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I. WHAT IS IT TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL THE HEART, SOUL, AND MIND?

1. What is love? It is not a carnal love. It is not a natural love. It is not a merely moral love.

2. What is love to God? Metaphors to illustrate what it is to love God.

(1)  The soul's love to God may be a little shadowed forth by the love of the iron to the loadstone.

(2)  Our love to God is like the love of the flower of the sun to the sun.

(3)  Our love to God is like the love of the turtle to her mate.

(4)  Our love to God should be like, though exceed, Jacob's love to Benjamin.We must not love God only with the heart, but with the whole heart. The whole heart is opposed either to a divided and dispersed heart, or to a remiss and a sluggish heart. As the whole heart is opposed to a remiss and sluggish heart, the meaning is this — the care of our heart should be set upon nothing so much as upon the loving and pleasing God.

II. IT IS OUR INDISPENSABLE DUTY THUS TO LOVE GOD. To love God is our great natural duty. Man would more naturally love God than himself, were it not for sin. Christ's reason in the following verse — "This is the first and the great commandment." Not that any command of God is small. The commands in Scripture are like the stars in the firmament, which though to ignorant persons they are but like twinkling candles, yet are greater than the whole earth; so these commands, that careless persons overlook as inconsiderable, are such as without respect unto them there is no salvation. But this upon a manifold account is " the great command."

1. In respect of the object.

2. In respect of order and dignity.

3. In respect of obligation.

4. In respect of the matter of it.

5. In respect of the largeness of it.

6. In respect of its capacity.

7. In respect of the difficulties of it.

8. In respect of the end.

9. In respect of the lastingness of it.

III. WHAT ABILITIES ARE REQUISITE TO THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS DUTY, AND HOW WE MAY ATTAIN THOSE ABILITIES AS the only efficient cause of our loving God is God Himself, so the only procuring cause of our loving God is Jesus Christ, that Son of the Father's love, who by His Spirit implants and actuates this grace of love, which He hath merited for us (Colossians 1:20). Impediments of our love to God.

1. Self-love.

2. Love of the world.

3. Spiritual sloth and carelessness of spirit.

4. The love of any sin whatsoever.

5. Inordinate love of things lawful.Means to attain love to God.

1. Directing by spiritual knowledge.

(1)  The knowledge of spiritual things.

(2)  The knowledge of ordinary things in a spiritual manner, so as to make the knowledge of natural things serve heavenly designs.

2. Promoting means are various.

(1)  Self-denial.

(2)  Contempt of the world.

(3)  Observation of God's benefits to us.

(4)  Watchfulness over our own hearts.

(5)  Prayer.

(6)  Meditation.

(7)  Choice of friends.

(8)  Thanksgiving.

3. Sustaining and conserving means.

(1)  Faith, whereby we are persuaded that what God hath spoken is true and good.

(2)  Hope, whereby we expect a future good.

(3)  Patience.

1. Directing.

(1)  Prize the word.

(2)  Set immediately upon the practice of those things which you shall be convinced to be your duty.

2. Exemplary means.

(1)  Men.

(2)  Angels.

(3)  Christ.

IV. How TO IMPROVE AND AUGMENT ALL OUR POSSIBLE ABILITIES TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEART, SOUL, MIND, AND STRENGTH. Degrees of love.

1. The first degree is to love God for those good things which we do or hope to receive from Him.

2. The second step of our love to God is to love God for Himself, because He is the most excellent good.

3. The third step is to love nothing but for God's sake, in Him, and for Him, and to Him.

4. The fourth step. of our love to God is for our highest love of everything to be hatred in comparison of our love to God.

5. The most eminent degree of our love to God is ecstasy and ravishment. Properties of love to God.

1. To begin with the properties of our love to God.

(1) This Divine love is not at all in the unregenerate, unless only in show and imitation.

(2) This Divine love is far from perfection.

(3) Our love to God shall never be abolished.

(4) This Divine love is so unknown to .the world, that when they behold the effects and flames of it in those that love God in an extraordinary manner, they are ready to explode it as mere vanity, folly, madness, ostentation, and hypocrisy.

2. The absolute properties of love to God are among many, some of them such as these.

(1) It is the most ingenious of all graces.

(2) Love to God is the most bold, strong, constant, and daring grace of all the graces of the Spirit of God.

(3) Love to God is the only self-emptying and satisfying grace.

(4) The love of God makes us anxiously weary of life itself.

3. This much of the positive properties; the transcendent properties of our love to God are —

(1) Love to God is the great general directing grace containing all other particular graces in it and most intimately goes through the acts of all of them (1. Corinthians 13).

(2) It is in a singular manner infinite. Effects of love to God: — They relate either to God Himself or to ourselves, or they are mutual.

1. Effects that relate to God are such as these —

(1) Hatred of and flight from all that is evil.

(2) The fear of God.

(3) Obedience to the commands of God, and to those commands which would never be obeyed but out of love to God (1 John 5:3).

(4) Resignation of ourselves to God.

(5) Adhesion and cleaving unto God, in every case and every condition.

(6) Tears and sighs through desires and joys.

2. The only effect I shall name as to us is a seeking of heaven and things above, with contempt of the world and all worldly excellences.

3. Mutual effects are these —

(1) Union with God.

(2) Communion with God.

(3) Familiar love-visits.

(4) A putting a love-interpretation upon all things.

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KJV: For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

WEB: For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God's angels in heaven.