our beauty and our life, without it what communion can an excellent
God have with deformed creatures; a living God with dead creatures?
“Without holiness none shall see God” (Heb. xii. 14). The creature must
be stripped of his unrighteousness, or God of his purity, before they
can come together. Likeness is the ground of communion, and of delight
in it: the opposition between God and unholy souls is as great as that
between “light and darkness” (1 John i. 6). Divine fruition is not so
much by a union of presence as a union of nature. Heaven is not so much
an outward as an inward life; the foundation of glory is laid in grace;
a resemblance to God is our vital happiness, without which the vision
of God would not be so much as a cloudy and shadowy happiness, but
rather a torment than a felicity; unless we be of a like nature to God,
we cannot have a pleasing fruition of him. Some philosophers think that
if our bodies were of the same nature with the heavens, of an ethereal
substance, the nearness to the sun would cherish, not scorch us. Were
we partakers of a Divine nature, we might enjoy God with delight;
whereas, remaining in our unlikeness to him, we cannot think of him,
and approach to him without terror. As soon as sin had stripped man
of the image of God, he was an exile from the comfortable presence of
God, unworthy for God to hold any correspondence with: he can no more
delight in a defiled person than a man can take a toad into intimate
converse with him; he would hereby discredit his own nature, and
justify our impurity. The holiness of a creature only prepares him for
an eternal conjunction with God in glory. Enoch’s walking with God was
the cause of his being so soon wafted to the place of a full fruition
of him; he hath as much delight in such as in heaven itself; one is his
habitation as well as the other; the one is his habitation of glory,
and the other is the house of his pleasure: if he dwell in Zion, it
must be a “holy mountain” (Joel iii. 17), and the members of Zion must
be upheld in their rectitude and integrity before they be “set before
the face of God forever” (Ps. xli. 12). Such are styled his jewels, his
portion, as if he lived upon them, as a man upon his inheritance. As
God cannot delight in us, so neither can we delight in God without
it. We must purify ourselves “as he is pure,” if we expect to “see him
as he is,” in the comfortable glory and beauty of his nature (1 John
iii. 2, 3), else the sight of God would be terrible and troublesome:
we cannot be satisfied with the likeness of God at the resurrection,
unless we have a righteousness {b205} wherewith to “behold his face”
(Ps. xvii. 15). It is a vain imagination in any to think that heaven
can be a place of happiness to him, in whose eye the beauty of holiness
which fills and adorns it, is an unlovely thing; or that any can have
a satisfaction in that Divine purity which is loathsome to him in the
imitations of it. We cannot enjoy him, unless we resemble him; nor take
any pleasure in him, if we were with him, without something of likeness
to him. Holiness fits us for communion with God.
(6.) We can have no evidence of our election and adoption without it.
Conformity to God, in purity, is the fruit of electing love (Eph. i. 4);
“He hath chosen us that we should be holy.” The goodness of the fruit
evidenceth the nature of the root: this is the seal that assures us the
patent is the authentic grant of the Prince. Whatsoever is holy, speaks
itself to be from God; and whosoever is holy, speaks himself to belong
to God. This is the only evidence that “we are born of God” (1 John ii.
29). The subduing our souls to him, the forming us into a resemblance
to himself, is a more certain sign we belong to him, than if we had,
with Isaiah, seen his glory in the vision, with all his train of angels
about him. This justifies us to be the seed of God, when he hath, as it
were, taken a slip from his own purity, and engrafted it in our spirits:
he can never own us for his children without his mark, the stamp of
holiness. The devil’s stamp is none of God’s badge. Our spiritual
extraction from him is but pretended, unless we do things worthy of
so illustrious a birth, and becoming the honor of so great a Father:
what evidence can we else have of any child‑like love to God, since the
proper act of love is to imitate the object of our affections? And that
we may be in some measure like to God in this excellent perfection.
1st. Let us be often viewing and ruminating on the holiness of God,
especially as discovered in Christ. It is by a believing meditation
on him, that we are “changed into the same image” (2 Cor. iii. 18).
We can think often of nothing that is excellent in the world, but
it draws our faculties to some kind of suitable operation; and why
should not such an excellent idea of the holiness of God in Christ
perfect our understandings, and awaken all the powers of our souls to
be formed to actions worthy of him? A painter employed in the limning
some excellent piece, has not only his pattern before his eyes, but his
eye frequently upon the pattern, to possess his fancy to draw forth an
exact resemblance. He that would express the image of God, must imprint
upon his mind the purity of his nature; cherish it in his thoughts,
that the excellent beauty of it may pass from his understanding to his
affections, and from his affections to his practice. How can we arise
to a conformity to God in Christ, whose most holy nature we seldom
glance upon, and more rarely sink our souls into the depths of it by
meditation! Be frequent in the meditation of the holiness of God.
