(Preached onboard the London Galley, between Charles Town and Boston.) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. Mark, xii. 30. When God had formed man out of the dust, and breathed into him the breath of life, when he had stamped his own image and superscrip tion upon him, in his understanding, will, and affections, he gave him a law, even to love Him in whose image he was made; and love, the one thing which his Creator required in return for all his benefits, he therefore re quired, because it was the one thing needful to perfect the happiness of his creature. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" was the whole of that law which God enjoined to man in his original state ; but when he had wilfully degraded himself from that state of happiness and perfection, by transgressing the single pro hibition which was appointed for the test of his love, a more particular law became needful for a remedy of those many inventions he had found out, whereby, being alienated from the love of God, he was enslaved to the love of his creatures, and consequently to error and vice, to shame and to misery. A more particular law was accordingly given him, by the rules whereof he was fully apprised of every avenue at which sin and pain might break in upon his soul. By this he was also directed to those several means which his mer ciful Creator had appointed for the renewal of his nature ; and to complete its use, (till his nature was restored to the image of Him who created him,) it pointed out all those thoughts, and words, and works, by so many express in junctions, which the love of God (when that was the spring of his soul) produced without any injunction. Yet we may easily perceive that, even in this state of man, love is still the fulfilling of the law ; of every law which hath proceeded out

of the mouth of God, at sundry times and in divers places, and particularly of that which in these last days he hath given us by his Son. Love is the end of every commandment of Christ, all of which, from the least even to the greatest, are given to man, not for his own sake, but purely in order to this. The negative commands, what are they, but so many cautions against what estranges us from the love of God ? and the positive either enjoin the use of means of grace, which are only so many means of love, or the practice of those particular virtues which are the genuine proofs of love, and the steps whereby we ascend from strength to strength towards a perfect obedi ence of this first and greatest commandment that commandment which contains all, pre ceded all, and which shall remain when all the rest are done away ; " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." I shall endeavour to lay down, First, a plain sense of this commandment ; Secondly, to prove this sense to be the tru« one ; and,

Thirdly, to answer the grand objection against it. First, I am to lay down a plain sense of this commandment. The love of God may be taken in various tenses : first, as it implies obedience to him. Thus St. John : " This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments ;" and such a metonomy, or putting the cause for the effect, frequently occurs in the Sacred Writings, where as the love of Him is placed for outward obedience, of which it is the vital principle, so the fear of God is said to be the departure from evil, which is the necessary consequence of it. By the same figure, the love of God has been sometimes taken for a desire of en joying his presence ; for this immediately flows from love, and increases in the same proportion with it : whereas some eminent men have un warily confounded the stream with the fountain, and have improperly termed the desire of en joying God, love of desire, as if love and de sire were all one ; but desire is as essentially distinct from the love that produces it, as is any fruit from the tree upon which it grows.

Love itself is, by the common consent of mankind, and agreeably to universal expe rience, divided into love of complacency or delight, and love of gratitude or benevolence : and accordingly, love of God may be divided into love of delight and love of gratitude ; the one regarding what he is in himself, the other what he is to us. The boundless perfections of his nature are an eternal ground of delight to every creature capable of apprehending them, and the numberless exertions of all those per fections on our behalf lay the strongest claim to our gratitude. In the former sense, every reasonable creature is to love God, because his power, wisdom, yea, and his goodness, are in finite : in the latter, " We love Him (says the apostle) because He first loved us." When these fountains have once united their streams, they flow with redoubled violence, and bear the Christian strongly forward to please and obey the All-merciful, and to be made one with God the All-perfect ; to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength. As to the measure of love prescribed in the

