A Divine Cordial

6. God desires our love. It were much for a King to desire the love of a woman that is deformed and leprous.¹ We have lost our beauty, and stained our blood, yet the King of Heaven is a Suitor to us. What is there in our love that God should come a wooing for it? What is God the better for our love? he doth not want it, he is infinitely blessed in himself; if we deny him our love, he hath more sublime creatures who pay the cheerful tribute of love to him. God doth not need our love, yet he seeks it.

1. 16.

7. God hath deserved our love;¹ how hath he loved us! Our affections should be kindled at the fire of Gods love. What a miracle of love is it, that God should love us, when there was nothing in us lovely! Ezek. 16.6. When thou wast in thy blood, I said unto thee, live. The time of our loathing, was the time of Gods loving. We had something in us to provoke fury, but nothing to entice love. What an Hyperbole of love was it to give Christ to ⟨p. 120⟩us^*? That Christ should dye for sinners, God hath set all the Angels in Heaven a wondering at this love. St Austin saith, The Cross was a Pulpit, and the lesson Christ preached in it, was love. O the living love of a dying Saviour! per vulnera viscera— Me-thinks I see Christ upon the Cross bleeding all over, me-thinks I hear him say to us, reach hither your hands, put them into my sides, feel my bleeding heart, see if I love you not? and will you not bestow your love upon me? will you love the world more than me? did the world appease the wrath of God for you? have not I done all this? and will you not love me? 'Tis natural to love where we are loved. Christ having set us a Copy of love, and written it in his Blood, let us labour to write after so fair a Copy, and imitate him in love.