do it, is another; and I may in obedience to God, purpose and do more good to one whom I am bound to Love, not more but lefs.

And now you may see what it is to love our neighbours as our felves.

1. God must be loved above our neighbours and our felves; and both must be loved purely as related and subordinate to him, and for bis fake. There is a double refpect which all things have to God: 1. As they contain that excellency which he hath put upon them, which is fome likeness, reprefentation or fig nification of himself, and is called his Glory thining in the creature; that is, it's derived Goodness. 2. As they conduce to his further fervice, and may honour him, and please him. Thus all creatures must be loved only as a means, even a means declaring God, being derivatively and fignificantly good and useful s and as a means to serve and please him.

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2. Therefore this being the formal reafon of our Rational Love, muft alfo be the measure of it (à quatenus ad quantum.) As it is certain that I must love that beft which is best, because I must love it only as good; fo it is certain that that is beft which hath moft likeness to God, and moft of his Glory upon it, and that which is most pleafing to him, and useful to his fervice. Therefore if my neighbour be better than I am, I muft judge bim better, and love him better.

3. Though natural felf-appetite, and felf-prefervation, by which all creatures are for themfelves only (not feeling the hunger, cold, pain of others) be not finful, but the effect of Creating individuation, yet Reafon was perfect, and the Will could perfectly follow Reafon, in its complacency and choice, till fin corrupted it: Reafon could judge that beft which was best, and the Will could love that best which was beft. Therefore where ever any of this is wanting, it is fin.

4. The principal part or fumm of pofitive fin, doth confift in felfishness. Man is fallen from the Love of God and man, to himself; and grace recovereth him from this. Therefore it is, that this duty is not only unperformed, but hardly difcerned by unrenewed men: fo far as they are felfish, they hardly be lieve that they should love their neighbours as themfelves.

5. To love our neighbours as our felves, in point of duty, containeth these two things: Firft, To love them fimply according to their goodness, without any binderance of felfisheeßs er partiality: Not to forbear loving them, becaufe they are not our felves, or becaufe they are against any inordinate felfish intereft or appetite of our own. And also comparatively, to love thera in the fame degree with our felves, if they have the fame degree of loveliness; to that it cannot extend to the kind, andthe end, and reafon of the Love, but it must needs alfo extend to the degree. If I love him less than my felf, who is better than my felf, I love him not as my felf, as to ends and reason.

6. Yea I am bound by this Law to love every man better or more than my felf, who is really better, and is fo manifeft to me: Or elfe I love him not as my felf, that is, on the fame true Reafous as I muft love my felf (for God and the goodness of the object.)

7. But as all men fail in the degree of this Love (and therefore none perfectly keep the Law;) fo the fincerity which all Gods fervants have, doth conlilt in this; that 1. Our love to others is for Gods fake, and for the goodness which he hath endued them with, and the fervice they may do him. 2. That this God and his fervice, for whose fake we love them, be preferred before our felves, and every creature, and loved better than all our finful pleasures. 3. That our love to them for Gods fake and graces be fuch, as ordinarily in the exercise and effects will prevail against our Love of fenfual interest and delights; and will bring us effectually to fuccour, relieve, and do them good, though to our fleshly lofs, when God requireth it. He that cannot love Chrift in his fervants, better than his carnal pleafures, loveth him not at all fincerely. Gods Image and intereft in his fervants, and in mankind, must be practically more precious to us, and more beloved by us, than all our carnal finful pleafures. (For as for our own fpiritual good, it ftandeth in fuch a connexion with Gods will and glory, and our neighbours good, that I know not how to put them into comparifon in the tryal, much lefs in oppofition.) 4. That all carnal felf-love and uncharitableness contrary to this, be bated, refifted, repented of, and fubdued, and be not predominant

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predominant in us, againft the Love of God and man. 8. The meaning of the Command is not that we shall love our neighgours as we inordinately and finfully love our felves; but as we ought to love our felves; and as we regularly and. justly do love our felves. He that loveth himself too much and finfully, must not therefore fo love his neighbour.

9. He that loveth his neighbour as himself (that is, withour felfish partiality, and for the fame reasons as he must love himfelf, viz. for the Image and Intereft of God) is obliged by this. very rule, to love himself more than his neighbour, when be is better, and more pleafing and ferviceable to God. (Therefore he that would warrantably love himself most, must labour to be himself the best, and then he may lawfully do it, fo far as his own goodness, and other mens defels are truly known to

him.

