A Glance of Heaven

But, as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Cor 2:9)

The holy apostle St. Paul, the trumpet of the gospel, “the vessel of election” (Acts 9:15), was ordained to be a messenger of reconciliation and to spread the sweet fragrance of the gospel everywhere. In keeping with his calling, he makes way for the excellence of his message as an ambassador into the hearts of those he had to deal with. He does this by commending his office. And so that he might prevail all the better, he removes every objection to the contrary.

There were some who would debase his office, saying that the gospel he taught, Christ crucified, was no great matter. Therefore in 1 Corinthians 2:6 he shows that the gospel is wisdom, and that “among them that are perfect,” that is, among the best and ablest to judge. St. Paul did not build, as the papists do now, on the blindness of the people. But it would not be popery if they did not make fools of the people. In effect, St. Paul says: We dare appeal to those who are the best and of the best judgment; let them judge whether it is wisdom or not. The more perfect men are, the better able they are to judge our wisdom.

It might be objected again: “You see who cares for your wisdom! Not Herod, not Pilate, not the great men and potentates, not the scribes and Pharisees, who are great and learned men, and men of blameless lives besides, notable for their conduct.” Therefore, he says, “We speak not the wisdom of this world, or the princes of this world, that come to nought.” Do not tell us about such men’s wisdom; they and their wisdom will come to nothing too. We teach the wisdom of things that are eternal, to make men eternal. As for the princes of the world, they perish, together with all that they know, their thoughts, and all their plots and schemes.

But “we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,” that is, a wisdom of God’s revealing, a deep wisdom, a mystery that “God ordained before the world” (1 Cor 2:7). It is ancient wisdom, not yesterday’s knowledge, though it has been lately revealed. The preaching of the gospel is the unveiling of that wisdom which was hidden before the world was.

And to invite you, and to make you love it all the more, it is a wisdom “to your glory.” God delights to show himself wise in devising a plan to glorify poor wretched man.

As for the words themselves, they prove what he had said before, namely why none of the princes of the world knew this great mystery. If it is true that no man’s eye has seen, no man’s ear has heard, and no man’s heart has conceived these things, why do you tell us about the wise men, who were not all men? Indeed, why should I speak of men at all? The very angels, as we know from other passages, are excluded from a full knowledge of these mysteries. So it is no wonder that none of the princes of this world knew them. They are universally hidden from all natural men. This I take to be the sense of the words.

They are taken from Isaiah 64:4. St. Paul delights to prove things from the prophets. But here it is not so much a proof as an allusion, and we must observe this in order to understand many such passages. For Isaiah there speaks of the great things God had done for his church, such as eye had not seen nor ear heard. The apostle alludes to it here and adds something. This clause, “nor hath entered into the heart of man,” is not in that place, but it is necessarily understood. For if the eye does not see and the ear does not hear, a thing never enters into the heart of man. Whatever enters the heart of man must come by those passages and windows, the gates of the soul, the senses.

And where St. Paul says “for them that love him,” Isaiah says, for them that “expect him.” The sense is all one. Whoever loves God expects him and waits for him. Where there is no expectation, there is no love.

This is the apostle’s drift. If God did such great things for his church, as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” according to the prophet Isaiah, what shall we think he will do in the kingdom of grace here and of glory hereafter?

The words, then, as we see, contain the excellence of the mysteries of the gospel. These are described, first, by their hiddenness from men at first; and second, by the goodness of the things revealed, such as “neither eye hath seen…”

The hiddenness and excellence of the gospel in that respect are set forth by way of negation: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,” nor heart conceived. And indeed this is the way to set forth excellent divine things. God himself is described by way of denial, by removing imperfections from him: he is invisible, immortal, and so on. And so heaven, which is near to God, since it is prepared by him, is described by way of denial, as St. Peter says: “It is an inheritance immortal, undefiled…” (1 Pet 1:4).

So here, no positive words could be found sufficient to set out the excellence of the things that God has prepared.

As for the knowledge of the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ, we cannot come to it either by natural discovery or by natural instruction. All the things that we know naturally, we know in one of these two ways; but divine things are known in neither way.

Where could there have been any knowledge of Christ if God had not opened his heart in the gospel, come out of his hidden light, and shown himself in Christ, the God-man, and, in publishing the gospel, established an ordinance of preaching for this purpose? Where would the knowledge of salvation in Christ have been?

To prove this, we have a gradation here. The eye sees many things, but we hear more things than we see. Yet “neither eye hath seen nor ear heard.” Yes, but the thoughts of the heart range wider than the sight of the eye or the hearing of the ear. Yet neither has eye seen nor ear heard, “nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive…” The philosopher says that there is nothing in the understanding which did not first come in through the senses. Therefore it cannot enter into the heart of man if it does not enter by the eye or by the ear.

The things spoken of here are especially the graces, comforts, and privileges to be enjoyed in this life, and their consummation and perfection in heaven. Christ brings peace and joy, justification and sanctification, and the like, even in this life. The perfection of these is in heaven, where soul and body shall both be glorified, in a glorious place, together with glorious company: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, innumerable angels, and just men. These are the things that “eye hath not seen…”: the beginnings here, and their perfection and consummation hereafter.

Having unfolded the words this far, I come to the points worth considering.

Doctrine. First, God has a company of beloved children in the world to whom he intends a special good.

Second, God has prepared great things for them.

1. If great persons prepare great things for those whom they greatly love, shall we not think that the great God will prepare great things for those to whom he has affection, and who have affection for him? If God is a friend to the elect, and they are his friends, surely he will return their friendship to the utmost. In keeping with the great love he bears his children, he has provided great things for them.

If what is long in preparing is excellent, then the things that belong to God’s children must be excellent, for they were being prepared even before the world was. Solomon’s temple was an excellent building; it had a long preparation (1 Chr 22:5). Ahasuerus made a feast for a hundred and twenty-seven provinces (Esth 1:1 and following). It was long in preparing. Great things have great preparation. Now these things that God intends for his children have been preparing even from everlasting, and they are from everlasting to everlasting. They must be excellent.

But before I dwell on any particular point, here is a question to be answered.

Question. If the things that God has prepared for his children are secret and excellent, how then do we come to know them at all?

(1) We come to know them by divine revelation. God must reveal them first, as the next verse says: “God hath revealed them by his Spirit” (1 Cor 2:10).

The Spirit reveals them by way of negation, and indefinitely, and also by way of eminence. Whatever is excellent in the world, God borrows to set out the excellence of the things that he has provided for his children in grace and glory. A feast is a delightful thing; they are called a feast. A kingdom is a glorious thing; they are called a kingdom. Marriage is a sweet thing; they are set forth by that, and by an inheritance, and by the adoption of children, and the like. So all these things are taken to be shadows of those things. And indeed they are only shadows. The reality is the heavenly kingdom of grace and glory, the heavenly riches, the heavenly inheritance, the heavenly sonship. When all these things vanish and come to nothing, then comes the true kingdom, sonship, and inheritance.

(2) Again, we know them in this world by way of taste. Of the things of the life to come, there are few of which God’s children do not have some taste by experience in this world. God does not reserve everything for the life to come; he gives a grape of Canaan in this wilderness.

(3) By arguing from the lesser to the greater. If peace of conscience is so sweet here, what will eternal peace be! If a little joy here is so pleasant and comforting that it makes us forget ourselves, what will that eternal joy be there! If the delights of a kingdom fill men’s hearts so full of contentment that they often do not know themselves, what shall we think of that excellent kingdom! So by way of taste and relish we may rise from these petty things to those excellent things, though these are indeed scarcely a beam, scarcely a drop, of those excellencies.

When Peter and John were on the mountain, they were not their own men, though they saw only a glimpse, only a little of the glory of Christ manifested on the mount (Mark 9:6). If that was so, what shall we think when there is the fullness of that glorious revelation at the right hand of God, where there is fullness of pleasures forever (Ps 16:11)? How our souls will be filled at that time! So by way of rising from the lesser to the greater, by tasting and feeling, and by divine revelation, we may know in some measure the excellence of the things prepared for us.

Now to clear this matter more fully, understand that there are three degrees of revelation.

First, there must be a revelation of the things themselves, by word and writing, or speech, and the like, just as we do not know the mind of a man except by his speech or writing. So there must be a revelation of these things. Otherwise the wit of angels could never have devised how, by infinite wisdom, to reconcile justice and mercy by sending a mediator, the God-man, to procure peace and to work our salvation. Therefore we could not know them without an outward revelation and disclosure. This is the first degree, which we may call revelation by Scripture, or by the doctrine of the gospel. Who could disclose things that are purely supernatural but God himself?

Second, when they are revealed by the word of God, and by men who have the office of unfolding the unsearchable riches of Christ by the ministry of the gospel, they are nevertheless still hidden riddles to a company of carnal men. Suppose the veil is taken off the things themselves; yet if the veil is over the soul (the understanding, will, and affections), there is no grasp of them. Therefore there must be a second revelation, that is, by the Spirit of God.

This must be so of necessity. For just as the apostle says in this chapter, no one knows the mind of man but the spirit that is in man (1 Cor 2:11), so no one knows the mind of God but the Spirit of God. What is the gospel without the Spirit of Christ to disclose the mind of God to us? We do not know God’s good meaning toward us in particular. We know in general that such things are revealed in Scripture. But what is that to us if Christ is not our Savior and God our Father, unless we can say, as St. Paul says, “He loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20)? So you see the necessity of revelation by the Spirit.

But this is not all that is meant here. There is, third, a higher disclosure, and that is in heaven. What is revealed here is only in part. And so if we believe, we believe only in part, and we love only in part. If our knowledge, which is the ground of all other graces and affections, is imperfect, then all that follows must also be imperfect. Therefore St. John says, We know that we are the sons of God, but it appears not what we shall be (1 John 3:2). What we shall be in heaven does not appear now.

There must be a further revelation, and that will come hereafter, when our souls shall be united together with our bodies. And then indeed our eyes shall see, our ears hear, and our hearts conceive those things which, while we are here in the womb of the church, we can no more see, hear, or understand than the child in its mother’s womb can conceive the excellencies of this outward life. So we see these truths unfolded a little more.

I will now add something to apply what has been said.

Use 1. First of all, then, this serves for instruction. If the things of the gospel are such that they could not be known without a revelation from God, then we see that there is no principle of the gospel at all in nature. There is not a spark of light or any inclination toward the gospel that is not wholly above nature. For here he removes all natural ways of knowing the gospel: eye, ear, and understanding. Therefore the knowledge of it is purely supernatural. For if God had not revealed it, who could ever have devised it? And when he has revealed it, his disclosing it by his Spirit is supernatural, and in heaven much more so, which is the third degree I spoke of.

So, by the way, you may know the reason why so many heresies have sprung out of the gospel, more than out of the law and the misunderstanding of it. There are few or no heresies from the law, because the principles of the law are written in the heart. Men naturally know that fornication, adultery, filthy living, and the like are sins. Men have not so quenched nature that they do not know those things are wicked. That is why there have been excellent lawmakers among the heathen. But the gospel is a pure “mystery,” disclosed out of the heart of God, outside all the principles of nature.

There are thousands of errors, too many to be counted, about the nature, the person, and the benefits of Christ; about justification and sanctification, free will and grace, and such things. What a world of heresies proud wits have continually stirred up! This would never have happened if the gospel were not a thing above nature. Therefore, when a proud wit and revealed supernatural knowledge meet together, the proud heart storms and loves to struggle, and devises this thing and that thing to commend itself. From this come heresies: the mingling of natural wit with divine truths. If men had had passive wits, to submit to divine truths and to work nothing out of themselves, as the spider does out of her own bowels, there would not have been such heresies in the church. But their hearts meeting with supernatural truths, and their proud hearts mingling with them, they have devised these errors. That I note in the first place.

Use 2. Then again, if the things that we have in the gospel are such divine truths, altogether above nature, then we must not insist too much on looking for reason, nor trust the reason or wit of any man, but above all divine authority. For if divine authority ceased in the gospel, what would it be? Nothing. The law is written in men’s hearts; but we must trust divine authority in the gospel above all other portions of Scripture, and not the wit of any man whatsoever.

The Church of Rome, which is possessed with a spirit of pride, ignorance, and tyranny, will force knowledge on those under them on their own sole authority: “The church says so, and we are the church; it is not for you to know,” and “The Scriptures are such and such.” But is the gospel a supernatural mystery, above the capacity of any man? And shall we build on the authority of the church for these truths? Oh, no! There must be no forcing of gospel truths on the authority or abilities of any man. But these are not things that we greatly need.

Therefore I hasten on to what is more useful. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard…”

Use 3. Here, then, we have a use of direction on how to conduct ourselves in reading and studying holy truths, especially the sacred mysteries of the gospel. How shall we study them? We think we can break into them with the engine of our own wit and understand them, and we never come to God for his Spirit. God will curse such proud attempts. Who knows the things of man, but the spirit of a man? and who knows the things of God, but the Spirit of God? (1 Cor 2:11). Therefore, in studying the gospel, let us come with a spirit of faith, and a spirit of humility and meekness. There is no breaking into these things by the strength of natural ability. That has been the ground of so many heresies as have arisen in the church. Only Christ “hath the key of David, that shutteth, and no man openeth; and openeth, and no man shutteth” (Rev 3:7). He has the key of the Scripture, and the key to open the understanding.

And to press this point a little: if “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive” the things of the gospel without the revelation of the Spirit, then we must come with this mind whenever we come to hear the things of the gospel: “Lord, without your Holy Spirit they are all like a clasped book. They are hidden mysteries to me, even though they are revealed in the gospel. If my heart is shut to them, they are all hidden to me.”

We see men of excellent gifts who are enemies to what they themselves teach, opposing the power of the gospel. Where does all this come from? It comes from this: they think that merely opening these things makes them divines. But without the Holy Spirit sanctifying and altering the heart in some measure to taste and relish these things, so that, as the things are divine in themselves, there may be something divine in the heart to taste them, it is impossible for the heart not to rise against them. And so it does. For when it comes to particulars, you must deny yourself in this honor, in this pleasure, and in this advantage; now you must risk the displeasure of men for this truth and that. Then the heart rises in scorn and loathing of divine truth.

When it comes to particulars, they know nothing as they should. For when is truth truly known, except when we stand for it in particulars, and will neither betray it nor do anything that does not befit a Christian? If we do not have the Spirit of God to relish truths in particular, they will do us no good. And unless the Spirit first sanctifies the heart of man by these truths, the truth will never be understood by the proud natural heart of man.

Therefore this is the course God takes with his children. Into the hearts of those he means to save, he first inspires some desire to come and hear and attend upon the means of salvation, to understand the gospel. Then, under the means of salvation, he shines into the understanding by a heavenly light, and inspires into the will and affections some heavenly inclination toward this truth of the gospel: toward justification, sanctification, self-denial and the like. He works a new life and new senses, and upon these, worked under the means, the soul comes to relish and understand these mysteries. Then the ears and the eyes are open to see these things, and never before.

A holy man whose heart has been subdued by the Spirit of God in the use of the means, oh, how he relishes the point of the forgiveness of sins! He relishes the point of sanctification; he studies it, and nearer communion with God, more and more every day. He relishes peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Spirit. These are sweet things to him, and so are all the duties of Christianity, because he makes it his main business to adorn his profession, and to live here in such a way that he may live forever hereafter.

