ed to love, and the
thorough inspection into the nature and use of the grace itself.

In consideration of the _First_, a soul might argue itself into a
complacency with it and thus persuade itself, "He that loveth not, knoweth
not God, for God is love," 1 John iv. 8. And since he that hath known and
believed the love that God hath to us, must certainly dwell in love, since
these two have such a strait indissoluble connexion, then, as I would not
declare to all my atheism and my ignorance of God, I will study to love my
brethren. And that I may love them, I will give myself to the search of
God's love, which is the place, _locus inventionis_,(414) whence I may
find out the strongest and most effectual _medium_ to persuade my mind,
and to constrain my heart to Christian affection.

_First_ then, when I consider that so glorious and great a Majesty, so
high and holy an One, self sufficient and all sufficient, who needs not go
abroad to seek delight, because all happiness and delight is enclosed
within his own bosom, can yet love a creature, yea and be reconciled to so
sinful a creature, which he might crush as easily as speak a word, that he
can place his delight on so unworthy and base an object, O! how much more
should I, a poor wretched creature, love my fellow creature, ofttimes
better than myself, and, for the most part, not much worse? There is an
infinite distance and disproportion betwixt God and man, yet he came over
all that to love man. What difficulty should I have then to place my
affection on my equal at worst, and often better? There cannot be any
proportionable distance betwixt the highest and lowest, between the
richest and poorest, between the most wise and the most ignorant, between
the most gracious and the most ungodly, as there is between the infinite
God and a finite angel. Should then the mutual infirmities and failings of
Christians, be an insuperable and impassable gulf, as between heaven and
hell, that none can pass over by a bridge of love to either? "If God so
loved us," should not we love one another? 1 John iv. 11. And besides,
when I consider that God hath not only loved me, but my brethren who were
worthy of hatred, with an everlasting love, and passed over all that was
in them, and hath spread his skirt over their nakedness, and made it a
time of love, which was a time of loathing, how can I withhold my
affection where God hath bestowed his? Are they not infinitely more
unworthy of his tha