of this love, as long as we remain in the body, is plainly declared
by the apostle, "We love him, because he first loved us." But the
greatest instance of His love had never been given if Adam had not
fallen.

And as our faith, both in God the Father and the Son, receives an
unspeakable increase, if not its very being, from this grand event, as
does also our love both of the Father and the Son: so does the love of
our neighbor also, our benevolence to all mankind: which can not but
increase in the same proportion with our faith and love of God. For
who does not apprehend the force of that inference drawn by the loving
apostle, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one
another." If God so loved us--observe, the stress of the argument lies
on this very point: so loved us! as to deliver up His only Son to die
a curst death for our salvation. "Beloved, what manner of love is
this," wherewith God hath loved us? So as to give His only Son! In
glory equal with the Father: in majesty coeternal! What manner of love
is this wherewith the only begotten Son of God hath loved us, as to
empty Himself, as far as possible, of His eternal Godhead; as to
divest Himself of that glory, which He had with the Father before the
world began; as to take upon Him "the form of a servant, being found
in fashion as a man"! And then to humble Himself still further, "being
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"! If God so loved us,
how ought we to love one another? But this motive to brotherly love
had been totally wanting if Adam had not fallen. Consequently we could
not then have loved one another in so high a degree as we may now.
Nor could there have been that height and depth in the command of our
blest Lord. "As I have loved you, so love one another."

Such gainers may we be by Adam's fall, with regard both to the love of