(6.) That this same accusation is hypocritical. It carries the most palpable hypocrisy in it; for it is manifest that such persons do only pretend to be angry at the pretence of love to God; when it plainly appears they are angry that the love of God should really be in any one. And this is easy to be made out. For do not all men generally profess love to God? Now they are not angry at those that profess, but love him not. But what religion is there without love? and whoever professes religion, does consequently profess love to God. But let them make it appear by their practice, that their profession is but a mockery, that they do but say, "Hail!" and strike at the Divine Majesty at the same time; let them I say, with their pretence of religion, or love to God, but join some practical signification that they are not in good earnest, and they please well enough, no fault is found with them.

So that it is very plain the fault they are bent against is not hypocrisy, but sincerity. They are angry that there is any such thing as sincere love to God in the world. Therefore, as Plato said to the cynic, who trod upon a fine bed of his, and cried out, "I tread on Plato's pride," that he, the cynic, discovered greater pride by this action; so we may say to these men who accuse professors of love to God with hypocrisy, that it is with more hypocrisy. It is not the mere pretence of love to God, that they intend to accuse, as supposing it false, or that there is no such thing, but because they really suspect it is true. They think that such men have that in them, which they have not, and therefore they pass a kind of judgment upon them in their own consciences. This they cannot endure; and since they would fain malign them in their report, therefore they would do it as plausibly as they can, and are more witty than to say, they ensure them for loving truly, but for pretending to it falsely. But then again,

2. The affection of this kind is by some charged with enthusiasm. "If (say they) there be any such affection, it is altogether enthusiastic. It owes itself entirely to the fantastical representation of the object, and so can have nothing sincere or genuine belonging to it." To this I say, (1.) Why so? why must it needs be thought enthusiastical? What! because it is more than ordinarily vehement or fervent? as if no sober exercise or expression of love to God could be so. And we know too, though I lay very little stress upon it,

(2.) That the name of enthusiasm hath sometimes had a gentler sound than now it hath; since the 'Euvevsót, and phrases signifying inspiration from God, are so frequently to be found in the writings of Plato, and others of the philosophers. And yet they were never twitted as enthusiasts, nor treated as if that name carried any thing of evil signification, or the import of a bad character in it. But, (3.) Why should it be wondered at that there should be expressions of love to God which import great fervour and intenseness; since we know that such as have been professedly related and devoted to God heretofore, and of whom Scripture records give us an account, have been all along very full of such expressions? What would they think of such expressions as these of David? "I opened my mouth, and panted; for I longed for thy commandments," Ps. cxix. 131. "My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times," ver. 20. "Oh how love I thy holy law!" ver. 97. "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God," xlii. 1. Yea, we find that there have been such appearances and expressions obvious to view, of this divine spiritual affection, that have incurred the censure of insanity; and yet they have been reckoned a glory. Thus it was with David, who when he was censured for dancing before the

(4.) I make little doubt but many do attribute too much to rapture, and the ecstatic motions and transports of otherwise pious love. I refer therefore to what was said under a foregoing head, especially to that distinction which was given you of the act, and of the passion of love, which are not only distinguishable, but sometimes plainly separable things. There may be very intense love, very strong and mighty love, where there is nothing of passion felt. This is a thing altogether accidental to the nature of love, which may be diverse and distinct from passion; otherwise there would be no such thing as loving God at all in any other way. And we must further say,

(5.) That no doubt it is a very great fault to frame representations and ideas of God and of divine things in our minds, by the use of a liberty indulged to our own fancy and imagination, if therein we go beyond or besides the warrant of his own revelation. And even there too we must be very careful, when we find God representing himself, or other matters of a divine and spiritual nature, under borrowed expressions or similitudes, that we mind the thing that is to be represented, and held forth to us, and that we drain and defecate it from all the dregs of materiality, which belong to the metaphor; otherwise we may be greatly injurious, more than we are aware of, both to the Divine honour, and to ourselves.