And this must be so, of necessity. For mark what follows from the text: if the natural eye and ear and heart can never see, nor hear, nor conceive the things of God, must there not be a supernatural ear and eye and heart put into the soul? Must not the heart, and everything else, be molded anew? If the former frame is not sufficient for these things, it must of necessity be so.

Use 4. From this, learn to arm yourselves against all stumbling blocks. You may see men of every gift and reputation (and there may be such), men of deep insight and understanding in the Scripture as far as mere notions go, and exquisite in the language of the Scripture, who are nevertheless proud, malicious, haters of holiness, so that next to the devils there are none greater. When you see this, consider the reason. Either they have proud spirits that despise and neglect the means of salvation altogether, or, if they do come, they come as judges; they will not submit their proud hearts to the sweet motions of the Spirit.

Do not stumble at it if such men are enemies both to what they themselves teach and to those who practice it. The reason is that their proud hearts were never subdued by the Spirit to understand the things they speak of. Such a teacher understands supernatural things by a natural light and by human reason, that is, enough to talk and discourse about them. But he does not see supernatural things by a supernatural light, or divine things by a divine light. Therefore a poor soul who hears the things he publishes understands them better, by the help of the Spirit, than the man who speaks them; better indeed for his own use and comfort.

As we see, there are some who can measure land exactly, but the man who owns the land that is measured knows the use of the ground and delights in it as his own. The other can tell you, “Here is so much ground.” So it is with some divines. They can tell you that there are such and such points, and how they are drawn from the text, and they can be exquisite in this. But what profit do they have from it? The poor soul who hears these things can say, by the help of the Spirit, “These are mine,” like the man for whom the ground is measured.

It is as with those who come to a feast. The physician comes and says, “This is wholesome and good, and this is good for this and that,” but he eats nothing. Others who know nothing of these things eat the food and are nourished in the meantime. So when such men discourse of this and that, a poor man who has the Spirit relishes these things as his own. The other goes away having only discoursed about the food like a philosopher, and he eats nothing.

And therefore, when you read and hear these things, do not content yourselves with the first degree of revelation. No, that is not enough. When you have done that, ask God to join his Spirit to it, to give you spiritual eyes and hearts, so that you may embrace divine truths and be divine as the truths are, so that there may be a consent of the heart with the truth. Then the word of God will be sweet indeed.

Use 5. Again, here we see this divine truth: that a man, when he has the Spirit of God, knows things otherwise than he knew them before, though it was not by the outward revelation of hearing and reading that he came to know them in this way. He also believes them otherwise than he did before; he sees them by a new light. The knowledge an unregenerate man has is not the same as the knowledge he has afterward, when God works upon his heart (1 Cor 2:14-15), for then it is a divine, supernatural knowledge. Nor is it the same faith and belief. The Spirit of God raises a man to a rank among creatures as far above other men as other men are above beasts. He gives new eyes, new ears and a new heart; he molds him anew in every way.

That is why you sometimes find good men wondering at themselves, after God has touched their hearts, that they once had such shallow notions of this truth and that. Now they see that they were in the dark, that they were in a stupor before, when they imagined things to be so and so and thought themselves somebody. But when God opens their eyes, takes away the scales, and lets them see things in their proper light, heavenly things by a heavenly light and with a heavenly eye, they wonder at their former foolishness in divinity, especially as far as it concerns the gospel. For there is more in the Scripture than pure supernatural divinity; there are many other arts in the Scripture.

The gospel, I say, is a knowledge belonging not to natural men or great wits, but to holy, sanctified men. Therefore we must not think that these things can be known by nature. It is a sacred knowledge, that is, so much of it as will bring us to heaven. It is a knowledge belonging to holy men, whose hearts have been brought to love and taste and relish what they know. So it is no wonder if a company of men of great gifts live wickedly. They are no true divines, because they have no true knowledge. The devil is no divine, and properly speaking neither is a wicked man. Though he can discourse of such things, he is still not properly a divine, because he does not know things by a divine light, or heavenly things by a heavenly light. The knowledge of the gospel is a knowledge belonging to sanctified, holy men. But to come nearer to our practice.

Use 6. If “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive” those things that God has prepared for his own, then let us make this the rule by which we esteem anything that is good or anything that is evil; let us make it a rule of valuation. The apostle here, you see, has a rank of things above the sight of the eye, or the hearing of the ear, or the conceiving of the heart of man.

If there is such a rank of things above these, then the greatest evils are those that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man”; and indeed they are. We grieve over fever, and kidney stones, and gout; they are grievous things indeed. Oh, but what are these things that we feel and see, compared with those in another world that we cannot comprehend because of their greatness! The torments of hell we cannot conceive and understand here, for to conceive what hell is would indeed be to be in hell itself. And therefore, when God enlarges men’s spirits to see them, they take their own lives.

And it is the same with the greatest good. These goods here, this outward glory, we can see through. Christ could see through all the glory in the world that the devil showed him (Matt 4:8). And these are things that we can hear of, and we can hear the utmost that can be said of them. Therefore they are surely not the greatest good. There are more excellent things than they are, because the eye sees these, the ear hears of them, and the understanding can conceive of them. But there are things that the eye “hath not seen, nor ear heard,” nor the soul conceived; and these are the joys of heaven.

And so, to come down to practice: if this is a rule for valuing things, that the best things are transcendent, beyond sense and comprehension, then shall I, for the things I can see and hear and feel and understand, lose those excellent good things that “neither eye hath seen nor ear heard”? Is it not desperate folly to risk the loss of the best things, the most transcendent things, things above the capacity of the greatest minds in the world? Shall I lose everything for petty, poor things that lie within my own reach and compass?

How foolish, then, are those who are given over to pleasures! They feel the pleasure indeed, but the sting comes afterward. They delight in those bad things that they can hear of, and hear all that can be said about them, and they never think of the excellent things that “the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.”

Let this make us fall in love with the divine truths in the Scripture, with the gospel, that part of the Scripture which promises salvation by Christ and all the graces and privileges of Christianity. They are above our reach. We study other things, and we can reach them. By long study we can reach the mysteries of law, and the mysteries of medicine, and by understanding we can reach the mysteries of trades. And when men have done all this, they may be fools in the main thing, Solomon’s fools. They may do all these things and be wise in particular matters, by particular reaches of what “eye hath seen, and ear heard,” and then, for the best things, which are above the capacity of men, they may die empty of everything and go to the place of the damned. To be wise unto salvation is the best wisdom.

What a pitiful case this is! God has given us our understandings for better things than we can see or hear in this world, and yet we employ them wholly on the things of the world. Let us not do as some shallow, proud heads do, who do not regard divine things. They will not deign to read the holy Scriptures once a day, perhaps not even once a week; indeed, some scarcely have a Bible in their studies. For shame! Shall we be so atheistic, when God has provided such excellent things contained in this book of God, the Testament? Shall we slight these excellent things for a knowledge that will perish with us, as St. Paul says just before the text? The knowledge of all other things is perishing, the knowledge of perishing men. “Learn on earth that which will abide in heaven,” says St. Augustine. If we are wise, let us know those things on earth whose comfort may abide with us in heaven.

Therefore let us be stirred up to value the Scriptures, the mysteries of salvation in the gospel; they are things that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.” Indeed, I say more, concerning even the little we have here by hearing truths unfolded, by which the Spirit of God slides into our hearts and works with them. When the point of justification or adoption, or any divine comfort, is unfolded, a man has such peace in his heart that it breeds inward peace and joy that is unspeakable and glorious. All that we have in the world is not worth those little beginnings that are worked here by hearing the word of God. If the firstfruits here are often joy “unspeakable and glorious” (1 Pet 1:8), if the firstfruits are “peace that passeth understanding” (Phil 4:7), what will the consummation and perfection of these things be on that day?

Again, here you see a ground of the wonderful patience of the martyrs. You wonder that they would allow their bodies to be torn, and their souls to be severed so violently from their bodies. Ah, cease to wonder: they had a sense worked in them by the Spirit of God of the things that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” Suppose a man had asked them why they would allow their bodies to be abused like this, when they might have bought their way out of it all by keeping a little quiet. Oh, they would have answered at once, as some of them did: “We suffer these things in our bodies and in our senses for the sake of things that are above our senses. We know there are things laid up for us that ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.’ Why do you tell us of this torment and that torment? We shall have more glory in heaven than we can have misery here. For we can see this, and there is an end of it; but we shall have joy that ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.’”

As St. Paul says most divinely in various places, in Romans 8:18, the things we suffer here are not “worthy of the glory that shall be revealed.” Therefore let us not so much wonder at their patience as lay up this ground of patience against an evil day, when we may be called to seal the truth with our blood.

Along the way, learn what popery is. They think to merit by their doings, but especially by their sufferings, even though they are evildoers and suffer for their own demerits; this is their glory. Those stained good works (suppose they were good works, they are still defiled and stained, and like menstruous cloths, as it is put in Isaiah 30:22), shall they merit the glory to be revealed, which is so great that “eye hath not seen”? What proportion is there? In merit there must be a proportion between the deed done and the glory. What proportion is there between stained, imperfect, defiled works and the glory to be revealed?

Should not our lives be almost angelic? “What manner of men should we be in all holy conversation” (2 Pet 3:11), considering what things are laid up in heaven, and that we have the firstfruits of them here? Can men be too holy and exact in their lives who look for things “that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard”?

I wonder at the stupidity and hellish pride and malice of men’s hearts who think anyone can be too exact in the main duties of Christianity: in expressing their love to God, in the obedience of their lives, in abstaining from the filthiness of the world, and the like. Can a man who looks for these excellent, transcendent things be too careful of his life? I beg you, be judges yourselves.

As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard… (1 Cor 2:9)

Here the apostle sets out the gospel with every commendation by which any skill in the world can be commended. He commends it by its author: it is from “God.” He commends it by its depth: it is “wisdom,” and in a mystery, “hidden wisdom.” He commends it by its antiquity: it was ordained before the world was. He commends it by its benefit and use: it is “for our glory.” God is content that his wisdom should be honored in glorifying us; such is his love. And then he commends it by this, that when it was revealed, none of the “princes of the world” knew it. (He means not only commanding potentates. Being a scholar himself, he counted philosophers, Pharisees, and learned men to be princes, because the excellence of a man lies in the refined part of man, his soul.) None of these princes of the world, for all their skill and knowledge, knew this.

In this verse he shows the reason why “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.” He removes knowledge by removing the way and means of knowledge. In this world the means of knowledge is the passage and entrance of the senses. But this heavenly mystery of the gospel is a kind of knowledge that does not enter the soul by the senses.

The points we proposed were these:

1. That God has a people in the world whom he favors in a special manner.

2. For those whom he counts his friends, he has prepared great matters. Kings prepare great matters for those they intend to advance; what then shall we think God will do for his friends?

3. These things prepared are great matters indeed, for they are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.

4. The disposition and qualification of those for whom God has prepared such great matters. It is for those “that love him”; not for his enemies, or for all men indifferently, but for those who love him.

Of the first and second I spoke in the former sermon. I will not stand to speak of them now, but will enlarge on the last two.

The things that God has prepared for them that love him are such excellent things as neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard. He means the natural eye and ear and understanding, or heart, of man.

There are three degrees of the discovery of heavenly things.

First, in the doctrine of them; and in this respect they are hidden from those who are outside the church.

Then, secondly, in the spiritual meaning of them; and in this respect they are hidden from carnal men within the church.

And then, thirdly, in regard of the full comprehension of them, as they really are; and in this respect they are reserved for heaven. In this world we have only a little glimpse of them, a little light into them. Now what is meant in this place is the things that are discovered in the gospel, especially as they are apprehended by the Spirit, together with their consummation in heaven. For these differ only in degree: the discovery of heavenly things in the gospel here (the privileges, graces, and comforts of God’s children), and the consummation of them in heaven.

And we may reason from the lesser to the greater. If a natural man, though he has natural eyes and ears and wits about him, cannot conceive the hidden mysteries of the gospel spiritually, with application to himself, much more unable is he, and much less can he conceive, those things of a better life. Now the things of the gospel (the privileges, the graces, and the comforts, of which Christ is the spring and head, in whom all are, and from whom we have all) cannot be comprehended by a natural man. He can discourse of them as far as his natural wit conceives them, but he cannot understand heavenly things in their own light as heavenly things, as the things of the gospel. Such men can talk of repentance, which we commonly speak of and which is a mystery. But for all that, who knows repentance by the light proper to it except the one to whom the Spirit of God has discovered sin in its own colors? He knows what it is to grieve for sin.

The sick man knows what it is to be sick. The physician knows it by definition and from books, and so he can enlarge upon it; but if he is not sick, the sick patient will speak more to the purpose. So there is a mystery in the common things of the gospel, repentance and grief for sin. A holy man feels it to be another matter, because he feels sin discovered by the Spirit of God. And so in faith, in the love of God, and in every grace of the gospel there is a mystery. If you go to the Schoolmen, they will tell you about faith, dispute learnedly about it, and deduce this from that. But when such a man comes into extremity, when the terrors of the Lord are upon him, when he comes to use it, he is a mere stranger to it. To cast himself, a sinful creature, into the arms of God’s mercy is something he cannot do without a further light of the Spirit discovering the hidden love of God to him in particular. And so it is with the other graces.

Therefore unsanctified men only speak of these things as a blind man speaks of colors. They inwardly scorn the truth they speak of. And as for those to whom they speak, if by the power of God’s Spirit these hearers come to profit by the things they teach, then, if the teachers themselves are carnal, they hate them. A carnal man does not believe a whit of what he says. He has only a common light for the good of others, a common illumination to understand and discover things, and a doctrinal gift to unfold things for others and not for himself. For their own part they scorn these things in their hearts, and in their lives and conduct; and they will say as much when it comes to self-denial in preferment, in pleasures, in anything that is gainful. Tush! Tell him what he has taught, or what he knows out of the book of God; he does not care. He knows these things only by a common light. But as for a particular heavenly light, with application and taste to himself, springing from an alteration by the Spirit, he never knows them in that way.

Therefore do not content yourself with a common light. For together with our understanding, God alters the taste of the whole soul. He gives a new eye and a new ear, to see and hear to purpose, and a new heart to conceive things in another manner than before.

But you will ask, How can a godly man know them at all, seeing “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard”?

I answer, first, the things of another life, as we see here, are known by negation, as God is, by way of removing imperfections. The natural eye does not see them, nor does the natural ear hear them, and so on. No, nor does the spiritual eye or ear, in full measure. So transcendent things, which are above the reach of man, are described in the Scriptures by way of denial, which is one good way of knowledge.

“That ye may know the love of God that is above knowledge,” says the apostle (Eph 3:19): that you may know it more and more. Yet it is above all knowledge in regard of its perfection. A man may see the sea, but he cannot comprehend the sea. He may take great delight in seeing the sea, yet he sees neither its bottom nor its shores; he cannot comprehend so vast a body. He may see the heavens, but he cannot comprehend them. So a man may know these things when they are revealed, but he cannot comprehend them. Apprehension is one thing, and comprehension is another. There may be apprehension in a poor degree, suited to the capacity of the soul here; but alas! it is far from the comprehension that we shall have in heaven. That is one way of knowing them, by way of negation, denying imperfections of them.

