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If there could be found any men who were in the
integrity of original justice in which Adam was
created, though otherwise not helped by another
assistance from God than that which he affords to
each creature, in order that it may be able to do the
actions befitting its nature, such men would not only
have an inclination to love God above all things but
even naturally would be able to put into execution so
just an inclination.
For as this heavenly author and master of nature
co-operates with and lends his strong hand to fire to
spring on high, to water to flow towards the sea, to
earth to sink down to its centre and stay there - so
having himself planted in man's heart a special
natural inclination not only to love good in general
but to love in particular and above all things his
divine goodness which is better and sweeter than all
things - the sweetness of his sovereign providence
required that he should contribute to these blessed
men of whom we speak as much help as should be
necessary to practise and effectuate that
inclination.
This help would be on the one hand natural, as
being suitable to nature, and tending to the love of
God as author and sovereign master of nature, and on
the other hand it would be supernatural, because it
would correspond not with the simple nature of man,
but with nature adorned, enriched and honoured by
original justice, which is a supernatural quality
proceeding from a most special favour of God.
But as to the love above all things which such
help would enable these men to practise, it would be
called natural, because virtuous actions take their
names from their objects and motives, and this love
of which we speak would only tend to God as
acknowledged to be author, lord and sovereign of
every creature by natural light only, and
consequently to be amiable and estimable above all
things by natural inclination and tendency.
And although now our human nature be not endowed with
that original soundness and righteousness which the
first man had in his creation, but on the contrary be
greatly depraved by sin, yet still the holy
inclination to love God above all things stays with
us, as also the natural light by which we see his
sovereign goodness to be more worthy of love than all
things; and it is impossible that one thinking
attentively upon God; yea even by natural reasoning
only, should not feel a certain movement of love
which the secret inclination of our nature excites in
the bottom of our hearts, by which at the first
apprehension of this chief and sovereign object, the
will is taken, and perceives itself stirred up to a
complacency in it.
It happens often amongst partridges that one
steals away another's eggs with intention to sit on
them, whether moved by greediness to become a mother,
or by a stupidity which makes them mistake their own,
and behold a strange thing, yet well supported by
testimony! - the young one which was hatched and
nourished under the wings of a stranger partridge, at
the first call of the true mother, who had laid the
egg whence she was hatched, quits the
thief-partridge, goes back to the first mother, and
puts herself in her brood, from the correspondence
which she has with her first origin. Yet this
correspondence appeared not, but remained secret,
shut up and as it were sleeping in the bottom of
nature, till it met with its object; when suddenly
excited, and in a sort awakened, it produces its
effect, and turns the young partridge's inclination
to its first duty.
It is the same, Theotimus, with our heart, which
though it be formed, nourished and bred amongst
corporal, base and transitory things, and in a manner
under the wings of nature, notwithstanding, at the
first look it throws on God, at its first knowledge
of him, the natural and first inclination to love God
which was dull and imperceptible, awakes in an
instant, and suddenly appears as a spark from amongst
the ashes, which couching our will gives it a
movement of the supreme love due to the sovereign and
first principle of all things.
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