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النشر الإلكتروني

CXL.

SERM. God, or doth not love God more than all things, is a cursed idolater thou worshippest a false instead of a true God. Dost thou, therefore, love riches more than God? It is the mammon of unrighteousness that is thy God. Is it pleasures thou lovest more than God? Then pleasures are thy God. Is it a husband or wife thou lovest more than God? Then it is thy husband or wife that is thy God. Is it thy children, thy liberty, thy health, thy credit, thy sins, thy life, that thou lovest more than the great God? These, these are thy gods, these are the deities thou worshippest! Wonder no longer at the Persians for adoring the sun; wonder not at the Indians for worshipping sticks and stones; wonder not at the Americans for falling down. to Satan, nor at the Papists for bowing to images; but wonder, oh wonder at thyself, that worshippest thyself, and lovest thine own concernments before the great God! Oh, my brethren! that you would bethink yourselves what gross and cursed idolaters you all are, so long as you love any thing more than God: it is love that is the principal wor ship of the God of Heaven, and this you give to the toys on earth! Oh, consider with yourselves! What, love pleasures more than God! Honours more than God! Riches more than God! Relations more than God! Liberty more than God! Life, or any thing more than God! Thou shameful idolater! call thyself no longer a Christian, lay aside thy professions, pretend not to be a worshipper of the true God, so long as thou worshippest so many false ones before Him. Oh, cursed apostasy! that we, who give up our names in Baptism unto God, would now give our souls to the Devil, our love to the world, our affections to sin: who, Thess.1.9. instead of turning, with the Thessalonians, from idols unto God, turn with the Indians from God to idols; instead of leaving the world to cleave to God, we leave God to cleave to the world. Give me leave to use the Apostle's exhortation, now I am preaching to you Christians, as well as 1 John 5.21. if I was preaching to the idolatrous heathen, "Brethren, keep yourselves from idols." Oh, keep yourselves from idols, from idol-riches, from idol-honours, from idol-lusts, from idol-self; oh, turn from these and all other idols, to serve the living and true God: remember it is the first command, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me:"

which, in effect, is as much as to say, Thou shalt love nothing more than Me.

[ii.] In dignity as it hath the first place, so hath it the best Being for its immediate object. In the other commands, some of them respect God's Name, others His worship, others His Sabbaths, others His people, but this respects His Person; and therefore it is the most proper and peculiar worship that we can perform unto Him. And, therefore, as ever you desire, not only to forsake your false gods, but to worship the true One, you must love Him above all things; all other worship is but in reference unto this, and signifies nothing at all without it. It is true, praying, and reading, and hearing, and receiving of the Sacrament, and the like, are all parts of God's worship; but alas! this is only the body; it is love to God that is the soul of worship: and these external performances before God, are no further any true worship of Him than as they have respect unto, and terminate in true love unto Him; which indeed is the end of all Ordinances. Why do you pray, but that you may love God? Why hear, but to love God? Why receive the Sacrament, but to love God more? It is the love of God that is the great end of all these duties, and therefore it is the most proper and immediate worship that we can perform to God. And therefore St. Augustine, speaking of these words, in his tenth book [cap. iii. fin.] de Civitate Dei, saith, [In quo] quid aliud mandatur, nisi ut ei quantum potest commendet diligendum Deum? Hic est Dei cultus, hæc vera religio; hæc recta pietas, hæc tantum Deo debita servitus: What is here commanded but to love God? This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this is right piety, this is the service due only unto God.' And therefore ye in vain pretend to be religious, or to worship the true God, unless you love Him above all things: this is the worship that He requireth from you, and this is the worship that you owe to Him; do this, and then you serve the true God; leave this undone, and do what you will besides, you are still idolaters: for it is first

[iii.] In performance. A man can perform no other command until he first perform this; thou canst not pray, nor read, nor hear, nor give alms; thou canst do nothing as

CXL.

thou oughtest to do, unless thou first lovest God; for there is nothing good but what proceeds from love to the chiefest good; nothing is accepted by God, but what is grounded upon love to Him. Thou mayest pray thy tongue, and hear thy ears to the very stumps; thou mayest fast thy body into a skeleton, and make thy couch to swim continually in thy tears; thou mayest bestow thy estate wholly upon the poor, and give thy body to be burned; thou mayest live like an Angel, and die like a serpent; yet let me tell thee, without love to God, it all signifies nothing: thy tears will be all rejected, thy prayers slighted, thy alms despised, and all thy performances disregarded, as things nothing worth, unless they proceed from love to God; and therefore 1 Cor. 13.1. saith the Apostle, "If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." What charity doth he speak of? Certainly love or charity to God, and for God's sake to men; without this thou mayest fill the air with sighs, the Heavens with groans, the sea with tears, and yet find no favour or acceptance in the sight of God: no, thou must first love Him above all things, before thou canst do any thing pleasing to Him; not only because all the duties to Him cannot be equivalent to the one horrid sin thou committest against Him, in loving other things before Him, but also because it is this love to God only that performs all other duties; without which God will never smell a sweet savour from them. What, therefore, though thou prayest? What, though thou readest? What, though thou hearest? What, though thou comest to Church? What, though thou performest all other duties unto God? If thou omittest this, thou hadst as good do nothing for there is not a duty thou performest without this, that there is any thing of good, but a great deal of evil in it. Oh! therefore, as ever you desire to do any thing pleasing unto God, you must first love Him above all things. There is not the greatest duty, but without this will certainly be rejected; and there is not the least, but with it will certainly be accepted.

