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Love's pedigree. Or A discourse showing the grace of love in a believer to…Love's pedigree. Or A discourse shewing the grace of love in a believer to…
Love's pedigree. Or A discourse showing the grace of love in a believer to be of a divine original delivered in a sermon preached at the lecture in Boston, Febr. 29. 1699[/]1700. / By S. Willard, teacher of a church there. ; [Two lines from James]Love's pedigree. Or A discourse shewing the grace of love in a believer to be of a divine original delivered in a sermon preached at the lecture in Boston, Febr. 29. 1699[/]1700. / By S. Willard, teacher of a church there. ; [Two lines from James]
printed by B. Green, 1700
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, &c. 1 Joh. 4 9. In this was the love of God manifested towards us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him; and this is the love that we are now considering of, and is intended in our Text: which, if we run up to the top of it, is nothing else but that good will of his, by which he purposed to bestow all saving good upon us. There is a natural love which we ascribe to God, by which he loveth himself eternally, being his own last end: and with this love every Sacred Person in the undivided Trinity love each other; and there is a voluntary love which we conceive in him, which must needs flow from his good pleasure; for we are told, Rom. 9.18. He hath mercy on ⟨p. 9⟩whom he will have mercy. And such must be all the love which he bears to the Creature, since its being, and all that he doth to it or for it derive from his holy pleasure, Who doth all things according to the Counsel of his will, Eph. 1.11. And it was this love that procured our Salvation, Gal. 2.20. Who loved me, and gave himself for me.
2. That by our loving of God we must understand, that Cordial respect which we have for him, where by we have chosen him for our portion, and are entirely devoted to his fear. Love in us, is an Affection leading us in pursuit after Union to the object of it, in order to our having intimate Communion with it: for love is a Closing Affection, and carrieth us forth after that which we love. That which attracts our love to it, is the Goodness which we apprehend to be in the object of it, which renders it a thing lovely; the discovery of which goodness made to the Understanding, moves on the Judgment, and by that on the Heart, and draws it out after it. Now the expression of this love is in a suitable respect that we show to the object of it, and is accordingly diversified, as there is a different reference or relation that we bear to it: the love therefore of Parents to their Children, and of Children to their Parents doth not show it self after the same manner. There are therefore these two things wherein our real love to God appears,