John III. 16.] the sixteenth sermon. 343
hath suffered for our sakes. God said to Abraliam, Gen. xxii. 12, ' Now I know that thou fearest God, since thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.' God was not ignorant before, but the meaning is, this is an apparent proof and instance of it. So now we may know God loveth us ; here is tlie manifest token and sign of it.
3. The unworthiness of him that receiveth ; this is also in the case. We were altogether unworthy that the Son of God should be incarnate, and die for our sakes. This is notably improved by the apostle, Kom. V. 7, 8, ' For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, but for a good man some would even dare to die : but God commcndeth his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' The apostle alludeth to the distinction familiar among the Jews: they had their good men, or bountiful ; their righteous men, zealous for the law ; and their wicked men, obnoxious to judgment. Peradventure one would venture his life for a very merciful person, but you shall hardly find any to be so liberal and friendly as to venture his life for a right- eous and just man, or a man of rigid innocence. But mark, there are abating terms — scarcely and perhaiw. The case is rare that one should die for another, be he never so good and righteous. But God's ex- pression of mercy was infinitely above the proportion of any the most friendly man ever showed. There was nothing in the object to move him to it, when we were neither good nor just, but wicked. Without respect to any worth in us, for we were all in a damnable estate, he sent his Son to die for us, to rescue and free us from eternal death, and to make us partakers of eternal life. God so loved the world, when we had so sinned, and wilfully plunged ourselves into an estate of damnation.
But you will say. If this mercy be so great, why are men no more affected with it ?
I answer : —
1. Because of their stupid carelessness; they do not see the need of this mercy, and therefore do not prize the worth of it. If they were sensible that there is an avenger of blood at their heels, or God's wrath making inquisition for sinners, they would more earnestly run into the city of refuge, Heb. vi. 18.
2. They do not truly believe this mystery of grace, but speak of it by rote and hearsay, after others. All affections follow faith: 1 Peter ii. 7, ' Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious.'
3. They do not seriously consider the importance of it, therefore the weightiest objects do not stir us ; our minds are taken up about toys and trifles.
4. They have not the lively lighf of the Spirit : Eom. v. 5, ' The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.' It is not our dry thoughts and doctrinal knowledge that will affect and change our heart, till the Spirit turneth our light into love and our knowledge into taste.
Use 3. Is to exhort us : —
1. To improve this love. It is an invitation to seek after God ; for see what preparations his love hath made to recover you to himself, and will not you be recovered ? God doth not hate you, and therefore
344 THE SIXTEENTH SERMON. [JoHN III. IG-
you need not flee from him as a revenging God: lie 'so loved the work!, that he gave his only-begotten Son.' In that capacious expres- sion you are not excluded, therefore exclude not yourselves. And such a broad foundation of his mercy being laid, what may you not expect from it ? 2 Cor. v. 19. He hath procured a remedy and ransom ; as soon as you repent and believe, you shall have the comfort of it.
2. It exhorteth us also to answer it with a fervent love to him that hath piven such a signal demonstration of his love to us : 1 John iv. 19, ' We love him, because he first loved us.' Men always expect to be loved there where they love, and think it hard dealing if it be not so.
3. Let your love to God be like his love to you. Love was at the bottom of all this grace ; let it be at the bottom of all your duties : ' Let all your things be done in love,' 1 Cor. xvi. 14. Let your car- riage apparently be a life of love: 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, * For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again.'
II. I come now to the second branch of the text — the way God took to express his love to us : He * gave his only-begotten Son.' Jesus Christ is so called to distinguish him from the adopted children, and to show his personal subsistence, which is by way of filiation, or being eternally begotten in the divine essence. So great was our misery, that no less remedy would serve the turn ; and so great God's mercy, that he witli- held him not from us.