Thomas Manton · 13 of 67

Verse 2. · Part 4

Secondly, Let me now come to the effects of God’s love. I shall only instance in those three great effects—creation, preservation, and redemption. Certainly that must needs be a great bonfire out of which there flies not only sparks but brands; and so that love which can produce such fruits and effects must needs be exceeding great.

1. Creation. This deserveth love from the creature. The fruit of the vineyard belongeth to him that planted it; and whom should we love but him that gave us the power to love? All that thou hast, all that thou canst see, that thou canst touch, is his gift, and the work of his hands. He gave thee the essence not of a tree, a bird, a beast, but of a man, capable of reason, fit for happiness. God made other creatures by a word of command, and man by counsel. It was not, Be thou, but, Let us make man, to show that the whole Trinity assisted and joined in consultation. He made other creatures for his glory, but not for his love and service. God is glorified in them passively, as they give us occasion to glorify God; the creatures are the harp, but man maketh the music: ‘All thy works praise thee, and thy saints bless thee,’ Ps. cxlv. 10. How many steps may a Christian ascend in his praise and thanksgiving! We might have been stones without sense; beasts, and without reason; born infidels, and without faith; we might have continued sinners, and without grace: all these are so many steps of mercy. But creation is that we are now to speak of, and truly it deserveth a remembrance, especially in youth, Eccles. xii. 1, when the effects of God’s creating bounty are most fresh in our sense and feeling: we are always to ‘remember our Creator,’ but then especially. The aches of old age serve to put us in mind of our ingratitude; but the strength, and vigour, and freshness of youth should make us remember the bounty of our Creator. Look upon the body or the soul, and you will see that we have cause to love him. In the body we find as many mercies as there are limbs. If a man should be born blind or lame, or should lose an eye or an arm, or a leg, how much would he love him that should restore the use of these members again! We are as much bound to love him that gave them to us at first, especially when we consider how often we have deserved to lose them. We would love him that should raise us from the dead: God is the author of life, and the continual preserver and defender of it. If we love our parents that begot us, we should much more love God that made them and us too out of nothing. Take notice of the curious frame of the body. David saith, Ps. cxxxix. 14, ‘I am wonderfully made;’ acu pictus sum, so the Vulgar rendereth it, ‘painted as with a needle,’ like a garment of needlework, of divers colours, richly embroidered with nerves and veins. What shall I speak of the eye, wherein there is such curious workmanship, that many upon the first sight of it have been driven to acknowledge God? Of the hand made to open and shut, and to serve the labours and ministries of nature without wasting and decay for many years? If they should be of marble or iron, with such constant use they would soon wear out; and yet now they are of flesh they last as long as life lasteth. Of the head? fitly placed to be the seat of the senses, to command and direct the rest of the members. Of the lungs? a frail piece of flesh, yet, though in continual motion, of a long use. It were easy to enlarge upon this occasion; but I am to preach a sermon, not to read an anatomy lecture. In short, therefore, every part is so placed and framed, as if God had employed his whole wisdom about it.

But as yet we have spoken but of the casket wherein the jewel lieth. The soul, that divine spark and blast, how quick, nimble, various, and indefatigable in its motions! how comprehensive in its capacities! how it animateth the body, and is like God himself, all in every part! Who can trace the flights of reason? What a value hath God set upon the soul! He made it after his image, he redeemed it with Christ’s blood, &c. Well, then, God, that made such a body, such a soul, deserveth love. He that made the soul hath most right to dwell in it; it is a curious house of his own framing. But he will not enter by force and violence, but by consent; he expecteth when love will give up the keys: Rev. iii. 20, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man open to me, I will come in and sup with him.’ Why should Christ stand at the door and knock, and ask leave to enter into his own house? He hath right enough to enter, only he expecteth till we open to him.

