Love to Christ, necessary to escape the curse at his coming

III. Not love Christ! What is this but an opposing and withstanding all the Operations of the Spirit? For do not all tend to this, That you should Love the Lord Jesus? What do all Convictions tend to, in showing thee thy lost estate, the vanity of the world, the emptiness of the creature, the impossibility of Salvation by any other, but that thou mightest look after him, and make him the Object of thy Love? What meaneth the Illumination of the Spirit, in enlightening of thy mind in the knowledge of Christ, to see and discern the Fullness and Sufficiency of Christ; the Fitness and Suitableness of Christ; the Freeness and the Willingness of Christ, but that thou shouldst fix thy Love upon him? What do all the Persuasions, Strivings, and Wooings of the Spirit-tend to, but Love to Christ? Was ever any more solicitous for the love of another, than the Spirit hath been, that Christ might have thine? And shall all, and thine only Answer be, I cannot love him, I will not love him? No? Why not? Canst thou better place thy Love? Canst thou find in Heaven or Earth, a more suitable Object? Yet art thou resolved to give no other answer, but that in Jer. 2.25. I have loved strangers, and after them will I go. I have loved the world, and I will love it; I have loved my pleasures, and I will love them; I have loved my sin, and so I will still. Why so resolved, ⟨p. 104⟩poor sinner! Why so resolute? Should not the world be a stranger to thee, and thou to the world? Should not sin be a stranger to thee, and thou to sin? What though? I have loved these strangers, and after them my heart and love shall go. Indeed! then let all men judge, God and Angels judge what an opposer thou art to all the Workings of the Spirit to the contrary.

III. Not love Christ! What is this but an opposing and withstanding all the Operations of the Spirit? For do not all tend to this, That you should Love the Lord Jesus? What do all Convictions tend to, in shewing thee thy lost estate, the vanity of the world, the emptiness of the creature, the impossibility of Salvation by any other, but that thou mightest look after him, and make him the Object of thy Love? What meaneth the Illumination of the Spirit, in enlightning of thy mind in the knowledge of Christ, to see and discern the Fulness and Sufficiency of Christ; the Fitness and Suitableness of Christ; the Freeness and the Willingness of Christ, but that thou shouldst fix thy Love upon him? What do all the Persuasions, Strivings, and Wooings of the Spirit-tend to, but Love to Christ? Was ever any more solicitous for the love of another, than the Spirit hath been, that Christ might have thine? And shall all, and thine only Answer be, I cannot love him, I will not love him? No? Why not? Canst thou better place thy Love? Canst thou find in Heaven or Earth, a more suitable Object? Yet art thou resolved to give no other answer, but that in