CHAPTER XVI.
THAT WE HAVE A NATURAL INCLINATION TO LOVE GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS.
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.