And then, secondly, they are known, as we call it, by way of eminence: that is, by comparing them with other things and preferring them above all other excellencies whatsoever, as we may see the sun in water by resemblance. For God borrows terms from nature to set out grace and glory, because God will speak in our language. So they are called a “kingdom,” a “feast,” and a “crown” by way of comparison. Shallow men think there is a great deal in a kingdom; and indeed so there is, if there were no other. There are great matters in a “crown,” in “the feasts” of kings, and the like. But alas! these are shadows; and there is no rhetoric or exaggeration in saying they are shadows. A shadow is as much in proportion to the body as these things are to eternal good things. The true reality of things is in the things of another world, for eternity.

If we talk of a kingdom, let us talk of the one in heaven; if of a crown, of the one with which the saints are crowned in heaven. If we talk of riches, the riches are those that make a man eternally rich, which he will carry with him when he goes out of the world. What riches are those that a man will outlive, and die a beggar, and not have a drop to comfort him, as we see Dives in hell did not (Luke 16:19-31)? Here are riches indeed. So if we talk of beauty, it is the image of God that sets a beauty on the soul and makes a man lovely in the eye of God. True beauty is to be like God. And to be born anew to that glorious condition is the birth and inheritance. All these poor things are only acting a part upon a stage for a while, as the proudest creature of all who is invested with them will judge before long; none judges it better than they.

This is one way of knowing the things of the gospel, by naming them in our own language. If a man goes into a foreign country, he must learn its language or else hold his peace. So God is forced to speak in our own language, to tell us of glory and happiness to come under the names of crowns and kingdoms and riches here. If God should set them out in their own luster, we could not conceive of them.

But, thirdly, the most comforting way in which God’s people know the things of heaven and of the life to come is by some taste. For there is nothing in heaven of which God’s children do not have a taste, in some measure, before they come there. They have a taste of the communion that is in heaven in the communion they have on earth. They have a taste of that eternal Sabbath by some relish they have of holy exercises on these Christian Sabbaths. A Christian is as much in heaven as he can be when he sanctifies the holy Sabbath, speaking to God in the congregation by prayer and hearing God speak to him in the preaching of the word. That peace we shall have in heaven, a peace uninterrupted and without any disturbance, is understood by that sweet peace of conscience here “that passeth all understanding” (Phil 4:7). We may know, therefore, what the sight of Christ face to face will be by the sight we have of Christ now in the word and promises. If that sight we have by knowledge and faith here so transforms and affects us, what will those sights do? So by a grape we may know what Canaan is, as the spies brought some of the grapes of Canaan into the desert. We may know by this little taste what those excellent things are.

The fourth way is by authority and discovery. St. Paul was caught up into the third heaven. He says the things he saw were such that they could not be spoken of, strange things (2 Cor 12:4). And Christ tells us of a kingdom. Christ knew what these things were. And the word tells us what they are. Our faith looks to the authority of the word, even if we had neither the firstfruits nor any other discovery. God, who has prepared them, says so in his word, and we must rest on his authority. And there are some who have been in heaven. Christ our blessed Savior, who has taken the manhood into a perpetual union with the second person, to whom he has knit it, knows what is there. By this means we come to have some kind of knowledge of the things to come.

Fifthly, again, by a kind of reasoning that likewise goes from the lesser to the greater, we may come to know not only the things but their greatness. For example, is there not comfort now in a little glimpse, when God shines upon a Christian’s soul and he is, as it were, in heaven? If there is such contentment in holy company here, what will there be in heaven? Is there such contentment in the delights of this world, which are the delights of our pilgrimage? (They are no better: our houses are houses of pilgrimage; our contentments are the contentments of travelers passing through.) If the way, the gallery that leads to heaven, is so spread with comforts, what must those be that are reserved in another world! A man may know this by raising his soul from the lesser to the greater. And consider the things God has provided in common for his enemies as well as his friends (for all the comforts of this world, all the delicacies, and all the objects of the senses are comforts common to the enemies of God as well as to his friends). If these things are so excellent that men venture their souls for them and lose everything to be drowned in them, oh, what special things must those be that God has reserved for his own children, for those who love him, when the things he shares with his enemies are so glorious and excellent! By these kinds of ways we may come to know them, with the help of the Spirit.

Those unmixed joys in heaven, those pure joys that are full of themselves and have no tincture, are understood by the joys we feel on earth: the joy of the Holy Spirit, which comes after conflict with temptations, or after afflictions, or after hearing and meditating on good things. The heavenly joys that flow into the soul give us a taste of that full joy we shall have at the right hand of God forevermore. The comfort we shall have in heaven, in the presence of God and of Christ and his holy angels, is understood in some small way by the comforting presence of God to the soul of a Christian, when he finds the Spirit of God raising him, cheering him up, and witnessing his presence. For oftentimes, to the comfort of God’s people, the Holy Spirit witnesses a presence, so that the soul can now say, “God is present with me; he smiles on me, strengthens me, and leads me along.” This is the comforting way God’s children have to understand the things of heaven: by the firstfruits they have here. For God is so much in love with his children here on earth, and so tender over them, that he does not intend to reserve everything for another world. He gives them some taste beforehand, to make them more in love with the things there and better able to bear the troubles of this world.

But alas! what is this compared with what they shall know? As it is written, “Now we are the sons of God, but it appears not what we shall be” (1 John 3:2). What we shall be will be so great in comparison with what we are that it is said not to appear at all. It appears in the firstfruits, in small beginnings; but alas! what is that to the glory that shall be! “Our life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). It is hidden. No one knows it in regard of its full manifestation, because here it is covered with so many infirmities and afflictions, and the world casts so many scorns upon the beauty of a Christian life. It is hidden in our head, Christ. It is not altogether hidden, for there is a life that comes from the root, from the head, Christ, to the members, and quickens them; but in regard of the glory that shall be, it is a hidden life.

Reasons. Before I go further, let us consider the reasons why God will have it so, to make this clear. We must be modest about reasons when we speak of God’s counsels and courses. I will only name them, to open our understanding a little.

Reason 1.

(1) It is enough that God will have it so. A modest Christian will be satisfied with this, that God will have a difference between heaven and earth. God’s dispensation may satisfy them.

(2) God will have a difference between the warring church and the triumphing church.

This life is a life of faith, and not of sight. We walk and live by faith. Why? Partly to try the truth of our faith, and partly for the glory of God, that he has such servants here in the world who will depend upon him on terms of faith, upon his bare word; who can say, “There are such things reserved in heaven for me; I have enough.” What a glory it is to God that he has those who will trust him upon his bare word! It would be no commendation for a Christian to live here in a beautiful, glorious manner if he saw everything and lived by sight. If he saw hell open, and the terrors there, what glory would it be for him then to abstain from sin! The sight would force abstinence. If we saw heaven open, and its joys present, it would be no credit to anyone to be a good man, for sight would force it.

Reason 2. God will have a known difference between hypocrites and the true children of God. If heaven were on earth, and nothing were reserved in faith and in promise, everyone would be a Christian. But as it is, the greatest things are laid up in promises, and we must exercise our faith to wait for them. Now none will honor God in his word but the true Christian. There is none but a true Christian who will honor God upon his word that such excellent things are reserved in another world, in comparison with which all these things are base; who will venture the loss of these things here for those in heaven; who will not lose the things that are theirs by future inheritance and promise for the present delights of sin for a season! The common sort, by contrast, hear talk of a heaven, and happiness, and a day of judgment, and so on. But in the meantime they will not deny their base pleasures and their rebellious dispositions; they will deny themselves in nothing. Do we think God has prepared heaven for such wretches as these? Oh, let us never think it! Therefore God has reserved the best excellencies for the time to come, in promises and in his word. If we have grace to depend upon his word, and in the meantime go on and oppose our corruptions, it is an excellent condition to be in. It shows the difference God will have between us and other men.

Reason 3. Our vessels could not contain it. We are incapable of it; our brain is not strong enough for these things. As weak brains cannot bear strong liquor, so we cannot digest a large revelation of these things. As we see, St. Peter was not himself at the transfiguration. He forgot himself and was spiritually drunk with joy at what he saw on the mount. He did not know what he was saying, as the Scripture says, when he said, “Master, let us make three tabernacles” (Mark 9:5). Indeed, St. Paul himself, the great apostle, when he saw things in heaven beyond expression, which could not and might not be uttered (2 Cor 12:4), could not digest them. They were so great that if he had not had something to weigh him down and balance him, he would have been overturned with pride. Therefore a “prick in the flesh” was sent to Paul himself to humble him (2 Cor 12:7). Are we greater than Paul and Peter, the great apostles of the Jews and Gentiles, when these grand apostles could not contain themselves? When they saw these heavenly things, and only a glimpse of them, the one did not know what he said, and the other was humbled, by way of prevention, with a prick in the flesh. And shall we think to conceive of these things? No! We cannot, for that would be to be in heaven before our time. These and similar reasons may satisfy us as to why we cannot conceive of the things to come as they are in their proper nature. When Moses wanted a clearer manifestation of God, God said to him, “No man can see me and live” (Exod 33:20). If we would see God as he is, we must die. If we would see heaven and its joys as they are, we must die first. No one can see the things the apostle speaks of here, in their proper light and excellence, unless he dies first.

They are not proportioned to our condition here. For God has resolved that this life shall be a life of imperfection, and that the other shall be a perfect estate of perfect glory. Alas! our capacities now are not capable of them, and our affections will not contain those excellent things. Therefore God trains us up little by little to the full fruition and enjoyment of it. Thus we see how we come to have some knowledge of them, and why we do not have a full knowledge of them here.

Use 1. Well, to leave this and go on: if this is so, then let us often think of these things.

The life of a Christian in this world is wonderfully ruled by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world. Nothing steers the life of a Christian here more than the consideration of the life hereafter. It does so not only by way of comfort (for the consideration of immortal life and glory is the comfort of this mortal, base life) but also by disposing and framing a man to every course that is good. There is, so to speak, no grace of the Spirit that is not set to work by the consideration of the estate to come; no, not one.

What is the work of faith? “It is the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). It sets the things of another world present before the eye of the soul, and in that respect it is victorious. It conquers the world because it sets a better world before the eye. Where would the exercise of faith be, if it were not for the hope of such an estate, which feeds faith? The excellence of faith is that it concerns things not seen. It makes things that are not seen to be seen. It has a kind of omnipotent power: it gives a being to things that have none except in the promise of the speaker.

And as for hope, the very nature of hope is to expect the things that faith believes. Were it not for the joys of heaven, where would hope be? It is the helmet of the soul, to keep it from blows and temptations. It is the anchor of the soul, which, being cast within the veil into heaven, steadies the soul in all the waves and troubles of this world. The consideration of the things to come exercises this grace of hope. We look within the veil and cast anchor there, upward and not downward; and there we steady ourselves in all upheavals and confusions by the exercise of hope (Heb 6:19).

And where would patience be? If it were not for a better estate in another world, a Christian “of all men were most miserable” (1 Cor 15:19). Who would endure anything for Christ if it were not for a better estate afterward?

And so for sobriety. What compels a moderate use of all things here? The consideration of future judgment, which made even Felix tremble (Acts 24:25). The consideration of the estate to come keeps us from surfeiting on the cares of the world and on excess, and makes us do everything that may make way for so glorious a consideration.

What enforces the keeping of a good conscience in all things? St. Paul looked to the resurrection of the just and of the unjust, and this made him exercise himself to keep a good conscience.

And so with purity and holiness, that we take heed of all defilements in the world, that we be not “led away with the error of the wicked” (2 Pet 3:17), but “keep ourselves unspotted” (Jas 1:27). What compels this but the consideration of a glorious condition in another world! “He that hath this hope purgeth himself” (1 John 3:3). There is a purging power in hope, a cleansing efficacy, so that a man cannot hope for this excellent condition without its framing and fitting his soul for that condition. Can a man hope to appear before a great person and not fit himself beforehand in his bearing and attire, to please the person before whom he appears? So whoever hopes to appear before Christ and God, that hope will of necessity force him to purge himself. Let us not stop to search curiously into the particulars of what the glory of the soul or of the body will be (the apostle reveals it in general: we shall be conformed to Christ our head in soul and body), but rather study how to make good use of them; for that is why they are revealed to us beforehand in general.

Use 2. And with this, let us humble ourselves, and say with the psalmist, “Lord, what is man, that thou so far considerest him?” (Ps 8:4). What is sinful man, who has lost his first condition and betrayed himself to your enemy and his, that you should advance him to that estate “that neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard”? This consideration will make us base in our own eyes.

Shall we not at once disdain any proud notions? Shall we talk of merit? What can come from a creature that could deserve things that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard”? How could such proud notions enter into the heart of man? Surely grace never entered the heart of the man who has such a notion as to entertain merit. Shall a man think to merit a thousand pounds with a penny, or by a little performance to merit things that are above the conceiving of men and angels? But a word is enough on that score.

Use 3. And with humiliation, let us take up that which always goes with humiliation: thankfulness, even beforehand. When the apostle St. Peter thought of the “inheritance immortal and undefiled,” he begins, “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:3-4). He could not think of these things without thankfulness to God. For we should begin the life of heaven on earth as much as we can; and what is that but blessing and praising God? Now we cannot praise God more effectually and feelingly than by considering what great things are reserved for us. For faith sets them before the soul as present, as if we were already put in possession of them. Now if we were in heaven already, we would praise God and do nothing else. Therefore faith, by making these things sure to the soul as if we had them, sets the soul to work praising God, as in Ephesians 1:3 and 1 Peter 1:3. St. Peter and Paul could never have enough of this.

So should we do, and cheer and gladden our hearts by considering these things in all our conflicts and desolations. We think little of these things, and that is our fault. We are like little children who are born to great estates but, not knowing about them, do not carry themselves in a way that answers to their hopes. But the more the children grow in years, the more they grow in spirit, in their notions, and in a bearing that fits the estates they hope for.

So it is with Christians at first. When they are weak, they are troubled with this temptation and that, with this loss and that cross. But when a Christian grows to full stature in Christ, no petty cross casts him down. He thinks, “What! Shall I be dejected by this loss, when I have heaven reserved for me? Shall I be cast down by this cross, when I have things that ‘eye hath not seen nor ear heard’ prepared for me?” He will not be. He uses his faith to fetch comfort from these things that are reserved for him, things inexpressible and inconceivable.

Use 4. And let us comfort ourselves in all the slights of the world. A man who has great hopes in his own country, if he is slighted abroad, thinks to himself, “I have other things reserved elsewhere, and I shall have a different kind of respect when I come home.” The world does not know God, nor Christ, nor us. Shall we not be content to go up and down here as unknown men, when God the Father and Christ our Savior are unknown? There are better things reserved for us at home. Therefore let us swallow all the slights and abuse of carnal men.

And let us not envy them their condition, which lasts only for their lifetime (let them make the best of it they will), and which has a term that will run out, we know not how soon. Alas! All their happiness is only a measured happiness. It lies within their understandings; their eyes can see it and their ears can hear it, and when they can neither see nor conceive anything more in this world, then there is an end of all their happiness of the senses. Shall we envy them, when they shall shortly be turned naked out of this world into the place of torment? We should set them before ourselves as objects of pity, even the greatest men in the world, if we see by their conduct that they are void of grace; but we should not envy any condition in this world.

But what affection is due to the estate of a Christian and suits it? If we would have the true affection, it is wonder and amazement. What is wonder? It is the state and disposition of the soul toward things that are new and rare and strange, things we can give no reason for, that are beyond our reach. For wise men do not wonder, because they see a reason; they can comprehend things. But a Christian cannot help but wonder, because the things prepared are above his reach. Yes, even when he is in heaven, he shall not be able to conceive the glory of it. He shall enter into it; it shall be above him. He shall have more joy and peace than he can comprehend. The joy he has there is beyond his ability and capacity, beyond his power; he shall not be able to take it all in. It shall be a matter of wonder even in heaven itself; much more should it be so here below.

