We know that this doctrine killeth sin, and curseth it at the very roots:  I say, we know it, who have mourned over him whom we have pierced, and who have been confounded to see that God by his blood should be pacified towards us for all the wickedness we have done.  Yea, we have a double motive to be holy and humble before him:  one, because he died for us on earth; another, because he now appears for us in heaven, there sprinkling for us the mercy-seat with his blood, there ever living to make intercession for them that come unto God by him.  “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.”  Yet this works in us no looseness nor favor to sin, but so much the more an abhorrence of it:  “She loveth much, for much was forgiven her;” yea, she weeps, she washeth his feet, and wipeth them with the hairs of her head, to the confounding of Simon the Pharisee, and all such ignorant hypocrites.

Divine love improved.

Empty notions of the love of God and of Christ will do nothing but harm; wherefore they are not empty notions that I press thee to rest in, but that thou labor after the knowledge of the savor of this good ointment which the apostle calls “the savor of the knowledge of this Lord Jesus.”  Know it until it becomes sweet or pleasant to thy soul, and then it will preserve and keep thee.  Make this love of God and of Christ thine own, and not another’s.  Many there are that can talk largely of the love of God to Abraham, to David, to Peter, and Paul.  But that is not the thing.  Give not over until this love be made thine own; until thou find and feel it to run warm in thy heart by the shedding of it abroad there, by the Spirit that God has given thee.  Then thou wilt know it with an obliging and engaging knowledge; yea, then thou wilt know it with a soul-strengthening and soul-encouraging knowledge.

Wouldst thou improve this love of God and of Christ? then set it against the love of all other things whatsoever, even until this love shall conquer thy soul from the love of them to itself.

This is Christian.  Do it therefore, and say, “Why should any thing have my heart but God, but Christ?  He loves me with love that passeth knowledge.  He loves me, and he shall have me; he loves me, and I will love him; his love stripped him of all for my sake; Lord, let my love strip me of all for thy sake.  I am a son of love, an object of love, a monument of love, of free love, of distinguishing love, of peculiar love, and of love that passeth knowledge; and why should not I walk in love? in love to God, in love to men, in holy love, in love unfeigned?”

This is the way to improve the love of God for thy advantage, for the subduing of thy passions, and for sanctifying of thy nature.

It is an odious thing to hear men of base lives talking of the love of God, of the death of Christ, and of the glorious grace that is presented unto sinners by the word of the truth of the gospel.  Praise is comely for the upright, not for the profane.