RESOLUTION II.

I am resolved, by the grace of God, to love God, as the best of goods, and to hate sin, as the worst of evils.

As God is the centre of our concupiscible affections, so sin is the object of those we call irascible; and the affections of love and hatred being the ground of all the rest, I must have a great care that I do not mistake or miscarry in them: for if these be placed upon wrong objects, it is impossible any of the rest should be placed upon right ones. In order, therefore, to prevent such a miscarriage, as God is the greatest good, and sin the greatest evil, I resolve to love God above all things else in the world, and to hate sin to the same degree; and so to love other things, only in relation to God; and to hate nothing but in reference to sin.

As for the first, the loving God above all things, there is nothing seems more reasonable, inasmuch as there is nothing lovely in any creature, but what it receives from God; and by how much the more it is like to God, by so much the more it is lovely unto us. Hence it is that beauty, or an exact symmetry and proportion of parts and colours, so attracts our love, because it so much resembles God, who is beauty and perfection itself. And hence it is likewise, that grace is the most lovely thing in the world, next to God, as being the image of God himself stamped upon the soul; nay, it is not only the image and representation, but it is the influence and communication of himself to us; so that the more we have of grace, we may safely say, so much the more we have of God within us. Why, therefore, should I grudge my love to him, who only deserves it? who is not only infinitely lovely in himself, but the author and perfection of all loveliness in his creatures; why, the true reason is, that my affections have run a gadding without my judgment, or else my judgment hath been baulked or anticipated by my fancy; whereas, now that my apprehensions of God are a little cleared up, and my judgment leads the way, though nobody sees me, yet methinks I cannot but blush at myself, that I should ever lie doting upon these dreams and shadows here below, and not fix my affections upon the infinite beauty and all-sufficiency of God above, who deserves my love and admiration so infinitely beyond them. However, therefore, I have heretofore placed my affections upon other things above God, I am now resolved to love God, not only above many, or most things, but above all things else in the world.

And here, by loving God, I do not understand that sensitive affection I place upon material objects; for it is impossible, that that should be fixed upon God, who is a pure spiritual being; but that, as by the deliberate choice of my will I take him for my chiefest good, so I ought to prefer him as such, before my nearest and clearest possessions, interests, or relations, and whatsoever else may at any time stand in competition with him.

And thus, as I shall endeavour to love God, so likewise to hate sin, above all things: and this is as necessary as the former; for all things have something of good in them, as they are made by God; but sin being, in its own nature, a privation of good, and directly opposite to the nature and will of God, (as I have before showed,) it has nothing of beauty or amiableness to recommend it to my affections. On the contrary, it is a compound of deformity and defilement, that is always attended with punishment and misery: and must, therefore, be the object of my hatred and abhorrence, wheresoever I find it. For, as God is the centre of all that is good, so is sin the fountain of all the evil in the world. All the strife and contention, ignominy and disgrace, misfortunes and afflictions that I observe in the world; all the diseases of my body, and infirmities of my mind; all the errors of my understanding, and irregularities of my will and affections; in a word, all the evils whatsoever, that I am affected with, or subject to, in this world, are still the fruits and effects of sin: for if man had never offended the chiefest good, he had never been subject to this train of evils which attended his transgression. Whensoever, therefore, I find myself begin to detest and abhor any evil, I shall, for 144the future, endeavour to turn my eyes to the spring-head, and loathe and detest the fountain that sends forth all those bitter and unwholesome streams as well as the channels of those corrupt hearts in which they flow. And for this reason I resolve to hate sin wheresoever I find it, whether in myself or in others, in the best of friends, as well as the worst of enemies. Love, I know, and charity, ‘covers a multitude of sins,’ and where we love the man, we are all of us but too apt to overlook, or excuse his faults. For the prevention of this, therefore, I firmly resolve, in all my expressions of love to my fellow-creatures, so to love the person, as yet to hate his sins; and so to hate his sins, as yet to love his person. The last of which, I hope, I shall not find hard to practise, my nature, by the blessing of God, being not easily inclined to hate any man’s person whatsoever; and the former will not be much more difficult, when I consider, that by how much more I love my friend, by so much more should I hate whatsoever will be offensive or destructive to him.

Having thus fixed my resolutions with regard to those two commanding passions of my soul, love and hatred;