Welcome to a reading of Owen's Discourse on Communion with God. This Reformation MP3 audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. Many free Reformation resources, as well as our complete online catalogue containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, the Puritan hard drive, digital downloads, MP3s, DVDs, and much more at great discounts, are on the web at www.puritandownloads.com. Also please consider praying out upon the important truths found in the following quotation by Charles Spurgeon. As the Apostle says to Timothy, so also he says to everyone, give yourself to reading. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying. And now to SWRB's reading of Owen's Discourse on Communion with God, which we hope you find to be a great blessing, and which, we pray, draws you nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ. For he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by him. John 14, verse 6. I'm reading from page 24. 4. The Apostle teaches the same, Romans 5.5. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. God, whose love this is, is plainly distinguished from the Holy Ghost, who sheds abroad the love of His, and verse 8, He is always distinguished from the Son, for it is from that love of His that the Son is sent, and therefore it is the Father of whom the Apostle here specially speaketh. And what is it that He ascribed to Him? Even love, which also, verse 8, he commendeth to us, sets it forth in such a signal, an eminent expression, that we may take notice of it, and close with him in it. To carry this business to his height, there is not only most frequent peculiar mention of the love of God, where the Father is eminently intended, and of the love of the Father expressly, but he is also called the God of love. 2 Corinthians 13.11, and is said to be love, so that whoever will know him, 1 John 4.8, or dwell in him, by fellowship or communion, verse 16, must do it as he is love. 5. Nay, whereas there is a twofold divine love, a love of good pleasure and destination, and a love of friendship and approbation, they are both peculiarly assigned to the Father in an eminent manner. 1 John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave, etc., that is, with the love of his purpose and good pleasure, his determinate will of doing good. This is distinctly ascribed to him being laid down as the cause of sending his son. So Romans 9, 11, 12, Ephesians 1, 4, 5, 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, 14, 1 John 4, 8, 9. To John 14, 23 there is mention of that other kind of love whereof we speak. If a man love me, saith Christ, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. The love of friendship and approbation is here eminently ascribed to him. Says Christ, we will come, even Father and Son, to such an one, and dwell with him, that is, by the Spirit. But he would have us take notice, that in point of The Father hath a peculiar prerogative. My Father will love him. 6. Yea, and as this love is peculiarly to be eyed in him, so it is to be looked on as the fountain of all following gracious dispensations. Christians walk oftentimes with exceedingly troubled hearts. concerning the thoughts of the Father towards them. They are well persuaded of the Lord Christ and His good will. The difficulty lies in what is their acceptance of the Father, what is His heart towards them. Show us the Father and it suffices us. John 14 verse 8. Now this ought to be so far away that his love ought to be looked on as a fountain from whence all other sweetnesses flow. Thus the apostle sets it out. Titus 3.4 After that, the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared. It is of the Father of whom he speaks. For verse 6 he tells us that he makes out unto us, or sheds that love upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And this love he makes the hinge upon which the great alteration and translation of the saints doth turn. For saith he, we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another, all naught, all out of order and vile. Whence then is our recovery? The whole rise of it is from this love of God, flowing out by ways there described. For when the kindness and love of God appeared, that is in the fruits of it, Then did this alteration come, ensue. To secure as the hereof, there is not anything that hath a loving and tender nature in the world, and doth act suitably whereunto, which God hath not compared himself unto. separate all weakness and imperfection which is in them, yet great impressions of love must abide. He is as a father, a mother, a shepherd, a hen over chickens, and the like. Psalm 103.13, Isaiah 43.16, Matthew 6.6, and Isaiah 4, verse 13, and Psalm 23, 1, Isaiah 40, verse 11, and Matthew 23, 37. I shall not need to add any more proofs. This is that which is demonstrated. There is love in the person of the Father, peculiarly held out unto the saints, as wherein he will and doth hold communion with them. Now, to complete communion with the Father in love, two things are required of believers. One, that they receive it of Him. And two, that they make suitable returns unto Him. One, that they do receive it. Communion consists in giving and receiving. Until the love of the Father is received, we have no communion with Him therein. Now then, in this love of the Father to be received, so as to hold fellowship with Him, I answer by faith. The receiving of it is the believing of it. God has so fully, so eminently revealed His love, that it may be received by faith. You believe in God, John 14.1, that is the Father. And what is it to believe in Him? His love, for He is love. 1 John 4 verse 8. It is true there is not an immediate acting of faith upon the Father, but by the Son. