DISCOURSE XXII.1
" And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." — Matt. iii. 17.
We are met here to remember the death of Christ, in the way and by the means that he himself hath appointed ; and in remembering the death of Christ we are principally to remember the love of Christ : " Who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." And that which on our part is required herein is faith in Christ, who died for us; and love to Christ, who loved us so as to give himself an offer- ing and a sacrifice to God for us.
1. That which I would now observe is this (to make way for the stirring up of our love), that the person of Christ is the adequate, complete object of the love of God, and of the whole creation that 1 Delivered February 18, 1676.
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bears the image of God; — I mean, the church of God above, the angels and saints ; and the church of God below, in believers : which are the creation that has the image of God upon it.
The person of Christ is the first complete object of the love of God the Father. A great part (if I may so speak, and I must so speak) of the essential blessedness of the holy Trinity consists in the mutual love of the Father and the Son, by the Holy Ghost; which is the love of them both.
That which I would now take notice of, I say, as the foundation of all, is this, — that the divine nature in the person of the Son is the only full, resting, complete object of the love of God the Father. I will give you a place or two of Scripture for it, and so go on to another instance : Prov. viii. 30, " Then," saith he (that is, from ever- lasting), " I was by him, as one brought up with him : and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;" that is, as the spe- cial object of his love, — as among you men, one that is brought up with you, as your child is. The delight of the Father from all eter- nity was in the Son. The ineffable love and mutual delight of the Father and the Son by the Spirit is that which is the least notion we have of the blessedness of the eternal God. John i. IS, "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." Pray ob- serve it, that I speak yet only of the divine person of Christ antece- dent unto his incarnation, and the ineffable mutual love of the blessed persons in the holy Trinity ; which Jesus Christ wonderfully sets out in John xvii. There is his relation unto God ; he is " the only be- gotten Son," by eternal generation. What follows? He is "in the bosom of the Father," — is in the Father's eternal, infinite love. Here- in is God's love ; and every thing else of love is but a free act of the will of God, — a free emanation from this eternal love between the Father and the Son. God never did any thing without himself, but the end of it was to manifest what is in himself. The old and new creation that God hath wrought was to manifest what was in himself. God made this world to manifest his power and wisdom; — God made the new world by Jesus Christ to manifest his grace, his love, goodness, etc.
The sole reason why there is such a thing as love in the world among the creatures, angels or men, — that God ever implanted it in the nature of rational creatures, — was, that it might shadow and re- present the ineffable, eternal love that the Father had unto the Son, and the Son unto the Father, by the Spirit.
Contemplative men of old did always admire love ; wherein they would have the life, lustre, and glory of all things to consist: but they could never see the rise of it ; and they traced some things to this, — that God necessarily loved himself. And it is true, it cannot otherwise be; but God's loving of himself absolutely as God, is no-
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thing but his eternal blessed acquiescence in the holy, self-sufficing properties of his nature. This they had some reach after ; but of this eternal, ineffable love " of the Father to the Son, and of the Son to the Father, by the Spirit," that they had no conjecture of. Yet this is the fountain and spring-head; and all such things as love in the old and new creation, as I said, is but to resemble and shadow out this great prototype of divine love. I acknowledge there is little dis- cerned of these things, by reason of the weakness of our understand- ings; but the Scripture has so directly declared to us the mutual love of the Father and the Son (which, truly, is of such singular use, that I would fix persons upon it in conceiving of the doctrine of the Trinity), that it is matter of admiration and thankfulness to us. Here lies the foundation of all love, whereunto we hope to reduce our love unto Christ, — namely, in the unchangeable love of the Father to the Son.