the reason of this duty. For therefore is our Lord to be most affectionately loved by us, because he is so wonderfully compassionate and tender, so kind and bountiful, and poureth out his benefits upon us in such abundance: and all this not from any manner of desert or worth in us, that might engage his favour, but of his own good will and mere motion; of which we are able to render no other reason, but only this, that he will have mercy, because he delights in, and will have mercy.

Hear

The other inquiry how this God is to be loved, that command which enjoins the duty makes sufficiently plain. And how strict an observance of this command is required from us, we may easily infer, from the terms in which it is expressed, and the solemnity used in laying it upon us. then, O man, the first and great commandment; hearken to it attentively, remember it exactly, meditate upon it incessantly, and use thý very utmost efforts to fulfil it without delay, without intermission, without end, or ever supposing thou hast done so much, that thou art at liberty to desist from any fresh instances of thy regard to it. All this is implied in that awakening preface, by which God introduces it: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. Now the command itself runs thus, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. Which is as much as to say, that our intellectual faculties, the understanding, the will, and the memory, should all be fixed on this, as on their best and proper object; that God should be the subject of our study; that he should preside over all our inclinations, be the ultimate end of all our desires, dwell always pre

sent in our thoughts, and reign supreme, as the governing principle of all our actions. In a word, that we should contemplate, and choose, and remember, and reverence him above all, and make it our business to live to him alone.

How men come so easily to satisfy themselves with being so extremely negligent in this most necessary branch of their obedience, is very difficult to conceive; except it be from hence, that wanting a due sense of the greatness of God's love, they proportion their regard to him according to their own scanty notions of his goodness toward them. And therefore, for prevention of this fault in thee, do thou, my soul, attend with reverence, and thankfully recollect the innumerable benefits which he hath bestowed upon thee; the many precious promises he hath made thee: and then I doubt not but what thou hast already, and what thou art warranted to hope for hereafter, will sufficiently convince thee, that thou art under the highest obligations to love God with a most fervent and entire affection. Now, in order to exercise and increase this love the more effectually, begin thy considerations where God began the expressions of his goodness, and think seriously with thyself, by whom, upon what motive, and to what purpose, man was created, and what things God was pleased to create besides, for the sake and service of men.

First then, we must understand, that there is but one cause which produced all created beings, whether they be things in heaven, or things on earth, whether they be visible or invisible. That this sole, this universal cause, was no other than the goodness of their Creator, who is the one true God; whose essential goodness is so large, and so

M

communicative, that he was pleased to make others partakers of that blessedness, which he enjoys from and to all eternity, and which he saw capable of being imparted, without any possibility of suffering diminution by being thus diffused. That good, therefore, which is his very nature, and wherein his own happiness consists, he did thus show abroad not by necessity but free choice, because it is the property of the Supreme Good to will the good of others, and the excellence of Supreme Power to exert itself, not to the prejudice, but the benefit of all that are subject to it. Now, because this blessedness of God cannot be any otherwise partaken of, but by being understood; and the more perfectly it is understood, the more plentifully it is imparted; God was pleased to make rational creatures, and to give to such, a capacity of understanding the Supreme Good, of having what they thus understood, of possessing this best object of their love, and of enjoying what they so possessed. This rational part of the creation is so ordered, that part of it retains its essential purity, without being united to any bodily substance; and such are the angels; another part there is joined to the body, and such is the soul of man. Rational creatures then, are either incorporeal or corporeal: the incorporeal are angels, for these are simple spirits. The corporeal are men, so called, because the human nature consists not only of a reasonable soul, but also of a fleshy body. So then, that the rational creature had any, and that it had particularly this kind of existence, is to be imputed wholly to the goodness of Almighty God, as its original impulsive cause. Men and angels, both were created by the goodness of God; for we therefore are at all,

because God is good, and the whole of that being we receive from God, is good. But to what purpose were these rational creatures made? Surely to praise God, and to love him, and to enjoy him; in all which, not the Creator's but the creature's advantage is consulted; for God is absolutely perfect and happy in himself, and cannot receive either addition or diminution from any of the works of his own hands. The only uses then that can be served by making such creatures as these, and the only account that can be given why they were made at all, must be the manifestation of the Creator's goodness, and the promoting of the creature's happiness. When therefore the question is asked, why, or to what end, rational creatures were made? the true answer undoubtedly is this, that they were made because God was good, and to the intent they might be happy; for, what can conduce to their happiness so much as to serve him, and to enjoy him?

MEDITATION XXXV.

All Things made for Man,

WHEN God is said to have made angels or men for himself, we must not so mistake this expression, as fondly to imagine, that he who made both had any need of either; or, that the acknowledgments and services, which he gave them a capacity of paying, are any addition to the fulness of his bliss and glory. For, how unworthily should we conceive of our Creator's majesty, by thinking that any thing which we call ours, or is most valuable in us, could increase or take away from his blessedness? No, he made us to serve him, but it was because his service is freedom, is an honour; and to be such subjects is to be truly kings. This service redounds wholly to the profit of him that pays it, but not at all to his, to whom it is paid. And, as God made man for himself, so did he likewise make the world for man; that is, so as to minister to man's use and comfort. Man then is placed in a middle and subordinate station, so as to be under authority himself, yet to have servants under him too : and thus all things are most admirably contrived to our advantage, when both the homage we pay, and that which is paid to us, flows into one common channel, and all unites at last in our advantage, as in its proper centre. God will be served by man, for this reason, that not he, but man may reap the benefit of that service: again, God will have man served by the world, that by this service also man