-- CHAPTER VI: The primordial motives in the heart of God, for union of creatures with himself
Again, If God would have the whole of glory entirely to and for himself, these empty nothingnesses are fully fitted to give it all wholly to him, and to entertain him upon his own terms of being glorified as himself can of creatures. But above all, these are prepared to give him the glory of his grace, which in this condition will be sure to be acknowledged, and to be adored as the donor and founder of all unto them.
To conclude; there is not, nor could there have been, a greater demonstration given, that God had no respect to what is in us, for which he chose us, than that he should design, together with his choosing us, to bring us (in the deepest sense of our own hearts) unto this utter emptiness of all respect for which God should regard us; and choose out this as the highest and most pleasing frame or qualification of heart in us, upon which he should promise to come and dwell in us, or rather declare that he doth dwell in us.
CHAPTER VI
The primordial or foundation motives in the heart of God, that moved him to affect, design, and decree so high an union of creatures with himself, as they are expressed in Christ's prayer, John 17.—The first motive was to manifest and declare God's name, and to illustrate his grace and mercy to the sons of men.
The Holy Spirit, who is the intercessor in us, and who searcheth the deep things of God, doth offer, prompt, and suggest to us in our prayers those very motives that are in God's heart, to grant the thing we desire of him, so as it often comes to pass, that a poor creature is carried on to speak God's very heart to himself, and then God cannot, nor doth not deny. But yet therein the Spirit prays not immediately himself, but forms those prayers in us, so as we are they that pray.
But,
Here is one, as great an intimate with God as the Spirit himself is, who here prays himself personally unto God, and was of counsel with God from everlasting; and therefore, surely when he shall speak to God for anything, and go about to move his Father thereto, he must needs utter the bottom of what did move him from everlasting, and will move him now to bestow it. He speaks the intimacies of things between his Father and himself, which are privately known to them, with the Holy Spirit alone.
And truly, methinks when I read this prayer, and therein his pleadings and memorials to his Father, I am admitted into the cabinet council of heaven, and am made privy to what were and had been the bottom grounds that swayed that great consultation from eternity unto that determination which he prayeth to be accomplished.* Likewise, it became Christ, that as the thing prayed for, our union, was the highest and utmost good that was to be, or could be prayed for by him for us, so answerably, to bring forth the deepest motive in God's heart to urge him withal to grant it; for he was his Father's counsellor, and prays accordingly.
The inducements are many. I shall single forth two principal grand ones of those which we find here in this prayer, which two do yet make three, the latter bring divided into two.
1. The manifestation of God's name, that is, of God himself, in his perfections towards us, especially of his love and grace, in his doing of which God's manifestative glory, as it is made to us, doth consist.
2. The second is taken from the oneness in essence, and then the intimacy and sweetness of communion that was and had been from everlasting between his Father and himself as persons, and so amongst the three persons themselves, the us and the we spoken of, ver. 11 and 21.
There is a third, from the interest of Jesus Christ as God-man, and from the love his Father bears him, his Son, as first set up to be
personally united to that man Jesus, and in him and through him, cast and diffused upon his elect, as they be considered in him and for his sake, with difference from the world. But this I shall refer unto another head, of Christ's election as he is God-man, and his interest in our election.
Motive 1. To manifest and declare God's name.
I. This he mentions first and last of his prayer; the first at the sixth verse (where our interest begins to be mentioned), 'I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.'
There election is made the ground why he did declare God's name to them; and therefore had been the motive in God's heart why he had by election given them unto Christ: 'Thine they were, and thou gavest them me:' the force of which lieth in this, that because be had designed them by election to be his, he did ordain that he should manifest his name to them, as that which had moved him to elect them. Then again, ver. 26, 'I have declared thy name, and will declare it,' which is at the conclusion of his prayer.
We must first explain what is meant by God's name.
1. In general. God's name is God himself, and expresses what he is that is the only true God, as he had said, ver. 3. When it is said, 'Bless the name of the Lord,' that is God himself. 'What is his name, or his
Son's name, canst thou tell?' as Prov. 30:4, and Ezek. 36:22; his name is put for his glory. Now that this was the great design of God, to have his name declared by Christ in such a manner as never before, Ps. 22 shews; which, as in Christ's name, it prophesieth of his being crucified in the fore part, so the effect and consequent of that being crucified is, 'I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee,' ver. 22, which is quoted also Heb. 2:12. And this declaring of his name, and this great congregation, is not to his saints only upon earth; it reacheth to heaven, and unto all that shall be there manifested. Ver. 26, when he saith, 'I have declared' what he had already done upon earth, 'and I
will declare,' it was not only what he would do while they were upon earth, but in heaven also, so as the declaring of God's name is the great design of God in this world to his saints, and to be perfected for ever in the world to come.
