If Love did not Reign to Heaven, and Grace abound to Sinners....

"Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the LORD our God." -Jeremiah 3:22 [KJV]

Peter was an awful backslider: his crimes deserved hell: so do yours and mine. Both he and we should be sent there, if love did not reign in heaven, and grace abound to sinners on earth. One look of love from Christ broke Peter’s heart, made him weep bitterly, and return to a crucified Saviour earnestly. A bone broken and set, is stronger than it was before. This I am sure of, a heart broken by forgiving love, grows stronger in love: having much forgiven, we love much. I have often thought, fresh love added speed to Peter’s feet, when he ran to the sepulchre, to see his dear, his crucified Lord (John 20:4.) 

See the happy effects of loving speeches and gracious words from a loving Lord. We saw the backsliding children arraigned, and their conduct condemned, in our last meditation. What was the sentence passed on them? Was it “Go ye cursed, vile wretches! ye have gone from Me in your ways: now I will be glorified in your damnation?” No! 

Break, hard heart; melt, O frozen soul; bow, stubborn knee, and be as sinews of a new-born babe: for love, everlasting— immutable love lives; sovereign, unmerited grace proclaims, Return, ye backsliding children, (children still! O matchless grace!) and I will heal your backslidings. What say gracious hearts to this? 

Do they reply, “O! this is fine doctrine. Come, let us continue to go on, to enjoy the world and sin, and delight ourselves in our happy distance from God?” O, no: this is the language of hell-born, free-will pride. If left to that, so they would act: but a spark of free grace within us, catches fire from gracious words without; and therefore it is, Behold! see the effects of the Lord’s rich grace and precious love. 

Like fire, it melts down our hard hearts; makes us lament our base conduct; affects us with the deepest sense of sin; inspires our souls with a hope of mercy and assurance of pardon: and, therefore, “we come unto Thee.” Here we see the actings of a holy faith in the heart. It works by love; by the loving declarations of a gracious Father and dear Redeemer. 

It works love in the heart; and it works by love in returning to God: here is the joyful claim of faith. “For (O precious cause!) Thou art the Lord our God.” Were it not so, Thou couldst never have borne with our vile conduct; never have had a thought of mercy nor a look of love towards us. O! let covenant love and faithfulness ever bind our hearts to Thee; that we may never more depart from Thee; pervert our way before Thee; or ever forget Thee, O Jehovah, Father, Son, and Spirit! our one God in Trinity. When we the sacred truth believe, Of God’s great love in Christ, Our souls to Him return and live; And thus, by grace, we’re blest.

-preacher William Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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