out Christ's death, and the sinner be loved without his righteousness, if he had but sincerely loved God.'

Answ. The supposition is false, that a sinner could have loved God without pardon and the Spirit, purchased by the death and righteousness of Christ. God perfectly loveth the perfected souls in glory, for their own holy perfection, but they never attained it, but by Christ. And God loveth us here, according to the measure of our love to him: but no man can thus love him, till his sin be pardoned; for which he was deprived of the Spirit, which must kindle love. And imperfect love is ever joined with imperfect pardon, (whatever some falsely say to the contrary ;) I mean that love, which is sinfully imperfect.

Quest. 2. Doth not God's loving us make us happy? And if so, it must make us holy. And then none that he loveth will fall away from him: whereas the fallen angels and Adam loved him, and yet fell from him: how then were they beloved by him?'

Answ. I before told you that God's will (or love) is first efficient, causing good, and then final, being pleased in the good that is caused. God's efficient will or love, doth so far make men holy and happy as they are such, even efficiently but God's will, or love, as it is our causa finalis,' and the terminating object of our love, and is pleased in us, and approveth us, is not the efficient cause of our holiness and happiness; but the objective and perfect constitutive cause. Now you must further note, that God's benevolent efficient will, or love, doth give men various degrees of holiness. To Adam in innocency he gave but such a degree, and upon such terms, as he could lose and cast away; which he did. But to the blessed in glory, he giveth that which they shall never lose. These degrees are from God's efficient love, or will; which, therefore, causeth some to persevere, when it left Adam to himself, to stand or fall. But it is not God's final love of complacency, as such, that causeth our perseverance: for Adam had this love, as long as he loved God, and stood; and he after lost it: so that it is not that final complacency, which is the terminus' of our holiness, and constitutive cause of our happiness, which alone will, secure the perpetuity of either of them.

Object. Thus you make God mutable in his love, as loving Adam more before his fall, than after.'

Answ. I told you, loving, and not loving the creature, are no changes in God, but in the creature. It is man that is mutable, and not God. It is only the relation of God's will to the creature, as varying in itself, and the extrinsic denomination, by connotation of a changed object, which is changed as to God. As the sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your eyes; nor a pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand, and sometimes on your left.

5. Lastly, it must be noted, as included in the text 'That our own loving God, is not the only or total notion of our end, perfection, or felicity; but to be known and loved by God, is the other part which must be taken in, to make up the total notion of our end.'

In our love, God is considered as the object: but in God's complacential love to us, he is considered as active, and his love as an act, and man as the object: but yet not as an object of efficiency, but of approbation, and a pleased will or delight. Here then the great difficulty is, in resolving which of these is the highest perfective notion of man's felicity; per fection, or ultimate end; our love to God, or God's love to us.

Answ. It is mutual love and union which is the true and complete notion of our end; and to compare God's love and ours as the parts, and tell which is the final principal part or notion, is not easy, nor absolutely necessary. But I conceive,

as

1. That our love to God is objectively, or as to the object of it, infinitely more excellent than God's love to us, to the object: which is but to say, that God is infinitely better than man. God loveth man who is a worm: but we love God who is perfect goodness.

2. God's love to us, as to the agent and the act ex parte agentis, is infinitely more excellent than our love to him: for it is God's essential will, which loveth us; and it is the will of a worm that loveth God.

3. That man's felicity, as such, is not the chief notion of his ultimate end: but he must love God as God, better than his own felicity as such, or better than God as our felicity.

4. That man's true ultimate end, containeth these five inadequate conceptions. 1. The lowest notion or part of it, is, our own holiness and felicity. 2. The next notion of it, is, the perfection of the church and universe, to which we contribute, and which we must value above our own; inclu

ding the glory of Christ's humanity. 3. The third notion, is, the glory or lustre of God's perfections, as they shine forth in us and all his perfected glorious works. 4. The fourth notion is, God's own essential goodness, as the object of our knowledge, love, and praise. 5. The fifth and highest notion is, the active love or complacency of God's fulfilled will, in us, and in the whole creation. So that the pleasing of God's will, is the highest notion of man's ultimate end : though all these five are necessarily contained in it.

CHAP. III.

Doct. 3. Therefore Knowledge is to be valued, sought, and used, as it tendeth to our Love of God.

THIS third doctrine is much of the scope of the text: all means are for their end: so far as knowledge is a means of love, it must needs hence have the measure of its worth, and we the motives of our desires of it, and the direction for our using of it.

1. All knowledge that kindleth not the love of God in us, is so narrow and small that it deserveth not indeed the name of knowledge; for the necessary things that such a person is ignorant of, are a thousand times more or greater, than that little which he knoweth: for, (1.) What is it that he is ignorant of?

