[3.] If there were any other cause, it must be either the merit of Clirist, or some worthiness on our part.
(1.) The merit of Christ was not the first cause of God's love, but the manifestation, fruit, and effect of it. The text telleth, he first ' loved the world,' and then ' gave his only-begotten Son.' It is said, 1 John iii. 16, * Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.' Look, as we perceive and find out causes by their proper effects, so we perceive the love of God by the death of Christ Christ is the principal means whereby God carrieth on the purposes of his grace, and therefore is represented in scripture as the servant of his decrees.
(2.) No worthiness in us ; for when his love moved him to give Christ for us, he had all mankind in his prospect and view, as lying in the polluted mass, or in a state of sin and misery, and then provided a Kedeemer for them. God at first made a perfect law, which forbade all sin upon pain of death. Man did break this law, and still we break it day by day in every sin. Now when men lived, and went on in sin and hostility against God, he was pleased then to send his Son to assume our nature, and die for our transgressions. Therefore the giving of a Kedeemer was the work of his free mercy. Man loved not God, yea, was an enemy to God, when Christ came to
342 THE SIXTEENTH SERMON. [JoHN III. 16.
make the atonement : 1 John iv. 10, ' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins ;' Col. i. 21, 'And you that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your minds by wicked Avorks, yet now hath he reconciled.' AVe were senseless of our misery, careless of our remedy ; so far from deserving,', that we desired no such mattter. God's love was at the be<xinning:, not ours.
Use 1. Is to confute all misapprehensions of God. It is the j:^rand design of Satan to lessen our opinion of God's goodness. So he assaulted our first parents, as if God (notwithstanding all his good- ness in their creation) was envious of man's felicity and happiness. And he hath not left off his old wont. He seeketh to hide God's goodness, and to represent him as a God that delighteth in our (lestruction and damnation, rather than in our salvation ; as if he were inexorable, and hardly entreated to do us good. And why ? That we may stand ^loof from God, and apprehend him as unlovely. Or if he cannot prevail so far, he terapteth us to poor, unworthy, mean thoughts of his goodness and mercy. Now we cannot obviate the temptation better ithan by due reflections on his love in giving his Sou for the world. This showeth that he is fuller of mercy and goodness than the sun is of light or the sea of water. So great an effect shows the greatness of the cause. Wherefore did he express his love in such a wonderful, astonishing way, but that we might have higher and larger thoughts of his goodness and mercy ? By other effects we easily collect the perfection of his attributes ; that his power is omnipotent, liom. i. 20 ; that his knowledge is omniscient, Heb. iv. 12, 13. And by this effect it is easy to conceive that his love is infinite, or that ' God is love.'
Use 2. Is to quicken us to admire the love of God in Christ.
There are three things wliich commend any favour done unto us : — (1.) The good will of him that giveth ; (2.) The greatness of the gift ; (3.) The unworthiness of him that receiveth. All concur here.
1. The good will of him that giveth. Nothing moved God to do this but his own love. It was from the free motion of his own heart, without our thought and asking. No other reason is given or can be given. We made no suit for any such thing ; it could not enter into our minds and hearts ; into our minds to conceive, or into our hearts to desire, such a remedy to recover the lapsed estate of mankind. Not into our minds, for it is a great mystery: 1' Tim. iii. 16, 'And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,' &c. Not into our hearts to ask or desire ; for it would have seemed a strange request that we should ask that the eternal Son of God should assume our flesh, and be made sin and a curse for us. But grace hath wrought ' exceeding abundantly, above all that we can ask or think,' Ei)h. iii. 20 ; above what we can imagine, and above what we can pray for to him.
2. The greatness of the gift. Great things do even force their way into our minds, whether we will or no. The gift of Jesus Christ is so great, that the love of God is gone to the uttermost in it. He hath not a better Christ, nor a more worthy licdeemer, nor another Son to die for us : nor could the Son of God suffer greater indignities than he