Chapter XVII.

Showing That The Christian Who Loves Not God Is Without Excuse.

This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.—1 John 5:3.

As God has implanted in every man a faculty of willing or desiring, which we call the will, which is also the seat of love, both which mutually depend on each other; and as man knows that the chief Good is to be loved by him, and that God is that chief Good; hence it follows, that he alone has a natural knowledge both that he ought to love God, and also of the reasons that oblige him to it.

2. For as brute creatures are fond of their benefactors; so man is under the highest obligations to love God, from whom he has received all that he has; and if he do not, he is more stupid and ungrateful than the beasts that perish. Rom. 12:9; Isa. 1:3. Moreover, as it is the nature of love to exclude all weariness and sadness (which are the effects of hatred and displeasure), and to sweeten and soften all the labors and difficulties that may attend the service of the person beloved (1 Cor. 13:4, etc.); so we are obliged to express our love to God, by all possible tokens of satisfaction and joy; since love is the happiness and comfort of our souls. And in this appear the kindness and love of God towards man, that he does not exact of us a hard, severe, and painful service; but only the sweet, the joyful, the comfortable exercise of love. Love casts out fear, anguish, and torment; otherwise it ceases to be love. Love conquers all 471 difficulties, and drives away all sorrow, filling the soul with joy and gladness; so that if we love not God, we are without excuse.

3. By this I do not mean, that man, since the fall, can by his own strength and power, perfectly love God as he ought; but to show that every man is convinced in his own conscience, that he ought to love him as well as he can; that he who does not, is worse than the beasts; and that both nature and religion oblige us thereto.