1. He hath no sound and real knowledge of God. For if he knew God truly, he could not but love him: goodness is so naturally the object of the will, that if men well knew the infinite Good, they must needs love him: however there is a partial knowledge that is separable from sincere love.

2. He that knoweth not and loveth not God, neither knoweth nor loveth any creature truly and effectually either as it is of God, or through him, or to him; either as it beareth the impress of the glorious efficient, or as it is ordered to its end by the most wise director, or as it is a means to lead up souls to God, or to glorify and please him, no nor to make man truly happy. And can he be said indeed to know any creature that knoweth it not in any of these respects, that knoweth neither its original, order or use? Doth a dog or a goose know a book of philosophy, because he looketh on it,

and seeth the bulk? Doth he know a clock or watch, who knoweth no more of it, but that it hath such parts and shapes, made of iron and brass? It is most evident that an unholy person knoweth nothing: that is, no one being, though he may know aliquid de re aliqua,' something of some being: for he that knoweth not the nature, order or use and end of a being, but only secundum quid,' or some accidents of it, or to have a general knowledge that it is a substance, or a something, he knoweth not what. As an Epicurean can call all things compacted atoms, or matter and motion. An ungodly man is just like one that studieth the art of a scrivener or printer, to make the letters, and place them by art, but never learned to read or know the signification of the letters which he maketh or composeth.

Or if any may be said to have a speculative knowledge of all this in the creature (the nature, order and use), yet he is without the true practical knowledge, which is it that only is knowledge indeed, and of use and benefit to man; for to be able to speak or write a true proposition about God or the creature, is not properly to know God or the creature, but to know names and words concerning them: it is but a logical knowledge of notions, and not the knowledge of the thing itself, to be able to say and know that this or that concerning it, is true or false. Nothing more deceiveth mankind, both in point of learning and of religion, and salvation, than mistaking the organical or logical knowledge of second notions, words, propositions, inferences and methods, for the real knowledge of the things themselves; and thinking that they know a thing, because they know what to say of it.

He knoweth not a country, who is only able by the map or hearsay to describe it. He knoweth not motion, light, heat, cold, sweet, bitter, that knoweth no more than to give a true definition of it. And as this is true of things sensible, which must themselves be perceived first by sense, so is it of things spiritual, which must themselves be perceived first by intellection, and not only the notions and definitions of them. He that doth not intuitively, or by internal immediate perception, know what it is to understand, to remember, to will and nill, to love and hate, and consequently to be able to do these acts, doth not know what a man is, or what a reasonable soul is, and what an intellectual Spirit is, though he could (were it possible) without these, learn the definition of a

man, a soul, a spirit. A definition or world of art spoken by a parrot or a madman, proveth not that he knoweth the thing.

Practical objects are not truly known without a practical knowledge of them. He knoweth not what meat is, that knoweth not that it must be eaten, and how to eat it: he only knoweth his clothing that knoweth how to put it on. He only knoweth a pen, a gun, or other instrument, that knoweth how to use it. Now the ungodly, not knowing how any creature signifieth the Divine perfections, nor how by it to ascend to the knowledge and love of God, do indeed know nothing with a proper, formal knowledge.

(2.) And what is it that such men know, or seem to know, which may be compared with their ignorance? To give them their due praise, they know how to eat as well as a dog, though not so subtlely as an ox or sheep, that can distinguish grass before he taste it. He can tell how to drink, though not by so constant a temperance as a beast. He can speak better than a parrot: he can build him a house as apt for his use, as a swallow or other birds can do for theirs. He can lay up for the time to come, more subtlely than a fox, or ant, though nothing so orderly, and by wonderful self-conficiency as the bees: he can look upwards, and see the birds that soar and fly in the air, though he cannot imitate them he can look into the surface of the waters, : and artificially pass over them in ships, though he cannot live in them, or glide through them as the fish: he can master those that are weaker than himself, as the great dogs do the little ones, and carry away the bone from them all: he can glory in his strength, though it be less than a horse's, an ox's, an elephant's, or a whale's. He can kill and eat his fellow animals, as well as a pike among the fishes, a kite among the birds, or a wolf or a dog among the beasts: he can more craftily than the fox entrap and ensnare them (the fishes, birds and beasts); yea, as artificially as a spider doth the flies, to make up what he wants, of the hawk, or dog for swift pursuit, or of the lion for rapacious strength. He can sing; and so can the linnet, the owsel, the lark and nightingale he can make his bed as soft as the birds their nests, or as other creatures that love their ease; he can generate and breed up his offspring, though not with that constancy of affection, and accurateness of skill and industry, as a hen her chickens, or most other animals do their