_Motive_ V. Remember how dearly they are beloved of God, their Creator and Redeemer. Read and observe God's tender language towards them, and his tender dealings with them. He calleth them his children, his beloved, yea, dearly beloved, his jewels, the apple of his eye, Deut. xxxiii. 12; Psal. lx. 5; cxxvii. 2; Col. iii. 12; Jer. xii. 7; Mal. iii. 17; Zech. ii. 8; Deut. xxxii. 10. Christ calleth the least of them his brethren, Matt. xxv. Judge of his love to them by his incarnation, life, and sufferings! Judge of it by that one heart-melting message after his resurrection, John xx. 17, "Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." And should we not love them dearly who are so dearly beloved of God?
_Motive_ VI. They are our brethren, begotten by the same Father and Spirit, of the same holy seed, the word of God; and have the same nature and disposition: and this unity of nature and nearness of relation, is such a suitableness as must needs cause love.
_Motive_ VII. They are our companions in labour and tribulation, in our duty and sufferings: they are our fellow-soldiers and travellers, with whom only we can have sweet and holy converse, and a heavenly conversation; when the carnal savour not the things of God.
_Motive_ VIII. Consider how serviceable their graces render them, for the pleasing of God and the good of men. They are the work of God, created to good works, Eph. ii. 10. They are fitted by grace to love and praise their Maker and Redeemer, and to obey his laws, and to honour him in their works, as shining lights in a dark generation. They are the blessings of the place where God hath planted them; they pray for sinners, and exhort them, and give them good examples, and call them from their sins, and lovingly draw them on to conversion and salvation. For their sakes God useth others the better where they live. Ten righteous persons might have saved Sodom. They are lovely therefore for the service which they do.
_Motive_ IX. All their graces will be shortly perfected, and all their infirmities done away. They are already pardoned and justified by Christ; and every remaining spot and wrinkle will be shortly taken away, Eph. v. 26, 27, and they shall be presented perfect unto God. And they that shall be so perfect then, are amiable now.
_Motive_ X. They shall see the glory of God, and live for ever in his presence: they shall be employed in his perfect love and praise, and we shall be their companions therein: and those that must sing hallelujahs to God in perfect amity and concord, such an harmonious, blessed choir, should live in great endearedness in the way.
_Tit. 4. The Hinderances and Enemies of Christian Love._
_Enemy_ I. The first enemy of christian love, is the inward unregeneracy and carnality of the mind: "for the carnal mind is enmity to God, and neither is nor can be subject to his law," Rom. vi. 7; and therefore it is at enmity with holiness, and with those that are seriously holy. The excellency of a christian is seen only by faith, believing what God speaketh of them, and by spiritual discerning of their spiritual worth: but the "natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit, but they are as foolishness to him, because they must be spiritually discerned," 1 Cor. ii. 14. There must be a suitableness of nature before there can be true love; and he that will love them as holy, must first love holiness himself.
_Enemy_ II. Another enemy to christian love is selfishness, or inordinate self-love; for this will make men love no one heartily, but as they serve, or love, or honour them, and according to the measures of their selfish interest: if a godly man will not flatter such persons, and serve their proud or covetous humours, they cannot love him. A selfish person maketh so great a matter of every infirmity which crosseth his interest, or every mistake which crosseth his opinion, or every little injury that is done him, that he crieth out presently, Oh what wicked and unconscionable people are these! What hypocrites are they! Is this their religion? Is this justice or charity? All virtues and vices are estimated by them according to their own ends and interest chiefly; they can think better of a common whoremonger, or swearer, or atheist, or infidel that loveth, and honoureth, and serveth them, than of the most holy and upright servant of God, who thinketh meanly or hardly of them, and standeth in their way, and seemeth to be against their interest; it is no commendation to him in this man's account, that he loveth God, and all that are godly, if he seem to injure or cross a selfish man. A carnal self-lover can love none but himself and for himself; and maketh all faults which are against himself to be the characters of an odious person, rather than those which are committed against God.