desired to see his glory, God assures him he should see his goodness
(Exod. xxxiii. 18, 19); intimating that his goodness is his glory, and
his glory his delight also. He sends not forth his blessings with an
ill will; he doth not stay till they are squeezed from him; he prevents
men with his blessings of goodness (Ps. xxi. 3); he is most delighted
when he is most diffusive; and his pleasure in bestowing, is larger
than his creature’s in possessing. He is not covetous of his own
treasures. He lays up his goodness in order to laying it out with a
complacency wholly divine. The jealousy princes have of their subjects
makes them sparing of their gifts, for fear of giving them materials
for rebellion: God’s foresight of the ill use men would make of his
benefits damped him not in bestowing his largesses. He is incapable
of envy; his own happiness can no more be diminished, than it can be
increased. None can over‑top him in goodness, because nothing hath any
good but what is derived from him; his gifts are without repentance:
sorrow hath no footing in him, who is infinitely happy, as well as
infinitely good. Goodness and envy are inconsistent. How unjustly, then,
did the devil accuse God! What God gives out of goodness, he gives with
joy and gladness. He did not only will that we should be, but rejoice
that he had brought us into being; he rejoiced in his works (Ps. civ.
31), {b228} and his wisdom stood by him, “delighting in the habitable
parts of the earth” (Prov. viii. 31). He beheld the world after
its creation with a complacency, and still governs it with the same
pleasure wherewith he reviewed it. Infinite cheerfulness attends
infinite goodness. He would not give, if he had not a pleasure that
others should enjoy his goodness; since he is better than anything,
and more communicative than anything; he is more joyful in giving out,
than the sun can be to run its race, in pouring forth light. He is said
only to repent, and grieve, when men answer not the obligations and
ends of his goodness; which would be their own felicity, as well as his
glory. Though he doth not force greater degrees of his goodness upon
those that neglect it, yet he denies them not to those that solicit
him for it: it is always greater pleasure to him to impart upon the
importunities of the creatures, than it is to a mother to reach out
her breast to her crying and longing infant. He is not wearied by the
solicitations of men; he is pleased with their prayers, because he
is pleased with the imparting of his own goodness: he seems to be in
travail with it, longing to be delivered of it into the lap of his
creature. He is as much delighted with petitions for his liberality
in bestowing his best goodness, as princes are weary of the craving
of their subjects. None can be so desirous to squeeze those that are
under them, as God is delighted to enlarge his hand towards them.
It is the nature of his goodness to be glad of men’s solicitations
for it, because they are significant valuations of it, and therefore
fit occasions for him to bestow it. Since he doth not delight in the
unhappiness of any of his creatures, he certainly delights in what may
conduce unto their felicity. He doth with the same delight multiply
the effects of his goodness where his wisdom sees it convenient, as he
beheld the first‑fruits of his goodness with a complacency upon laying
the top‑stone of the creation.
7. The displaying of this goodness was the motive and end of all
his works of creation and providence.[965] God being infinitely wise,
would not act without the highest reason, and for the highest end. The
reason that induced him to create, must be of as great an eminency as
himself: the motive could not be taken without him, because there was
nothing but himself in being; it must be taken, therefore, from within
himself, and from some one of those most excellent perfections whereby
we conceive him. But, upon the exact consideration of all of them,
none can seem to challenge that honor of being the motive of them, to
resolve the setting forth any work, but his own goodness; this being
the first thing manifest in his creation, seems to be the first thing
moving him to a resolution to create. Wisdom may be considered as
directing, power considered as acting, but it is natural to reflect
upon goodness as moving the one to direct, and the other to act.
Power was the principle of his action, wisdom the rule of his action,
goodness the motive of his action; principle and rule are awakened by
the motive, and subservient to the end. That which is the most amiable
perfection in the Divine nature, and that which he first took notice
of, as the footsteps of them, in the distinct view of every day’s work,
and the general view {b229} of the whole frame, seems to claim the
best right to be entitled the motive and end of his creation of things.
