[2.] The special object of this love is God as revealed in Christ. Partly, because thereby God, who is otherwise terrible to the guilty soul, is thereljy made amiable and a fit object for our love. And therefore in studying Christ, it should be our principal end to see the goodness, love, and amiableness of God in him. A condemning God is not so easily loved as a gracious and reconciled God. Man's fall ' was from God unto himself, especially in the point of love ; he loved himself instead of God, and therefore his real recovery must be by the bringing up his soul to the love of God again. Now a guilty con- demned sinner can hardly love the God who in justice will condemn and punish him, no more than a malefactor Avill love his judge, who cometh to pronounce sentence upon him. Tell him that he is a grave and comely person, a just and an upright man ; but the guilty wretch replieth. He is my judge. Well then, nothing can be more conducing and essential to man's recovery to God, than that God should be represented as most amiable, a father of mercies, a God of pardons, one that is willing to pardon and save him, in and by Jesus Christ: 2 Cor. v. 19, ' God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.' So he is represented comfortably to us, and inviting the heart to close with him. And partly, because so we have the highest engagement to love him. We are bound to love God as a creator and as a pre- server ; to love him as he is the strength of our lives and the length of our days, Deut. xxx. 20 ; to love him, because he heareth the voice of our supi)lications, Ps. cxvi. 1 ; as our deliverer, and the horn of our salvation, Ps. xviii. 2 ; to love him as one who daily loadeth us with his benefits. There is a gratitude due for these mercies. But chiefly as he is our God and Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, This is the great instance of God's love : Kom. v. 8, ' God commended his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ; ' and 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.' That was the astonishing expression of it, a mystery, without controversy, great, that he was pleased to save us at so dear a rate, and by so blessed and glorious a person, that we might more admire the glory of his love to sinners, so wonderfully declared unto us. God made Christ's love so exemplary, that he might overcome us by kindness.
[3.] The singular effects of this gratitude or returning love. It
VeR. 14.] SEBMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 143
causeth us to devote tlie whole man to Christ's service, will, and honour, and to bring back all his mercies to him, as far as we are able, to his use and glory. God in Christ, being so great a benefactor, all that have received the benefit with a due sense and esteem of it, will resolve to love God again, and to serve him with all their powers, Kom. xii. 1. Who deserveth our love and obedience more than God? and our thankful remembrance, more than Christ ? Therefore if we be affected with the mercy of our redemption, we will devote ourselves and our all to him, and use our all for him. Our whole lives will be employed for him, and all our actions will be but the effects of inward love streaming forth in thankfulness to God. So Paul here being in the bonds of love, and under lively apprehensions of this infinite love of Christ, utterly renounced himself, to dedicate himself wholly to the service of God and his church. And surely if we are thus affected, Ave will be like-minded, perfectly consecrating to him our life and strength.
Secondly. What influence it hath upon our duties and actions.
1 Love is an ingenuous and thankfid grace, that is, thinking of a recompense, or a return to God, or paying him in kind, love for love. The reasonableness of this will appear by what is done between man and man. We expect to be loved by those whom we love, if they have anything of good nature left in them. The most hard-hearted men are melted and wrought upon by kindness. Saul wept when David spared him, when he had him in his power ; and shall God not only spare us, but Christ come and make a plaster of his own blood to cure us, and heal us, and shall we have no sense of the Lord's kind- ness ? Usually we are taken more with what men sufi'er for us than with what they do for us, and shall Christ do and sufier such great things, and we be no way affected ? See how men plead one with another. Consider the words of Jehu to Jonadcib the son of Eechab : 2 Kings X. 15, ' Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart ? ' Dost thou in truth atiect me, as I do thee ? And Paul to the Corin- thians : 2 Cor. VL 11-13, ' 0 ye Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged ; ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same, be ye also enlarged ' — that is, my kindness and affection are great, my whole soul is open to you and at your service. It would be a just return if you would be back again as kind and affectionate towards me, as I have been to you. And again, when we are not loved by those whom we love, we use to expostulate it with them ; as the same Paul to the Corinthians : 2 Cor. xii. 15, ' I will very gladly spend myself, and be spent for you : though the more abimdantly I love you, the less I am beloved of you ; ' or as Joab to David : 2 Chron. xix. 6, ' Thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends.' Men think they reason well when they plead thus, for they presume it of love, that it wiU be ingenuous, and make suitable returns. Well then, the like we may with better reason expect from all those who have a due sense of their Ptedeemer's love, that they will return afiection for aftection, and accordingly honour and serve him who died for them. God's love hath more worth and merit in it than man's. No man's love is carried on in such an astonishing way, nor with such condescension. God