2. Preservation. We are not apprehensive enough of daily mercies. The preservation of the world is a constant miracle. The world is ‘hanged upon nothing’ (as it is in the book of Job). A feather will not stay in the air; and yet what hath the world to support it but the thin fluid air that is round about it? It is easy to prove that the waters are higher than the land; so that we are always in the case the Israelites were in when they passed through the Red Sea. Nos sumus etiam tanquam in medio rubri maris, saith Luther—the waters are round about us and above us, bound up in a heap as it were by God, and yet we are not swallowed up. It is true the danger is not so sensible and immediate as that of the Red Sea, because of the constant rampire of providence. More particularly, from the womb to the grave we have hourly maintenance from God. Look, as the beams in the air are no longer continued than the sun shineth; so we do no longer continue than God ‘upholdeth our beings by the word of his power,’ Heb. i. 3. Or as it is with a seal in the water, take away the seal and the impress vanisheth; so do we disappear as soon as God doth but loosen his hand and almighty grasp, by which all things are upheld and preserved. But let us speak of those acts of providence that are more sensible. Into how many diseases and dangers might we fall, if God did not look after us as the nurse after her child! How many have gone to the grave, nay, it may be to hell, since the last night*! How many actual dangers have we escaped! God hath looked after us, as if he had forgotten all the world besides; as if his whole employment were to do us good. He saith that he ‘will no more forget us than a woman doth her sucking child;’ and that we are ‘written before him, and graven in the palms of his hands,’ Isa. xlix. 15, &c., as men tie a string about their finger for a remembrance, or record in a book such things as they would regard. All these are expressions to describe the particular and express care of God’s providence over his children. Now what shall be rendered to the Lord for all this? If we could do and suffer never so much for God, it will not answer the mercy of one day. Certainly at least God expecteth love for love. Love him as he is the ‘strength of thy life and length of thy days,’ Deut. xxx. 20. Every day’s experience is new fuel to keep in the fire. The very beasts will respect their preservers; they are loving to those that are kind to them: ‘The ass knoweth his owner, and the ox his master’s crib.’ There is a kind of gratitude in the beasts by which they acknowledge their benefactors that feed them and cherish them; but we do not acknowledge God who feedeth us and upholdeth us every moment. There is no creature made worse by kindness but man. He, that was made to be master of the creatures, may become their scholar; there is many a good lesson to be learned in their school.

3. Redemption. As a man, when he weigheth a thing, casteth in weight after weight till the scales be counterpoised, so doth God mercy after mercy to poise down man’s heart. Here is a mercy that is overweight in itself: 1 John iv. 10, ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.’ If we had had the wisdom to pitch upon such a remedy, as certainly it could not have entered into hearts of men or angels, Eph. iii. 10, yet we could not have the heart to ask it. It would have seemed a rude blasphemy in our prayers to desire that the Son of God should come out from his Father’s bosom and die for us. Therefore, ‘herein is love;’ that is, this is the highest expression of God’s love to the creature, not only that ever was, but can be; for in love only God acteth to the uttermost: he never showed so much of his power and wisdom, but he can show more; of his wrath, but he can show more; but he hath no greater thing to give than himself, than his Christ. At what a dear rate hath the Lord bought our hearts I He needed not; he might have made nobler creatures than the present race of men, and dealt with us as he did with the sinning angels; he would not enter into treaty with them, but the execution was as quick as the sin; so the Lord might utterly have cast us off, and made a new race of men to glorify his grace, leaving Adam to propagate the world to glorify his justice; or, at least, he might have redeemed us in another way, for I suppose it is a free dispensation, opus liberi consilii. But, John iii. 16, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.’ He took this way, that we might love Christ as well as believe in him. God might have redeemed us so much in another way, but he could not oblige us so much in another way; he would not only satisfy his justice, but show his love. It was the Lord’s design, by his love, to deserve ours, and so for ever to shame the creature, if they should not now love him. Oh! think much of this glorious instance, the love of God in giving Christ, and the love of Christ in giving himself. When ‘the sea wrought and was tempestuous,’ and Jonah saw the storm, he said, ‘Cast me into the sea, and it shall be calm to you;’ but the storm was raised for his own sake. Now Christ, when he saw the misery of mankind, he said, Let it come on me. We raised the storm, but Christ would be cast in to allay it. If a prince, passing by an execution, should take the malefactor’s chains, and suffer in his stead, this would be a wonderful instance indeed. Why! Christ ‘hath borne our sorrows and carried our griefs,’ Isa. liii. 4; the very same griefs that we should have suffered, so far as his holy person was capable of them. His desertion was equivalent to our loss, his agonies to our curse and punishment of sense; and all this very willingly for the sake of sinners. It is notable, he doth with like indignation rebuke Peter dissuading him from sufferings, as he doth the devil tempting him to idolatry: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan;’ compare Mat. xvi. 22, with Mat. iv. 10. He is well pleased with all his sorrow and sufferings, so he may gain the church, and espouse her to himself in a firm league and covenant: Isa. liii. 11, ‘He shall see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied;’ as if he said, Welcome agonies, welcome death, welcome curse, so poor souls be saved! As Jacob counted the days of his labour nothing, so he might obtain Rachel; and yet there is a vast difference between the love of Christ and the love of Jacob. Rachel was lovely, but we are vile and unworthy creatures; and Christ’s love is infinite, even beyond his sufferings and the outward expressions of it; as the windows of the temple were more large and open within than without. Well, then, every one of Christ’s wounds is a mouth open to plead for love. He made himself so vile, that he might be more dear and precious to us. Certainly, if love brought Christ out of heaven to the cross, to the grave, should it not carry us to heaven, to God, to Christ, who hath been thus gracious to us? Thus God hath deserved our love.

