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Love's pedigree. Or A discourse showing the grace of love in a believer to…Love's pedigree. Or A discourse shewing the grace of love in a believer to…
Love's pedigree. Or A discourse showing the grace of love in a believer to be of a divine original delivered in a sermon preached at the lecture in Boston, Febr. 29. 1699[/]1700. / By S. Willard, teacher of a church there. ; [Two lines from James]Love's pedigree. Or A discourse shewing the grace of love in a believer to be of a divine original delivered in a sermon preached at the lecture in Boston, Febr. 29. 1699[/]1700. / By S. Willard, teacher of a church there. ; [Two lines from James]
printed by B. Green, 1700
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
It now follows that we proceed to the resolution of the Case; and we may take it up in the following Propositions.
1 This love of ours with which we love God, is not barely a Natural Affection, or a Moral Principle in it, but a Grace of the Spirit. The natural ⟨p. 11⟩affection indeed is the Subject of it, in which it is rooted, but we must distinguish between the affection it self, and the love which is rooted in it. Love hath Good for its Object; and such as the good is, so is the love denominated. We love the things that are suited to our inclinations: and hence there is in Unregenerate men, a Carnal Love which inclines them to the gratification of their carnal Lusts, and so the objects which are suited thereto attract their love. There is a Natural Love in men to such persons or things as are agreeable to their natures: and there is a love to the things that are Morally Good and Honest, which some Unconverted men have in them, and it proceeds from a principle of Morality, which either remains in them notwithstanding the fall, or hath been acquired by them: but none of these amounts to the love which we are now in the Consideration of: There is then a Divine Love, which carries men out to God, and to Heavenly things, and fixeth them there: and this flows from a special gracious principle infused into the man by the Spirit of God, and can claim its Original from no other; it is therefore called one of the fruits of the Spirit, and is the first named, Gal. 5 22 The fruit of the Spirit is love, &c. This love of God indeed was Connatural to man in his state of integrity, being one of those Graces of Sanctification which ⟨p. 12⟩were concreated in him, and belonged to that Image of God which was at first put upon him, and adorned him. This love was active and vigorous in man before such time as he had depraved himself by Sin; and none of the Commands were grievous to him.