Believing in Jesus goes hand in hand with loving Him. As soon as we know Him well enough to trust Him, we can’t help loving Him too. Yet some people who have heard of Jesus somehow don’t fall in love with Him. What can we possibly say to our friends and family members who haven’t yet embraced Jesus for themselves? Do we have any advice for the people who sporadically turn up at church for occasional services and are wondering whether there may be something in Christianity after all? Thomas Doolittle (1633?–1707) pastored several congregations in London for around 50 years right up until his death and wrote several popular works with a pastoral and evangelistic emphasis. He was deeply impressed by Paul’s words, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha” (1 Corinthians 16:22). The following updated extract is from the urgent letter Doolittle wrote to anyone who doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, highlighting the danger of this lovelessness and identifying the compelling reasons for loving the lovely Saviour.

Dear friend,

The glorious person who is both Lord, and Jesus, and Christ, has suffered and done and promised just the kind of things that might win the love of sinners to Himself. By these things He pleads with sinners to set their affections on Him.

Think of who competes for your love

In opposition to Him stand the world and sin, competing with Him for the love of our hearts. Christ calls, “Sinner, love me!” Sin and the world shout aloud, “Love us!” The Spirit, the Word, ministers, mercies, and a well-informed conscience press hard for us to love Christ. The devil and the flesh are rooting for us to love sin and the world.

Love we have, and one of these we will love. Both we cannot love at the same time, with a predominant love, for either we will hate the one and love the other, or else we will hold to the one, and despise the other. “Ye cannot (love and) serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). Predominant love to the one is incompatible with predominant love to the other. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

Who can avoid grieving, and who can abstain from floods of tears and bitter lamentation, when they see that the love of man — such a noble affection in itself — is set so much on sin, which is so bad in itself, and so bad to those who love it? and set on the world, which proves a vexation to those who are so fond of it? They love and are vexed. They are vexed by it, and yet still continue and increase their love to it. Their vexation by it does not abate their inordinate love to it. Meanwhile, Christ, who is the primary, principal, and most delightful object of love, is slighted by so many, even by the majority.

Realise how irrational it is not to love Jesus

Blind sinners! You love sin so vile, and the world so contemptible, and not Christ, who is so altogether lovely and desirable! What perverseness is this, that Christ, who is best in Himself, and best for you, is refused, and sin, which is worst in itself, and worst to you, is embraced! What folly and madness is this, that Christ is kept out, standing at the door, when sin and the world are let in, and lodged, and kindly entertained in the chief room in your hearts!

When sin should have no love, will it get all? When Christ should have all, does He get none? Why is disgusting sin so lovely, and a precious Christ so unlovely in your eyes?

Have you considered what sin is, and what Christ is, when you have greater love to the work of the devil than to God’s own Son? And even when sin is so bad and vile that, as sin, it cannot be loved even by the worst of people unless it is first disguised and dressed up with the appearance of good — yet Christ is so good that, as Christ, He is to be loved most of all!

When you are called, invited, and charged, in the name of God, by the ministers of Christ, showing you God’s call, invitation and charge to love this lovely Jesus, why do you retort and say, “What is your beloved above another beloved, O ye ministers of Christ?” How long will you keep saying, “He hath no form nor comeliness, we see no beauty in Him that we should desire Him”?

How long will Christ complain of you, that you hate both Him and His Father? And is not this complaint the more grievous when you hate Him without a cause, and do not love Him when there is so much cause and reason why you should? What has sin and the world done for you, and what has Christ ever done against you, that you love your sorest enemies, and hate Him who would be your surest friend?

Consider what good can come of it

Has sin given you pleasures? But how long will they last? And what will you do when the pleasures of sin are past and fled away, and the pains and punishment for sin have come, and shall never, never pass away?

Has the world allowed you its profits? But whose shall these be, when you are dead and lodged in the dust? What profit is there in all your profits, if you gain them and lose your soul? Won’t your gain be your everlasting loss?

Christ is the admiration of the angels, but the target of your derision. They adore Him, and you despise Him. Holy saved souls in heaven delight and joy in their love to Him, and in His love to them, yet you turn away your love, and alienate your heart from Him, and love sin, and rejoice in your love of sin. Saved souls around you say, “Whom have we in heaven but Christ? Or what is there on earth that we desire, like or love in comparison with Him?” Yet you prefer your sins and fleshly pleasures and worldly profits above Him.

Alas for you! Call the mourners, to bewail your sin and misery with flowing tears. Why your sin? Because you do not love Christ. Why your misery? Because you must be “anathema maran-atha,” accursed when the Lord comes. Let angels blush, let the heavens be ashamed, let good people weep, let the earth mourn, let all the creation of God sigh, and sob, and groan, that the Son of God is not beloved by so many of the sons of men!

Grasp the danger of lovelessness and act

But is it enough for you, you who do not love Christ, that others lament your woeful situation, while you yourself spend your time and waste your days in sinful love, and carnal delights, and sensual joy? If you were convinced of your present sin, and could see your future approaching misery, you couldn’t be so full of mirth, on the very borders of the place where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Could you laugh and sing so near the bottomless pit, where your laughing shall be turned into mourning, and your mirth into everlasting sorrow?

Won’t you grasp your danger and say, “Alas! What shall I do when sickness comes, and death comes, and the Lord Himself comes, and I have no love for Him? How shall I die, and after death stand at the tribunal of someone I never loved? How dreadful, to leave all that I ever did love, and go to be judged by Him who (woe is me!) I never did love! What was I thinking, giving to my pleasures, and my riches, and my family, the love I should have given to Christ? Seeing I never loved Christ, I sinned like the devil, and my sentence now is to be condemned for that sin, and in hell suffer with and as the devil.”

Yet all this may be prevented. So, won’t you try it? — How? By calling off your love from other things, and placing it predominantly on the Lord Jesus. By faith in Him and love to Him, you may escape the curse and obtain the blessing.

Would you rather be condemned than love Christ? Is your enmity to Him so much that you would rather be miserable for ever than place your affections on Him? Are you not willing to forsake your old love, and get new love to Christ?

Come and fix your love on Jesus

If only you would clearly see, steadfastly believe, and distinctly grasp the transcendent excellence, the attractive beauty, the invaluable worth of the Lord Jesus! Then you would prize Him more than gold and pearls and costly jewels, and love Him more than all! How is it that, when you hear those who love Him most, complain of the smallness of their love, you don’t reflect on yourself, and say, “What a sinner I must be, when I have no love at all to Him, and yet I’m not troubled about not loving Him?”

For my own part, I do complain that I cannot love this blessed Jesus with the strength of love I ought, and I earnestly desire and endeavour to grieve more because I love Him no more. I want others to make up what I lack, and be enlarged, and abound in the love I’m so defective in. The degrees of love I cannot teach, I want others to attain to, so that while I mourn for the smallness of my own love, then I could rejoice in the greatness of the love of others for this lovely Jesus. Yet all this is less than He is worthy of! So I get some joy into my grieved soul by remembering that in heaven, saved souls and angels love Him with a perfect and eternal love. So though I cannot love as they do, yet I may rejoice on earth that there are ten thousand times ten thousands, and thousands of thousands in heaven, rejoicing in the fullness of love which is in them to Him!

I pray that God might move your heart to fix your love on Christ. I do not aim at the vain applause of dying men, but to win your heart, and hearty love. Let the prayers of all who truly love Christ meet, so that their number may be increased! Amen.

— Thomas Doolittle

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