words, all commentators agree that they mean at least thus much we must not love anything more than God ; we may not love the creature above the Creator; nay, that we must not love any thing so much as Him that he claims of us a love of pre eminence ; that we must reserve for him the highest seat in our hearts, the largest and choicest share of our affection. They are all likewise agreed that we may en tertain no love which is contrary to the love of Him ; that whatever affection we find, or have reason to suspect, will either prevent the kindling of the divine flame, or quench it when kindled, or any way obstruct its in crease, or diminish its heat or brightness to that affection we must not give place, no, not for a moment, but immediately resist it with all our might. But we must rise higher than this ; or we shall never attain the plain sense of the com mand, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength ;" which imports in ordinary construction (to use the words of a great master of reason as well

as devotion), " that we love God, not only with the highest and best, but with the whole of our affection that we love him not only with every capacity, passion, and faculty, with the understanding, will, and affections, but with every degree of every power, with all the lati tude of our will, with all the whole possibility of our souls ; that we devote to him, not only the highest degree of our love, but every degree of it ; in one word, that God be not only the principal, but the only object of our love." (Norris's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 7.) Not that the Almighty is so to be the only object of our love, as to exclude his creatures from a subordinate share of it. " The Lord rejoiceth in his works :" consequently man, made after his likeness, not only may, but ought to imitate him therein, and with pleasure to own that they are very good ;" nay, the love of God constraineth those in whose hearts it is shed abroad to love what bears his image, and we cannot suppose any love forbidden by God which necessarily flows from the love of him. And even that love of the creatures which does not flow from the love of God, if it lead

to him, is accepted. For this end hath he given us them to enjoy, that by these steps we may ascend to higher enjoyments ; therefore, what ever love tends to the love of God is no more forbidden than what flows from it. Yet further : there are many of the works of his hands which God expressly commands us to love, and that, not only with a love of be nevolence, but of complacency : for such surely is natural affection ; such is that tenderest of all passions towards our fellow-creatures, which our blessed Redeemer does not disdain to com pare to the love between himself and his church ; and such is the delight which we ought to have in the saints that are upon the earth, and in those that excel in virtue. The contrary opinion, that we are forbid to lova any creature in any degree, supposes the allknowing God to command our love of himself, and yet to prohibit the immediate necessary effect of it. It charges the All-wise with enjoining the end, and in that very injunction forbidding the means ; it blasphemes his most holy and perfect law, as notoriously contradicting itself,

as requiring elsewhere what was absolutely condemned in the very first commandment of it. This, therefore, duly considered, the sense of that command is easily resolved into this Thou shalt so love the Lord thy God with all thy powers, and with the whole force of all, as ever to remember that thou art bound, yea, by this very law, to obey him whom thou lovest ; and therefore to love those things which he com mands thee to love so far as he commands it. Secondly, to cherish that love which is the necessary effect of thus loving the Lord God, viz. the love of those men whom he has cre ated, particularly those who are renewed afterhis image, in righteousness and true holiness; and, Thirdly, to use all the means which reason and experience recommend as conducive to this great end, especially to love all his creatures so far as it tends to the love of thy Creator. In deed the third rule includes both the preceding, seeing that all obedience to God tends to the love of him, and every other fruit of divine love increases that love from which it sprung. The full sense of the first commandment is therefore contained in this single sentence

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God alone for his own sake, and all things beside only so far as they tend to. him:. t', ',.; That this is the mark towards, which we are all to press if we would attain! the prize of: our high calling; that none can attain it unless they press toward this mark, according to the several abilities which God hath given them; that this plain sense of the great, command ment is the true one, I am in the second place to show, first from the Holy Scriptures, se condly from reason. ..."•.' vr-i From every part of the Holy Scriptures, it appears that love is the proper worship of. a reasonable nature. To go no further than the words immediately preceding the text, " Hear, Israel (said our Divine Teacher), the Lord thy God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Thou shalt love Him why ? because He is the Lord thy God, and as such has a just claim to thy love ; because love is the worship due to thy God ; because it is the proper homage of a rational being to his Cre ator. " Thinkest thou that he will eat bulls' flesh, and drink the blood of goats? Offerunto