2d. Let us often exercise ourselves in acts of love to God, because
of this perfection. The more adoring thoughts we have of God, the more
delightfully we shall aspire to, and more ravishingly catch after,
anything that may promote the more full draught of his Divine image in
our hearts. What we intensely affect, we desire to {b206} be as near
to as we can, and to be that very thing, rather than ourselves. All
imitations of others arise from an intense love to their persons or
excellency. When the soul is ravished with this perfection of God, it
will desire to be united with it; to have it drawn in it, more than
to have its own being continued to it: it will desire and delight
in its own being, in order to this heavenly and spiritual work. The
impressions of the nature of God upon it, and the imitations of the
nature of God by it, will be more desirable than any natural perfection
whatsoever. The will in loving is rendered like the object beloved;
is turned into its nature,[940] and imbibes its qualities. The soul,
by loving God, will find itself more and more transformed into the
Divine image; whereas, slighted ensamples are never thought worthy of
imitation.
3d. Let us make God our end. Every man’s mind forms itself to a
likeness to that which it makes its chief end. An earthly soul is as
drossy as the earth he gapes for; an ambitious soul is as elevated
as the honor he reaches at; the same characters that are upon the
thing aimed at, will be imprinted upon the spirit of him that aims at
it. When God and his glory are made our end, we shall find a silent
likeness pass in upon us; the beauty of God will by degrees enter upon
our souls.
4th. In every deliberate action, let us reflect upon the Divine
purity as a pattern. Let us examine whether anything we are prompted
unto bear an impression of God upon it; whether it looks like a thing
that God himself would do in that case, were he in our natures and
in our circumstances. See whether it hath the livery of God upon it,
how congruous it is to his nature; whether, and in what manner, the
holiness of God can be glorified thereby; and let us be industrious
in all this; for can such an imitation be easy which is resisted by
the constant assaults of the flesh, which is discouraged by our own
ignorance, and depressed by our faint and languishing desires after
it? O! happy we, if there were such a heart in us!
_Exhort. 4._ If holiness be a perfection belonging to the nature of
God; then, where there is some weak conformity to the holiness of God,
let us labor to grow up in it, and breathe after fuller measures of it.
The more likeness we have to him, the more love we shall have from him.
Communion will be suitable to our imitation; his love to himself in
his essence, will cast out beams of love to himself in his image. If
God loves holiness in a lower measure, much more will he love it in a
higher degree, because then his image is more illustrious and beautiful,
and comes nearer to the lively lineaments of his own infinite purity.
Perfection in anything is more lovely and amiable than imperfection in
any state; and the nearer anything arrives to perfection, the further
are those things separated from it which might cool an affection to it.
An increase in holiness is attended with a manifestation of his love
(John xiv. 21): “He that hath my commandments, and keeps them, he it is
that loves me, and he shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him,
and I will manifest myself to him.” It is a testimony of love to God,
and God will not be behind‑hand with the creature in kindness; {b207}
he loves a holy man for some resemblance to him in his nature; but when
there is an abounding in sanctified dispositions suitable to it, there
is an increase of favor; the more we resemble the original, the more
shall we enjoy the blessedness of that original: as any partake more of
the Divine likeness, they partake more of the Divine happiness.
_Exhort. 5._ Let us carry ourselves holily, in a spiritual manner, in
all our religious approaches to God (Ps. xciii. 5); “Holiness becomes
thy house, O Lord, for ever.” This attribute should work in us a deep
and reverential respect to God. This is the reason rendered why we
should “worship at his footstool,” in the lowest posture of humility
prostrate before him, because “he is holy” (Ps. xcix. 5). Shoes must
be put off from our feet (Exod. iii. 5), that is, lusts from our
affections, everything that our souls are clogged and bemired with,
as the shoe is with dirt. He is not willing we should offer to him an
impure soul, mired hearts, rotten carcasses, putrefied in vice, rotten
in iniquity; our services are to be as free from profaneness, as the
sacrifices of the law were to be free from sickliness or any blemish.
Whatsoever is contrary to his purity, is abhorred by him, and unlovely
in his sight; and can meet with no other success at his hands, but a
disdainful turning away both of his eye and ear (Isa. i. 15). Since he
is an immense purity, he will reject from his presence, and from having
any communion with him, all that which is not conformable to him; as
light chases away the darkness of the night, and will not mix with it.