Thirdly, The third and next argument is, God hath desired it. What doth the Lord see in our hearts that he should desire them? If a prince should not only make love to a vile and abject creature, but seek all means to gain her affection, you would count her very froward and unthankful to give him the denial. Christ doth not only oblige us, but woo us. If man were such as he should be, he would not need enforcements, because of the multitude of his obligations; and if the Lord did deal with us as we deserve, he would slight us and scorn us, rather than woo us. He doth not want lovers; there are angels enough in heaven, whose wills and affections cleave to him perfectly; yea, God doth not need the love of any creature; all this wooing is for our sakes. Wherein can frail men be beneficial to God? What increase of happiness hath he if all men should love him? It is his happiness to love himself, and he would have us to share in this happiness; therefore he threateneth, and promiseth, and beseecheth. As one that would gladly open a door, trieth key after key, till he hath tried every key in the bunch; so doth God try one method after another to work upon man’s heart.

1. He threateneth eternal torments if we do not love him: 1 Cor. xvi. 22, ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.’ The form of speech implieth the most dreadful curse that may be. It is not arbitrary whether you will love him or no; you are either to love him, or to perish eternally. Among men, if love doth not come kindly, we neglect it; that which is forced is nothing worth: yet the Lord is so earnest after the love of the creature, that he would have it by any means.

2. He promiseth. We have not only mercies in hand, but mercies in hope; not only obligations, but promises. It is our duty to love God if there were no heaven; our obligations might suffice; yet ‘what great things hath God provided for them that love him!’ 1 Cor. ii. 9. If a man should sell his love, he cannot have a better chapman than God, who is most rich and most liberal. If an earthly potentate should promise to them that love him half his kingdom, he would find lovers enough. God hath promised glory, the kingdom of heaven, and shall we not take him at his word? The Lord will give a gift for a gift; because he hath given us to love him, therefore he will give us heaven as the reward of love. Who ever heard that a hungry man was hired to eat, and rewarded for tasting dainty food? or a thirsty man for drinking? The love of God is so excellent a privilege, that we should endure all torments to obtain it; and yet God hath promised a reward: yea, he is pleased to bargain with us as if he were our equal, and we were altogether free before the contract.

3. Again, he beseecheth. We are cold and backward, therefore he useth entreaty upon entreaty, as if he were impatient of a denial. Out of what rock was man hewn? God himself cometh a-wooing, and we have the face to give him a repulse; and what doth he woo for but our hearts, which are his already by every kind of right and title? Prov. xxiii. 26, ‘My son, give me thy heart.’ God is pleased to call that a gift which is indeed a debt. Though the heart be due, yet God will put this honour upon the creatures, to receive it from them in the way of a gift. It is but equity to ‘give to God the things that are God’s.’ Look upon the heart; see if any could make it but God himself. ‘Whose image and superscription doth it bear?’ Wilt thou refuse to surrender up to God his right? God hath made it, bought it, and yet he beggeth it. When thou hast been as earnest with God, and asked anything regularly of him, did he deny thee? It is no benefit to him; he desireth the heart of the creature, not that he may be happy, but that he may be liberal; he would have thy heart that he may make it better. How easily do we give up our affections to anything but God, who hath the best title to them! If the world or Satan knocketh, we open presently. We are as wax to Satan, and as stone to God; exorable and easy to be entreated by any carnal motion. As some hard stones cannot be wrought upon but by their own dust, so men are facile only to their own corruptions, to their own lusts, not to the motions of God’s Spirit.

