dence between faith and love, in their working: love depends upon faith to strengthen it, and faith depends again upon love to act it. As we love not that, which we do not know; and our knowledge of God and of the things of eternity is by faith, not by vision: so those things, which we do know and which we do believe, yet if we love them not we shall never endeavour after them. The Apostle therefore tells us, that faith worketh by love.

There is a Threefold spiritual love required to expedite our great work.

A transcendent love of God.

A regular love of Ourselves.

A complacential love unto and delight in our Work itself.

Now when the affections go out after these objects of love, this will much facilitate our great work.

(1) The Love of God is a great help to our duty.

Our Saviour therefore urgeth obedience, upon this very account: If ye love me, keep my commandments: John xiv. 15. And, says the Apostle, This is the love of God, that is, this is a certain sign, or it is the constant effect of our love to God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not griev ous: 1 John v. 3. they are not grievous, because they are His commandments, who is the love and joy of our souls.

Divine love always conforms itself to divine precepts: and that, for Two reasons:

[1] Because this grace, as it desires the beatifical union to God in glory, hereafter; for love is the desire of union: so, now, it causes an unspeakable union of will, and a supernatural sympathy of affection, betwixt God and the soul.

Which union cannot be a union of equality or entity, as is in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity: and, therefore, it is a union of subordination of a Christian's will to the will of God. Now what is this will of God? The Apostle tells us: This is the will of God, even your sanctificatum: 1 Thess. iv. 3. And the same Apostle tells us, in another place, We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk....in them: Eph. ii. 10. And is this God's will, and shall it not be our work? Hath God ordained that we should walk therein, and shall we be averse from or slothful thereunto? How can we pretend that we love God, while we neglect the only thing which he requires from us, holiness and obedience?

God wills our holiness, because there is no better thing that he can will, next unto himself: the image of God, next to himself, is the most excellent and chief good. Every thing, the nearer it approacheth unto God, the more desirable it becomes in itself: now that, which comes most near unto God, and advances the soul in some resemblance and similitude to him, is holiness and endeavours after obedience; whereby we become conformable unto God, and attain some faint shadows and essays of the divine perfections. The soul wills in order unto God's will. God wills holiness, because it is most desirable: and we must will our own holiness; because, if we love God as we pretend to do, our wills must be conformable to his holy will.

[2] Love to God is a help to duty, because it is in and by duty, that we enjoy the presence of God, and have communion and fellowship with him.

These are the lattices, through which God appears to the longing soul: and, though he many times vouchsafes but half smiles and little glances; yet, in these reserved communications, the soul finds so much sweetness, as engageth it to a constant performance of duties all its days. "Here," says the soul, "God was wont to walk in his sanctuary: here, have I heard his voice: here, have I seen his face: his Spirit hath here breathed upon me: his consolations have here refreshed me: and, therefore, here will I wait upon him as long as I live." "I remember well," says the soul," when, in prayer and meditation, my heart hath been filled by him, poured out to him, and accepted with him. I remember when he filled me first with sighs, and then with songs; and both alike unutterable: and, therefore, I will keep to the performance of these duties, waiting for the further discoveries and manifestations of my God unto me."

(2) As love to God, so a regular Self-Love will much help and further our obedience and duty.

And then is self-love truly regular, when men love their own souls, as God loves them. Now God's love to the souls of men is such, that, though he wills all men to be saved, yet he wills that none shall be saved, but through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: and, whilst we love ourselves, if we observe the same method and order, this self-love is always commendable and necessary. Desires after eternal happiness and salvation are natural to that soul, that is truly conscious of its own immortality; and of its eternal, unalterable state and condition: and, when these desires are directed to future happiness through

present holiness, then are they regular and become gracious. We are not so straitly limited by God's sovereignty over us, but, while we fix one eye upon our work, we may fix the other on our reward. God is not so strict in his prerogative over us, as to require service from us, from what we have already received from him he is not as a cruel lord and master to say, "Obey me, though afterwards you perish: see to it, that you love and glorify me, though I eternally punish you:" though, considering that infinite distance we stand at from God, we could object nothing against the equity of his proceedings. No, but God hath so graciously twisted his glory and our duty together, that, while we promote the one, we do also promote the other; and, while we work for God, we do but work for ourselves. Now are there any, that need to be persuaded to love themselves? Is it not the great and general sin, that all men love and seek themselves? And do not men, by becoming self-lovers, become self-destroyers? They do: but it is because they seek themselves out of God's way, that they lose themselves for ever. Religion and holiness are not such severe things, as to exclude self-love: nay, right self-love is that, which is no where to be found separate from true grace. Ministers call upon men to exercise self-denial and self-abhorrence; and this the foolish world mistake, as if they exhorted them to divorce themselves from themselves, to lay aside all respect and consideration of self, and to offer violence to the most common principles of self-preservation: no; would to God we all sought ourselves more earnestly and constantly than we do, and that we all knew wherein our greatest interest and concernment did lie! then should we not leave our great work undone; nor gratify the sloth of our corrupt humours, and the sinful propensions of our carnal part; nor should we think what we do for sin and Satan we do for ourselves: no; all this is to hate ourselves and wicked men, at the Last Day, shall know, that they have been their own most bitter and most implacable enemies; that they would not be content with any thing less, than their own eternal ruin. A true Christian is the only selfish man in the world: all others are not self-lovers, but self-destroyers. What shall I say more than this? The Apostle asks, did 'ever any man hate his own flesh ? did ever any man delight to gash and burn, to rack and torture himself? Truly I may ask the quite contrary: do almost any love. their own spirits, their spiritual part, their souls? This, they wound and gash, by many a bloody sin: this, they burn and sear, by hardness and impenitency: this, they go about to torture and

