The Christians converse with God, or, The insufficiency and uncertainty of human friendship and…

4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your Friends? If so, is not this the merest Remedy for your Disease? In the loving of God, we are in no danger of Excess; and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it. And in the loving of the Godly purely upon the account of Christ, and in loving Saints as Saints, we are not apt to go too far. But yet our Understandings may mistake, and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity than indeed they have; and we are exceeding apt to mix a Selfish Common Love with that which ⟨p. 41⟩is Spiritual and Holy; and at the same time, when we love a Christian as a Christian, we are apt not only to love him (as we ought) but to overlove him, because he is our Friend, and loveth us. Those Christians that have no special Love to us, we are apt to undervalue and neglect, and love them below their holiness and worth: But those that we think entirely love us, we love above their proper Worth, as they stand in the esteem of God: Not but that we may love those that love us, and add this love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ; but we should not let our own Interest prevail and overtop the Interest of Christ, nor love any so much for loving us, as for loving Christ: And if we do so, no wonder if God shall use such Remedies as he seeth meet, to abate our excuse of Selfish Love.

4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your Friends? If so, is not this the meerest Remedy for your Disease? In the loving of God, we are in no danger of Excess; and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it. And in the loving of the Godly purely upon the account of Christ, and in loving Saints as Saints, we are not apt to go too far. But yet our Understandings may mistake, and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity than indeed they have; and we are exceeding apt to mix a Selfish Common Love with that which ⟨p. 41⟩is Spiritual and Holy; and at the same time, when we love a Christian as a Christian, we are apt not only to love him (as we ought) but to overlove him, because he is our Friend, and loveth us. Those Christians that have no special Love to us, we are apt to undervalue and neglect, and love them below their holiness and worth: But those that we think entirely love us, we love above their proper Worth, as they stand in the esteem of God: Not but that we may love those that love us, and add this love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ; but we should not let our own Interest prevail and overtop the Interest of Christ, nor love any so much for loving us, as for loving Christ: And if we do so, no wonder if God shall use such Remedies as he seeth meet, to abate our excuse of Selfish Love.