Fourthly, The nature of love showeth that it is fit for nothing but God. He hath given us this faculty and disposition, that we may close with himself. He that looketh upon an axe will say it was made to cut; and he that looketh on love will say it was made for God. What is the genius and disposition of love? Love is nothing but an earnest bent and strong motion of the soul to what is good for us. Every man hath an inclination in his nature to what he conceiveth to be good, Ps. iv. 6, and grace doth only direct and set it right. All the difference between nature and grace is in fixing the chiefest good and the utmost end. One great blessing of the covenant is ‘a new heart;’ that is, a new and right placing of our affections. Well, then, God is summum bonum, the chiefest good; even nature cannot be satisfied without him, but grace findeth all contentment in him. If there be any good in the creatures, it is originally in him; he is the fountain of living waters, where comforts are sweetest and freest. The heart hunteth after good among the creatures, which is but an image and ray of that perfection which is in God; and who would leave the substance to follow the shadow, and prize the picture to the disdain of the person whom it represents? It were easy to prove that God is the only proper, eternal, all-sufficient good of the soul; and if the heart were not perverted and biassed with carnal desires to other objects, it would directly move to God, as all things do to their centre. I say, were it not for sin, we should no more need be pressed to love God, than to love ourselves. There need no great motives to press us to love ourselves, nature is prone enough of its own accord; and if nature had remained in that purity wherein it was created, it would move to God of its own accord; as all things move to their centre, and there they rest. Now God is the centre of the soul. The soul’s good is not honours, pleasures, profits; the soul is a spirit, and must have a spiritual good; it is immortal, and it must have an eternal good. By experience we find that our affections are never in their due posture, but are like members out of joint (or the arms when they hang backward) when they are not fixed upon God; therefore there is a restlessness and dissatisfaction in the soul. We grope and feel about for happiness, and cannot find it, Acts xvii. 26, 27; like Noah’s dove, we hover up and down, and find no place whereon the sole of our foot should rest. Well, then, if God be the only all-sufficient good of the soul, why do not we love him more? If he be the centre of the soul, why do not we move directly thither? It is a shame that a stone should be carried with greater force to its centre than we to God. By its natural course it falleth downward, and breaketh all things in the way, yea, though itself be broken in pieces. But alas! how little do we break through impediments to go to God! It were a miracle to see a stone stopped in the air by a feather. But now every vain thing keepeth us off, and intercepts our affections; sin hath given us another centre, and after grace received, we hang too much that way. Again, as love is for good, so it is for one object; like a pyramid, it ends in a point; affection is weakened by dispersion, as a river by being turned into many channels. In conjugal love, where friendship is to the height, there is but one that can share in it; that is the law of nature: Mal. ii. 15, ‘Did he not make one? yet he had the residue of spirit;’ the meaning is, that God made but one man for one woman, though he had spirit enough to make more; it was not out of defect of power, but wise choice, that their affections to one another might be the stronger, which otherwise would be weakened; as they are in the brutes scattered promiscuously to several objects. So the true object of love is one God; he is loved for himself, and other things for his sake. Once more, the force and vehemency of love showeth that it was made for God; love is the vigorous bent of the soul, and full of heights and excesses, which, if diverted to other objects, would make us guilty of idolatry; we should place them in the room of God. Still we find that men are besotted with what they love; as Samson was led about like a child by Delilah: all conveniences of life, pleasures, profits, are contemned for the enjoyment of the thing beloved. Now, these are heights proper to the divinity, to the infinite majesty of God. To whom else is this vehemency and this self-denial due? If we lavish it upon the creatures, we make gods of them; and therefore covetousness is called idolatry, Eph. v. 5, and the sensualist is said to make his belly his god, Phil. iii. 19. There is such an excess, such a doating in love, that if we be not careful in fixing it, before we are aware we run into practical idolatry and practical atheism. There is an atheism in the heart as well as in the judgment. Atheism in the judgment is when we are not convinced of the being of God; in the heart, when our affections are not set on God: this is more incurable, because the dogmatical atheist may be convinced by reason, but the practical atheist can only be reformed by grace. Thus the nature of love showeth it.

