Lord delivered Christ, and that is the [World.] This must re- spect the elect of God in the world, such as do, or shall actually believe, as it is exigetically expressed in the next words, " That " whosoever believes in him should not perish :" Those whom he calls the world in that, he stiles believers in this expression ; and the word [World] is put to signify the elect, because they are scat- tered through all parts, and are among all ranks of men in the world; these are the objects of this love; it is not angels, but men, that were so loved; he is called p/Aavfywrog, a Lover, a Friend of Men, but never cpiXayfcXog, or piXoxlisog, the Lover or Friend of Angels, or creatures of another species.
4. The manner in which this never-enough celebrated mercy flows to us, from the fountain of divine love, and that is most free- ly and spontaneously. He gave, not he sold, or barely parted from, but gave. Nor yet doth the Father's giving imply Christ to be merely passive ; for as the Father is here said to give him, so the apostle tells us, Gal. ii. 20. That he gave himself, " who loved " me, and gave himself for me :" The Father gave him out of good will to men, and he as willingly bestowed himself ' on that service. Hence the note is,
Doct. That the gift of Christ is the highest and fullest nia?ii- Jestation of the love of God to sinners, that ever was made from eternity to them.
How is this gift of God to sinners signalized in that place of the apostle, 1 John iv. 10. " Herein is love ; not that we loved God, u but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for " our sins ?" Why doth the apostle so magnify this gift in saying, " Herein is love," as if there were love in nothing else ! * May we not say, that to have a being, a being among the rational crea- tures, therein is love ? To have our life carried so many years like a taper in the hand of Providence, through so many dangers, and not yet put out in obscurity, therein is love ? To have food and raiment, convenient for us, beds to lie on, relations to comfort us, in all these is love ? Yea, but if you speak comparatively, in all these there is no love, to the love expressed in sending or giving Christ for us : These are great mercies in themselves ; but com- pared to this mercy, they are all swallowed up, as the light of can- dles when brought into the sun-shine. No, no, herein is love,
* God loves all his creatures : and among these he especially loves those he hath endowed with reason, and of those he loves more especially those who are members of the Only-begotten.. How much more the Only-begotten himself! Jag. T. 9. on John,
SERM. IV. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 65
that God gave Christ for us. And it is remarkable, that when the apostle would shew us, in Rom. v. 8. what is the noblest fruit that most commends to men the root of divine love that bears it, he shews us this very fruit of it that I am now opening ; " But " God, saith he, commendeth his love towards us, in that while " we were yet sinners, Christ died for us :" this is the very flower of that love.
The method into which I will cast this precious point, shall be this : (1.) To shew how Jesus Christ was given by the Father. (2.) How that gift is the fullest and richest manifestation of the love of God that was ever made to the world. (3.) And then draw forth the uses of it.
1. How was Jesus Christ given by the Father, and what is im- plied therein.
You are not so to understand it, as though God parted with his interest and property in his Son, when he is said to give him ; he was as much his own as ever. When men give, they transfer pro- perty to another ; but when God had given him, he was, I say, still as much his own as ever : but this giving of Christ implies,
(1.) His designation and appointment unto death for us; for so you read, that it was done " according to the determinate counsel " of God," Acts ii. 23. Look, as the Lamb under the Law was separated from the flock, and set appart for a sacrifice ; though it were still living, yet it was intentionally, and preparatively given, and consecrated to the Lord : so Jesus Christ was, by the counsel and purpose of God, thus chosen, and set apart for his service : and therefore in Isa. xlii. 1. God calls him his Elect, or chosen One.
(2.) His giving Christ, implies a parting with him, or setting him (as the French hath it) at some distance from himself for a time. There was a kind of parting betwixt the Father and the Son, when he came to tabernacle in our flesh: so he expresseth it, John xvi. 28. " I came forth from the Father, and am come " into the world ; again, I leave the world and go to the Father.'" This distance that this incarnation and humiliation set him at, was properly as to his humanity, which was really distant from the glory into which it is now taken up, and in respect of manifes- tation of delight and love, the Lord seemed to carry it as one at a distance from him. Oh ! this was it that so deeply pierced, and wounded his soul, as is evident from that complaint, Psal. xxii. 1, 2. " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " Why art thou so far from the words of my roaring ? O my " God, I cry in the day-time, but thou nearest not," fyc.
(3.) God's giving of Christ, implies his delivering him into the hands of justice to be punished; even as condemned persons are,
CG THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM- IV.
by sentence of law, given or delivered into the hands of execution- ers. So Acts ii. 23. " Him, being delivered by the determinate " counsel of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have " slain :" and so he is said, Rom. viii. 32 " To deliver him up " to death for us all." The Lord, when the time was come that Christ must suffer, did, as it were, say, O all ye roaring waves of my incensed justice, now swell as high as heaven, and go over his soul and body ; sink him to the bottom ; let him go, like Jonah, his type, into the belly of hell, unto the roots of the mountains. Come all ye raging storms, that I have reserved for this day of wrath, beat upon him, beat him down, that he may not be able to look up, Psal. lx. 12. Go justice, put him upon the rack, tor- ment him in every part, till all his u bones be out of joint, and his " heart within him be melted as wax in the midst of his bowels," Psal. xxii. 14. And ye assembly of the wicked Jews and Gentiles, that have so long gaped for his blood, now he is delivered into your hands ; you are permitted to execute your malice to the full : I now loose your chain, and into your hand and power is he de- livered.