your delight, faying, "A bundle of myrth is my Beloved to me; he shall ly all night betwixt my breafts." You will love to be with him in your walk and converfation, defiring to have your converfation in heaven, and to walk with him. You will love to be with him in your elleem, saying, "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none in earth that I defire befide thee." You will love to be with him in your thoughts, and meditations, faying, "My meditation of him fhall be fweet." You will love to be with him in your duties and performances; in reading and hearing, and finging; in communicating, in praying. You will love to be with him, and to have him with you: particularly to be with him in prayer, is the most frequent thing with the be liever how does he love to embofom himself to his God! The legalist may do the duty, but to be with Chrift in it, is what he is not much taken up with; the believer is taken up with prayer, as a mean of communion with God. O! I cannot ftay away from him, tho' he fhut the door upon me, and cover himself with a cloud, that my prayer cannot pafs through; I cannot be abfent from him. It is one of the main things that makes earth tolerable to the believer, that he hath fometimes access to God, in Chrift, by the Spirit in prayer. If it were not for fome fweet meetings that he hath with the Lord this way, he would even be crying, O what a weary place is this earth! O let me out of it! I fay, the true lover loves to be with God, and to have God with him. How does he love to have God with him, by his fanctifying grace, by his enlightening, enlarging, enlivening, and comforting grace? True lovers love one-anothers company. And,

(2) As the true lover of Chrift loves to be with him here, fo on the other hand, he longs to be with him hereafter. O to be in the place of perfect love, where there will be an eternal emanation of the love of God! O to be in the place of perfect likeness to Chrift!" For when he shall appear, we fhall be like him; for we shall fee him as he is." Tho' they are reconciled to his will, and made content to abide here, while he pleafes, yet they are even longing for that day, when they fhall VOL. II.

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have the immediate fruition of him, and be delivered from all fin: they defire to be diffolved, and to be with Chrift, which is beft of all. A carnal man may say, O to be out of an evil world! but the heart of the true lover fays, O to be with Chrift? It is true, when the believer's love is in fresh exercife, he will even fometimes be willing to abide in this world, notwitflanding of all the troubles and trials that are in it, if fo be he may glorify God in it; whether by fuffering for him, or giving a teftimony again fin, and for the truth and honour of the Lord Jefus. O! if I may be of any ufe to any of thine; if I may be of any fervice to thy Majefty, and glorify thee by doing or fuffering; if thou wilt he'p me to ferve and honour thee in my life, let me even beg from door to door in the wildernefs; thro' grace I will chearfully endure any trouble, and glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may reft upon me. This fubmiffion is not inconfiftent with his longing to be with the Lord.--Thus, I fay, true lovers of God, they love to be with him on earth, and long to be with him in heaven.

2. True love will make you long to be like him, faying, O to be holy, as God is holy! O to be conform to the image of his Son! O to be like unto Christ! Indeed, the man that hath most of the image of God, will readily fee himfelf the most unlike to him; and look upon himself as the most unholy perfon on earth. O! my underftanding is like a dark dungeon, my will is like a devil, and my heart like a hell; and yet fomething of the light of God it is that thus difcovers him to himself, fo unlike to God: and fomething of the love of God it is that makes him love to be like him, and defire above all things to be quit of fin, which is the devil's image, and to be endued with holinefs, which is God's image.

3. True love will make you love to live upon him: you will love to live upon God the fountain of living water; and love to live upon Chrift, for wildom, righteoufnefs, fanctification, and redemption. The lover of God is one that loves to live by faith on the Son of God; to him to live is Chrift: Chrift is the Alpha and Omega

of

of his life; the food and medicine of his life; the Author and Reftorer of his life; and the whole bufinefs of his life. Many have little bufinefs with Chrift; but the true believer, the true lover, Chrift is the whole bufinefs of his life: like the woman that, they fay, took the body of her dead hufband and grind it to powder, and drank the powder in her daily drink, and fo made her body a living tomb for her dead hufband. The believer is to live fill upon a dead and crucified husband.

