He yet proceeds, first to evert this love which I asserted, and then to declare his own apprehensions concerning the love of Christ. The first in the ensuing words, p. 210, " But, methinks this is a very odd way of arguing from the divine nature ; for if the love of Christ as God be so infinite, eternal, unchangeable, fruitful, I would willingly understand how sin, death, and misery came into the world. For if this love be so eternal and unchangeable, because the divine nature is so, then it was always so ; for God always was what he is, and that which is eternal could never be other than it is now : and why could not this eternal, and unchangeable, and fruitful love, as well preserve us from falling into sin, and misery, and death, as love life and holi- ness into us ? For it is a little odd, first to love us into sin and death, that then he may love us into life and holiness : which, indeed, could not be, if this love of God were always so unchangeable and fruitful as this author persuades us it is now; for if this love had always loved life and holiness into us, I cannot conceive how it should happen that we should sin and die."
It is well if he know what it is tliat he aims at in these words; I am sure what he says doth not in the least impeach the truth which he designs to oppose. The name and nature of God are everywhere in the Scripture proposed unto us as the object of, and encourage- ment unto, our faith, and his love in particular is therein represented imchangeable, because he himself is so ; but it doth not hence follow that God loveth any one naturally, or necessarily. His love is a free act of his will ; and therefore, though it be like himself, such as be- comes his nature, yet it is not necessarily determined on any object, nor limited as unto the nature, degrees, and effects of it. He loves whom he pleaseth, and as unto what end he pleaseth. Jacob he loved, and Esau he hated; and those effects which, from his love or out of it, he will communicate unto them, are various, according to the
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counsel of his will. Some he loves only as to temporal and common mercies, some as to spiritual grace and glory; for he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. Wherefore it is no way contrary unto, and inconsistent with, the eternity, the immutability, and fruitfulness of the love of God, that he suffered sin to enter into the world, or that he doth dispense more grace in Jesus Christ under the New Testament than he did under the Old. God is always the same that he was; love in God is always of the same nature that it was; but the objects, acts, and effects of this love, with the measures and de- grees of them, are the issues of the counsel or free purposes of his will. Want of the understanding hereof makes this man imagine, that if God's love in Christ, wherewith he loveth us, be eternal and fruitful, then must God necessarily always — in or out of Christ, under the old or new covenant — love all persons, elect or not elect, with the same love as to the effects and fruits of it ; which is a wondrous pro- found apprehension. The reader, therefore, if he please, may take notice, that the love which I intend, and whereunto I ascribe those properties, is the especial love of God in Christ unto the elect. Con- cerning this himself says, that he loves them with an everlasting love, and therefore "draws them with loving-kindness," Jer. xxxi. 3; which love, I shall be bold to say, is eternal and fruitful. And hence, as he changeth not, whereon the sons of Jacob are not consumed, Mai. iii. 6, there being with him " neither variableness, nor shadow of turning," James i. 17; so accordingly he hath in this matter, by his promise and oath, declared the immutability of his counsel, Heb. vi. 1 7, 1 8, — which seems to intimate that his love is unchangeable. And whereas this eternal love is in Christ Jesus as the way and means of making it certain in all its effects, and with respect unto its whole design, it is fruitful in all grace and glory, Eph. i. 3-5. And if he cannot understand how, notwithstanding all this, sin so entered into the world under the law of creation and the first covenant as to defeat in us all the benefits thereof, at present I cannot help him; for, as I am sure enough he would scorn to learn any thing of me, so I am not at leisure to put it to the trial.
His own account of the love of God succeeds. P. 211, " Not that 1 deny that the love of God is eternal, unchangeable, fruitful; that is, that God was always good, and always continues good, and mani- festeth his love and goodness in such ways as are suitable to his nature, which is the iruitfulness of it: but then, the unchangeable- ness of God's love doth not consist in being always determined to the same object, but that he always loves for the same reason; that is, that he always loves true virtue and goodness, wherever he sees it, and never ceases to love any person till he ceases to be good : and then the immutability of his love is the reason why he loves no