VeB. 28.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 277
to the rock of our salvation ' (and all this is the acting of love), ' for the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods ' (there are the motives) ; Ps. v. 10, ' Let them that love thy name be joyful in thee.' So that you see it is a great duty to delight ourselves in God's essential perfections.
[2dly.] His moral goodness, or his righteousness and holiness. Surely this is an amiable thing, and therefore the object of our delectation. I prove it thus — First, If holiness be lovely and pleasant in the creature, why not in God? In the saints holiness doth attract our love: Ps. xvi. 3, ' My delight is in the saints, the excellent ones of the earth ; ' and Ps. XV. 4, ' In whose eyes a vile person is contemned ; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.' We are to love saints as saints, reduplicative ; why not God as holy and righteous ? We are to love the law of God as it is pure, Ps. cxix. 140 ; therefore we are to love God, a copy of whose holiness the law is ; the same reason that doth enforce the one doth enforce the other. Secondly, I argue, We are to imitate his holiness and righteousness, therefore we are to love and delight in it : Eph. v. 1, ' Be ye followers of God, as dear children ;' and 2 Cor. iii. 18, 'But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.' Now love begetteth likeness ; it is the greatest demonstration of God's love to us to make us like himself, and the greatest expression of our love to God to desire it, to endeavour after it, to value and prize it as our happiness ; see Ps. xvii. 1.5, ' As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.'
[3dly.] His beneficial goodness or benignity : Ps. c. 5, ' For the Lord is good ; for his mercy is everlasting ; ' therefore all his saints should love him. We are first led to the Lord by our own interest, and the benefits we have, or may have, by him : Ps. Ixxxvi. 5, ' Thou, Lord, art good, ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon thee.' This doth first attract the heart of guilty sinners to seek after God, but afterwards we look upon him as a lovely object in himself. While we look upon benignity as a moral perfection in God, without the fruits which flow thence to us, it is an engaging thing ; as it was observed heretofore that Caesar's virtues were more amiable than Gate's virtues. Csesar's virtues were clemency, affability, hberality ; Gate's virtues, rigid justice and fidelity in his dealings : both were amiable, but the one more taking than the other. There is somewhat a like observation, Eom. v. 7, ' Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, but for a good man one would even dare to die.' By the righteous man is meant one of a severe and rigid innocency ; by a good man, a man bountiful and useful. To apply it : God's benignity is a thing amiable, though it be considered but as an attribute in God, not exercised and acted on us. Because this most suiteth the necessities of the indigent and fallen creature, therefore the scripture doth much insist upon it, to move us to return and seek reconciliation with him.
2dly. He doth good, or hath been good to i;s.
[1st.] As in creation ; he made us out of nothing, after his own image, we must remember him as a creator, so as to consider the obligations which lie upon us to love, please, and serve him : Eccles. xii. 1, ' He-
278 SERMONS UPON BOMANS VIII. [SeR. XXXVIII.
member thy creator in the days of thy youth.' All that we are and have, we have it from God and for God.
[2dly.] In redemption, where we have the greatest representation of the goodness of God ; 1 John iv. 10, ' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins ; ' it is the signal instance ; and Rom. v. 8, ' Herein God commended his love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly ;' the fullest discovery.
[.3dly.] In the mercies of daily providence : Dent. xxx. 10, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.' Especially in his tender care about his people : Ps. xxxi. 33, ' Oh ! love the Lord, all ye his saints, for the Lord preserveth his saints, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.' His hearing prayer is one instance : Ps. cxvi. 1, 'I will love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.'
[4thly.] In the rewards of the other world, which are provided especially for them that love him : 1 Cor. ii. 9, ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him;' and 1 John iii. 1, 2, ' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Behold now we are the sons of God, and it doth not appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' Thus God is an object of our love.