Of the Commandments
(Exodus 20:6) Of them that love me, &c.
1. God's mercy is for them that love him. Love is a grace that shines and sparkles in God's eye, as the precious stones did upon Aaron's breast-plate. Love is a holy expansion or enlargement of soul, whereby it is carried with delight after God, as the chief good: So Aquinas defines love, Complacentia amantis in amato; love is a complacential delighting in God as in our treasure: love is the soul of religion, it is a grace highly momentous. If we had knowledge as the angels, or faith of miracles, yet without love it would profit nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). Love is the first and great commandment (Matthew 22:38). It is so, because if this be wanting, there can be no religion in the heart, there can be no faith, for faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). All is but pageantry, or a devout complement.
2. Because love does meliorate and sweeten all the duties of religion; it makes them savoury meat, else God cares not to taste of them.
3. It is the first and great commandment, in respect of the excellency of this grace. Love is the queen of the graces, it out-shines all the others, as the sun the lesser planets. In some respect it is more excellent than faith, though in one sense faith be more excellent, Virtute unionis, as it unites us to Christ. Faith puts upon us the embroidered robe of Christ's righteousness, which is a brighter robe than any of the angels wear. Yet in another sense, love is more excellent, respectu durationis, in respect of the continuance of it; it is the most durable grace: faith and hope will shortly cease, but love will remain. When all the other graces, like Rachel, shall die in travel, love shall revive. The other graces are in the nature of a lease, only for term of life: love is as a freehold, it continues for ever. Thus love carries away the garland from all the other graces, it is the most long-lived grace, it is a bud of eternity; this grace alone shall accompany us in heaven.
Question 1. How must our love to God be qualified?
Response 1. Love to God must be pure and genuine, he must be loved chiefly for himself, this the schoolmen call Amor amicitiae. We must love God not only for his benefits, but those intrinsic excellencies with which he is crowned. We must love God not only for the good which flows from him but the good which is in him. True love is not mercenary; a soul that is deeply in love with God, needs not be hired with rewards; he cannot but love God for the beauty of his holiness; not but that it is lawful to look at God's benefits. Moses had an eye to the recompense of reward (Hebrews 11:26). But we must not love God only for his benefits, for then it is not love of God, but self-love.
2. Love to God must be [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], with all the heart (Mark 12:30). You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. We must not love God a little, give him a drop or two of our love; but the main stream of our love must run after him; the mind must think of God, the will choose him, the affections pant after him. The true mother would not have the child divided, nor God will not have the heart divided; we must love him with our whole heart. Though we may love the creature, yet it must be a subordinate love. Love to God must be highest, as the oil swims above the water.
3. Love to God must be flaming; to love coldly, is all one as not to love. The spouse is said to be amore perculsa, sick of love (Song of Solomon 2:5). The seraphims are so called from their burning. Love turns saints into seraphims, it makes them burn in holy love to God; and many waters cannot quench this love.
Question 2. How may we know whether we love God?
Response 1. He that loves God, desires his sweet presence: lovers cannot be long asunder; they have their [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], fainting fits, they want a sight of the object of their love. A soul deeply in love with God, desires the enjoyment of him in his ordinances, in word, prayer, sacrament. David was ready to faint away and die, when he had not a sight of God (Psalm 84:2). My soul faints for God; such as care not for ordinances, but say, when will the Sabbath be over? plainly discover want of love to God.
2. He who loves God, does not love sin (Psalm 97:10). You that love the Lord, hate evil. The love of God, and love of sin, can no more mix together, than iron and clay: every sin loved, strikes at the being of God; but he who loves God has an antipathy against sin. He who would part between two lovers, is a hateful person; God and the believing soul, are two lovers; sin comes to part between them, therefore the soul is implacably set against sin. By this try your love to God. How could Delilah say she loved Samson, when she entertained correspondence with the Philistines who were his mortal enemies? How can he say he loves God, who loves sin, which is God's enemy?
