Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

V.

tinction of this principle, if a love to GOD may SER M.
be banished from among us, we turn all our reli-
gion into nothing elfe, but a mere piece of pa-
geantry. How vain and foolish, how abfurd
and ridiculous things were the forms of religion,
which we keep up from time to time, fuppofing
this great radical principle was to have no place
nor exercise among us! To come together, and
make a fhew of devotion to him whom we do
not love, nor think our felves obliged to love, is
nothing but inconfiftency and contradiction. And
those who come on fuch terms, as oft as they
undertake to worship Go D, must needs offer
nothing but the facrifices of fools. But it is our
business to defend this principle; to vindicate it
against every thing that can be alledged against
it by those who would excuse themselves from the
obligation to this duty, from their not seeing
GOD.

AND that we may the more fitly prosecute the
prefent defign, we fhall endeavour to do these
two things.

I. To fhew the vanity and impertinence of this excufe for not loving Go D, to wit, our not feeing him.

II. To demonftrate the intolerable heinousness of this fin nothwithstanding, and to fhew its horrid nature though Gon is not visible to us. Because persons are apt upon this ground or reafon either totally to excuse themselves, as if there were no iniquity at all in it; as there are multitudes of

people

I.

VOL. people who can pafs over their days one after another, without any emotion of heart to love towards GoD at all: or elfe because if they cannot obtain of themselves against the clearest light to believe it is no fin; yet they would fain have it to be only a peccadillo, or a very little one. "GOD, fay they, cannot expect much love "from thofe, who cannot fee him! or that fuch "beings to whom he is invifible fhould mind "him much, or concern themfelves with him

from day to day!" Therefore, I fay, we fhall endeavour both to fhew, how most impertinently this is alledged as an excufe for not loving Go D, or how unreasonable it is to infer from his invifibility, that we are under no fuch obligation: and after that, to reprefent to you the hateful nature of the fin; or to fhew, that if we love not GOD, it is not only a fin notwithstanding this pretence, but a most prodigious and horrid one

too.

I. THAT we may evince to you the vanity of this excufe, or the impertinency of alledging that we are not obliged to love GOD, because we fee him not, there are these two things that we charge this excufe with, and fhall labour to make out concerning it; to wit, that it is both invalid, and abfurd. It is invalid, because it hath nothing in it which a valid excufe ought to have, And it is monftrously abfurd, and draws moft intolerable ill confequences after it, if fuch an ex cufe fhould be admitted in fuch a cafe,

V.

1. ISHALL fhew the infufficiency of this ex- SER M. cufe, or that it is vain, and hath nothing in it which a valid excufe fhould have. "We do "not fee GoD, therefore we are not concerned "to love him." This will eafily be made out to you thus. Whenever any thing is charged upon us by a law, and the exception lies not against the authority of the lawgiver, but only the matter of the law as applied to us, no excufe can be valid in that cafe, but where the matter brought in excuse shall be able to prove one of these two things: either that what is injoined, is in it felf impoffible to us, or at least that it is unfit and unreasonable to be expected from us. But our not feeing GoD can never infer either of these. It neither renders our loving him impoffible; nor unfit and unreafonable, fuppofing it to be poffible.

(1.) OUR not feeing GoD doth not render our loving him impoffible. This it is needful for us rightly to underftand before we proceed any further. The thing that we intend to make out to you is, not that it is poffible to us to love GOD by our own natural power. You have heard already enough to the contrary. He can never be truly loved by us, till the spirit of love is given us; which is alfo at the same time a fpirit of power, and of a found mind. 'Till then, I fay, it is impoffible that any should love GOD. But when he implants this principle in us, he doth not therefore render himself vifible to our bodily eye, which is the feeing here meant; for

we

VOL. we must understand the word in the fame fenfe

I.

in both parts of the text. All that we have to evince then is, that our not seeing GoD as we do our brother, does not make it impoffible for us to love him. So that our prefent inquiry is not concerning the power, that gives the prin ciple of love; but only concerning the means that should be made use of, in order to the begetting or planting that principle. Which being understood, the several confiderations following will plainly evince to us, that our not seeing GoD doth not render it impoffible for us to love him.

ift. CONSIDER that the fight of our eye is not the immediate caufe, or inducement of love to any thing, but only a means to beget an apprehenfion in our minds of the loveliness of the object. And then it is, that is, upon the percep tion of this lovelinefs, that we are brought to love the object it felf. For after the sight of the eye there muft pafs in the mind an act of the judgement upon the object, before we can be brought to love it; otherwife we should love or hate every thing that we see promiscuously, and not distinguish objects of love from objects of hatred. It is only the apprehenfion of the mind, even in reference to objects of fight, that brings us to love them. If there be any other means of begetting an apprehenfion in our mind concerning fuch and fuch objects, that they are lovely and fit to be loved, it is not neceffary that we should see them with our eyes. To this we add,

2dly. THERE are other fufficient means to SER M. poffefs our minds with an apprehenfion of the V. loveliness of an object, and more especially those objects that are never liable to the fight of our eye. We do not need to infift much on fo plain a cafe. It is plain that there are fundry ways, by which the apprehenfion of the loveliness even of an invisible object, may come to have place in us; invisible at leaft fo far as to be out of the reach of our eye. To be a little particular here:

THERE is, for inftance, with respect to the unfeen GOD naturally a divine impreffion upon the minds of men, by which, when they are put upon reflection, they muft needs own that he is not only a lovely, but the most lovely and amiable object, and has the beft right to claim their love. Whosoever they are that do acknowledge a GOD *, must also read fuch attributes and properties of the being of GOD ingraven there, importing that he is the first and fupreme object of our love. No one that acknowledgeth a GoD but presently acknowledgeth too, that he is good; that he is true; that he is holy; that he is wife; and the like. And then his own heart must tell him, whether he will or no, that he ought to be loved above all.

AGAIN,

* As Epicurus himself confeffeth this to be a proleptick notion, that prevents every man's reason, so as that he needs not argue the matter with himself, but, if he will but read what is written in his own foul, must read THAT THERE IS A GOD. "See more of this in the Author's Living Temple, p. 15. folio."

« AnteriorContinua »