me to embrace it with joy; if absent, it puts forth itself into RESOLUTION I. I am resolved, by the grace of God, always to make my affections subservient to the dictates of my understanding, that my reason may not follow, but guide my affections. The affections being of themselves blind and inordinate, unless they are directed by reason and judgment, they either move toward a wrong object, or pursue the right in a wrong way. And this judgment must be mature and deliberate, such as arises from a clear apprehension of the nature of the object that affects me, and a thorough consideration of the several circumstances that attend it. And great care must be taken that I do not impose upon myself by fancy and imagination, that I do not mistake fancy for judgment, or the capricious humours of my roving imagination for the solid dictates of a well-guided reason for my [Matt. 15. fancy is as wild as my affections, and if "the blind lead the 14.] blind, they will both fall into the ditch." And, alas! how oft am I deceived in this manner! If I do but fancy a thing good and lovely, how eager are my affections in the pursuit of it! If I do but fancy any thing evil and hurtful to me, how doth my heart presently rise up against it, or grieve and sorrow for it! And this, I believe, hath been the occasion of all the enormities and extravagancies I have been guilty of, through the whole course of my past life, divesting me of my reasonable faculties, as to the acts and exercises of them, and subjecting my soul to the powers of sense, that I could not raise my affections above them. Thus, for instance, I have not loved grace, because my fancy could not see its beauty; I have not loathed sin, because my fancy could not comprehend its misery; and I have not truly desired Heaven, because my fancy could not reach its glory: whereas, if the transient beauty and lustre of this world's vanities were but presented to my view, how has my fancy mounted up to the highest pitch of pleasure and ambition, and inflamed my heart with the desire of them! And thus, poor wretch! have I been carried about with the powerful charms of sense, without having any other guide of my affections but what is common to the very brutes that perish; fancy supplying that place in the sensitive, which reason does in the rational soul. And, alas! what is this but, with Nebuchadnezzar, to leave communion with men, and herd myself with the flocks of the beasts of the field? And what a shame and reproach is this to the image of God, in which I was created! Oh! Thou that art the Author of my nature, help me, I beseech Thee, to act more conformably to it for the time to come, that I may no longer be bewildered or misled by the blind conduct of my straggling fancy, this ignis fatuus,' that hurries me over bogs and precipices to the pit of destruction; but that I may bring all my affections and actions to the standard of a clear and sound judgment, and let that judgment be guided by the unerring light of Thy Divine word, that so I may neither love, desire, fear, nor detest any thing, but what my judgment, thus formed, tells me I ought to do. I know it will be very hard thus to subject my affections to the dictates and commands of my judgment: but howsoever, it is my resolution this morning, in the presence of Almighty God, to endeavour it, and never to suffer my heart to settle its affections upon any object, till my judgment hath passed its sentence upon it. And as I will not suffer my affections to run before my judgment, so, whenever that is determined, I steadfastly resolve to follow it; that so, my apprehensions and affections always going together, I may be sure to walk in the direct path of God's Commandments, and enter the gate that leads to everlasting life. And the better to facilitate the performance of this general resolution, it being necessary to descend to particulars, RESOLUTION II. I am resolved, by the grace of God, to love God as the best of goods, and to hate sin as the worst of evils. As God is the centre of our concupiscible affections, so sin is the object of those we call irascible: and the affections of love and hatred being the ground of all the rest, I must have a great care that I do not mistake or miscarry in them: for if these be placed upon wrong objects, it is impossible any of the rest should be placed upon right ones. In order, therefore, to prevent such a miscarriage, as God is the greatest good, and sin the greatest evil, I resolve to love God above all things else in the world, and to hate sin to the same degree; and so to love other things only in relation to God, and to hate nothing but in reference to sin. As for the first, the loving God above all things, there is nothing seems more reasonable; inasmuch as there is nothing lovely in any creature but what it receives from God; and by how much the more it is like to God, by so much the more it is lovely unto us. Hence it is, that beauty, or an exact symmetry and proportion of parts and colours, so attracts our love, because