God are nothing else but the effluxes of his goodness, distinguished by
several names, according to the objects it is exercised about. As the
sea, though it be one mass of water, yet we distinguish it by several
names, according to the shores it washeth, and beats upon; as the
British and German Ocean, though all be one sea. When Moses longed
to see his glory, God tells him, he would give him a prospect of his
goodness (Ex. xxxiii. 19): “I will make {b220} all my goodness to pass
before thee.” His goodness is his glory and Godhead, as much as is
delightfully visible to his creatures, and whereby he doth benefit
man: “I will cause my goodness,” or “comeliness,” as Calvin renders it,
“to pass before thee;” what is this, but the train of all his lovely
perfections springing from his goodness? the whole catalogue of mercy,
grace, long‑suffering, abundance of truth, summed up in this one word
(Ex. xxxiv. 6). All are streams from this fountain; he could be none of
this, were he not first good. When it confers happiness without merit,
it is grace; when it bestows happiness against merit, it is mercy; when
he bears with provoking rebels, it is long‑suffering; when he performs
his promise, it is truth; when it meets with a person to whom it is
not obliged, it is grace; when he meets with a person in the world,
to which he hath obliged himself by promise, it is truth;[958] when
it commiserates a distressed person, it is pity; when it supplies an
indigent person, it is bounty; when it succors an innocent person, it
is righteousness; and when it pardons a penitent person, it is mercy;
all summed up in this one name of goodness; and the Psalmist expresseth
the same sentiment in the same words (Ps. cxlv. 7, 8): “They shall
abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of
thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow
to anger, and of great mercy; the Lord is good to all, and his tender
mercies are over his works.” He is first good, and then compassionate.
Righteousness is often in Scripture taken, not for justice, but
charitableness; this attribute, saith one,[959] is so full of God,
that it doth deify all the rest, and verify the adorableness of him.
His wisdom might contrive against us, his power bear too hard upon us;
one might be too hard for an ignorant, and the other too mighty for
an impotent creature; his holiness would scare an impure and guilty
creature, but his goodness conducts them all for us, and makes them all
amiable to us; whatever comeliness they have in the eye of a creature,
whatever comfort they afford to the heart of a creature, we are obliged
for all to his goodness. This puts all the rest upon a delightful
exercise; this makes his wisdom design for us, and this makes his power
to act for us; this veils his holiness from affrighting us, and this
spirits his mercy to relieve us: all his acts towards man, are but the
workmanship of this.[960] What moved him at first to create the world
out of nothing, and erect so noble a creature as man, endowed with such
excellent gifts; was it not his goodness? what made him separate his
Son to be a sacrifice for us, after we had endeavored to rase out the
first marks of his favor; was it not a strong bubbling of goodness?
What moves him to reduce a fallen creature to the due sense of his
duty, and at last bring him to an eternal felicity; is it not, only
his goodness? This is the captain attribute that leads the rest to
act. This attends them, and spirits them in all his ways of acting.
This is the complement and perfection of all his works; had it not
been for this, which set all the rest on work, nothing of his wonders
had been seen in creation, nothing of his compassions had been seen in
redemption.
{b221} II. The second thing is, some propositions to explain the nature
of this goodness.
1. He is good by his own essence. God is not only good in his essence,
but good by his essence; the essence of “every created being is good;”
so the unerring God pronounced everything which he had made (Gen. i.