10. As a Fathers Love may confift with the correction of his children, and felf love with blood letting, purging, labour, and other unpleafing things; fo we may love our neighbours as our felves, and yet correct and punish evil doers: For fometimes their own good requireth it, and ordinarily the publick good requireth it (pæna debetur Reipublice) and alfo Gods com mand requireth it; fo that this is not loving our felves more than our neighbour; but loving him more than his exfe, or his favour and loving God, and the Common-wealth, more than

bim.

11. Our love of our neighbours as our felves, doth not atall make our natural felfish appetites and fenfes, or defire of food, health, cafe, reft, &c. to be finful: Nor oblige us to have fuck natural fenfes and appetites for others; but only rationally to equal them in eftimation and complacence, and to do them so much good as God requireth us.

12. And it doth not oblige us to do as much for them as for our felves, for the reafons before alledged, but to do them good without the binderance of felf-intereft: That felfifonefs be not to us as a Bile or Impofthume, which draweth the humours and fpirits unequally and diforderly from the reft of the body to it felf.

By all this it is evident, 1. That no man hath an inequality in his love to himself and his neighbour, beyond the inequality

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of goodness, but it is finful (Speaking of Rational Love.)

2. That all Love to out neighbour is not fincere: There is a real Love to them, which bad men may have, which is not the fincere love which God requireth.

3 Every man that loveth another for his goodness and godlinefs, loveth him not fincerely: For he may have a love to goodness it felf, which is not fincere: As if he love his lufts and pleasures more.

4. Every man that doib good to another in Love, doth not therefore fincerely love him. A Dives may give Lazarus his fcraps: And the very eft fenfualift may give another fome of the leavings of his ficthly lufts. And though the giving of a cup of cold water to a Difciple, when we have no better to give, doth fhew fincerity, and thall have its reward (because God accepteth it, according to mens will, and to what they have, and not according to what they bave not;) yet it is certain that an unhappy worldling may give much more. And if Chrift had bid him Luke 18.23. fell part, instead of felling all, it's like he might not have gone away forrowful.

5. It is not therefore the value or proportion of the gift, which is it that must try our love to others, in it felfconfidereds for it may oft fall out that a Widdows mite may fignific truer charity, than the fubftance of fome others. But it is the prevalency of the Love of God in man, and of man for the sake of God, againft our finful felf love, and carnal interest.

And now I will add a little more evidence, to the principal thing in queftion, viz. that in the very degree the Rational Appetite or Will fhould love another equal with our felves.

And 1. The forementioned reason is undenyable, that the Will fhould love that beft which is best, and must measure that by the respect which things have to God, and not to our own commodity in the world.

2. No man can deny this principle but by fetting up natural felf-love or appetite, and making the rational ftoop to that, which would infer as well, that we may love our felves better than God himself; and that our fenfe is nobler than our reafen, and muft rule it.

3. We find our own reason tell us much more of our duty in this, than our corrupted wills do follow. The best way there

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fore to difcern the truth, is to treat with reason alone, and leave out the will, till we have dispatcht with reafon. And you will find that the common light of nature juftifieth this Law of God.

1. He that would not confefs that it is better he had no being, than that there were no God, or no world befides him, is a monfter of felfifhnefs. And if a man fay never fo much [ cannot do fo] yet while he confeffeth that this should be his defire, it fufficeth to the decifion of our prefent cafe.

2. He that will not confefs that it is better that be himself fhould die, than all the Church of Chrift, or the whole Kingdom die, is unreasonably felfish in the eyes of all impartial men. The gallant Romans and Athenians had learnt it, as one of their plaineft greateft Leffons, to prefer their Country before their lives: And is not that to love their Countryes better than sbemfelves.

3. For the fame reafon many of them faw, that it was the duty of a good subject, or a gallant fouldier, to fave the life of his King or General, with the lofs of his own: Because their lives were of more publick utility. And the ground of all this was thefe natural verities.

[The best should be best loved: Goodnels must be measured by a bigher rule than perfonal felf-interest: Multitudes are better than one, &c.]

4. All men acknowledge that a man of eminent Learning, Piety, Wisdom, and Usefulness to the Church or World, fhould be loved and preferved rather than a wicked, fottifh, worthlefs child of our own. Yea God himself requireth that Parents procure the death of their own children, by publick Juftice, if they be obftinately wicked, Deut. 21.

5. The fame Reafons plainly infer, that I ought rather to defire the life of a much more worthy ufeful infirument for the Church and State, than my own; and fo to love a better man better than my filf, if I be acquainted fufficiently with his. goodness.

And if this be all fo fure and plain, hence obferve,

1. How much humane nature is corrupted.

Alas, how rare is this equal Love!

2. How few true Chriftians are; and how defective and

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