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You are able to see His righteousness, and blessedness, and glory, which are invisible. Yea, which is infinitely more, to resemble and attain them, to express them in yourself, enjoying them and the similitude of them. No beast can see what righteousness is: nor is any brute capable of imitating it. You are: being admitted into the fellowship and order of Angels. Which have neither eyes nor ears, and yet see and understand things, which are infinitely higher than the sphere of senses. You are able to discern, that in all these things He is Love to you; and that Love is a fountain of infinite benefits. That being Love to you He hath done the best of all possible things, and made you the end of all things. For Love is a fountain of infinite benefits, and doth all that is possible for its beloved object. It endlessly desireth to delight itself, and its delight is to magnify its beloved. You are able to see the righteousness of Love in this. For in doing the best of all possible things it is right wise to itself and to all other beings. Right wise to itself in glorifying itself in the best of manners, and to all other things in making them most excellent. Right wise to itself in preparing for itself the best of treasures, and to its object in like manner, in making its beloved the most blessed. Right wise unto itself, in satisfying itself in its infinite desire of becoming delightful to its object, in preparing for itself infinite pleasures, and in making for itself the most delightful object that can possibly be made. Right wise unto you, in making you that object: and providing all the treasures of itself for you, and making itself infinitely joyous and delightful to you.–Nothing is so righteous, or right wise as Love. For by making itself glorious it becometh infinite: and by loving its object infinitely it enableth itself to delight infinitely in its object’s happiness: and wisely prepareth infinite treasures. Right wisely thereby at once enriching itself and its object. So that you are able evidently to discern that God is Love, and therein to contemplate all His perfections.

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You are able therein to see the infinite glory of your high estate. For if God is Love, and Love be so restless a principle in exalting its object: and so secure that it always promoteth, and glorifieth and exalteth itself thereby, where will there be any bounds in your exaltation? How dreadful, how amiable, how blessed, how great, how unsearchable, how incomprehensible must you be in your true real inward happiness! The object of Love is infinitely exalted. Love is infinitely delightful to its object, God by all His works manifesteth Himself to be Love, and you being the end of them, are evidently its object. Go where you will, here alone shall you find your happiness. Contemplate therefore the works of God, for they serve you not only in manifesting Him, but in making you to know yourself and your blessedness.

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As Love is righteous in glorifying itself and making its object blessed: so is it in all its dealings and dispensations towards it. Having made it amiable, it cannot but love it, which it is righteous in doing, for to love what is lovely is a righteous thing. To make it infinitely amiable is a righteous thing to infinite Love: and to love it infinitely, being infinitely amiable. For thereby infinite Love doth right to itself and its measure: yea, to itself and its object. To tender what is amiable is a righteous thing: to hurt it is evil. Love therefore is infinitely righteous in being infinitely tender of its object’s welfare: and in hating infinitely the sin of hurting it. It is righteous in commanding others to promote it, and in punishing those that injure or offend it. And thus have you a Gate, in the prospect even of this world, whereby you may see into God’s Kingdom. For by His works you see that God is Love, and: by His Love see the nature of all righteousness opened and unfolded: with the ground and foundation of rewards and punishments.

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But God being infinite is infinitely righteous. His love therefore is righteous to itself and all its works as well as its object. To itself in requiring that it be infinitely esteemed, of which it is infinitely desirous. The contemners of it therefore it infinitely punisheth. To its works not only in making them the best that may be, but in requiring an exact and due esteem, from the enjoyers of them. Is not Love jealous of the honour of its gifts? Doth not a contempt of its presents, redound upon itself? The world therefore serveth you abundantly in teaching you your duty. They daily cry in a living manner, with a silent and yet most loud voice, We are all His gifts: We are tokens and presents of His Love. You must therefore esteem us according to the beauty and worth that is in us, and the Love from whence we came. Which to do, is certainly the most blessed thing in all worlds, as not to do it is most wicked and most miserable.

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Love further manifests itself in joining righteousness and blessedness together: for wherein can Love appear more than in making our duty most blessed. Which here is done by making obedience the fruition of one’s blessedness. God cannot therefore but be infinitely provoked, when we break His laws. Not only because Love is jealous and cruel as the grave, but because also our duty being so amiable, which it imposeth on us with infinite obligations, they are all despised: His Love itself, our most beautiful duty and all its obligations. So that His wrath must be very heavy, and His indignation infinite.

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Yet Love can forbear, and Love can forgive, though it can never be reconciled to an unlovely object. And, hence it is that though you have so little considered the Works of God, and prized His Love; yet you are permitted to live: and live at ease, and enjoy your pleasure. But Love can never be reconciled to an unlovely object, and you are infinitely unlovely by despising God and His Love so long. Yea, one act only of despite done to the smallest creature made you infinitely deformed. What shall become of you therefore since God cannot be reconciled to an ugly object? Verily you are in danger of perishing eternally. He cannot indeed be reconciled to an ugly object as it is ugly, but as it is capable of being otherwise He may. He can never therefore be reconciled to your sin, because sin itself is incapable of being altered: but He may be reconciled to your person, because that may be restored and, which is an infinite wonder, to greater beauty and splendour than before.

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By how much the greater His love was, by so much the greater may His sorrow be at the loss of His object: and by so much the greater His desire also of its restoration. His Love therefore being infinite, may do infinite things for an object infinitely valued. Being infinite in Wisdom, it is able also to devise a way inscrutable to us, whereby to sever the sin from the sinner and to satisfy its righteousness in punishing the transgression, yet satisfy itself in saving the transgressor: And to purge away the dross and incorporated filth and leprosy of sin: restoring the Soul to its primitive beauty, health, and glory. But then it doth this at an infinite expense, wherein also it is more delighted, and especially magnified, for it giveth Another equally dear unto itself to suffer in its stead. And thus we come again by the Works of God to our Lord JESUS CHRIST.

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Whoever suffereth innocently and justly in another’s stead, must become a surety by his voluntary act. And this an Angel or a Cherubim might have done. He might also perhaps have suffered an infinite punishment in the removal of that Love of God which he infinitely prized: and perhaps also he might have paid an obedience which he owed not. For the Angels are bound to love God with all their might, and men as themselves, while they are innocent: and to live by loving them in their blessedness and glory; yet they are not bound by virtue of this law to die for men being wicked and deformed; and therefore in undertaking this might have undertaken more than was their duty: and perhaps loving God infinitely, (had they seen His love to man) they would. Yea, perhaps also they might have suffered in our nature; and been able to have sustained infinite wrath; which are all the conditions usually reckoned up and numbered by Divines, as requisite in a Mediator and Redeemer of others. For they might have been hypostatically united to our nature, and though they were creatures, yet Almighty Power can sustain a creature under as great a punishment as Almighty Power can inflict. Almighty Power upholding it being like the nether millstone, and Almighty Power punishing like the upper millstone, between which two it is infinitely tormented. We must therefore search higher into the causes of our Saviour’s prelation above them.