his will and service, and do not spare to kill our lusts, which are his
and our enemies.

Let us sum up all in this,--whatsoever grace or gift is in Christ Jesus,
whatsoever pre-eminence he hath above angels and men, whatsoever he
purchased, he purchased by his obedient life and patience in death. There
is nothing of all that but the soul may be admitted to fellowship in it,
by its union with him by faith. Have him, and have all that he hath. Faith
makes him yours, and all that he hath is a consequential appendix to
himself. The word of the gospel offers him freely to you, with all his
benefits, interests, and advantages. O that our hearts may be induced to
open to him!

Now being thus united to Jesus Christ, that which I would persuade next to
is a personal communion, that is, a suitable entertainment of him, a
conjunction of your soul to him by love, and a conspiracy of all your
endeavours henceforth to please him. It is certain, that true friendship
is founded on a conjunction and harmony of souls by affection, by which
they cease to be two, and become in a manner one; for love makes a kind of
transport of the soul into another, and then all particular and proper
interests are drowned in oblivion,--no more mine and thine, but he makes an
interchange, mine thine, and thine mine, my heart thine, and thy honour
mine. Now, certain it is, that in this God hath given us a rare pattern,
and leads the way; for he declares his love to the world in the rarest
effects of it, which give the clearest demonstrations possible,--"God so
loved the world that he sent his Son." And you have the most infallible
argument of the Son's love,--"Greater love hath no man than this, to lay
down his life for his friends,"--but he for his enemies. Now, then, you see
how the heart of God and his Son Jesus Christ is fixed from everlasting on
the sons of men, so unalterably, and so fully set towards them, that it
hath transported the Son out of his own glory, and brought him down in the
state of a servant. But it is not yet known what particular persons are
thus fixed upon, until that everlasting love break out from underground,
in the engagement of thy soul's love to him, and till he have fastened
this chain, and set this seal on thy heart, which makes thee impatient to
want him. Thou knowest not the seal that was on his heart from eternity.
But now the love of a believer being the result of his love,--this is it
that is the source and spring of c