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. John 14 verse 6. He is the merciful High Priest over the house of God, by whom we have access to the throne of grace. By Him is our manuduction unto the Father, by him we believe in God, 1 Peter 1.21. But this is that I say, when and by and through Christ we have access unto the Father, we then behold his glory also, and see his love that he peculiarly bears unto us, and act faith thereon. We are then, I say, to eye it, to believe it, to receive it, as in him. the issues and fruits thereof being made out unto us through Christ alone. Though there be no light for us but in the beams, yet we may by beams see the sun, which is the fountain of it. Though all our refreshment actually lie in the streams, yet by them are we led up into the fountain. Jesus Christ, in respect of the love of the Father, is but the beam, the stream, wherein though actually all our light, our refreshment lies, yet by him we are led to the fountain, the sun of eternal love itself. Would believers exercise themselves herein? They would find it a matter of no spiritual improvement in their walking with God. This is that which is aimed at. Many dark and disturbing thoughts are apt to arise in this thing. Few can carry up their hearts and minds to this height of faith, as to rest their souls in the love of God. They live below it, in the troublesome region of hopes, fears, storms, and clouds. All here is serene and quiet. But how to attain to this pitch they know not. This is the will of God. that he may always be eyed as benign, kind, tender, loving, ununchangeable therein, and that peculiarly as the Father, as the great fountain and spring of all gracious communications and fruits of love. This is that which Christ came to reveal, God as a Father, John 1.18, that name which He declares to those who have given Him out of the world. John 17, verse 6. And this is that which he effectually leads us to by himself, as he is the only way of going to God as a father, John 14, 4, 5, and 6, that is, as love, and by doing so gives us the rest which he promises. For the love of the Father is the only rest of the soul. It is true, as was said, we do not this formally in the first instant of believing, We believe in God through Christ, 1 Peter 1.21. Faith seeks out rest for the soul. This is presented to it by Christ the mediator as the only procuring cause. Here it abides not, but by Christ it hath an access to the Father, Ephesians 2 verse 18, into his love, finds out that he is love as having a design, a purpose of love. a good pleasure towards us from eternity, a delight, a complacency, a goodwill in Christ, all cause of anger and aversion being taken away, the soul being thus, by faith through Christ and by him, brought into the bosom of God, into a comfortable persuasion and spiritual perception and sense of his love, there reposes and rests itself, And this is the first thing the saints do in their communion with the Father, of the due improvement whereof more afterward. 2. For that suitable return which is required, this also, in the main part of it, beyond which I shall now extend it, consisteth in love. God loves that he may be beloved. When he comes to command the return of his received love, to complete communion with him, he says, My son, give me thine heart, Proverbs 23, 26, thy affections, thy love. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, Luke 10, 27. This is the return that he demandeth. When the soul sees God, in His dispensation of love, to be infinitely lovely and loving, rests upon the delights of Him as such, then hath it communion with Him in love. This is love, that God loves us first, and then we love Him again. I shall not now go forth into a description of divine love. Generally love is an affection of union and nearness, with complacency therein, so long as the father is looked on under any other apprehension. But only as acting love upon the soul, it breeds in the soul a dread and aversion. Hence the flying and hiding of sinners in the Scriptures. But when He who is the Father is considered as a Father, act in love on the soul, this raises it to love again. This is in faith the ground of all acceptable obedience. Deuteronomy 5.10, Exodus 20.6, Deuteronomy 10.12, 11.1, 13.2, This is the whole business stated by the Apostle, Ephesians 1.4, according he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. It begins in the love of God and ends in our love to him. That is it which the eternal love of God aims at as in us, and works us up unto. It is true, our universal obedience falls within the compass of our communion with God. But that is with Him as God, our blessed Sovereign, Lawgiver, and Rewarder. As He is the Father, our Father in Christ, as revealed unto us to be love, of the natural man, so it is in love that we have this intercourse with him. Nor do I intend only that love, which is as the life and form of all moral obedience, but a peculiar delight and acquiescing in the Father, revealed effectually as love unto the soul, that this communion with the Father in love, which is as the life may be made the more clear and evident, I shall show two things. One, wherein this love of God unto us, and our love to him, do agree, as to some manner of analogy and likeness. Two, wherein they differ, which will farther discover the nature of each of them. One, they agree in two things. First, that they are each a love of rest and complacency. First, The love of God is so. Zephaniah 3, 17. