1 John 4

Love is a pleasing affection. Fear has torment in it (1 John 4:18). Love has joy in it.

Death is the cure of care. 2. Fear: fear is the ague of the soul, which sets it a shaking (1 John 4:14). There is torment in fear: fear is like Prometheus his vulture, it gnaws upon the heart.

Sin breeds a trembling at the heart (Isaiah 57:21). It creates fears, and there is torment in fear (1 John 4:18). Sin makes sad convulsions in the conscience.

Trouble is the vermin bred out of the putrid matter of sin. From where are all our fears, but from sin? (1 John 4:18). There is torment in fear.

How should we nourish this grace which shall outlive all the graces, and run parallel with eternity! 4. Our love to God is a sign of his love to us (1 John 4:19): We love him, because he first loved us. By nature we are 〈in non-Latin alphabet〉, we have no love to God, we have he…

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.

He is the only wise God; he knows how to make evil things work for good to his children (Romans 8:28), he can make a sovereign treacle of poison: Thus he is the best Father for wisdom. 4. He is the best Father because most loving; (1 John 4:16) God is love. He who causes bowels…

It was said of Cataline, He was afraid of every noise. If a briar does but take hold of a thief's garment, he is afraid it is the officer to apprehend him — and fear has torment in it (1 John 4:18). (4.) The judgments which follow this sin.

There is nothing more contrary to God than a lie. The Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Truth (1 John 4:5-6). Lying is a sin that does not go alone, it ushers in other sins.

Love is the soul of obedience, the touchstone of sincerity. By our loving God we may know he loves us (1 John 4:19), and those whom God loves he will lay in his bosom. Ambrose in his funeral oration for Theodosius, brings in the angels hovering about his departing soul, and bein…

Such as are unpardoned must needs lead uncomfortable lives (Deuteronomy 28:66): your life shall hang in doubt before you, and you shall be in continual fears. Thus the unpardoned sinner must needs have a palpitation and trembling at heart; he fears every bush he sees (1 John 4:1…

I take this to be implied in that phrase in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, where the apostle warns they should not be troubled 'neither by spirit nor by word' to think the day of judgment was at hand. By 'spirit' he means a pretense of revelation joined with a man's own private conceit an…

Yet though you are to lay it to heart so as to mourn under it, you are not to be discouraged — not to call all into question. For though you change, yet God does not, nor his love — for his love is himself (1 John 4:8-10). We may change in our apprehensions and opinions, and God…

To come to his titles, the first is Jesus, to which if we add the clause, I believe, on this manner, I believe in Jesus, etc., the article which we now have in hand will appear to be most excellent, because it has most notable promises annexed to it. When Peter confessed Christ…

4. I see not how, if the faith of the saints be tried as gold in the fire, they may not through the prevalence of temptation be shaken in their faith, as Peter was, when he denied his Savior; and Paul; who (2 Corinthians 1:8) was pressed out of measure, above strength, despaired…

James commands not such a confession. Daniel's, Ezra's, Peter's confession were some other thing (John 1:20; Acts 19:18; Hebrews 11:13; Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 4:2; Mark 3:6; Joshua 7:19; Daniel 9:4; Romans 10:10; 1 Timothy 6:13; Psalm 32:5; James 5:16; Leviticus 5:5; Leviticus 1…

Argument 6. Christ's Lordship and Princedome through his resurrection, is in turning of hearts (Acts 5:31; Romans 11:23). Grace is stronger than devils, sin, hell and death (Romans 14:4; Ephesians 3:20; Jude 24; 1 John 2:14; 1 John 4:4). Arg. 7. If it must lie at our door more t…

(1 John 2:27) You need not that any teach you, but the anointing that you have received teaches you all things. Why should then fewer have the Spirit of holy unction in them, than the world for whom Christ is a propitiation, and all the visible saints that John writes to? (1 Joh…

5 Another end was, that so by this means they might be strengthened in the faith, according to what you read in the words of the text, to them that did believe, he wrote that they might believe, meaning that they might be confirmed and established in believing. 6 Also, to the in…

Both doubting and presumption is contrary to the life of faith, and therefore must be cast out, cast out all fears, and all self-confidence. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Faith strives against fear, and love strives against malice, and patience strives against frowa…

(Revelation 1:5) To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood. He thought no price too dear for our salvation; let us love him again who loved us first (1 John 4:19): We love him because he first loved us. And be contented to suffer with him and for him, that w…

3. Why is it put here. 1. To show the end for which Christ came to represent the amiableness of God, that he is love (1 John 4:8), and has love for his children. Christ is the pattern of all, for he is first beloved, and the great instance and demonstration of God's love to the…

Secondly, here we may observe what is true religion and godliness, namely, to love and serve God in serving of man. He that says he loves God, and yet hates his brother, is a liar (1 John 4:20). And here it follows that to live out of all society of men, though it be in prayer a…

It is further said, we must restore in the spirit of meekness. The word spirit is added, because it proceeds from the spirit of God, who is both the worker and continuer thereof: as on the contrary, the spirit of jealousy (Numbers 5:14), the spirit of error (1 John 4:6), the spi…

Love is the Spirit of Adoption, or the Childlike Principle; if that Slumbers, Men fall under Fear, which is the Spirit of [Bondage], of the [legal] Principle: And [on] the contrary. And if [it be] so, [that] the Spirit of Adoption, be carried to a great Height, it quite drives a…