Therefore when the holy apostles speak in the Scriptures of these things, it is in terms of wonder and amazement: “joy unspeakable and glorious” (1 Pet 1:8), and “peace that passeth understanding” (Phil 4:7). And when they speak of our deliverance out of the state of darkness into the state of grace, they call it being “brought out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Pet 2:9). And so “God loved the world” (John 3:16); he cannot express how. “Behold what love hath the Father showed us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1). To be called and to be are all one with God; both are beyond expression.

Use 5. Again, if it is so that God has provided such things as neither “eye hath seen nor ear hath heard,” let us beg of God, first, the Spirit of grace to conceive of them as the Scripture reveals them, and then beg of God a further degree of revelation, that he would more and more reveal those excellent things to us by his Spirit. For the soul is never in a better frame than when it is lifted up above earthly things. When does a man use the world as though he did not use it? When he goes about his business in a commanding manner, as one who sees all things beneath him; when he is raised up to conceive the things that are reserved for him above the world. That keeps a man from being drowned in the world. What makes men drowned in the world, so that they become earthworms? They think of no other heaven but this; they have nothing else in their eye. Now when the Spirit discovers these things to those who have weaned souls, it makes them go about the things of the world in another manner. They will do them, and do them exactly, with conscience and care, considering that they must give an account of all; but they will do them with their affections reserved for better things.

Therefore let us often think of this, and labor to have a spirit of faith to believe that these things are so, that there are such great things. Then, upon believing, meditation on such excellent things will keep the soul in such a frame that it will be fit for anything without defiling itself. A man who first has faith that these things are so, and then has his faith exercised in thinking and meditating on what these things are, may be turned loose to any temptation whatsoever. For first of all, if there is any solicitation to some base sin, what will he think? “Shall I, for the pleasures of sin for a season, lose, if not the joys of heaven and the happiness that ‘eye hath not seen,’ yet surely the comfort and assurance of them?” A man cannot enjoy the comfort of heaven on earth without self-denial and mortification. “Shall I lose peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Spirit for these things?”

When Satan comes with any bait, let us think that he comes to rob us of something better than he can give. His bait is some present pleasure, or promotion, or contentment here. But what does he take from us? That which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.” He gives Adam an apple and takes away paradise. Therefore in all temptations, consider not what he offers but what we shall lose, or at least the comfort of what we shall lose. We shall lose the comfort of heaven and bring ourselves into terrors of conscience.

Religion is not so empty a thing that we need to be beholden to the devil for any promotion, or riches, or contentment, or pleasure. Has God set up a profession of religion, and do we think that we must be beholden to his enemy and ours for any base contentments? No. It is a disgrace to our religion, to our profession and calling, and to the Lord and Master we serve, to think that he will not provide richly for his own. You see here that he has prepared things that “eye hath not seen.”

And by this we may likewise judge the difference between excellencies; the difference in degrees of excellence may be drawn from this. The things the eye can see may be excellent, good things; but if the eye can see them, there is no great matter in them. What the ear hears by report is more than the eye sees. We may hear much that we never saw; yet if we can hear things and conceive of them upon hearing, they are no great matters, for the soul is larger than they are. We conceive more than we can hear; our conceiving goes beyond sight and hearing. If we can conceive the compass and breadth of anything, it is no great matter, for it is within the reach and measure and grasp of man’s brain; it is no wondrous matter. Ah, but the most excellent things of all are above sight and beholding and hearing and conceiving, so that the soul cannot wholly compass and reach them. Those are the excellent things of all. The rule of excellence is to know what we can conceive and what is beyond our comprehension. The wit of man can conceive all things under the heavens. All the knowledge we have comes within the brain of man, such as the government of states and the like. Oh, but the things that God has provided for his own never came wholly within the brain of man, and therefore they are the most excellent!

And so it is, by way of contraries, with evils. What are the greatest evils? Those the eye can see, that we can feel and hear of and conceive? Oh no. The greatest evils are those torments that eye never saw, that ear never heard of. One must be in hell to know these things. They are beyond our conceiving. The worm that dies not, fire unquenchable (Mark 9:43): the things above our apprehension are the most terrible things. It is not gout or kidney stones. Men feel these things and yet bear them with some patience. These are not the greatest evils, but rather those of another world that are reserved for God’s enemies, just as the best things are those reserved for his friends.

Therefore let us use our understanding in putting things together, and make use of God’s discovery of the state of Christianity, the excellencies of religion. Why does God reveal these things in the word? So that we should often meditate on them and study them, that we may be heavenly-minded. For no one comes to heaven who has not first had a taste of these things beforehand. No one ever enjoys them in perfection in this life. When the day of revelation comes (the gospel now is the time of revelation, but the day of revelation is the time of judgment), then it shall be revealed what we are. But in the meantime there is a revelation of these things by the Spirit in some beginnings, or else we shall never come to have the perfection of them in heaven. If we do not know here, in sanctification, what peace and joy and comfort and the communion of the saints and the change of nature are, we shall never know the fulfilling of it in heaven.

And those who have the firstfruits here, if they are in a state of growth, so that they desire to grow better continually, shall no doubt come to perfection; for God will not lose his beginnings. Where he gives the earnest money, he will make good the whole bargain.

Therefore let all of us who know a little of what these things are by the revelation of the Spirit be glad of our portion. For God, who has begun, will surely make an end.

The affection and bent and frame of soul due to these things is wonder, and not merely bare hearing. If these things in their beginnings here are set out by words of wonder, “peace that passeth understanding” and “joy unspeakable and glorious,” what affection and frame of spirit is suitable to the hearing of those things that are kept for us in another world! If the light we are brought into here is marvelous and great (we are brought out of darkness into marvelous, wonderful light), if the light of grace is so wonderful to a man who comes out of the state of nature, as it truly is (a man comes out of a murky vapor into a wonderfully clear light), what then is the light of glory! Therefore let us often think of it.

Those who are born in a prison hear great talk of the light and of the sun, such a glorious creature; but being born in prison, they do not know what it is in itself. So those who are in the prison of nature do not know what the light of grace is. They hear talk of glorious things and have notions of them. And as for the glory that shall come after, which those here do not know, when these things are revealed, the affection due to them is wonder and amazement.

“So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16); and “Behold what love the Father hath showed to us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1). What love! He could not tell what love, it is so wonderful. And to know the love of God, which is above all knowledge! Who can comprehend the love of God that gave his Son! Who can comprehend the excellence of Christ’s gift! The joys of heaven by Christ, and the misery of hell from which we are delivered and redeemed by Christ! These things come from the gospel, and the spring from which they come is the large, infinite, and incomprehensible love of God. And if it is so, what affection answers to it but wonder? Behold what love! If God has so loved flesh and blood, poor dust and ashes, that they should be heirs of heaven and of such glory as the eye does not see, nor can see in this world, nor the ear hear, nor has it entered into the heart of man, until we come fully to possess these things, let us labor to wonder at the love of God in this.

And let us labor to know our inheritance more and more as we grow in years, as children do. They search into the great estates their parents leave them, and the nearer they come to enjoying them, the more skill they have to talk of them. So should we: the more we grow in Christianity and in knowledge, the more inquisitive we should be after those great things that our Father has provided in another world. But to go on.

How shall we know whether these things are prepared for us or not? Whether we are capable of these things or not? God has prepared them, and he has prepared them for those who love him. But how shall we know that God has prepared them for us?

In a word, those for whom God has prepared great things, he prepares for great things. We may know by God’s preparing of us whether he has prepared for us. God prepared paradise before Adam was created; so God prepares paradise, he prepares heaven, before we come there. And we may know that we shall come to possess it if we are prepared for it. What preparation? If we are prepared by a spirit of sanctification, and have holy desires and longing after those excellent things. For certainly there is preparation on both sides: it is prepared for us, and we for it. It is kept for us, and we are kept for it. Those for whom God keeps heaven, he keeps for heaven in a course of piety and obedience. We may know it by God’s preparing of us, by loosing us from the world and sanctifying us to himself. Thus a man may know whether those great things are prepared for him or not.

But the special thing by which to know whether they are provided for us or not is love. God has prepared them for those who love him, not for his enemies. He has prepared another place and other things for them: those torments that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man,” for those who are his enemies, who would not come under his government. But these things are prepared “for those that love him.”

“For those that love him.” Love above all is all in all in the disposition of a holy man. All graces are one in the spring, which is love. They are several in the branches, but they are one in the root.

Thus you have heard the use we are to make of this: that there is a glorious condition reserved for the people of God, so great that neither “eye hath seen…”

But who are the parties for whom God has prepared these things? “For them that love him.” This is the fourth part: the disposition of the parties for whom these things are prepared, “for them that love him.”

Question 1. Why not for those whom God has elected? Why does he not go to the root of all, and speak of the great things that God has prepared for those whom he has chosen to salvation?

Answer. No. That is out of our reach. He would not have us go up to heaven, but rather go to our own hearts. We must search for our election not above ourselves, but within ourselves.

Question 2. Why does he not say, “to those who believe in him,” since faith is the root grace from which the rest spring?

Answer. But faith is often a hidden grace, and the apostle’s aim is to point to a disposition that everyone may know, one that is more familiar. Sometimes faith is hidden in the root, and it shows itself more in its effect, in love, than in itself. Take a poor Christian who is in the state of grace and yet says, “Oh, I cannot believe.” Ask him if he loves God. “Oh yes!” He loves the preaching of the word; he loves good people and good books and the like. When he cannot discover his faith, he can discover his love. Therefore the Holy Spirit sets it out by the more familiar disposition, by love rather than by faith.

Question 3. Why does he not say, “For those whom God loves”? God’s love is the cause of our love.

Answer. Because God’s love is shown more familiarly by our love to him; for that is always presupposed. Wherever there is love to God and to good things, there God’s love came first. For our love to God is only a reflection of the love he bears to us. First he shines on us, and then the beams of our love reflect back on him. Therefore he need not say, whom God loves (though that is the cause of all), but who love God; and by this we know that he loves them.

Question 4. But why “for those that love him,” rather than for any other thing?

Answer. Because all can love. Therefore he sets down this affection. There is no man living, not the poorest diseased beggar in the world, who has a heart and affections, but he can love. He does not say, “that are prepared for this great Christian and that learned scholar.” No. But for all who love him, whether they are poor or rich, great or small: all those who love him. Therefore he sets this down to cut off all excuses. Yes, and all who love him, however many they are, are sure to have these great things prepared for them. God has prepared these things for those that love him.

To come, then, to some observations. The first general point is this:

Observation. God qualifies in this world all those for whom he has prepared heaven and happiness in another world.

The cause of it is his free love. But if you ask me what qualifications the persons must have, they are such as “love him.” This is not the proper cause why, but the qualification of the persons for whom these things are. There must be an inward disposition and qualification before we come to heaven. All who hope for heaven without presumption must have this qualification: they must be such as “love him.” Why?

Reasons.

(1) The Scripture is plain: no unclean thing shall enter into heaven, no sexually immoral person, or drunkard, or filthy person. “Be not deceived,” says the apostle. You think God is merciful, and that Christ died, and so on; but neither such people, nor such as you are (and your consciences tell you so), shall ever enter into heaven (1 Cor 6:9 and following). We must not think to come out of the mire and dirt of sin straight into heaven. There is no such sudden getting into heaven. There must be an alteration of our dispositions, worked by the Spirit of God, fitting us for heaven.

(2) Another reason is the one I touched on before: heaven and earth differ only in degree; therefore what is there in perfection must be begun here.

(3) Then again, it is impossible for a man, if he is not truly altered, to desire or wish for heaven as it is holy. He may wish for it under the notion of a kingdom, of pleasure, and the like; but as heaven contains a state of perfect holiness and freedom from sin, he cares nothing for it. A man who has lost his relish for heavenly things, and can taste only his base sins, on which his affections are set and exercised, cannot relish heaven itself. A common, base sinner’s desires are not there. There must be some proportion between the thing desired and the desire. But here there is none. He is not suited for that place, being an unholy wretch.

Therefore his own heart tells him, while he is in that frame of desire, “I would rather have this pleasure and honor that my heart is set on than have heaven.” Therefore no man can desire heaven who is not rightly disposed toward heaven beforehand. Beetles love dunghills better than ointments, and swine love mud better than a garden. They are in their element in these things. So take a swinish, base creature: he loves to wallow in this world. Tell him of heaven; he has no eyes to see it, no ears to hear it. Unless he may have in heaven what his heart is set on (which he shall never have), he has no desire for heaven. Therefore in these and similar respects, there must of necessity be a disposition worked in us before we come there. These things are prepared for those who “love God.”

Use 1. If this is so, let us not feed ourselves with vain hopes. There is none of us but desires heaven, or at least pretends to desire it; but most men conceive of it only as a place free from trouble and annoyance, and the things they hear of are fine things: kingdoms, crowns, and the like. But unless you have a holy, gracious heart, and desire heaven so that you may be free from sin, have communion with Christ and his saints, and have the image of God, the divine nature, made perfect in you, you are a hypocrite. You carry a presumptuous notion of these things; your hope will delude you; it is a false hope. “Every one that hath this hope purgeth himself” (1 John 3:3). Every one: he excludes none. Do you defile yourself and live in sinful courses, and do you have this hope? You have a hope, but it is not this hope; for “every one that hath this hope purgeth himself.”

No, no. However much you may hold a vain hope in times of peace and pleasure and the contentment God follows you with in this world, yet in a little trouble or sickness, or the like, your own conscience will tell you that another place is provided for you, a place of torment, whose misery neither “eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive.” There is not the greatest man living, if he is a sinful man, whose greatness can content him when he is troubled. All his honor and friends cannot pacify that poor conscience of his. But death, “the king of fears,” will terrify him. He thinks, “I have some trouble in this world, but there is worse that remains,” things that he is not able to conceive. Let us not, therefore, delude ourselves. Nothing will hold out but the new creature, when we find a change worked by the Spirit of God. Then we may hope without presumption for the good things which neither “eye hath seen…”

Use 2. Again, in the second place we see God’s mercy to us: the qualification is within us, so that we need not go far to know what our evidence is. Satan misleads many poor Christians: “Oh, I am not elected! I am not the child of God!” Where are you going, man? Are you breaking into heaven? You carry a soul in your breast, and in that soul the affection of love: how is that set? Where is your love carried, and your delight and joy, those affections that spring from love? Your evidence is in your own heart. Our title is by faith in Christ; his righteousness gives us title to heaven. But how do you know that the title you claim is a just one? You have the evidence in your heart. What is the bent of your soul? Where is its point set? Which way does it go? Do you love God and divine things, and delight in them? Then you may assure yourself that those things belong to you, as truly as the Scriptures are the word of God and God is a God of truth. When you find the love of God in your heart, that your heart is taught by his Spirit to love him, then surely you may say, “Oh, blessed be God, who has kindled this holy fire in my heart! Now I know that ‘neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man,’ those excellent things that are laid up for me.”

Eye hath not seen… (1 Cor 2:9)

St. Paul, as we heard before, gives a reason in these words why the “princes of this world” (not only the great men, who often are not the greatest scholars, but the learned men of the world, princes in knowledge) were ignorant of the mysteries of the gospel.

