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Love to God
197. Christian Religion.
The Love of God. It seems to me exceeding congruous and the highest
manner consentaneous that a God, a being of infinite goodness and love,
who, it is evident from mere reason, created the world for this very
end, to make the creation happy in his love: I say it seems exceeding
congruous, that he should give to the creature the highest sort of
evidence or expression of love. For why should not that love, which is
infinitely higher than any other and the love of a being infinitely more
excellent, of which other love is but the emanation and shadow; why
should not that love have the highest and most noble manifestations and
the surest evidences? Now we know that the highest sort of
manifestations and evidence of love is expense for the beloved. How much
soever the lover gives, or communicates to the beloved, yet if he is at
no expense himself, there is not that high and noble expression of love
as if otherwise. Now I can clearly and distinctly conceive how the
giving of Christ should have all that in it, that renders it every way
an equal, and like, and perfectly equivalent expression of love, as the
greatest expense in a lover, as I have shown elsewhere. And this is a
way that is exceeding noble and excellent, and agreeable to the glorious
perfections of God. But no other way can be conceived of; and they that
deny the Christian religion can pretend no other. And if they do it is
impossible they should think of any in any measure so exalted, noble,
and excellent.
270. Glory of God. That no
actions are good but what have the honor of God as their chief end
proposed is not necessary. It is very true that no actions are good any
further than they have God for their ends, either the glorifying him or
the pleasing him or enjoying him, and love to God, or inclination
towards him, must be its spring and motive. Even glorifying God is not a
good end, any further than our seeking his glory springs from love. And
if a desire of enjoying God springs more from love than a desire of
honoring him, it is a better principle.
530. Love to God. Self
-Love. Whether or no a man ought to love God more than himself.
Self-love, taken in the most extensive sense, and love to God are not
things properly capable of being compared one with another, for they are
not opposites or things entirely distinct, but one enters into the
nature of the other. Self-love is a man’s love of his own pleasure and
happiness and hatred of his own misery, or rather, it is only a capacity
of enjoyment or suffering. For to say a man loves his own happiness or
pleasure is only to say that he delights in what he delights; and to say
that he hates his own misery is only to say that he is grieved or
afflicted in his own affliction. So that self-love is only a capacity of
enjoying or taking delight in anything. Now surely it is improper to say
that our love to God is superior to our general capacity of delighting
in anything. Proportionable to our love to God is our disposition to
delight in his good. Now our delight in God’s good cannot be superior to
our own general capacity of delighting in anything or, which is the same
thing, our delight in God’s good cannot be superior to our love to
delight in general. For proportionately as we delight in God’s good, so
shall we love that delight. A desire of and delight in God’s good is
love to God, and love to delight is self-love. Now the degree of delight
in a particular thing and the degree of love to pleasure, or delight in
general, ben’t properly comparable one with another, for they are not
entirely distinct, but one enters into the nature of the other. Delight
in a particular thing includes a love to delight in general. A
particular delight in anything cannot be said to be superior to love to
delight in general, for always in proportion to the degree of delight is
the love a man has to the delight, for he loves greater delight more or
less, in proportion as it is greater. If he did not love it more, it
would not be a greater delight to him. Love of benevolence to any person
is an inclination to their good. But evermore equal to the inclination
or desire anyone has of another’s good is the delight he has in that
other’s good if it be obtained, and the uneasiness if it be not
obtained. But equal to that delight is a person’s love to that delight,
and equal to that uneasiness is his hatred of that uneasiness. But love
to our own delight or hatred of our own uneasiness is self-love, so that
no love to another can be superior to self-love as most extensively
taken.
Self-love is a man’s love
to his own good. But self-love may be taken in two senses, or any good
may be said to be a man’s own good in two senses. First. Any good
whatsoever that a man any way enjoys, or anything that he takes delight
in — it makes it thereby his own good whether it be a man’s own proper
and separate pleasure or honor, or the pleasure or honor of another. Our
delight in it renders it our own good in proportion as we delight in it.