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. Both these things are here assigned unto God in his love. Rest and delight. The words are, he will be silent because of his love. To rest with contentment is expressed by being silent, that is, without repining, without complaint. This God doth, upon the count of his own love, so full, so every way complete and absolute, that it will not allow him to complain of anything in them whom he loves. But he is silent on the account thereof, or rest in his love. That is, he will not remove it. He will not seek farther for another object. It shall make its abode upon the soul, where it is once fixed, forever. And complacency or delight, he rejoiceth with singing, as one that is fully satisfied in that object he hath fixed his love on. Here are two words used to express the delight and joy that God hath in his love. The first denotes the inward affection of the mind, joy of heart. And to set out the intenseness thereof, it is said he shall do it in gladness or with joy. To have joy of heart in gladness is the highest expression of delight in love. The latter word denotes not the inward affection, but the outward demonstration of it. A galleon seems to be formed of it. It is to exult in outward demonstration of internal delight and joy, to leap, as men overcome with some joyful surprisal. And therefore God is said to do this with a joyful sound or singing, to rejoice with gladness of heart. to exalt with singing and praise, argues the greatest delight and complacency possible. When he would express the contrary of this love, he says, he was not well pleased. 1 Corinthians 10.5 He fixed not his delight, nor rest on them. And if any man draw back, the Lord's soul hath no pleasure in him. Hebrews 10.38 and Jeremiah 22, verse 28, and Hosea 8, verse 8, and Malachi 1, verse 10. He takes pleasure in those that abide with him. He sings to his church, A vineyard of red wine, I, the Lord, do keep it. Isaiah 27, verse 2 and 3, and Psalm 100, There is rest and complacency in his love. There is in the Hebrew but a metathesis of a letter between the word that signifies a love of will and desire, and that which denotes a love of rest and acquiescence. and both are applied to God. He wills good to us, that he may rest in that will. Some say Agapan, to love, is from agan parthesthai, perfectly to acquiesce in the thing loved. And when God calls his son, Agapaton, beloved, Matthew 3.17, he adds as an exposition of it, in whom I rest well pleased. Secondly, the return that the saints make unto him, to complete communion with him herein, holds some analogy with his love in this, for it is a love also of rest and delight. Return unto thy rest, my soul, says David. Psalm 106, verse 7. He makes God his rest, that is, he in whom his soul doth rest, without seeking farther for a more suitable and desirable object. Whom have I, saith he, in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. Psalm 73, verse 25. Thus the soul gathers itself from all its wanderings, from all other beloveds, to rest in God alone, to saturate and content itself in Him, choosing the Father for His present and eternal rest. And this also with delight. Thy lovingkindness, saith the psalmist, is better than life. Therefore I will praise thee, Psalm I will not deny that life in a single consideration sometimes is so expressed, but always emphatically, so that the whole life, with all the concernments of it, which may render it considerable, are thereby intended, Austen, on this place reading it supervitous, extends it to the several courses of life that men engage themselves in. Life, in the whole continuance of it, with all its advantages whatever, is at least intended. Supposing himself in the jaws of death, rolling into the grave through innumerable troubles, yet he found more sweetness in God than in a long life. under its best and most noble considerations, attended with all enjoyments that make it pleasant and comfortable. From both these is that of the Church in Hosea 14, verse 3. Asher will not save us. We will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more of the work of our hands. Ye are our gods. for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. They reject the most goodly appearances of rest and contentment, to make up all in God of whom they cast themselves as otherwise helpless orphans. Secondly, the mutual love of God and the saints agree in this, that the way of communicating the issues and fruits of these loves is only in Christ. The Father communicates no issue of His love unto us but through Christ, and we make no return of love unto Him but through Christ. He is a treasury wherein the Father disposes of all the riches of His grace, taken