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

2. What it is love to God? Methinks a lax description best suits my design. This Divine love, 'tis the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God:¹ 'tis the ecstasy and ravishment of the heart in God; 'tis the Soul's losing its self in God: 'tis the continual working of the heart towards God: every faculty of the Soul is actually engaged: The Mind is musing and plodding how to please God, and enjoy him; the Will is graciously obstinate, the policy of hell cannot charm it off it's object; the Affections are all Passions in their eager motions towards God; the Conscience is a busy-body necessitating the whole man to a jealous watch. I said this love 'tis the enlargement of the heart towards God; when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, 'tis as the breaking of a Ball of lightning, it sets all on a flame immediately. It is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God; the highest Rhetoric is too flat to express it, as is obvious in that Song of Songs, that Song of loves. I have no way to set this out unto you, but by words, the plainest and most intelligible expressions I can give you, shall be by several similitudes, which I shall pursue till they leave me to admiration: I shall borrow Metaphors from things without life, from Plants, from sensitive Creatures, from Man.

2. What it is love to God? Methinks a lax description best suits my design. This Divine love, 'tis the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God:¹ 'tis the extasie and ravishment of the heart in God; 'tis the Soul's losing its self in God: 'tis the continual working of the heart towards God: every faculty of the Soul is actually engaged: The Mind is musing and plodding how to please God, and enjoy him; the Will is graciously obstinate, the policy of hell cannot charm it off it's object; the Affections are all Passions in their eager motions towards God; the Conscience is a busie-body necessitating the whole man to a jealous watch. I said this love 'tis the enlargement of the heart towards God; when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, 'tis as the breaking of a Ball of lightning, it sets all on a flame immediately. It is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God; the highest Rhetorick is too flat to express it, as is obvious in that Song of Songs, that Song of loves. I have no way to set this out unto you, but by words, the plainest and most intelligible expressions I can give you, shall be by several similitudes, which I shall pursue till they leave me to admiration: I shall borrow Metaphors from things without life, from Plants, from sensitive Creatures, from Man.