, but
especially, because your love concentres too, and meets upon the same
objects with his love, these whom the Father so loved, that he gave his
only begotten Son for them, and the Son so loved them, that he gave
himself for them. If these be thy delight, and thou forbear them as the
Father and the Son hath done, that conspiracy of affections into one point
cannot but be pleasing unto him. Now, if these please him so well, whom
should they not please?

Sermon IV.

James iii. 14.--"But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your
hearts, glory not," &c.

It is a common evil of those who hear the gospel, that they are not
delivered up to the mould and frame of religion that is holden out in it,
but rather bring religion into a mould of their own invention. It was the
special commendation of the Romans, that they obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine into which they were delivered, (Rom. vi. 17) that they
who were once servants, or slaves of sin, had now become voluntary
captives of truth, and had given themselves up to the gospel, to be
modelled and fashioned by it; and if so, then certainly the most
substantial points of religion would be most deeply engraven upon them.
Every thing would have its own due place with us, if we were cast in the
primitive mould of godliness, but when we cast godliness in a mould of our
own apprehension, they cannot choose but a miserable confusion and
disorder will follow in the duties of religion. For according as our fancy
and inclination impose a necessity upon things, so we do pursue them, and
not according to the real weight that is in them. I find the scripture
laying most weight upon the most common things, placing most religion in
the most obvious and known things, and for other things more remote from
common capacity, I find them set far below, in the point of worth and
moment, even these things that seem least. But I find that order quite
perverted in the course of Christians. Some particular points that are not
so obvious to every understanding, are put in the first place, and made
the distinguished character of a Christian, and others again, in which
true and undefiled religion doth more consist, are despised and set in a
low place, because of their ceremonies. I think this apostle hath observed
this confusion, and hath applied himself to remove it, by correcting the
misapprehensions of Christians, and reducing their thoughts and ways to
the frame of