2. Christ came not only to open what God's name was, as it was more frequently held forth afore in the world, as explaining the attributes of God, as they are set forth in the Psalms and elsewhere, not so much as to open the heart of God in the continuance of our salvation and the bottom foundations of them.
3. Especially, therefore, to lay open his grace, and love, and mercy to mankind, that was the most eminent peculiar subject of Christ's declaring God's name; so it is expressly said by Christ himself, ver.
26, 'I have declared thy name, and will declare it; that thy love may be in them.' So then, that part of his name especially is it Christ pretended, with which accords that passage, Ps. 138:2, 'I will praise thy name for thy loving-kindness, and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.' The true intimate meaning whereof is this, thou hast magnified that part of thy word that speaks thy loving-kindness and truth above all thy name else that is in thy word; and so refers unto that name proclaimed, Exod. 34:6, 'The Lord God gracious and merciful, abundant in goodness and truth.'
II. 'To declare thy name, O Father!' (who is the fountain of the Deity).
This he saith in the 25th verse, 'Father, the world knoweth thee not: but I have known thee, and I will declare thy name.' Jesus Christ came in an especial manner to open the heart of the Father to the world: John 1:18, he came out of the 'bosom of the Father,' and he hath explained him; he hath disintrinsecated him, laid open what is in him, in his thoughts, purposes, and ends of sending him into the world. The design of his preaching in his sermon in the Gospel of John, is to let open his Father's heart, and his own as the Son. And this is the knowledge which he boasts of as proper to himself, and magnifieth, 'Father, I have known thee,' ver. 25, that was Christ's eminent skill and learning, and therefore I declare and teach it, ver.
26. Though all the treasures of wisdom besides were in him, yet he magnified this wisdom above all.
III. The declaring the Father was to declare also the other two persons, how they are in God, and that himself, the Son, proceeded from God the Father. The Father, as he is the fountain of the Deity, so he is set for the three.
In a word, all in God is reduced to these two: 1, the perfection of the divine nature of the Godhead itself; and, 2, the three persons subsisting therein; and enjoying of those perfections, and the manifestation of these persons, and of their joint counsels and offices about our salvation, are the great subjects of Christ's preaching, especially in the Gospel of John. And I am to shew how these were the original inducements to him; for God is primordially moved with nothing out of himself. And therefore I have singled forth these two out of the many other motives which Christ useth in this prayer (as, namely, that one I mentioned of his own interest as God-man), which yet I here leave out and refer to another place, because as he is such, it is a thing out of God himself, and set up by election, as we are.
These things first explaining what God's name is, I come, secondly, to shew how this was a motive; for which there are these demonstrations:
1. It is the nature of perfection to manifest itself, and so it is in God; and to be brought unto union with God is the utmost perfection of the creature: 'I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one,' ver. 23, and so unto the uttermost that they were capable of. Now, it is the nature of true perfection to manifest itself; our Saviour here expresseth it by the word manifest this name, which accordingly holds forth the reason of the thing itself, for it is a known rule, that it is the nature of true perfection to be manifestativum sui, to manifest itself; and so it is in God, and that moved him. Not that by being known any perfection could be added to himself, but that he
might perfect others thereby, as our Saviour here, that they may be made perfect in one, praying for this union. We see the creatures' desire to manifest their poor and low perfections, but they because they think themselves perfected by being known to others, which style God himself indeed condescends to utter himself in, in the manifestation of his perfection, as in that speech, 'his power is perfected in weakness,' 2 Cor. 12:9, but in a clean contrary sense the phrase there imports to be made known or manifested; that is, to be made known or manifested to be most perfect and glorious, in and upon occasion of our weakness, for in any other respect than of giving an occasion to discover itself, what perfection can weakness give to power? As for making any such manifestation, there was no necessity or impulse on his part for himself to have done, for his essence being immense, it is comprehensive and big enough to have contained his own blessedness within himself without flowing over.