from the bottomless mine of His eternal love, and he is the priest into whose hand we put all the offerings that we return unto the Father. Thence he is first, and by way of eminency said to love the Son, not only as his eternal Son, as he was the delight of his soul before the foundation of the world, Proverbs 8.30, but also our mediator, and the means of conveying his love to us, Matthew 3.17, John 3.35, and verse 20, 10, 17, 15 verse 9, and 17 verse 24. And we are sent through him to believe in and to have access to God. First, the Father loves us and chose us before the foundation of the world. But in the pursuit of that love, He blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, Ephesians 1, 3 and 4. From His love, He sheds or pours out the Holy Spirit richly upon us, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, Titus 3, 6. In the pouring out of His love, There is not one drop falls besides the Lord Christ. The holy anointing oil was all poured on the head of Aaron, Psalm 133, verse two, and thence went down to the skirts of his clothing. Love is first poured out on Christ, and from him it drops as the dew of Hermon upon the souls of his saints. The Father will have him to have in all things the preeminence, Colossians 1.18. It plays him that in him all fullness should dwell, verse 19, that of his fullness we might receive and grace for grace, John 1.16. Though the love of the Father's purpose and good pleasure have its rise and foundation in his mere grace and will, Yet the design of its accomplishment is only in Christ. All the fruits of it are first given to Him, and it is in Him only that they are dispensed to us. So that though the saints may do see an infinite ocean of love unto them in the bosom of the Father, yet they are not to look for one drop from Him but what comes through Christ. He is the only means of communication. Love in the Father is like honey in the flower, it must be in the comb before it be for our use. Christ must extract and prepare this honey for us. He draws this water from the fountain through union and dispensation of fullness, we by faith, from the wells of salvation that are in him. This is in part before discovered. Secondly, Our returns are all in Him, and by Him also. And well is it with us that it is so. What lame and blind sacrifices should we otherwise present unto God? He bears the iniquity of our offerings, and He adds incense unto our prayers. Our love is fixed on the Father, but it is conveyed to Him through the Son of His love. He is the only way for our graces, as well as our persons, to go unto God. Through Him passes all our desire, our delight, our complacency, our obedience, of which more afterward. Now, in these two things there is some resemblance between that mutual love of the Father and the Saints wherein they hold communion. Two, there are sundry things wherein they differ. First, the love of God is a love of bounty. Our love unto him is a love of duty. First, the love of God is a love of bounty, a descending love, such a love as carries him out to do good things to us, great things for us. His love lies at the bottom of all dispensations towards us, and we scarce anywhere find any mention of it, but it is held out as the cause and fountain of some free gift flowing from it. He loves us and sends us his Son to die for us. He loves us and blesses us with all spiritual blessings. Loving is choosing, Romans 9, 11, and 12. He loves us and chastises us. It is a love like that of the heavens to the earth. When being full of rain, they pour forth showers to make it fruitful, as the sea communicates its waters to the rivers by the way of bounty out of its own fullness. They return unto it only what they receive from it. It is the love of a spring, of a fountain, always communicating. A love from whence proceeds everything that is lovely in its object. It infuses into, and creates goodness in, the person's beloved. And this answers the description of love given by the philosopher. To love, says he, He that loves works out good to them he loveth, as he is able. God's power and will are commensurate. What he willeth, he worketh. Secondly, our love unto God is a love of duty, the love of a child. His love descends upon us in bounty and fruitfulness. Our love ascends unto him in duty and thankfulness. He adds to us by His love, we nothing to Him by ours. Our goodness extends not unto Him. Though our love be fixed on Him immediately, yet no fruit of our love reacheth Him immediately. Though He requires our love, He is not benefited by it. Job 35, 5-8 Romans 11, 35 Job 22, 2-3 It is indeed made up of these four things, one, rest, two, delight, three, reverence, and four, obedience. By these do we hold communion with the father in his love. Hence God calls that love which is due to him as a father honor. Malachi 1.6, if I be a father, where is mine honor? It is a deserved act of duty. Second, they differ in this. The love of the Father unto us is an antecedent love. Our love unto him is a consequent love. First, the love of the Father unto us is an antecedent love. And that is in two respects. First, it is antecedent in respect of our love, 1 John 4.10, here in his love. not that we love God, but that he loved us. His love goes before ours. The father loves the child when the child knows not