Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) on God's Love and Hate

2. Our Divines say God loveth the persons of the Elect, but hateth their sins, M. Denne offendeth at this, and so doth the Arminians with the same reason, if God hate the works of iniquity he cannot but hate the persons, and workers of iniquity also: Its true, the Lord hateth so the persons of the Elect for their sins; as he taketh vengeance of their sins on their Surety Christ, but this consisteth with the Lords loving of their persons to eternal salvation: The truth is, Gods affection ad intra of hatred and displeasure, never so passeth on the persons of the Elect, as on the persons of the Reprobate; he had thoughts of love and peace in secret, from eternity, to his own Elect, he did frame a Heaven, a Saviour for them, before all time.

3. Propos. Our Divines do rightly teach, that there is a twofold love in God; Amor benevolentia, A love of well willing, which he did bear to them before the world was, & it is called the love of Election: Of this love, Rom. 9.13. Paul speaketh, I have loved Jacob and hated Esau; this is fountain love, the well-head of all our salvation: There is another love called Amor complacentiae, A love of complacency, a love of justification (so M. Denne termeth it) which presupposeth faith: Without which its unpossible to please God, Heb. 11.6. of this Christ speaketh, Joh. 14.21. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him, ver. 23. If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and will come unto him, and make our abode with him; so Christ the wisdom of God saith, I love them that love me, Pro. 8.17. And so Christ speaketh of his love to his redeemed and sanctified Spouse, Can. 4.9. Thou hast ravished my heart my sister, my Spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thy eyes, with one chain of thy neck: Holiness and the image of God is the object of this love, not the cause nor any hire: it is not so properly love as the other. God rather loveth persons, desiring well and good to them, then things. Mr. Denne is not content with this distinction; and why: The love of Election, and the love of Justification (saith he) are not diverse loves, or divers degrees of love, but divers manifestations of one and the same infinite love; as when a Father hath conveyed an Inheritance to his son, here is no new love from the Father to the son, but a new manifestation of that love wherewith the Father loved the son before. Answ. Men should not take on them to refute they know not what; not any Protestant Divines ever taught, that there is a new love in God, or any new degree of love in God, that was not in him before: Arminians indeed tell us of new love, new desires, and of ebbing & flowing; love and hatred succeeding one to another in Gods mind, these Vorstian blasphemies we disclaim; it is indeed, one and the same simple and holy will of God, by which he loved Peter and John from eternity, and choose them to salvation, & by which he so loveth them in time, as of Free-grace he bestoweth on them Faith, Holiness, Pardon in Christ, and followeth these with his love; and the former is called his love of good will to their person, ere they do good or ill: the latter his love of complacency to their State, and the Lords new workman-ship in them, as with the same love the husband chooseth such a one for his wife, and loveth her being now his married Spouse.

Obj. 2. Men like those whom they love, and so doth God. Ans. We grant all; these termes of Gods good loving, and good-liking, are chosen of Divines to express the thing. God loveth and liketh Jacob not Esau, from eternity, ere he believe or do good: but he doth not so love and like Jacob from eternity, to bestow Faith and the Image of the second Adam on him, while in time he hear the Word and be humbled for sin, and the truth is, the love of complacency is not a new act of Gods will that ariseth in God in time, but the declaration of Gods love of good will in this effect, that God is pleased to bestow faith & his beauty of holiness which maketh the soul lovely to God, and it is rather the effect of eternal love, then love And God hath a love of complacency toward the persons of the Elect, & love of good will (though not of chusing good will toward them) for their holiness, Cant. 4.9.

Obj. 3. It is absurd that God should love the Elect with infiinite love to chuse them to salvation, as touching their persons, and withall to hate them with an infinite hatred, as workers of iniquity. Answ. It were absurd I grant, if Gods hatred to the Elect as sinners, were any immanent affection in God opposite to his love, by which he should be averse to their persons. But Gods hatred to the Elect, because they are sinners, is nothing but his displacency against sin (not against the person) so as he is to inflict satisfactory punishment on the surety Christ for their sin. A Father may so love his Prodigall Son, as to retain a purpose to make him Inheritor of a Kingdom (if he had a Crown for himself) and to pay his debts, and yet both hate and punish his profuse and lavish wasting of his goods.

Samuel Rutherford, The Tryal & Triumph of Faith (London: Printed by John Field, and are to be sold by Ralph Smith, at the Sign of the Bible in Cornhill neer the Royall Exchange, 1659), 398-401. David Silversides cites this section of Rutherford's Trial in order to counter the Hoeksemian view that God never hated the elect. See The Free Offer: Biblical & Reformed (Glasgow, Scotland: Marpet Press, 2005), 41–42.