Vol. III.

p. 162, 1649er

A Difcourfe concerning the Measure of Divine Love, with the Natural and Moral Grounds upon which it Stands. Ther lock on Judgm.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind.

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Very just and reasonable, but fure, one would think, a very needlefs Injunction. For need any Power or Faculty be under any other Law, than that of its own Nature, to delight in its proper Object? Does the Sense want a Precept to be pleafed with fenfible Good? Need we address our felves to the Eye to persuade it to love Light, or take pains to exhort the Ear to delight in harmonious Sounds? No, the Order of Nature does here fuperfede all other Methods of Engagement; and why then should there be need of any Command to a Rational Soul to love God? Does not an intelligible Good bear the fame proportion to a reasonable Nature, as a fenfible Good does to Senfe; and is not God the 7 fame to the Soul, as Mufick is to the Ear, or as

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Light to the Eye? Yes certainly, and infinitely more: For these things, tho' they are the proper Goods of their refpective Powers, yet they are not wholly commensurate, and fully adjusted to their Capacities; whence it is that the Eye is not fatisfied with feeing, nor the Ear with hearing. But now God is not only the proper Good of the Soul (as Light is of the Eye) but is withal a Good fo tranfcendently excellent as to be able to fill the whole Capacity of its intellectual Powers. The Good of bis fublime Nature is more than commenfurate to the most stretch't Appetite of ours; nay, were our Capacity infinite, he would be fufficient to fill it; for he fills his own, and is infinitely happy in himself. And what need then of a Command to a rational Creature to love its proper Good, and a Good fo infinitely lovely?

But for fatisfaction to this, 'tis to be confider'd, first, that as in Geometry fome plain and obvious Propofitions are laid down, not fo much for the fake of their own Discovery, as in order to further Theory, which, as a Superftructure is to be rais'd upon thofe Foundations; fo in Morality and Divinity fome practical Propofitions or Precepts, tho' in themselves never fo clear and evident, muft yet be fet down, if 'twere only for the fake of Method and Order, and to lay a Bottom for what is to be further built upon those Principles. And accordingly the Love of God being the fundamental Principle of all natural Religion and Virtue, or (as our Lord here terms it) the first and great Commandment, upon which all the

Duties of the firft Table do immediately, and thofe of the fecond remotely depend; it was very requifite that there fhould be an exprefs Precept concerning it; tho' it be never fo evident that we ought to love God, and withal never fo neceffary and unavoidable that we should.

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Befides, 'tis alfo fecondly to be confider'd, that what does here more principally and more directly fall under the Precept, is not the Act of loving God in general, but the fpecial degree and manner of that Act; that it be with the whole Power and full Capacity of the Man. Now tho it be of it felf fo plain and evident that God is to be loved, and withal so natural and neceffary, that we should love him in fome degree or other yet neither is it fo plain,nor fo neceffary, that we fhould love him up to the degree here fpecifi'd, with the whole Weight and Strefs of our Love. This is not a Propofition of fo bright an evidence as to shine forth by its own Light, but requires a Train of Argument and Confequence to make it appear reasonable, and must be proved in a way of Science and Demonstration. It was indeed below the Dignity and Majefty of the Supreme Law-giver to do that; but therefore it was the more neceffary for him to use his Authority, to make it matter of exprefs Precept, and to lay it as an eternal Law upon every rational Spirit that comes into being, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

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The great Difficulty of this great Commandment, next to the Practising of it, is how to Un derstand it; and therefore I fhall first of all inquire into the true Senfe and Import of it, and then into the Reafon and Bottom upon which it ftands.

As to the Senfe, I think the highest that is generally put upon thefe Words, amounts to no more than this; That God is to be the prime and princip Object of our Love and Delight; That we are to love him in a Superlative way, above all other things what foever, fo as to lose any Good, or fuffer any Evil, rather than commit the Jeaft Sin against him; That we are always to prefer him in our Love; chufing to obey him rather than Man, and to please him rather than fatisfie our own Will, and to enjoy him rather than any worldly or carnal Pleasure; faying with the Pfalmift, Thy Loving-kindness is better than Life, and with the Church in the Canticles, Thy Love is better than Wine.

And if our Love be thus order'd, if we stand thus affected towards God, we are then allowed, according to the common Opinion, to love Creatures, to delight and folace our felves in them, to unite our Souls in fome measure to them, and to reckon them among the props and ftays of our life, and as the Ingredients of its prefent Happinefs. Nor is there any harm prefumed in all this, ftill provided that God be uppermoft in our Hearts, have the largest share in our Affections, and be feated upon the Throne of the Soul; who though

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permitted to love other things, is yet to look
upon God as her greatest Good, and accordingly
to reserve her brightest and pureft flame for his
Altar;
to love him with the choice, with the
flower, of her Affection; and be ready to part with
any other Good when it once comes in competi❤
tion with the Love of God.

In this, I think,I fpeak the fenfe of the common Interpreters; who for want of a fuitable Foundation could not well carry the Building higher," but were forced to take up with an Explication far below the exprefs Letter of the Text; and to make this to be all that was fignified by loving God with all the heart, with all the foul, and with all the mind, that we love him chiefly and principally, beft and moft. Sure they could not but be fenfible, that herein they did not rise up to the Letter of the Text, which manifeftly requires a more elevated fenfe: But they could not advance higher without Building in the Air ཧ་ and were therefore forced to cramp the fenfe of this great Commandment, and to put fuch a Conftru&tion upon it, not as the exprefs Words of it require, but as their Hypothefis would bear.

I fay, as their Hypothefis would bear; for the Hypothesis these Men go upon, feems to be this; 7 They fuppofe, that other things befides God are truly and properly the Goods of the Soul, and contribute, as efficient Causes, to its happiness That fenfible Objects contain in themselves fomewhat anfwerable to what we feel by their Occafion, and are withal the proper Caufes of fuch B 3

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