So that not only the Persons are called spiritual, as having the Spirit of God dwelling in them; but those Qualifications, Affections and Experiences that are wrought in them by the Spirit, are also spiritual, and therein differ vastly in their Nature and Kind from all that a na…

Reasons hereof. (10.) Promise of the Spirit to supply the Absence of Christ, as to his Humane Nature. Concernment thereof. (11.) Work of the Spirit in the Ministration of the Gospel. (12, 13.) All saving Good communicated to us; and wrought in us by Him. (14.) Sin against the Ho…

Fear contains faith, and fear contains love too. Though perfect love cast out tormenting fear (1 John 4:18), yet perfect love calls in obeying fear. Hear the conclusion of all, says the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 12:13), Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty…

The sum of it is, Your love is exceeding excellent, and I have more need, and greater esteem of it, than of any thing in the world, therefore I seek after it, and hope to attain it. There are four words here to be cleared, 1. Your loves (so it is in the original in the plural nu…

Christ's love and thoughts to his people, are still the same, whatever changes be upon their frame and way, which may occasion sad changes in his dispensations towards them. 2. That she might the more be persuaded of his love to her and esteem of her; Christ would have his own t…

Now if we would conceive aright of God, when we come to worship him, let us not frame any idea of him in our imaginations, (for all such representations are false and foolish,) but labor to possess our hearts with an awful esteem of his attributes; and when we have with all poss…

1 John 4:1. Beloved, believe not every Spirit, but try the Spirits whether they are of God; because many false Prophets are gone out into the World. The apostolical Age, or the Age in which the Apostles lived and preached the Gospel, was an Age of the greatest outpouring of the…

1. Love: I mean love unto sinners. Without this man is of all creatures most miserable; and there is not the least glimpse of it that can possibly be discovered but in Christ: the Holy Ghost says (1 John 4:8, 16) God is Love: that is not only of a loving and tender nature; but o…

Our peculiar communion with the Father is in love. 1 John 4:7-8, 2 Corinthians 13:13, John 16:26-27, Romans 5:5, John 3:16, John 14:23, Titus 3:4, opened to this purpose. What is required of believers to hold communion with the Father in love.

Our knowing of it is our believing of it, as revealed. We have known and believed the love that God has to us; God is love (1 John 4:16). This is the assurance which at the very entrance of walking with God you may have of this love: he who is Truth has said it.

Love also gives joy in obedience. 1 John 4:18: there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. When their soul is moved to obedience by love, it expels that fear which is the issue of bondage upon the spirit.

His delight in his saints is first considered — Isaiah 62:5, Song of Solomon 3:11, Proverbs 8:21. As an instance of Christ's delight in believers: he reveals his whole heart to them, John 15:14-15; himself, 1 John 4:21; and his kingdom. He enables them to communicate their mind…

He chooses us to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, 2 Thessalonians 2:12. This the Father designed as the first and immediate end of electing love, and proposes the consideration of that love as a motive to holiness, 1 John 4:8-10. It is…

But there are seducing spirits, 1 Timothy 4:1. We have a command not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits, 1 John 4:16. The reason added is that many false spirits have gone abroad in the world — that is, men pretending to the revelation of new doctrines by the Spirit,…

God is love. 1 John 4:8. Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed.

Therefore both in thankfulness to Christ, for his love to us, and for assurance to our own souls of Christ's love to us, we ought in all things that we can to testify our love to Christ. A motive it is also to love our brethren, because Christ being in heaven, our goodness exten…

Where this want of love is, there can be no duty well performed, even as when the great wheel of a clock, the first mover of all the rest, is out of frame, never a wheel can be in good order. They that think lightly hereof, plainly discover that there is little or no love of God…

I have loved thee with an everlasting Love, therefore with Lovingkindness have I drawn thee. 1 John 4. 19. If we love him it is because he loved us first.

Uncharitableness is a loathsome Part of the Image of the fallen Angel: It is akin to the Hatred of God. For he that loves not his Brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 1 John 4:20. He that hates his Fellow-Christian, and brings railing Accusations a…

Knowledge puffs up, but Charity edifies; and if any Man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know; but if any Man love God, the same is known of him. And Saint John will assure you, that he that loves not his Brother knows not God, and if a Man say,…

He died for all Ranks and Characters of Men, Jews and Gentiles, that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him who died for them, and rose again. 1 John 4:19. We are bound to love him, and we do love him because he first loved us.

He that loves may be sure he was loved first, and he that chooses God for his delight and portion, may conclude confidently, that God has chosen him, to be one of those that shall enjoy him, and be happy in him for ever, for that our love and electing of him, is but the return a…

Again, for a man so to apprehend wrath in relation to himself as to be still under the horror of it in that notion, and not to apprehend redemption and deliverance by Jesus Christ, is to be under that spirit of bondage which the Apostle speaks of (Romans 8). And such fear, thoug…

The Septuagint there renders it by the word used here by our Apostle, both the words signify a benignity, and kindness of nature, it is one of love's attributes (1 Corinthians 13), it is kind, ever compassionate, and as it can be helpful in straits and distresses still ready to…

This is their course, but you run not with them. The godly a small and weak company, and yet run counter to the grand torrent of the world, just against them: and there is a Spirit within them, from where that their contrary motion flows, and a Spirit strong enough to maintain i…