Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
If all those that love Christ are to receive a crown of life at His hands, what more natural improvement follows from it than to exhort and persuade all [towards] love to Christ?...But we shall offer some other motives to persuade all to this duty…
Christ is called the Sun of Righteousness, and He is a sun to whom our sun in the heavens is as darkness. He is called the bright and the morning star; so, for His innocence, His sweet condescension, love, and mercy, He is called a Lamb, although He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
He is called the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. Sharon, being a delightful and pleasant land, bore the sweetest roses and the lily of the valley, excelling all other lilies for beauty, sweetness, and excellent salutary virtue…
But the love of Christ is the love of that which is truly above all things excellent and lovely, and therefore the pleasures that result from it must be solid, real, substantial, and never-fading…
With what pleasure may they meditate upon those infinite perfections that He is possessed of and which make Him lovely in their eyes! How must it please them to find out continually new beauties and glories that they saw not before; for the excellencies of Christ are infinite, and we may make new discoveries to all eternity and yet not have discovered all. How doth it fill the soul with a kind of rapture when it has discovered something more of excellence in Him Who is the object of his highest love!
If men have a dear love to any of their fellow creatures, they desire to see them yet more excellent; they delight to see them attain to new perfections. But now those that are the dear lovers of Christ have the pleasure of thinking that He has all possible excellence already. There is no room for desiring that He should be yet more excellent because there is no excellence or beauty, nor any degree of excellence that they can possibly think of, but what He possesses already. They have no new beauties to desire for Christ, but only new beauties to discover in Him. Now, what a pleasure must it raise in those that love Christ to think that He is so perfectly amiable. This is a peculiar delight that is raised from no other love but love to Christ.
With what pleasure may he think of the perfections of His divine nature: of His immense greatness, of His eternity, power, and wisdom... With what delight may he think [that] Him [Whom] he loves with his whole heart and soul is God as well as man, is so great that all the nations of the world are to Him as the drop of the bucket and small dust of the balance; so powerful that He weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance and takes up the isles as a very little thing; so wise that He charges His angels with folly; so holy that the heavens are unclean in His sight. With what pleasure may he think that the object of his highest love has made the world by His power and wisdom, that the sun, moon, and stars are the work of His fingers, and He rules all.
With what joy may the lovers of Christ think and meditate of what He has done for them. When men dearly love any person, with what joy do they catch at kindnesses and expressions of love from them! With what pleasure will they think it over again! So, with what inexpressible joy may those that love Christ think of His bowing the heavens and coming down in the form of a servant: of His lying in a manger, of His suffering the reproach of men, of His agony and bloody sweat, of His dying on the cross for their sakes…
With what pleasure may the Christian’s soul think on Christ in His exalted state. We love to see those whom we truly love highly honored and exalted; so those that ardently love Christ may sweetly spend their time in meditating on Christ triumphing over His enemies, of His glorious ascending to heaven, of His being made head over all things to the church, of His being crowned with a crown of great glory, of His coming to judge the world at the conflagration….
All that love Christ are certain that they are loved again. Herein is the pleasure of love: to be loved again…. Christ will be enjoyed to all eternity, and all the world cannot hinder it!