Chapter 11: The Sixth Prerogative Royal

The next privilege is, our love shall be perfect: love is the jewel with which Christ's bride is adorned: in one sense it is more excellent than faith; for love never ceases (1 Corinthians 13:8). The spouse shall put off her jewel of faith, when she goes to heaven; but she shall never put off her jewel of love: love shall be perfect.

1. Our love to God shall be perfect: the saints' love shall be joined with reverence, for a filial disposition shall remain, but there shall be no servile fear in heaven: horror and trembling is proper to the damned in hell; though in heaven there shall be a reverencing fear, yet a rejoicing fear: we shall see that in God which will work such a delight that we cannot but love him. And this love to God shall be, 1. A fervent love: we love him here secundùm studium, there secundùm actum, as the Schoolmen speak: our love to God in this life is rather a desire, but in heaven the smoke of desire shall be blown up into a flame of love, we shall love God with an intenseness of love: here our love is lukewarm, and sometimes frozen: a child of God weeps that he can love God no more; but there is a time shortly coming when our love to God shall be fervent, it shall burn as hot as it can; the damned shall be in a flame of fire, the elect in a flame of love. 2. A fixed love: alas, how soon is our love taken off from God! other objects presenting themselves steal away our love. Your goodness is like a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away (Hosea 6:4): in the morning you shall see the grass covered with drops of dew, as so many pearls, but before noon all is vanished: so is it with our love to God: perhaps at a sermon, when our affections are stirred, the heart melts in love: and at a sacrament, when we see Christ's blood as it were trickling down upon the cross, some love-drops fall from the heart; but, within a few days all is vanished, and we have lost our first love, this is matter of humiliation while we live. But O you saints, comfort yourselves, in heaven your love shall be fixed, as well as fervent; it shall never be taken off from God any more: such beauty and excellency shall shine in God, that as a divine lodestone it will be always drawing our eyes and hearts after him.

2. Our love to the saints shall be perfect: love is a sweet harmony, a tuning and chiming together of affections. It is our duty to love the saints, 1. Though they are of bad dispositions; sometimes their nature is so rugged and unhewn, that grace does not cast forth such a luster; it is like a gold ring on a leprous hand, or a diamond set in iron: yet if there be any thing of Christ, it is our duty to love it. 2. Though they in some things differ from us, yet if we see Christ's image and portraiture drawn upon their hearts, we are to separate the precious from the vile. But alas, how defective is this grace? how little love is there among God's people? Herod and Pilate can agree: wicked men unite, when saints divide. For the divisions of England there are great thoughts of heart. Contentions were never more hot, love never more cold. Many there are whose music consists all in discords, whose harp is the cross; that pretend to love truth, but hate peace, divisions are Satan's powder-plot, to blow up religion. Sin brought forth separation, and this daughter of separation has brought forth the grandchild of division. For these things there are great searchings of heart. It were not strange to hear the harlot say, Let the child be divided; but to hear the mother of the child say so, this is sad. If Pope, Cardinal, Jesuit, all conspire against the Church of God, it were not strange; but for one saint to persecute another, this is strange. For a wolf to worry a lamb is usual; but for a lamb to worry a lamb is unnatural. For Christ's lily to be among the thorns, is ordinary; but for this lily to become a thorn, to tear and fetch blood of itself, this is strange! How will Christ take this at our hands? Would he not have his coat rent, and will he have his body rent? Oh that I could speak here weeping: well, this will be a foil to set off heaven the more; there is a time shortly coming, when our love shall be perfect, there shall be no difference of judgment in heaven; there the saints shall be all of a piece. Though we fall out by the way, and about the way, we shall all agree in the journey's end. When once the blessed harp of Christ's voice has sounded in the ears of the saints, the evil spirit shall be quite driven away. When our strings shall be wound up to the highest peg of glory, you shall never hear any more discord in the saints' music. In heaven there shall be a perfect harmony.