308 THE ABSOLUTE the strongest of your affections? Sirs, though there is nothing that the blind world is more confident in than this, that they love Christ with all their hearts, yet is there nothing wherein they are more false and faulty. I beseech you, therefore, deal truly in answering here. Are your hearts set upon the Lord Jesus'? Do you love him above all things in this world? Do you stick at your answer ? Do you not know? Sure, then, at best you love him but little, or else you could not choose but knów it. Love is a stirring and sensible affection : you know what it is to love a friend. Feel by this pulse whether you live or die. Doth it beat more strongly toward Christ than to any thing else? Never question man the necessity of this ; he hath concluded, ' If thou love any thing ore than him, thou art not worthy of him, nor canst be his disciple.' Are thy thoughts of Christ thy freest and thy ,sweetest thoughts? Are thy speeches of him thy sweetest speeches ? When thou awakest, art thou still with him ; and is he next thy heart? When thou walkest abroad, dost thou take him in thy thoughts? Canst thou say, and lie not, that thou avast ever deeply in love with him, that thou dost love him but as heartily as thou dost thy friend, and art as loath to displease him, and as glad of his presence, and as much troubled at his strange- ness or absence ? Hath thy minister or godly acquaintance ever heard thee bemoaning thy soul for want of Christ,. or inquiring what thou shouldest do to attain him ? or thy family heard thee commending his excellency, and laboring to kindle their affections towards him ? Why, love will'not be hid : when it hath its desire, it will be rejoicing, and when it wants it, it will be complaining. Or, at least, can thy conscience witness thy longings, thy groans, thy prayers for a Christ? Wilt thou stand tó the testimony of these witnesses ? Do you love his weak, his poor, despised mem- bers? Do you visit them; clothe them, feed them to your power? Not only in a common natural compassion to them is they are your neighbors, but do you love or relieve a prophet in the name of a prophet, or a disciple in the name of a disciple? Matt. x. 40. 42. Shall all these decide the question? Beloved hearers, I profess to you all, in the name of our Lord, that it is not your bold and confident affirming that you love Christ, which will serve your turn when Christ shall judge : he will search deep, and judge according to the truth in the inward parts. How many thousands will then perish as his utter ene- mies, that verily thought themselves his friends I How easily now might they find their mistake if they would but be at the pains to examine themselves ! O try, try, sirs, before God try you ; judge yourselves before Christ judge you. It would grieve a man's heart that knows what it is to love Christ, to believe, to be
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