7. It follows, love _is not puffed_ up. It does not incline or suffer any man _to think more highly of himself than he ought to think_: but rather _to think soberly_. Yea, it humbles the soul unto the dust. It destroys all high conceits engendering pride, and makes us rejoice to be as nothing, to be little and vile, the lowest of all, the servant of all. They who are _kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love_, cannot but _in honour prefer one another_. Those who _having the same love_ are _of one accord_, do _in lowliness of mind each esteem other better than themselves_.
8. _It doth not behave itself unseemly._ It is not rude, or willingly offensive to any. It _renders to all their due; fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour_: courtesy, civility, humanity to all the world; in their several degrees _honouring all men_. A late writer defines good-breeding, nay, the highest degree of it, politeness, “a continual desire to please, appearing in all the behaviour.” But if so, there is none so well-bred as a Christian, a lover of all mankind. For he cannot but desire to _please all men, for their good, to edification_. And this desire cannot be hid: it will necessarily appear in all his intercourse with men. For his _love_ is _without dissimulation_; it will appear in all his actions and conversation: yea, and will constrain him, tho’ without guile, to _become all things to all men, if by any means_ he _may save some_.
9. And in becoming all things to all men, _love seeketh not her own_. In striving to please all men, the lover of mankind has no eye at all to his own temporal advantage. He covets no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel: he desires nothing, but the salvation of their souls. Yea, in some sense he maybe be said, _not to seek his own_ spiritual, any more than temporal advantage. For while he is on the full stretch to save their souls from death, he, as it were forgets himself. He does not think of himself, so long as that zeal for the glory of God swallows him up. Nay, at some times, he may almost seem, through an excess of love, to give up himself, both his soul and his body: while he cries out with _Moses, [56]Oh! this people have sinned a great sin. Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin. And if not, blot me out of the book which thou hast written_! Or with St. _Paul, [57]I could wish that myself were accursed from_ Christ, _for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh_!