31). The essence of the worst creatures, yea, of the impure and savage
devils, is good; but they are not good _per essentiam_, for then they
could not be bad, malicious, and oppressive. God is good, as he is God;
and therefore good by himself, and from himself, not by participation
from another; he made everything good, but none made him good; since
his goodness was not received from another, he is good by his own
nature. He could not receive it from the things he created, they are
later than he; since they received all from him, they could bestow
nothing on him; and no God preceded him, in whose inheritance and
treasures of goodness, he could be a successor; he is absolutely his
own goodness, he needed none to make him good; but all things needed
him, to be good by him. Creatures are good by being made so by him, and
cleaving to him; he is good without cleaving to any goodness without
him. Goodness is not a quality in him, but a nature; not a habit added
to his essence, but his essence itself; he is not first God, and then
afterwards good; but he is good as he is God; his essence, being one
and the same, is formally and equally God and good.[961] Αὐτάγαθον,
“good of himself,” was one of the names the Platonists gave him. He
is essentially good in his own nature, and not by any outward action
which follows his essence. He is an independent Being, and hath nothing
of goodness or happiness from anything without him, or anything he
doth act about. If he were not good by his essence, he could not be
eternally good, he could not be the first good; he would have something
before him, from whence he derived that goodness wherewith he is
possessed; nor could he be perfectly good, for he could not be equally
good to that from whom he derived his goodness; no star, no splendid
body, that derives light from the sun, doth equal that sun by which it
is enlightened. Hence his goodness must be infinite, and circumscribed
by no limits; the exercise of his goodness may be limited by himself;
but his goodness, the principle, cannot; for since his essence is
infinite, and his goodness is not distinguished from his essence, it is
infinite also; if it were limited, it were finite; he cannot be bounded
by anything without him; if so, then he were not God, because he would
have something superior to him, to put bars in his way; if there were
anything to fix him, it must be a good or evil being; good it cannot
be, for it is the property of goodness to encourage goodness, not to
bound it; evil it cannot be, for then it would extinguish goodness,
as well as limit it; it would not be content with the circumscribing
it, without destroying it; for it is the nature of every contrary, to
endeavor the destruction of its opposite. He is essentially good by his
own essence; therefore, good of himself; therefore, eternally good; and
therefore, abundantly good.
2. God is the prime and chief goodness. Being good _per se_, and
{b222} by his own essence, he must needs be the chief goodness, in
whom there can be nothing but good, from whom there can proceed nothing
but good, to whom all good whatsoever must be referred, as the final
cause of all good. As he is the chief Being, so he is the chief good;
and as we rise by steps from the existence of created things, to
acknowledge one Supreme Being, which is God, so we mount by steps from
the consideration of the goodness of created things, to acknowledge
one Infinite Ocean of sovereign goodness, whence the streams of
created goodness are derived. When we behold things that partake of
goodness from another, we must acquiesce in one that hath goodness by
participation from no other, but originally from himself, and therefore
supremely in himself above all other things: so that, as nothing
greater and more majestic can be imagined, so also nothing better and
more excellent can be conceived than God. Nothing can add to him, or
make him better than he is; nothing can detract from him, to make him
worse; nothing can be added to him, nothing can be severed from him; no
created good can render him more excellent; no evil, from any creature,
can render him less excellent; “our goodness extends not to him” (Ps.
xvi. 2); “wickedness may hurt a man, as we are, and our righteousness
may profit the son of man; but, if we be righteous, what give we to
Him, or what receives he at our hands” (Job xxxv. 7, 8)? as he hath no
superior in place above him, so, being chief of all, he cannot be made
better by any inferior to him. How can he be made better by any that
hath from himself all that he hath? The goodness of a creature may be
changed, but the goodness of the Creator is immutable; he is always
like himself, so good that he cannot be evil, as he is so blessed that
he cannot be miserable. Nothing is good but God, because nothing is
of itself but God; as all things, being from nothing, are nothing
in comparison of God, so all things, being from nothing, are scanty
and evil in comparison of God. If anything had been, _ex Deo_, God
being the matter of it, it had been as good as God is; but since
the principle, whence all things were drawn, was nothing, though the
efficient cause by which they were extracted from nothing was God, they
are as nothing in goodness, and not estimable in comparison of God (Ps.
lxxiii. 25): “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” &c. God is all good;
every creature hath a distinct variety of goodness: God distinctly
pronounced every day’s work in the creation “good.” Food communicates
the goodness of its nourishing virtue to our bodies; flowers the
goodness of their odors to our smell; every creature a goodness of
comeliness to our sight; plants the goodness of healing qualities
for our cure; and all derive from themselves a goodness of knowledge,
objectively to our understandings. The sun, by one sort of goodness,
warms us; metals enrich us; living creatures sustain us, and delight
us by another; all those have distinct kinds of goodness, which are
eminently summed up in God, and are all but parts of his immense
goodness. It is he that enlightens us by his sun, nourisheth us by
bread (Matt. iv. 4): “It is not by bread alone that we live, but by
the word of God.” It is all but his own supreme goodness, conveyed to
us through those varieties of conduit‑pipes. “God is all good;” other
things are good in {b223} their kind; as, a good man, a good angel,
a good tree, a good plant; but God hath a good of all kinds eminently
in his nature. He is no less all‑good, than he is almighty, and
all‑knowing; as the sun contains in it all the light, and more light
than is in all the clearest bodies in the world, so doth God contain in
himself all the good, and more good than is in the richest creatures.
