Here is love, that God sent his Son--his darling--his
Son that never offended--his Son that was always his delight!
Herein is love, that he sent him to save sinners--to save them by
bearing their sins, by bearing their curse, by dying their death,
and by carrying their sorrows! Here is love, in that while we were
yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly!
GOD A FATHER.
O how great a task is it for a poor soul that comes, sensible of sin
and the wrath of God, to say in faith but this one word, Father! I
tell you, however hypocrites think, yet the Christian that is so
indeed finds all the difficulty in this very thing; he cannot say
God is his Father. O, saith he, I dare not call him Father. And
hence it is that the Spirit must be sent into the hearts of God's
people for this very thing, to cry Father; it being too great a work
for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it. When I say
knowingly, I mean knowing what it is to be a child of God and to be
born again; and when I say believingly, I mean for the soul to
believe, and that from good experience, that the work of grace is
wrought in him. This is the right calling of God, Father; and not as
many do, to say in a babbling way the Lord's prayer by heart. No,
here is the life of prayer, when in or with the Spirit, a man being
made sensible of sin and how to come to the Lord for mercy, he
comes, I say, in the strength of the Spirit, and crieth, Father.
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