If we “stretch out” our “hands towards him,” we must “put iniquity far
away from us” (Job xi. 13, 14); the fruits of all service will else
drop off to nothing. “Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be
pleasant to the Lord:” when? when the heart is purged by Christ sitting
as a “purifier of silver” (Mal. iii. 3, 4). Not all the incense of the
Indies yield him so sweet a savor, as one spiritual act of worship from
a heart estranged from the vileness of the world, and ravished with an
affection to, and a desire of imitating, the purity of his nature.
_Exhort. 6._ Let us address for holiness to God, the fountain of it. As
he is the author of bodily life in the creature, so he is the author of
his own life, the life of God in the soul. By his holiness he makes men
holy, as the sun by his light enlightens the air. He is not only the
Holy One, but our Holy One (Isa. xliii. 15); “The Lord that sanctifies
us” (Levit. xx. 8). As he hath mercy to pardon us, so he hath holiness
to purify us, the excellency of being a sun to comfort us, and a shield
to protect us, giving “grace and glory” (Ps. lxxiv. 11). Grace whereby
we may have communion with him to our comfort, and strength against our
spiritual enemies for our defence; grace as our preparatory to glory,
and grace growing up till it ripen in glory. He only can mould us into
a Divine frame; the great original can only derive the excellency of
his own nature to us. We are too low, too lame, to lift up ourselves
to it; too much in love with our own deformity, to admit of this beauty
without a heavenly power inclining our desires for it, our affections
to it, our willingness to be partakers of it. He can as soon set the
beauty of holiness in {b208} a deformed heart, as the beauty of harmony
in a confused mass, when he made the world. He can as soon cause the
light of purity to rise out of the darkness of corruption, as frame
glorious spirits out of the insufficiency of nothing. His beauty doth
not decay; he hath as much in himself now as he had in his eternity;
he is as ready to impart it, as he was at the creation; only we must
wait upon him for it, and be content to have it by small measures and
degrees. There is no fear of our sanctification, if we come to him as
a God of holiness, since he is a God of peace, and the breach made by
Adam is repaired by Christ (1 Thess. v. 23): “And the very God of peace
sanctify you wholly,” &c. He restores the sanctifying Spirit which
was withdrawn by the fall, as he is a God pacified, and his holiness
righted by the Redeemer. The beauty of it appears in its smiles upon
a man in Christ, and is as ready to impart itself to the reconciled
creature, as before justice was to punish the rebellious one. He loves
to send forth the streams of this perfection into created channels,
more than any else. He did not design the making the creature so
powerful as he might, because power is not such an excellency in his
own nature, but as it is conducted and managed by some other excellency.
Power is indifferent, and may be used well or ill, according as the
possessor of it is righteous or unrighteous. God makes not the creature
so powerful as he might, but he delights to make the creature that
waits upon him as holy as it can be; beginning it in this world, and
ripening it in the other. It is from him we must expect it, and from
him that we must beg it, and draw arguments from the holiness of his
nature, to move him to work holiness in our spirits; we cannot have a
stronger plea. Purity is the favorite of his own nature, and delights
itself in the resemblances of it in the creature. Let us also go to God,
to preserve what he hath already wrought and imparted. As we cannot
attain it, so we cannot maintain it without him. God gave it Adam,
and he lost it; when God gives it us, we shall lose it without his
influencing and preserving grace; the channel will be without a stream,
if the fountain do not bubble it forth; and the streams will vanish, if
the fountain doth not constantly supply them. Let us apply ourselves to
him for holiness, as he is a God glorious in holiness; by this we honor
God, and advantage ourselves.
{b209} DISCOURSE XII.
ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.
MARK x. 18.――And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good?
There is none good but one, that is, God.
THE words are part of a reply of our Saviour to the young man’s
petition to him: a certain person came in haste, “running” as being
eager for satisfaction, to entreat his directions, what he should do to
inherit everlasting life; the person is described only in general (ver.
