CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN, 535 All his kindness is from self -love, because men love him, or highly value . him, òr praise him, or hive done him some good turn, or may do hirn good hereafter, or the like. If he bath any love to any .for his own worth, yet self-love can turn all that to hatred, if they seem against'him, or cross him in hit way ; for no man thatis a lover of the world, and flesh, and carnal self, can ever be a true friend to any other. For he loveth them but for his own ends; and ahy-cress- interests, will show the falsehood ofhis love ; 2 Tim. iii. 2--4. Matt. v, 46. , XLIII. 1. A Christian indeed bath a. special love to all the godly ; such as endeareth his heart unto them ; and such as will enable him to visit them, and relieve them in their wants, to his own loss and hazard, according to his 'ability andopportunity. For the image, ofGod is beautiful and honorable in his eyes : he loveth not them so much as God in them; Christ in them; the Holy Spirit in them. "Heforeseeth the 'day when he shall meet them in heaven, . and there rejoice in God with them to eternity. He loveth their cothpany and converse, and delighteth in their gracious words and lives. And the converseof ungodly an emptymen is a weariness to him, (unless in a way of duty, or when he can do them good.) "In his eyes a vile person is contemned, 'but he honoreth them that fear the Lord;." Psal. xv. 4. Other men grieve his soul with their iniquities, while he is delighted, with the appearances of God in his holy ones, éven the excelléntones on earth ; Psal. xvi. 3. 2 Pett ii. 7, 8... Yea, the infirmities of believers destroy not his love ; for he hath learned of God himself to difference between their abhorred frailties and their predominant.grace; and to love the very infants in the familyof Christ. Yea, though they wrong him, or quarrel with him, or censure hint in their weakness, he can honor their sincerity, and love them, still. And if some of them prove scandalous, and some seeming Christians fall away, or fall into the most odious crimes, he loveth religion nevertheless; but continueth as high an esteem of piety, and of all that are up- right, as he had before ; 1 John iv. 7, 8. 10. John xiii. 34, 35. 1 Thess: iv. 9. 1 John íii. 11. 14. 23. Matt.. xxv. 39, 40,, &c. 2: Theweak Christian sincerely loveth all that bear his Father's image ; but it is with a love so weak (even when it is most pas- sionate) as will sooner be abated or interrupted'byany tempting differences.' He is usually quarrelsome and froward with his breth- ren, and apter to confine his love to those that are of his ownopin- ion or party. And because God bath taught him to love all that are sincere, the devil tempteth him to censure them as not sincere, that so he may justify himself in the abatement of his love. ' And weak Christians are usually the most censorious, because they have the smallest degree Of'love, which covereth faults, and thinketh no
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