Page 16
[ LXIV] God must be loved for himself onely.
YOu shall have a man scrape and crouch, and keep a do with a man he never saw or knew before, one that he is ready, it may be (when his back is turn'd) to curse; but yet he will do this for his almes, for his gain, to make a prey, a use of him some way or other; this man loves his almes, loves his prey, loveth his bounty;* 1.1 but all this is no argument of love to the man. Thus, for a man to make towards God, and to seem to own him, and to be one of the generation of those that seek his face, to addresse himself in outward conformity, and many other things, by which another may (if he have no other ground) judge charitably of him; yet all this is nothing, except a man may discern something, that may give him a tast,* 1.2 that his spirit doth uprightly and sincerely seek God, that he loveth God for God himself, that he loveth Grace for grace it self, he loveth the Commandments of God, because they are God's commandments, &c. And thus it is, that our love, our desire after God must be carried sincerely, not for any by and base resp••cts what∣soever.