17), “There came one,” a certain man: but Luke describes him by his
dignity (Luke xviii. 18), “A certain ruler;” one of authority among the
Jews. He desires of him an answer to a legal question, “What he should
do?” or, as Matthew hath it, “What good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life” (Matt. xix. 16)? He imagined everlasting felicity
was to be purchased by the works of the law; he had not the least
sentiments of faith: Christ’s answer implies, there was no hopes of the
happiness of another world by the works of the law, unless they were
perfect, and answerable to every divine precept. He doth not seem to
have any ill, or hypocritical intent in his address to Christ; not to
tempt him, but to be instructed by him. He seems to come with an ardent
desire, to be satisfied in his demand; he performed a solemn act of
respect to him, he kneeled to him, γονυπετήσας, prostrated himself
upon the ground; besides, Christ is said (ver. 21) to love him, which
had been inconsistent with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and
thoughts of men, and the abhorrence he had of hypocrites, had he been
only a counterfeit in this question. But the first reply Christ makes
to him, respects the title of “Good Master,” which this ruler gave him
in his salutation.
1st. Some think, that Christ hereby would draw him to an
acknowledgment of him as God; you acknowledge me “good;” how come you
to salute me with so great a title, since you do not afford it to your
greatest doctors? Lightfoot, _in loc._ observes, that the title of
_Rabbi bone_ is not in all the Talmud. You must own me to be God, since
you own me to be “good:” goodness being a title only due, and properly
belonging, to the Supreme Being. If you take me for a common man, with
what conscience can you salute me in a manner proper to God? since no
man is “good,” no, not one, but the heart of man is evil continually.
The Arians used this place, to back their denying the Deity of Christ:
because, say they, he did not acknowledge himself “good,” therefore he
did not acknowledge himself God. But he doth not here deny his Deity,
but reproves {b210} him for calling him good, when he had not yet
confessed him to be more than a man.[941] You behold my flesh, but
you consider not the fulness of my Deity; if you account me “good,”
account me God, and imagine me not to be a simple and a mere man.[942]
He disowns not his own Deity, but allures the young man to a confession
of it. Why callest thou me good, since thou dost not discover any
apprehensions of my being more than a man? Though thou comest with a
greater esteem to me than is commonly entertained of the doctors of the
chair, why dost thou own me to be “good,” unless thou own me to be God?
If Christ had denied himself in this speech to be “good,” he had rather
entertained this person with a frown and a sharp reproof for giving him
a title due to God alone, than have received him with that courtesy and
complaisance as he did.[943] Had he said, there is none “good” but the
Father, he had excluded himself; but in saying, there is none “good”
but God, he comprehends himself.
2d. Others say, that Christ had no intention to draw him to an
acknowledgment of his Deity, but only asserts his divine authority
or mission from God. For which interpretation Maldonat calls Calvin
an Arianizer.[944] He doth not here assert the essence of his Deity,
but the authority of his doctrine; as if he should have said, You do
without ground give me the title of “good,” unless you believe I have
a Divine commission for what I declare and act. Many do think me an
impostor, an enemy of God, and a friend to devils; you must firmly
believe that I am not so, as your rulers report me, but that I am sent
of God, and authorized by him; you cannot else give me the title of
good, but of wicked. And the reason they give for this interpretation,
is, because it is a question, whether any of the apostles understood
him, at this time, to be God, which seems to have no great strength in
it; since not only the devil had publicly owned him to be the “Holy One
of God” (Luke iv. 34), but John the Baptist had borne record, that he
was the “Son of God” (John i. 32, 34); and before this time Peter had
confessed him openly, in the hearing of the rest of the disciples, that
he was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. xvi. 16). But I
think Paræus’ interpretation is best, which takes in both those; either
you are serious or deceitful in this address; if you are serious, why
do you call me “good,” and make bold to fix so great a title upon one
you have no higher thoughts of than a mere man? Christ takes occasion
from hence, to assert God to be only and sovereignly “good:” “There is
none good but God.”[945] God only hath the honor of absolute goodness,
and none but God merits the name of “good.” A heathen could say much
after the same manner; All other things are far from the nature of good;
call none else good but God, for this would be a profane error: other
things are only good in opinion, but have not the true substance of
goodness: he is “good” in a more excellent way than any creature can be
denominated “good.”[946]
1. God is only originally good, good of himself. All created goodness
is a rivulet from this fountain, but Divine goodness hath {b211} no
spring; God depends upon no other for his goodness; he hath it in, and
of, himself: man hath no goodness from himself, God hath no goodness
from without himself: his goodness is no more derived from another than
his being: if we were good by any external thing, that thing must be in
being before him, or after him; if before him, he was not then himself
from eternity; if after him, he was not good in himself from eternity.
The end of his creating things, then, was not to confer a goodness upon
his creatures, but to partake of a goodness from his creatures. God is
good by and in himself, since all things are only good by him; and all
that goodness which is in creatures, is but the breathing of his own
goodness upon them: they have all their loveliness from the same hand
they have their being from. Though by creation God was declared good,
yet he was not made good by any, or by all the creatures. He partakes
of none, but all things partake of him. He is so good, that he gives
all, and receives nothing; only good, because nothing is good but by
him: nothing hath a goodness but from him.
