The same love of friendship is expressed by that intimate converse with, and especial residence that is between God and believers. God dwelleth in them, and they dwell in God; for God is love, 1 John iv. 1 6. " If a man," saith the Lord Christ, " love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him," John xiv. 23 ; and, "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me," Rev. iii. 20. These are not empty sound of words ; — there is substance under them, there is truth in them. Those whose hearts are duly exercised in and unto the love of God have experience of the refreshing approaches both of the Father and of the Son unto their souls, in the communications of a sense of their love, and pledges of their abode with them.
These things have I briefly premised, concerning the nature of divine love, that we may the better apprehend what we understand by it, in the application of it unto the person of Christ. For —
1. The formal object of this love is the essential properties of the divine nature — its infinite goodness in particular. Wherever these are, there is the object and reason of this love. But they are all of them in the person of the Son, no less than in the person of the Father. As, therefore, we love the Father on this account, so are we to love the Son also. But —
2. The Person of Christ is to be considered as he was incarnate, or clothed with our nature. And this takes nothino^ off from the
THE FOUNDATION OF OUK LOVE TO CHRIST. 157
formal reason of this love, but only makes an addition unto the motives of it. This, indeed, for a season veiled the loveliness of his divine excellencies, and so turned aside the eyes of many from him. For when he took on him " the form of a servant, and made himself of no reputation," he had, unto them who looked on him with carnal eyes, " neither form nor comeliness," that he should be deshed or be loved. Howbeit, the entire person of Christ, God and man, is the object of this divine love, in all the acts of the whole exercise of it. That single effect of infinite wisdom and grace, in the union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Son of God, renders him the object of this love in a peculiar manner. The way whereby we may attain this peculiar love, and the motives unto it, shall close these considerations.
A due consideration of, and meditation on, the proposal of the person of Christ unto us in the Scripture, are the proper foundation of this love. This is the formal reason of our faith in him, and love unto him. He is so proposed unto us in the Scripture, that we may believe in him and love him, and for that very end. And in par- ticular with respect unto our love, to ingenerate it in us, and to excite it unto its due exercise, are those excellencies of his person — as the principal effect of divine wisdom and goodness, which we have before insisted on — frequently proposed unto us. To this end is he repre- sented as " altogether lovely," and the especial glories of his person are delineated, yea, drawn to the life, in the holy records of the Old and New Testaments. It is no work of fancy or imagination — it is not the feigning images in our minds of such things as are meet to satisfy our carnal affections, to excite and act them; but it is a due adherence unto that object which is represented unto faith in the proposal of the Gospel. Therein, as in a glass, do we behold the glory of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, and have our souls filled with transforming affections unto him.
The whole Book of Canticles is nothing but a mystical declaration of the mutual love between Christ and the church. And it is ex- pressed by all such ways and means as may represent it intense, fer- vent, and exceeding all other love whatever; which none, I suppose, will deny, at least on the part of Christ. And a great part of it con- sists in such descriptions of the person of Christ and his love as may render him amiable and desirable unto our souls, even " altogether lovely." To what end doth the Holy Spirit so graphically describe and represent unto us the beauty and desirableness of his person, if it be not to increnerate love in us unto him ? All want of love unto him on this proposal is the effect of prevalent unbelief It is pre- tended that the descriptions given of Christ in this book are allego- rical, from whence nothing can be gathered or concluded. But God
158 THE PERSON OF CHRIST,
forbid we should so reflect on the wisdom and love of the Holy Spirit unto the church — that he hath proposed unto the faith of the church an empty sound and noise of words, without mind or sense. The expressions he useth are figurative, and the whole nature of the dis- course, as unto its outward structure, is allegorical. But the things intended are real and substantial; and the metaphors used in the ex- pression of them are suited, in a due attendance unto the analogy of faith, to convey a spiritual understanding and sense of the things themselves proposed in them. The church of God will not part with the unspeakable advantage and consolation — those supports of faith and incentives of love — which it receives by that di^^ne proposal of the person of Christ and his love which is made therein, because some men have no experience of them nor understanding in them. The faith and love of believers is not to be regulated by the ignorance and boldness of them who have neither the one nor the other. The title of the 45th Psalm is, n'Tn^ y^, " A song of loves;" — that is, of the mutual love of Christ and the church. And unto this end — that our souls may be stirred up unto the most ardent affection towards him — is a description given us of his person, as " altogether lovely." To what other end is he so evidently delineated in the whole har- mony of his divine beauties by the pencil of the Holy Spirit ?