Now the fourth thing is the disposition of those for whom he does all this, the quality he infuses into them: they are such as “love him.”

1. He prepared these things before all eternity. He prepared happiness for us before we existed; indeed, before the world existed. As he prepared a paradise for Adam before Adam existed (he created him, and then brought him into paradise), so he prepared for us a kingdom with himself in heaven, a blessed estate, before we existed; that is, in election, before the heavens existed. And then in creation he prepared the blessed place of the happy souls of happy persons hereafter, where he himself is. He prepared it for himself, and for all those on whom he means to set his love, from the beginning to the end.

2. And then, second, he prepared them more effectually in time. He prepared these things when Christ came in the flesh and accomplished all things for us, in whom we have everything. Of these things thus prepared he says, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard them.” We heard before in what sense this is meant.

Now take the whole of the matter. The meaning is that the matters of grace, the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory, are but one. For (to add this by the way) the kingdom of heaven in the gospel includes three things.

First, the doctrine of the gospel, the publishing of it.

Then, second, grace by that doctrine.

And third, glory upon grace, the completion of all.

So the mysteries of salvation are, first, the doctrine itself. That is the first degree of the kingdom. The doctrine itself is a mystery to all who never heard of it. For what creature could ever conceive how to reconcile justice and mercy by devising such a way as this, for God to become man in order to reconcile God and man together? That Immanuel, he who is “God with us,” should make God and us one in love could no more have been thought of than Adam, when he was the dust of the earth, could have thought of himself being made a man. When man was worse than dust, in a lost and damned estate, could he think of redemption? A man cannot tell the form and inmost essence of the flowers, or of the grass he tramples under his feet; he cannot get to the depth of them. It is impossible that such a man should have the wisdom to enter into the deep things of God, which were concealed even from the angels themselves until God revealed them.

I add this to illustrate what I said before. The doctrine itself, then, until God revealed it out of his own heart, was concealed from the angels themselves; and since it was revealed, they are students of it, and look and pry into it (1 Pet 1:12). But where the doctrine is no mystery but has been revealed, there the application and spiritual understanding of it is still, to those who do not have the light of the Spirit, a thing that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” Therefore we must have a new light, a new eye, a new ear and a new heart before we can grasp the gospel, though we understand it as literal truth. As for the things of glory, we have no full conception of them, only a glimpse and a weak apprehension, as a child conceives of the things of a man by some poor, weak resemblances. As St. Paul says, “When I was a child I spake as a child, I thought as a child” (1 Cor 13:11). So now, while we are children in comparison with that perfect estate we shall attain in heaven, we think and speak as children about these holy and heavenly things that shall be accomplished in another world.

And notice this too. When we would understand anything of heaven, and we see something, we should say, “This is not the happiness I look for. I can see this, but that is not to be seen.” And when we hear of anything excellent, we should say, “I can hear this; it is not my happiness.” And when we comprehend anything, we should say, “I can comprehend this; therefore it is not the happiness I look for. My happiness lies in things that are above my comprehension, that are unutterable and inexpressible.”

Moreover, let us be stirred up to think it a base thing for a Christian to lose the comfort and assurance he has of these things “that eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” for any earthly thing whatever. We count it a poor thing in Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew (Heb 12:16). And we all smart for Adam’s bad bargain, when he sold paradise for an apple. And it was a cursed sale that Judas made when he sold Christ himself for thirty pieces of silver. Surely this is what every carnal man does. And though we cannot lose heaven, yet it should be our endeavor to enjoy heaven upon earth, to enjoy the assurance of this condition. When we do anything to weaken our assurance and our comfort, what do we do but, with Adam, lose heaven for an apple, and, with Esau, part with our birthright for a bowl of stew, so far as the assurance and comfort of it goes? Therefore let us count it a base thing to be overly in love with any earthly thing by which we may weaken the comfort and assurance of this happy condition, which is so far above all else, even though we cannot lose the condition itself. All wicked men, and indeed all men, whether good or bad, so far as they fall into sin, are fools; the Scripture calls them so. No one is truly wise but the true Christian, the Christian who preserves the sense and feeling and assurance of his happy condition.

“For those that love him.” The disposition of the persons is that they are such as “love God.” He does not say “such as are elected,” because that is beyond our reach to know, except by going upward, by going backward: from our grace to our calling, and from there to election. Nor does he say “such as believe,” because that is less discernible than love. Nor does he speak of the love of God to us, for that is presupposed when we love him. Our hearts are cold, and they cannot be warm in love to him unless his love warms them first. Love is an affection that commands all other things, and therefore he names it above all. And love is something by which everyone may test himself. If he had named giving, or doing this or that, men might have said, “I cannot do it,” or, “I cannot part with it.” But when he names love, there is no one who cannot love.

The point we considered was this: there must be a qualification in those for whom heaven is provided. They must be such as love God, such as are altered and changed and sanctified to love him. For no unclean thing shall enter in there, and we cannot so much as desire heaven without a change. We cannot have communion there with Christ and those blessed souls without likeness to them, which must come by a spirit of love; our natures must be altered. Therefore it is vain presumption for anyone to think of heaven unless he finds his disposition altered. For we may read our eternal condition in heaven by our disposition upon earth. The apostle Peter says, “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that hath begotten us to a lively hope of an inheritance immortal and undefiled, reserved in heaven” (1 Pet 1:3). So the inheritance in heaven is something we are begotten to. We must be born anew; we must have a new birth before we can inherit it: “He hath begotten us to an inheritance immortal.” He who is not a child may not think of an inheritance. Suppose there are ever so many glorious things in heaven that “eye hath never seen nor ear ever heard.” If our names are not in Christ’s will, if we are not his and do not prove ourselves to be his by the change in our dispositions, what are all those good things to us, when our names are not written there!

It is called a hope of life, “a lively hope” (1 Pet 1:3), because he who has this “hope purgeth himself” (1 John 3:3). It makes him vigorous and active in good. If his hope of life does not make him lively, he has no hope of life at all. Therefore let those who look for heaven see whether God has altered their hearts, whether the work of grace has been wrought in them in some measure, so that Satan does not deceive them with false confidence. For God has not ordained these great things for his enemies: for blasphemers who take God’s name in vain, who run on in courses contrary to his will and word, who live in sins against the light of nature. Do you think he has provided these great things for them? He has another place for them. Therefore let us not be deceived by our own false hearts into thinking of such a happy condition. Unless we find ourselves changed, unless we are born anew, we shall never enter into heaven.

“Lord, Lord,” they say. Christ brings them in pleading this way, “Lord, Lord.” It is not that they will say so then; that is not the meaning. It is that now they cherish such a confidence: “Oh, we can speak well, and we can pray well: ‘Lord, Lord.’” Oh, you vain, confident person, your confession and profession of “Lord, Lord” will do you no good. “I will not so much as own you: ‘Away hence, thou worker of iniquity’ (Matt 7:23). Your heart tells you that you live in sins against conscience. Away! Be gone! I will have nothing to do with you.” God, in mercy to us, will have the proof of the truth of our evidence lie within us. The ground of all our salvation is his grace, his free favor and mercy in his own heart. But we cannot go up there. He would have us search within ourselves, and there we shall find “love.” “God hath prepared for those that love him.”

Observation. In particular, therefore, those for whom God has provided such excellent things are such as love him. They are, first of all, such as are loved by him, and they show that they are loved by him by their love to him. Now when the papists meet with such phrases, they think of merit: “He has provided heaven for those who love him and show their love in good works.” But we must understand that love is not brought in here as a cause why, but as a qualification of the persons who shall inherit heaven and who shall have these great things. It is idle for them to think that these things are prepared for those whom God foresaw would do such and such good works. That is as if we should think he has provided these happy things for those who are his enemies. For how could he look for love from us in a state of corruption, when the best thing in us was enmity to him? Is it not a vain thing to look for light from darkness, or to look for love from enmity and hatred? How then could God foresee anything in us, when he could see nothing in our dispositions by nature but enmity and darkness?

And then (as we shall see afterward) this love in us must be with all our heart and soul and might. It is required and commanded, and when we do all this, we do only what we are bound to do. But they twist such passages on such shallow ground that it really does not deserve even to be mentioned.

To come, then, to the point itself: the disposition of those who shall come to heaven is that they must be such as love God. Now he names this because these two always go together. Something of ours goes together with something of God’s, to witness to us what God does. Our choice of God goes with his choosing of us; our knowing of God, with his knowledge of us; our love to him, with his love to us. Therefore, because these are so connected and knit together, he takes the one for the other. And to make it familiar to us, he takes what is most familiar to us, our love to him.

Now he names this above all other affections because love is the commanding affection of the soul. It is the affection that rules all the other affections. Hatred and anger and joy and delight and desire all spring from love. And because all duties spring from love, both to God and to man, both tables of the law are included in love. And when the apostle would set down the qualifications of those who shall enjoy these things, he says they are for those “that love him.” For love stirs us up to every duty, and adds a sweet quality to every duty, and makes it acceptable and pleasing to God’s taste. It stirs us up to act, and it qualifies the actions that come from love to be accepted.

All duties to man spring from love to man, and love to man springs from love to God. Love is the affection that stirs up the duty, and stirs up the affection fit for the duty; it stirs us up to do the thing, and to do all in love. Whatever we do to God or man must be done in love. All that God does to us is in love. He chooses us in love, and does everything in love; and all that we do to God must be in love. Therefore he names no other affection but this, because it is the ground, the firstborn affection of the soul. Therefore Christ says that to love God is the great commandment (Matt 22:38). It is the great commanding commandment, which commands all other duties whatever; it is the first wheel that turns the whole soul about.

Again, love is an affection that cannot be counterfeited. A man may paint fire, but he cannot paint heat. A man may feign actions in religion, but he cannot feign affections. Love is the very best affection for showing truth of heart. A man may counterfeit actions, but no one can love except the child of God. “God hath prepared these things for those that love him.”

Then again, without love all that we do is nothing, and we are nothing. We are nothing but an empty cymbal. Whatever we do is nothing; all is empty without love. “My son, give me thy heart” (Prov 23:26). That is, if you will give me anything, give me your affections, or else they are stillborn actions that have no life in them. If we do anything to God and do not do it in love, he does not regard it. That is the reason he mentions love in place of everything else. It is such a sweet affection, and so easy; what is easier than to love? It is a comfort to us to consider that God has made this a qualification of those whom he brings to heaven: they are such as “love him.”

Question. But why does he set down any qualification at all, and not simply say, for Christians?

Answer. Because profession must have expression. When God describes someone who professes religion, he describes him by some mark that will reveal him to be what he is called. How do you know that you are good? Do you love God, or call upon God? As it says in other places, “To all those that call upon his name” (1 Cor 1:2). This is to let us know that religion and holiness are a matter of power. Would you know what you are in religion? Do you love God, or call upon God?

It will not do to be Christians who only profess, like Demas (2 Tim 4:10). Oh no! They must be such as are good from the root of the heart, “such as love God.”

Therefore let dark disputes about election and predestination go, especially at the first. How are you disposed toward God and toward good things? Look to your heart and see whether God has taught it to love or not, and to relish heavenly things. If he has, your state is good. And then you may ascend to those great matters of predestination and election. But do not begin with those. Go first to your own heart, and afterward to those deep mysteries. If a man loves God, he may look back to election, and forward to glorification, to the things that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” But see first what God has wrought in your heart, what affection you have to heavenly things. Then, going from your affections backward to election and forward to glorification, there is no danger in it.

To come, then, to express more particularly this affection of love, which is the disposition that God requires and works in all those for whom he intends heaven, let us search into the nature of this love to God. What it is to love we need not be taught, for all men know it well enough. It is better known, indeed, by the affection than by discussion. What it is to love is known better by those who love than by any books or treatises whatever, for it is an affection that is in all men. Natural love is in those who have no grace at all, and civil love is in those who are evil men. They know what it is to love by reason of that wildfire, that carnal love in them, which carries them away. A man may see the nature of love in those people as well as in anyone; for, setting aside its extravagance in such persons, we may see its nature. Therefore I will not meddle with that point; it is needless.

I come, then, to this love of God, to show how this stream of affection should be carried in the right channel to God, its right object, who alone can make us happy through our loving him. Other things, when we love them, make us worse, if they are worse than we are; for such as the things we love are, such we are. Indeed, our understanding does not make us good or bad, but our love does. By loving God and heavenly things we become good. Our affections show what we are in religion.

There are four things in this sweet affection, in true natural love.

1. There is an estimation and valuing of some good thing, especially when the love is toward something better, when it is not between equals. Now there is a great distance between God and us. There is a high esteem in common love; love will not stoop to what is nothing. Love cannot be maintained except upon the sight of some supposed excellence; love will not stoop except where it sees something worth valuing. Therefore a high esteem of something is the spring of it. And that is why we say a man cannot be wise and love in earthly things, because love will make a man value too highly those things that one who understands better would not.

2. In the second place, there is a desire to be joined to it, which we call the desire of union.

3. In the third place, upon union and joining to it, there is a resting, a delight and contentment in the thing to which we are united. For what is happiness itself but fully to enjoy what we love? When we love upon judgment and a right esteem, to enjoy is happiness and contentment indeed.

4. In the fourth place, where this true affection is, there is a desire to give contentment to the one loved, to please him, to approve ourselves to him, to displease him in nothing. Everyone knows that these things are in that affection by nature.

Look at carnal self-love, and a man may know what it is to love; the affection is the same in both. Take a man when he makes himself his idol. For until a man loves God, he loves himself above all; he is both the idol and the idolater. He has a high esteem of himself, and he swells against those who do not esteem him highly. Again, self-love makes a man desire to enjoy himself and his own contentment, and to procure everything that may serve his contentment.

Now, when the Spirit of God has purged our hearts of this carnal idolatry of self-love and self-seeking, and of sufficiency and contentment in oneself, then a man puts God in place of himself; grace and the Spirit bring this about. Instead of esteeming himself highly, he esteems God highly, and Christ, and religion. Then, instead of placing sufficiency in himself and the things of this life and resting in them, he places his sufficiency in God, who is all-sufficient. And instead of seeking his own will and contentment in all things (“my mind is to me a kingdom”), a man then seeks to give contentment to God in all things, and “to be a fool, that he may be wise” (1 Cor 3:18), and to have no will and no delight in anything that cannot stand with the pleasure of God and obedience to him.

So by knowing what his own natural corruption is, a man may know what his affection is toward better things.

1. First of all, there must be an estimation, an esteem of God and Christ. To avoid misunderstanding, we take both of these to be one: God our Father in Christ, and Christ. Whatever Christ did for us in love, he did from the love of the Father who gave him. And when we speak of the love of God, we speak of the love of Christ to us. Therefore there must be a high esteeming and valuing and prizing of God, and of his love, above all things in the world.

(1) Now this must necessarily be so. For where grace is, it gives a sanctified judgment, and a sanctified judgment values and esteems things as they are. Now the judgment, apprehending God and his love to be the best thing to make us happy, prizes it above all: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and what have I in earth in comparison of thee?” (Ps 73:25). Such a person prizes God and his love above all things in the world.

