The effect or manner of God’s love is, that God makes the person happy whom he loves. For he doth amply reward that joy and delight which he takes in the holiness and obedience of the Elect, while he pours plentifully upon them all gifts, both of grace and of glory [1 John 4:16; John 3:35; Rom 5:8; Mal. 1:2]. This love of God to the elect is (1) Free, Hos. 5:15. He was moved with nothing but his own goodness [1 John 4:10, 19]. (2) Sure, firm, and unchangeable, Rom. 5:8, 10; 1 John 4:10; John 13:1 and 13:3. Infinite and Eternal, which shall never alter, John 3:16. (3) Effectual, as is declared both by his temporal and eternal blessings, 1 John 3:1. (4) Great and ardent, John 3:16 and 15:13; Rom. 5:6, 7. God bestows pledges of his love and favor upon them whom he has chosen, and sometimes he sheds the sense of his love abroad in their hearts [cf. Rom. 5:5; 8:1, 2]

—Edward Leigh, A Treatise Of Divinity Consisting Of Three Books (London, 1646), II.viii quoted in Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; Volume 3: The Divine Essence and Attributes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 568.