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that earnest constraint or encouragement to duty which it is wont to j)roduce in the heart. We must neither do it slightly nor seldom. Our hearts are too narrow to understand it all at once ; it is so vast and boundless, so rich and unsearchable, yea, infinite. We never know so much but there remaineth more still to be known. Therefore we must often renew the meditation, and continue it so long, till the heart be warmed, and ready to break out into praise ; and till our wonder and admiration be raised, and we see the object too big for the fticulty, for it is beyond all created understanding ; till we be swallowed and over- whelmed in this deep and bottomless ocean, and through a penury of thoughts cry out, Oh, the depth of the riches of the mercy and love of God ! For the present I shall content myself with four properties of this love.
(1.) It was a free love : ' I will love them freely,' Hosea xiv. 4. If he did not love us with a free love, how could he love us at all ? What could he foresee in us but what was the effect of his own grace ? We were neither loving nor lovely. Not loving ; we did not prevent God. To love those that love us, it hath notliing singular ; that is the ordi- nary courtesy of the world. By nature we were God's enemies, and what could an enemy deserve ? Not lovely ; all that grace that is wrought in us afterward is his gift ; therefore this was at first a free love, that had no motive nor foundation but within itself. He loveth us, not because he seeth anything lovely or amiable in us, but only because he will demonstrate the absoluteness of his own will, and self- inclination to do us good.
(2.) It was a real love, not an empty complimenting love ; it rested not in good wishes ; there was great proof and manifestation of it : 1 John iv. 9, 10, ' In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' It was such a love as made him leave the height of his glory, and assume our nature, and die in that nature, and shed his blood, and by it wash us from our sins. There was a benevolence in it, and a benefi- cence also. A man may wish health when another is sick, and supplies when another is poor ; but Christ did not wish us well only ; but as fire showeth itself by heat and by light, so love by the real effects of it. Perhaps thou sayest to another, Believe that I love thee ; but while this is only professed in words, he may believe it, but he cannot see it ; but if upon occasion you do anything for him, or expose yourself to danger for his sake, then he saith. Now I see that thou lovest me. So God to Abraham : Gen. xxii. 12, 'Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.' Here is a plain proof and signal evidence. So here ; Christ hath demonstrated the leality of his love ; the man seeth it.
(3.) It was eminent and transcendent love. Compare it with the love of one creature to another, and in all the world you cannot find a parallel to equal it : John xv. 13, ' Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.* But where is that rare instance of friendship ? Rom. v. 6-8, ' For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a
86 SERMONS UPON REVELATION I. 5, 6.
righteous man will one die ; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God coramendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet enemies, Christ died for us.' He died, the just for the unjust, the judge for the offender, God for sinners. It can he resembled by no love upon earth ; therefore he himself compareth his love to lost sinners with the Father's love to him : John xv. 9, ' As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.' It is eternal, incompre- hensible, and unchangeable.
(4.) It was a full love, removing our misery, procuring all blessings for us, to make us completely happy ; for as it fetched us from the lowest hell, it leaveth us not till it bringeth us to joys and happiness in the highest heavens : 1 Thes. v. 9, 10, ' For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ ; who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.' Well, then, if I should stop here, I hope you have so much ingenuity and sense of your Kedeemer's affection to you as to say, *To him be glory and dominion, even to him who loved us.'