A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

but love to the world fills it with perpetual agitations, inquietude, and restless motions, without end. Worldly love is a laesive passion, but Divine love perfective of him that loves. In sum, love to God is of the same nature with God, and therefore the most express Character of the Image of God; the first-born of Faith, the soul of other graces; the Rule of our actions, a summary of the Law; an Angelic life; a prelibation of Heaven; a lively mark of a child of God: for we may read God's Love to us in our love to him. But O! how opposite and black are the characters of Love to the world? nothing deserves the name of Love, but that to God.

but love to the world fills it with perpetual agitations, inquietude, and restless motions, without end. Worldly love is a laesive passion, but Divine love perfective of him that loves. In sum, love to God is of the same nature with God, and therefore the most express Character of the Image of God; the first-born of Faith, the soul of other graces; the Rule of our actions, a summary of the Law; an Angelick life; a prelibation of Heaven; a lively mark of a child of God: for we may read God's Love to us in our love to him. But O! how opposite and black are the characters of Love to the world? nothing deserves the name of Love, but that to God.

2. Hence also infer, that Love to God, and Love to the world, divide all mankind. There is no middle state between these two opposites; neither can they ever consist together in their perfect degrees. If thou art a lover of the world, in John's sense, thou art a hater of God: and if thou lovest God thou art an hater of the world. Hereby then thou mayest make a judgment of thy state, whether thou art a Saint or a sinner; a Godly, or worldly man. And remember this, that to love any worldly good more than God, is in the Scripture's sense, to hate God, Mat. 6.24.