CHAPTER II. That God's love, in electing us, is a great motive to all acts of love and obedience
can be supposed to owe, are either what is due to God, our neighbour, or ourselves; and it teacheth, as for the motive or incentive thereto, all these in one lesson, the grace of God appearing to the heart, and being manifest to a man's soul.
CHAPTER II
That God's love, in electing us, is a great motive to all acts of love and obedience.—That in this his election of us, he hath ordained and appointed us to love and good works.
I come now particularly to demonstrate that the grace and love of God, manifested in our salvation, engageth us to holiness, obedience, and service.
The proper work of God the Father is election, and his grace shines most eminently there. Thus in the mention of all three persons, and in the ascribing the proper work to each, the apostle, 1 Pet. 1:2, attributes election to· the Father. Now, therein I consider two things:
1. the act itself; 2. the love, the greatness of the grace and love shewn in it, and how strongly by both we are obliged to holiness and obedience.
1. That God should choose, and single, and design thee forth to this prefecture, to this office of care over good works, engageth to all diligence and faithfulness. The apostle judgeth it but reasonable, and upon that ground urgeth Timothy to give himself wholly up to that office the great God had chose and designed him unto; and he urgeth his engagement to do so by what obligation is found amongst men: 2
Tim. 2:4, 'No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life,' but gives over all other callings whatever, as the law of a soldier then was, 'that he may please him who hath chosen him to be
a soldier.' Paul, when he was chosen to the greatest service that ever man underwent but Christ, was told by Ananias, Acts 22:14, 'The Lord God of our fathers,' that chose them, 'hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will,' &c., 'and hear the word of his mouth,' that is, obey him; and the sense of this fired Paul's heart. And Christ also, Acts 9:15, calls him 'a chosen vessel.' To what end? 'To carry my name;' that is, to bear my name about the whole world, and unto all ages after, in holiness of life and purity of doctrine; a vessel singled out to do it, purged, and 'made meet for his Master's use, prepared to every good work;' God having known, owned, and set his seal upon him for his own by election, as Paul speaks, 2 Tim. 2:19, alluding to that in Isaiah, 'Be ye pure, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord: touch no unclean thing,' Isa. 52:11; much more the vessels themselves, chosen to bear his name, ought not to do so. It was a great and effectual argument to Cyrus, though an heathen prince, to persuade him to give leave and commission to the Jews to build the temple, even this, that God had, so many years before, designed him by name; that God had said, in Isaiah's time, of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd, that shall perform all my pleasure,' Isa. 44:28. This thus written of him long before he was born, and this coming to his knowledge, he was moved, and effectually moved hereby to perform it: Ezra 1:2, 'Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia, The Lord hath charged me to build an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judea.' How much more should it move thee, that hast found, or hast good hope of (or thou hast hope of nothing), that God hath writ down thy name in his book from all eternity, as a chosen vessel that should know and perform his will? Paul, in like manner, strengthens this charge to Timothy with those prophecies that had been given forth of him at his ordination, when he had hands laid on him by the appointment of the Spirit of prophecy: 1 Tim. 1:18, 'This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war the good warfare.' By them,
that is, to be stirred up the more by them, because it was thus foretold of thee; much more should we be stirred up to our holy duty, when from everlasting God hath chosen us hereunto. Now, Eph. 1,
Paul expressly tells us that 'God hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.'
2. Holy obedience being found to be the main thing pitched upon by God in those decrees of his, as the principal end, under his own glory, unto which he designed us, we should be the more excited to it.