torment in hell for ever. Oh, therefore, be persuaded, at lengtli to take pity on yourselves: considering, that you are but destroying, while you think you are embracing yourselves; and, that that will be found but self-murder at last, which you now call self-love.

(3) A complacential Love to and Delight in your Work, is a great furtherance of it.

A wicked man serves God grudgingly: he murmurs at duties, and looks upon them only as tasks and burdens; thinking every thing which he doth for God too much, too heavy and weighty: the commands of God are all of them hard sayings and grievous. impositions, that he cannot bear. He could believe Christ sooner in any thing, than when he tells him, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light: Mat. xi. 30: here he cannot believe Christ. "Thus much time," saith the slothful sinner, "must I spend in prayer: and there must I humble myself to God, whom I hate; and confess before him those sins, that I love; and beg that grace, that I have slighted. So much time, must I spend in reading the Law, that I never mean to observe; perusing over only the sentence of my condemnation. And, so often, must I fix and dwell upon holy and spiritual thoughts; which never, at any time, darted into or passed intransiently; but they did discompose me, and leave a damp and sadness upon my spirit behind them." And, therefore, because there is not a holy complacency and delight in the service of God, all such men's endeavours are both faint, inconstant, and languishing while they are about them, and seldom do they re-assume them again. But a true Christian works with abundance of delight and cheerfulness in the service of God: in every duty, his soul is filled full of holy affections, by which it soars up to heaven: duties are meat and drink to him, spiritual manna, in which he takes more satisfaction and contentment than wicked men do in their sins; and therefore he performs these duties so earnestly, because he doth it with complacency: all that he repines at, is, that natural necessity, sinful weakness and infirmities and worldly employments, do purloin so much of his time from this great work. Now when once the heart is brought to such a frame and temper as this, thus to delight in obedience and in the work and service of God, then will this working for salvation go on with power.

DIRECTION iii. Another Direction is that in the Text: WORK FOR SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING.

A trembling hand best performs a Christian's work.

Now this fear is not a fear of distrust or despondency; for that is so contrary to this duty of working for salvation, as that it stupifies and benumbs all endeavours, and is a great enemy to the performance of this duty.

But,

1. It is a Fear of Solicitude and Carefulness; as it stands opposed to carnal security, and that presumption, that is the common and ordinary destruction of most men.

This holy fear is the best preservative of true grace. The Apostle therefore tells us; Thou standest by faith: be not highminded, but fear: implying, that they would not stand long, though they stood by faith, unless they were upheld with godly fear: and the reason is, because it is the property of fear to foresee and forecast dangers, and to put the soul in a posture of defence and security before they approach. For, as the Wise Man tells us, the prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished: Prov. xxii. 3. they are rash and confident in their undertakings, and so they pass on and are punished. Fear makes a Christian circumspect and considerative with himself, how he may keep from miscarriages in the performance of his great work. "If God call me to such a duty, how shall I perform it? If, to bear such a cross and affliction, how shall I glorify him under it? If, to conflict with such temptations, how shall I resist and overcome them? Yea, how shall I do' to break through all difficulties, duties, and oppositions, that I, who am but a weak and feeble Christian, may meet withal? and how shall I do to bear up?" And, thus pondering what may be his duty, and forecasting what duties God may call him unto, he is enabled to do what is his duty at present, and what also may by providence hereafter become his duty. Nothing overtakes such a man, unexpected; nor doth any thing surprise him, unprovided for it. And thus a careful fear enables him in the performance of his great work.

2. A Fear of Humility and Holy Reverence of God, conduceth much to the working out of our salvation: and that, in Three particulars.

(1) It much helps us in our great work, to fear God as our Lord and Master, that sees and overlooks all our works; observing both what we do, and how we do it also.

That servant must be desperately bold, that will dare to be idle, or slight and perfunctory in his work, while his master's