156 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V, [SeR. XXIV.
and the love of God shed abroad in your hearts, the most effectual means to keep these objects close to tlie heart ; and then doubts will vanish.
4. The mercies of daily providence declare much of the goodness of God to you, and to make him more amiable. Christians are much wanting to themselves and to their duty to God, when they do not increase their sense of God's goodness by their ordinary comforts : Deut. XXX. 20, ' Thou shalt love him, for he is tliy life, and the length of thy days ;' 1 Tim. vi. 17, 18, it is ' the living God, who giveth us richly to enjoy all things' in this present world ; and Ps. Ixviii. 19, ' The God of our salvation, who daily loadeth us with his benefits.' Every day's and hour's experience should endear God to us. It is his sun that shineth to give thee heat, and influence, and cherishing. It is out of his store- house that provisions are sent to thy table. He furnisheth thy dishes with meat, and filleth thy cup for thee. He did not only clothe man fit first : Gen. iii. 21, ' Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them ; ' when he turned unthankful man out of paradise, he wouUl not send them away without a garment. As he performed that office then, so still he causeth the silkworm to spin for thee, and the sheep to send thee their fleeces ; only there is a wretched disposition in man, we do not take notice of that invisible hand, which reacheth out our comforts to us. Acts of kindness in our fellow-creatures affect us more than all those benefits we receive from God. What should be the reason ? Water is not sweeter in the dish than in the fountain. Man needeth himself, never giveth so freely and purely as God doth, but out of some self-respect. No kindness de- serveth to be noted but the Lord's, who is so high and glorious, so much above us, that he should take notice of us. Nothing but our un- thankfulness is the cause of this disrespect, and forgetting the goodness of his daily providence, and our looking to the next hand, and to the ministry of the creature, and not to the supreme cause.
Third case of conscience about love, is about the intenseness and degree of it. The soul will say, God is to be loved above all things, and to have the preferment in our affections, choice, and endeavours ; for he is to be loved with all the heart, and all the soul, Deut. vi. 5; and earthly things are to be loved, as if we loved them not. Now to find my heart to be more stirred towards the creatures than to God, and seem to grieve more for a worldly loss than for an offence done to God by sin ; to be carried out with greater violence and sensible commotion of spirit to carnal objects than to Jesus Christ, I cannot find these vigorous motions, or this constraining efficacy of love overruling my heart.
Ans. 1. Comparison is the best way to discover love, compariag affection with att'ection ; our affections to Christ with our affections to other matters ; for we cannot judge of any affection aright by its single exercise, what it doth alone as to one object, but by observing the dif- ference and dis})roportion of our respects to several objects. The scrip- ture doth often put us upon this kind of trial : 2 Tim. iii. 4, ' Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.' Singly and apart a man cannot be so well tried, either by his love to God or his love to pleasure ; there being in all some kind of love to God, and a lawful allow^ance of creature
VeR. 14.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 157
delights, provided they do not most take us ; but when the strength of a man's spirit is carried out to present dehghts, and God is neglected or little thought of, the case is clear, that the interest of the flesh pre- vaileth in his heart above the interests of God ; so Luke xii. 21, 'So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God ; ' mindeth the one and neglecteth the other ; namely, to enrich his soul with spiritual and heavenly treasure ; that followeth after spiritual things in a formal and careless manner, and earthly things with the greatest earnestness. The objection proceedeth then upon a right supposition, that a respect to the world, accompanied with a neglect of Christ, showeth that the love of Christ is not in us, or doth not bear rule in us.
2. That God in Christ Jesus is to have the highest measure of our affections, and such a transcendent superlative degree as is not given to other things : Luke xiv. 26, ' If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' He that loveth any contentment above Christ, or equal with him, will soon hate Christ ; so Mat. X. 37, ' He that loveth father, or mother, son, or daughter, more than me, is not worthy of me.' And the sincere are described, Phil, iii. 7-10 ; the nearest and dearest relations, and choicest contentments all trampled upon, all is dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of our Lord.