thy God thanksgivings, and pay thy heart to the Most Highest" Without this he will not be pleased, though thou shouldest give him thousands of rams, or all thy substance to the poor. But with love every sacrifice is accepted, with this He ever is well pleased. Hear, O Israel, God is thy Lord ! therefore shalt thou worship him, and all worship but love is abo mination before him. Therefore, " thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ;" thou shalt not divide thy heart ; he has the right to it all ; thou mayest not alienate any part of it ; reserve for him not the largest share, but the whole of thy affections ; hadst thou more lords thou mightest have more loves than one, but if thou hast no other God, thou canst have no other love. It is written, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Be hold, love is the worship of thy Lord, this alone is his reasonable service ; therefore, thou shalt delight in the Lord thy God, and him only «halt thou serve. What wonder is it then, that the essential wisdom of the Father knew no mean between

a single and an evil eye ! That his inspired apostle exclaims with such vehemence of affec tion, " Purify your hearts, ye double-minded ;" that his beloved disciple, after " This is the true God," immediately subjoins, "Little chil dren, keep yourselves from idols." From what idols and what idolatry we are to keep ourselves, he elsewhere explicitly declares in those well known words, " Love not the world, neither the things of the world : if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Were any further proof from the Holy Scrip tures required, let us hear St. Paul : " Whe ther ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God." It is here required that, whatever use we make of any power which God hath bestowed on us, whatever act of any fa culty we exert, all should tend to the glory the love of God ; and it is enjoined expressly. We need not argue from a parity of reason, " whether ye eat or drink," therefore, whether ye rejoice or love : we need not argue from the less to the greater ; if every bodily action, which at best profiteth but little, how much more is every movement of our soul to be

subordinated to the end of our being ? No, we have yet a more certain word of direction,; the very terms are, " whatever ye do." This commandment indeed is exceedingly wide; not a word of our tongue, not a thought of our hearty can escape it : do ye act, do ye speak, do ye reas6n, do ye love ? do all to the glory of God. It is true that, if the literal sense of these Scriptureswere absurd,and apparentlycontraryto rea son, we should be obliged not to interpret them according ho the letter, but to seek for a looser meaning ': to guard those, therefore, who desire to love God, even as he requires, from this spe cious pretence for idolatry, I proceed to show that this very sense is not contrary, but agree able to the strictest reason. And how reason able it is, so to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our strength, as to love nothing else but for his sake and in sub ordination to the love of him, may appear, First, from the general acknowledgment of all men, that we ought to love nothing above God. This is granted to be of the last concern ; all men confess that on this ' eternity depends.

Reason, therefore, must direct us to ensure this point, to risk no hazard of so mighty a stake; whatever we do, ,to secure from all pos sible danger our passage into a happy, futurity, But this cannot b,e., done while ,we entertain any love insubordinate to the love of God ; for; while we love any object without reference tp Hjiji,; we are never certain that we shall not love it above him. So long as the very disease, of our nature is the loving the creature for its, own sake; so long as this love so imperceptibly steals upon us, that it is impossible to fix its bounds and to say, "Hitherto sh alt thou go and no further ;" it is equally impossible that we should be safe from loving it more than, God. If reason then prohibits our running the, least hazard of loving any thing more than God, and if we must be in imminent danger of doing soj while we love any thing without reference to him, then reason, as well as the Holy Scriptures, requires that we should so. love God with all our hearts, as to love nothing but for his sake, and in subordination to the love of him.

