Try yourselves therefore by this affection. If ire make God our God, ire will fear him ahore all ; for there being such a distance between God and us — he the mighty God, and we creatures whose breath is in our nostrils— there can no other way be a covenant of peace betwixt us, but with much reve- rence. Therefore all Christians are reverent creatures ; they do all in fear ; they pass ' the whole time of the conversation here in fear,' 1 Peter iii. 2 ; they ' make an end of th'eir salvation with fear and trembling,' Philip, ii. 12 ; they enjoy their liberties in fear. St Jude makes mention of a number of wretched people in his time, that ate without fear, ver. 12. You may know a man that hath not this grace of God in his heart, by his un- reverent carriage. He never thinks of the presence and all-seeing eye of God. A Christian that hath God to his God, knows that wheresoever he is, he is in the eye of heaven. Therefore he is jealous, even of his own most secret corruptions. He knows that they are lawless of themselves ; and therefore he always sets himself in the presence of God. He is full of reverence, full of fear, even in the enjoying of his Christian liberties.
So likewise for the affection of lore. If God be thy God, thou hast grace given thee to love him above all things. With whom God is graciously reconciled, he giveth them his Spirit to be reconciled back again to him. He loveth us, and we love him again ; for we are by nature enemies to God, as he is to us. There is no wicked man in the world can love God ; indeed, as God is a God that promiseth salvation, he loveth him — he would fain have that, and therefore would fain be in his favour — but he
THE FAITHFUL CO^T^NANTER.
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cannot love God as he is in all respects ; but he hateth him, and he hateth his children. He trifleth with his name by oaths and blasphemy, and the like. He scorneth God. He wisheth that there were no God. Can this man say that God is his God, when he doth not carry himself back again to him in his atiection as his God ? No such matter. He is God's enemy, and God is his enemy. So if God be our God, if he have set his love upon us, we cannot but love him again. If he be reconciled to us, we are recon- ciled to him. This is a sure sign that God is our God, if we love him above all.
Now, that may be known if ice be zealous when God is dishonoured any way ; for whatsoever we make our god, we will not endure to have touched. If a man make liis lust his god, if that be touched, he is all in a chafe. When that which a man loveth is touched, experience shews it, he is pre- sently all on a fire. And here the best Christians have cause to be abased. Hath God their love, when they can hear him disgraced, and his name abused, without being greatly moved, and yet notwithstanding, in the mean time, will not endure their own credit to be touched, but they are, as I said, all on a fire ? Where there is no zeal, there is no love. Certainly when we can hear God's children misused, and religion endangered, and pro- fession scoffed at, &c., and yet not be affected, nor cannot take God's cause to heart, this is great fault in our love.
And so for joy and delight : w^e make God our God when we joy in him above all things in the world ; when we make him our boast all the day long, as it is Ps. xhv. 8 ; when we make him our glory, as he is called our glory in Jer. ii. 11, ' They changed their glory.' God is our glory if he be our God, We count it our chiefest glory that we are his, and that he is ours. Whatsoever our estates be, we glory in God, and not in ourselves. A Christian when he would joy and glory, he goeth out of himself to God, he is his joy. But do not men joy in the creature, and delight in it ofttimes more than in God ? It is a great shame for us, and that for which even the best of us all may be abased, to con- sider what a deal of delight and comfort we take in the creature more than in God. We see Jonah, a good man, when his gourd was taken from him, that God raised up to be a shelter for him — a poor simple defence it was ; and yet we see how pettish the good man was. All the comfort he had could not keep him from anger and fretting when the gourd was gone ; and yet God was his God. So many men, whereas they should joy in God above all things, yet if God take outward comforts from them, they are as if there were no God in heaven, no comfort there ; as if there were no pro- vidence to rule the world ; as if they had no Father in covenant with them. I say this is a great shame for us.