Too many do greatly gratify the luxury of their fancies in such cases. We read of one, but very likely there may be more instances than one, I say we read of one, a popish female saint, who pretended in vision to such a communion with our Saviour, that forsooth she took upon her to describe him; what sort of eyes he had, and what kind of features; and pretended to be most passionately enamoured of him. And perhaps there are too many over-prone to frame imaginations concerning the Deity, altogether unworthy of and disagreeable to that glorious and everblessed Being; and having thereupon formed such and such ideas of him in their own minds, are variously affected according to the import of the idea about him. For instance, those of very melancholy tempers are apt to frame ideas altogether unlike God, and such as render him in their eyes a dreadful and hateful object. Or if the idea be such as imports loveliness; yet if it be fantastical, and an affection of love be raised thereupon, it is most plain and evident that such a person is all the while but hugging his own shadow, and entertaining himself with an empty cloud, or an idol of his own forming. And I do not know wherein he is less guilty, than in falling down before an image. When we do in our own fancies create a God to ourselves, and an extraordinary motion of affection is working towards it, one kind or another, it is our own creature that we are all this while entertaining ourselves with, and not God. Therefore we ought to take heed that our apprehensions of things be scriptural and regular; such as that light which shines in God's word, or that clear flame which reason, when it argues according to the word of God, doth give us. Otherwise we are mere idolaters, while we imagine that we have only complacency in doing homage to God. But I add,

Lastly, That the most regular, true, and rational apprehensions of God, do give ground for the most fervent and vehement love of him that is possible, And therefore it is a very foolish, idle thing, to charge love to God with being enthusiastical merely because it is fervent. For though it be such as answers truly, it can never answer fully such apprehensions of the object, as are agreeable to God, and

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know you, that you have not the love of God in you?" And would we be branded for such? We had need then to watch the more strictly over ourselves, when we have to do with the affairs of this world, that our spirits be not ruffled, nor suffer a discomposure by the amusements of sensible things, or the variety of occurrences and affairs that we meet with in this our earthly pilgrimage.

Constant watchfulness, and much dependance upon God, and having him still before our eyes, would be a great help to us in this matter. It might make you wonder to hear, what some have professed to have attained unto, who were not of your religion. For instance, we are told of a nobleman of a foreign country, a Romanist, who professed to have had such times, that when he passed along the streets of Paris, where continual diversions might easily have disturbed him, and could scarce be imagined to do otherwise, his soul was so taken up with God as to be no more moved, than if he had been in a desert. And Seneca himself, a pagan, writing a letter to his friend, says to this purpose; for I remember not the very words, nor have lately seen the book: "You write to me to give you an account how I passed yesterday. Truly you have a very good opinion of me, to think I so pass a day as to be able to give you an account of what took it up. But since you desire it, I will tell you. My window opens to the theatre, where are all the shows, and the noise and clamours that you well know the theatrical sports carry with them. Why (saith he) all these things (so much have I been taken up with divine matters) have no more moved me, than the whistling of the wind among the leaves of the trees in a wood," &c.

These things that I mention should be upbraiding to us, that we so little mind our spirits, and inward man, with the operative motions and reflections thereof, and never look after a composed spirit, that is employed in minding God, and taken up with the exercise of his love, through the worldly affairs and occurrences we meet with here. If we would do any thing to purpose in the exercise of love to God; if we would not be as those, that busy themselves about trifles; like the pharisaical hypocrites whom our Saviour speaks of, who were so zealous in tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, that in the mean while they forgot judgment, and mercy, and the love of God; I say, if we would not be like them, but would do any thing to purpose, there must be times set apart for us to quit the world, with the torturing and distracting thoughts thereof; and let us labour to do it so totally, as to forget that there is any thing in it but God, and misery.

SERMON XIII.*

We have largely insisted upon a twofold truth from these words, and told you,

FIRST, That there is a greater difficulty of living in the exercise of love to God than towards man, upon this account, that he is not the object of sight as man is. And, SECONDLY, That our obligation to the love of God is most indispensable, notwithstanding that we see him not; or, that the impossibility of seeing God, is no excuse for our not loving him. There is yet another point which remains to be considered, and which was at first proposed with the former; and that is,

cast a slur upon that empty kind of profession, and to give a dash unto that specious fancy and gilded nothing of a pretence to the love of God, disjoined or severed from that other branch of love, namely, that towards men. Ir speaking to this it will be requisite to do these three things, in order to the rendering this truth more capable of belief. I. To show in what extent, or with what limitations, we are to understand this form of speech here in the text, the loving our brother.

II. To show whence it comes to pass, that any should take upon them to pretend love to God, who yet have no love to their brother. And,

III. To show the absurdity and falsehood of that pretence. Upon which the use will ensue.

I. It will be needful to consider a little in what extent, or with what limitation, this form of speech is to be understood, namely, the love of our brother; that is, how we are to understand the expression, our brother; and what is meant by love, as it refers to him in this and other such like passages.

