1. There was a love to us. Christ was drawn to this work with no other cords but his own bowels. It was love that brought him out of heaven, and love nailed him to the cross, and love laid him in the grave, and made him free among the dead. If you ask, Upon what errand came the Son of God out of the bosom of the Father ? I answer Upon a design of love. Of what sickness he died ? I answer — Of love ; not by constraint certainly ; though he died a violent death, it was merely by consent : John x. 18, ' No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself ; ' Rev. i. 5, ' To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.'
2. There was his obedience to God, As Jesus Christ was God, so by one and the same will doth the Father give Christ, and the Son give himself ; for the Father's will is his will : they are one in essence, there- fore one in will, and one in operation ; and what the Father doth, the Son doth, because of the unity of essence : John v. 19, ' What things soever the Father doth these also doth the Son likewise.' But this is not all ; consider Jesus Christ is mediator ; so there is a consent of obedience to the Father, and so as the Father appoints he presents him- self as the price and sacrifice for sin. Homines, non propter liomines, sed propter Deum dilexit — He loved men, not for men's sake but God's. The meaning is, the goodness of the creature is not the cause of Christ's love, but his love to God ; and that gives us sure ground of hope. Christ loves us not for our own sakes, but for his Father's sake.
Now give me leave to show why it was necessary that Christ should give up himself ; partly out of love, and partly out of obedience.
1. It was necessary that he should give up himself out of obedience, partly that his love might be rational. The Lord is a God of judgment, a wise God, and all he doth is with reason. Now the only supreme reason why Christ loves us is the will of God and the command of his Father. Solomon saith, Prov. xvii. 18, ' A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.' How is that ? That is, before his friend asks or desires it : it is a fault to be over-forward and prodigal of favours. It is a rational love that is in Christ, and partly he doth it out of obedience, to preserve a respect to God the Father. Christ loves us for his sake, and therefore
244 SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. [SeR. XIX.
we should love God in Christ the more. And partly it is the wisdom of God that the reasons of love should lie without man himself, and be found among the divine persons, because of the Father's good-will and command.
2. It was convenient that Christ should give himself out of his own love, partly that Christ might be a fit mediator. It cannot stand with God's justice to punish an innocent person for a nocent, unless he him- self be willing ; therefore, that Christ might be a mediator, he had a will of his own, otherwise God could not in honour exact the debt of Christ, but that there was a voluntary susception ; he took it upon himself. The Lord Christ, when he condescended to the Father's motion, when by his own will he gave up himself, and set himself wholly apart to be our Eedeemer, God might justly require the debt of him. When Paul would take Onesimus' debt upon himself, Phil- emon might justly require it of him : Philem, 18, 19, ' If he have wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account. I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it.' Or I may illus- trate it thus : In the case of Jonah, the mariners were loath to throw him overboard ; but when he saw the tempest, and said, ' Cast me into the sea, and there shall be a calm,' then they took him up and cast him in. So when the Lord Christ saw the tempest of his Father's wrath that was rising against sinners, he saith, Cast me into the sea. Indeed there was a difference ; the tempest there was for Jonah's sake, but this was for our sakes : ' I saw there was no intercessor, therefore my own arm brought salvation.' The Father's ordination had no place or room without Christ's voluntary susception and undertaking. And partly too to set ofi" the worth of his love. Willingness and freeness commends a kindness, and makes it great. What more free than a gift ? Therefore his passion was voluntary. Extorted courtesies lose their value, therefore Jesus Christ gave up himself to be a sacrifice for us. But the chiefest reason is this, Christ willingly offered up himself, that all things might come freely and sweetly from his Father to us, that so God might 'rejoice over us to do us good,' as the expression is, Jer. xxxii. 41. All a wicked man's blessings seem to be extorted from providence ; they have them not from the heart of God ,but from God's anger, as the murmuring Israelites had quails. But now, that we might have mercies from God's heart, and not from his hand only, that mercy might come from love, and all run in a free channel to us, and as a gift, therefore did Christ give himself.