42. Yet it followeth not that we must love him only as he appeareth in his works, which demonstrate him as effects do their cause; for both by the said works improved by reason, and by his word, we know that he is before his works, and above them, and so distinct from them as to transcend, and comprehend, and cause them all, by a continual causality; and therefore he must accordingly be loved.
43. It greatly hindereth our love to God, when we overlook all the intermediate excellencies between him and us, which are much better, and therefore more amiable, than ourselves; such as are before recited.
44. The love of the universe, as bearing the liveliest image or impress of its cause, is an eminent secondary love of God, and a great help to our primary or immediate love of him. Could we comprehend the glorious excellency of the universal creation, in its matter, form, parts, order, and uses, we should see so glorious an image of God, as would unspeakably promote the work of love.
45. Whether the glory of God in heaven, which will for ever beautify the beholders and possessors, be the divine essence, (which is every where,) or a created glory purposely there placed for the felicity of holy spirits, and what that glory is, are questions fittest for the beholders and possessors to resolve.
46. But if it be no more than the universal, existent frame of nature, containing all the creatures of God beheld uno intuitu in the nature, order, and use of all the parts, it would be an unconceivable felicity to the beholders, as being an unconceivable glorious demonstration of the Deity.
47. It is lawful and a needful duty, to labour by the means of such excellencies as we know, which heaven is resembled to in Scripture, to imprint upon our imaginations themselves, such an image of the glory of the heavenly society, Christ, angels, saints, and the heavenly place and state, as shall help our intellectual apprehensions of the spiritual excellencies which transcend imagination. And the neglect of loving God as foreseen in the demonstration of the heavenly glory, doth greatly hinder our love to him immediately as in himself considered.
48. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his glorified, created nature, is crowned with the highest excellency of any particular creature, that he might be the Mediator of our love to God; and in him (seen by faith) we might see the glory of the Deity. And as in heaven we shall have (spiritual, glorified) bodies as well as souls, so the glorified, created nature of Christ will be an objective glory, fit for our bodies (at least) to behold in order to their glory, as the divine nature (as it pleaseth God in glory) revealed, will be to the soul.
49. The exercise of our love upon God as now appearing to the glorified, in the glorious created nature of Christ, (beheld by us by faith,) is a great part of our present exercise of divine love: and we extinguish our love to God, by beholding so little by faith our glorified Mediator.
50. We owe greater love to angels than to men, because they are better, nearer God, and liker to him, and more demonstrate his glory; and indeed also love us better, and do more for us, than we can do for one another. And the neglect of our due love and gratitude to angels, and forgetting our relation to them, and receivings by them, and communion with them, and living as if we had little to do with them, is a culpable overlooking God, as he appeareth in his most noble creatures, and is a neglect of our love to God in them, and a great hinderance to our higher more immediate love. Therefore by faith and love we should exercise a daily converse with angels, as part of our heavenly conversation, Phil. iii. 20, 21; Heb. xii. 22; and use ourselves to love God in them: though not to pray to them, or give them divine worship.
51. We must love the glorified saints more than the inhabitants of this lower world, because they are far better, and liker to God, and nearer to him, and more demonstrate his holiness and glory. And our neglect of conversing with them by faith, and of loving them above ourselves, and things on earth, is a neglect of our love to God in them, and a hinderance of our more immediate love. And a loving conversation with them by faith, would greatly help our higher love to God.