Miscellanea spiritualia: or, Devout essaies: composed by the Honourable Walter Montagu Esq.

§. IV.

Motives to Filiall love, drawn from our seve∣rall relations to God, as also from the digni∣ty and advantages of this sort of love.

LEt us observe a little under what affecting notions the divine Trinity vouchsafeth to exhibit it selfe to the love of man, the first person under that of a father, the se∣cond of a brother, the third of a comforter or a friend; so that the love of man may be said to be an act wherein they have all one indentity, while they are distinguished into these three obliging relations, issuing out of the unity of love; thus the dei∣ty seemeth to draw it selfe out into these several lines of bene∣volence, to take in all the wayes and avenues to our love, since there is no inclination that is not suted and matched by the••e agreeable correspondencies, if our affections do not so easily ascend to the relation of a father, we have that of a bro∣ther, which is level and even with the current of our naturall love, and if it seem to runne too stilly and slow in this chan∣nell, we have the respect of a friend and comforter to turn it into, in which our affections may be said to runne downward in respect of their pleasant current, and so to have the quicker motion: thus hath the divine charity fitted all the sympathies of our rationall nature, with competent and attractive mo∣tives to ingage our loves unto it selfe.

Doth not then this Method prove what God saith by the Prophet, What could I do that I have not done for this generation? shall man then leave any thing undone, that his love may re∣tribute?

When the Prophet aslae••h in admiration of Gods conde∣scendence, What is man that thou art thus mindful of him? may we not answer, that though man was nothing but by Gods

minding him, yet now by that act of bounty, he is become sonne, brother, and friend to God: Then may we not ask now with greater wonder, What is man, that he can be unmind∣full of God? and attend to the loving himselfe who is nothing, thereby deducting from his love to God, who offered him yet more for his affection, the becoming even like himselfe, for but loving him all he can, and specially when selfe-love which opposeth this integrity, reduceth him to worse then nothing; surely no body can seriously ponder this state and obligation of man, and not cry out with the Prodigall, if he have hitherto mispent and dissipated his love, Father I am unworthy to look upon thee in this relation, and if he have not been such an unthrift, neverthelesse if he find much mercenary drosse stick∣ing upon his love, let him humble himselfe with the unset∣led father, in the Gospel, confessing, Lord I love thee, but im∣purely, and do thou purge the impurity of my love, and love that calleth in for this succour, groweth strong enough by this displicence of his weaknesse.

This indulgent dispension with our defective love, floweth from that gratious relation of friends to the Son of God: which dignity seemeth so firmly instated in our nature, as the conferrer of it did not degrade, even Judas, after the forfei∣ture * 1.1 thereof, he was received with the title of friend, when he came to renounce all his rights to that concession, it seemeth he was yet in a capacity of being restored, if he would but have pleaded by love and sorrow for his restauration, he might have sold God, and yet have injoyed him, if he would but have loved him after he had sold him; had he instead of casting the price of his dispaire, into the materiall temple, brought but back his faith and his love to the living temple, casting himselfe forward at his feet, as a counterfall to reco∣ver his falling backward when he fell from them, had he then with penitent kisses repai'd unto Christs feet, besought the ta∣king off that perfidious impudence which stuck upon his lips, we may well believe Christ would have received him in this returne, with Friend thou art welcome, comming with these

kisses to signe the Sonne of man's being the Sonne of God, and it is very probable he would then have equalized the good theef.

O what cannot love obtaine of him who loved us so much, as he seemed not to love himselfe in the expres∣sion of it? Let us then copy this love, as well as our dispro∣portions allow us, and aspire to such a dilection of him, as may seeme a desertion, and even an exinanition of our selves, which were as the Apostle saith, the degrees of his love to us; * 1.2 and in this our imitation of his love, we have a strange ad∣vantage of him; for he was faine to take upon him the forme of a servant, to expresse his excessive charity, and we put on a divine similitude in this our exhibition of pure disinterested love to him; for we manifest our partaking of the divine na∣ture in this denudation of our own, when our love is refined and purged from mercenary respects.

And when we penetrate into the divine nature, we perceive that we are so farre from losing any thing by this self-post-po∣sure, as we lose even no time in point of our remuneration: For there is no interim between our loves looking on God for himselfe, and the seeing our interests in God, since in the same instant, our loves look directly upward upon this mirour of the Deity, it reflecteth to us our own blessednesse, and the lesse we looked for our selves, the more we then see of them, re∣splendent in that clarity.

This Celestiall mirrour, maketh a reflection much differing from all materiall ones, for it doth not send back to us the same image we set before it, but a farre better then we had any capacity to expose unto it: for when our love looketh up∣on God, refer'd simply to his own essentiall purity: This sort of mirrour returneth to us not so much the image of our loves to God, as the representation of Gods love to us, by reason we see then God loving us, in this our intuition of his good∣nesse: which reflection sheweth us a better character of this manner of our love, then we could have prefigured to our selves; and when we behold our selves in that image of Gods

loving us, we cannot overvalue our selves under that notion, so that this is a blessed and a safe course, joyntly to please God, and humour our own nature in a selfe-complacency.

Thus have I endeavoured to figure these two loves, and I have set them both in the tabernacle, but in unequall ranks of dignity, the one without, among the utentsils of brasse, the other within the vail, among the instruments of gold: so as the most ignoble of these two species, is allowed in the ser∣vice of religion in some degree, but is not accepted single, as sufficient for our religious oblation: For God tollerateth no longer the infirmity of that love, whereof we our selves dis∣pence with the insufficiency, so that the relying upon mercena∣ry love, may decry it, while our disclaiming the meannesse of it, may hold it up current with him, to whom King David pay∣ing the purest species, said, Thou art my God, and standest i•• no need of my goods. * 1.3

Notes

• * 1.1

  Matt. 26. 50.
• * 1.2

  Phil. 2. 7.
• * 1.3

  Psal.