Consider, hence, his eternal, free, unchangeable love. Were the love of Christ unto us but the love of a mere man, though never so excellent, innocent, and glorious, it must have a bscjinning, it must have an ending, and j^erhaps be fruitless. The love of Christ in his human natui'e towards his is exceeding, intense, tender, precious, compassionate, abundantly heightened by a sense of our miseries, feel- ing of our wants, experience of our temptations ; all flowing from that rich stock of grace, pity, and compassion, which, on pui'pose for our good and supply, was bestowed on him : but yet this love, as such, cannot be infinite nor eternal, nor from itself absolutely unchange- able. Were it no more, though not to be pai-alleled nor fathomed, yet our Saviour could not say of it, as he doth, " As the Father liath loved me, so have I loved you," John xv. 9. His love could not be compared with and equalled unto the divine love of the Father, in those properties of eternity, fndtfulness, and unchangeableness, which are the chief anchors of the soul, rolling itself on the bosom of Christ. But now, —
(1.) It is eternal: " Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not," saith he, " spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I : and now the Lord GoD, and his Spirit, hath sent me," Isa. xlviii. IG. He himself is " yesterday, to-day, and for ever," Heb. xiii. 8; and so is his love, being his who is " Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending, which is, which was, and which is to come," Rev. i. 11.
(2.) Unchangeable. Our love is like ourselves; as we are, so ai-e all our affections: so is the love of Christ like himself. We love one,
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oue day, and hate him the next. He changeth, and we change also : this day he is our right hand, our right eye; the next day, " Cut him off, phick him out." ^ Jesus Christ is still the same ; and so is his love. " In the beginning he laid the foundation of the earth ; and the hea- vens are the works of his hands; they shall perish, hut he remaineth: they all shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture shall he fold them up, and they shall be changed : but he is the same, and his years fail not," Heb. i. 10-12. He is the Lord, and he changeth not; and therefore we are not consumed. Whom he loves, he loves unto the end.^ His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending.
(3.) It is also fruitful, — fruitful in all gracious issues and effects. A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him ; bemoan him in misery, but not help him ; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him. We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend ; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, " 0 that Ishmael might live before thee ! " but it might not be. But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one : whatever good Christ by his love wills to any, that willing is operative of that good.
These three qualifications of the love of Christ make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding deshable. How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them ail, hath this love overcome ! what mountains of unbelief doth it remove ! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whe- ther the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of gTace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day ! This is our Beloved, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem.
2. He is desirable and worthy our acceptation, as considered in his humanity; even therein also, in reference to us, he is exceedingly desirable. I shall only, in this, note unto you two things: — (1.) Its freedom from sin; (2.) It fidness of grace; — in both which regards the Scripture sets him out as exceedingly lovely and amiable.
(1.) He \YSiS free from sin; — the^ Lamb of God, without spot, and without blemish; the male of the flock, to be offered unto God, the J Gal. iv. 14, 15. ' ISIal. iii. 6; John xiii. 1. " 1 Pet. i. 19.
64) OF COMMUNION WITH THE SON JESUS CHRIST.