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

for a Goodness which doth no good, or never did any, or, which is all one, is considered as doing none, is so far from being the Object of our Love, that it is not the Object of our Understanding: For we cannot understand what that Goodness means, which never did any good. God challenges our Love, not upon account of an imaginary Goodness of Nature, which never did any good; but for the real and sensible Effects of his Goodness in the works of Creation and Providence, and Redemption by Christ: And Christ challenges ⟨p. 598⟩our love for the like reasons; because he hath loved us, and died for us, and now intercedes for us, and will at the last day bestow a Crown of Glory and Immortality on us, but never, as I can observe,, requires such an abstracted and Metaphysical Love to his Person, without any respect to his benefits.

for a Goodness which doth no good, or never did any, or, which is all one, is considered as doing none, is so far from being the Object of our Love, that it is not the Object of our Ʋnderstanding: For we cannot understand what that Goodness means, which never did any good. God challenges our Love, not upon account of an imaginary Goodness of Nature, which never did any good; but for the real and sensible Effects of his Goodness in the works of Creation and Providence, and Redemption by Christ: And Christ challenges ⟨p. 598⟩our love for the like reasons; because he hath loved us, and died for us, and now intercedes for us, and will at the last day bestow a Crown of Glory and Immortality on us, but never, as I can observe,, requires such an abstracted and Metaphysical Love to his Person, without any respect to his benefits.

We love Christ for his Benefits,¹ these are the first impulsives of our Love; but our love, once kindled, is afterwards blown up into a purer flame by those attractive Excellencies and ravishing Beauties, which are in the Person of Christ; we come to love Christ for himself. The Spouse in the Canticles did not only love Christ for his Shadow and sweet fruits, for the Graces and Benefits communicated from him, but for himself, his incomparable Person, who is the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Neither is this Love to Christ for himself (what the Author would have it to be) a Love for no reason, or a Love in its folly and degeneracy: But it is a Love for the greatest Reason, and a Love in perfection. There is a greater worthiness and so an higher attractive of our Love in the Person of Christ than in his Benefits; and therefore in all reason Love