The Works of Robert Leighton Author:Robert Leighton General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1805 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: Loving of God makes us one with God, and fo gives us an impreffion of his divine bounty in his Spirit ; and his love, the proper work of his Spirit, dwelling in the heart, enlarges and dilates it, as felf- love contracts and ftraitens it: So that as felf-love is the perfect oppufite to the love of God, it is like- wife fo to brotherly love ; it fhnts out and undoes both: And where the love of God is rekindled and enters the heart, it deftroys and burns up felf-love, and fo carries the affection up to himfelf, and in him forth to our brethren. This is that bitter root of all enmity in man againfl God, and amongft men, againft one another, felf, man's heart turned from God towards himfelf; and the very work of renewing grace is, to annul and deftroy felf, to replace God in his right, that the heart, and all its affections and motions, may be at his difpofal. So that, inftead of felf. will and felf. love that ruled before, now the will of God, and the love of God, command all. And where it is thus, there this pSip, this love of our brethren, will be fmcere. Whence is it that wars, and contefts, and mutual diigracings and defpifings, do fo much abound, but that men love themfelves, and nothing but themfelves, or in relation to themfelves, as it pleafes, or is advantageous to them ? That is the ftandard and rule; all is carried by intereft, fo thence are ftrifes and defamings, and bitternefs againft one another; but the Spirit of Chrift coming in, undoes all felfimnefs. And now, according to God, what he wills and loves, that is law, and a powerful law ; the law of love is fo written on the heart, that it...« less