Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

I.

VOL. him and us; but he is with us in our walking in the way, in our fitting down in our houses, in our lying down on our beds, in any wilderness, in any den or defart. Certainly it can be no way unfit, that he should be chofen for our converfe, and for the great object of our love, though we cannot fee him. Our not being able to fee him detracts nothing from the reasonableness of placing our love there, upon all these accounts. Therefore the pretence for our not loving GOD because he is invifible, is altogether infufficient, and : carries nothing in it that a valid excufe fhould have to make it fo. I fhould now proceed to fhew the intolerable abfurdities of not loving GOD because he is invifible; but the time doth not give me leave now to speak to them,

SERM.

SERMON VIII.

Preached October 11, 1676.

I JOHN IV. 20.

-He that loveth not his Brother, whom he bath feen; how can be love God, whom he hath not feen?

H

AVING in the three last discourses fhewn the invalidity of the excufe for not loving GoD, drawn from his invifibility, we now proceed in the

2. PLACE, To evince more fully the obligation we are under to this duty, and to fhew the intolerable abfurdity of this excufe, that is, of pleading that we do not love GoD, only because we cannot fee him *. For

(1.) IT would infer, that we are to be affected or moved with no invifible thing whatsoever; or that nothing but what can ftrike our fenfes, ought to touch our hearts. For if this be a good reafon in the present cafe, we do not love GoD because we cannot fee him, wherefoever the cafe is alike, the reafon will be fo too; and fo we are to be moved by nothing at all, but what is to be feen. No threataing danger then is to be feared

* See Sermon V. p. 75.

or

I.

VOL. or provided against, and no diftant good to be cared for; and fo our greateft concernments that fhould urge us more than all others, must be quite thrown afide. Our business for eternity and another world, the apprehenfions of which men cannot quite abolish out of their minds, must all stand ftill; and we live at fuch a rate that no man will be able to give a tolerable account what he liveth for, or what his business in this world is. For it is altogether inconceivable for what purpofe fuch a creature as man is fhould be here in this world, furnished with so much higher and nobler faculties than the brute beasts, and yet to do no other bufinefs but what they might do as well as we.

(2.) IT would hence be confequent, that the bleffed GoD would be everlastingly excluded our love, or that he could never be loved by his reafonable intelligent creature for an eternal reason; because he can never be feen, as we see our brother with eyes of flesh. None of us in this fenfe can ever behold Gop; and if this reason be con. clufive, to all eternity he must be excluded our love. And fo it may be affirmed even of his reasonable creatures, none do love him, nor ever fhall. And again,

(3.) ACCORDING to this way of reasoning GOD would lofe his intereft in our love by the excellency of his nature. And how monstrously abfurd is it, that by how much the more excellent an object is, fo much the lefs it should be loved! For it is owing to the excellency of his

nature

nature and being, that GoD cannot be feen. SER M. And is it not an horrid confequence, that because VIII. he is fo excellent as he is, therefore he is not to be loved? Nothing is more manifeft, than that by how much the more excellent any thing is, fo much the more it is remote from our fight. And fhall this be admitted as a principle, that by how much the more excellent any thing is, the less it fhall be loved? Shall GOD lofe his intereft in our love, merely because he is fo excellent and perfect as he is? or fhall he for this reafon be less loved than visible objects are? Again,

(4.) ALL commerce would hereupon cease, or rather never be, between the bleffed GoD and his intelligent creature, at least all intellectual commerce fuitable to fuch a creature. For if this were a good reafon, he is not to be seen, therefore he is not to be loved, it would also follow, that he is not to be trufted, feared, or obeyed. All which would infer, that God hath made an intelligent being with whom he can converfe no way fuitable to its nature, than which -nothing can be thought more abfurd. Further,

(5.) ALL differences of moral good and evil, in fuch a cafe, would be quite taken away, or all apprehenfions of them, from among men. For the rectitude or irrectitude of actions is not to be judged of, nor difcerned by the fight of our eye. We cannot by this means alone tell whether this or that thing be right or wrong. And this by confequence would neceffarily render mankind incapable of being governed by laws; because the

reafon

I.

VOL. reason why a law fhould oblige, doth not fall under any man's fight. The decency and fitness of a thing the eye does not reach; for to difcern this is the bufinefs of the mind. And fo it would be left altogether impoffible for any one to affign a reason, why it fhould be more congruous to equity and juftice for one to embrace his friend, than to murder him; why a man fhould relieve the poor who cannot help themfelves, rather than oppress them; or why a man fhould not as well, and with as great reafon and equity, affront a ruler, as obey him and be fubject to his authority? So that in fhort you take away the foundation of converse with man, at the fame time you take away the foundation of religious converse with GOD and invifible things. By this kind of argument you not only overturn the practice of godliness and piety, which is a great part of that love to GOD we ought to be exercised in, but you do as effectually by the fame means deftroy all civil commerce between man and man, howfoever related; and leave no foundation for human fociety, confidering the members of it in relation to governors or rulers, and to one another. And

(6.) IT would hence follow, that the original conftitution of man's nature was made up of inconfiftencies; nothing elfe but a piece of felfcontradiction. That is, it would be neceffary to do a thing, and yet at the fame time impoffible, It is neceffary by the conftitution of the human nature that man do love a known good, and

therefore

« AnteriorContinua »