Now, if we would know whether we have this judgment, we may know it by our choice. This valuing is known by choice, for what a man esteems and values highly he chooses above all things in the world. And what men choose is seen by their courses. We see it in holy Moses (Heb 11:25 and following). He had a high esteem of the estate of God’s people, that afflicted people. As afflicted as they were, he still saw that they were God’s people, in covenant with him, and more regarded by him than all the other peoples of the world. And upon his estimation he made a choice: “he chose rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” His choice followed his esteem. So if we value and esteem God and religion, and love God above all things, we will choose the Lord. As St. Peter says (John 6:68 and following), when Christ asked them, “Will ye also forsake me?” he answers, “Lord, whither shall we go?” We have chosen you; “whither shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” Let us do in truth what he for a time failed to do, when he said, “Though all forsake thee, yet will not I” (Matt 26:33). If we make this choice of Christ from the truth of our hearts, it shows our esteem.

What is your choice? Is it religious ways and religious company? Is it the fear of God above all things? “One thing have I desired, that I may dwell in the house of God for ever, and visit his temple” (Ps 27:4). Have you, with Mary, chosen the better part? Do you value yourself as a member of Christ and an heir of heaven, as a Christian, above every condition in this world (for what a man esteems, he values himself by)? Then you are a true lover; you have this love planted in your heart, because you have a true esteem. You see that Paul counted all dung and dross in comparison of the excellent knowledge of Christ (Phil 3:8). Oh, that we could come to that excellent affection of St. Paul, to value all things below Christ and the good things that come by Christ and religion! Certainly it is universally true that where Christ is loved, and God in Christ, the price of everything else falls in the soul. For when we welcome Christ, then farewell to all that cannot stand with Christ.

(2) Again, our esteem is known by our willingly parting with anything for what we esteem, as a wise merchant sells everything for the pearl (Matt 13:46). We may know by this, therefore, that we esteem God and his truth, for these go together: God and his truth and religion. We must take God with all that he is clothed with, in which he shows himself to us. If we sell everything for the truth of God, and part with everything, and deny everything for the love and obedience of it, it is a sign that we have an esteem answerable to his worth, and that we love him.

As for those, then, who will part with nothing for God, or for religion and the truth, when they are called to it, do they talk of love to God? They have no esteem; they do not value God. If they did esteem him, they would sell everything for the pearl. Therefore, as for those who limp along in religion, who do not care which way religion and the truth go so long as they may have honor and pleasures in this world, where is their esteem of the gospel, and of the truth of Christ and of God? They have no love, because they have no estimation.

(3) Again, what we esteem highly we speak of at length. A man is always eloquent about what he esteems. It will push him, to the full extent of his abilities, to be as eloquent as he possibly can. You never knew a man to lack words to set forth what he prized. Therefore, when we lack words to praise God and to set forth the value of the best things, it is a proof that we have a poor esteem of them. All these go together, God and the things of God. What! Do we talk of loving God, and despise Christians and religion? They are never separated. If a man esteems the best things, he will often be speaking of them. If a man sets his affections upon a thing, it will supply him with words at will. Therefore, as for those who are completely out of their element and at a loss when they speak of good things, alas, where is the affection of love? Where is esteem? Esteem makes a readiness to speak.

(4) Esteem likewise carries our thoughts. Would you know what you esteem highly? What do you think of most, and most highly? You may know it by that. So we see the first branch, how we may know that we love God: by these signs, if we have a high esteem and valuing of God.

2. Second, where there is true love and affection, there is a desire of union, of knitting and joining with the thing loved. It must necessarily be so, for love is the kind of affection that draws the soul as far as it can to the thing loved. It has a magnetic force, the force of a lodestone. Everyone knows what this means.

This affection of love makes us one with what we love. If a man loves the world, he is a worldling, a man of the world, because affection breeds union. However base a man may be in his choosing, whatever he loves he desires union with; and that being so, he takes his name from what he loves. He who loves the world is a worldling, an earthworm. Now, if there is love for God as God in covenant, as a Father in Christ (for that is how we must think of God), there will be a desire for fellowship and communion with him by every means, in the word and sacrament, and so on. If a man prefers to keep his distance, so that he does not care how seldom he receives the sacrament or comes into God’s presence, is there love here? How can love and estrangement stand together? You are a stranger to God and to the things of God; you have no joy in his presence. Here in this world you may enjoy his presence in holy things. If you do not delight in his presence and in union with him, how can you say that you love him?

Can a man say he loves someone whose company he does not care for? You do not care for God’s company. You may meet him in the word and sacraments, and in good company: “Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the midst” (Matt 18:20). Do you claim to love God if you do not care for these things? You have no fellowship in this business. All who have no relish for heavenly things do not love.

Now, how may we test whether we have this branch of love, that is, a desire for union? Where there is a desire for union with the one we love, for being united to that person (for we are speaking of persons), there will be a desire for communion.

(1) A desire for union will breed a desire for communion; that is, we will take steps to open our minds. If we desire communion with God, we will often open our souls to him in prayer, and we will desire that he open himself by speaking to our hearts by his Spirit. And we will desire that he open his mind to us in his word. We will be careful to hear his word, and so keep up that sweet and heavenly commerce between him and our souls by this exchange of hearing him and speaking to him: “Where two or three are gathered together, I will be in the midst.” Therefore those who make no conscience of hearing the word, or of prayer, public and private, or of using the glorious liberty we have in Christ of free access to the throne of grace, those who do not use this prerogative and privilege to cherish the union and communion they may have with God, do not love God and Christ. Estrangement is the opposite of love, and it dissolves and disunites affections. Therefore when we are such strangers to God that we can go from one end of the week to the other, and from the beginning of the day to the end of it, without being acquainted with God and without opening our souls to him, it is a sign that we have no love, because there is no desire for union and communion with him.

(2) Again, where we love, we consult and take advice, and rest in that advice as coming from a loving person, especially if he is as wise as he is loving. So in all our deliberations we will go to God and take his counsel; and when we have it, we will count it the counsel of one who is wise and loving. Those, then, who trust to their own wits, to policy and the like, what do they mean by speaking of love when they make no use of the covenant between God and them? They do not consult with him. They do not make his word “the man of their counsel” (Ps 119:24). They do not go to him in prayer for advice. They do not commit their “ways” to him, as the psalmist speaks (Ps 37:5).

(3) And this distinguishes a good Christian from other men: a good Christian is one who acquaints himself with his God, and who will not lose the communication he has with God for all the world. Daniel would not give up praying; even at the risk of his life they could not draw him away from it (Dan 6:10).

(4) Again, where there is this desire for union and joining, there is a desire even for death itself, so that there may be a fuller union, and a desire for the consummation of all things. Therefore, so far as we are afraid of death and tremble at it, so far we lack love. Once the marriage contract has been made between Christ and the soul of a Christian, for that Christian to fear the completing of the marriage, while we are now absent from the Lord, comes from a lack of faith and love. So does fearing the sweet eternal communion we shall have in heaven, where we shall have all things in greater excellence and abundance. Therefore we should be ashamed of ourselves when we find such thoughts rising in our hearts, as they naturally will, so that we are basely and distrustfully afraid of death. St. Paul says, “I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ”; that is good, indeed it is much better for me (Phil 1:23). Yes, it is best of all to be with Christ. So you see it stirred up his desire: “I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.” “Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly,” says the church (Rev 22:20). And the Spirit in the spouse stirs up this desire as well: “Come; the Spirit and the spouse say, Come” (Rev 22:17). And we should rejoice to think that happier times are coming, in which there will be an eternal meeting together that nothing shall dissolve, as the apostle says, “when we shall be for ever with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:17). Oh, those times cheer the heart of a Christian beforehand!

Now where these things do not possess the soul, how can we say that we love God? The church begins the Song of Songs, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” (Song 1:2). She desires familiar communion with Christ in his word and ordinances: “Let him kiss me.” Let him speak by his Spirit to my heart. In this world Christ kisses his church with the kisses of his mouth. But at the end of the Song, “Make haste, my beloved” (Song 8:14), she desires his second coming. She does not think it enough to have the kisses of his mouth: “Make haste, my beloved, and be as the young roes upon the mountains of spices”; that is, come quickly from heaven, the mountain of spices, and let us meet together, my beloved. These things are somewhat strange to our carnal dispositions. But if we ever hope to attain the comfort of what I am saying, we must labor to have our hearts brought into this excellent condition, to desire the presence of Christ. That is the second property of love.

3. The third is to rest pleased and contented in the thing loved when we are joined with it; so far as we are joined with it, to place our contentment in it. It is in the nature of that affection to place contentment in the thing we desire to have, once we have it.

Now we may know this contentment of ours, whether we rest in God or not, by the inward quiet and peace of the soul in all conditions. Whatever our condition in this world may be, we know that we have the light of God’s countenance, and we can rest and be content in it more than worldly men in their corn and wine and oil. As David says, “I rejoice more in the light of thy countenance, than when they have their corn and wine and oil” (Ps 4:7). It is when we can rejoice and take comfort in the assurance of God’s favor and love in Jesus Christ. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” and we rejoice in God, as Romans 5:1 has it; we rejoice in God as our own.

Therefore those who go to outward contentments, who run out to them as if there were not enough in God and divine things to content their souls, so that they must be beholden to the devil and to the flesh, do not rest in God. He is too covetous whom God cannot content. If we are in covenant with him, he is able to fill our soul and every corner of it. He is able to satisfy all its delights and desires; he is a gracious Father in Christ. Where should we go from him for contentment? Why should we go outside religion to content ourselves with vain recreations and the pleasures of sin for a season, when we have abundance in God?

And where there is contentment, there will be trusting in him and relying on him. A man will not rely on riches, or friends, or anything else; for where we place our contentment, we place our trust. So far as we love God, so far we put our confidence and trust in him; he will be our rock and castle and strength. Would you know whether you rest in him or not? In time of danger, where does your soul run? To your purse, if you are a rich man? Or to your friends, if you are a worldly-minded man? Every man has his castle to flee to. But “the name of the Lord is a strong tower” (Prov 18:10). Whoever is a child of God flees there for refuge, and there he hides himself and is safe. He enters into those chambers of divine providence and goodness, and there he rests in all troubles.

Therefore ask your affections where you would run if all things fell into confusion. When men are apt to say, “Oh, what will become of us?” and they think of this and that, a good Christian has God to rest in. He has God reconciled in Christ, and in his love he plants himself, in life and in death. He makes God his dwelling place and his castle, as it is in Psalm 18:2: “I love the Lord dearly, my rock and my fortress.” And Moses says in Psalm 90:1 and the verses that follow (for it is his psalm), “Thou hast been our habitation from everlasting to everlasting.” We dwell in you. Though we are tossed up and down in the world, and live and die, yet we always dwell with you. So a Christian has his contentment and his dwelling in God. God is the house he lives in, his rock, his resting place, the center in which he rests. “Come unto me, and ye shall find rest to your souls” (Matt 11:28-29).

When a man is driven out of all his contentments, he may know by this whether he loves God or not. So it was with David when he was driven out of everything and they were ready to stone him; yet he trusted in the Lord his God (1 Sam 30:6). So in losses and crosses, if you have contentment in God, you will draw what you lose out of the love of God, and whatever you are crossed in, you will draw out of God’s love. You will say, “This and that has been taken from me, but God is mine. By faith I can draw more good from him than I can lose in the world.” A soul that is acquainted with God, when it loses anything in the world, can draw it from the fountain and spring. Such a person has been taught to love God; he is skilled in this way of fixing his hope and confidence in God, where he has enough for all crosses. Let us labor to bring our souls more and more to this, and then we shall know what it is to love God by placing our contentment in him. “Take all from me,” says holy Augustine, “so long as you leave me yourself.” So a Christian can say, “Take all from me, so long as I have God.”

Indeed, where will a man find comfort in the many turns of his life, if he does not find it in religion? What will become of a man in this uncertain world, if he has nothing in which he may place his contentment? Oh, he will find before he dies that he is a wretched man. He does not know where to find rest and contentment before he dies. He will be driven out of all his strongholds here, either by sickness or by one thing or another.

4. The fourth and last is this: where the true affection of love for God is present, it stirs up the soul to give God all contentment, to do all things that may please him. This is the nature of love. It stirs us up to please the one we love. Isaac’s sons saw that their father loved venison, and so they provided venison for him (Gen 25:28). Those who know what God loves will provide what they can that God may delight in. He loves a humble and believing heart. “Thou hast wounded me with one of thine eyes” (Song 4:9): that is the eye of faith, when the soul can trust in the word and humbly go out of itself. His delight is in a broken, yielding heart, one that does not harden itself against his instructions but yields. A broken heart that lies low and hears all that God says, oh, it is a sacrifice that God is much delighted in (Ps 51:17, and elsewhere). A humble spirit is the kind of spirit God dwells in: He that dwells in the highest heavens dwells in a humble spirit (Isa 57:15). Does God delight in a meek, broken, humble spirit? Oh, then it will be the desire of a Christian to have such a spirit as God may delight in. A meek soul is highly esteemed; “the hidden man of the heart” (1 Pet 3:4) is highly prized. Search God’s word for what he delights in, and let us labor to bring ourselves into such a condition that God may delight in us, and we in him. And then it is a sign that we love him, when we labor to provide everything that may give him content.

You know that love, wherever it is, stirs up the affections of the one who loves to remove everything that is distasteful to the one it loves. That is why love is a clean, tidy affection: it will make even those who are not otherwise so take care to be neat, because it will not give offense. Much more is this divine, heavenly affection, when it is set on the right object, on God, a clean and pure affection. It will purge the soul. It will work in the soul a desire to be as clean as it can be, because God is a pure, holy God, and it will “have no fellowship with the works of darkness” (Eph 5:11). Therefore, as far as human frailty will allow, it will make purity its study, to keep itself “unspotted of the world” (Jas 1:27). It will not willingly cherish any sin that may offend the Spirit. Those, then, who are careless of their ways and conduct and affections, who think nothing of polluting and defiling their affections and their ways, do not have the love of God in their hearts. Love stirs up shame at being offensive in the eyes of the one we love, especially if that one is great; there love and respect meet together. Where there is a reverent love joined with respect, there is shame at being in a base, filthy, displeasing condition. God hates pride and idolatry, and the like. Therefore a man who loves God will hate idols and all false doctrine and worship that tends that way. His heart will rise against them, because he knows that God hates it, and hates all who take that course. He observes what is most offensive to God, and he will avoid it, and seek what is pleasing to him.

God and Christ are wonderfully pleased with faith. “Thou hast wounded me with one of thine eyes.” Faith, and love springing from faith, wounds the heart of Christ. Therefore let us labor for faith. “O woman, great is thy faith” (Matt 15:28). Faith is a grace that binds and overcomes God, it honors him so much. Let us therefore labor for faith, and, in believing, for all graces. They are things that God loves. Therefore let us labor to be furnished with all the things he loves. Above all, we should most esteem those graces on which Scripture sets some special excellence. When Isaac was to marry Rebecca, he sent her jewels beforehand, so that, having them, she might be more lovely in his eyes. So Christ, the husband of his church, sends her jewels beforehand, so that he may take more delight and content in his church; that is, he enriches his church with the spirit of faith, meekness, humility and love, and with all graces, so that he may delight and take content in his spouse.

