5. Confider of thofe commands of Chrift, which, notwithstanding all thy excufes and pretences, he faftens on thee to believe: And this is his commandinent, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jefus Chrift. Surely this command should infiitely out-weigh and prevail against all other countermands of flesh and blood; of Satan, nature, reafon, fenfe, and all the world. Why, this coming, and receiving, a d marrving of Shrift: oh, mand is thy very ground and warrant against which the very gates of hell can never poflibly prevail. When Abraham had a command to kill his own, only dear fon, with his own hand, though it was a matter of as great grief as poffibly could pierce his heart, yet he would readily and willingly tub

and give God the glory. Come! fay on! art thov willing to have Chrift? Wouldst thou have thy' name inrolled in the covenant of grace? Shall God be thy God, and Chrift thy Chrift? Wilt thou have the perfon of Chrift, and all thofe privileges flowing from the blood of Chrift? Sure thou art willing, Art thou not? Stay then, theu must take Chrift on these terms, thou must believe on him. i. e. Thou must take him as thy Saviour and Lord, thou must take him, and forfake all others for him. This is true faith, the condition of the covenant: O believe in Jefus and the match is made, the hands are ftruck, the covenant established, and all doubts removed.

SECT. VI.

Of loving Jefus in that respect.

6. W

fed to Adam, intended for thee? As thou finnedst in his loins, fo didft thou not in his loins receive the promife, It shall bruife thy head? And not long after, when God established his covenant with Abraham and his feed, waft thou not one of that feed of Abraham? If ye are Chrifl's, then are ye Abraham's feed, and heirs according to the promise, Gal, iii. 29. 3. He loves thee now more efpecially, not only with a love of benevolence, as before, but with a love of complacency: not only hath he ftruck covenant with Chrift, with Adam, with Abraham in thy behalf; and O what a love is this? If a woman, lately conceiving, love her future fruit, how much more doth she love it when it is born and embraced in her arms? So if God loved thee before thou hadst a being, yea, before the world, or any creature in it had a being, how much more now? the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of this immeafurable love! O, my foul, I cannot exprefs the loves of God in Chrift to thee; I but draw the picture of the fun with a coal, when I endeavour to exprefs God's love in Chrift.

2. For the properties of this love. 1. God's love to thee is an eternal love. He was thinking in his eternity of thee in this manner. • At fuch a time there fhall be fuch a man, and fuch a woman

(I mean thou that readeft, if thou believest) and to that foul I will reveal myfelf, and communicate my loves; to that foul I will offer Chrift, and give it the hand of faith to lay hold on Chrift; ' and to that purpofe now I write down the name in the book of life, and none fhall be able to 'blot it out again.' Oh, eternal love! Oh, the bleffed tranfaction between the Father and the Son, from all eternity, to manifeft his love to thy very foul !

E must love Jefus, as carrying on this great work of our falvation in a way of covenant. I know love is reckoned as the firft and fundamental paffion of all the rest; fome call it the first fpringing or out-going affection of the foul and therefore I might have put it in the first place before hope or defire, but I chufe rather to place it in this method, as (methinks) molt agree-living on the earth, in the last times fuch a one ing (if not to the order of nature, yet) to the fpiritual workings, as they appear in my foul: when a God is propounded, firft I defire, and then I hope, and then. I believe, and then I love. And fome defcribing this fpiritual love; they tell me, It is an holy difpofition of the heart, arifing from faith.' Dr Preston of love. But, to let thefe niceties pafs for a fpider's web, (curious, but thin) certain it is, that I cannot believe all thefe tranfactions of God by Chrift in a covenant-way for me, but I must needs love that God, and love that Christ, who hath thus firftly and freely loved my foul: Go on then, O my foul, put fire to the earth, blow on thy little fpark, fet before thee God's love, and thou canst not but love, and therein confider, 1. The time. 2. The properties. 3. The effects of God's love 1. For the time; he loved thee before the world was made: haft thou not heard, and wilt thou ever forget it? Were not thefe ancient loves from all eternity admirable, aftonishing, ravifhing loves? 2. He loved thee in the very beginning of the world, was not the promise expref

2. God's love to thee is a choice love; it is an elective feparating love: when he paffed by, and left many thoufands, then, even then he fets his heart on thee; Was not Efau Jacob's brother, faith God? Yet 1-loved Jacob, and hated Efau, Mal. i. 2, 3. So, wert not thou fuch a one's brother, or fuch a one's fifter that remained wicked and ungodly? Were not thou of fuch a family, whereas many, or fome, are paffed by, and yet God hath loved thee, and pitched his love on thee? Surely this is choice love.