it so much resembles God, Who is beauty and perfection itself. And hence it is, likewise, that grace is the most lovely thing in the world, next to God, as being the image of God Himself stamped upon the soul; nay, it is not only the image and representation, but it is the influence and communication of Himself to us; so that the more we have of grace, we may safely say so much the more we have of God within us. Why, therefore, should I grudge my love to Him, Who only deserves it; Who is not only infinitely lovely in Himself, but the Author and Perfection of all loveliness in His creatures? Why? The true reason is, that my affections have run a-gadding without my judgment, or else my judgment hath been balked or anticipated by my fancy; whereas now that my apprehensions of God are a little cleared up, and my judgment leads the way, though nobody sees me, yet, methinks, I cannot but blush at myself that I should ever lie doting upon these dreams and shadows here below, and not fix my affections upon the infinite beauty and all-sufficiency of God above, Who deserves my love and admiration so infinitely beyond them. Howsoever, therefore, I have heretofore placed my affections upon other things above God, I am now resolved to love God, not only above many or most things, but above all things else in the world. And here, by loving God, I do not understand that sensitive affection I place upon material objects; for it is impossible that that should be fixed upon God, Who is a pure spiritual Being: but that as by the deliberate choice of my will I take Him for my chiefest good, so I ought to prefer Him as such before my nearest and dearest possessions, interests, or relations, and whatsoever else may at any time stand in competition with Him. And thus, as I shall endeavour to love God, so likewise to hate sin above all things: and this is as necessary as the former, for all things else have something of good in them, as they are made by God; but sin being in its own nature a privation of good, and directly opposite to the nature and will of God, (as I have before shewn,) it has nothing of beauty or amiableness to recommend it to my affections. On the contrary, it is a compound of deformity and defilement, that is always attended with punishment and misery, and must therefore be the object of my hatred and abhorrence, wheresoever I find it. For as God is the centre of all that is good, so is sin the fountain of all the evil in the world. All the strife and contention, ignominy and disgrace, misfortunes and afflictions, that I observe in the world; all the diseases of my body, and infirmities of my mind; all the errors of my understanding, and irregularities of my will and affections; in a word, all the evils whatsoever that I am affected with or subject to in this world, are still the fruits and effects of sin : for if man had never offended the chiefest good, he had never been subject to that train of evils which attended his transgression. Whensoever, therefore, I find myself begin to detest and abhor any evil, I shall for the future endeavour to turn my eyes to the spring-head, and loathe and detest the fountain that sends forth all those bitter and unwholesome streams, as well as the channels of those corrupt hearts in which they flow. And for this reason I resolve to hate sin wheresoever I find it, whether in myself or in others, in the best of friends as well as the worst of [1Pet.4.8.] enemies. Love, I know, and "charity covers a multitude of sins," and where we love the man, we are all of us but too apt to overlook or excuse his faults. For the prevention of this, therefore, I firmly resolve, in all my expressions of love to my fellow-creatures, so to love the person as yet to hate his sins; and so to hate his sins as yet to love his person. The last of which, I hope, I shall not find hard to practise, my nature, by the blessing of God, being not easily inclined to hate any man's person whatsoever; and the former will not be much more difficult, when I consider that by how much I love my friend, by so much more should I hate whatsoever will be offensive or destructive to him. Having thus fixed my resolutions with regard to those two commanding passions of my soul, love and hatred, RESOLUTION III. I am resolved, by the assistance of Divine grace, to make God the principal object of my joy, and sin the principal object of my grief and sorrow; so as to grieve for sin more than suffering, and for suffering only for sin's sake. The affections of joy and grief are the immediate issues of love and hatred, and therefore not at all to be separated in their object. Having, therefore, resolved to love, I cannot but resolve likewise to rejoice in God above all things; for the same measure of love I have towards any thing, the same measure of complacency and delight I must necessarily have in the enjoyment of it. As, therefore, I love God above all things, and other things only in subserviency to Him, so must I rejoice in God above all things, and in other |