The same truth may be evidently inferred from that further concession made by all men, " that we may not entertain any love which is contrary to, or subversive of, the love of God which does, directly or remotely tend to it for all love which does either, obstructs it: It it does not lessen what we have already at tained, it prevents our attaining what we other wise might attain ; for the force of a divided, can never be equal to a united heart ; nor is it possible that a part of our strength should Carry us so far as the whole. But this is not the heaviest charge against that love of the creature which is not con ducive to the love of God. No, it is not only obstructive, but subversive of it. They are in consistent and incompatible. Many loves in deed may consist in the same heart, so they be all subordinate to one ; but two ultimate loves are as flat a contradiction as two firsts and two lasts: so that when the son of Sirach says, " Woe be the fearful hearts and faint hands, and the sinner which goeth two ways," he can only mean, either he that flatters himself he goes both towards God and towards his idol ;

or rather that is unstable in his ways, some times walking in one, sometimes in the other. That this is frequently our own unhappy case, experience is sufficient to prove; for not the Almighty himself can make it possible to walk in two contrary ways at the same time. our habitual love must at any one time termi nate either in God or in some of his creatures, and if it terminates in him, then it does not in them ; if in them, not in him. We cannot therefore have two ultimate loves ; and by uncontrovertible consequence, when we have any ultimate love but that of God, the love of God is not in us. Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that there may exist an insubordinate which is not an ultimate love ; for as every end which is subordinate to no other is itself an ultimate end, so every love which is subordinate is not an ultimate end: ultimate and subordinate being con tradictory terms, between which there is no mean. But who is this, touching whom we thus coldly debate whether he should wholly pos sess or only share our affection ? Is it not the

Lord our God ! the all-sufficient I the all-per. feet? In whom i are hid all the treasures: of loveliness, of goodness, of felicity? Is it not He of whose .wisdom, of . whose bounty, of whose mercies, there is no number? and are we afraid of loving Him too much ! with too fervent, too entire an affection ?. Hath the ,love of God towards us been re strained ? hath he set any bounds to this ocean ? Who is He that hath raised us from the dust ? who breathed into us these living souls ? who endowed us with the capabilities, of enjoyment in both worlds ? who upholdeth us with the word of his power ? who protects us by his gracious providence ? who redeemed us by the blood of his Son ? who sanctifies us by the graces of his Hoty Spirit?, ,. ,;» Oh God ! are the creatures of thy hand, the purchase of our Blessed Redeemer, dis puting whether they, may not love thee too much ? whether thou art worthy of all their affection ? Does not the essential loveliness of thy nature deserve, not only all, but infinitely more than such finite creatures can offer ! Is not our whole affection immeasurably less than

SERMQN iX. the least, if thy mercies! Or if the whole mite of out love could repay those we have already received, is thine arm shortened? Is not the omnipotent God ahle is he not will ing nay, has he not,; sworn, to render us a thousand fold for every particle of love we give him, throughout a blissful eternity ? Can we withhold from Him one atom from ;the whole mass without tearing; a ; star from;) our own crown ? and shall it be thought unreason able that he should demand the whole ?.-that he should require all our love ? Yea! worthy art thou, O Lord, -of .all- the love of all the creatures thou hastmade;!; especially of those whom Thou hast redeemed ! whom Thou hast guided by thy council, and wilt hereafter, re ceive Jnto glory ! v The grand objection which has been fre quently made against this sense of the great commandment (to which most others are easily reducible) and which I proposed to consider in the third place, is this, " That did it oblige us so to love God with all our heart as to love nothing but for his sake, and in order to the love of Him, such an obligation would be destructive

