Secondly, The signal act of his love to us : * He washed us from our sins in his own blood.'
1. Observe, this is put as the great instance of his love. We cannot know the love of God by any other fruit and benefit till this be done. By the bounty of his general providence he provideth for all his creatures, and feedeth them, and maintaineth them in that kind of being unto which he hath raised them out of nothing. So he supplieth the young ravens and the beasts of the field ; much more is he good to mankind ; he giveth them food and raiment convenient fur them, and beareth with them notwithstanding their renewed provocations : Acts xiv. 17, ' Nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.' The heathen might trace God by acts of bounty rather than acts of vengeance. But hereby they can have no assurance of God's special love to them ; for ' No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before them,' Eccles. ix. 1. Thou canst not say, God giveth me riches, therefore he loveth me ; or sendeth me poverty, therefore he hateth me. No ; he may give these things to his enemies, and deny them to his friends; but you may undoubtedly conclude, He loveth me, for he hath washed me from my sins. Clear this once, and you have a full and concluding proof of God's special love to you.
2. The value and worth of this benefit is exceeding great. This will appear if you consider —
[1.] The necessity of it. We were all defiled with sin, which is such a filthiness and stain as cannot easily be washed away. The party dis- pleased and provoked is God, and the party defiled is the immortal soul of man, which being subject to the power of God, and bound by his laws, upon disobedience is conscious to itself of the merit of death and punishment, and debarred from all communion with God. And it can- not have any sound peace till it knows that God is satisfied, and that it shall be admitted again into terms of grace and favour with him. That sin hath made us filthy and loathsome to God, that we cannot please him, nor be accepted with him, the word doth not only assert it :
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Ps. xlv. 2, 3, ' The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one ; ' Job xv. 14, ' What is man, that he should be clean ? and he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous ? ' Job xiv. 4, ' Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one.' But conscience is in part sensible of it, so that a sinner hath a secret dread and shyness of God, especially upon the commission of actual sins : 1 John iii. 20, 21, ' For if our heart con- demn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God.' I know generally man looketh to the foulness and cleanness of the body, but is insensible of the stain of the soul. Yet we cannot always exempt, no, not the worst, from a secret sense of this. How- ever, our misery and happiness dependeth upon God's judgment, not our own ; if in the eye of God all of us are polluted and unclean, lying in our blood, defiled with the guilt of sin already committed, and the filthy vileness of sin )'et indwelling. This is evident, we were miser- able enough till God found out a remedy ; and this misery is the deeper, because man lovetli what God loatheth ; as the swine loveth wallowing in the mire, and therefore it is a creature loathsome to us. We count sin a bravery, when it is the greatest impurity, a filthiness deeply ingrained in our natures, and therefore not easily washed away, both as to the guilt, as also to the stain and blot.
[2.] This being our misery, Christ came to wash us, and with no other laver than his own blood, as a priest offering himself a sacrifice for our sins. The remedy for so great a mischief must have a noble and excellent cause. That blood was necessary appeareth by the types of the law, for the typical expiation was made by the blood of bulls and goats offered in sacrifice. And that no blood but the blood of Jesus Christ would serve the turn is evident, if you consider the party dis- pleased and provoked, who was God ; the party defiled, the immortal spirit of man; and the heinous nature of the ofience, which was a breach of his righteous and eternal law. Therefore it is said, 1 John i. 7, 'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin;' Heb. i. 3, ' He by himself purged our sins ; ' and Heb. ix. 13, 14, ' If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God ? ' There is virtue and efficacy enough in the blood of Christ, partly from the institution of God, and its own manifold worth and value, as being the blood of God ; partly by the way and manner in which it was offered, by an act done in our nature, of the greatest obedience and self-denial that ever was or can be, and so God is fully repaired in point of honour.