3. God's love to thee is a free love: I will love them

them freely, faith God, Hof. xiv. 4. And the Lord did not fet his love upon you, and chufe you, becaufe ye were more in number than any people,--but becaufe the Lord loved you. Deut. vii. 7, 8. There can be no other reafon why the Lord loved thee, but because he loved thee; we use to fay, This is a woman's reafon; I will do it, because I will do it. But here we find it is God's reason, though it may seem strange arguing, yet Mofes can go no higher; he loved thee, Why? Because he loved

hee.

4. God's love to thee is love of all relations; look what a friend's love is to a friend; or what a father's love is towards a child; or what an hufband's love is towards a wife, fuch is God's love to thee; thou art his friend, his fon, his daughter, his fpoufe; and God is thy All in all.

3. For the effects of his love, 1. God fo loves thee, as that he hath entred into a covenant with thee. O what a love was this? Tell me, O my foul, is there not an infinite difparity betwixt God and thee? He is God above, and thou art a worm below: He is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whofe name is holy, and thou art lefs than the leaft of all the mercies of God, O wonder at fuch a condefcenfion! that fuch a potter and fuch a former of things should come on terms of bargaining with fuch clay as is guilty before him! had we the tongues of men and angels, we could never express it.

2. God fo loves thee, as that in the covenant he gives thee all his promifes; indeed what is the covenant, but an accumulation, or heap of promifes? As a cluster of stars makes a constellation, fo a mafs of promifes concurreth in the covenant of grace, wherever Chrift is, clusters of divine promises grow out of him; as the motes, rays, and beams are from the fun. I fhall inftance in fome few, As

1. God in the covenant gives the world. All is yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, 1 Cor. iii. 22. Firft feek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things fhall be added unto you, Matth. vi. 33. These temporary blessings are a part of the covenant, which God hath made to his people, It is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he wore unto thy fathers, Deut. vii. 18. Others, I know, may have the world, but they have it not by a covenant-right; it may be

thou haft but a little, a very litttle of the world; well, but thou haft it by a covenant-right, and fo it is an earnest of all the reft.

2. As God in the covenant gives thee the world, fo in comparison of thee and his other faints, he cares not what becomes of all the world. I loved thee, faith God, therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life; Ifa. xliji. 4. If the cafe be fo, that it cannot be well with thee, but great evils must come upon others, kindred, people, and nations, 'I do not fo much care for them, faith God, my heart is on thee, fo as in comparison of thee I care not what becomes of ' all the world;' O the love of God to his faints! 3. God in the covenant párdons thy fins, this is another fruit of God's love, Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our fins by his own blood, Rev. i. 5. It coft him dear to pardon our fins, even the heart-blood of Chrift, fuch were the tranf actions betwixt God and Christ, If thou wilt take upon thee to deliver fouls from fin, faith God to his Son, thou must come thyself and be made a curfe for their fin: Well, faith Chrift, thy will be done in it, though I lofe my life, though it cost me the best blood in my heart, yet let me deliver them from fin. This exceedingly heightens Chrift's love, that he should foresee their fin, and that yet he fhould love; many times we fet our love on fome untoward unthankful creatures, and we fay, Could I have but foreseen this untowardness, they should never have had my love; but now the Lord did forefee all thy fins, and all thy ill requitals for love, and yet it did not once hinder his love towards thee, but he puts this in the covenant, I will forgive their iniquities, and I will remember their fins no morę.

