neither Ear has heard, neither has it enter'd into the Heart of Man to conceive, thofe things which God has prepar'd for them that Love Him. 'Tis for Love we fee that this glorious Recompence is laid up. This is the Subftantial Reason of our Hope: and That which does otherwife feem fo wonderful and amazing, (the infinite Difproportion of the Recompence and theService,an Everlafting Crown and a far more exceeding weight of Glory for fhort and imperfect performances) no longer confounds our Understanding or ftaggers our Belief. For tho' our Works are nothing worth, yet the Affection by which they are produc'd may be of great Value in the fight of God. We know that the meanest Services, that We do but guess to proceed from Love, are esteem'd, even by Men that are Evil, not according to their Intrinfick Value, but the kind Affection from which we are willing to believe they flow. How much more then fhall God,(who by his Infinite Wisdom is intimately Conscious to our Love of him) out of his Infinite Goodness accept of it, tho' express'd in very low and inconfiderable Services; inconfiderable upon any other Score, but that they are Hearty and Sincere? And thus knowing and accepting our good Will, reward us, not as becomes our Doings, but as befits his Grace. And when it is not

ftrict Justice, but most free Grace, that rewards; and when it is not the Work that is rewarded, but the Love; There is no reward can be too great for that most free, infinite Grace to bestow.

I fhall now proceed with an earnest Exhortation to this Love of God, that I have endeavour'd, tho' very faintly for the Dig. nity of the Subject, to describe: and excite you to give up your Hearts and Souls, all your Powers and Affections, and the utmoft Strength of them all to God, as the Chief and Only and Perfect and Infinite Good.

That God is in His Pure and Glorious Effence Infinitely Amiable; that nothing. befides him is Lovely, (any farther than it bears fome impreffions of his Loveliness). is the Voice of Nature itself, fhines thro' all the Visible Creation, thro' all his Works and Dealings with the children of Men, and the Wife Heathens themselves could not be blind against fo clear a Light.

But my purpofe is not to entertain you with a Philofophical Contemplation of his Immanent Goodness, and Effential Perfetions, tho' they, even by themselves confider'd, might juftly claim our most exalted Affections of Admiration,Delight and Love: For God is not only the most Excellent Being in himself, but the moft Beneficent

to

to his Creatures; a Good not only to be Admir'd and Contemplated, but to be Felt and to be Enjoy'd. Thou art Good, fays the Royal Pfalmift, And doft Good. Pfal. 119.68. I fhall defire you therefore chiefly to recollect often, and feriously weigh, and studioufly meditate upon His Communicated, Emanant, Diffufive Goodness, the continual Efflux of his Loving Kindness to Vs; and then try if it be poffible to deny him a return of all the Choiceft, and Sweetest, and Ferventeft Motions of our Souls, as the juft Tribute due to his unbounden and overflowing Grace.

Now, which way foever we turn our Thoughts, whether we regard the Present Life or the Future, whether we confider ourselves as the Works of his Hands as we are Men, or of his Grace as we are Chriftians; or, as I may fay, as the Works of our own Hands as we are Sinners; if we obferve from how many Terms of Enmity and Distance God has freed us, with how many Titles of Nearness and Relation he has endear'd us, if we recollect how Abfolute our Dependance is upon him, how Universal our Receipts are from him; which way foever we look, his Benefits are so far beyond our repaying by Deeds, that they are far above our acknowledgment by Words, nay beyond the very conceptions of our Heart.

For

For fo immense a Debt, that we are fo far from being able to discharge, that Num bers are wanting to reckon up the Sum, and Imagination is too narrow to conceive the dignity of the leaft Particular of it, what re turn can be made, nay, what does the Univerfal Creditor demand but Love? And can we be fo Ingrateful, fo Infenfible, so Dead, as to refuse Him This? Shall Love upon Us only, lofe its Natural Power, its common Effect of begetting Love? Shall fuch a Love lofe it? A Love fo boundless, fo undeferved, fo free, as that wherewith God has Loved Us? The Lord did not fet His Love upon you, fays Mofes to Ifrael, because you were more in Number,but because the Lord Loved you. Deut. 7. 7, 8. As the Almighty could defcribe himself by nothing but Himself, I am that I am; fo his Love, that is Himself, For God is Love, can be refolv'd into no other Motive but his Love, He Sav'd us, because he Lov'd us. But all this,all that Mofes could fay to the Ifraelites, is yet far fhort of the Breadth, and Length, and Depth, and Height, of the Love of Chrift to us. To be Loving and Kind and Beneficent, to thofe, who have not in the least deferv'd any fuch thing, is exceeding Gracious, is Godlike, is Divine. But to confer the highest Benefits that Sovereign Love can invent, on those that on the contrary juftly deferv'd the greatest Evils

that

that Omnipotent Anger could inflict; not only to remove those from us, but himself to undergo them for us, what fhall we call this? It is Godlike, for we can fay nothing greater; but fo Godlike, that even of God himself, whofe very Being is Goodness, who is himself Love, we could not have conceiv'd it, had we not had the most clear Revelation and moft Wonderful and Gracious Experience of it. This is the highest Pitch, the Miracle, the Myftery of Love, this is the Love of Chrift, as St. Paul speaks, that paffes all Knowledge. Ephef. 3. 19.

And what is of Value enough to return for fuch incomprehenfible Love? Nothing certainly but Love. This is a Debt that must be paid in Kind, tho' it is impoffible to be paid in Degree. Bleffing therefore and Praise and Thanks, to this great Lover of Souls for Condefcending to be Beloved by us, nay to Command, nay to Defire our Love; and again, Bleffing, and Praife, and Thanks to him for teaching us how to Love him, for giving us his Commandments, the Law of Love. Alas! how could we poor Worms be fatisfy'd,(tho' we never fo eagerly defir'd it) whether we did Love him as we ought a Being fo fuperiour to our most elevated Thoughts, had He not Himself out of Infinite Compaffion to our Weakness taught us, what it was to do fo? He that

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