Those who have nothing in them that God may delight in do not have the spirit of love. Those, then, who rebel instead of giving God content; who resist the Spirit and his motions in the ministry, in rebukes and the like; those who live in sins directly against God’s command, who are common swearers and filthy persons, neglecters of holy things, profane and godless people: do they talk of the love of God and of heaven? You may see the filthiness of their hearts by the filthiness that comes out of them. God does not keep such excellent things for such people. The love of God and living in sins against conscience will not stand together. The demonstration of love is the presenting of something to please God. Show me in your way of life what you do to please God. If you live in courses that are condemned, never talk of love. It is a pitiful thing to see, in the bosom of the church, under the glorious revelation of divine truth, men living openly and shamelessly in sins against conscience, glorying in their shame. It is a strange thing that they should glory in their profaneness and swaggering, that they should glory in a kind of atheistic behavior. As they have been brought up, so they will continue. Many are ruined in that; either they are poisoned in their early upbringing, or they are neglected in it.

To see, under the glorious gospel of Christ, people who think they have eternal souls living in shameless, base courses, void of religion and humanity, only to satisfy their own lusts instead of satisfying and obeying God! To see men living in the bosom of the church like beasts, and yet hoping to be saved as well as the best! Oh, but the hope of the hypocrite, the hope of such people, will deceive them.

Oh, let us labor, then, to have this affection of love planted in our hearts, and pray that God by his Spirit would teach us to love him and to love one another. This affection of love must be taught by God. Teaching it is not a matter of the brain but of the heart. God alone is the great schoolmaster and teacher of the heart. He must not only command us to love, but teach our affections by his Holy Spirit and enable our affections to love him.

Where love likewise seeks in this way to give content, there will be love for all those whom the one we seek to please loves. Is there any of Jonathan’s posterity, says David, that I may do good to them for his sake? (2 Sam 9:1). The soul that loves God and Christ says, “Are there any good people, any who bear the image of God and Christ?” It will be sure to love them. It will do good to Jonathan’s posterity. As for those who hate the people who bear the image of God and Christ, whose stomachs turn against good men, how do they “love him that begets, when they love not him that is begotten?” (1 John 5:1). There cannot be the love of God in such a man. Without doubt, if we love God, we shall love his children, and anything that bears God’s stamp. We shall love his truth and his cause and religion, and whatever is divine and touches on God. We shall love it because it is his. Love is an affection that sets the soul to work thinking, “How may I give content to such a person?” It is full of devices and inventions to please. So it thinks, “Can I give him content by loving this person or that?” As Christ says, whoever respects these little ones does it to me; it is accounted to my charge, and I will see it repaid (Matt 18:5). If the love of Christ is in us, we will regard this, because we will think, “Christ will regard me for the good I do, for his sake and in his name, to this person and that.” This is how we may test this sweet affection and not deceive our own souls.

And so, where there is a desire to give content, there will be a zeal against everything that may offend, to remove all such things in our places and callings. It will carry us through all difficulties. To please him, it will make us willing to suffer. I will please him by suffering some indignity for his cause; I will do it so that I may bind his affection to me. That is why the disciples gloried in this, that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake (Acts 5:41). Where there is a desire to please God, the soul is so far from being ashamed or afraid to suffer that it rejoices in it. Oh, now an occasion is given to show that God respects me the more, if for his sake I stand firm in his quarrel and break through all difficulties.

Love will make us please him in everything we are capable of, in everything we can do in any way in our stations, as Christ describes it from Moses: to “love God with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength” (Deut 6:5). Where love is, it sets everything to work to please and give content. It sets the mind to work studying, “How shall I please God?” And it will study God’s truth, and not serve him by our own inventions. We must serve and love God according to his mind, that is, as he has commanded. Love will set our wits to work to understand how he will be served, and to love him with all our soul and with all our heart, that is, with the marrow and strength of our affections, with all my strength, whatever a man may be. If he is a magistrate, he must love God with the strength of his magistracy; if he is a minister, with the strength of his ministerial calling. In any condition I must love him with all that that condition enables me to do. For love is a commanding affection, and being so, it commands everything within and without to give content to the one loved. It commands the wit to devise good things and the memory to retain them. It commands joy and delight. It commands anger to remove hindrances. And so with all outward actions: love commands the doing of all things; it sets everything to work. It is a most active affection. It is like fire; it is compared to fire. It sets everything to work and commands all that a man is able to do. Therefore those who do not study, in all their endeavors, according to their callings and places and according to everything God has entrusted them with, to please God and to honor him in their conditions, do not love God.

What a shame it is that when God has given us so sweet an affection as love, he should not have our love in return, when we make ourselves happy by loving him! He is happy in his own love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but since he intends to make us happy, it is a shame that we should not bestow our affections on him.

Much more might be said to this purpose, for testing ourselves whether we love God or not. Let us not forget these things, then; for this is the command of both the Old and the New Testament. Both run on love. “I give you a new command,” says Christ (John 13:34); and yet it is no new command, but old and familiar. But it is commanded now in the gospel; that is, it is renewed by new experiences of God’s love in Christ, “that we should love him, as he hath loved us” (John 13:34), which he has done wonderfully; that we should love him, and “love one another.” And all this lies in this affection, as we see when the Holy Spirit would set out the disposition and qualification of those for whom these great things are prepared, things that “neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man.” He sets it down by this: “They are for those that love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him (1 Cor 2:9)

What has already been said should drive us to beg the Spirit of God to teach the heart, to teach us the things themselves, the inside of them. For a spiritual, holy man has a spiritual knowledge even of outward things, of the creatures; he sees another kind of thing in the creature than other men do. As another man has a natural knowledge of spiritual things, so a holy man has a spiritual knowledge even of the ordinary works of God. He draws out and extracts from them a very essence that a worldly man cannot see, so as to glorify God and to build up his faith in the sense of God’s favor. This I add in passing to what was said before.

But the highest fulfillment of this, that there are things provided for God’s people that “neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard,” is reserved for another world. For then the promises of the gospel have their fulfilling indeed. These words are true of the state of the gospel here and now, but they have their accomplishment in heaven. For whatever is begun here is finished there. Peace begun here is finished there. Joy that is begun here shall be finished there. The communion of saints that is begun here shall be finished there. Sanctification that is begun here shall be finished there. So all graces shall be perfect then, and all promises performed. That is the time indeed when God shall reveal things that “neither eye hath seen nor ear heard.” In the meantime let us learn to believe them, and to live by faith in them, believing that there are such things.

And God does not reserve everything for another world. He gives his children a taste of those things beforehand, to comfort them in their distresses in this world. Indeed, there is nothing in this world of greater use and comfort to raise them up than the beginnings of heaven upon earth. A little peace and joy in the Holy Spirit will make a man swallow all the discontents in the world. Now God is so good to us that he lets us have some drops of these things beforehand to raise up our spirits, so that by the taste we may know what great things he has reserved for us. But I spoke before of these things and their use.

We come, then, to speak of the qualification of the persons: “For them that love him.”

It is not that we love God first, and then God prepares these things for us. Rather, God prepares them and acquaints us with what he means to do with us, and then we love him. A Christian knows beforehand what title he has to heaven in Christ, and then he works. He knows Christ has accomplished salvation for him, and then he works out his salvation in a course tending to salvation. For there must be working in a course that tends toward the possession of salvation. That Christ has purchased; we must not work and think to merit heaven by it. We know that we have heaven, and those great things, by the title of Christ, and then we set about loving and working. There is a completely contrary order between us and those mercenaries. They invert the order of God. For to those for whom God has prepared these things, he reveals them to the eye of faith, and then faith works by love. This I add in passing.

Now he sets down this description of the persons for whom these excellent things are prepared by this affection of love, this grace of love, as being the fittest for the purpose of describing a Christian. Faith is not so fit, because it is not so discernible. We may know our love when we cannot know our faith. Often those who are excellent Christians doubt whether they believe or not. But ask them whether they love God, and his truth, and his children, and, oh yes, they do! Now God, intending to comfort us, sets out the affection that a Christian can best discern; for of all our affections, we can discern our love best.

But to come to the affection itself, there are three things in love. There is the affection of love, the passion of love, and the grace of love. We speak of the grace here. The affection is natural. The passion is the excess of the natural affection when it overflows its bounds. Grace is the rectifying of the natural affection, and the elevating and raising of it up to a higher object than nature can settle on.

The Spirit of God turns nature into grace. He works corruption and passion out of nature, and elevates and raises what is naturally good, the affection of love, to be a grace of love. He raises it up to love God (which nature cannot discover) by spiritualizing it. He makes it the most excellent grace of all. So while I speak of the love of God, do not think that I speak of the mere affection, but of the affection that has a stamp of grace upon it. For affections are graces when they are sanctified.

And indeed all graces (setting aside illumination, which is in the understanding) spring from this. What is true grace but joy, and love, and delight in the best things? And all the others spring from love. What do we hate but what is opposed to what we love? And when are we angry, but when what we love is opposed and wronged? Then there is a holy zeal. So indeed all grace is in the affections, and all the affections are in this one primary affection, this first-born and first-bred affection, love. I speak of it, then, as a special grace.

Now we heard before, in part, the way of discerning it. The way to discern this sanctified affection, this grace, is to know what we esteem, for love comes from esteem. And then, in the second place, esteem breeds a desire of union. And desire of union breeds contentment in the thing when we have it. And contentment in the person breeds a desire to give contentment back again. I dwelt on these things, and will not press them further.

Let us examine and test ourselves often by our affections: how they are inclined and pointed, whether toward God and heaven or toward the world. For we are as we love. Whatever we love, we, as it were, marry. If we join our love to baser things, we marry baser things, and so debase ourselves. If we join our affections to things above ourselves, to God and spiritual things, we become spiritual as they are. So a man stands in the world between two goods, something that is better than himself and something that is lower. As he joins himself to one or the other in his affections, so he is. For the affection of love to God and to the best things makes him excellent, and his affection to baser things makes him base. Whatever a man may be in the world, if his affections are base, he is a base person. Therefore we have all the more need to test our affections.

But to answer some cases briefly.

1. It will be objected: May we not love anything but God and holy things? May we not love the creatures, since it is specified here as a mark of those for whom these things are prepared, that they are “prepared for those that love God”?

Yes. We may love the creatures insofar as we see something of God in them, as every creature has something of God in it. This is why God takes the title of every creature that has good in it. He is called a “Fountain,” a “Rock,” a “Shield,” everything that is good, to show that every one of the creatures has something of God. He would not otherwise have taken the title of the creature. We may love the creature as it has something of God in it, whether a being, or a comfortable being, or something else; and as it conveys the love of God to us and leads us back again to God. There is no creature that does not convey to us some love, some beams and excellence of God, in some way, and lead us to God. So we may love other things. We may love men, and love God in them, and love them for God’s sake, to bring them to God, to leave a holy impression in them so that they may be like God. There is no question of this. But the love of God is the spring of all.

But some weak conscience will say, “How shall I know that I love God, when I love the world and worldly things? I love my children and other things, perhaps things that are not evil, and I fear I love them more than God.”

We must understand this: when two streams run in one channel, they run stronger than one stream. When a man loves other good things, nature goes along with grace. So with nature going along with grace, the stream is strong. But when a man loves God, and Christ, and heavenly things, there is grace alone; nature contributes nothing to that. When a man loves his children or his intimate friends and the like, with nature going along with grace, it is no wonder if the stream is stronger, when two streams run in one. In the same way, corruption in evil actions often carries the affections strongly. In many of our loves there is something natural that is good, yet there is some corruption as well, as when we love a man for evil ends. Here nature and corruption together are strong. But in supernatural things grace goes alone.

Then again, we must not judge by an unconsidered passion, by what our affection is carried to suddenly and without deliberation. For in that way we may rejoice more in some sudden thing than in the best things of all; at the sight of a friend, for example, there may be a sudden affection. But the love of God is a constant stream. It is not a torrent, but a current that runs all our lifetime. Therefore a Christian’s affections toward God and heavenly things are perpetual. They make no great noise, perhaps, but they are perpetual in the heart of a Christian. A sudden torrent of passion may carry a man away, and yet he may have a holy and heavenly heart. I say this for your comfort.

2. “Yes, but my love to God is faint and small.”

Well, but it is a heavenly spark, and it has something divine in it. It is from heaven, and it is growing, vigorous, and effective; and a little heavenly love will consume all carnal love in the end, so vigorous and constant is its nature. It is continually fed by the Spirit. And a little that is fed and maintained, that is growing, that has a blessing in it (as the love of God in the hearts of his people has, for God continually cherishes his own beginning), that little shall never be quenched. It shall outgrow nature at length, and eat out corruption, and all contrary love whatsoever. For the present we see corruption overpower and oppress grace. Yet the love of God is a divine spark, and therefore, though it is small, it is more powerful than its contrary. It has a blessing in it to grow, until at length it consumes everything.

For love is like fire, in this property as in others: it wastes and consumes its contrary. It raises up to heaven, and quickens and enlivens the persons, as fire does. And as fire makes dead bodies full of light and transforms them all into fire like itself, so the love of God, little by little, transforms us all to be fiery; it transforms us to be lovers. These cases needed a little touching on, to satisfy some who are good and growing Christians and must have some satisfaction.

3. But it may be asked again, since we see it is indeed true: What is the reason that humbler Christians sometimes have more loving souls than great scholars, men of great abilities? One would think that knowledge should increase love and affection.

So it does, if it is a clear knowledge. But great wits and great heads, and great scholars, busy themselves with questions and intricacies, and so they are not so much occupied with the affections. A poor Christian often takes for granted those things that they study, and dispute, and debate, and question. There is a heavenly light in his soul that tells him, “God is my Father in Christ, and Christ, God and man, is my Mediator.” He takes it for granted, and so his affections are not troubled. The other man, by contrast, has corruption to match his abilities: great wit and great corruption. He is entangled with doubts and arguments. He studies to inform his brain; the other studies to be warmed in his affections. A poor Christian does not care for cold subtleties that do not warm the heart and affections. He takes these things for granted if they are set forth in the Scripture. Instead of disputing, he believes, and loves, and obeys. And that is the reason why many a poor soul goes to heaven with a great deal of joy, while others are entangled and wrapped up in their own doubts. So much for settling these questions.

To go on, then, let me give a few directions for how to have this heavenly fire kindled in us, so that we love God, considering that such great things are provided for those who love God. It is a matter of consequence: as we desire heaven, we must desire this holy fire to be kindled in us.

Let us take this as a foundation, as it were: it is our duty to aim at the highest pitch of love we can, and not to rest in the lowest. The lowest pitch of loving God is to love God because he is good to us. That is good. The Scriptures stoop so low as to allow that God would have us love him and holy things for the benefit we have from them. But that is mercenary if we rest there. God stoops to allure us by promises and favors, but we must not rest there. We must love God, not for our own sakes, but labor to rise to this pitch: to love ourselves in God, and to see that we have our happiness in God and not in ourselves. Our being is in him. We must love ourselves in him, and be content to be lost in God. That is, we must so love God that even if he should cast us away (his kindness is better than life), whatever others may do, we will love him, and love ourselves for his excellencies and because we see ourselves in him and are his children. We must labor to rise to that, and that is the highest pitch we can attain. We must take that as a foundation.

And take this as another: when we speak of the love of God, we speak of love that is embodied in our conduct and actions. We do not mean an abstract love and affection, but love in our positions, and callings, and stations, love clothed in action. Therefore the Scripture says that we must love God with all our mind, with all our heart, with all our power and strength (Deut 6:5); that is, in our particular places.

To make it clear: when we speak of love to God, we speak of love to him in our particular callings. A man who is a magistrate loves God when he executes justice for God’s sake. A man who is a minister loves God when he teaches the people conscientiously for God’s sake and shows them the way to heaven. A man in the commonwealth, a statesman and the like, loves God when in that place he seeks the glory of God and the good of the church and of religion. Shall men talk of love to God while their affections are stirred up about I know not what? No. It is an affection that shows itself in actions.