It is impossible that a man should delight in any good that is not his
own, for to say that would be to say that he delights in that in which
he does not delight. Now take self-love for a man’s love to his own good
in this more general sense — and love to God cannot be superior to it.
But secondly, a person’s good may be said to be his own good as it is
his proper and separate good, which is his and what he has delight in
directly and immediately. Love to good that is a man’s own, in this
sense, is what is ordinarily called self-love. And superior to this,
love to God can and ought to be.
Self-love is either
simple, mere self-love, which is a man’s love to his own proper, single,
and separate good, and is what arises simply and necessarily from the
nature of a perceiving, willing being — it necessarily arises from that
without the supposition of any other principle. I therefore call it
simple self-love because it arises simply from that principle, viz., the
nature of a perceiving, willing being. Self-love, taken in this sense,
and love to God are entirely distinct and do not enter one into the
nature of the other at all. Second. There is a compounded self-love
which is exercised in the delight that a man has in the good of another
— it is the value that he sets upon that delight. This I call compounded
self-love because it arises from a compounded principle. It arises from
the necessary nature of perceiving and willing being, whereby he takes
his own pleasure or delight, but not from this alone. But it supposes
also another principle that determines the exercise of this principle —
a certain principle uniting this person with another that causes the
good of another to be its good, and makes that to become delight which
otherwise cannot. The first arises simply from his own being, whereby
that which agrees immediately and directly with his own being is his
good, though it arises also from a principle uniting him to another
being, whereby the good of that other being does in a sort become his
own. This second sort of self-love is not entirely distinct from love to
God, but enters into its nature.
Corollary. Hence, it is impossible for any person to be willing to be
perfectly and finally miserable for God’s sake, for this supposes love
to God is superior to self-love in the most general and extensive sense
of self-love, which enters into the nature of love to God. It may be
possible that a man may be willing to be deprived of all his own proper,
separate good for God’s sake. But then he is not perfectly miserable,
but happy in the delight that he has in God’s good. For he takes greater
delight in God’s good, for the sake of which he parts with his own, than
he did in his own. So that the man is not perfectly miserable: he is not
deprived of all delight, but he is happy. He has greater delight in what
is obtained for God than he had in what he has lost of his own, so that
he has only exchanged a lesser joy for a greater. But if a man is
willing to be perfectly miserable for God’s sake, then he is willing to
part with all his own separate good, but he must be willing also to be
deprived of that which is indirectly his own, viz., God’s good, which
supposition is inconsistent with itself. For to be willing to be
deprived of this latter sort of good is opposite to that principle of
love to God itself, from whence such a willingness is supposed to arise.
Love to God, if it be superior to any other principle, will make a man
forever unwilling, utterly and finally, to be deprived of that part of
his happiness which he has in God’s being blessed and glorified, and the
more he loves him, the more unwilling he will be. So that this
supposition, that a man can be willing to be perfectly and utterly
miserable out of love to God, is inconsistent with itself.
Note. That love of God,
which we have hitherto spoke of, is a love of benevolence only. But this
is to be observed, that there necessarily accompanies a love of
benevolence a love of appetite or complacence, which is a disposition to
desire or delight in beholding the beauty of another, and a relation to
or union with him. Self-love, in its most general extent, is very much
concerned in this, and is not entirely distinct from it. The difference
is only this: that self-love is a man’s desire of, or delight in, his
own happiness. This love of complacence is a placing of his happiness,
which he thus desires and delights in, in a particular object. This sort
of love, which is always in proportion to a love of benevolence, is also
inconsistent with a willingness to be utterly miserable for God’s sake.
For if the man is utterly miserable, he is utterly excluded from the
enjoyment of God. But how can man’s love of complacence towards God be
gratified in this? The more a man loves God, the more unwilling will he
be to be deprived of this happiness.
567. Love to God. If a man has any true love to God, he must have a
spirit to love God above all, because, without seeing something of the
divine glory, there can be no true love to God. But if a man sees
anything of divine glory, he’ll see that he is more glorious than any
other, for whereinsoever God is divine, therein he is above all others.
If men are sensible only of some excellency in God that is common with
him to others, they are not sensible of anything of his divine glory.
