Cant. v. 11. that most precious fountain of grace and mercy. This infiniteness of grace in respect of its spring and fountain will answer all objections that might hinder our souls from drawing nigh to communion with him, and from a free embracing of him. Will not this suit us in all our distresses? What is our finite guilt before it? Shew me the sinner that can spread his iniquities to the dimensions (if I may so say) of this grace? Here is mercy enough for the greatest, the oldest, the stubbornest transgressor. 'Why will you die, O ye house of Israel? Take heed of them who would rob you of the Deity of Christ; if there were no more grace for me than what can be treasured up in a mere man, I should rejoice my portion might be under rocks and

mountains.

Consider hence his eternal, free, unchangeable love. Were the love of Christ unto us but the love of a mere man, though never so excellent, innocent, and glorious, it must have a beginning, it must have an ending, and perhaps be fruitless. The love of Christ in his human nature towards his, is exceeding, intense, tender, precious, compassionate, abundantly heightened by a sense of our miseries, feeling of our wants, experience of our temptations, all flowing from that rich stock of grace, pity, and compassion, which on purpose for our good and supply, was bestowed on him. But yet this love, as such, cannot be infinite, nor eternal, nor from itself absolutely unchangeable. Were it no more, though not to be paralleled, nor fathomed, yet our Saviour could not say of it, as he doth, as my Father loveth me, so have I loved you ;' John xv. 9. His love could not be compared with, and equalled unto the divine love of the Father, in those properties of eternity, fruitfulness, and unchangeableness, which are the chief anchors of the soul, rolling itself on the bosom of Christ. But now, [1.] It is eternal. Come ye near unto me, hear you this; I have not,' saith he, spoken from the beginning in secret; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me ;' Isa. xlviii. 16. He himself is 'yesterday, to-day, and for ever;' Heb. xiii. 8. and so is his love, being his who is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending, which is, which was, and which is to come; Rev. i. 11.

[2.] Unchangeable. Our love is like ourselves; as we are, so are all our affections: so is the love of Christ like himself: we love one one day, and hate him the next: he changeth, and we change also; this day he is our right hand, our right eye, the next day cut him off, pluck him out.f Jesus Christ is still the same, and so is his love. In the beginning he laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of his hands, they shall perish, but he remaineth; they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shall he fold them up, and they shall be changed; but he is the same, and his years fail not; Heb. i. 10-12. He is the Lord, and he changeth not, and therefore we are not consumed. Whom he loves he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending.

[3.] It is also fruitful. Fruitful in all gracious issues and effects. A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him. We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, Oh that Ishmael might live before thee, but it might not be. But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness, into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one: whatever good Christ by his love. wills to any, that willing is operative of that good.

These three qualifications of the love of Christ, make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding desirable. How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, hath this love overcome? what mountains of unbelief doth it remove? Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this, be not f Gal. iv. 14,15. g Mal. iii. 6. John xiii. 1.

to be admired.

And is it not the same towards thousands every day? what streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day? This is our beloved, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.

2. He is desirable and worthy our acceptation, as considered in his humanity; even therein also in reference to us, he is exceedingly desirable. I shall only in this note unto you two things:

(1.) Its freedom from sin.

(2.) Its fulness of grace; in both which regards the Scripture sets him out as exceedingly lovely and amiable.

(1.) He was free from sin; the Lamb of God, without spot, and without blemish. The male of the flock to be offered unto God, the curse falling on all other oblations, and them that offer them; Mal. i. 14. The purity of the snow is not to be compared with the whiteness of this lily, of this i rose of Sharon, even from the womb. For such a highpriest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; Heb. vii. 26. Sanctified persons, whose stains are in any measure washed away, are exceeding fair in the eye of Christ himself. Thou art all fair,' saith he, my beloved, thou hast no spot in thee.' How fair then is he, who never had the least spot or stain?