How can we love God with all our might, unless our love extends as far as our might extends? How far does your activity, your power, your sphere, the reach of what you can do, stretch? Your love must stretch that far. You must show your love in all the powers and abilities with which God has furnished you.

For a man who has a high position and opportunity to do good to think it enough to love God only in his private room, this is not the love we speak of. A man must love God with all his might, according to the relations in which he stands, in this way or that. The love of God that serves for a private man will not serve for a magistrate or a public man. He must show his love in his place by standing in the gap, to hinder all the evil and to do all the good he can. Every man must do so, but such a man more especially, because God has entrusted him with more.

Well, with these things laid down first, let us come to some directions for how to come to love God.

1. First of all, the way to love God is to have a heavenly light to reveal what we are in ourselves, and our emptiness. For as we are, we can never love God until we see in what need we stand of his favor and grace, and that otherwise we are damned creatures.

Now when our eyes come to be opened to see our sinfulness and emptiness, we will reach out to God, and reach out to his mercy in Christ above all things. Indeed, the first love is the love of dependence, before we come to a love of friendship and delight with God. It is a love that goes out to him and depends upon him for mercy and grace and everything, a love that rises from the sense of our misery and goes to him for supply.

There is a sweet meeting of misery and mercy, of emptiness and fullness, of beggary and riches.

Now when we see our own misery, and beggary, and sinfulness, and then see a fullness in God to supply us, and riches to enrich us in every way, this breeds love. This is the way to all the other loves that follow. And where this is not laid down first and does not go before, a man will never delight in God. In Luke 7:47 that good woman loved much. Why? Much was forgiven her; many sins were forgiven her.

So when the soul sees what need it has of forgiving mercy, of pardoning mercy, and how many great debts God has forgiven us in Christ, there will be a great deal of love, because a great deal is forgiven. And indeed we must begin with seeing the infinite mercy of God, before any other attribute of God, and then we shall love him afterward. This is the first thing. There is no soul that ever loves God so much as the poor soul that has been humbled with the sense of sin and of its own emptiness, seeing that it is empty of all goodness, and then sees a supply in the mercy of God in Christ. Those souls love God above all.

2. Another way to love God is to consider his wonderful goodness, to meditate on it and think about it. He is good and does good. His is a goodness that shares itself. Let us think of his goodness and the way it streams out to the creature. The whole earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. What are all the creatures but God’s goodness? We can see nothing but the goodness of God. What are all the creatures but God unfolded to our senses? He offers himself to our bodies and souls; all is God’s goodness.

And then see how this goodness is fitted to us. The goodness that comes from God is a fitting goodness. He is good and does good, and he proportions his goodness so fitly. For he has fitted every part of us, soul and body, with goodness, and all the senses with goodness. What do we see but goodness in colors? What do we hear but his goodness, in the delights that come that way? We taste and feel his goodness. Against the cold we have clothing; in hunger we have food. In all necessities and in all emergencies we have God’s fitting provision for every outward need whatsoever.

But then for our souls, what food has he for them? The death of Christ, his own Son, to feed our souls. The soul is a spiritual substance, and he thought nothing good enough to feed it but his own Son. We feed on God’s love in giving Christ to death, and on Christ’s love in giving himself to death.

The soul, being continually troubled with the guilt of some sin or other, feeds on this. It is nourished with Christ every day more and more, especially at the sacrament. Thus we see how God has fitted his goodness to us. And then see how, in particular dangers, he fits us with distinct deliverances, so seasonably that we may see God’s love in them.

Then, as God’s goodness is great and fitting, so it is near us. It is not a goodness far off; God follows us with his goodness in whatever condition we are. He applies himself to us, and he has taken on himself near relationships so that he might be near us in goodness. He is a father, and everywhere present to provide for us. He is a husband, and everywhere present to help. He is a friend, and everywhere present to comfort and counsel. So his love is a near love. That is why he has taken on himself the nearest relationships, so that we may never lack God and the testimonies of his love.

And then again, this goodness of God, which is the object of love, is a free goodness, coming purely from himself. It is an overflowing goodness and an everlasting goodness. It is never drawn dry; he loves us to life everlasting. He loves us in this world and follows us with signs of his love in every part of us, body and soul, until he has brought body and soul to heaven to enjoy himself there forever. These and similar considerations may serve to stir us up to love God and to direct us how to love God.

Benefits will work on a beast, as it is in Isaiah 1:2-3: “Hear, O heavens; and hearken, O earth: the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but my people have forgotten me.”

Proud men become baser, more brutish than the very brutes; benefits will move even the brute creatures. So, I say, these favors to us in particular should move us, unless we mean to be more brutish than the brutes themselves.

Especially, to move us all, consider some particular favors shown to us more than to others, for special favors greatly increase love and regard.

Consider how God has followed you with outward goodness when others have been neglected. You have a place in the world, and riches, and friends, when many other excellent people lack all these. There are some favors common to all Christians, such as the favor we have in Christ: forgiveness of sins, sanctification and other such favors. But there are some special acts of divine providence by which it appears that God’s providence has watched over us in some particulars more than over others. These lay special obligations on us. And is there any one of us who cannot say that God has dealt with him in a special way, giving him some mercy beyond what he has given to others? So I add this to the rest.

3. Again, to help us stir up this grace of love, consider the examples of love in those who lived in former times. Take David and Paul and other holy men. David wonders at his own love: “Lord, how do I love thy law!” (Ps 119:97). And do we not have more cause, when we compare the grounds of our affection, since we have more than they had in those times? What! Did he wonder at his love for God’s law when the canon was so short? They had only Moses and a few other books. We have the canon enlarged; we have both the Old and the New Testament. Shall we not say much more, “How I love your law, your gospel and your divine truths!” This should shame us: they in dark times loved the truth of God so much, and we see everything clear and open, and yet we are cold.

Likewise, in this case it is good to keep company with those whose affections are warm. As face answers face, so spirit answers spirit; as “iron sharpeneth iron,” so one person sharpens another (Prov 27:17). Keeping company with cold people will make one cold: “For the abundance of iniquity, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt 24:12). Spending time with sinful, cold people casts a damp on us. But if we would be wise for our souls, then whenever we find any coldness of affection in ourselves, let us take pains to keep company with those who have sweet and heavenly affections. It will work on our hearts wonderfully.

I could say much along these lines to stir us up and to direct us how to love God.

But in truth, nothing will enable us to love God so much as a new nature. Nature will love without being prompted. Fire will burn because it is fire, and water will moisten because it is water. A holy man will love holy things because he is holy; a spiritual soul will love spiritual things because it is spiritual. Therefore, besides everything else, add this: that our natures be changed more and more, that they be sanctified and circumcised, as God has promised: “I will circumcise your hearts, that ye may love me” (Deut 30:6). There must be a circumcised heart to love God. We must be sanctified to love God, for if nature is not renewed, there cannot be this new commandment of love. Why is love called both a new commandment and an old commandment?

It is called old as to the letter, because it was a command in Moses’ time: “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy soul” (Deut 6:5). But now it is a new commandment, because there is an abundance of the Spirit given by Christ, and the Spirit sanctifies us and writes this affection in our hearts. Before, it was written in stone; now it is written in our hearts by the Spirit. And now there are new incentives and motives to love, since Christ came and gave himself for us: new encouragements and provocations to love. Therefore it is a new commandment, resting on new grounds and motives that are a great deal more than there were before Christ. But there must be a new heart to obey this new command of love. The old heart will never love.

Therefore, with all the means that may be used, we must beg for the Spirit of sanctification above all, and beg for the revealing of God’s love to us, for our love is only a reflection of God’s love. We cannot love God unless he loves us first. Now, since our love is a reflection of God’s love, we must desire that he would give us his Spirit to reveal his love, so that the Spirit, being a witness of God’s love to us, may then be a Spirit of love and sanctification in us.

And let us labor to grow more in the assurance of God’s love and in all the evidences of it. Let us dwell long in meditation on these things. Dwelling in meditation on God’s love will make us love him in return. As many beams meeting together in a burning glass cause a fire, so with the many thoughts of the many fruits of God’s love in this world, and of what he intends for us in the world to come: when our hearts dwell on them, these beams will kindle a holy fire in our hearts.

Many are troubled with cold affections, and they wish, oh, that they could love! They forget the way to love. They will not meditate; and if they do meditate, they think to work love out of their own hearts. They might as well work fire out of a flint, or water out of a stone. Our hearts are a barren wilderness. Therefore let us beg for the Spirit. Let us beg, with meditation and all other helps, that God would change our hearts; that God would sanctify us and reveal his love to us, and that he would give us his Spirit (for where he does the one, he does the other). When God does so, then we will be enabled to love him.

We must not think to bring love to God; we must fetch love from God. We must light our candle at his fire. Think of his love to us, and beg for the Spirit of love from him; love is a fruit of the Spirit. That is the course we ought to take, for God will teach our hearts to love.

Now, to stir us up all the more, let me add some motives and encouragements to labor more to get this affection.

Let us seriously consider that without this love of God we are dead, and whatever comes from us is stillborn; it is dead. Without love we are nothing; without love all that comes from us is nothing. Without love, “I am as a tinkling cymbal,” says Paul (1 Cor 13:1). Who would want to be in such a condition: for a man to be nothing in religion, and for all that comes from him to be dead and stillborn, abortive actions?

Therefore, before we do anything that is good, let us labor to have our hearts kindled with the love of God. Then we will be somebody, and what we do will be acceptable, for love sweetens all our performances. It is not the action but the love in the action that counts. In the same way, from God’s side, it is not so much the dead favor that comes from him that comforts a Christian’s soul as the love and sweetness of God in the favor. That is better than the thing itself.

When we receive favor from God in outward blessings, consider the sweetness: “Taste and see how gracious the Lord is” (Ps 34:8). The taste of God’s love and favor in the blessing is better than the thing itself, for the thing is only a dead thing. And so it is from our side back again to God. What are the things we perform for him? They are dead. But when they are sweetened with the affection of love, done for him as a Father in Christ, he tastes our performances as sweet. Love gives a relish to all we do, and to all that he does to us. Therefore we should labor for this sweet affection.

And consider also that we may be called to do many things in this world. Surely there is not one of us who does not have many holy actions to perform. We have many things to suffer and endure in the world, and many temptations to resist. What will carry us through it all? Nothing but love. If we have loving and gracious hearts, this affection will carry us through all good actions, through all opposition and temptations, for “love is strong as death” (Song 8:6). Consider, therefore, that there are so many things that will require this affection, this blessed wing and wind of the soul, to carry us along in spite of all that is contrary, through all opposition. Let us labor for love, and that affection will carry us through all.

Indeed, if we have it, it does not matter what a man suffers. A man who has this affection of love can never be miserable. If this heavenly fire is kindled in him, he cannot be miserable. Take him in whatever condition you like; take him on the rack. St. Paul sang at midnight in the dungeon, in the stocks, at a comfortless time and in a comfortless place. When he had been mistreated, his heart was enlarged to sing to God out of love (Acts 16:25).

No, more than that: everything increases it. The things we suffer increase this flame. Let a man love God, and whatever he suffers in a good cause increases his love; he will find his love increased by it. The more he loves, the more he can suffer; and the more he suffers, the more he loves God, and the more he grows in a joyful expectation of the times to come. And love always comes with joy and hope and other sweet affections. It always draws joy with it, and hope of better things; and as joy increases and hope increases, so a man’s happiness increases in this world.

Therefore it does not matter what a man suffers who has a gracious and loving heart, enlarged by the Spirit of God. Let him never think about what he suffers in pain, losses and crosses, if God opens his fatherly breast to him and shines on him in Christ, and he looks on God as reconciled and tastes the joys of heaven beforehand. If you tell him of sufferings, you tell him of what encourages him.

This is an argument I could dwell on long, and to great purpose. For if we once get this holy fire kindled, we will need little exhortation to other duties. It would set us to work at all of them. And like the fire of the sanctuary that never went out, this affection, once kindled in the heart, will never go out.

It is a kind of miracle, an evil one, when we love other things besides God, things baser than ourselves. It is as if a river should turn backward. For man, who is an excellent creature, to be carried by the stream of his affection to things worse than himself is a kind of monstrosity, a man abusing his understanding in this way. What a base thing it is for a man to let so sweet a stream as love, a holy current, run into a sewer! Who would turn a sweet stream into a sewer, and not rather into a garden, into a sweet place to refresh it?

Our love is the best thing in the world, and who deserves it more than God and Christ? We can never repay anything, but this affection of love we can return. And can we place it better than on divine things, by which we ourselves are made better? Does God require our affections for his own sake? No. It is to make us happy. It raises our affection to love him; it turns it into the right stream. God requires it for the sake of making us happy.

For consider all the things that may show how worthy this affection is. It will keep us from all sin. What is any sin but the abuse of love? For the crookedness of this affection, turning us to present things, is the cause of all sin. For what is all sin but pursuing pleasure, honors and profits, the three idols of the world? All sin is about them. And what are all good actions but love well placed? The right ordering of this affection is the right ordering of our lives, and the misplacing of this affection is the cause of all sin.

And to make us all the more careful in this, when we place our affections on anything else, consider its vanity. We lose our love, and the thing, and ourselves. For whatever else we love, if we do not love God in it and love it for God’s sake, it will perish and come to nothing before long. The affection perishes with the thing. We lose our affections and the thing, and we lose ourselves too, by misplacing our love.

These are forceful considerations for people of understanding. If we would use our understanding, our consideration and meditation, and our souls as we should, to consider the grounds and encouragements we have to love God, and the best things, by which we may be raised in dignity above ourselves, it would not be as it is. We would not be so empty of grace and comfort.

It was a miracle that the three young men should be in the midst of the furnace and be there as if they were in some other place, no hotter (Dan 3:25-27). And it is a miracle that men should be in the midst of all the encouragements we have to love God, and yet be cold in the midst of the fire. For there are no reasons for anything in the world like those we have to keep our souls in a constant heat of affection, loving God. No motives, arguments, or incentives compare, since all are nothing to the multitude of arguments we have to inflame our affections. It is a kind of miracle to have dark understandings and dead affections; that in spite of all the heavenly means we have to keep a constant flame of love to God, we should still be cold and dark in our souls. Let us mourn over it and be ashamed of it.

What do we profess ourselves to be? Christians, heirs of heaven, so loved by God that he gave his own Son to deliver us when we were rebels and enemies, in the cursed state we are all in by nature. Poor creature! Man is inferior to the angels that fell, and yet God should love man, sinful dust and ashes, so much as to give his own Son to free us from such great misery, to raise us to such great happiness, to set us in “heavenly places with Christ” (Eph 2:6), and to give us perpetual communion with him in heaven. To have such encouragements and still be cold and dead-hearted! No, worse: to be willfully opposed in our affections, to be enemies to the goodness of God and to grace, while having such arguments to love God!

And yet how many spirits, egged on by the devil, oppose all that is good and will not give way to God’s Spirit? God would have them be temples; they will be pigsties. God would marry them; no, they will be harlots. God would have them happy here and hereafter. No; they will not. They will have their own lusts and affections.

Let us be afraid of these things, as we love our own souls and ourselves. And let us consider what encouragements we have to love God, a love for which such great things are reserved as “neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive” (1 Cor 2:9).