Hufsey:
Exhort. 1. Stand still, and admire we the love of God to the world, in sending his Son Jesus Christ, and giving him for us. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” 1. What an unparalleled act of love it is to part with a Son, tender hearted parents are best able to judge. To part with one son of many, had there been act of great kindness: Christ was and is the Father’s only Son. To part with an adopted son had been undeserved love, Jesus is mongenes the only begotten Son of the Father. If he had been a son who had no form or comeliness nor beauty in him, that he should be desired, to part with had been less, but he is fairer than the sons of men, the chief of ten thousands. Or if he had been as too many sons are, a grief to his Father like Esau, the matter had not been so great; but Jesus Christ is and was daily his Father’s delight, neither displeased with him, lay in his bosom, yet God sen him. “Having yet one Son his beloved, he sent him,” Prov. 8:30. “Behold how he loved us!” Joh. 8:29, 1:18.
2. But to what end did God send his Son Jesus Christ? Possibly for a preferment a tender Father may part with a dear son; but God sent his Son into an ungrateful world, to unthankful husbandmen, Mark 12:7, “Who received him not” with acknowledgments of gratitude, and respect, nay they hated him to death, and crucified him. Those husbandmen said, “this is the heir, come let us kill him,” &c., Acts 4:2 And this God in his eternal foreknowledge saw and knew certainly would so come to pass, yet he sent him.
3. For whom did God give his Son, for whose sake and benefit? Was it for Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, those morning stars of an higher orb, and the Son of God, as the Angels are styled, Job 38:7. Nay, it was for mortals who inhabit cottages of clay. But sure it was for innocent men, and good men. Nay, God commends his love to us, “that when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” Rom. 5:8. Miser, indeed, moves pity, where a man becomes casually miserable, he neither willing it directly, nor in its cause, as Aquinas speaks; but we fell into sin and misery willfully, yet God shows mercy, and sent his Son to receive millions of souls, become obnoxious to condemnation by their own fault or their parents.
2. Exh. What shall we render to the Lord who spared not his own Son from death for us for our redemption? O give to the Lord of the best, the dearest thing tho hast; what is that? thy heart: My son give me thy heart.
1. We had no title to Jesus Christ, yet God sent him, our misery for requiring. God has manifold right, all right to our hearts: he is Lord of the whole man, and we are not our own.
2. We no way merited the sending of Jesus Christ, but contrariwise deserved wrath: God deserves our heart, hand, tongue, all.
3. God sent his Son when he knew he would be ill used by men: if you give God your heart he will purify it, adorn it with grace, fit for glory. Christ returned with wounds, scars to his Father: God will fill your heart with joy, comfort, the graces of his Spirit.
4. If we give not God our hearts, Satan will get possession of them.
J. Hufsey, The Way to Salvation: Or, The Doctrine of Life Eternal Laid down in several Texts of Scripture Opened and Applied (London: Printed for Nathaniel Ranew, and Jonathan Robinson, at the Angel in Jewen Street, 1668), 107-109. [Some reformatting and some spelling modernized.]