SECT. III.

Of Charity, or the Love of God.

Love is the greatest thing that God can give us, for himfelf is Love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will alfo give our felves, and carry with it all that is ours. The Apoftle calls it, the band of perfection; it is the Old, and it is the New, and it is the great Commandment, and it is all the Commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the Law. It does the work of all other graces, without any inftrument but its own immediate virtue. For as the love to fin makes a man fin against all his own Reason, and all the difcourfes of Wildom, and all the advices of his friends, and without temptation, and without opportunity: fo does the Love of God; it makes a man chaft without the laborious arts of falting, and exteriour difciplines, temperate in the midft of feafts, and is active enough to chufe it without any intermedial appetites, and reaches at Glory through the very heart of Grace, without any other arms but thote of Love. It is a grace that loves God tor himself, and our Neighbours for God. The confideration of God's goodness and bounty, the experience of thofe profitable and excellent Emanations from him, may be, and most commonly are, the first motive of our Love: but when we are once entred, and have tasted the goodness of God, we love the fpring for its own excellency, paffing from paffion to reafon, from thanking to adoring, from fenfe to fpirit, from confidering our felyes to an union with God: and this is the image and little reprefentation of Heaven; it is a beatitude in picture, or rather the infancy and beginnings of Glory.

We need no incentives by way of fpecial enumeration to move us to the love of God, for we cannot love any thing for any reafon real or imaginary, but that excellence is infinitely more eminent in God. There can but two things create Love, Perfection and Lifefulness;

fulness; to which anfwer on our part, 1. Admiration; and 2. Defire; and both thefe are centred in Love. For the entertainment of the first, there is in God an infinite nature, immenfity or vaftnefs without extenfion or limit, Immutability, Eternity, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Holinefs, Dominion, Providence, Bounty, Mercy, Juftice, Perfection in Himfelf, and the End to which all things and all actions must be directed, and will at last arrive. The confideration of which may be heightned, if we confider our distance from all thefe glories: Our finalinefs and limited nature, our nothing, our inconftancy, our age like a fpan, our weakness and ignorance, our poverty, our inadvertency and inconfideration, our ditabilities and difaffections to do good, our harfh natures and unmerciful inclinations, our univerfal iniquity, and our neceffities and dependencies, not only on God originally and effentially, but even our need of the meanest of God's creatures, and our being obnoxious to the weakest and most contemptible. But for the enter tainment of the second, we may confider that in him is a torrent of pleafure for the voluptuous, he is the fountain of honour for the ambitious, an inexhauftible treasure for the covetous. Our vices are in love with phantaftick pleasures and images of perfetion, which are truly and really to be found nowhere but in God. And therefore our vertues have fuch proper objects, that it is but reasonable they fhould all turn into love: for certain it is, that this love will turn all into vertue. For in the fcrutinies for Righteousness and Judgment, When it is enquired whether fuch a perfon be a good man or no, the meaning is not, What does he believe? or, What does he hope? but, What he loves.

The Acts of Love to God are,

1. Love does all things which may please the beloved perfon; it performs all his Commandments: and this is one of the greatest inftances and arguments of our love that God requires of us, [This is

S. Aug. 1. 2.

Confef. c.6.

Love, that we keep his Commandments. [Love is obedient.]

2. It does all the intimations and fecret fignifications of his pleasure whom we love: and this is an argument of a great degree of it. The first inftance is it that makes the Love accepted: but this gives a greatnefs and fingularity to it. The firft is the leaft, and lets than it cannot do our duty but without this fecond we cannot come to perfection. Great Love is alfo pliant and inquifitive in the inftances of its expretion.

3. Love gives away all things, that fo he may advance the intereft of the beloved perfon: it relieves all that he would have relieved, and spends it felf in fuch real fignifications as it is enabled withal. He never loved God that will quit any thing of his Religion to fave his money. Love is always liberal and communicative.

4. It fuffers all things that are impofed by its beloved, or that can happen for his fake, or that intervene in his fervice, chearfully, fweetly, willingly, expecting that God fhould turn them into good, and inftruments of felicity. Charity hopeth all things, en2 Cor.13. dureth all things. Love is patient and content with any thing, fo it be together with its beloved.

