(4.) Esteem likewise carries our thoughts. Wouldst thou know what thou esteemest highly ? What dost thou think of most and highest ? Thou mayest know it by that. We see the first branch, how we may know we love God, if we have a high esteem and valuing of God, by these signs.
Secondhj, "WTiere there is true love and affection, there is a desire of wiion; of knitting and coupling with the thing loved. Of necessity it must be so ; for love is such a kind of affection, it draws the soul all it can to the thing loved. It hath a magnetical force, the force of a loadstone. Every one knows what this means.
This affection of love makes us one with that we love. If a man love
A GLANCE OF HEAVEN. 185
the world, he is a worldling, a man of the world, because affection breeds union. Though a man be never so base in choosing, whatsoever a man loves he desires union with it ; and being so, he hath his name from that he loves. He that loves the world is a worldling, an earthworm. Now, if there be the love of God, as in covenant, as a Father in Christ, for so we must conceive of God, there will be a desire of fellowship and com- munion with him by all means, in the word and sacrament, &c. If a man desire strangeness, that he cares not how seldom he receive the sacrament or come into God's presence, is here love ? How can love and strangeness stand together ? Thou art a strange person from God, and the things of God ; thou hast no joy in his presence. Where thou mayest enjoy his presence here in holy things in this world, if thou delight not in his pre- sence and in union with him, how canst thou say thou lovest him ?
Can a man say he loves him whose company he cares not for ? Thou carest not for God's company. Thou mayest meet him in the word and sacraments, and in good company : ' Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the midst,' Mat. xviii. 20. Dost thou pretend thou lovest God if thou carest not for these ? Thou hast no fellowship in this business ; all that relish not heavenly things, they do not love.
Now, to try whether we have this branch of love, that is, a desire of union. Where therefore there is a desire of union with the party loved, of uniting to that person (for we speak of persons), there will be a desire of communion.
(1.) A desire of union will breed a desire of communion ; that is, there will be a course taken to open our minds. If we have a desire of communion with God, we will open our souls often to him in prayer, and we will desire that he will open himself in speaking to our hearts by his Spirit. And we will desire that he will open his mind to us in his word. We will be care- ful to hear his word, and so maintain that sweet and heavenly commerce between him and our souls by this intercourse of hearing him and speaking to him : ' Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the midst.' Therefore those that make no conscience either of hearing the word, or of prayer public and private, and of using the glorious libert}^ that we have in Christ, of free access to the throne of grace, that do not use this preroga- tive and privilege to cherish that union and communion they may have with God, they love not God and Christ. Strangeness is opposite to love, and it dissolves and disunites alfectious. Therefore when we are strange to God, that we can go from one end of the week to the other, and from the beginning of the day to the end of it, and not be acquainted with God, and not open our souls to him, it is a sign we have no love ; because there is no desire of union and communion with him.
(2.) Again, where we love ice consult, mid advise, and rest in that advice, as coinintj from a loriiuj i)erson, especially if he be as wise as loving. So in all our consultations, we will go to God and take his counsel ; and when we have it, we will account it the counsel of one that is wise and loving.
Those therefore that trust to their own wits, to policy and such like, what do they speak of love when they make not use of that covenant that is between God and them ? They consult not with him ; they make not his word the ' man of their counsel,' Ps. csix. 24 ;;they go not to him by prayer for advice; they commit not their 'ways' to him, as the psalmist speaketh, Ps. xxxvii. 5.
(3.) And this distinguisheth a good Christian from another man : a good
18G A GLANCE OF HEAVEN.
Christian he is such a one as acquaints himself with his God, and tcill not lose that intercourse he hath uith God for all the tcorhl. As Daniel, lie would not but praj' ; they could not get him from it with the hazard of his life, Dan. vi. 11.