I conceive we may very warrantably extend the meaning of this expression, as was formerly hinted to you in the first opening of the words, to such a latitude as to understand by it the duties of the second table; as love to God includes all the duties of the first. So our Saviour hath taught us to understand both these, in the answer which he gave to that querist, who asked him which was the great commandment of the law. The answer was this; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," Matt. xxii. 37-40. And the apostle you know also tells us, that "Love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii. 10. All is summed up in this one word, love.

And the same apostle in the very epistle from whence my text is taken, in insisting so much upon love to our brethren, as he doth throughout this epistle, guides us to his own drift and scope; and particularly when he tells us, that "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments," 1 John v. 3. It is manifest, that sometimes in this epistle he intends by this expression, the love of God, not merely that love which terminates upon him as the object of it, but that love which is from God, as the author of it, divine love. And he speaks of this divine love indefinitely, and says it is the keeping of God's commandments; and of these commandments too we are to understand him speaking universally, and intimating that to love God is to keep all his commandments. It is love which runs forth in obedience to all his laws, which you know are divided into these two tables; the one is a comprehension of the precepts touching such things as relate to himself; the other of those which concern man. Therefore I doubt not but the word, brother, here in the text, may be taken in the same latitude, that neighbor is taken in, when it expresseth and signifieth to us the duties of a Christian to his neighbour, as in that place before mentioned, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," that is, any man. So that the duties that we owe to men, as men, are all to be collected and gathered up in this, as the great summary, namely, love to our brother.

It is manifest the apostle speaks here upon the notice he had taken, that there were some persons of very high pretensions to religion, and the love of God, who were yet manifestly and notoriously defective in the exercise and expression of love towards men, and even towards their fellow-Christians. And he counts it therefore necessary to

a John v. 42. See a moving discourse on these words by the Author in this volume, entitled, A Sermon directing what we are to do, after a strict inquiry, whether or no we truly love God? It is only one single discourse out of seven or eight upon the same subject; and seems to have been published without

we shall have occasion further to speak by and by. But it is plain also, that it is sometimes used in Scripture in a far more extensive sense; as Adam in a more extensive sense is said to be the son of God. You find it was part of the accusation against Job, (injurious enough no doubt, but that is nothing to our purpose,) that he did take away the pledge from his brother, and made the poor naked, and sent them away unclothed, Job xxii. 6. And so you know Paul bespeaks all that great assembly before whom

his full consent, on account of the great impressions it had made upon the audience. * Preached November 15th, 1676.

he was convened, and with whom he was disputing, after this manner," Men and brethren," Acts xxiii. 1. Though they were far from being all Christians as he was.

And I wish that there were not too much need to insist upon this business of love to our brother according to this latitude; that those were not many in our days, who make a very great show of piety towards God, and hold forth an appearance of religion even in a more eminent degree; and yet indulge in themselves a very great liberty (most injuriously assumed, God knows) as to their dispositions and deportment towards men as men, with whom they are cast into human society. Yea, and there hath been a way found out to make little of all matters of this nature; a way to depreciate and speak diminishingly of whatever is of that import, by affixing characters upon persons which it is intended should lessen them; as such a one is a good moral man, and the like. Truly, if it were only to assign to each man his proper place, or to determine that to be of less value and account which really is so, this were tolerable and very fit; but it is too manifest that very often religion is professedly magnified, not to the lessening only, but even the nullifying and exclusion of what is called morality. As if the tables were again to be broken, by being dashed one against another; or as if there were such incompatible things in the laws of God, that it is altogether impossible that a man should carry it as does become him towards men with whom he has to do, but he must intrench upon, and offer violence to the duty he owes to God; or as if, on the other hand, the duty which immediately terminates upon God, must quite shut out the world, and whatsoever relates to men as men.

Though yet by the way too, it is to be noted, there is all the while a very great mistake and misapplication in the use of the term morality. And I wonder whence we or any of us have learned to appropriate moral to the duties of the second table; as if the duties of the first table were not as much moral as those of the second, and in a higher and more eminent sense so. Certainly he is but a person of bad morality that does not love God, and whose heart is not set upon him as the best, the supreme Good. It is a great injury to take the term moral, and affix it only or chiefly to the duties of the second table. I hope there is such a thing, which ought to obtain in our notion and practice, as being well-mannered unto God, or behaving ourselves well and fitly towards him. And that is the meaning of morality, when a man is in general well-mannered. Therefore he that behaves himself ill to God, doth very ill deserve the character of a moral man.

