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trouble. To all these evils are they exposed, whose chief and supreme affection is placed on creatures like themselves: but the love of God delivers us from them all.

The worth of the object.

First, I say, love must needs be miserable, and full of trouble and disquietude, when there is not worth and excellency enough in the object to answer the vastness of its capacity. So eager and violent a passion, cannot but fret and torment the spirit, where it finds not wherewith to satisfy its cravings. And, indeed, so large and unbounded is its nature, that it must be extremely pinched and straitened, when confined to any creature; nothing below an infinite good can afford it room to stretch itself, and exert its vigour and activity. What is a little skindeep beauty, or some small degrees of goodness, to match or satisfy a passion which was made for God, designed to embrace an infinite good? No wonder lovers do so hardly suffer any rival, and do not desire that others should approve their passion by imitating it. They know the scantiness and narrowness of the good which they love, that it cannot suffice two, being in effect too little for one. Hence love, which is strong as death, occasioneth jealousy which is cruel as the grave; the coals whereof are coals of fire, which hath a most violent flame.

But divine love hath no mixture of this gall; when once the soul is fixed on that supreme and all-sufficient good, it finds so much perfection and goodness, as doth not only answer and satisfy its affection, but master and overpower it too: it finds all its love to be too faint and languid for such a noble object, and is only sorry that it can command no more. It wisheth for the flames of a seraph, and longs for the time when it shall be wholly melted and dissolved into love: and because it can do so little itself, it desires the assistance of the whole creation, that angels and men would concur with it in the admiration and love of those infinite perfections.

The certainty to be beloved again.

Again, love is accompanied with trouble, when it misseth a suitable return of affection: love is the most valuable thing we can bestow, and by giving it, we do in effect give all that we have; and therefore it needs must be afflicting to find so great a gift despised, that the present which one hath made of his whole heart, cannot prevail to obtain any return. Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves; it is a kind of voluntary death, wherein the lover dies to himself, and all his own interest, not thinking of them, nor caring for them any more, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party whom he loves. Thus he is quite undone unless he meets with reciprocal affection; he neglects himself, and the other hath no regard to him; but if he be beloved, he is revived, as it were, and liveth in the soul and care of the person whom he loves; and now he begins to mind his own concernments, not so much because they are his, as because the beloved is pleased to own an interest in them. He becomes dear unto himself, because he is so unto the other.

But why should I enlarge on so known a matter? Nothing can be more clear, than that the happiness of love depends on the return it meets with. And herein the divine lover hath unspeakably the advantage, having placed his affection on him whose nature is love; whose goodness is as infinite as his being; whose mercy prevented us when we were his enemies, therefore cannot choose but embrace us when we are become his friends. It is utterly impossible that God should deny his love to a soul wholly devoted to him, and which desires nothing so much as to serve and please him. He cannot disdain his own image, nor the heart in which it is engraven. Love is all the tribute which we can pay him, and it is the sacrifice which he will not despise.

The presence of the beloved person.

Another thing which disturbs the pleasure of love, and renders it a miserable and unquiet passion, is absence

and separation from those we love. It is not without a sensible affliction that friends do part, though for some little time. It is sad to be deprived of that society which is so delightful; our life becomes tedious, being spent in an impatient expectation of the happy hour wherein we may meet again. But if death hath made the separation, as sometime or other it must, this occasions a grief scarce to be paralleled by all the misfortunes of human life, and wherein we pay dear enough for the comforts of our friendship. But O how happy are those who have placed their love on him who can never be absent from them! They need but open their eyes, and they shall every where behold the traces of his presence and glory, and converse with him whom their soul loveth. And this makes the darkest prison,. or the wildest desert, not only supportable, but delightful to them.

The divine love makes us partake of an infinite happiness.

In fine, a lover is miserable if the person whom e loveth be so. They who have made an exchange of hearts by love, get thereby an interest in one another's happiness and misery: and this makes love a troublesome passion when placed on earth. The most fortunate person hath grief enough to mar the tranquillity of his friend; and it is hard to hold out, when we are attacked on all hands, and suffer not only in our own person but in another's. But if God were the object of our love, we should share in an infinite happiness, without any mixture or possibility of diminution; we should rejoice to behold the glory of God, and receive comfort and pleasure from all the praises wherewith men and angels do extol him. It should delight us beyond all expression, to consider, that the beloved of our souls is infinitely happy in himself, and that all his enemies cannot shake or unsettle his throne; that our God is in the heavens, and doth whatsoever he pleaseth.

Behold, on what sure foundations his happiness is built, whose soul is possessed with divine love; whose will is

transformed into the will of God, and whose greatest desire is, that his maker should be pleased. O the peace, the rest, the satisfaction that attendeth such a temper of mind!

He that loveth God finds sweetness in every

dispensation.

What an infinite pleasure must it needs be, thus, as it were, to lose ourselves in him, and, being swallowed up in the overcoming sense of his goodness, to offer ourselves a living sacrifice, always ascending unto him in flames of love! Never doth a soul know what solid joy and substantial pleasure is, till, once being weary of itself, it renounces all property, gives itself up to the author of its being, and feels itself become a hallowed and devoted thing; and can say, from an inward sense and feeling, My beloved is mine, (I account all his interest mine own) and I am his: I am content to be any thing for him, and care not for myself, but that I may serve him. A person moulded into this temper, would find pleasure in all the dispensations of providence. Temporal enjoyments would have another relish, when he should taste the divine goodness in them, and consider them as tokens of love sent by his dearest Lord and master. And chastisements, though they be not joyous but grievous, would hereby lose their sting: the rod as well as the staff would comfort him: he would snatch a kiss from the hand that was smiting him, and gather sweetness from that severity. Nay, he would rejoice, that though God did not the will of such a worthless and foolish creature as himself, yet he did his own will, and accomplished his own designs, which are infinitely more holy and wise.

The duties of Religion are delightful to him.

The exercises of religion, which to others are insipid and tedious, do yield the highest pleasure and delight to souls possessed with divine love. They rejoice when they are called to go up to the house of the Lord, that they may see his power and his glory, as they

have formerly seen it in his sanctuary. They never think themselves so happy as when, having retired from the world, and gotten free from the noise and hurry of affairs, and silenced all their clamorous passions, (those troublesome guests within,) they have placed themselves in the presence of God, and entertain fellowship and communion with him. They delight to adore his perfections, and recount his favours, and to protest their affection to him, and tell him a thousand times that they love him; to lay out their troubles or wants before him, and disburden their hearts in his bosom. Repentance itself is a delightful exercise, when it floweth from the principle of love: there is a secret sweetness which accompanieth those tears of remorse, those meltings and relentings of a soul returning unto God, and lamenting its former unkindness.

The severities of a holy life, and that constant watch which we are obliged to keep over our hearts and ways, are very troublesome to those who are overruled and acted by an external law, and have no law in their minds inclining them to the performance of their duty. But where divine love possesseth the soul, it stands as sentinel to keep out every thing that may offend the beloved, and doth disdainfully repulse those temptations which assault it. It complieth cheerfully, not only with explicit commands, but with the most secret notices of the beloved's pleasure; and is ingenious in discovering what will be most grateful and acceptable unto him. It makes mortification and self-denial change their harsh and dreadful names, and become easy; sweet and delightful things.

But I find this part of my letter swell bigger than I designed: indeed who would not be tempted to dwell on so pleasant a theme? I shall endeavour to compensate it by brevity in the other points.

The excellency of charity.

The next branch of the divine life is an universal charity and love. The excellency of this grace will be easily acknowledged, For what can be more noble and gener

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