The divine life in three treatises

3. Moreover, consider, how the odiousness of that sin, which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness, is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends. God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnal-mindedness, and cowardice appear: we should not discern it in the seed and root, if we did not see, and taste it in the fruits. Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us: A crab looks as beautiful as an apple; but when you taste it, you better know the difference. When you must your selves be unkindly used by your friends, and forsaken by them in your distress, and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness, selfishness and carnal fears, you will better know the odiousness of these vices, which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you, and notwithstanding the light, the conscience, and perhaps the grace, that doth resist them.

3. Moreover, consider, how the odiousness of that sin, which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness, is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends. God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnalmindedness, and cowardize appear: we should not discern it in the seed and root, if we did not see, and tast it in the fruits. Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us: A crab looks as beautiful as an apple; but when you tast it, you better know the difference. When you must your selves be unkindly used by your friends, and forsaken by them in your distress, and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness, selfishness and carnal fears, you will better know the odiousness of these vices, which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you, and notwithstanding the light, the conscience, and perhaps the grace, that doth resist them.

4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your friends? If so, is not this the meetest 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 then indeed they have; and we are exceeding apt to mix a selfish common love with that which 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