Ohj. Oh, but I have attended long upon the means, and have prayed, and yet I cannot find the love of God to me.
Ans. 1. Wait, wait a while ; all are not called at one hour. Josias was called when he was young, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 2 ; and so Timothy, 2 Tim.
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iii. 15, and Joseph when they were young ; Paul when he was old. Those that were converted at Peter's sermon were men of years, Acts ii. 38. Wait ; the good hour will come. God perhaps will have thee under the law a little longer hefore thou come under grace. He will convince thee of thy cursed estate thou art in by nature, make thee see thyself more vile ; and when he hath wrought and perfected the work of humiliation, then in time call thee. Leave not the porch of wisdom's house, leave not the manifestation of God's truth ; for in time God will speak to thee, and will say to thy soul that he is thy salvation. To come to an evidence or two of this estate.
1. We may know that we have the love of God in us, among other things, if ive come by this love by the manifestation of God's name, the mani- festation of the truth of God, which is his name revealed in the gospel ; if we have the love that we pretend we have of God in us, we can say it came by the declaration and manifestation of God's truth with his Spirit ; from thence I came to know God's love to me.
2. I may know it likewise in that I love God again freely. He hath loved me, and therefore I love him. I will not ofiend him, if it were to save my life. I love his truth so, I value it as a pearl, above all things. I could sell all, I could part with all, rather than with that. Therefore God's love hath been heretofore certainly made known to me, in that I so love God and value his truth.
3. Seasonable afflictions (which the devil moves us to think evidences of God's hatred), they are evidences of his love, if they be sanctified, to make us jealous of our ways, and to see the depth of our corruptions the more, that we can never see sufficiently in this life. They are arguments of God's love. But especially this,
4. If our love to God come from the word and Spirit, and from good things, that are manifested from thence. When thou dost find God's love in thee in regard of some beginnings of faith, hope, love, hatred of evil, and that there is peace, and joy, and such like things in thee, which are peculiar, then comfort thyself in thy portion, whosoever thou art, whatsoever estate thou art in for outward things. St Paul, we see, for outward matters, what a kind of man he was. He reckons up his own afflictions and abase- ments ; but how full of thankfulness was he, because he knew that God loved him in Christ, that God's love was in him ! 2 Cor. xi. 26. Our Saviour, Christ, what did he care for all these outward things ? He knew his Father loved him. Let us therefore labour to have our part and por- tion in this peculiar love of God, and to be assured that God's love is in us ; and for other matters, let us leave them to God's wisdom, who knows what is good for us, and beg of God thus : Lord, I do not ask of thee riches, I ask not glory, I ask not preferment in the world, I ask none of these : I ask thy love, in which all is that is good. For the love of God it is a rich love, as that love that he bears to his Son. If he love me once, he loves me as he loves his Son. Now, he loves him freely, and richly, and un- changeably, and with an incomparable love. God's love both to him and us, it is an incomparable love. For what is the love of a father but a drop from his love ? And what is the love of a mother ? ' Can a mother forget her child? Yet if she could, I would not forget thee,' saith God, Isa. xlix. 15. So David, 'When my father and mother forsook me, God took me up,' Ps. xxvii. 10. Behold the incomparable love of God to us ! And therefore if we have that, we have all that is good.
The love of God, though with afflictions, with crosses, with whatsoever
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in the world is contrary, yet it is the most desirable estate ; for one glimpse of God's fatherly countenance in Christ, it will make us in such a case as we shall not care for any affliction whatsoever. Paul in the dungeon, God gave him a taste of his love, and -what did he care for whipping ? for the darksomeness, for the nastiness and noisomeness of the prison ? Acts xvi. 25. He was, as it were, in paradise. God's love was in him. If God's love he in us, if we be with Daniel in the lions' den, the den shall be a kind of paradise. I say, where God is, there ia paradise ; yea, indeed, where God's love is, there is heaven itself. So we have God's love, it is no matter what we want ; nay, it is no matter in what state of misery we arc in this world.