of that happiness which religion was designed to establish ; it would reduce us to a gloomy and melancholy state, and make the Christian of a sad countenance ; deprive us of all the inno cent pleasures of life, and reduce our enjoy ments to so narrow a compass, that they would not counterbalance our pains, and support us under the evils to which we are now exposed, so that 'if only in this life (even without the persecutions of primitive ages) there were hope, we should be of all men the most miserable.' " I shall reply first to the particular branches of this objection, and then in general to the whole. With regard to the first, be it observed, that the happiness whereof it supposes the entire love of God to be destructive is a happiness that is to result from an enjoyment of the crea tures not referred to the great Creator, that is, it is such a happiness as never did, nor ever will exist. " That this happiness is not, can not be found in any creatures (to use the words of the above-cited author), is obvious from experience, from the vanity which we find in all things, and from the restlessness and desire of change which is consequent upon it : we try one thing after another, as the searching bee wanders from flower to flower, but gO off from every one with disappointment and a deluded expectation Though almost every ; thing promises, nothing answers; and even the succession of new enjoyments (the best resource we have for the emptiness of each) amuses but does not satisfy ; a glorious happiness this ! vexation, disappointment, and loss ! and of this happiness, it must be con fessed, the love ofGod is absolutely destructive." But does it not render men gloomy and me lancholy, by depriving them of the innocent pleasures of life ? They who speak thus seem not to be aware how easy it is to produce a cloud of witnesses, and those heathens as well as Christians, who, though they allow there ar6 a. thousand sorts of pleasure, which, considered with regard to the whole species, are neither good nor bad, yet utterly deny that any indivi dual pleasure is barely innocent. But we need not pagan testimonies, since plain reason is sufficient to show that this expression can

never be used with propriety. It must import either too much or too little ; for every plea sure, weighed with the circumstances that attend it, is either more ;or less than innocent. If it tends to the love of God it is more ; if it does not, it is less. Pleasures of all sorts used in that proportion wherein they enliven and strengthen our minds, arid render us more fit for discharging the duties of our responsive stations, deserve a better title than that of in nocent ; they are virtuous and rewardable: and pleasure of any sort, used in any other proportion deserves not so good an epithet, as implying a sinful and punishable waste of time and other talents which God hath lent us. If these be the innocent pleasures which are meant in the objection, we own that the love of God does destroy them ; but it deprives us of none which in any way conduce to that even cheerfulness, which is both the parent and daughter of divine love, and the life of virtue and the beauty of holiness. The clearness and strength of reason with which one of our most celebrated divines (Young's Sermons, ii. 184) confirms this im-

portant truth, will excuse the repetition of his words. " Some of the heathen philosophers were of opinion that no actions (whether pleasing or not) are indifferent, but that all are po sitively good, or evil ; whereby they meant, not that no actions are indifferent in their own nature, but that no action is indifferent in fact in fact, I say, for in this state, actions (beside their formal essence) include the end and intention of the actor : and in this senses they affirmed that a good man made all his indifferent actions good, and on the contrary, a bad man made all his indifferent actions evil ; for the pious heathens laid down this for a rule, that every man ought to lay down a certain general purpose for his actions, viz. to act agreeably to right reason, and while he fixed his eye upon this end, so long all his actions, even those which were in themselves indifferent, were rendered wise and good 5 but on the contrary, while no purpose was fixed, all the actions of man, however indifferent in their own nature, became loose, irrational, and evil'. ' And thus St. Paul mOre clearly tells us,

that every Christian ought to establish in his mind a general purpose to which every action should be directed, " Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God." This is an aim that will sanctify every act, though in itself indifferent ; but as long as we have no regard to this general end, all the mass of our indifferent actions become a pro fane waste of our precious time, which the Almighty assigned us for better uses, i. e. to devote and give it back again to himself. We should, therefore, often put this question to our soul Die anima,quo tendisf et in quoddirigis arcurn? ' Say, my soul, whither aimest thou ? and whi ther tends this action ? ' Hast thou the glory of God in view ? This kind of reflection will consecrate the soul in all she does, and make every natural turn into a religious act, and lead us to meet our God in every circumstance and event, and converse with his wisdom, good ness, and providence in our walks, in our business, at our table, in our lying down and at our rising up: in fine, it will render us

more pious towards God at our work, than we can be without it at our prayers." As to the last part of this objection, that such a love ofGod would reduce our enjoyments to so narrow a compass that they would not counter balance our pains and support us under the evils to which we are now exposed, I answer, it never was designed they should : God hath provided far better supports for us than such feeble aids. And in fact, who is he whom these did ever support under agonizing pain, or heavy sorrow? for whom did creature comforts ever suffice or even cheer, when God wrote bitter things against him ? when the waters came in, even to his soul, and the floods of trouble poured over him ? Not one, since the world began ; c miserable comforters are ye all," utterly un able to heal the broken in heart unfit medi cines for the chamber of sickness inefficient cordials for the bed of death ! I come now to the direct and adequate an swer to all the parts of this well-known ob jection. The entire love of God, though it does exclude all such enjoyments of his creatures as neither directly nor remotely con