the father, much less loves him. Yea, we are by nature haters of God. He is in his own nature a lover of men, and surely all mutual love between him and us must begin on his hand. Secondly, in respect of all other causes of love whatsoever, it goes not only before our love, but also anything in us that is lovely. Romans 5 verse 8, God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Not only his love, but the eminent fruit thereof is made out towards us as sinners. Sin holds out all of unloveliness and undesirableness that can be in a creature. The very mention of that removes all causes or moving occasions of love whatever. Yet, as such, have we the commendation of the Father's love unto us by a most single testimony, not only when we have done no good, but when we are in our blood, doth He love us. Not because we are better than others, but because himself is infinitely good. His kindness appears when we are foolish and disobedient. Hence he has said, to love the world, that is, those who have nothing but what is in and of the world, whose whole portion lies in evil. Secondly, our love is consequential in both these regards, first, in respect to the love of God. Never did creature turn his affection towards God if the heart of God were not first set upon him. Secondly, in respect to sufficient causes of love, God must be revealed unto us as lovely and desirable, as a fit and suitable object unto the soul. to set up its rest upon, before we can bear any love unto Him. The saints, in this sense, do not love God for nothing, but for that excellency, loveliness, and desirableness that is in Him. As the psalmist says in one particular, Psalm 116, verse 1, I love the Lord because So may we in general. We love the Lord because, or as David in another case, what have I now done? Is there not a cause? If any man inquire about our love to God, we may say, what have we now done? Is there not a cause? Thirdly, they differ in this also. The love of God is like himself, equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminution. Our love is like ourselves, unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining. His, like the sun, always the same in light, though a cloud may sometimes interpose. Ours, as the moon, hath its enlargements and straightenings. First, the love of the Father is equal, etc. Whom he loves, he loves unto the end, and he loves them always alike. The strength of Israel is not a man that he should repent, on whom he fixes his love. It is immutable. It does not grow to eternity. It is not diminished at any time. It is an eternal love that had no beginning, that shall have no ending, that cannot be heightened by any act of ours, that cannot be lessened by anything in us. I say, in itself, it is thus. Otherwise, in a twofold regard, it may admit of change. First, in respect of its fruits, it is, as I said, a fruitful love, a love of bounty. In reference unto those fruits, it may sometimes be greater, sometimes less, in communication its communications are various. Who among the saints finds it not so? What life, what light, what strength sometimes, and again how dead, how dark, how weak, as God is pleased to let out or to restrain the fruits of his love. All the graces of the Spirit in us, all sanctified enjoyments, whatever, are fruits of his love. How variously these are dispensed, how differently at sundry seasons to the same persons experience will abundantly testify. Secondly, in respect of its discoveries and manifestations, he sheds abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. Romans 5 verse 5 gives us a sense of it, manifested unto us. Now this is various and changeable, sometimes more, sometimes less, Now he shines, and none he hides his face, as it may be for our Prophet. Our Father will not always chide, lest we be cast down. He will not always smile, lest we be full and neglect him. But yet still his love in itself is the same, when for a little moment he hides his face, yet he gathers us with everlasting kindness. Objection But you will say, this comes nigh to blasphemy, that God loves his people in their sinning, as well as in their strictest obedience. And if so, who will care to serve him more, or to walk with him, unto well-pleasing? Answer. There are few truths of Christ which, from some or other, have not received like entertainment with this. Terms and appellations are at the will of every imposer. Things are not at all varied by them. The love of God in itself is the eternal purpose, an act of his will. This is no more changeable than God himself. If it were, no flesh could be saved. But it changes not, and we are not consumed. What then? Loves he his people in their sinning? Yes, his people. not their sinning, alters he not his love towards them, not the purpose of his will, but the dispensations of his grace. He rebukes them, he chastens them, he hides his face from them, he smites them, he fills them with a sense of his indignation. But woe, woe will it be to us, should he change in his love, or to wake away his kindness from us. those very things which seem to be the demonstrations of the change of his affections towards his, do as clearly proceed from love as those which seem to be the most genuine issues thereof. But will not this encourage to sin? He never tasted of the love of God that can seriously