An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

We love Christ for his Benefits,¹ these are the first impulsives of our Love; but our love, once kindled, is afterwards blown up into a purer flame by those attractive Excellencies and ravishing Beauties, which are in the Person of Christ; we come to love Christ for himself. The Spouse in the Canticles did not only love Christ for his Shadow and sweet fruits, for the Graces and Benefits communicated from him, but for himself, his incomparable Person, who is the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Neither is this Love to Christ for himself (what the Author would have it to be) a Love for no reason, or a Love in its folly and degeneracy: But it is a Love for the greatest Reason, and a Love in perfection. There is a greater worthiness and so an higher attractive of our Love in the Person of Christ than in his Benefits; and therefore in all reason Love ⟨p. 599⟩is in a more high and superlative measure due to the one than to the other. All the Benefits of Christ are but as so many Mediums to draw up and attract our Love to the Person of Christ, and our Love in its ascent up thither, must not stay or take up its final rest in Means (for this would be to pervert the nature of Means and transform them into Ends;) but it must terminate in Christ the great End and Centre. Should we love the Benefits more than the Person of Christ, we should be lovers of our selves more than lovers of Christ; our Love would then return and circulate into our selves, and there rest and centre ut in ultimo termino, which is no less than Idolatry. If we are truly espoused to Christ, we will not love the Rings and Jewels, more than himself; nay, nor so much: The true noble Lover doth not acquiesce in other gifts, but in Christ, the Gift above all other gifts. But, saith the Author, A Goodness, which doth no good, or never did any, is so far from being the object of our Love, that it is not the object of our Understanding: To which I answer, It's true, if God had never done good, that is, had never created a Creature, he could not ⟨p. 600⟩have been the Object of any created Love or Understanding; for there being no Creation, there could have been no such thing as any created Love or Understanding; however he had been an Object for a greater Love and Understanding than any created one, even for his own infinite Love and Understanding.