And then whatsoever good thing we have in Christ, it comes freely too. He that gave Christ freely, shall he not * with him give us all things too ? ' Ptom. viii. 32.
Then the very grace to keep the covenant, repentance and faith, they are the gift of God. ' I will take away your stony heart, and give you new hearts, and cause you to walk in my statutes ; I will circumcise your hearts,' Exek. xi. 19. So the grace to walk in the covenant of grace, it comes from God. God doth his part and ours too, to shew not only that the covenant of gi'ace is a covenant of wondrous love, to give us grace here and glory hereafter, but that the foundation is of grace, and the perform- ance on our part is of grace. Nay, it is of grace that he would enter into covenant at all. He humbled himself wondrously to vouchsafe to enter into covenant. It was humiliation on God's part, and exaltation to us. Therefore, as it is in Zechariah, we may cry, ' Grace, grace.' There is nothing but grace and free love in the whole carriage of our salvation.
If whatsoever good come to man be merely from God's good will, let us empty ourselves, and give him the gloi-y of all. It is easily spoken and heard, but not so easily done. For man naturally is proud, and for flesh and blood to be brought to go out of itself and acknowledge nothing in itself, to give the glory of all goodness and happiness to God's free grace and goodness, it is hard to bring proud nature to do this. But we must beg grace of God to work our hearts to this more and more, to empty ourselves of ourselves, and to give God the glory of all. But,
I come to the last point, because I would end this text at this time.
3. This free love and grace of God is only in Christ.
angels' acclamations. 351
Therefore the angels pronounce it now at the birth of Christ, * good ■will to men.' All these agree very well : Christ's free grace, and faith. For what we have by grace, we have only by Christ ; because he hath given satisfaction to God's justice, that so grace may 'be conveyed and derived unto us without prejudice to any other attribute in God ; and then the embracing power and grace in us is faith. So these three agree.
1 say, whatsoever we have from God's free love now, we have it in Christ. The free love of God is grounded in Christ. We in ourselves, especially considered in the corrupt mass, cannot be the object of God's love. God cannot look upon us, but in him, the best beloved, first. Therefore all is in Christ in the carriage of it. We -are elected in Christ, called in Christ, justified by Christ, sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, glorified in Christ. * We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ,' Eph. i. 3. ' This is my beloved Son ; I am well pleased in him,' Mat. iii. 17. It is the same word there, hoixritra, ' in whom I delight,' Isa. xlii. 1, out of which the Father takes his speech, ' This is the Son I delight in.' Now, all God's delight is first fixed in his Son and in us, because we must have communion with the Son. So the first object of God's free love is Christ, and then he looks upon us in him.
The Trinity have a wondrous complacency in looking upon mankind. Now in Christ God loves us, as redeemed by Christ ; Christ loves us as elected by the Father, and given by the Father's choice to him to redeem. The Holy Ghost hath a special liking to us, as seeing the love of the Father in choosing us, and of the Son in redeeming us. And surely if we would see likewise those sweet interviews of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it should be our main delight too, to see how God hath chosen us and given us to Christ to save ; how Christ hath redeemed us, from this very respect, that the Father hath chosen us and given us to him, as it is in John xvii. 6, ' Thine they were, thou gavest them me ;' and, how the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of communion — the ' communion of the Holy Ghost,'
2 Cor. xiii. 14 — that hath communion with the Father and the Son, and issues and proceeds from them both ; how he witnes?eth this love to our Bouls, and applies it to us. The Holy Ghost applies all. The Father decreed and ordained all. The Son works and dispenseth all. The con- sideration of the point is wondrous comfortable.
Whatsoever good will the Father hath to us, it is as we are in Christ.
Quest. And why in Christ ?
Ans. Because Christ is the first thing that God can love. He is ' the only begotten Son of God.' Whosoever is loved to glory in a spiritual order, is loved in the first beloved. Christ is loved of God as the character of his own image. The Son represents the Father. He is loved of God, as mediator by ofiice. So God looks upon us in Christ as the * Son of his love.' So he is called by Saint Paul, Col. i. 13.