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CHAP. XI.

Practical inferences. Redeeming love deserves our highest admiration, and humble acknowledgments. The illustration of it by several considerations. God is infinitely amiable in himself, yet his love is transient to the crea ture. It is admirable in creating and preserving man, more in redeeming him, and that by the death of his Son. The discovery of God's love in our redemption is the strongest persuasive to repentance. The law is ineffectual to produce real repentance. The common benefits of providence are insufficient to cause faith and repentance in the guilty creature. The clear discovery of pardoning mercy in the gospel can only remove our fears, and induce us to return to God. The transcendent love of God should kindle in us a reciprocal love to him. His excellencies and ordinary bounty to mankind cannot prevail upon us to love him. His love to us in Christ only conquers our hatred. Our love to him must be sincere and superlative. The despising of saving mercy is the highest provocation. It makes the condemnation of men most just, certain, and heavy.

I. THIS redeeming love deserves our highest admiration, and most humble acknowledgments. If we consider God aright, it may raise our wonder, that he is pleased to bestow kindness upon any created being. For in him is all that is excellent and amiable; and it is essential to the Deity to have the perfect knowledge of himself, and perfect love to himself. His love being proportioned to his excellencies, the act is infinite, as the object: and the perfections of the divine nature, being equal to his love, it is a just cause of admiration that it is not confined to himself, but is transient and goes forth to the creature. When David looked up to the heavens, and saw the majesty of God written in characters of light, he admires that love which first "made man a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour," Psal. 8. and that providential care which is mindful of him, and visits him every moment. Such an inconceivable distance there is between God and man, that it is wonderful God will spend a thought upon us. Lord, what is man that thou takest knowledge of him? or the Son of man that thou makest account of him? Man is like to vanity, his days are as a shadow that passeth away." Psal. 144. His being in this world

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hath nothing firm, or solid; it is like a shadow, that depends upon a cause that is in perpetual motion, the light of the sun, and is always changing, till it vanishes in the darkness of the night. But if we consider man in the quality of a sinner, and what God hath wrought for his recovery, we are overcome with amazement. All temporal favours are but foils to this miraculous mercy, and unspeakably below the least instance of it: without it all the privileges we enjoy above inferior creatures in this life, will prove aggravations of our future misery. God saw us in our degenerate state, destroyed by ourselves; and yet, O goodness, truly divine! he loved us so far, as to make the way for our recovery. High mountains were to be levelled, and great depths to be filled up, before we could arrive at blessedness: all this hath been done by mighty love. God laid the curse of the guilty upon the innocent, and exposed his beloved Son to the sword of his justice, to turn the blow from us. What astonishing goodness is it, that God who is the author and end of all things, should become the means of our salvation? and by the lowest abasement? What is so worthy of admiration as that the eternal should become mortal, that being in the form of God, he should take on him the form of a servant? that the judge of the world should be condemned by the guilty? that he should leave his throne in heaven to be nailed to the cross? that the prince of life should taste of death? These are the great wonders which the Lord of love hath performed, and all for sinful, miserable and unworthy man, who deserved not the least drop of that sweat and blood he spent for him and without any advantage to himself, for what content can be added to his felicity by a cursed creature? Infinite love! that is as admirable as saving! "Love that passeth knowledge!" and is as much above our comprehension as desert. In natural things, admiration is the effect of ignorance, but here it is increased by knowledge. For the more we understand the excellent greatness of God, and the vileness of man, the more we shall be instructed to admire the glorious wonder of saving mercy. A deliberate admiration springing from our most deep thoughts, is part of the tribute and adoration we owe to God, who so strangely saved us from the "wrath to come."

And the most humble acknowledgments are due for it. When David told Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. 9. 7, 8. that he should "eat bread with him at his table continually; he bowed himself, and

said, what is thy servant, that thou shouldest look on such a dead dog as I am?" A speech full of gratitude and humility; yet he was of a royal extraction, though at that time in a low condition. With a far greater sense of our unworthiness, we should reflect upon that condescending love, that provides the "bread of God" for the food of our souls, without which we had perished for want. David in that divine thanksgiving recorded in the scripture, reflects upon his own meanness, and from that magnifies the favour of God towards him. 2 Sam. 7. 18. "Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken of thy servant's house for a great while to come: and is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" If such humble and thankful acknowledgments were due for the sceptre of Israel, what is for the crown of heaven? And that procured for us by the sufferings of the Son of God? Briefly, goodness is the foundation of glory, therefore the most solemn and affectionate praise is to be rendered for transcendent goodness. The consent of heaven and earth, is, "in ascribing blessing, and honour, and glory to him that sits on the throne, and the Lamb for ever." Rev. 5. 13.