God could have no end but himself, because there was nothing besides
himself. Again, the end of every agent is that which he esteems good,
and the best good for that kind of action: since nothing is to be
esteemed good but God, nothing can be the ultimate end of God but
himself, and his own goodness. What a man wills chiefly is his end; but
God cannot will any other thing but himself as his end, because there
is nothing superior to himself in goodness. He cannot will anything
that supremely serves himself and his own goodness as his end; for, if
he did, that which he wills must be superior to himself in goodness,
and then he is not God; or inferior to him in goodness, and then he
would not be righteous, in willing that which is a lower good before
a higher. God cannot will anything as his end of acting, but himself,
without undeifying himself. God’s will being infinitely good, cannot
move for anything but what is infinitely good; and, therefore,
whatsoever God made, he made for himself (Prov. xvi. 4), that
whatsoever he made might bear a badge of this perfection upon it, and
be a discovery of his wonderful goodness: for the making things for
himself doth not signify any indigence in God, that he made anything
to increase his excellency (for that is capable of no addition), but to
manifest his excellency. God possessing everything eminently in himself,
did not create the world for any need he had of it; finite things were
unable to make any accession to that which is infinite. Man, indeed,
builds a house to be a shelter to him against wind and weather, and
makes clothes to secure him from cold, and plants gardens for his
recreation and health. God is above all those little helps; he did not
make the world for himself in such a kind, but for himself, _i. e._
the manifestation of himself and the riches of his nature; not to make
himself blessed, but to discover his own blessedness to his creatures,
and to communicate something of it to them. He did not garnish the
world with so much bounty, that he might live more happily than he did
before, but that his rational creatures might have fit conveniences.
As the end for which God demands the performance of our duty is not for
his own advantage, but for our good (Deut. x. 13), so the end why he
conferred upon us the excellency of such a being was for our good, and
the discovery of his goodness to us; for had not God created the world,
he had been wholly unknown to any but himself; he produced creatures,
that he might be known: as the sun shines not only to discover other
things, but to be seen itself in its beauty and brightness. God would
create things, because he would be known in his glory and liberality;
hence is it that he created intellectual creatures, because without
them the rest of the creation could not be taken notice of: it had been
in some sort in vain; for no nature lower than an understanding nature,
was able to know the marks of God in the creation, and acknowledge him
as God. In this regard, God is good above all creatures, because he
intends only to communicate his goodness in creation, not to acquire
any goodness, or excellency from them, as men do in their framing
of things. God is all, and is destitute of nothing, and, therefore,
nothing accrues to {b230} him by the creation, but the acknowledgment
of his goodness. This goodness, therefore, must be the motive and end
of all his works.
III. The third thing, that God is good.
1. The more excellent anything is in nature, the more of goodness and
kindness it hath. For we see more of love and kindness in creatures
that are endued with sense, to their descendants, than in plants, that
have only a principle of growth. Plants preserve their seeds whole that
are enclosed in them; animals look to their young only after they are
dropped from them; yet, after some time, take no more notice of them
than of a stranger that never had any birth from them. But man, that
hath a higher principle of reason, cherisheth his offspring, and gives
them marks of his goodness while he lives, and leaves not the world at
the time of his death without some testimonies of it: much more must
God, who is a higher principle than sense or reason, be “good” and
bountiful to all his offspring. The more perfect anything is, the more
it doth communicate itself. The sun is more excellent than the stars,
and, therefore, doth more sensibly, more extensively, disperse its
liberal beams than the stars do. And the better any man is, the more
charitable he is; God being the most excellent nature, having nothing
more excellent than himself, because nothing more ancient than himself,
who is the Ancient of Days: there is nothing, therefore, better and
more bountiful than himself.
