3. Again, We may come to have God's love, by more and more sequester- ing ourselves and our affections from conformity xvith his enemies ; for this helps the other. If we would be like to God, and so come to have him delight and solace himself in us, we must withal labour to be unlike the world and wicked persons, that are yet in the state of corruption and dan- ger of damnation. Let us labour not to conform ourselves to them, but to frame ourselves clean of another fashion ; for you know, if we fashion our- selves to the world, the world is not of God, but it is God's enemy. How shall God delight in us, when we delight in courses that are sinful, wretched, and worldly ? The world must perish, be condemned, as Paul saith, ' God afflicts us that we should not be condemned with the world,' 1 Cor. xi. 32. The world lies in mischief. Our especial care, therefore, must be, that we have no correspondency with it.
4. But especially, to come to that which I intend to make a distinct point, by the Spirit, and Christ's manifesting of -God himself in the gospel: * I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them.'
Exhortation. Beg of Christ, therefore, the spirit of revelation, as it is Eph. i. 17, that you may know what is the exceeding love of God in Christ ; and see the height, and breadth, and depth of God's love in him. Beg of Christ to shew the Father to us. You know what that holy man said in the gospel, ' Shew us the Father, and it is sufficient,' John xiv. 8. So desire we no more but to see the Father once. We must go to Christ, that he would shew us the Father ; and we must go to God the Father to dis- cover his Son. For either or both discover the other. God draws us to
894 THE MATCHLESS LOVE AND INnEINO.
Christ. * There is none come to me,' saith Christ, ' but the Father draws them.' And Christ opens and discovers the Father to us, and the Holy Ghost discovers them both ; for as ho proceeds from both, so he shews us the love of both. He shews us the love of the Father and the Son.
Labour, therefore, for the manifestation of Christ, that Christ would manifest his Fathei''s love to us, and that God would manifest Christ by his Spirit : that the Father would give us his Spirit, and the Son would give us his Spirit, which is his love. For God's love is always with God's Spirit, This Spirit comes from him, and his love is always with his Spirit. The same Spirit that sanctifieth us, that witncsseth, is the Spirit of love. Now Christ doth manifest this. We must not only pray, but we must know how Christ manifests himself.
Christ doth manifest God's name to us, as I said before, which is his truth. He opens the understanding by his Spirit^ and then he speaks to every man's particular soul by his Spirit. ' I am thy salvation ;' he gives faith, &c., Luke xxiv. 45. All knowledge of God's love is from the know- ledge of the gospel, together with his Spirit. For how can I know that God loves me, but by his own word and Spirit, by his own Son, Christ ? I say, the Spirit and the word, which are divine, they persuade me of God's love. That must be above nature, above Satan, and above all opposition whatsoever, that convinces my heart of God's love in Christ. The arguments must be divine, taken out of God's truth ; and those truths must be set on by the Spirit of God, which is above my spirit, and by Christ, God and man, who sends his Spirit. This will silence all objections whatsoever that the heart can make, as indeed our hearts are full of cavils against the love of God. God's Spirit will do it by Christ, together with the truth, the word and Spirit going together. And therefore, because I cannot enlarge myself, beg the Spirit of revelation ; and because the Spirit and word go together, attend always upon the word, and think the pro- mises are God's promises, and desire that Christ would set the promises upon our hearts, that we may know the things that belong to us in par- ticular.
Use. Well, if this be so, that the declaring of God's favour and mercy is the way that his love may be in us, as it is, then what shall we think of those that are enemies to the declaration of the name of God, the preaching of the gospel, to the reading of Scripture '? They are enemies of our comfort and of God's glory. For how shall I know that God loves me, but by declaring his name by the word, and by the Spirit ? Christ by the Spirit and by the word declares his Father's name, and so I come to know the Father's love to me. How pitiful is the estate of those souls that live where there is no means, no word of God, no declaring of God's name ? Can the love of God be in them ? No ; this manifesting of God's love, it is with the manifestation of the truths of the gospel. ' I have manifested thy name in the teaching of the word, that thy love may be in them.' Let us therefore be persuaded to attend upon the means of salvation, and upon the Spirit of God, together with the means. God will work together with the means of salvation, and persuade our hearts of his love to us in Christ, if we attend meekly upon them, at one time or other.