Rowe:

1) 3. Christ’s love to his people is a special peculiar, and discriminating love.

1. It is a special peculiar love. There is a common general love which God bears to all creatures; but there is a special peculiar love which God bears to his people. God loves all his creatures with a general love; but it is some only he loves with a special and peculiar love. God, as one observes loves all his creatures indeed, but he doth not love them so as to will the same good, or to bestow the same equal good upon them all.¹ God is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He feeds the ravens, clothes the lilies, gives life, breath, being to all creatures; but then there is a special love which he bears to his people. First, he gives himself to them: Heb. 8:10. This is the covenant I will make with them, I will be their God. Secondly, he gives them his Son: Having given us his Son, Rom. 8:32. John 3:16. Thirdly, he gives Heaven, Salvation, and eternal life unto them, Luke 12:32. 1 Thess. 5:9. These are the things that God bestows upon his people: so then it is a special love in this respect. God bestows common blessings upon others; he bestows many temporal blessings upon all men; but his special favors are reserved for the Elect: therefore he is said to be the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe, 1 Tim. 4:10. God preserves and saves all men by a common Providence, but he is in a special peculiar manner the Savior of Believers: therefore he is called the Savior of the body, Eph. 5:23. Compare these Scriptures together; in one place he is said to be the Savior of all men, and in another place he is said to be the Savior of his body the Church. Christ is the Savior of all men in some respect, but not so as he is the Savior of his body the Church: he saves all men with a common Salvation, but he doth not save all men with a spiritual eternal salvation, it is the Church only he so saves. John Rowe, Emmanuel, Or the Love of Christ Explicated and Applied in his Incarnation, Being Made Under the Law, and His Satisfaction. In XXX Sermons. (London: Printed for Francis Tyton Book-seller at the Three Daggers near the Inner Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1680), 13-14. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; marginal notation cited as footnote; italics original; and underlining mine.]

2) In the third and last place, learn from what has been opened, to admire the greatness of Christ’s love to us, who, in some sense, accounts us friends, where, indeed, we were enemies: “Greater love has no man, that he should lay down his lie for his friends.” We are all by nature enemies, so we have heard, and yet in some sense Christ accounts us friends. Christ had a purpose of good will to us, even when we were enemies towards him. It was from his love that God sent forth his Son to die for us when we were enemies: “Herein God commended his love towards us, in that while we were yet enemies, Christ died for us,” Rom. 5:8. So that God had a purpose of good will in his heart towards us, when we were full of enmity in our hearts towards him. Only that none may abuse this Doctrine, take this caution. No man can conclude, that God hath a purpose of good will to him that remains an enemy to God, and persists in his enmity: but he hath reason on the contrary to think, that he being an enemy to God by nature, and continuing still to be so, God remains to to him. But however, this was the love of God to the world in general, that when the whole world were enemies, and all were found in a state of enmity against God, God loved the world so far, as to find out and prepare a means of Salvation for the world. God loved the world so far, as that he gave his only begotten Son to deliver the world from its perishing condition, and to bring it eternal life: this was the love of God to us; and this commends and sets forth the greatness of God’s love to us, that when we were enemies to him, he had a kindness for us; and so great was his kindness to us, that he sent his Son to bring us unto life. Joh. 4:9. In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. John Rowe, Emmanuel, Or the Love of Christ Explicated and Applied in his Incarnation, Being Made Under the Law, and His Satisfaction. In XXX Sermons. (London: Printed for Francis Tyton Book-seller at the Three Daggers near the Inner Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1680), 223-224. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

3) Learn how great the sin and ingratitude of the world is in slighting and abusing all this love, and also how just that revenge is which God takes upon the world for slighting and abusing all this love. If the love of Christ be so eminently seen in his suffering and dying for sinful men, for the sinful world, then how great is the sin and ingratitude of the world in slighting and abusing all this love? God hath sent his Son from Heaven to die for the world; but all this love is little thought of, little regarded or esteemed by the generality of men, this is the cause of the Lord’s great indignation against the world. The world is guilty of many other sins, it is guilty of great immoralities, and many abominations in point of practice, and these may have their influence, and no doubt have, as to the bringing down God’s displeasure upon the sinful world; but that which is the fundamental sin, the root sin of all, it is the contempt of Christ and the Gospel, the slighting and rejecting Gospel-love, Gospel-grace: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light.” And we may say, This is the condemnation that love is come into the world, that the Son of God who is love itself, the Son of God who hath all the love of the Father in him (and God is love) that he is come into the nature of man, and has died for men, that they might be saved, and this is not at all regarded by them. When all this love of his hath been published and made known to men, the generality of men have taken no notice of Christ and his love: so they may have their honors, pleasures, and profits, take Christ and his grace who will for them: for this so great contempt of Christ and his grace, when God hath offered his love and the grace of his Gospel to the world, and men have slighted it, taken no notice of it, hath God come to revenge himself upon the ungrateful world, and I speak it with a bleeding heart, I fear will yet revenge it more sorely. John Rowe, Emmanuel, Or the Love of Christ Explicated and Applied in his Incarnation, Being Made Under the Law, and His Satisfaction. In XXX Sermons. (London: Printed for Francis Tyton Book-seller at the Three Daggers near the Inner Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1680), 445-446. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

[Credit to Tony for the find.]

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¹Omnes quidem diligit, sed non ad æquale bonum. Tolet,