2. He is the cause of all created goodness; he must therefore
himself be the Supreme Good. What good is in the heavens, is the
product of some Being above the earth; and those varieties of goodness
in the earth, and several creatures, are somewhere in their fulness and
union: that, therefore, which possesses all those scattered goodnesses
in their fulness, must be all good, all that good which is displayed
in creatures; therefore sovereignly best. Whatsoever natural or
moral goodness there is in the world, in angels, or men, or inferior
creatures, is a line drawn from that centre, the bubblings of that
fountain. God cannot but be better than all, since the goodness that
is in creatures is the fruit of his own. If he were not good, he could
produce no good: he could not bestow what he had not. If the creature
be “good,” as the apostle says “every creature is” (1 Tim. iv. 4), he
must needs be better than all, because they have nothing but what is
derived to them from him; and much more goodness than all, because
finite beings are not capable of receiving into them, and containing
in themselves, all that goodness which is in an Infinite Being; when
we search for good in creatures, they come short of that satisfaction
which is in God (Ps. iv. 6). As the certainty of a first principle of
all things, is necessarily concluded from the being of creatures, and
the upholding and sustaining power and virtue of God is concluded from
the mutability of those things in the world; whence we infer, that
there must be some stable foundation of those tottering things, some
firm hinge upon which those changeable things do move, without which
there would be no stability in the kinds of things, no order, no
agreement, or union among them: so from the goodness of everything, and
their usefulness to us, we must conclude {b231} him good, who made all
those things. And since we find distinct goodnesses in the creature,
we must conclude that one principle whence they did flow, excels in the
glory of goodness: all those little glimmerings of goodness which are
scattered in the creatures, as the image in the glass, represent the
face, posture, motion of him whose image it is, but not in the fulness
of life and spirit, as in the original; it is but a shadow at the
best, and speaks something more excellent in the copy. As God hath an
infiniteness of being above them, so he hath a supremacy of goodness
beyond them: what they have, is but a participation from him; what he
hath, must be infinitely supereminent above them. If anything be good
by itself, it must be infinitely good, it would set itself no bounds;
we must make as many gods, as particulars of goodness in the world: but
being good by the bounty of another, that from whence they flow must be
the chief goodness. It is God’s excellency and goodness, which, like a
beam, pierceth all things: he decks spirits with reason, endues matter
with form, furnisheth everything with useful qualities.[966] As one
beam of the sun illustrates fire, water, earth; so one beam of God
enlightens and endows minds, souls, and universal nature: nothing in
the world had its goodness from itself, any more than it had its being
from itself. The cause must be richer than the effect.
But that which I intend is _the defence of this goodness_.
First, The goodness of God is not impaired by suffering sin to enter
into the world, and man to fall thereby. It is rather a testimony
of God’s goodness, that he gave man an ability to be happy, than any
charge against his goodness, that he settled man in a capacity to be
evil. God was first a benefactor to man, before man could be a rebel
against God. May it not be inquired, whether it had not been against
the wisdom of God, to have made a rational creature with liberty, and
not suffer him to act according to the nature he was endowed with, and
to follow his own choice for some time? Had it been wisdom to frame a
free creature, and totally to restrain that creature from following its
liberty? Had it been goodness, as it were, to force the creature to be
happy against its will? God’s goodness furnished Adam with a power to
stand; was it contrary to his goodness, to leave Adam to a free use of
that power? To make a creature, and not let that creature act according
to the freedom of his nature, might have been thought to have been
a blot upon his wisdom, and a constraint upon the creature, not to
make use of that freedom of his nature, which the Divine goodness had
bestowed upon him. To what purpose did God make a law, to govern his
rational creature, and yet resolve that creature should not have his
choice, whether he would obey it or no? Had he been really constrained
to observe it, his observation of it could no more have been called
obedience, than the acts of brutes that have a kind of natural
constraint upon them by the instinct of their nature, can be called
obedience: in vain had God endowed a creature with so great and noble a
principle as liberty. Had it been goodness in God, after he had {b232}
made a reasonable creature, to govern him in the same manner as he
does brutes by a necessary instinct? It was the goodness of God to the
nature of men and angels, to leave them in such a condition, to be able
to give him a voluntary obedience, a nobler offering than the whole
creation could present him with; and shall this goodness be undervalued,
and accounted mean, because man made an ill use of it, and turned it
into wantonness? As the unbelief of man doth not diminish the redeeming
grace of God (Rom. iii. 3), so neither doth the fall of man lessen the
creating goodness of God. Besides, why should the permission of sin
be thought more a blemish to his goodness, than the providing a way
of redemption for the destroying the works of sin and the devil, be
judged the glory of it, whereby he discovered a goodness of grace that
surpassed the bounds of nature? If this were a thing that might seem to
obscure or deface the goodness of God, in the permission of the fall of
angels and Adam, it was in order to bring forth a greater goodness in
a more illustrious pomp, to the view of the world (Rom. xi. 32): “God
hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”
But if nothing could be alleged for the defence of his goodness in
this, it were most comely for an ignorant creature not to impeach his
goodness, but adore him in his proceedings, in the same language the
apostle doth (ver. 33): “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways
past finding out!”