He is to himself a perpetual spring of happiness, and also a sufficient cistern to receive, and hold, and retain all the flowing and reflowings thereof within himself; all falls still back again into himself, which is from the infinite vastness of his being, and therefore it is a mere act of his grace and will, which the Scripture everywhere so celebrates and attributes this unto.
Besides, it was far from any necessity or addition to his perfection to have them thus made known, for there were three persons that communicated in these perfections, that knew, and loved, and delighted, as I have shewed elsewhere, in each other's blessedness.
But then, secondly, these his perfections being crowned with goodness and grace, his goodness moved his will unto this communication of himself; and it is as known a maxim that goodness is sui communicativum: Ps. 119:68, 'Thou art good' (in thy nature)
'and thou doest good,' that follows; and the greatest goodness he can do us, is to make known his goodness. Thus God to Moses, Exod.
33:14, 'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.'
But it was not simply his goodness, but his grace, which is the top perfection of his name; and this grace our God did value as his choicest riches: his grace, his mercy, you have it up and down in Paul's epistles. And this, as it is the excellency of his goodness, so still helped forward to make his will to communicate all his goodness, for (mark it) grace and mercy are such attributes as have not himself for their object, though for their subject; and so if any needed a manifestation unto creatures, then these. Himself indeed is the object of his own love (he loves himself), but himself is not the object of his own grace, to be sure not of his own mercy. God is nowhere said to be gracious or merciful to himself, nor is it meet to have it said of him; and therefore in this respect he is not said to be rich to himself, but, as Rom. 10:12, he is rich to others, 'even to all that call upon him.' God, indeed, hath a glory arising from his own mercy and grace, but then it is but what is dispensed unto others; the riches thereof are disposable no way but to the use and benefit of creatures.
Well then, says God with himself, These riches lie by me, and I have no use of them, and yet I have them; I will therefore put them to use, and lay them out upon others, as rich men do their riches, and lay them out upon some purchase. So God resolved that one day somebody might be the better for them.
And lastly, to instance in no more particulars, take the result of that whole blessedness which arose from the enjoyment of his own perfections, namely, the sweetness, the contentment, he had in his own happiness; it most strongly moved him to make creatures partakers of it. He would not be happy alone; he would have others
(as Christ expresseth his spirit, and his Father's also, John 17:23, 24) who might 'see his glory,' and be glorified in seeing of it. And this is made the original of this gospel of salvation, and of our salvation itself. For what other doth the gospel hold forth than God's blessed intentions, contrivements, and purposes for our salvation, for the glory of his name, which Christ came to preach and declare? The motive thereunto is intimated in one small word added, yet clearly enough, 1 Tim. 1:11, 'According to the glorious gospel of the blessed
God.' It is a sure rule, wherever you find any special attribute of God
singled forth in connection with some other thing that flows from him, it is still such as is peculiarly effective, or more properly the cause of that thing mentioned; and so here, the blessed God (blessed in the enjoyment of his own glory) is here inserted to shew what had moved him thereby to make his creatures blessed, and therefore to contrive the whole of this gospel of our salvation.
But it will be said, If this goodness and blessedness in himself were that which moved him, why then shewed he not this favour unto all?
The answer is, That is not my part now to speak to; the account thereof belongs to another place. My present business hath been, that whether it should be to many or to all, to manifest himself was the motive.
The second answer is, That it was not to many, because grace was the great thing in his name he meant to shew, and was that which managed his goodness, and had the prevalent sway and hand in this matter, as everywhere the Scripture ascribes it, then the glory of this grace will shew itself in a free love, and so in a choice of the persons.
Says grace, I am free and will use a freedom, and not communicate them to all, 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.' So the words run in Moses: Exod. 33:19 'I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful;' and as Paul, Rom. 3:18, 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.' And was yet more free in this, and therefore he calls the elect vessels of mercy, singled out of mercy, 'on whom,' and unknown,* 'he will make known the riches of his glory.' He compares them to smaller vessels, and himself to the sea that fills them; and what is it? A created glory out of himself? No; but that glory which is in himself, which fills them in making them glorious, which is properly his own; and thereupon if it be to be resolved and determined by the will of God and the graciousness of his will as concerning what persons, or why not others, then and thereupon the apostle demands, Rom. 9:22, 23, 'What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction: and that he