An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

According to these Men, ¹the love of Christ is a love to the person of a Believer; without considering any other qualifications, than that he is such an individual person; that is, the excellency of Christs love consists in this, that he loves for no reason: Now I confess this is a wonderful love, but wherein the excellency of it consists, I cannot see: I am sure we account that Man a Fool, who loves at this rate; we who are reasonable Creatures, think that we are bound to govern all our ⟨p. 574⟩actions, and the passions of our mind too, by reason; and we account it a reproach to a Man, to act either against reason or without it, to do any thing of which he cannot give a reasonable account: And how that should come to be the perfection of the Love of God, which is a reproach to Men, is above my apprehension? Indeed were this true, it would undermine the very foundations of Religion: For the great end of Religion is to please God, and to procure his love and favour; but if God and Christ love for no reason, then it is a vain thing for us to think of pleasing God, or procuring his love by any thing we can do: Whether we obey him or disobey him, it is all one in this case; for if he please to love us without any reason, our sins cannot hinder it; and if it does not please him to love us, our Holiness and Obedience cannot alter him. When our Acceptation with God depends wholly upon a sovereign and unaccountable will, nothing we can do can hinder or promote it, and therefore all Religion is in vain. The foundation of this mistake is a Philosophical nicety, that God must act wholly from himself, and therefore must not be moved by any external cause; whereas should he love us because we are holy, or hate us because we are wicked, his love or ⟨p. 575⟩hatred would depend upon an external cause: viz. The holiness or wickedness of Creatures, which unbecomes an independent Being, to depend upon any thing else: The sum of which reasoning is this, that because God is the first cause of all things, on whom all things depend, and he on nothing, therefore he must love or hate his Creature without any reason, but his own unaccountable will: For this is all the inconvenience they can Object, that when God loves or hates, rewards or punishes his Creatures, the reason of this difference he makes between his Creatures, must be fetched from the persons themselves whom he thus loves or hates;