Answ. An old friend, cæteris paribus, is to be preferred before a new one, and is not to be cast off without desert and necessity. But for all that, 1. If an old friend prove false, or notably unfit, 2. Or if we meet with another that is far more able, fit, and worthy, no doubt but we may prefer the latter; and may value, love, and use men as they are for goodness, worth, and usefulness.
Quest. VIII. What love is due to a minister that hath been the means of our conversion? And can such a one be loved too much?
Answ. 1. There is a special love due to such a one, as the hand by which God did reach out to us his invaluable mercies; and ingratitude, and sectarian, proud contempt of such as have been our fathers in Christ, is no small sin.
2. But yet another that never did us good, who is much wiser, and better, and more serviceable to the church, must be better loved, than he by whom we were converted. Because we are to love men more for the sake of God and his image and service, than for ourselves.
3. And it is a very common thing, for passionate women and young people, when they are newly converted, to think that they can never too much value, and honour, and love those that converted them; and to think that all such love is holy and from God; whereas the same love may be of God as to the principle, motives, and ends, in the main, and yet may have great mixtures of passionate weakness, and sinful excess, which may tend to their great affliction in the end. Some that have been converted by the writings of a minister a hundred or a thousand miles off, must needs go see the author: some must needs remove from their lawful dwellings and callings, to live under the ministry of such a one; yea, if it may be, in the house with him: some have affections so violent, as proveth a torment to them when they cannot live with those whom they so affect: some by that affection are ready to follow those that they so value into any error. And all this is a sinful love by this mixture of passionate weakness, though pious in the main.
Quest. IX. Why should we restrain our love to a bosom friend (contrary to Cicero's doctrine)? And what sin or danger is in loving him too much?
Answ. All these following: 1. It is an error of judgment and of will, to suppose any one better than he is, (yea, perhaps than any creature on earth is,) and so to love him.
2. It is an irrational act, and therefore not fit for a rational creature, to love any one further than reason will allow us, and beyond the true causes of regular love.
3. It is usually a fruit of sinful selfishness: for this excess of love doth come from a selfish cause, either some strong conceit that the person greatly loveth us, or for some great kindness which he hath showed us, or for some need we have of him, and fitness appearing in him to be useful to us, &c. Otherwise it would be purely for amiable worth, and then it would be proportioned to the nature and measure of that worth.
4. It very often taketh up men's minds, so as to hinder their love to God, and their desires and delights in holy things: while Satan (perhaps upon religious pretences) turneth our affections too violently to some person, it diverteth them from higher and better things: for the weak mind of man can hardly think earnestly of one thing, without being alienated in his thoughts from others; nor can hardly love two things or persons fervently at once, that stand not in pure subordination one to the other: and we seldom love any fervently in a pure subordination to God; for then we should love God still more fervently.