Chapter II
That God s love, in electing us, is a great motive to all acts of love and obedi-
encm That in this his election of us, he hath ordained and appointed us to
love and good icorks.
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. i. 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. ii. 4, No man
* Qu. of ? ED.
CHAP. II.] IN THE HEART AND LIFE. 239
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
* 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
by Ananias, Acts xxii. 14,
heart. And Christ also, Acts ix. 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. ii. 19, alluding to that in Isaiah, Be ye pure, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord : touch no unclean thing, Isa. lii. 11 ; much more the vessels themselves, chosen
to bear his name, ought not to do so. It was a great and effectual argu ment 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
* He is my shepherd, that shall perform all my pleasure, Isa. xliv. 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
time, of Cyrus,
perform it : Ezra i. 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 pro phecies 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.
* This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the
i. 18,
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. i., 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 distin
guished 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
240 OF GOSPEL HOLINESS [BOOK III.
distinguished from election, is but as an outward privilege or dignity superadded. When God chooseth a man, he chooseth him for himself, Ps. iv. 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. xii. 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. ii. 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. xiii. ; 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 i. 2, Elect according to the foreknow
ledge 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 elec tion 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 ulti
mately 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 pre pared to glory (as in Rom. ix. 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. ii. 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. ii. 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
CHAP. III.] IN THE HEAET AND LIFE. 241
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 para dise for him to walk in, and set out his way beforehand. Thus God hath chose out work for us, and (as Christ says, John xv. 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 ii. 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 crea
tures, 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 manifest opposition unto appointing others to dis-
. obedience. The like you have 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14.
CHAPTEE III.
That the great love of God in electing of us should be a strong motive and incentive to love and good works.
I come now to the love shewn in these acts, and shall demonstrate that
all the mercies and other graces or love that are to found in election should move us to obedience : Rom. xii. 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. It is a transition from doctrinal points to practical duties ; and the illative therefore sends us to justification, sanctification (handled in chapters iii. iv. v. vi.) ; but it
especially sends us to election, and the mercies in the bowels of it, of which he had treated in three chapters immediately before. This love of God bestowed on us, in and at election, the Scripture makes use of a double way to work holiness and obedience in us.
1. By way of imitation, it some way or other teacheth all sorts of
graces, and is the lively pattern of them to us.
2. By way of incentive or motive, so as in such things wherein it doth not so fully serve as a pattern to be imitated (as in all it cannot), yet in those it serves as motives and inflamers thereunto.
1. By way of imitation. God s love in electing us is propounded as a motive to obedience: Eph. v. 1, Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear
children, and walk in love. He speaks it of God s love, as distinct from Christ s ; for of that he speaks as a further motive in the next words. I confess he speaks it upon occasion of God s love in justification there, that we should imitate it in forgiving others, as God, for Christ s sake, hath
forgiven us, Eph. iv. 32. Yet the force of the argument therein holds as
strong, yea, more strong, in all considerations about his eternal love, which was the original, the spring, the fountain, the cause of justification, and all else ; yea, out of which he then justified, adopted, bestowed all blessings upon us in Christ. And as the virtues in a sovereign water are stronger in the spring than in the streams, so is this love in God s heart ; and though it be applied only to love to brethren, yet it extends to all obeVOL. VIT. Q
242 OF GOSPEL HOLINESS [BOOK III.
dience, the fountain whereof is love to God ; and the terms he expresseth himself in this are generals, which will reach to all in his love, and to all
compliance therewith in us unto all commands. For when we are exhorted
to be followers of God, it is a general that comes in upon occasion of that
particular act of love shewn in forgiveness ; as often general rules, and
reasons, and promises are brought in upon occasion of particular instances,
* Walk in love, what ! doth he mean it in this one act of it, of forgiveness, which is a
to confirm and enforce them. Then when it follows,
going forth of love ? No ; but in all the duties of love besides. And
though the apostle instances in this as a more broad and conspicuous way
of God s love in forgiving us, and thereupon more particularly exhorts us
to chalk out the like path to ourselves to walk in, of forgiving others, yet
this is but one of those walks his love delights in. He hath dwelt in love
(as John speaks), walked in love within his own grounds, within himself
(which I speak as warranted by that phrase, which he purposed in him
self to us, Eph. i. 9), with infinite delight from all eternity ; and in all
these, all so far as he hath made known to us, the head ways of them, we
should be followers of him, as well as in forgiveness or the duties of love
to brethren. Thus we should walk in love, and out of love to him, in all
those ways which he hath chalked out for us ; and this we should do to
shew our love unto him by it. This word, Be ye followers of God (that
is, as one that follows another in the same step), is too dull, too flat a
word, falls short of what the apostle seems to intend, and therefore is to
be taken in, corresponding with those that follow, and walk in love ; that
is, in the same steps. In the original it is, be ye imitators, pi^ral. This
farther sense is also aimed at, that we should be like unto God in his love,
as children are to their parents in feature and disposition ; let our love
answer to his, as limb to limb in a parent. Therefore he adds these
words, as children, that resemble the father, yea, often the grandfather most. And everlasting love is as the grandfather that begat, and brings forth all these effects and fruits of love, adoption, forgiveness, &c. Yet
still this word /jupriral would speak something more, viz., we should act
over to the life the love of God, as actors do stories ; we should not only have in our hearts the image of it, but we should act to the life the pos
tures, the passions, the gestures, the looks, and the casts of that love of God ; and we should have all these continually, as far as may be, before
our eyes, to imitate them in our ways.