3. He who loves God, is not much in love with any thing else; his love is very cool to worldly things; his love to God moves as the sun in the firmament swiftly, his love to the world moves as the sun on the dial, very slow: the love of the world eats out the heart of religion: it chokes good affections, as the earth puts out the fire. The world was a dead thing to Paul (Galatians 6:14). I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me. In Paul, we might see both the picture and pattern of a mortified man. He that loves God, uses the world, but chooses God; the world is his pension, but God is his portion (Psalm 119:57). The world does busy him, but God does delight and satisfy him. He says as David (Psalm 43:4), God my exceeding joy, the gladness or cream of my joy.
4 He who loves God, cannot live without him. Things we love, we know not how to be without. A man can want music or flowers, but not food. A soul deeply in love with God, looks upon himself as undone without him (Psalm 143:7): "Do not hide your face from me, lest I be like them that go down into the pit." He says as Job, Chapter 30:28, "I went mourning without the sun." I have star-light, I want the Sun of Righteousness; I enjoy not the sweet presence of my God. Is God our chief good, that we cannot live without? Alas, how do they demonstrate they have no love to God, who can make a shift well enough to be without him? Let them but have corn and oil, and you shall never hear them complain of the want of God.
5. He who loves God, will be at any pains to get him. What pains does the merchant take? What hazards does he run to have a rich return from the Indies? Extremos currit Mercator [⟨…⟩]. Jacob loved Rachel, and he would endure the heat by day, and the frost by night that he might enjoy her. A soul that loves God will take any pains for the fruition of him (Psalm 63:8): "My soul follows hard after God." Love is Pondus animae, Aug. It is as the weight which sets the clock a going. The soul is much in prayer, weeping, fasting; he strives as in an agony, that he may obtain him whom his soul loves. Plutarch reports of the Gauls, an ancient people of France, after they had tasted the sweet wine of Italy, they never rested till they had arrived at that country. He who is in love with God, never rests till he has gotten a part in him (Song of Solomon 3:2): "I sought him whom my soul loved." How can they say they love God, who are not industrious in the use of means to obtain him (Proverbs 19:24): "A slothful man hides his hands in his bosom." These not in agony, but lethargy: If Christ and salvation would drop as a ripe fig into his mouth, he could be content to have them; but he is loath to put himself to too much trouble. Does he love his friend, that will not make a journey to him?
6. He that loves God, prefers him before estate and life. 1. Before estate (Philippians 3:8): "For whom I have suffered the loss of all things." Who that loves a rich jewel, would not part with a flower for it? Galcanus Marquess of Vico, parted with a fair estate to enjoy God in his pure ordinances: When a Jesuit persuaded him to return to his Popish religion in Italy, promising him an huge sum of money: Says he, "Let their money perish with them, who esteem all the gold in the world worth one day's communion with Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit." 2. Before life (Revelation 12:11): "They loved not their lives to the death." Love to God carries the soul above the love of life; and the fear of death.
7. He who loves God loves his favorites, namely the saints (1 John 5:1). Idem est motus animi in imaginem & rem. To love a man for his grace, and the more we see of God in him, the more we love him, is the infallible sign of love to God. The wicked pretend to love God, but hate and persecute his image. Does he love his prince, who abuses his statue, tears his picture? Indeed they seem to show great reverence to the saints departed; they have a great reverence for Saint Paul, and Saint Stephen, and Saint Luke: They canonize dead saints, but persecute living saints: And do these love God? Can it be imagined he should love God, who hates his children because they are like him? If Christ were alive again, he would not escape a second persecution.
8. If we love God, as we cannot but be fearful of dishonoring him (the more a child loves his father, the more he is afraid to displease him) so we weep and mourn when we have offended him. Peter went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75). When Peter thought how dearly Christ loved him, he took him up to the Mount, where he was transfigured: Christ showed him the glory of heaven in a vision. Now that he should deny Christ, after he had received such signal tokens of Christ's love, this broke his heart with grief, he wept bitterly. Are our eyes alembics, dropping tears of grief for sin against God? A blessed evidence of our love to God; and such shall find mercy. He shows mercy to thousands of them that love him.