2. God only is infinitely good. A boundless goodness that knows no
limits, a goodness as infinite as his essence, not only good, but best;
not only good, but goodness itself, the supreme inconceivable goodness.
All things else are but little particles of God, small sparks from this
immense flame, sips of goodness to this fountain. Nothing that is good
by his influence can equal him who is good by himself: derived goodness
can never equal primitive goodness. Divine goodness communicates itself
to a vast number of creatures in various degrees; to angels, glorified
spirits, men on earth, to every creature; and when it hath communicated
all that the present world is capable of, there is still less displayed,
than left to enrich another world. All possible creatures are not
capable of exhausting the wealth, the treasures, that Divine bounty is
filled with.
3. God is only perfectly good, because only infinitely good. He is
good without indigence, because he hath the whole nature of goodness,
not only some beams that may admit of increase of degree. As in him is
the whole nature of entity, so in him is the whole nature of excellency.
As nothing hath an absolute perfect being but God, so nothing hath an
absolutely perfect goodness but God; as the sun hath a perfection of
heat in it, but what is warmed by the sun is but imperfectly hot, and
equals not the sun in that perfection of heat wherewith it is naturally
endued. The goodness of God is the measure and rule of goodness in
everything else.
4. God only is immutably good. Other things may be perpetually good by
supernatural power, but not immutably good in their own nature. Other
things are not so good, but they may be bad; God is so good, that he
cannot be bad. It was the speech of a philosopher, that it was a hard
thing to find a good man, yea, impossible; but though it were possible
to find a good man, he would be good but for some moment, or a short
time: for though he should be good at this instant, it was above the
nature of man to continue in a habit of goodness, without going awry
and warping.[947] But “the goodness of God endureth forever” (Ps.
lii. 1). God always glitters in goodness, {b212} as the sun, which
the heathens called the visible image of the Divinity, doth with light.
There is not such a perpetual light in the sun as there is a fulness
of goodness in God; “no variableness” in him, as he is the “Father of
Lights” (James i. 17).
Before I come to the doctrine, that is, the chief scope of the words,
some remarks may be made upon the young man’s question and carriage:
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
1. The opinion of gaining eternal life by the outward observation of
the law, will appear very unsatisfactory to an inquisitive conscience.
This ruler affirmed, and certainly did confidently believe, that he had
fulfilled the law (ver. 20): “All this have I observed from my youth;”
yet he had not any full satisfaction in his own conscience; his heart
misgave, and started upon some sentiments in him, that something else
was required, and what he had done might be too weak, too short to
shoot heaven’s lock for him. And to that purpose he comes to Christ,
to receive instructions for the piecing up whatsoever was defective.
Whosoever will consider the nature of God, and the relation of a
creature, cannot with reason think, that eternal life was of itself
due from God as a recompense to Adam, had he persisted in a state of
innocence. Who can think so great a reward due, for having performed
that which a creature in that relation was obliged to do? Can any man
think another obliged to convey an inheritance of a thousand pounds per
annum upon his payment of a few farthings, unless any compact appears
to support such a conceit? And if it were not to be expected in the
integrity of nature, but only from the goodness of God, how can it be
expected since the revolt of man, and the universal deluge of natural
corruption? God owes nothing to the holiest creature; what he gives is
a present from his bounty, not the reward of the creature’s merit. And
the apostle defies all creatures, from the greatest to the least, from
the tallest angel to the lowest shrub, to bring out any one creature
that hath first given to God (Rom. xi. 35); “Who hath first given
to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again?” The duty of the
creature, and God’s gift of eternal life, is not a bargain and sale.
God gives to the creature, he doth not properly repay; for he that
repays hath received something of an equal value and worth before.
When God crowns angels and men, he bestows upon them purely what is
his own, not what is theirs by merit and and natural obligation: though
indeed, what God gives by virtue of a promise made before, is, upon the
performance of the condition, due by gracious obligation. God was not
indebted to man in innocence, but every man’s conscience may now mind
him that he is not upon the same level as in the state of integrity;
and that he cannot expect anything from God, as the salary of his merit,
but the free gift of Divine liberality. Man is obliged to the practice
of what is good, both from the excellency of the Divine precepts, and
the duty he owes to God; and cannot, without some declaration from
God, hope for any other reward, than the satisfaction of having well
acquitted himself.[948]