5 8 Children and Relations how to be denied. deftroyeth gracious knowing in part, that is, by perfeding it. Betore Sandification we know, efteem, regard, and love our parents, children, husbands, wives, meerly as thus re- lated to us,and in thefe Carnal refpeds,and rife nohigher: and ifwe had converft withChrift himfelf,and eat and drank in his prefence, and lovedhim accordingy, it would have been but by a felfifh, carnal knowledge, efteem, and love : But now we are fanetified, as God is exalted , and felf denied and anni- hilated, as oppofed or feparated from God, fo are all things that belong to felf : And therefore if we had loved parents or Chrift himfelf but with fuch a carnal felfith love before, yet nowwe love themwith higher love, that carrieth felf and all to God. And thus even fog is fo deftroyed ( as oppofite to God and feparate from him ) as thereby to be exalted as unitedand fubfervient to him. And fo is the love of friends, Relations, or Chrifts himfelf ( if wehad lovedhim as a natu- ral Kinfman or brother,as fome did that yet believed not in him) its deftroyed,but by an exalting, perfectingdeftrudion. Juft fo far as felf is dead, fo far Carnal kNowiedge and felf- intereft in friends is dead, and their dearnefs to us for that interefl, and felf and they are all advanced and dedicated un- toGod. And thus it is that the Apoffie wouldbe underftood, and thus it is that [elf muft be denied in your Relations ; but becaufe much duty confifteth herein, I shall moreover tell you the feveral partsof it in a few Diredions which shall moffly extend to other Relations, but principally to parents, becaufe they artapteft to exceed. z. See that it be godmere thesolonrfelves thatjots love in your Children, and other Relation,. And to that End, fee what of God is in them, as theyare his creatures, as devoted to him, as any way gifted by him for his fervice, and as fanetified if they are fuch. He that loveth any creature for it felf, and cloth not principally love God in them, loveth them but car- nally. 2. See therefore that youvalue and love thole moll that have moll ofGod in them, and thebell ofhis endowment,. Love a crook- ed, deformed child, that is Godly, better then the molt come- ly, or beautiful, or witty, that is ungodly. When Parents have
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