II. The love of God discovered in our redemption, is the most powerful persuasive to repentance. For the discovery of this we must consider, that real repentance is the consequent of faith, and always in proportion to it. Therefore the law which represents to us the divine purity and justice, without any allay of mercy, can never work true repentance in a sinner. When conscience is under the strong conviction of guilt, and of God's justice as implacable, it causes a dreadful flight from him, and a wretched neglect of means. Despair hardens. The brightest discoveries of God in nature are not warm enough to melt the frozen heart into the current of repentance. It is true, the visible frame of the world, and the continual benefits of providence, instruct men in those prime truths, the being and bounty of God to those that serve him, and invite them to their duty. "God never left himself without a witness in any age:" his goodness is designed to lead men to repentance." Acts 4. 17. And the apostle aggravates the obstinacy of men, that rendered that method entirely fruitless. But the declaration of God's goodness in the gospel is infinitely more clear and powerful, than the silent

revelation by the works of creation and providence. For although the patience and general goodness of God offered some intimations that he is placable, yet not a sufficient support for a guilty and jealous creature to rely on. The natural notion of God's justice is so deeply rooted in the human soul, that till he is pleased to proclaim an act of grace and pardon, on the conditions of faith and repentance, it is hardly possible that convinced sinners should apprehend him otherwise than an enemy; and that all the common benefits they enjoy, are but provisions allowed in the interval between the sentence pronounced by the law, and the execution of it at death. Therefore God to overcome our fears, and to melt us into a compliance, hath given in the scripture the highest assurance of his willingness to receive all relenting and returning sinners. He interposes the most solemn oath to remove our suspicions. "As I live, saith the Lord, I delight not in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." Ezek. 33. 11. And have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways and live ?" Ezek. 18. 23. The majesty and ardency of the expressions testify the truth and vehemency of his desire, so far as the excellency of his nature is capable to move our affections. And the reason of it is clear; for the conversion of a sinner implies a thorough change in the will and affections from sin to grace, and that is infinitely pleasing to God's holiness, and the giving of life to the converted is most suitable to his mercy. The angels who are infinitely inferior to him in goodness, rejoice in the repentance and salvation of men; much more doth God. There is an eminent difference between his inclinations to exercise mercy, and justice. He uses expressions of regret when he is constrained to punish. Psal. 81. 13. "O that my people had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways! And how shall I give thee up Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? mine heart is turned within me.” Hos. 11. 8. As a merciful judge, that pities the man, when he condemns the malefactor. But he dispenses acts of grace with pleasure, "He pardons iniquity, and passes by transgressions, because he delights in mercy." Mic. 7. 18. It is true, when sinners are finally obdurate, God is pleased in their ruin, for the honour of his justice; yet it is not in such manner as in their conversion and life, he doth not invite sinners to transgress, that he

may condemn them: he is not pleased when they give occasion for the exercise of his anger. And above all, we have the clearest and surest discovery of pardoning mercy in the death of Christ. For what stronger evidence can there be of God's readiness to pardon, than sending his Son into the world to be a sacrifice for sin, that mercy without prejudice to his other perfections might upon our repentance forgive us? And what more rational argument is there, and more congruous to the breast of a man, to work in him a serious grief and hearty detestation of sin, not only as a cursed thing, but as it is contrary to the divine will, than the belief that God, in whose power alone it is to pardon sinners, is most desirous to pardon them, if they will return to obedience? The prodigal in his extreme distress resolved to go to his Father with penitential acknowledgments and submission and, to use the words of a devout writer, his guilty consci- ence as desperate, asked him, qua spe, with what hope? He replied to himself, illa qua pater est. Ego perdidi quod erat filii ; ille quod patris est non amisit: though I have neglected the duty and lost the confidence of a Son, he hath not lost the compassion of a Father. That parable represents man in his degenerate forlorn state, and that the divine goodness is the motive that prevails upon him to return to his duty.

III. The transcendent love that God hath expressed in our redemption by Christ, should kindle in us a reciprocal affection to him. For what is more natural than that one flame should produce another?"we love him, because he loved us first." The original of our love to God is from the evidence of his to us: this alone can strongly and sweetly draw the heart to him. It is true, the divine excellencies as they deserve a superlative esteem, so the highest affection: but the bare contemplation of them is ineffectual to fire the heart with a zealous love to God. For man hath a diabolical seed in his corrupt nature; he is inclined not only to sensuality, which is an implicit hatred of God, (for an eager appetite to those things which God forbids, and a fixed aversion to what he commands, are the natural effects of hatred) but to malignity and direct hatred against God. "He is

an enemy in his mind through wicked works," Col. 1. 21. and this enmity ariseth from the consideration of God's justice, and the effects of it. Man cannot sin and be happy, therefore he wishes there were no God to whom he must be accountable.

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