therefore it will not be unprofitable to insist upon them. I begin now with the former, ' The Lord direct your hearts to the love of God,' where note —
1. The grace prayed for : the love of God,
2. The efficiency which is necessary to produce it : the Lord direct your hearts. The word direct notes sometimes conduct and guidance, and sometimes bending or setting straight the thing that is crooked. Conduct and guidance, as we guide men that they may not go wrong : Ps. cxix. 5, ' Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes,' Ships that are best rigged need a pilot, and they that love God most need to have their love ordered and directed to the best advantage of his glory and service. This for the first signification, guidance, and direction. But at other times it signifies the bending, inclining, or making straight what is crooked, and what bends and tends another way ; in this sense I take it here. Our hearts are distorted and wTithed, and averse from God and all good naturally ; yea, and after grace received, are apt to wander, and return to their old bent and bias again ; therefore, the apostle prays that God would form and set their hearts straight, that they may be more indeclinably fixed towards God ; and this prayer he makes for the Thessalonians, whose ' work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope ' he had so much com- mended before, and of whose sincerity he had such great confidence ; for
236 THE SIXTH sermon. [2 Tiies. III. 5.
tliose he prays that tlieir love might be directed, and their hearts more lixedly set towards God. The note then will be plain and easy.
Dovt. Tiiat we cannot have or keep up any true love to God, unless the Lord set our hearts straight, and keep them bent towards himself. I shall iiu^uire here : —
1. What is love to God ? Love is the complacency of the soul in what is good. Love to God is the complacency and well-pleasedness of the soul in God as our all-sufficient portion. To open it to you, I shall describe it : —
I. V>y its radical and internal acts. IL By its external eflects.
IIL A little touch upon the properties of it, and then you will see what the love of God is.
I. The radical and internal acts are two — desire and delight ; desire after him and delight in him.
1. Desire after him. Love affects union with the thing beloved ; and so love to God implies an earnest seeking after him, in the highest way of enjoyment that we are capable of in this world. This appears l^artly by the kind of mercies that we affect, and partly by the fervency of our endeavours after him.