The first and primary, yet so in that place the apostle makes it; for the apostle's scope is, ver. 3, to enumerate the blessings, and the acts of blessing, with the proper designments of them as we are blessed with them in Christ, and to set them in their order. He begins with election: ver. 4, 'According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world;' and withal lays forth the proper principal designment of election, as the first act of all other towards us; and the first and principal is holiness, 'to be holy and unblameable before him in love.' So that as the act of election is distinguished from predestination, and is the first of the two, so the primary and first aim God in that first act of election had was holiness, as essential to the person who was to be in Christ; and then adoption, or sonship, or right to eternal life and glory, which is the act of predestination, as it is distinguished from election, is but as an outward privilege or dignity superadded. When God chooseth a man, he chooseth him for himself, Ps. 4:3 for himself to converse with, to communicate himself unto him as a friend, a companion, and his delight. Now, it is holiness that makes us fit to live with the Holy God for ever, since without it we cannot see him, Heb. 12:14, which is God's main aim, and more than our being his children; as one must be supposed a man, one of mankind, having a soul reasonable, ere we can suppose him capable of adoption, or to be another man's heir. As therefore it
was the main first design in God's eye, before the consideration of our happiness, let it be so in ours. It is not only the means through which God hath chosen us to salvation: 2 Thes. 2:13, 14, 'Who hath chosen you through sanctification,' &c. So sufferings are also said to be the means, but this is the end also, and that more than our glory and happiness; and therefore holiness for ever remains, and love, 1
Cor. 13; and we are 'chosen to be holy before him in love.' This portion has made me understand the reason of that order and placing of those benefits and fruits of election, namely, why election to sanctification is put first, and so sprinkling of Christ's blood put after it, yea, after obedience: 1 Peter 1:2, 'Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.' It is not to shew that sanctification, obedience should go before the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon us, which is our sanctification; but his speaking of election sheweth (as Paul also doth) what was the most eminent and principal designment and end whereto we were elected, even sanctification unto obedience. Election was unto holiness immediately and primarily, and was first and chiefly intended—I do not say it is greater in the worth of the thing, so Christ's blood is of infinite value—as that which God ultimately aimed to bring us unto.
And though Christ's blood is of infinite more value, yet this is more than the sprinkling of that blood on us, for it remains for ever in heaven, when we need no more sprinkling of that blood.
3. To make this obligation laid on us by election the stronger, let us consider that as God hath chosen us unto holiness, and unto good works, so it is said reciprocally that he hath ordained good works for us. Thus the Scripture, that it might inform us, turns it both ways, that as he ordained us to good works, so he ordained good works for us to walk in; even as when election to glory is spoken of, to shew the certainty, and God's love in it, the Scripture doth not only say we are
ordained and prepared to glory (as in Rom. 9:23, and elsewhere), but that this glory is prepared for us: 'Come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you,' says Christ; and so says the apostle, 1 Cor. 2:9,
'Eye hath not seen the things prepared for them that love him,' suited aforehand to make them happy. The same we find of good works, that a chosen vessel is said to be prepared for every good work, as you heard out of Timothy. And so in Eph. 2:10, good works are said to be prepared for us to walk in; not ordained only by way of precept, for so they are ordained to wicked men, but by decree and predestination, set out as a man's work and way; whence that phrase of Solomon is, 'What thy hand finds to do, do with all thy might.' A godly man's work (as Christ's was) is given him; and the apostle speaks it to shew what ordination good works have in our salvation, yet so as they might not derogate from free grace, for by grace we are saved without works. God, that made us new creatures, and suited us to good works, had prepared and ordained all sorts of good works, to which this new creature was fitted; as when he made man, he made paradise for him to walk in, and set out his way beforehand. Thus
God hath chose out work for us, and (as Christ says, John 15:16) 'hath ordained us to bring forth fruit, and that our fruit should remain;' for both are of eternal purpose.
4. The consideration that he hath chosen you, not others, how doth it call for holiness! 1 Peter 2:8, 9, 'Christ,' says he, 'is a stone of stumbling to the disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed;' that is, with that kind of appointment which is to permit them to act as creatures, and to shew themselves such. He needed not have added that (for he brings it in with an also, or over and above), but to that end, to move them the more to obedience; now then, to move them, he adds, 'But you are a chosen generation, that you should shew forth the praises of him that called you' (which follows), so that he chose you, as in the former words; and this is spoken as in