make this objection. The doctrine of grace may be turned into wantonness. The principle cannot. I shall not wrong the saints by giving another answer to this objection. Detestation of sin in any may well consist with the assertation of their persons and their designation to life eternal. But now our love to God is ebbing and flowing, waning and increasing. We lose our first love, and we grow again in love, scarce a day at a stand. What poor creatures are we! How unlike the Lord and His love! And stable as water we cannot excel. Now is, though all men forsake thee, I will not, anon, I know not the man. One day I shall never be moved, my head is so strong. The next, all men are liars, I shall perish. whenever was the time, wherever was the place, that our love was one day equal towards God. And thus these agreements and discrepancies do farther describe that mutual love of the Father and the Saints, wherein they hold communion. Other instances as to the person of the Father I shall not give, but endeavor to make some improvement of this in the next chapter. Chapter 4 Inferences on the former doctrine concerning communion with the Father in love Having thus discovered the nature of that distinct communion which we have with the Father, it remaineth that we give some exhortations unto it, directions in it, and take some observations from it. 1. First then, this is a duty wherein it is most evident that Christians are but little exercised, namely in holding immediate communion with the Father in love. 2. Unacquaintedness with our mercies, our privileges, is our sin as well as our trouble. We hearken not to the voice of the Spirit which is given unto us that we may know the things that are freely bestowed on us of God. This makes us go heavily where we might rejoice, and to be weak where we might be strong in the Lord. How few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love! With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon Him? what fears, what questionings are there of his goodwill and kindness. At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him towards us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus. It is true that alone is the way of communication, but the free fountain and spring of all is in the bosom of the Father. Eternal life was with the Father and is manifested unto us. Let us then, one, I the Father as love. Look not on Him as an always-lowering Father, but as one most kind and tender. Let us look on Him by faith, as one that had thoughts of kindness towards us from everlasting. It is a misapprehension of God that makes any run from Him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after Him, that they They that know thee will put their trust in thee. Men cannot abide with God in spiritual meditations. He loseth soul's company by their want of this insight into his love. They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness, and so their spirits are not endeared. Would a soul continually eye his everlasting tenderness and compassion? his thoughts of kindness that have been from of old, his present gracious acceptance, it could not bear an hour's absence from him, whereas now, perhaps it cannot watch with him one hour. Let, then, this be the saint's first notion of the Father, as one of eternal, free love towards them. Let their hearts and thoughts be filled with breaking through all discouragements that line their way. To raise them hereunto, let them consider, one, whose love it is. It is the love of him who is in himself all-sufficient, infinitely saturated with himself and his own glorious excellencies and perfections, who have no need to go forth with his love unto others, nor to seek an object of it without himself. There might be rest with delight and complacency to eternity. He is sufficient unto his own love. He had his Son, also his eternal wisdom, to rejoice and delight himself in from all eternity. Proverbs 8, verse 30. This might take up and saturate the whole delight of the Father, but he will love his saints also. And it is such a love as wherein he seeks not his own satisfaction only, but our good therein also, the love of a God, the love of a Father, whose proper outgoings are kindness and bounty. 2. What kind of love it is. And it is, first, eternal. It was fixed on us before the foundation of the world, before we were or had done the least good. Then were his thoughts upon us. Then was his delight in us. Then did the son rejoice in the thoughts of fulfilling his father's delight in him. Yea, the delight of the Father in the Son, their mention, is not so much his absolute delight in him as the express image of his person and the brightness of his glory, wherein he might behold his own excellencies and perfections, as with respect unto his love and his delights in the sons of men. So the order of the words require us to understand it. I was daily his delight, and my delights were with the sons of men, that is, in the thoughts of kindness and redemption for them, and in that respect also was he his father's delight. I was from eternity, that he laid in his own bosom a design for our happiness. The very thought of this is enough to make us all that is within us, like the babe of the womb of Elizabeth, to leap for joy. A sense of it cannot but prostrate our souls to the lowest