n such favour with God, the soul is
sweetly constrained to love and delight in the divine laws. And truly this
is the natural result of faith. I wish you may rightly observe this
conjunction, that this is inseparably knit with it, love to God and men,
delight to do his will, to love him, and live unto him. Do not deceive
yourselves with vain words. If you find not the smartness of the gospel,
and the doctrine of grace laying this restraint upon the heart, ye are yet
in your sins. This is the reasoning of a believing soul. Shall I, who am
dead unto sin, live any longer therein? Shall I not delight in those
commandments, when Christ hath delivered me from the curse of the law?
Though such a one fall, and come short, yet the pressure of the heart is
that way. But then attend unto the order, ye must first believe on the
Son, and then love him, and live unto him. Ye must first flee unto his
righteousness, and then the righteousness of the law shall be wrought in
you. Therefore do not weary yourselves to no purpose. Do not wrong your
own souls by seeking to prevent this order, which was established for your
joy and salvation. Know that you must first meet with satisfaction in all
the commands of Christ, before obedience to any of them be accepted, and
having met with that, know that the sincere endeavour of thy soul, and the
affectionate bensal(431) of thy heart to thy duty, is accepted. And if ye
find yourselves thereafter surcharged with guilt and unanswerable walking,
yet ye know the way is to begin at this again, to believe in the Son. This
is the round you must walk, as long as ye are in the body. When you are
defiled, run into the fountain, and when you are washed, study to keep
your garments clean, but if defiled again, get your hearts washed from
wickedness. "These things," says John, "I write to you that ye sin not,"
who believe but if any sin, who desire not to transgress, you have a
propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

Now love is a very comprehensive command. It is the fulfilling of the
whole law, Rom xiii. 10, Matth. xxii. 37, 38. It is indeed the true
principle and pure fountain of our obedience unto God and men. All fruits
of the Spirit are moral virtues that grow out of the believer. Whether
pleasant unto God, or refreshing unto men, they are all virtually in this
root of love, all the streams are compacted in this fountain. Therefore he
names one for all, viz. brotherly love, which is the bond of perf