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SERMON XIV.

Of the Love of God.

MARK xii. 29, 30.

And Fefus answered him, The first of all the Commandments is, Hear, Ifrael, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and with all thy Soul, and with all thy Mind, and with all thy Strength: This is the firft Commandment.

T

HESE Words are the Answer SERM. of our Saviour Chrift to one of XIV. the learned Pharifees, a Doctor

of the Jewish Law; who seeing

that he had put the Saducees to Silence, as you find in the Verfes immediately before

the

SERM. the Text, thought to get great Applaufe XIV. to himself, by propofing to our Saviour

this infnaring Question, Which is the first Commandment of all? He did not ask this Question for his own Information, for the Answer was evident to every one who was never fo little fkilled in the Jewish Law, nothing was more 'obvious than that Divifion of the Law into the first and fecond Table; the first teaching our Duty towards God, the fecond, our Duty towards our Neighbour. But the Defign of the Pharifee's Queftion was to enfnare our Saviour Christ, and render him odious to the People; for, fuppofing that the Doctrine our Saviour taught was different from the Law of Mofes, he concluded that our Saviour would have placed the Strefs of his Religi on on the Performance of fomething else, than what the Law enjoined; and inforced fome other Duties than those which had been inculcated upon them; and then he was certain that this would expofe him to the Rage and Fury of the People, who had entertained a very high Opinion of the Law which Mofes delivered down to them.

OUR Saviour takes no Notice of his evil Defign, but anfwers his Question plainly and affirmatively, in the Words of their own Law, contained in the Text:

And

And Jefus anfwered him, The first of all the SERM. Commandments is, Hear, O Ifrael, the Lord XIV. our God is one Lord;

AND thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy Heart, and with all thy Soul, and with all thy Mind, and with all thy Strength: This is the firft Commandment.

HEREBY teaching them, that his Doctrine was the fame with the moral Part of the Mofaical Law; and that he did not come to deftroy the Law and the Prophets, but to perfect them and fill them up; to explain what was difficult in them, to carry them out to their utmost Extent, and to inforce them with more powerful Motives: So that his Sermons were only Comments on those two Tables delivered by God to Mofes and writ with his own Hand, injoining a fincere Love to God, and an unfeigned Charity towards our Neighbour. The first of these is contained in these Words:

THOU fhalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy Heart, and with all thy Soul, and with all thy Mind, and with all thy Strength: This is the firft Commandment. In my following Reflexions upon which Words I fhall fhew,

I. WHAT is here meant by the Love of
God.
II. WHAT

XIV.

SERM. II. WHAT powerful Obligations lie upon every one of us to entertain in our Minds an ardent Love towards God.

1. Or the Nature of this holy Paffion, or what is meant by the Love of God. Now Love in general is the Inclination of the Soul towards an agreeable Object, from the Apprehenfion of fome Excellency or Conveniency which is in it. That Principle of Self-prefervation, which God has implanted in all Beings, inclines the Soul of Man to unite itself to thofe Things which it judges will be useful and delightful to it; this being the Notion of Love in the general, we may hence collect what it is to love God: And this in fhort is to contemplate his admirable Excellencies and Perfections, to chufe him as our chiefeft Good; to tranfcribe the communicable Perfections of his Divine Nature, to become as like him. as poffibly we can, to unite ourselves to him as to our only Happiness, and to prefer his Favour and Service, before any Thing elfe, which may come in Competition with him. By which Description of this holy Paflion it is plain, that the Love of God is of a far fuperior and more transcendent Nature than that Love which we entertain for one another; and therefore, that we may

form

form due Notions of it, I fhall confider it SE RM. more particularly: And

XIV.

1. A TRUE Love to God doth imply, that we entertain in our Minds the most awful Ideas of his Excellencies and Perfections: So that, to the Framing a right Notion of this Duty, we must remember, that our Love to God is not fuch a familiar Affection of the Mind, as we bear towards our Equals, fuch as one Friend has fot another; but our Love to God fuppofes Reverence, and proceeds from a ferious Senfe of the Excellency of the Object, which naturally produces in our Minds Efteem and Veneration; and therefore it is expreffed in the Holy Scripture fometimes by Honour, and fometimes by Fear. For though we are told that perfect Love cafteth John out Fear, yet hereby is meant the Fear of iv. 18. Men, not the Fear of God, the Words only importing thus much, that he, who truly loves God, will not be affrighted from doing his Duty, by the Fear of any Pains or Evils which Men can inflict upon him; the Love of God will be the prevailing Intereft of his Soul, will obtain the Dominion over all other Paffions, and enable a Man to furmount all fuch Difficulties, as interfere between it, and its beloved Object: And that this is the true Meaning of the

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