Nothing is good, but as it resembles him; as nothing is hot, but as it
resembles fire, the prime subject of heat. God is omnipotent, therefore
no good can be wanting to him. If he were destitute of any which he
could not have, he were not almighty: he is so good, that there is no
mixture of anything which can be called not good in him; everything
besides him wants some good, which others have. Nothing can be so
evil as God is good. There can be no evil but there is some mixture of
good with it; no nature so evil but there is some spark of goodness in
it: but God is a good which hath no taint of evil; nothing can be so
supreme an evil as God is supreme goodness. He is only good, without
capacity of increase; he is all good, and unmixedly good; none good but
God: a goodness, like the sun, that hath all light, and no darkness.
That is the second thing; he is the supreme and chief goodness.
3. This goodness is communicative. None so communicatively good as
God. As the notion of God includes goodness, so the notion of goodness
includes diffusiveness; without goodness he would cease to be a Deity,
and without diffusiveness he would cease to be good. The being good is
necessary to the being God; for goodness is nothing else, in the notion
of it, but a strong inclination to do good; either to find or make an
object, wherein to exercise itself, according to the propension of its
own nature; and it is an inclination of communicating itself, not for
its own interest, but the good of the object it pitcheth upon. Thus
God is good by nature; and his nature is not without activity; he acts
conveniently to his own nature (Ps. cxix. 68): “Thou art good, and dost
good.” And nothing accrues to him, by the communications of himself
to others, since his blessedness was as great before the frame of any
creature as ever it was since the erecting of the world; so that the
goodness of Christ himself increaseth not the lustre of his happiness
(Ps. xvi. 2): “My goodness extends not to thee.” He is not of a
niggardly and envious nature; he is too rich to have any cause to envy,
and too good to have any will to envy; he is as liberal as he is rich,
according to the capacity of the object about which his goodness is
exercised. The Divine goodness, being the supreme goodness, is goodness
in the highest degree of activity; not an idle, enclosed, pent up
goodness, as a spring shut up, or a fountain sealed, bubbling up within
itself, but bubbling out of itself: a fountain of gardens to water
every part of his creation; “He is an ointment poured forth” (Cant. i.
3): nothing spreads itself more than oil, and takes up a larger space
wheresoever it drops. It may be no less said of the goodness of God,
as it is of the fulness of Christ (Eph. i. 23); “He fills all in all:”
he fills rational creatures with understanding, sensitive nature with
vigor and motion, the whole world with beauty and sweetness. Every
taste, every touch of a creature, is a taste and {b224} touch of Divine
goodness. Divine goodness offers itself in one spark in this creature,
in another spark in the other creature, and altogether make up a
goodness inconceivable by any creature. The whole mass, and extracted
spirit of it, is infinitely short of the goodness of the Divine nature,
imperfect shadows of that goodness which is in himself. Indeed, the
more excellent anything is, the more nobly it acts; how remotely doth
light, that excellent brightness of the creation, disperse itself! How
doth that glorious creature, which God hath set in the heavens, spread
its wings over heaven and earth, roll itself about the world, cast
its beams upward and downward, insinuate into all corners, pierce the
depths, and shoot up its rays into the heights, encircle the higher and
lower creatures in its arms, reach out its communications to influence
everything under the earth, as well as dart its beams of light and
heat on things above, or upon the earth! “Nothing is hid from it” (Ps.
xix. 6); not from its power, nor from its sweetness. How communicative
also is water, a necessary and excellent creature! How active is it
in a river, to nourish the living creatures engendered in its womb!
