A MEDITATION ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST. SECTION I. The Love of Christ how passing knowledge; how free, of us, before we were. WHAT is it, O blessed apostle, what is it, for which thou dost so earnestly bow thy knees, in the behalf of thine Ephesians, unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? even this, that they may know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' Give me leave, first, to wonder at thy suit; and then much more at what thou suest for. Were thine affections raised so high to thine Ephesians, that thou shouldst crave for them impossible favours? Did thy love so far overshoot thy reason, as to pray they might attain to the knowledge of that which cannot be known? It is the love of Christ which thou wishest they may know; and it is that love which thou sayest is past all knowledge. What shall we say to this? Is it, for that there may be holy ambitions of those heights of grace which we can never hope actually to obtain? Or is it rather, that thou supposest and prayest they Eph. iii. 14, 19. may reach to the knowledge of that love, the measure whereof they could never aspire to know? Surely so it is, O blessed Jesu: that thou hast loved us, we know, but how much thou hast loved us is past the comprehension of angels. Those glorious spirits, as they desire to look into the deep mystery of our redemption, so they wonder to behold that divine love whereby it is wrought; but they can no more reach to the bottom of it than they can affect to be infinite; for, surely, no less than an endless line can serve to fathom a bottomless depth. Such, O Saviour, is the abyss of thy love to miserable man. Alas! what do we poor wretched dust of the earth go about to measure it, by the spans and inches of our shallow thoughts? Far, far be such presumption from us: only admit us, O blessed Lord, to look at, to admire and adore that which we give up for incomprehensible. What shall we then say to this love, O dear Jesu; both as thine, and as cast upon us? All earthly love supposeth some kind of equality, or proportion at least, betwixt the person that loves, and him that is loved here is none at all. So as, which is past wonder, extremes meet without a mean; for, lo, thou, who art the eternal and absolute Being, God blessed for ever, lovedst me, that had no being at all thou lovedst me, both when I was not, and could never have been but by thee. It was from thy love that I had any being at all; much more, that, when thou hadst given me a being, thou shouldst follow me with succeeding mercies. Who but thou, who art infinite in goodness, would love that which is not? Our poor sensual love is drawn from us by the sight of a face or picture, neither is ever raised but upon some pleasing motive: thou wouldst make that which thou wouldst love; and wouldst love that which thou hadst made. O God, was there ever love so free, so gracious, as this of thine? Who can be capable to love us, but men or angels? Men love us because they see something in us which they think amiable; angels love us because thou doest so; but why dost thou, O blessed Lord, love us, but because thou wouldst ? There can be no cause of thy will, which is the cause of all things. Even so, Lord, since this love did rise only from thee, let the praise and glory of it rest only in thee. SECTION II. How free, of us, that had made ourselves vile and miserable. YET more, Lord, we had lost ourselves, before we were; and, having forfeited what we should be, had made ourselves perfectly miserable. Even when we were worse than nothing, thou wouldst love us. Was there ever any eye enamoured of deformity? Can there be any bodily deformity comparable to that of sin? Yet, Lord, when sin had made us abominably loathsome, didst thou cast thy love upon us. A little scurf of leprosy, or but some unsavoury scent, sets us off, and turns our love into detestation. But, for thee, O God, when we were become as foul and as ugly as sin could make us, even then was thy love enflamed towards us; even when we were weltering in our blood, thou saidst, "Live;" and washedst, and anointedst us, and clothedst us with a broidered work, and deckedst us with ornaments, |