Chapter 8. Containing a Sharp Corrective to Those That Do Not Love God

Use 1. This may serve for a sharp reprehension to such as have not a dram of love to God in their hearts: And are there such miscreants alive? He who loves not God, aut lapis est, aut belluae, he is a Beast with a man's head. Oh wretch, do you live upon God every day, yet not love Him? If one had a friend that fed him continually with money, and gave him all his allowance, was he not worse than a Barbarian, that did not respect and honor that friend? Such a friend is God, He gives you your breath, He bestows a livelihood upon you, and will you not love Him? You will love your Prince if he saves your life, and will you not love God who gives you your life? What Lodestone so powerful to draw love, as the blessed Deity? He is blind whom beauty does not tempt; he is sottish, who is not drawn with the cords of love. When the body is cold, and has no heat in it, it is a sign of death: That man is dead, who has no heat of love in his soul to God. How can he expect love from God, who shows no love to Him? Will God ever lay such a Viper in His bosom, as spits forth the poison of malice and enmity against Him?

This reproof falls heavy upon the Atheists of this Age, who are so far from loving God, that they do all they can to spite Him; They declare their sin as Sodom, Isaiah 3:9. They set their mouth against the Heavens, in pride and blasphemy, and bid open defiance to God; These are Monsters in Nature, Devils in the shape of men: Let them read their doom, 1 Corinthians 16:22. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha; That is, let him be accursed from God, till Christ's coming to Judgment; Let him be heir to a curse while he lives, and at the dreadful day of the Lord, let him hear that heart-rending sentence pronounced against him, Go you cursed.