made the points that are of necessity to salvation, to be few and plain.

Direct. 7. When you look on the sin and misery of the world, and see small hope of its recovery, look up by faith to that better world, where all is light, and love, and peace.' And pray for the coming of Christ, when all this sin shall be brought to judgment, and wisdom and godliness be fully justified before all the world. Let the badness of this world drive up your hearts to that above, where all is better than you can wish.

Direct. 8. 'When you are ready to stumble at the consideration of God's desertion of so great a part of the world, quiet your minds in the implicit submission to his infinite wisdom and goodness.' Dare you think that you are more gracious and merciful than God? Or that it is meet you should know all the secrets of his providence, who must not know the mysteries of government, in the state or kingdom where you live? He that cannot rest in the wisdom, will, and mercies of Infinite Goodness itself, but must have all his own expectations satisfied, shall have no rest.

And think withal, how little a spot of God's creation this earthly world is; and how incomprehensibly vast the superior regions are in comparison of it. And if all the upper parts of the world be possessed with none but holy spirits, and even this lower earth, have also many millions of saints, prepared here for the things above, we have no more reason to judge God to be unmerciful, because this lower world is so bad, than we have to judge the king unmerciful, when we look into the common gaol; nor to judge of his government by the rogues in a gaol, but by his court, and all the subjects of his kingdom.

If God should forsake no place but hell, of all his creation, you could not grudge at him as unmerciful. And it is a very hard question whether this earth, and the air about it, be not the place of hell; when you consider that the devils are cast down from heaven, and yet that they dwell and rule in the air, and compass the earth, and tempt the wicked, and "work in the children of disobedience;" Ephes. ii. 1, 2. Job i. 2 Tim. ii. 26. And that Satan is called, the God and "prince of this world;" John xii. 31, xiv. 30. .xvi. 11. 2 Cor. iv. 4. Ephes. vi. 12.

But if it be not the place of final execution, it is the

place where they are kept in prison till the Great Assizes, and where they are reserved in chains of darkness, to the judgment of the great day, and where they are tormented before the time; 2 Pet. ii. 4. Jude 6. Matt. viii. 29.

Look then from this dungeon, to the glorious incomprehensible mansions of the holy ones; and judge by them and not by this prison, of the goodness and infinite benignity of God. And if he will give so many obstinate despisers of his grace, a place with those devils that did seduce and rule them, think not God to be therefore unmerciful; but behold his mercy in the innumerable vessels of honour and mercy, that shall possess the higher mansions for ever.

CHAPTER XXV.

How to live by Faith in the Love of one another, against
Self-love.

Direct. 1. LET faith first employ you in the knowledge of God: and when you know him who is love itself, you will best learn of him to love.' You will see that that is best, which is most like unto God; and that is worst, which is most unlike him. And when you consider how universally, though variously, he loveth his creatures, and how he expresseth it, and how he loveth benevolently, because he is good, and loveth complacentially, because also the thing is good which he loveth, you will learn the art of love from God; Rom. ix. 13. Deut. iv. 37. vii. 8. xxiii. 5. xxxiii. 3. iv. 7. 9. 11, 12. 19-21.

1 John iii. 16, 17.

Direct. 2. Study Jesus Christ aright, and you will also learn to love him.' There you will see self-denying Love; which stooped to earth, to reproach, to sufferings, to labours, to death, and spared not life or any thing to do good. It is the chief lesson which you go to school to Christ to learn: and it is as proper to go to him to learn to love, as it is to go to the sun for light; Rom. v. 8. John xiii. 34. 1 Thess. iv. 9. John xi. 5. 36. xiii. 1. xv. 9. Ephes. v. 2. 25. John xv. 12.

Direct. 3. Know God in his works and image, and then you will see him in his natural image, in all men as rational, and in his moral image in all his saints; and then you will

see what to love, and why. He that cannot see God in a glass in this world, cannot see him at all, and cannot love him. Remember that it is in his servants and creatures, that he exposeth himself to be seen, and known, and loved; 1 John ii. 10. iii. 10. 14. iv. 7, 8. 20, 21. v. 1. Matt. xxv. 40.

Direct. 4. Abhor that proud malignant censoriousness, which is apt to make the worst of others, and to deny, and extenuate, and overlook God's graces in them (as the devil did by Job) and which can see no goodness in them that are not eminently good.' For this is but the devil's artifice, to kill men's love to one another. Though he pretend the honour of godliness, and the hatred of sin, when he telleth you, such an one is an hypocrite, and such an one hath nothing but a form, and no power of godliness; I can see nothing of God in him; alas, they are poor carnal people : all is but to destroy your love. And thus he mightily prospereth in the malignant spirit of separation; by which he can make you unchurch whole churches, and unchristian whole towns and parishes, and all because that you that are strangers to them, see not their godliness, or hear of nothing eminent in them. But the world of dividers will take no warning, any more than the world of the profane. Satan doth deceive them all.