2. We should set up God s love, not as a pattern only to us, but as an
incentive to inflame us ; and therefore he adds these words, as dear chil
dren. The words are in the original ug rexva ayanrira. 1. As children,
to imitate, to act over his love in all your walkings towards himself and
others. And 2. As beloved children, to take in his peculiar love to you, to invigorate and act you. Children are to imitate their parents, as they are their parents and their superiors ; and so Christ urgeth it, Mat. v. 48, Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And so the apostle
urgeth it, 1 Peter i. 14, As obedient children, fashion not yourselves ;
that is, imitate not your former lusts, p% guff^uar^opsvoi ; that is, be not
cast into the garb, the mode of them, frame not yourselves to them ; but
be holy as I am holy ; imitate me your Father. But the apostle, in Eph.
v. 1, was enforcing a point of love. 3. And therefore he adds, as beloved
children ; as darlings whom God loved and delighted to love ; this is put in to make God s love the enkindler and incentive of this divine fire in us.
Consider but how beloved, how dear you are and have been to him;
CHAP. III.] IN THE HEART AND LIFE. 243
consider the endearments of his love in all the singularities and eminent
properties of it. What love was it you were wrapt in when brought forth ?
Everlasting love. What womb of love was it in which you as children were first conceived ? It was in everlasting love. By what love were you chosen and predestinated to the adoption of sons before the world was ?
Eph. i. 5. It was that love which made you children ; neither can any come to know how dear you are to God till they come to discover and
drink of this love, the fountain, the original of all. And indeed it is with
respect to having been beloved with this love that they are called beloved
children. As also, in 2 Thes. ii. 13, he gives them this title and com-
* We are bound to give thanks always unto God for you, brethren and beloved of the Lord, because God hath chosen you from the beginning. He contents not himself to have called them brethren, but on purpose adds the other word, beloved, because it was in election they were first and chiefly beloved. And, in.
pellation on purpose, in reference to election :
Col. iii. 12, Paul joins both, and makes them an argument to all graces of
every kind : As the elect of God, says he, holy and beloved, put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering,." It is easy to conceive how bowels of mercy and kindness are required of us, as resemblances of that love which was accompanied with such infinite bowels and heroic kindness in God towards us ; for out of these God chose
you at first. It is also to be considered how much kindness, meekness, riches of long-suffering, and forbearance, and forgiveness God ordained in
election to shew forth toward you. The fountain of them all was electing
love, and in electing love was found all these, or it designed to shew forth
these ; only how humbleness of mind was shewn therein as a pattern to us may be a doubt ; but it may be easily resolved by what I have said on
Eph. ii.,* where I shewed the greatness of God s love, in this respect, that
it was an humbling condescension in him, the great God, to look down on
creatures. Ps. cxiii. 6, Who humbleth himself to behold the things that
are in heaven and in the earth. If to look on them is condescending good ness, much more to love them, and ordain them sons, and friends, and
companions with himself. And it was yet a greater condescension to ordain his eternal Son to dwell in human nature, and that nature to become one person with him, which was the fundamental decree of all, for we are chosen in Christ as in our head, Eph. i. 3. Look, therefore, whatever
singularities, particularities there are of graces of any kind to be found in
this love, they should either be patterns or motives unto us, to answer them in love and obedience : Eph. v. 1, As dear or beloved children, be
imitators of God. Take the words as a motive, and judge within your selves how forcible it is to any heart possessed with childlike love to God.
Suppose God from heaven should say, What, my child (as that mother to
Solomon), my beloved child, yea, as thou art my beloved child, do this or
that, and therein obey me ; how should this move any of you
! Set this before every command, and think that God thus speaks to thee : As thou
art my dear child, thou shalt have no other gods ; thou shalt not commit
adultery, murder, &c. Let us now run over all those special properties and singularities by which this love is commended to us, and see how they all enforce and
persuade to holiness and obedience, and the giving of all love to God.
1st, Let us view the priority of this love, that he loved us first, not we
* In Vol. I. of his works. [Vol. IT. of this edition. ED.]
244 OF GOSPEL HOLINESS [BOOK III.
him. Upon this ground Christ first, then the apostle John, enforceth all
obedience to all commands.
