"3. Christ's love to his people is a special peculiar, and discriminating love.
1. It is a special peculiar love. There is a common general love which God bears to all creatures; but there is a special peculiar love which God bears to his people. God loveth all his creatures with a general love; but it is some only he loves with a special and peculiar love. God, as one observes [Marginal reference: "Omnes quidem diligit, sed non ad aequale bonum" - Tolet], loves all his creatures indeed, but he doth not love them so as to will the same good, or to bestow the same equal good upon them all. God is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He feeds the ravens, cloathes the lilies, gives life, breath, being to all creatures; but then there is a special love which he bears to his people. First, he gives himself to them: Heb. 8:10. This is the covenant I will make with them, I will be their God. Secondly, he gives them his Son: Having given us his Son, Rom. 8:32. John 3:16. Thirdly, he gives Heaven, Salvation, and eternal life unto them, Luke 12:32. 1 Thess. 5:9. These are the things that God bestows upon his people: so then it is a special love in this respect. God bestows common blessings upon others; he bestows many temporal blessings upon all men; but his special favors are reserved for the Elect: therefore he is said to be the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe, 1 Tim. 4:10. God preserves and saves all men by a common Providence, but he is in a special peculiar manner the Savior of Believers: therefore he is called the Savior of the body, Eph. 5:23. Compare these Scriptures together; in one place he is said to be the Savior of all men, and in another place he is said to be the Savior of his body the Church. Christ is the Savior of all men in some respect, but not so as he is the Savior of his body the Church: he saves all men with a common Salvation, but he doth not save all men with a spiritual eternal salvation, it is the Church only he so saves."
John Rowe, Emmanuel, Or the Love of Christ Explicated and Applied in his Incarnation, Being Made Under the Law, and His Satisfaction. In XXX Sermons. (London: Printed for Francis Tyton Book-seller at the Three Daggers near the Inner Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1680), 13-14.
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