Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

The Particle so, John 3.16. seems to intimate this Supremacy of Goodness: He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son. He so loved the World, that he seemed for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it, or equal with it. The Person to whom a Gift is given, is in that regard accounted more valuable than the Gift or Present made to him: Thus God valued our Redemption above the worldly Happiness of the Redeemer, and sentenceth him to an Humiliation on Earth, in order to our Exaltation in Heaven: He was desirous to hear him groaning, and see him bleeding, that we might not groan under his Frowns, and bleed under his Wrath: He ⟨p. 621⟩spared not him, that he might spare us; refused not to strike him, that he might be well pleased with us; drenched his Sword in the Blood of his Son, that it might not for ever be wet with ours; but that his Goodness might for ever triumph in our Salvation: He was willing to have his Son made Man, and die, rather than Man should perish, who had delighted to ruin himself; He seemed to degrade him for a time from what he was^*. But since he could not be united to any but to an intellectual Creature, he could not be united to any viler and more sordid Creature than the Earthly Nature of Man. And when this Son in our Nature prayed, that the Cup might pass from him, Goodness would not suffer it, to show how it valued the manifestation of it self in the Salvation of Man above the preservation of the Life of so dear a Person.

The Particle so, John 3.16. seems to intimate this Supremacy of Goodness: He so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son. He so loved the World, that he seem'd for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it, or equal with it. The Person to whom a Gift is given, is in that regard accounted more valuable than the Gift or Present made to him: Thus God valued our Redemption above the worldly Happiness of the Redeemer, and sentenceth him to an Humiliation on Earth, in order to our Exaltation in Heaven: He was desirous to hear him groaning, and see him bleeding, that we might not groan under his Frowns, and bleed under his Wrath: He ⟨p. 621⟩