abatement of a humble, holy reverence, and make us rejoice before Him with trembling. Second Free He loves us because He will. There was, there is, nothing in us from which we should be loved. Did we deserve His love? It must go less in its valuation. Things of due debt are seldom the matter of thankfulness, but that which is eternally antecedent to our being must needs be absolutely free in its respects of our well-being. This gives it life and being, is the reason of it, and sets a price upon it. Romans 9 verse 11, Ephesians 1 verse 3 and 4, Titus 3 verse 5 and James 1 verse 8. Thirdly, unchangeable. Though we change every day, yet His love changes not. Could any kind of provocation turn it away? It has long since ceased. Its unchangeableness is that which carrieth out the Father unto that infiniteness of patience and forbearance, without which we die, we perish, 2 Peter 3 9, which he exercises towards us. And it is fourthly distinguishing. He hath not thus loved all the world, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Why should he fix his love on us, and pass by millions of whom we differ not by nature, that he should make us sharers in that, and all the fruits of it, which most of the great and wise men of the world are excluded from? I name but the heads of things, let them enlarge whose hearts are touched. Let I say that so frequently I the love of the Father, and that under these considerations they are all so conquering and endearing. 2. So I it as to receive it. Unless this be added, all is in vain as to any communion with God. We do not hold communion with Him in anything until it is received by faith. This, then, is that which I would provoke the saints of God unto, even to believe this love of God for ourselves and their own part, believe that such is the heart of the Father towards them, accepted as his witness therein. His love is not ours in the sweetness of it, until it be so received. Continually, then, act thoughts of faith on God as love to thee. as embracing thee with the internal free love before described. When the Lord, by his word, presented as such unto thee, let thy mind know it, and assent that it is so, and thy will embrace it in its being so, and all thy affections be filled with it. Set thy whole heart to it, let it be bound with the cords of this love. If the king be bound in the galleries with thy Shouldst thou not be bound in heaven with his? 3. Let it have its proper fruit and efficacy upon my heart, in return of love to him again. So shall we walk in the light of God's countenance, and hold holy communion with our Father all the day long. Let us not deal unkindly with him. and return him slighting for his good will. For let there be not such a heart in us as to deal so unthankfully with our God. 2. Now to further us in this duty, and the daily constant practice of it, I shall add one or two considerations that may be of importance whereunto as, It is exceeding acceptable unto God, even our Father, that we should thus hold communion with him in his love, that he may be received into our souls as one full of love, tenderness, and kindness towards us. Flesh and blood is apt to have very hard thoughts of him, to think he is always angry, yea, implacable. But that is not for poor creatures to draw nigh to him, that nothing in the world is more desirable than never to come into his presence, or, as they say, where he hath anything to do. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? say the sinners in Zion. And I knew thou wast an austere man, said the evil servant in the Gospels. Now there is not anything more grievous to the Lord, nor more subservient to the design of Satan upon the soul, than such thoughts as these. Satan claps his hands, if I may so say, when he can take up the soul with such thoughts of God. He hath enough, all that he doth desire. This hath been his design and way from the beginning. The first blood that murderers shed was by this means. He leads our first parents into hard thoughts of God. Hath God said so? Hath he threatened you with death? He knows well enough it will be better for you. With this engine did he batter and overthrow all mankind in one. And being mindful of his ancient conquest, he readily uses the same weapons with which he so successfully contended. Now it is exceedingly grievous to the Spirit of God to be so slandered in the hearts of those whom he dearly loves. How doth he expostulate this with Zion? What iniquity have you seen in me, saith he? Have I been a wilderness unto you, or a land of darkness? Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman, etc.? The Lord takes nothing worse at the hands of his than such hard thoughts of him, knowing full well what fruit this bitter root is like to bear. what alienations of heart, what drawings back, what unbelief and turgiversions in walking with him. He, how unwilling as a child to come into the presence of an angry father. Consider then this in the first place. Receiving of the father, and he holds out in love to the soul, gives him the honor he aims at, and is exceeding acceptable unto him. He often sets out in an eminent manner that it may be so received. He commendeth his love towards us. Romans 5, verse 8. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. 