2. It is the greatest too, as well as the first commandment. For,

[i.] It is that to which all the rest tend. This is, as it

were, the sea into which the other commands, as the lesser rivers, do all empty themselves. Not as if, in respect of the lawgiver, one is greater than another, for the same God commanded them all; but because all the rest are but as it were so many branches of this: so that there is not any of the rest but tend to the advancement of this. And therefore we cannot perform any other commands aright, unless our eye be fixed upon this.

[ii.] It is that under which the rest are all contained; so that a man that doth not love God, can do nothing; whilst he that doth love God, doth all things that are required of him: for as the Apostle saith, "All the Law," Gal. 5. 14. to wit, of the second table," is fulfilled in one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" so we may well say, all, both Law and Gospel, is fulfilled in this one word, Thou shalt love the Lord above thyself, and all things else: so that he that doth not perform this one command, cannot perform the other; but he that performeth this, cannot but perform the rest.

[iii.] It is that in which they all end. Praying, and hearing, and repenting, faith, and hope, and sorrow, yea all the other commands will end with us, and so resolve themselves into this one which shall never end; for "Charity 1 Cor. 13. 8. never faileth." And therefore it is said, "And now abideth ver. 13.

faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" because this is that in which the other are contained, and this is that which will continue when the other are all ceased.

3. Consider, that love to God will make all other duties easy. To him that doth not love God, the easiest duty is difficult; to him that doth love Him, the difficultest duty is easy. For love is of that quality, that it makes us divest ourselves of our former selfishness, and to be inconsiderate of our own concernments, in comparison of his we love. How do inflamed lovers lay aside the thoughts of health, of quiet, liberty, life, and any thing for the enjoyment and pleasing of the party they love! It is so in temporals, and certainly then much more in spirituals. If thy heart be set upon God, thou wilt think nothing too great for Him, no duty too great to undertake, no misery too heavy to

SERM. undergo, for Him Whom thy soul loveth. Thus the spouse XL. in the Canticles, her soul being inflamed with love to Christ,

she forgets her rest, her sleep, her ease, her quiet, to find Can. 3. 1-3. Him she loved; "she sought Him upon her bed, in the streets, in the broad way, every where to find Him." And so thou, if thou dost indeed love God, wilt count all things as [Phil. 3. 8.] loss, and dross, and dung, in comparison of him; friends, relations, estates, preferments, health, strength, liberty, life, thou wilt look upon these things, as not worthy to come into competition with God. And therefore thou wilt not balk the least duty imaginable for the attainment of the highest glory conceivable. What is the reason you are so loth to pray, loth to hear, loth to read the Scriptures, loth to give alms, loth to repent, and loth to perform other duties? And what is the reason you are so backward to these duties, and those duties are so hard to you? Why, the reason is, because you do not love God. If you loved Him, it would not be your trouble, but your joy to come before Him. Thus Psal. 122. 1. David, "I rejoiced when they said unto me, Let us go up to Psal. 84. 10. the house of the Lord." "Yea, a day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." Thus will it be with thee, though perhaps, now, that thou hast no love but rather hatred for God, thou thinkest it tedious and irksome to pray and hear, and sit so long in the house of God; but let me tell thee, if ever God be pleased to raise up thy affections to Himself, the hardest duty will be as easy as ever the easiest duty was hard unto thee; thou wilt take as much, yea more delight, in drawing nigh to God, than ever thou didst in running from Him. And, therefore, if ever thou wouldest have the paths of wisdom pleasant, the ways of holiness delightsome to thee, thou must endeavour to get thy heart emptied of its love to sin, which as yet it is filled with, and filled with the love of God, of which as yet it is empty.

Rom. 8. 28. 4. If thou lovest God, "all things shall work together for thy good." So long as thou lovest any thing more than God, there is not the best of thy seeming goods but are real evils to thee: whereas, if thou lovest Him above all things, there is not the worst of thy seeming evils but shall be real

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