When the Scripture attributes love to God, it points to his good will in purposing good to be bestowed on them, and making them that are appointed thereto to partake therein: and this love is looked upon to be greater or less, according to the things that are willed in it, and the benefit received by them: and on this account, God is said to love some of his Creatures more than others, in that he hath done more for them, and prepared greater blessings to bestow on them. There is a common love of God, in which the whole Creation is a sharer, appearing in his benignity in bestowing on them these favours by which they are preserved, supplied, and comforted; to this is to be referred that, Acts 14 17 He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness; and Chap 17 25 He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. But then there is a special love which God hath for some of his Creatures, and that was in appointing, providing, and opening this fountain for them, from which they may derive everlasting life. This therefore is mentioned in the Gospel with an Emphasis, as if it were the only love, 1 Joh. 4 9.
...when God manifesteth his benignity to the Creature, we conceive him, in his so doing, to act as a cause by Counsel, and so ascribe it to his Benevolence, and call it his love. And from this consideration, there is a divers love that is assigned to him, according to the different effects of his good will, discerned in the fruits of his Beneficence to the Subject of it. There is a common love attributed to him, wherein the good and the bad do promiscuously partake; and it appears in that Goodness of his which he confers upon them, wherein he gives them large tastes of his bounty; and to this love we are pointed in, Psal. 145.9. The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works. And Acts 14.17. He left not himself without witness in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And there is an Especial love of his that we are told of, which he bears only to some, and in comparison with which others are said to be hated, according to Rom. 9.13 Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated; and it appears in those peculiar favours which he hath laid in for, and bestows upon them; of which we have such observations, Joh. 3.16. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, &c. 1 Joh. 4 9. In this was the love of God manifested towards us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him...Samuel Willard, Love’s Pedigree. Or A Discourse Shewing the Grace of Love in a Believer to be of A Divine Original (Boston, in N.E.: Printed by B. Green, and J. Allen. Sold by Benjamin Eliot, at his shop under the west end of the town house, 1700), 7–8.
Every true believer is compassed with mercy.Samuel Willard, The Truly Blessed Man: Or, The Way to be Happy Here; and For Ever: Being the Substance of Divers Sermons Preached on Psalm XXXII (Boston in N.E.: Printed by B. Green and J. Allen, for Michael Perry, 1700), 568–70.
DOCTRINE V.
Every true believer is compassed about with the mercy of God. We now come to take notice of the greatness of that mercy which is entailed upon him. The Antithesis is observable: he had said the Sorrows of the wicked are great and many; yet for the present they enjoy much mixture of mercy: but he doth not say great and many are the mercies of the Godly, but they compass him about: q. d. There is nothing but mercy that he shares in: several things may here be enquired into:
1. What mercy it is that compasseth them?
A. It was observed under the former Doctrine that Mercy is of two sorts, Common and Special: the former are called common because good and bad indifferently share in them, Matth. 5. 45. Godly men therefore have their share in these so far as infinite wisdom sees convenient. God will not begrutch[?] to his friends that which he can afford to his enemies; he will not deny that to a Child, if he needs it, which he gives to a Stranger: they are also called common, because they are ordinary inferiour things compared with the other; and so Godly men may well expect that he will not deny to favour them therewithal, as they have occasion for them; he who counts it not too much to bestow the greatest, cannot withold the least, if they want them, Rom. 8. 32. He that spared not his Son, &c. Common also they are called from the principle whence they proceed: there is a Common Benevolence which we ascribe to God, who in the day of his forbearance, allows such things to the vilest of men, though still they are the hated of the Lord: but then there is a peculiar love which he bears to his chosen, which never had beginning, Jer. 31. 3.
And shall never cease, Joh. 13. 1. And thus no mercy is common to a believer, but all that he enjoys proceeds from that fountain of love which hath designed his Salvation, and causeth all to work for good to him, Rom. 8. 28 Whereas all that wicked men enjoy works to their hurt, Psal. 92. 6. This then is the mercy that compasseth the true believer, viz That love of God whereby, pitying them in their miserable state which sin had brought them into, he doth freely, and for his own name sake, bestow grace and glory on them, and all that is good, Psal. 84:11; 103:17. So that all the providences that befall them in their way, as well as the glory they are brought to in the end of it, belong to this mercy, and a Child of God may read love in every passage he meets withal, whatsoever the outward face of it may be.
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