refresheth every shore it runs by; promotes the propagation of fruits
for the nourishment, and bestows a verdure upon the ground, for the
delight of man; and where it cannot reach the higher ground in its
substance, it doth by its vapors, mounted up and concocted by the sun,
and gently distilled upon the earth, for the opening its womb to bring
forth its fruits. God is more prone to communicate himself, than the
sun to spread its wings, or the earth to mount up its fruits, or the
water to multiply living creatures.[962] Goodness is his nature. Hence
were there internal communications of himself from eternity; diffusions
of himself, without himself, in time, in the creation of the world,
like a full vessel running over. He created the world that he might
impart his goodness to something without him, and diffuse larger
measures of his goodness, after he had laid the first foundation of
it in his being; and therefore he created several sorts of creatures,
that they might be capable of various and distinct measures of his
liberality, according to the distinct capacities of their nature, but
imparted most to the rational creature, because that is only capable
of an understanding to know him, and will to embrace him. He is the
highest goodness, and therefore a communicative goodness, and acts
excellently according to his nature.
4. God is necessarily good. None is necessarily good but God; he
is as necessarily good, as he is necessarily God. His goodness is as
inseparable from his nature as his holiness. He is good by nature, not
only by will; as he is holy by nature, not only by will, he is good
in his nature, and good in his actions; and as he cannot be bad in his
nature, so he cannot be bad in his communications; he can no more act
contrary to this goodness in any of his actions, than he can un‑God
himself. It is not necessary that God should create a world; he was at
his own choice whether he would create or no; but when he resolves to
make a world, it is necessary that he should make it good, because he
is goodness itself, and cannot act against his own nature. He could not
create anything without goodness in the very {b225} act; the very act
of creation, or communicating being to anything without himself, is in
itself an act of goodness, as well as an act of power; had he not been
good in himself, nothing could have been endued with any goodness by
him. In the act of giving being, he is liberal; the being he bestows is
a displaying his own liberality; he could not confer what he needs not,
and which could not be deserved, without being bountiful; since what
was nothing, could not merit to be brought into being, the very act
of giving to nothing a being, was an act of choice goodness. He could
not create anything without goodness as the motive, and the necessary
motive; his goodness could not necessitate him to make the world, but
his goodness could only move him to resolve to make a world; he was not
bound to erect and fashion it because of his goodness, but he could not
frame it without his goodness as the moving cause. He could not create
anything, but he must create it good. It had been inconsistent with
the supreme goodness of his nature, to have created only murderous,
ravenous, injurious creatures; to have created a bedlam rather than
a world: a mere heap of confusion would have been as inconsistent
with his Divine goodness, as with his Divine wisdom. Again, when
his goodness had moved him to make a creature, his goodness would
necessarily move him to be beneficial to his creature; not that this
necessity results from any merit in the creature, which he had framed;
but from the excellency and diffusiveness of his own nature, and
his own glory; the end for which he formed it, which would have
been obscure, yea, nothing, without some degrees of his bounty. What
occasion of acknowledgments and praise could the creature have for
its being, if God had given him only a miserable being, while it was
innocent in action? The goodness of God would not suffer him to make a
creature, without providing conveniences for it, so long as he thought
good to maintain its being, and furnishing it with that which was
necessary to answer that end for which he created it; and his own
nature would not suffer him to be unkind to his rational creature,
while it was innocent. It had been injustice to inflict evil upon the
creature, that had not offended, and had no relation to an offending
creature; the nature of God could not have brought forth such an act:
and, therefore, some say, that God, after he had created man, could
not presently annihilate him, and take away his life and being.[963]
As a sovereign, he might do it; as Almighty, he was able to do it, as
well as create him; but in regard of his goodness, he could not morally
do it: for had he annihilated man as soon as ever he had made him,
he had not made man for himself, and for his own glory; to be loved,
worshipped, sought, and acknowledged by him. He would not then have
been the end of man; he had created him in vain, and the world in vain,
which he assures us he did not (Isa. xlv. 18, 19). And, certainly,
if the gifts of God be without repentance, man could not have been
annihilated after his creation, without repentance in God, without any
cause, had not sin entered into the world. If God did not say to man,
after sin had made its entrance into the world, “Seek ye me in vain,”
he could not, because of his goodness, have said so to man in his
innocence. {b226} As God is necessarily mind, so he is necessarily will;
as he is necessarily knowing, so he is necessarily loving. He could
not be blessed, if he did not know himself, and his own perfection;
nor good, if he did not delight in himself, and his own perfections.