But so far as any man is sensible of excellency in God above others, so
far must he love him above others.
739. Love to God.
Predominancy of Grace. Though it be by many things most evident that
there is but little grace in the hearts of the godly, in their present
infant state, to what there is of corruption, yet it is also very
evident by the Scripture that grace is the principle that reigns and
predominates in the heart of a godly man in such a manner that it is the
spirit that he is of, and so, that it denominates the man. Goodness or
godliness prevails in him so that he is called a good man, a godly,
righteous man, a saint or holy man. Humility predominates, therefore all
good men are called humble men. Meekness predominates, so that all good
men are denominated the meek. Mercifulness prevails, so that all good
men are called merciful men. So godly persons are represented as such as
love God and not the world, for it is said, if any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. A true disciple of Christ is
represented as one that loves Christ above father and mother, and wife
and children, houses and lands, yea, more than his own life, that loves
him above all and therefore sells all for him. Now how can these things
consist with his having so little grace and so much corruption, his
having so little divine love and so much love to the world? Why cannot
it be so that a man may have some true love to God, and yet that love be
so little and the love of the world so much that he may be said to love
the world a great deal better than God?
I answer, it is from the nature of the object loved rather than from the
degree of the principle in the lover. The object beloved is of supreme
excellency, of a loveliness immensely above all, worthy to be chosen and
pursued and cleaved to and delighted in far above all. And he that truly
loves loves him as seeing this superlative excellency, seeing it as
superlative, and as being convinced that it is far above all. Though a
man has but a faint discovery of the glory of God, yet if he has any
true discovery of him, so far as he sees this he is sensible that God is
worthy to be loved far above all. The Spirit of God is a spirit of
truth, and if he makes any true discovery of God, it must be a discovery
of him as lovely above all. If such an excellency is not discovered,
there is no divine excellency discovered, for divine excellency is
superlative, supreme excellency.
Now that wherein a godly
man may be said to love God above all seems to be built on, and seems
all to be no more than immediately follows: he that has God’s supreme
excellency thus discovered to him has a sense of heart of his being
lovely above all. For spiritual knowledge and conviction consists in the
sense of heart. And having such a sort of conviction and sense of heart,
it follows that he does in his heart esteem God above all, so that the
love of God reigns in his practical judgment and esteem. And it will
also follow that God predominates in the stated established choice and
election of his heart. For he that has a conviction and sense of heart
of anything, as above all things eligible, must elect that above all.
And therefore godly men are often in Scriptures represented as choosing
God for their portion, or choosing the pearl of great price above all.
From this it will follow that God and holiness predominates in his
established purpose and resolution. He cleaves to the Lord with purpose
of heart and so, in the sense of the Scriptures, with his whole heart.
Though there may be but
little of the principle of love, yet the principle that is being built
on such a conviction will be of that nature, viz., to prize God above
all. There may be an endless variety of degrees of the principle; but
the nature of the object is unalterable, and therefore, if there be a
true discovery of the object, whether in a greater or lesser degree, yet
if it be true or agreeable to the nature of the object discovered, the
nature of that principle that is the effect of the discovery will answer
the nature of the object. And so it will evermore be the nature of it to
prize God above all, though there may be but little of such a principle.
And so may it be said of the man’s love to, and choice of, holiness and
of particular graces such as meekness, mercifulness, etc. — he sees the
excellency of these things above all other qualifications, hence they
predominate in the judgment and choice.
And then another way
whereby grace predominates in the soul of a saint is by virtue of the
covenant of grace and the promises of God on which Christian grace
relies, and which engage God’s strength and assistance to be on its side
and to help it against its enemy when otherwise it would be overpowered.
Where God infuses grace, he will give it a predominance by his upholding
of it, and time after time giving it the victory when it seemed for a
time to be overborn and ready to be swallowed. This is not owing to our
strength, but to the strength of God who will not forsake the work of
his hands, and will carry on his work where he has begun it, and always
causeth us to triumph in Christ Jesus, who is the author and has
undertaken to be the finisher of our faith.
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