PART III.

OF THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHRISTIAN

RELIGION.

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CHAPTER I.

Of the Love of God.

OD, who is the chiefeft good, must J neceffarily be loved; and if we have either honour or gratitude we shall fulfil this command as perfectly as corrupt nature will allow. We fhall love God for our creation, prefervation, and, above all, for our redemption; for in those things he has richly displayed his love towards us; daily conferring fome kindness upon us; and, upon our repentance and amendment, forgiving us our trefpaffes.

The love of God is the more excellent, because while we were finners Chrift died to fave us-Rom. 5th chapter, 8th verse. And his innumerable benefits bestowed upon every one of us, individually, fhould excite us to love him again; and should convince us of our obligations to him. We should

love him for those cæleftial and future goods which he has referved in heaven for us, to the full confummation of which, upon our ftedfaftness in his fervice, he will admit us at the great day of account.

I will now proceed to fhew, first, what the love of God is: and, taken in a strict fense, it is an earnest desire that those things which are pleafing to God may be done both by ourselves and others; that fo we may obtain his favour and acceptance.

It is the property of love to wish an union with the beloved object, to study to resemble it, and carefully to avoid whatever may be unacceptable, and diffolve the connection. If therefore we love God we fhall ftrive to please him, by imitating him in acts of charity and kindness to each other, and by fulfilling his divine will. Now it is the will of God that we fhould keep the commaudments he has enjoined; that we should faithfully discharge the duties which his laws require, both towards God himself, and towards our neighbour. St. John, in his firft epiftle, chapter 5th, and verse 3d, fays, This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And in the fecond chapter and 5th verfe, he fays, Whofo keepeth his word, in him is the love of God verily perfected: that is, he hath the true fincerity of love.

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The keeping God's commandments is the plaineft teftimony of our love to him; and we read in the 20th chapter of Exodus, that he will fhew mercy to thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments. This, then, is the true love of God, viz. to fulfil his pleasure, to perform the duties he requires, to render the honour and glory due to aim, and to return thanks for the bleffings of his providence. And if we are thus affected with zeal towards God, we fhall always be happy in his fervice, and readily acknowledge that his worship fhould poffefs the chief place in our thoughts and time, and fhould be the leading principle of all our actions: in` imitation of David, in the 42d Pfalm, As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, fo panteth my foul after thee, O God. My foul thirfteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God.

In the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, Mofes, delivering the divine ordinances, says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy strength. And our Saviour tells us this is the first and great commandment. In this precept of the love of God, all Chriftian perfection confifts; as the fathers and divines, both antient and modern, dictate: they affirm it to be the most eminent

of all virtues; and that there is nothing that more elevates and ennobles the mind, and improves it's faculties, than this cæleftial paffion of the love of God. It raises and refines our understanding, by freeing them from the base mixture of fenfual corruptions; it restores our diftempered minds, and lifts us up from the ejected condition to which our guilt has reduced us, to the high and happy state of the bleft above.

But left any should be deceived by imagining themselves affected with the love of God, when perhaps they are deftitute of this excellent virtue, or at least not affected as they ought, I will mention a few indications, by which every one, in an impartial furvey of himself, may know whether the true love of God be predominant in his heart. The first fign or indication is a contempt of the world, and of all things in it; for the love of the world is enmity with God. The world offers to us things carnal and prefent: but it is the will of God, that by denying carnal and temporary things, we should seek those which are fpiritual and future. The love of the world is contrary to the love of God, and the one extinguishes the other; neither is it poffible for both to fubfift in the fame man: and our Saviour fays, Ye cannot ferve God and mammon.