But the thing is, men intend civil by the term moral, and so mistake morality for civility. Civility indeed is only between men and men, as they are cast into societies one with another; but morality must needs run through the whole law of God. Every commandment of his law, which he hath distinguished from all other laws by vouchsafing himself to speak it by an audible voice, in ten words, to a vast assembly of men, we ought surely to account moral; and not elevate the authority or obligation of one part, by using terms with an intention to lessen or diminish another part of the same law.

But as to the thing itself, waving the name, (as it is pity there should be so much logomachy, or contention about the use or misapplication of bare words,) it is I say the thing itself, wherein the religion of Christians hath been so very deficient, and by which it hath been so much slurred that a great many have learned in their practice, not to care what their deportments are to men, so they can but keep up a continued profession of, and course of pretence to, sanctity, piety, and devotion towards God. And therefore the exigence of the case so much requiring it, and the text so plainly inviting to it also, it will be very fit to say somewhat of the duty of loving our brother in this latitude, as comprehensive of all the duty we owe to men as men. Though what I shall say at present will be in general. What is particular I shall refer to be enlarged upon in the use or application. And here I must hint to you that a twofold extreme is carefully to be avoided, that when we speak in this latitude of loving our brother we do not,

1. By that love to our brother so intend the inward principle of that love as to cut off the external acts of it; nor,

2. So confine the notion of this love to the external duties of the second table, as to exclude or shut out the internal principle. These are two extremes which men are very propense to run into, either into the one or the other of them. On the one hand,

1. Some are very apt to satisfy themselves that they are blameless, and not liable to exception, if their external deportment be fair and candid, just and equal, and also charitable now and then as occasion offers; though, in the mean time, there be no such thing as the inward root and principle of this love in their hearts. It would be as great an absurdity for any one to say, that this love doth virtually include and comprehend in it all the external duties that flow from such a principle, as it would be to state those duties so abstractly, as to exclude the principle itself whence they are to proceed. They no way answer the intention and design of the Holy Ghost in this matter, who only comply with the external part and letter of these laws, when, in the mean time, the spring and fountain of all these duties hath no place in the soul, namely, love itself. For the external acts may proceed from another principle. A man may carry himself justly to others, for the sake of his reputation; and from the same motive may do many acts that carry in them mercy, pity, and compassion to those that are in distress; but the principle from whence all this proceeds is self-love, and not love to his brother. Thus a man may do such and such an act of justice, such and such charitable actions, as the occasions of them are administered, merely because he would gain the reputation of being a most unexceptionably just man, a good natured man, a charitable man. And many apprehend that they are greatly concerned to do so upon the account of prudence, out of a prudential respect, I say, to their own ininterest and advantage; such especially whose way of living in the world depends upon trade and commerce with men. They know, if they do not obtain and preserve the reputation of justice, none will have to do with them; every one will shun them; they will be thought unfit for any kind of commerce whatsoever. This is one extreme therefore that is carefully to be avoided in this matter. When we say that love to our brother includes all the duties of the second table, yet we must not say it excludes the inward principle whence those external duties flow; that is, such a love to our neighbour as that which we bear and owe unto ourselves, as we know our Lord resolves it, in the forementioned scripture. The other extreme is,

2. That we lay not the whole stress of the business upon the internal principle, without the external acts and expressions: that is, that none should content themselves with the imagination and conceit, that they have in their own hearts and bosoms the principle of love to their brother; but in the mean while never express it nor let in be seen. No, that must be a great secret to themselves, and kept close in their own conciences; they have love in their breasts, but they can find no time or occasion to let it be seen: that is, they can, it may be, give him a good word, or as the apostle James expresses it, say to one in distress, that wants food or raiment, "Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled," (James ii. 16.) but give them nothing for the body. They say that they pity such and such persons; and perhaps there may be some low degree of pity, but not such as exerts itself and commands the consonant act which is agreeable to compassion, and should be consequent or ought to follow thereupon.

But we must understand this duty of loving our brother so as to comprehend the internal principle and external expressions of it together. It is necessary that there be a sincere love in the heart, and that it demonstrate its own sincerity by such expressions and discoveries, from time to time, as the providence of God gives us opportunity. As occasion offers we should, as the apostle exhorts, do good to all men, but especially to them who are of the household of faith, Gal. vi. 10.

And if love to man is to be taken in such a latitude as hath been said, if it gathers within the compass of it both the principle and all the actions that properly belong to it, we are not then to think we have a mean, low, ignoble object for our love. There is an image of God that man as man doth bear upon him. It is true, there is an image