Many are troubled with cold aflections, and wish. Oh that they could love ! They forget the way how to love. They will not meditate ; and if they do meditate, they think to work love out of their own hearts. They may as well work fire out of a flint, and water out of a stone. Our hearts are a barren wilderness. Thereforc let us beg the Spirit that God would alter our hearts, with meditation and all other helps ; that God would sanctify us, and discover his love to us, and that he would give us his Spirit (for he doth the one where he doth the other). When God doth so, then we shall be enabled to love him. We must not think to bring love to God, but we must fetch love from God. We must light our candle at his fii-e. Think of his love to us, and beg the Spirit of love from him ; love is a fruit of the Spirit. That is the coui'se we ought to take, for God will teach our hearts to love.
Now, to stir us up the more, to add some motives and encouragements to labour more to get this afioction. Let us consider sei'iously that without this love of God we are dead ; and whatsoever comes from us it is still- born, it is dead. AVithout love we are nothing ; without love all that comes from us is nothing ; without love ' I am as a tinkling cymbal,' saith Paul, 1 Cor. xiii. 1. For a man to be nothing in religion, and all that comes from him to be dead and still-born, to be abortive actions, who would be in such a case ? Therefore let us labour, before we do anything that is good, to have our hearts kindled with the love of God, and then we shall be somebody, and that that we do will be acceptable ; for love sweetens all performances. It is not the action, but the love in the action ; as from God it is not the dead favour that comes from him that comforts the soul of a Christian, so much as the love and sweetness of God in the favour. That is better than the thing itself. When we have favour from God in outward favours, consider the sweetness : ' Taste and see how gracious the Lord is,' Ps. xxxiv. 8. The taste of the love and favour of God in the blessing is better than the thing itself, for it is but a dea'd thing. And so from us back again to God. What are the things we perform to him ? They are dead. But when they are sweetened with the afiection of love, done to him as a father in Christ, he tastes our perform- ances as sweet. Love makes all we do to have a relish, and all that he doth to us. Therefore we should labour for this sweet affection.
And withal consider, that we may be called to do many things in this world. Surely there are none of us but we have many holy actions to per- form. We have many things to suffer and endure in the world, many temptations to resist. What shall or will carry us through all ? Nothing but love. If we have loving and gracious hearts, this affection will carry us through all good actions, through all oppositions and temptations ; for ' love is strong as death,' Cant. viii. 6. Consider therefore that there are so many things that will require this affection, this blessed wing and wind of the soul, to carry us along, in spite of all that is contraiy, through all
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opposition; let us labour for love, and that affection ivill carry us throurjh all. Indeed, if we have that it is no matter what a man suffers. A man can never be miserable that hath this aflection of love. If this heavenly fire be kindled in him he cannot be miserable ; take him in what condition you will, take him upon the rack. St Paul in the dungeon sang at midnight in the dungeon, in the stocks, at an uncomfortable time and place. When he had been misused, his heart was enlarged to sing to God out of love, Acts xvi. 25. Nay, everything increaseth it. The things we suffer increaseth this flame. Let a man love God, whatsoever he suffers in a good cause it increaseth his love, he shall find his love increased with it. The more he loves the more he can sufier ; and the more he suffers the more he loves God, and the more he increaseth in a joyful expectation of the times to come. And love is alway with joy, and hope, and other sweet afiections. It draws joy with it always, and hope of better things ; and as joy increaseth and hope increaseth, so a man's happiness increaseth in this world. Therefore it is no matter what a man suflers that hath a gracious and loving heart, enlarged by the Spirit of God. Let him never think of what he suflfereth of pain, of losses and crosses, if God discover his fatherly breast, and shine on him in Christ ; and he look on God reconciled, and taste of the joys of heaven before- hand. If you tell him of sufferings, you tell him of that that encourageth him. It is an argument I might be long in, and to great purpose ; for if we get this holy fire kindled once, we shall need little exhortation to other duties. It would set us on work to all. And like the fire of the sanctuary that never went out, so it is such an afiection, that if it be once kindled in the heart it will never out. It is a kind of miracle in ill when we love other things besides God, baser than ourselves ; it is as much as if a river should turn backward. For man that is an excellent creature, to be carried with the stream of his affection to things worse than himself, it is a kind of monster for a man to abuse his understanding so. What a base thing is it for a man to suffer such a sweet stream as love, a holy current, to run into a sink ? Who would turn a sweet stream into a sink, and not rather into a garden ? into a sweet place to refresh that ? Our love is the best thing in the world, and who deserves it better than God and Christ ? We can never return anything, but this affection of love we may again. And can we place it better than upon divine things, whereby we are made better ourselves ? Doth God require our affections for himself ? No. It is to make us happy. It advanceth our affection to love him ; it is the turning of it into the right stream. It is the making of us happy that God requires it. For consider all things that may deserve this affection. It will keep us from all sin. What is any sin but the abuse of love ? For the crookedness of this affection turns us to present things, that is the cause of all sin. For what is all sin, but pleasure and honours and profits, the three idols of the world ? All sin is about them. And what are all good actions but love well placed ? The well ordering of this affection is the well ordering of our lives ; and the misplacing of this affection is the cause of all sin.