Fifthly, The nature of the saint showeth it; the new nature hath new affections; it bewrayeth itself by the new heart, as well as by the renewed mind, Rom. xii. 2. There are not only new thoughts, but new desires and new delights; desires after God, and a delight in God, as the fountain of holiness. When we come to God at first, we love him out of spiritual interest, for ease and comfort, and the benefit we gain by. him; Christ alloweth it: ‘Come to me and I will give you ease,’ Mat. xi. 28. When fire is first kindled, there is as much smoke as flame; but afterwards it burneth brighter and brighter by degrees. A fountain, as soon as digged, runneth muddy at first, but afterwards the stream groweth more pure and clear. So doth the love of the saints; at first it is but a love of interest, but by acquaintance we love him out of a principle of the new nature, for his holiness and excellency, because that which is in us in part is in God by way of eminency and perfection. Certainly likeness must needs beget love, and the saints, being conformed to God, delight in him; so that then their love floweth not so much from profit and interest as grace; yea, at length out of a vehement complacency of the new nature, they love holiness above happiness or spiritual interest; and hell is not so bad as sin in their account. There cannot be a worse hell to them than unkindness to God or grieving his Spirit; and heaven is amiable for God’s sake, because he is loved there and enjoyed there; there are none of God’s enemies in heaven, and there they shall serve him and cleave to him without weariness and wandering. Well, then, there is such a disposition in the saints to love God, Ps. xxxi. 23, which ariseth not only from hope, because of the great benefit which we expect from him, nor only from gratitude, or the sense of his love already showed, but from an inclination of the new nature, and that sympathy and likeness that is between us, because we hate what he hateth, and love what he loveth, Prov. viii. 13; Rev. ii. 6, and because God is the original fountain and sampler of holiness.

Use. Well, then, saints mind your work. Do you indeed love God? Christ puts Peter to the question thrice, John xxi. A deceitful heart is apt to abuse you. Ask again and again, Do I indeed love God? Evidences are these:—

1. If you love God, he will be loved alone; those that do riot give all to God, give nothing; he will have the whole heart. If there were another God, we might have some excuse for our reservations; but since there is but one God, he must have all, for he doth not love in mates. When the harbingers take up a house for a prince, they turn out all; none must remain there, that there may be room for his greatness. So all must avoid, that God may have the sole possession of our hearts. The devil, that hath no right to anything, would have a part, for by that means he knoweth the whole will fall to him; conscience will not let him have all, and therefore he would have a part to keep possession: as Pharaoh stood bucking with Moses and Aaron; if not the Israelites, then their little ones; if not their little ones, then their herds; if not their herds, then their flocks: but Moses telleth him there was not a hoof to be left. So Satan, if he cannot have the outward man, yet he would have the heart; if there be not room enough in the heart for every lust, then he craveth indulgence in some things that are less odious and distasteful; if conscience will not allow drunkenness, yet a little worldliness is pleaded for as no great matter. But the love of God cannot be in that heart where the world reigneth. Dagon and the ark could not abide in the same temple; neither can the heart be divided between God and mammon. All men must have some religion to mask their pleasures and carnal practices, that they may be favourable to their lusts and interests with less remorse; and usually they order the matter so, that Christ shall have their consciences, and the world their hearts and affections. But, alas! they do not consider that God is jealous of a rival; when he cometh into the heart, he will have the room empty. It is true, we may love other things in subordination to God, but not in competition with God; that is, when we love God and other things for God’s sake, in God and for God. When a commander hath taken a strong castle, and placed a garrison in it, he suffereth none to enter but those of his own side, keeping the gate shut to his enemies. So we must open the heart to none but God, and those that are of God’s party and side, keeping the gate shut to others. We may love the creatures as they are of God’s side, as they draw our hearts more to God, or engage us to be more cheerful in service, or give us greater advantages of doing good. Of what party are they? Bring nothing into thy heart, and allow nothing there, that is contrary to God. When Sarah saw Ishmael scoffing at Isaac, she thrust him out of doors. So when riches, and honour, and the love of the world upbraid you with your love to God, as if you were a fool to stand so nicely upon terms of conscience, &c., when they encroach and allow Christ no room but in the conscience, it is time to thrust them out of doors, that the Lord alone may have the preeminence in our souls.