5. Love is alio impatient of any thing that may difpleafe the beloved perfon, hating all fin as the enemy of its friend ; for Love contracts all the fame relations, and marries the fame friendships and the tame hatreds; and all affection to a fin is perfectly inconfiftent with the Love of God. Love is not divided between God and God's enemy: we must love God with all our heart, that is, give him a whole and undivided affection, having Love for nothing else but fuch things which he allows, and which he commands or loves himself.

6. Love endeavours for ever to be prefent, to converle with, to enjoy, to be united with its object, loves to be talking of him, reciting his praifes, telling his ftories, repeating his words, imitating his geftures, tranfcribing his copy in every thing; and every de

gree

gree of union and every degree of likeness is a degree of Love; and it can endure any thing but the difpleafure and the abfence of its beloved. For we are not to use God and Religion as men ufe perfumes, with which they are delighted when they have them, but can very well be without them. True Charity is reft- Amoris ut lefs till it enjoys God in fuch inftances in which it morfum qui wants him it is like hunger and thirft, it must be fed or it cannot be answered; and nothing can fupply the prefence, or make recompence for the abfence of God, or of the effects of his favour, and the light of his countenance:

7. True Love in all accidents looks upon the beloved Perfon, and obferves his countenance, and how he approves or disapproves it, and accordingly looks fad or chearful. He that loves God is not difpleafed at those accidents which God chufes, nor murmurs at thofe changes which he makes in his family, nor envies at those gifts he bestows: but chufes as he likes, and is ruled by his judgment, and is perfectly of his perfuafion, loving to learn where God is the Teacher, and being content to be ignorant or filent where he is not, pleated to open himself.

verè fenferit.

eo os meum

8. Love is curious of little things, or circumftances Plutarchus ciand measures, and little accidents, not allowing to it tans carmen de fuo Apolfelf any infirmity which it ftrives not to mafter, aim- Line, adjicit ex ing at what it cannot yet reach, defiring to be of an Herodoro quaangelical purity, and of a perfect innocence, and a fi de fuo, De feraphical fervour, and fears every image of offence; continens esto. is as much afflicted at an idle word as fome at an act of adultery, and will not allow to it self so much anger as will difturb a child, nor endure the impurity of a dream. And this is the curiofity and nicenefs of Divine Love; this is the fear of God, and is the daughter and production of Love,

The Measures and Rules of Divine Love.

But because this Paffion is pure as the brightest and fmootheft mirrour, and therefore is apt to be fullied

Se&t. 3. with every impurer breath, we must be careful that our love to God be governed by these measures.

1. That our Love be fweet, even, and full of tranquility, having in it no violences or transportations, but going on in a courfe of holy actions and duties which are proportionable to our condition and prefent ftate; not to fatisfie all the defire, but all the probabilities and meafures of our ftrength. A new beginner in Religion hath paffionate and violent defires: but they must not be the measure of his actions: But he mult confider his ftrength, his late ficknefs and state of death, the proper temptations of his condition, and ftand at firft upon his defence; not go to ftorm a strong Fort, or attacque a potent Enemy, or do heroical Actions, and fitter for giants inReligion. Indifcreet violences and untimely forwardnefs are the rocks of Religion, against which tender fpirits often fuffer fhipwrack.

2. Let our Love be prudent and without illufion: that is, that it exprefs it felf in fuch inftances which God hath chofen, or which we chufe our felves by proportion to his rules and measures. Love turns into doting when Religion turns into Superftition. No degree of love can be imprudent, but the expreffions may we cannot love God too much, but we may proclaim it in undecent manners.

3. Let our Love be firm, conftant and infeparable; not coming and returning like the tide, but defcending like a never-failing river, ever running into the Ocean of Divine excellency, paffing on in the chanels of duty, and a conftant obedience, and never ceafing to be what it is, till it comes to what it defires to be; ftill being a river till it be turned into fea and vaftnefs, even the immenfity of a bleffed Eternity.

Although the confideration of the Divine excellencies and mercies be infinitely fufficient to produce in us love to God, (who is inviûble, and yet not diftant from us, but we feel him in his bleffings, he dwells in our hearts by faith, we feed on him in the Sacrament, and are made all one with him in the incarnation and glorification of Jefus ;) yet that we may

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