It is true, Adam at his creation had this spotless purity, so had the angels. But they came immediately from the 'hand of God without concurrence of any secondary cause. Jesus Christ is a plant and root of a dry ground, a blossom from the stem of Jesse, a bud from the loins of sinful man, born of a sinner, after there had been no innocent flesh in the world for four thousand years, every one upon the roll of his genealogy being infected therewithal. To have a flower of wonderful rarity to grow in paradise, a garden of God's own planting, not sullied in the least, is not so strange; but, as the psalmist speaks (in another kind), to hear of it in a wood, to find it in a forest, to have a spotless bud, brought forth in the wilderness of corrupted nature, is a thing which angels may desire to look into. Nay, more, this whole nature was not only defiled, but also accursed; not only unclean, but also guilty; guilty of Adam's trans

.h 1 Pet. i. 19.

i Cant. ii. 1. 1 Eccles. vii. 29.

k Cant. i. 15, 16. iv. 1. 10.

m Isa. liii. 2.

gression in whom we have all sinned. That the human nature of Christ should be derived from hence, free from guilt, free from pollution, this is to be adored.

Ob. But you will say, how can this be? who can bring a clean thing from an unclean? How could Christ take our name, and not the defilements of it, and the guilt of it? If "Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham, how is it that Christ did not sin in the loins of Adam ?

Ans. There are two things in original sin.

[1.] Guilt of the first sin, which is imputed to us, we all sinned in him, ip' & Távτes nμaprov, Rom. v. 12. whether we ἐφ ̓ πάντες ἥμαρτον, render it relatively in whom,' or illatively, being all have sinned, all is one: that one sin is the sin of us all,' omnes eramus unus ille homo:' we were all in covenant with him; he was not only a natural head, but also a federal head unto us, as Christ is to believers, Rom. v. 17. 1 Cor. xv. 22. so was he to us all; and his transgression of that covenant is reckoned to us.

6

[2.] There is the derivation of a polluted, corrupted nature from him; n Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?' that which is born of the flesh is flesh,' and nothing else; whose wisdom and mind is corrupted also, a polluted fountain will have polluted streams. The first person corrupted nature, and that nature corrupts all persons following; now from both these was Christ most free.

1st. He was never federally in Adam; and so not liable to the imputation of his sin on that account. It is true that sin was imputed to him, when he was made sin; thereby he took away the sin of the world; John i. 29. but it was imputed to him in the covenant of the Mediator, through his voluntary susception; and not in the covenant of Adam by a legal imputation. Had it been reckoned to him as a descendant from Adam, he had not been a fit high-priest to have offered sacrifices for us, as not being 'separate from sinners; Heb. vii. 25. Had Adam stood in his innocency, Christ had not been incarnate, to have been a mediator for sinners, and therefore the counsel of his incarnation morally took not place until after the fall; though he was in Adam,

P

m Heb. ix. 7. 10.

n Job xiv. 4. φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς· John iii. 6. νοῦς τῆς σαρκὸς Rom. viii. 7. • Col. ii. 14. 2 Cor. v. 21.

P Gen. iii, 15.

in a natural sense from his first creation, in respect of the purpose of God; Luke iii. 23. 38. yet he was not in him, in a law sense, until after the fall; so that as to his own person, he had no more to do with the first sin of Adam, than with any personal sin of one whose punishment he voluntarily took upon him; as we are not liable to the guilt of those progenitors who followed Adam, though naturally we were no less in them than in him. Therefore did he, all the days of his flesh serve God in a covenant of works; and was therein accepted with him, having done nothing that should disannul the virtue of that covenant as to him; this doth not then in the least take off from his perfection.

2dly. For the pollution of our nature, it was prevented in him from the instant of conception; Luke i. 35. 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.' He was 'made of a woman,' Gal. iv. 4. but that portion whereof he was made, was sanctified by the Holy Ghost, that what was born thereof, should be a holy thing; not only the conjunction and union of soul and body, whereby a man becomes partaker of his whole nature, and therein of the pollution of sin, being a son of Adam, was prevented by the sanctification of the Holy Ghost, but it also accompanied the very separation of his bodily substance in the womb, unto that sacred purpose whereunto it was set apart; so that upon all accounts he is 'holy, harmless, undefiled.' Add now hereunto, that he did no sin, neither was there any guilt found in him,' 1 Pet. ii. 22. that he fulfilled all righteousness, Matt. iii. 15. his Father being always well pleased with him, ver. 17. on the account of his perfect obedience; yea, even in that sense wherewith he chargeth his angels with folly, and those inhabitants of heaven, are not clear in his sight, and his excellency and desirableness in this regard will lie before us: such was he, such he is, and yet for our sakes, was he contented not only to be esteemed by the vilest of men, to be a transgressor, but to undergo from God, the punishment due to the vilest sinners. Of which afterward.

(2.) The fulness of grace in Christ's human nature, sets forth the amiableness and desirableness thereof; should I