Use. Let us be lovers of God; we love our food, and shall not we love him that gives it? All the joy we hope for in heaven is in God, and shall not he who shall be our joy be our love? It is a saying of Saint Augustine, Annon poena satis magna est, non amare te? Is it not punishment enough, Lord, not to love you? And again, Animam meam odio haberem. I would hate my own soul, if I did not find it loving of God.
Question. What are the incentives to provoke and inflame our love to God?
Response 1. God's benefits bestowed on us. A prince who bestows continual favors on a subject, if that subject have any ingenuity, he cannot but love his prince. God is continually heaping benefits upon us: He fills our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). As the rock followed Israel, wherever they went streams of water out of the rock followed them. So God's blessings follow us every day: We swim in a sea of mercy. That heart is hard that is not prevailed with by all God's blessings, to love him; Magnes amoris amor. Kindness works on a brute. The ox knows his owner.
2. Love to God would make duties of religion facile and pleasant. I confess to him that has no love to God, religion must needs be a burden. And I wonder not to hear him say, "What a weariness is it to serve the Lord?" It is like rowing against tide. But love oils the wheels, it makes duty a pleasure. Why are the angels so swift and winged in God's service, but because they love him? Jacob thought seven years, but little for the love he did bear to Rachel: Love is never weary: He who loves money is not weary of telling it: And he who loves God, is not weary of serving him.
3. It is advantageous. There is nothing lost by our love to God. [reconstructed: 1 Corinthians 2:9]: Eye has not seen, etc. the things which God has prepared for them [who love him]. Such glorious rewards are laid up for such as love God: That (as Austin says) they do not only transcend our reason, but faith itself is not able to comprehend them. A crown is the highest ensign of worldly glory; and God has promised a crown of life to them that love him (James 1:12). And it is a never-fading crown (1 Peter 5:4).
4. By our loving God we may know that he loves us (1 John 4:19). We love him, because he first loved us. If the ice melts, it is because the sun has shined on it: If the frozen heart melts in love, it is because the Sun of Righteousness has shined upon it.
Quest. What means may be used to excite our love to God?
Resp. 1. Labor to know God aright. The schoolmen say true, Bonum non amatur quod non cognoscitur: We cannot love that which we do not know: God is the most eligible good. All the excellencies which lie scattered in the creature, are united in God: He is Optimus maximus. Wisdom, beauty, riches, love, do all center in God. How fair were that tulip which had the colors of all tulips in it? All perfections and sweetnesses are eminently in God. Did we know God more, and by the eye of faith, see his radiant beauty, our hearts would be fired with love to him.
2. Make the Scriptures familiar to you. Saint Austin says, Before his conversion he took no pleasure in Scripture; but after conversion it was his chaste delight. The book of God discovers God to us in his holiness, wisdom, veracity and truth: It represents God rich in mercy, encircled with promises. Saint Austin calls the Scripture a golden epistle, or love-letter sent from God to us. By reading this love-letter, we shall be the more enamored with love to God: As by reading lascivious books, comedies, romances, lust is provoked.
3. Meditate much of God, and this will be a means to love him (Psalm 39:3). While I was musing, the fire burned. Meditation is the bellows of the affections. Meditate on God's love in giving us Christ (John 3:16). God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, etc. That God should give Christ to us, and not to the angels that fell; that the Sun of Righteousness should shine in our horizon; that he is revealed to us and not to others; what wonderful love is this (Proverbs 6:28). Who can go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned? Who can meditate on God's love, who can tread on these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love to God! Beg a heart to love God: The affection of love is natural, but not the grace of love (Galatians 5:22). This fire of love is kindled from heaven; beg that it may burn upon the altar of your heart. Sure this request is pleasing to God, and he will not deny such a prayer, Lord give me a heart to love you.
