regard this, because we will think : Christ will regard me for the good I do for his sake, and in his name, to this and that party. Thus wc see how we may try this sweet all'ection, and not deceive our own souls.
And therefore, where there is a desire of giving content, there will be a zeal against all things ; to I'emove all things in our places and callings that may otlcnd. It will carry us through all difliculties. To please him, it will make us willing to suffer. I will please him, by suffering some indig- nity for his cause. 1 will do it, that I may engage his affection to me. Therefore the disciples gloried in this, when they were thought worthy to suffer for Christ's sake, Acts v. 41. Where there is a desire to please God, it is so far from being ashamed or afraid to suffer, that it joys in this. Oh, now there is occasion given to shew that God respects me more, if I, for his sake, stand out in his quarrel, and break through all diffi- culties.
It will make us please him in all things that we are capable, in all things that we can do any way in our standings ; as Christ describes it out of Moses, to ' love God with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength,' Dcut. vi. 5. "Where love is, it sets all on work to please and give content. It sets the mind on work to study. Wherein shall I please God ? And it will study God's truth, and not serve him by our own inven- tions. We must serve and love God after his mind ; that is, as he hath commanded. It will set the wits on work to understand how he will be served, and to love him with all our soul, and with all our heart ; that is, with the marrow and strength of our affections, with all my strength, be a man what he will be. If he be a magistrate, with the strength of his magis- tracy ; if he be a minister, with the strength of his ministerial calling. In any condition I must love him, with all that that condition enableth me to. For it is a commanding affection ; and being so, it commands all within and without to give content to the person loved. It commands the wit to devise, and the memory to retain, good things. It commands joy and delight ; it commands anger to remove hindrances ; and so all outward actions, love commands the doing of all things ; it sets all on work. It is a most active affection. It is like to fire. It is compared to it. It sets all on work, and commands all that man is able to do. Therefore those that study not in all their endeavours according to their callings and places, according to every thing that God hath entrusted them with, to please God and to honour him in their conditions, they love not God.
What a shame is it, that when God hath given us such a sweet affection as love, that he should not have our love again, when we make ourselves happy in loving him ? He is happj'- in his own love, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; but when he intends to make us happy, it is a shame that we should not bestow our affections upon him.
Much might be said to this purpose for the trial of ourselves, whether we love God or no. Let us not then forget these things ; for it is the com- mand both of the Old and New Testament ; they run both upon love. ' I give you a new command,' saith Christ, John xv. 12 ; and yet it is no new command, but old and ordinary'. But it is commanded now in the gospel ; that is, it is renew^ed by new experiments* of God's love in Christ, * that we should love him, as he hath loved us,' John xiii. 34, which is wonderfully ; that we should love him, and ' love one another.' And aU this is in this affection, as we see when the Holy Ghost would set out the disposition and qualification of such as those great things are prepared for, ^ That is, ' experiences' = ' manifestations.' — G.
A GLANCE OF HEAVEN. 191
that ' neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man,' he sets it down by this, ' They are for those that love him.'*
THE END OF THE THIRD SERMON.
THE FOURTH SERMON.
As it is icritten, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. — 1 CoR. II. 9.
That which hath already been said should force us to beg the Spirit of God to teach the heart, to teach us the things themselves, the inside of them. For a spiritual holy man hath a spiritual knowledge of outward things of the creatures ; he sees another manner of thing in the creature than other men do. As another man hath a natural knowledge of spiritual things, so a holy man hath a spiritual knowledge even of the ordinary works of God ; and raiseth and extracts a quintessence out of them, that a worldly man cannot see, to glorify God, and to build up his faith in the sense of God's favour, &c. This I add by the way to that.