An anonymous female Puritan said in Evidence for Heaven that love softens the heart in which it dwells. Nothing is as soothing as love; and love apprehended calms the heart. She made what seems at first a counter-intuitive statement—the way to increase sorrow for sin is to increase your love for God. Grief springs more naturally from love than any other emotion. There is not a grief so kindly, so piercing, so long lasting, as that which springs from pure love. This principle of love compelled her to question the truth of her love, for she found her heart to be hard, meaning: “I cannot grieve for sinne, as I should, or as I would.”
The answer to this dilemma is that softness of heart can be shown in other ways besides grief. It shows itself by walking in the statutes of the Lord; in keeping them and doing them. It is evident in a readiness to obey the known will of God, without resisting any part of it.
On the other hand, iniquity springs from the total decay of love, and is opposed to love. If love flourishes, iniquity cannot. In whatever way love abounds, sin decreases. “As love decayes, abates, and cools, iniquity abounds.” Consider the church at Ephesus. When it continued in her first and fervent love, we don’t read of any complaints. But when her loved waned, iniquity thrived.
The person whose judgment is unsound is in danger of being corrupted by flattery. However, the one whose love is unsound is in even greater danger of being corrupted. Knowledge of the truth without love of the truth does not lead to salvation. Mere knowledge of the truth is not able to uphold the profession and obedience of the truth. The person whose love is sound may fall and become guilty of a partial apostacy through fear of some earthly evil. “But he shall never fall away totally nor finally from the God of truth, not from the truth of God.”
Sincere love to God is not lessened by increased of knowledge of the truth; rather it is increased with it. The person who loves God sincerely does not lessen his love to God, nor to the Ordinances of God or to the ministers of God; he increases it. As his knowledge increases, so does his love. His love abounds more and more, with knowledge and all discernment (Philippians 1:9).
And sincere love to God always produces a sincere love towards others. As it says in 1 John 4:20, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” It is as if John were saying it is impossible for a man to love God sincerely if he does not love his brother. If an individual loves God, that love will constrain him to love his brother, as the next verse said: “whoever loves God must also love his brother.” By these properties of a sincere love of God, a Christian may rightly judge his love to God, and consequently know the condition of his soul. A sincere love of others demonstrates the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of your soul.
It is a love without measure. It is a freely given love. It is a condescending love, making the individual stoop to his brother who cannot come up to him, “by reason of his mean place, education, parts or gifts.” It is manifested in deeds, not just in words, according to ability. It is a uniting love, knitting together the hearts of Christians. It is a growing love; one that still increases. It is a covering grace, sheltering all infirmities.
I then love my brother in the truth, when the bond that links me and him together, in a Christian conjunction, is the true and constant profession of the truth.
Not without cause do Christians complain of a hardness of heart these days. But few of them realize that a lack of love is the cause. Disaffection weakens and cools love in a man. This it does towards God, and towards others. As love declines and disaffection grows, the heart progressively becomes harder.
Our great hardness of heart, and unprofitableness under the great meanes of grace in pub∣ick, I may truly say, hath in great part sprung from the gross neglect of the duties of Christian love; and the great strangeness that is grown amongst Christians, in these times.
Great is the liberty of Christian love, of love congruous to the rule of God. It means we are not to speak evil against one another in any matter; don’t bite and devour one another. Do not oppress, over-reach or defraud one another in any matter. Don’t render evil for evil to anyone. Don’t bear false witness.
Give no offence willingly to any, but endeavour, as much as lawfully they may, to live peaceably with all men; They put away all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evill speaking, with all malice; Love one another as God gave us Commandement; Love one another, as Christ hath loved us; Love as Brethren; Love without dissimulation, cordially, unfeignedly, out of a pure heart, fervently; Love not in word and in tongue only, but in deed, and in truth.
Scripture commands all these qualifications in my love towards my brother. Therefore, loving our neighbor must have the same qualifications. Here the soul is made aware of its own failings. “Who then can be saved?”, as the disciples asked when Christ told them how hard it was for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
He that truly wills, desires, and indeavours to do all this, that Christ may have the honour of it, doth it in a Gospel-sense, and in Gods acceptation, who accepts the will for the deed: where ability is wanting, this must be granted, otherwise no Child of Adam could conclude on the affirmative.Now for other appearances of Love, they are these; What a man Loves, he prizes accordingly; What a man loves, he delights in accordingly; What a man Loves, he desires to enjoy; what a man loves, he cannot hear reproached, reviled, and spoken against, but with grief of heart: This needs no proving, every ones experience, will testifie the truth of it.Wouldest thou know, whether thy Love to God and thy Love to man be sound, and such as demonstrates the holy Spirits saving habitation in thy soul or not? then go through what hath been said in this little Epitomie, touching Love to God, and Love to man; and consider, whether thy Love be truly such, yea or nay; and if thou findest it truly such, though but weakly, conclude thou maist safely to thy comfort, that thy Love is such, as really demonstrates thou art beloved of God and indued with the holy Spirit of God savingly: For Love indeed and in truth, argues that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him, as the Apostle affirms.
This is the fifth reflection I’ve done on excerpts from Evidence for Heaven, written by an anonymous Puritan female author. Edward Calamy was credited as the author, but he himself acknowledged it was actually written by a female member of his church.