Direct. 5. Abhor therefore the sin of backbiting and evil-speaking; and when you hear a malignant censurer thus unchristian and unchurch men without proof, behind their backs, if gentler reproofs will not serve the turn, frown them away, and say," Get thee behind me Satan." The accuser of the brethren and the spirit of hatred, maketh it his work in the world to destroy men's love to one another; and he hath no such way to do it, as by making them seem unlovely to one another: and he that persuadeth me that my neighbour is not good, persuadeth me that he is not lovely, and so persuadeth me from loving him; Prov. xxv. 23. Rom. i. 30. Psal. xv. 3. 2 Cor. xii. 20. Rom. xiv. 3, 4. 10. 13. James iv. 11, 12. Matt. vii. 1, 2. 1 Cor. iv. 5. Direct. 6. Above all, seek to mortify selfishness, which is the great enemy of love to God and man.' A selfish man can faithfully love none but himself; for he loveth all others but for himself; his own opinions, interests and ends, are the disposers of his love. Therefore he never heartily loveth

his enemy; no nor the best, that do not honour him, but seem to slight him. If any should neglect him, or speak hardly of him, or do him any real or seeming wrong, or be of another side, against his party or his cause, no censures are too sharp, and no love too little for such a one. And yet these that can love none heartily but themselves, will find that they had no greater enemies than themselves, and that hell and earth did not so much as themselves against them. Direct. 7. Subject yourselves truly to God's authority, and his commands will further love:' for it is the sum of them all, and the fulfilling of his law, both old and new; Gal. v. 14. Rom. xiii. 8-10. John xiii. 34.

Matt. xii. 30. 32, 33.

xv. 12. 17.

Direct. 8. Remember that love is the bond, and life, and interest of the church and of the world.' Without love the world would have neither unity, peace or safety: what were a family without it? Were it not for love, men that were not kept fettered in jails or bedlams, would be as robbers, or wolves, or mad dogs, one to another. Were it not for love, the church would be crumbled into malicious sects, that would spend their time in prating and militating against each other; and preach and talk down love to one another; and would call this devilish work, the preaching of the Gospel, or the worshipping of God; while they blaspheme him by offering him a sacrifice of hatred and reviling, as they do that offer him a sacrifice of man's blood. "But speaking the truth in love, you may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love;" Ephes. iv. 15, 16.

Yea their own sects would turn to dust and atoms, if love, which is there confined, did not solder them together, when it is dead in them as to all others, or as to the most.

Direct. 9. Love is our spiritual health, and selfishness is our sickness, sin and death. When we fell from the love of God to ourselves, we fell also from the love of others to ourselves: the individuate creature was contracted in himself, and altogether set upon propriety, and forgot his relations to God and man: and when grace destroyeth this selfish privateness of spirit, it setteth us again in love with

God and man together;' and the better any man is, the more public spirit he is of, and the less difference he maketh between his neighbour's interest and his own (when God and his interest make not a difference). And this is to love our neighbour as ourselves; that is, without the vice of partial selfishness; nor setting up our own interest against his, but equally measuring both by God's; and referring them thereunto; Levit. xix. 18.34. Matt. xix. 19. Gal. XV. 4.

Direct. 10. Remember that loving others as ourselves is our own interest and benefit, as well as our duty.'

And a notable instance it is, how much our duty is our own interest and good, and how merciful God is in his strictest laws. As the love of God is heaven itself, and sinners that love him not do damn themselves, and put themselves from heaven and happiness (aud to pardon them is to sanctify them), even so it is an unspeakable loss and misery which sinners draw upon themselves, by not loving their neighbours as themselves, but only in a subordination to themselves, and for their proper private ends. I pray you mark but these few particular instances:

1. If I love my neighbour as myself, my very love is my delight and ease. The form of love consisteth in complacency or pleasedness; and therefore it must needs be pleasant to every one that useth it (however bad love hath bitter fruits). And whenever wrath, or envy, or hatred, comes instead of love, it is my sickness, I feel myself diseased by it.

2. If I love others, others will love me. They are scarce free to do otherwise. You may almost constrain any man to love you, if you love him heartily, and shew it plainly, and were within his view to make him see it. All men love a loving nature; but especially if they be loved by such themselves.

3. If I love my neighbour as myself, to do good to him will be as easy and pleasant as to myself. I can ride, and run, and labour contentedly for myself; I can stoop to the most sordid employment for myself; and so I should as easily do for others: whereas want of love doth make all tedious that I do, and maketh my duty a continual burden, and too often tempts me to omit it. Love made both Christ and his apostles do so much for souls with ease and pleasure, which else they could not have undergone; John xv. 13. 9. 2 Cor. xii. 15. Ephes. iii. 17. v. 2. Col. ii. 2.