Thomas Lye (1621–1684) on the Amiable Christ Begging Sinners to Come to Him

(2.) If the wind do not, let us see whether the sun cannot, prevail. Poor, self-destroying caitiff, look yonder on that amiable Jesus Christ, for a marriage between whom and thy precious soul I am now wooing. Do but observe his condescending willingness to be united to thee.—That great Ahasuerus courts his own captive Esther. The Potter makes suit to his own clay; woos thee, though he wants thee not; is infinitely happy without thee, yet is not, cannot be, satisfied but with thee. Hark how he commands, entreats, begs thee to be reconciled; (2 Cor. 5:20;) swears, and pawns his life upon it, that he desires not thy death; (Ezek. 33:11;) seals this his oath with his blood. And if, after all this, thou art fond of thine own damnation, and hadst rather be at an agreement with hell than with him; see how the brinish tears trickle down his cheeks: (Luke 19:41, 42:) he weeps for thee, that dost not, wilt not, weep for thyself. Nay, after all this obdurate obstinacy, [he] is resolved still to “wait, that he may be gracious;” (Isai. 30:18;) stands yet, and knocks, though his head be wet with rain, and his locks with the dew of the night. (Canticles 5:2.) Fain he would have thee “open the door,” that he may come in and sup with thee, and thou with him. (Rev. 3:20.)

Thomas Lye, “Sermon XVIII: The True Believer’s Union with Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 6:17),” in Puritan Sermons (1659–1689): Being the Morning Exercises at Cripplegate, 6 vols., ed. Samuel Annesley, 5th ed. (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1844–1845; repr., Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 5:299–300.

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All of the men within the broadly Augustinian tradition who use the metaphor of God begging that I have documented so far are the following:

Augustine (Early Church Father), Hugh Latimer (Early English Reformer), Isaac Ambrose (Puritan), Thomas Brooks (Puritan), Daniel Burgess (Puritan), Jeremiah Burroughs (Westminster divine), Richard Baxter (Puritan), Joseph Caryl (Westminster divine), Thomas Case (Puritan), Stephen Charnock (Puritan), John Collinges (Puritan), John Flavel (Puritan), Theophilus Gale (Puritan), William Gearing (Puritan), Andrew Gray (Puritan), William Gurnall (Puritan), Robert Harris (Westminster divine), Nathaniel Heywoood (Puritan), Thomas Larkham (Puritan), Thomas Lye (Puritan), Thomas Manton (Puritan), John Murcot (Puritan), George Newton (Puritan), John Oldfield (Puritan), Anthony Palmer (Puritan), Edward Reynolds (Westminster divine), John Richardson (Puritan), Samuel Rutherford (Westminster divine), John Shower (Puritan), Richard Sibbes (Puritan), Sydrach Simpson (Westminster divine), William Strong (Westminster divine), George Swinnock (Puritan), John Trapp (Puritan), Ralph Venning (Puritan), Nathaniel Vincent (Puritan), Thomas Watson (Puritan), Daniel Williams (Puritan), Samuel Willard, Benjamin Wadsworth, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Samuel Davies, Ralph Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Walter Chantry, Erroll Hulse, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Paul Washer, and Fred Zaspel.