4. True love to God will make you love to reverence him godly fear is a true mark of love; you will have a holy fear of difpleafing him; you will have a jealous fear, left your deceitful heart lead you afide from him: "We receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us have grace [or, let us hold faft grace] whereby we may ferve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear for our God is a confuming fire," Heb. xii. 28, 29. All this is inconfiftent with the flavifh fear of hell for the faith of receiving the kingdom that cannot be moved, and the fear of hell, which is a being excluded from that kingdom, are contradictory; but let us fear our God in Chrift, who hath discovered. himself in Chrift to be even a confuming fire; for this fire of infinite juftice took hold of the man Chrift Jefus. When God dwelt in the bufh of our nature, the bush burned in the flame of divine wrath, and juftice was fatisfied this way: herein God gave a more awful inftance of his being a confuming fire, in taking vengeance upon fin in the Surety, than can be given by all the flames of hell, in which the wicked burn for eternity. But here God being in the bufh, the bufh burnt, but was not confumed; "He that was dead, is alive; and, behold! he liveth for evermore." But we may turn afide, and fee this great fight, the bush burning, Chrift fatisfying divine juftice and what in the world fhould more influence to a holy fear than this?

5. True love will make you to think well of him, and think no evil of him: "Love thinketh no evil," fays the apofile. You will entertain good thoughts of God;

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and conftruct all he does in the beft fenfe: though, in affliction, a faint may have harfh thoughts of God, and under a fit of temptation, yet habitually he enter tains good thoughts of all God's dealings towards him. This or that difpenfation or affliction, however fevere, is either to mortify fome luft, or to exercise fome grace, or to difcover fome corruption, and remove it. "O! how good is he that will not let me alone in my fins, nor let me go with my faults, nor "ceafe to be a Reprover! Love thinks no evil."

6. True love will make you love what he loves, and hate what he hates; and alfo love as he loves, and hate as he hates.

[1] True love will make you love what he loves, and hate what he hates; and particularly to love his friends, and hate his enemies.

Ift, To love his friends; his friends in office, and his friends in heart.

(1) His friends in office; his minifters, whofe of fice it is to commend Chrift: furely they that love God, will love his friends; they that love Chrift the Bridegroom, will love the friends of the Bridegroom, whofe work it is to fet them forth: "How beautiful upen the mountains are the feet of them that preach the gofpel of peace, that bring glad tidings of good things, that publish falvation !” Ifa. lii. 15. Rom. x. 15. The reason why they love fuch is, because it is their work to open Chrift's love-letter that is fent to his bride, and to read it, and explain it to the bride; and becaufe they love the fweet doctrine of the gofpel.. Some pretend a great love to the precepts of the law, but for the doctrine of the gospel, and free justification without the works of the law, they fufpect that as Antinomian ftuff, oppofite to the law; they will mock at Christ's meffengers when they preach the doctrine of grace. But I feek no further evidence of an enemy to Christ than that. Some love all preachers, and all preaching alike; they cannot difcern betwixt the one and the other if you preach the doctrine of the gospel to them, they love that; if you preach the covenant of works to them, and defire them to do fo and fo, and

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thereupon they fhall be juftified before God, they love that too; all is fifh that comes in the net with them: but the fheep of Chrift know his voice; and the voice. of the fhepherds, that convey his voice and mind to them, is fweet, and beautiful, and lovely to them.

(2.) They love his friends in heart, as well as his friends in office; the faints, the excellent ones of the earth, are thefe in whom is all their delight.

that loves him that begat, loves him that is begotten." They love the brethren, as in the verfe following the text; "How can he fay that he loves God, whom he hath not feen, when he loveth not his brother, whom. he hath feen?" He that loves the parent, will love the child: they that love God, will love his children, that have his image, as a man will love the very picture of the person whom he loves: they love the faints, tho' poor, as a man will love gold, tho' in a rag; and also will love them, tho' afflicted, even as metal in a furnace may be loved.

2dly, As the true lovers of God will love his friends, fo they will hate his foes and enemies, whether it be his open enemies without, or his fecret enemies within.

(1.) His open enemies without, even all the wicked and ungodly world; "Do not I hate them that hate thee; and am grieved with them that rife up againft thee?" They that can delight in fellowship with thefe that are drunkards, fwearers, and blafphemers of the name of God, furely they cannot have the love of God at leaft in exercife: the true lover of God hates the wicked as fuch. It is true, as they are the children of Adam, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh; as they are poor miferable creatures like themfelves, they love them with a love of pity; but as enemies to God, and in rebellion against him, they can have no delight in them; their company is a burthen to them.

(2.) As they hate his open enemies without, fo they hate his fecret enemies within; and thefe are their own lufts and corruptions. They hate fin, who love God; and are engaged in a warfare against fin, and hate their own lufts. He that loves God hates fin, whe