^ * Causa ob quam Filius nos amat, quia ipsi a Patre demandatum est, et causa cur Pater nobis favet, est quia hoc Filius ab ipso postulat et promeretur, ' &c. — See Stella at large, Be Amore Dei, 18.
42 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 1.
fortable. Therefore it is said, 1 Peter i. 21, that * by him we believe in God ;' that is, by Christ through his merit we come comfortably to pitch upon God the Father. So again, Christ separate from the Father doth not yield such firm grounds of confidence. There must be some act of the Father to give us full security ; for in the business of redemption God the Father is represented as the offended, wronged party, who is to receive satisfaction. We are sensible of the wrong and offence ; conscience feeletli that. We must be also sensible of his favour and grace towards us. Now when we see him first in all acts of grace, that taketh away all jealousy and scruple. (4.) Because in the Father's love there are many circumstances which are very engaging to the soul, which are not to be found in the rest of the divine persons ; for he being first in order, hath the chiefest work ascribed to him ; but especially are not to be found in Christ as Mediator. And because Christ as Mediator is most known to the creatures, I shall prosecute this matter with respect to that consi- deration. (1st.) In the Father's love and acts of grace there is an original fulness. Christ's fulness as Mediator is but derived out of the Father's plenty : Col. i. 19, ' It pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell.' And it is limited by the Father's will in the dispensation of it. All that Christ dispensed was according to the charge and commandment given him by his Father. See Mat. xx. 23, ' It is not mine to give, save to those for whom it is prepared of my Father.' Christ doth not deny his authority to give glory as well as grace; only he showeth how in all the dispensations proper to the Mediator he was limited by the will and counsel of the Father. And so he denieth to dispense the knowledge of times and seasons, because ' the Father had kept it in his own power,' Acts i. 7. So that now it is an engaging consideration to remember that the Father, whose will is absolute, who hath an original fulness of all grace, that he ' himself loveth us,' and is first in all acts of blessing. (2d.) In the Father's acts you have the purest and freest apprehension of love. He began and first broke the business of our redemption. God the Son can have a higher motive, the Father's will ; but God the Father can have no higher motive than his own love. His elective law was the first rise and spring whence all that love that passeth out to the creature issueth forth, and therefore here we have the freest apprehension of love. There was a love of the Father anteceding the merit of Christ : John iii. 16, ' God so loved the woild, that he gave his only Son.' There was the most independent and free act of love.
Use. It serveth to press us to give a distinct glory in believing to God the Father. Get a right apprehension of the divine persons, and the several endearments with which their personal operations are repre- sented. It is said, John v. 23, that God ' will have all men honour the Son as they honour the Father.' God is most honoured when your thoughts are most distinct and explicit in this matter. Do not forget the Father ; you are his gift, as Well as the Son's purchase, and the Spirit's charge. If God the Father had not loved you before all worlds, Jesus Christ would not have redeemed you ; and if Christ had not redeemed you, the Spirit would never sanctify you: and as the Spirit will not work unless you look upon him as Christ's Spirit, John xvi.
YeR. 1.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 43
14, ' He shall o:lorify me, for he shall receive of mine ; ' so Christ came to glorify the Father, and to finish his work, John xvii. 4. Bless them and praise them all then. If you receive anything, see the Father's bounty in it, the freeness and everlastingness of his love stamped upon what you have. So if you want anything, holiness, comfort, grace, pardon, reflect not only upon the fulness of Christ's merit, but the freeness of the Father's love. You deal with a God of bowels and bounty; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all are yours. Tliere is a fond affectation in some to carry all things in the name of Christ, even such acts wherein the Father is most concerned ; as the former age carried all dispensations in the name of God Almighty, without any distinct reflection upon God the Son, in whom the Father will be honoured, and by whom we have au access to the Father. So many in tliis age, in their popular discourses and prayers, carry all things in the name of God the Son, and with a fond and luscious affectation ingeminate the name, ' Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,' so that the honour and adoration due to the other persons is neglected and forgotten ; whereas Christ is to be acknowledged Lord in all tongues, and among all nations, ' to the glory of God the Father,' Phil. ii. 11.