duces to our enjoying our Creator ; though it does especially forbid, and effectually prevent our leaning on those broken reeds ,when af fliction presses down our soul ; and ; though it does set ; us 1 above what are sometimes mis called innocent pleasures that is, vain, unneces sary,' trifling, useless, enjoyments ; yet it is in no wise destructive of that happiness which our blessed religion was designed to promote ; so far from it, that love, entire love, is the point wherein all the lines of our holy religion centre. This is the great happiness which the great Author of it lived and died to establish ; and a happiness it is, worthy of the most high God! worthy of infinite goodness and infinite wisdom to bestow ! a happiness not built on imagina tion, but real, and rational ; a happiness that does not play before our eyes at a distance, and vanish when we attempt to grasp it, but such as will endure the closest inspection, and the more it is tried it will delight the more. .In the happiness of love there is no vanity, neither any vexation of spirit : no delusion, no disap pointment is here: peace, joy, and hope, ever dwell with love; the man who loves God

feels that God hath given him all things richly to enjoy ; and he surveys with joy all the crea- tures which God hath made. Love increases both the number of his delights, and the weight of them, a thousand fold, for in every creature he sees as in a glass the glory of his great Creator ; and while every thing reflects to his enlightened eye the image of Him whom his soul loveth, the sense of that divine pre sence, over and above the delight which he experiences in common with other men, im parts such a vital joy and gladness to his heart, that, were eternity added to it, it would be heaven ! Here then is the sufficient, and the only sufficient support under all the evils of life. Evils ? nothing is an evil to him who loves God ; all things to him are very good, for each and all are alike under the direction of his heavenly Father, and must work together for his good. He has but one desire to delight in God ; and God hath given him the desire of his heart : and while his spirit cleaves steadfastly to him, he is safe from the power of evil. Indeed if his heart were not i

wholly with God, as many things as he loved besides him, so many ways would he live open to disappointment, and fear, and grief, and misery. But so long as he has one object of his love, and regards all things else only as they minister unto it, his heart standeth fast ; for he is assured that neither life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate him from the love of God. I shall conclude in the words of that excel lent man above cited, who so well practised what he taught, " Ye have heard what is the full and true extent of divine love, and the full and true import of the great command ment a commandment worthy of Him that gave it, and worthy of the solemn mark of attention wherewith it was more than once delivered: " Hear, O Israel ! " and let all the whole creation hear, and silently and reverently attend to this great law, which (lest any should fancy himself himself unconcerned in it) expressly is directed to every creature; " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all

thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." The language of the great God to every ra tional creature is, " My son, give me thy heart," for it was I that made it ; it was I who gave it thee, it was I who bestowed its vital motion, and that for no other end but to direct and in cline it towards myself. I only am thy true essential good : in me alone canst thou find rest for thy soul ; all the springs of happiness are in me. Therefore, my son, give me thy heart ; I alone merit, I alone can reward thy love ; let none have any share in this supreme affection, but devote it all to me thy God. With angels, therefore, and archangels, and all the company of heaven, having unclasped our hold from the inefficient creation, let us love the Lord our God, and him alone ; let him not divide with the creature, (oh how un fit a rival for so divine a guest !) but let him reign an absolute monarch in the hearts he has formed for himself. Yea, let us love the Lord our God, with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with all our soul, and with all our strength ! Unto God the Father who first loved us, and made us accepted in the Beloved unto God the Son who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood unto God the Holy Ghost who sheddeth the love of God in our hearts, be all love, and all glory, and all adora tion, for time and for eternity ! Amen.