280 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. [SeR. XXXVIII.
love hath so filled the hearts of men that there is no room, or little room, left for the love of God or our neighbour ; hut yet there is a measure set how we should love our neighbour, but we cannot over-love God ; there all the heart, all the soul, all the might ; it is modus sine modo, niensura sine mejisura, et terminus sine termino ; here no excess or hyperbole hath any place.
^dly. The nature of the object loved. God is infinitely and eternally good, therefore we must love God without any exceptions and restric- tions. As the object of love is goodness, so the measure of the goodness is the measure of the love : a greater good must be loved more, and a lesser good must be loved less. Somewhat besides God may be good, but it is finite and limited ; the creature is a particular good, and our love to it is a particular limited love. God only is a sea of goodness without banks and without bottom ; therefore our love to God is not limited by the object, but the narrowness of the faculty. God in this life is seen darkly, and so also loved, for our love doth not exceed our knowledge. That is our defect : God deserveth more.
Zdly. God is loved ut finis, as the last end, and all other things ut media ad finem. Now common reason will tell us that the end is desired without measure, and the means in a certain respect and proportion to the end. As, for instance, when you are sick you send for the physician, the end is health ; the medicaments and prescrip- tions are the means ; the end you intend absolutely, but the means you would have used in a just measure, and with respect to the end. Fasting is prescribed in measure, and blood-letting in measure ; the potions neither too bitter nor too strong, nor in too great quantity. You do not fear to be made too well, or too healthy, or too strong ; this is your end. A man that giveth up himself to a scholar's life, his end is learning, he doth not fear to be too learned ; yet too much reading is a weariness to the flesh, and dulleth the mind. There is a greater largeness about the end than about the means. Now God is the chief good, and so the last end ; therefore all the heart and all the soul and all the mind. Surely not a cold, but a high and strong love is due to him.
'Stilly. Because of the wonders of his love towards us. The highest angel doth not love God with such a love as he loveth the meanest saints ; and shall we love him coldly and faintly who hath loved us at so high a rate ? I will not speak of his love which he showed us in creation, when as yet we had no being: he made us aftor his own image, and lords of the visible world, with bodies so exactly contrived, and souls endowed with such excellent faculties ; but I will speak of the wonders of his love in our redemption, that when we were enemies he sent his Son to die for us. I urge this, I press this ; this is enough for ihy purpose : God so loved the world, so much above the concep- tion or thought of men and angels, that his Son came in the similitude of sinful flesh, and died for us. Now, as one fire kindleth another, so should this love beget a like love in us — ' We love him, because he loved us first,' 1 John iv. 19.
(4.) I need scarce add that it must be a superlative love — that God must be loved above all other things ; above the creature, above our- selves ; not to be respected as an inferior good, nor merely as equal
VbR. 28.] S£RMONS UPON BOMANS VIII. 281
unto any, but above all, or else we do not at all love him. We cannot love him so much as he deserveth to be loved, for so God only loveth himself ; we cannot love him so much as the glorified saints and angels love him, for we are not yet perfect ; we do not love him as some eminent saints in flesh, because we, it may be, are novices, or because of our negligence ; but we must love him more than any other thing is loved ; we must love him above all, and all in and for G-od, or else we are not sincere : Mat. x. 37, ' He that loveth fatlier or mother more than me is not worthy of me.' Some have a partial half-love to God when they have a greater love to other things ; then religion will be an underling, and God's interest least minded. If anything be nearer and dearer to us than God, and the advantages we expect from men are preferred before the conscience of our duty to him, we cannot be upright and faithful to Christ.
Secondly, Why is this made the evidence of our interest in this privilege ? Why those that love God, rather than those that believe in him, especially since faith is the immediate fruit of effectual calling ?