The true Christians love of the unseen Christ, or, A discourse chiefly tending to…

4. Consider, It is your Wisdom to love Christ. Deut. 4. 6. Keep therefore and Do them, for this is your Wisdom and Understanding in the sight of the Nations, which shall hear these Statutes, and say surely this great Nation is a Wise and Understanding People. None have such Wisdom and Understanding as those who have and keep this Statute and Commandment to love the Lord Jesus Christ, Psal. 111. 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, a good Understanding have all they that do his Commandments T•e fear of the Lord and the love of Christ are always in conjunction, or rather the former doth include the latter; this is the beginning and chief part of Wisdom, and those have the greatest Understandings, who have the strongest Affections to the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of Christ is the most reasonable and therefore the most ⟨p. 103⟩wise love. That love is most reasonable, which is chiefly carried forth towards that object which is most suitable and really most Amiable; none so suitable and amiable an object as the Lord Jesus Christ, as appears in what hath been already said concerning Christs Person, Christs Love, and Christs Benefits. Such as love other persons or things with a chief love, they are mistaken in the objects of their love, they apprehend more excellency and desirableness in them, than really is in them, and so their love is a foolish love and unreasonable, there being nothing really worthy of it, nothing really amiable in the chief place beneath and besides Christ. Such as make choice of Christ for the object of their chief love, they make the wisest choice, there are really those excellencies in him which they apprehend, and beyond what they can possibly apprehend and conceive. They are fools that are slow of Heart to love Christ, and they are most wise that are most forward unto this love. It is your Wisdom to love Christ chiefly, and to love Christ ardently, such Wisdom as will make your faces shine in the Eyes of good men, and which will put a lustre upon your Spirits in the Eyes of God? True Wisdom doth not ⟨p. 104⟩consist in the invention of curious and quaint Notions, in the framing sound and rational Deductions, in uttering the sense of the mind in neat and florid Expressions;