1 John 3, 1. Hence, then, is this folly. Men are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it a boldness to eye God as good, gracious, tender, kind, loving. I speak of saints, but for the other side they can judge him hard, austere, severe, almost implacable and fierce, the very worst of factions and the very worst of men, and most hated of him, Romans 1.31 and 2 Timothy 3.3, and think herein they do well. Is not this soul deceived from Satan? Was it not His design from the beginning to inject such thoughts of God? Assure thyself, then, that there is nothing more acceptable unto the Father than for us to keep up our hearts unto Him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus. 2. This will be exceeding effectual to endear thy soul unto God, to cause thee to delight in him, and to make thy abode with him. Many saints have no greater burden in their lives than that their hearts do not come clearly and fully up, constantly to delight and rejoice in God, that there is still an indisposedness of spirit unto close walking with him. What is at the bottom of this distemper? Is it not their unskillfulness, in or neglect of this duty, even the holding communion with the Father in love? So much as we see the love of God, so much we shall delight in Him, and no more. Every other discovery of God without this will but make the soul fly from Him. But if the heart be once much taken up with this eminency of the Father's love, It cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him. This, if anything, will work upon us to make our abode with him. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? this to the venture. Exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in Him. I dare boldly say, believers will find it as a thriving a course as ever they pitched on in their lives. Sit down a little at the fountain, and you will quickly have a farther discovery of the sweetness of the streams. You who have run from him will not be able, after a while, to keep at a distance for a moment. Objection 1. But some may say, alas, how shall I hold communion with the Father in love? I know not at all whether He loves me or not, and shall I venture to cast myself upon it? How, if I should not be accepted, should I not rather perish for my presumption than find sweetness in His bosom? God seems to me only a consuming fire and everlasting burnings, so that I dread to look up unto Him. Answer. I know not what may be understood by knowing the love of God, though it be carried on by spiritual sense and experience. Yet it is received purely by believing. Our knowing of it is our believing of it as revealed. We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. 1 John 4, 16. This is the assurance which at the very entrance of walking with God thou mayest have of this love. He who is truth hath said it. And whatever thy heart says, or Satan says, unless thou shalt take it up on this account, thou doest thy endeavour to make him a liar who hath spoken it. 1 John 5, 10. I can believe that God is love to others, or He has said He is love, but that He will be so to me, I see no ground of persuasion. There is no cause, no reason in the world, why He should turn one thought of love or kindness towards me, and therefore I dare not cast myself upon it, to hold communion with Him and His special love. He has spoken it as particularly to thee as to any one in the world, and for cause of love he hath as much to fix it on thee as on any of the children of men, that is, none at all without himself. So that I shall make speedy work with this objection, Never anyone, from the foundation of the world, who believed such love in the Father, and made returns of love to Him again, was deceived. Neither shall ever any of the world's end be so, in so doing. Thou art then, in this, upon a most sure bottom. If thou believest and receiveth the Father as love, He will infallibly be so to thee, though others may fall under His severity. Objection 3. I cannot find my heart, making returns of love unto God. Could I find my soul set upon him? I could then believe his soul delighted in me. Answer. This is the most preposterous course that possibly thy thoughts can pitch upon, a most ready way to rob God of his glory. Herein is love, saith the Holy Ghost. Not that we love God, but that he loved us first. 1 John 4, 10 and 11. Now the word is to invert this order and say, herein is love, not that God loved me, but that I loved him first. This is to take the glory of God from him. that whereas he loves us without a cause, that is, in ourselves, and we have all cause in the world to love him, thou shouldst have the contrary, namely, that something should be in thee for which God should love thee, even thy love to him, and that thou shouldst love God before thou knowest anything lovely in him, namely, whether he love thee or no. This is a course of flesh finding out. that will never bring glory to God nor peace to thy own soul. Lay down then thy reasonings, take up the love of the Father upon a pure act of believing, and that will open thy soul to be let out unto the Lord in the communion of love. This reading and recording ends on page 39. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. It's your worldwide online Reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, mp3s, and videos. 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