And this goodness whereby he delights in himself, is the source of his
delight in his creatures, wherein he sees the footsteps of himself.
If he loves himself, he cannot but love the resemblance of himself,
and the image of his own goodness. He loves himself, because he is the
highest goodness and excellency; and loves everything as it resembles
himself, because it is an efflux of his own goodness; and as he
doth necessarily love himself, and his own excellency, so he doth
necessarily love anything that resembles that excellency, which is the
primary object of his esteem. But,
5. Though he be necessarily good, yet he is also freely good. The
necessity of the goodness of his nature hinders not the liberty of
his actions; the matter of his acting is not at all necessary, but the
manner of his acting in a good and bountiful way, is necessary, as well
as free.[964] He created the world and man freely, because he might
choose whether he would create it, but he created them good necessarily,
because he was first necessarily good in his nature, before he
was freely a Creator. When he created man, he freely gave him a
positive law, but necessarily a wise and righteous law; because he was
necessarily wise, and righteous, before he was freely a Lawgiver. When
he makes a promise, he freely lets the word go out of his lips, but
when he hath made it, he is necessarily a faithful performer; because
he was necessarily true and righteous in his nature, before he was
freely a promiser. God is necessarily good in his nature, but free in
his communications of it; to make him necessarily to communicate his
goodness in the first creation of the creature, would render him but
impotent, good without liberty and without will; if the communications
of it be not free, the eternity of the world must necessarily be
concluded, which some anciently asserted from the naturalness of God’s
goodness, making the world flow from God as light from the sun. God,
indeed, is necessarily good, _affectivé_ in regard of his nature,
but freely good, _affectivé_, in regard of the effluxes of it to this
or that particular subject he pitcheth on. He is not so necessarily
communicative of his goodness as the sun of his light, or a tree of
its cooling shade, that chooseth not its objects, but enlightens all
indifferently, without any variation or distinction; this were to
make God of no more understanding than the sun, to shine not where it
pleaseth, but where it must. He is an understanding agent, and hath a
sovereign right to choose his own subjects; it would not be a supreme
goodness, if it were not a voluntary goodness. It is agreeable to the
nature of the highest good, to be absolutely free, to dispense his
goodness in what methods and measures he pleaseth, according to the
free determinations of his own will, guided by the wisdom of his mind,
and regulated by the holiness of his nature. He is not to “give an
account of any of his matters” (Job xxxiii. 13); “He will have mercy
on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he
will have compassion” (Rom. ix. 15); {b227} and he will be good, to
whom he will be good; when he doth act, he cannot but act well, so it
is necessary; yet he may act this good or that good, to this or that
degree, so it is free. As it is the perfection of his nature, it is
necessary; as it is the communication of his bounty, it is voluntary.
The eye cannot but see if it be open, yet it may glance upon this or
that color, fix upon this or that object, as it is conducted by the
will. God necessarily loves himself, because he is good, yet not by
constraint, but freedom; because his affection to himself is from a
knowledge of himself. He necessarily loves his own image, because it
is his image; yet freely, because not blindly, but from motions of
understanding and will. What necessity could there be upon him, to
resolve to communicate his goodness? It could not be to make himself
better by it, for he had a goodness incapable of any addition; he
confers a goodness on his creatures, but reaps not a harvest of
goodness to his own essence from his creatures. What obligation could
there be from the creature, to confer a goodness on him to this or that
degree, for this or that duration? If he had not created a man, nor
angel, he had done them no wrong; if he had given them only a simple
being, he had manifested a part of his goodness, without giving them a
right to challenge any more of him; if he had taken away their beings
after a time when he had answered his end, he had done them no injury:
for what law obliged him to enrich them, and leave them in that being
wherein he had invested them, but his sole goodness? Whatever sparks
of goodness any creature hath, are the free effusions of God’s bounty,
the offspring of his own inclination to do well, the simple favor
of the donor; not purchased, not merited by the creature. God is as
unconstrained in his liberty, in all his communications, as infinite
in his goodness, the fountain of them.