4 God in the covenant gives thee holiness and fanctification, I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you, Ezek. xxxvi. 25. This holiness is our excellency in the eyes of men and angels; this is the crown and diadem upon the heads of faints; whence David calls them, by the name of excellent ones, Pfal. xvi. 3. Holinefs is a Spirit of glory, 1 Pet. iv. 14 It is the delight of God; as a father delights himself in feeing his own image in his children, fo God delights himfelf in the holiness of his faints; God loved them before with a love of benevolence and good will, but

6. God in the covenant of grace gives thee his Son, God fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, John iii. 16. Nay more, a. God hath given thee his Son, fo he hath given thee himself. O my foul, wouldst thou not think it a marvellous love, if God should say to thee, Come, foul, I will give thee all the world for thy portion; or that I may give thee a teftimony. that I love thee, I will make another world for thy fake, and will make thee emperor of that world alfo.' Surely thou wouluft fav, God loves me dearly; ay, but in that od hath given thee his Son, and given thee himfelf, this is a greater degree of love. Chriftians, fland amazed! Oh what love is this to the children of men? Oh that we should live to have our cars filled with this found from heaven! I will be a God to thee, and to thy feed after thee, I am tre Lord thy God, I will be their Gid, and they shall be my people O my foul! where haft thou been? Roufe up, and 1.collect, and set before thee all the paffages of God's love in Chrift; are not thefe ftrong attractives to gain thy loves? What wilt thou do? Canft thou choose to love the Lord thy God? Shall not all this love of God in Chrift to thee conftrain thy love? It is the expreffion of the apoitle, i he love of Chrift constrains

now he loves them with a love of complacency, The Lord takes pleasure in thofe that fear him; the Lord takes pleasure in his people, Pial. cxlvii. II. and cxlix. 4. Holiness is the very effence of God, the divine nature of God. O! what is this, that God fhould put his own nature into thee? You are partakers of the divine nature, O what a love is this, That God fhould put his own life in to thee? That he fhould enable thee to live the very fame life that he himself lives? Remember that piece of the covenant, I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. 5. God in the covenant gives thee the knowlege of himself; it may be that thou kneweft him before, but 'tis another kind of knowlege that now God gives thee than thou hadit before; when God teaches the foul to know him, it looks on him with another eye, it fes now another beauty in God, than ever it faw before, for all that knowlege that it had before bred not love, only covenant-knowlege of God works in the foul a true love of God. But how doth this covenant-knowlege work this love? I fhall tell you my own experiences; I go thro' all the virtues, graces, and excellencies that are most amiable;. and I look in the fcriptures, and there I find them in God alone; if ever I faw any excellency in any man, or in any creature, I think with myself there is more in Gods, 2 Cor. v. 14. God in Chritt is the very elethat made that creature; he that made the eye, fhall be not fee? And fo, he that made that love linefs, is not he lovely? Now, when by these mediums I have prefented God thus lovely to my foul, then I begin to feel my heart to warm. As, when I conceive fuch an idea of a man, that he is of fuch a carriage, behaviour, difpofition; that he bath a mind thus and thus framed, qualified and beautified, why then I love him: fo when i apprehend the Lord aright, when I obferve him as he is defcribed in his word, when I obferve his doings, and confider his workings, and learn from all thefe together a right idea, opinion, or apprehenfion of him, then my will follows, my underftanding and my affections follow them both; and I come to love God, and to delight in God. here's a fweet knowlege! furely it was God's love in Chrift to put this bleffed article into the cove nant of grace, they shall all know me from the leaft of them unto the greatest of them, faith the Lord.

ment of love, and whether fhould love go but to the element? Air goes to air, and earth to earth, and all the rivers to the fea: every element will to its proper place. Now, God is love, 1 John iv. 16 And whether fhould thy love be carried but to the ocean or fea of love? Come, my beloved, (faid the fpodle to Christ) let us get up early to the vineyards, let us fee if the vine flourish, wle ther the tender grapes appear, there will I give thee my loves, Cant. vii. 12. The flour fhing of the vine, and the appearing of the tender grapes, are the fruits of the graces of God in the affumblies of his faints: now, wherefoever thefe things ap pear, whether in affemblies, or in fecret ordinances, then and there (faith the bride) will I give O thee my loves. When thou comell to the word, prayer, meditation, be fure of this, to give Chrift thy love: what? Doth Chrift manifett his prefence there? Is there any abounding of his graces there? O let thy love abound; by how much more thou feeleft God's love towards thee, by fo

much