Archive for July 15th, 2011
The Lord knows full well that men’s hearts are so full of enmity, that they will never seek for reconciliation first, though they have good cause, because they have offered the wrong, and therefore he stands not upon terms, but offers love first,, without which he knows they are forever undone! O therefore receive it, accept of it when it is offered to you, and lose thy life rather than his love.
For the farther opening of this point, I shall show three things.
1. That Christ does offer his love in the gospel.
2. Upon what terms.
3. Motives.
3. Motives to accept it, and answer objections accepting of it.
First, that the Lord does offer, and how he does offer his love in the gospel: and this I shall clear, because nothing can draw a soul to accept of love but this. For the better understanding of which, you must conceive that the love of Christ in the gospel, is diversely manifested unto men; either to men after they be in Christ, and are brought home by it, and this is a love of delight in them. Psal. 45:10-11. Or it is the love of good-will to men not brought home, as it is husbands before their affections be set upon any, they make love; as it is, 2 Thess. 2:10, “The received not the love of the truth,” because the truth made love to them. Luke 2:14, “Good-will towards men,” and this love, I say, is offered, this love makes unto you, stand amazed at it, that after all your sins, wrongs done him, nothing but love is offered, even his dearest love, for though there is patience, power to help, wisdom to guide, though there is terror in him, yet, “Take my love,” says he, John 3:17. And hence, Heb. 2:3, it is called “Great salvation,” or love. It is offered, else how could men be said to reject it or neglect, which he warns them of? A man may as well question whether there be a gospel, as whether love be offered there, for as the law is nothing but the manifestation of sin, the hand-writing of death unto all men, writ with the finger of God; the gospel is the manifestation of grace, the hand-writing of grace and peace to all men, written with the blood of God, and hence the gospel is that which brings “live and immortality to light,” 2 Tim. 1:10. Not that there is life absolutely for al, but there it is for all that shall by faith accept it. More particularly.
First, it is offered universally to all wherever it comes, and therefore personally to every man, the words are plain, Mark 16:15, “Preach the gospel to every creature;” and not only to them that do belong Christ, and shall believe; for though it is offered with power of it effectually to these, yet offered it is also unto those that never shall have God, and hence, Luke 14, the Lord of the feast invited those that never came in; and Christ himself, 1 John 11, “He came to his own, and they received him not;” “he would have gathered them under his wings and they would not;” not only to them that be humbled (though none will care for the gospel but such) but to them that be unhumbled, Rev. 3:18,20, does the gospel come. There be many object, “Yes the Lord offers love to them that are his, but not to me?,” yes to thee; there is not a man here, that can exempt himself. And I would make no doubt to go to every man particularly, and say, “The Lord entreats thee to be reconciled, nay if there be one man worse than another, though his hands have been imbrued in the blood of the prophets, and is soul stained with the most crying guilt of the most hideous sins that ever the earth bore, or sun saw, yet the Lord makes love to him; the price is paid for him, if he will accept it, and the Lord would have him so do; neither does this universal offer infer universal redemption; for the gospel, in the offer of it, does not speak absolutely that Christ has died for all, and therefore for thee, as the Arminians maintain; but it speaks conditionally, it is for thee, if ever the Lord gives thee a heart to receive that grace there, therefore consider of it, there is not one here present, but the Lord would have you receive his love, and consider this one reason, thou shalt be condemned for refusing it; hence it is God’s command, and Christ’s desire you should receive it, John 3:19. If not thy duty to receive it, it is not thy sin to refuse it; but it is such a sin, that all men that perish under the sound of the Gospel, are principally damned for.