First, Christ doth it, John xv. 16. When Christ would move his apostles
to that great and hazardous work of preaching the gospel over all the world when he was gone (as he moved Peter in those words, Lovest thou me? ), he urgeth this, that he had loved them first: You have not chosen me
* but I have chosen you. He mentions election to them, and
(says he),
therein this endearing consideration, that he had first chosen them, not
they him; and then subjoins that he had ordained them to go all the world
* bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain. It is as
over, and
if he had thus spoke to them : You did not first provoke me to set my heart on you, and single you out, but I freely chose and loved you. Then John (1 John iv.) insists on the same argument, which he expresseth more
takingly thus : Not that we loved God, but that he loved us/ ver. 10; and
loved us first, ver. 19; and we loved not him at all for a long while after
his love and pity shewn to us. All the commandments are by Christ
reduced to two heads : Mat. xxii. 37, &c., Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This
is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. Now John s scope also (in 1 John iv.) is
to exhort to both, and to move to both. He useth this as the argument twice in that chapter
: 1, in verses 10, 11 ; then, 2, in verses 19-21. At the
10th verse he heightens the love of God: Herein is love ; that is, herein
is love indeed ; and he doth this on purpose to draw from us obedience
to that command, and love to our brethren. Ver. 11, Beloved, if God
so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Therein are compre hended all the duties of the second table : Horn. xiii. 8, 9,
* He that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet : and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly
(i ferent to both, and favours both alike), because he loved us first; and from
thence, ver. 20, 21, he infers love to our brethren, and that as a com mandment from that God that so loved us : ver. 21, This commandment
have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. So
that love to God, the sum of the first table, is enjoined, or rather sweetly
flows from what the law of love requires ; and we are bound to requite love
with love to one that loved us first, and so highly loved us too, ver. 11. The other argument is fetched from a superadded commandment, 1 John
iv. 21, from him that thus loved us ; and it is enforced from what Christ had
said, John xiv., If ye love me, keep my commandments. Now in the
midst between both these arguments he inserts this axiom, 1 John iv. 17,
1 As he is, so are we in this world. This belongeth to the argument, why we should imitate God. The coherence carries it to God in his love,
especially that love before all worlds, which he had treated of so largely
before : ver. 16, We have known the love that God hath to us. God is
love, &c. And herein is love, that he loved us first, &c. If then, as he
is, so are we in this world, we shall have boldness at the latter day, because
we behave ourselves so as to be like him. Because as he is, that is, as
he is in loving us first, and giving his Son for us, such we are in this world
CHAP. III.] IN THE HEAKT AND LIFE. 245
in loving others in imitation of him ; or as he is, we are in this world ; that is, we being imitators of that everlasting love of his, we shall have boldness at the day of judgment, it being impossible God should disap prove of those that are like him in that which is most dear to him, viz., his love and the eternal acts of it. Thus Piscator and others interpret it.
2dly. Consider the peculiarity of his love, that he hath loved you above
all others, in which there is another eminency of love : Deut. x. 14, 15, Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord s thy God, the earth also, with all that is therein. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above
all people, as it is this day. He here sets out the special love of God in
choosing them.
^(1.) He had choice enough; heaven and earth lay all before him, and all
things in both, and he could have made every star, every pebble, so many sons to Abraham. As in the mass or chaos, the matter of all creatures, which lay alike before his power, out of the same matter he made the dull
earth, he might have made the vigorous and shining sun ; so he had all creatures in heaven and earth out of which to have made sons to Abraham
(as John the Baptist speaks), but he chose them out of mankind, the seed of mankind.
f. (2.) He had before him all people of mankind, made all of one blood, Acts xvii., and out of all he chose thy fathers and their seed, out of all
(as choice implies), yea, above all.
(3.) And 3dly, He made this choice, not out of a bare act of will, as one resolved to choose some person with a delight to love them, and delighting to shew this peculiar love to them.
(4.) And 4thly, That love and delight was all, and the alone cause thereto him moving, as that word only (in Deut. x. 14, 15) implies: Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers, &c. Now to what end is all this electing love thus set forth to us, but to the point I have in hand ? Deut. x. 12, And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of
thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good ? This Lord, the God of gods, Lord of lords, a great God, ver. 17, who is withal so good, so full of love, of all love to thee, what doth this God require of thee (the Hebrew signifies also to ask, request, entreat; so 1 Sam. i. 17, 20, 27, in the petition which Hannah put up to God, the same word is used) ? What doth this glorious God, after all this love manifested, fall a-petitioning thee for (as though God did beseech, as the apostle hath it, 2 Cor. v. 20) ? What doth he ask
again of thee, as in answer to all this love ? Nothing but thy love and thy obedience, which by the law of justice is a debt from equals, namely, to
requite love with love, Rom. xii. 8. He requires nothing but love, which
(as Christ says) sinners, the worst of sinners, the most notorious sinners in the world, pay mutually
< Publicans and sinners love those that love them, Mat. v. 46, Luke vi. 32.
246 OF GOSPEL HOLINESS [BOOK III.