Secondly, Nor is his goodness prejudiced, by not making all things the
equal subjects of it.
1. It is true all things are not subjects of an equal goodness. The
goodness of God is not so illustriously manifested in one thing as
another. In the creation he hath dropped goodness upon some, in giving
them beings and sense, and poured it upon others in endowing them with
understanding and reason. The sun is full of light, but it hath a want
of sense; brutes excel in the vigor of sense, but they are destitute
of the light of reason; man hath a mind and reason conferred on him,
but he hath neither the acuteness of mind, nor the quickness of motion
equal with an angel. In providence also he doth give abundance, and
opens his hand to some; to others he is more sparing: he gives greater
gifts of knowledge to some, while he lets others remain in ignorance;
he strikes down some, and raiseth others; he afflicts some with a
continual pain, while he blesseth others with an uninterrupted health;
he hath chosen one nation wherein to set up his gospel sun, and leaves
another benighted in their own ignorance. “Known was God in Judea; they
were a peculiar people alone of all the nations of the earth” (Deut.
xiv. 2). He was not equally good to the angels: he held forth his
hand to support some in their happy habitation, while he suffered
others to sink in irreparable ruin; and he is not so diffusive here
of his goodness to his own as he will be in heaven. Here their sun is
sometimes clouded, but there all clouds and shades will be blown away,
and melted into nothing: instead of drops here, there will be above
rivers of life. Is any creature destitute of the open marks of his
goodness, though all are not enriched with those signal characters
which he vouchsafes to {b233} others? He that is unerring, pronounced
everything good distinctly in its production, and the whole good in
its universal perfection (Gen. i. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Though he
made not all things equally good, yet he made nothing evil; and though
one creature in regard of its nature may be better than another, yet
an inferior creature, in regard of its usefulness in the order of the
creation, may be better than a superior. The earth hath a goodness
in bringing forth fruits, and the waters in the sea a goodness in
multiplying food. That any of us have a being is goodness; that we have
not so healthful a being as others is unequal, but not unjust goodness.
He is good to all, though not in the same degree: “The whole earth is
full of his mercy” (Ps. cxix. 64). A good man is good to his cattle,
to his servants; he makes a provision for all, but he bestows not those
floods of bounty upon them that he doth upon his children. As there
are various gifts, but one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 4), so there are various
distributions, but from one goodness; the drops, as well as the fuller
streams, are of the same fountain, and relish of the nature of it; and
though he do not make all men partake of the riches of his grace after
the corruption of their nature, is his goodness disgraced hereby? or
doth he merit the title of cruelty? Will any diminish the goodness of
a father for his not setting up his son after he hath foolishly and
wilfully proved bankrupt; or not rather admire his liberality in giving
him so large a stock to trade with when he first set him up in the
world?
2. The goodness of God to creatures, is to be measured by their
distinct usefulness to the common end. It were better for a toad or
serpent to be a man, _i. e._ better for the creature itself, as it were
advanced to a higher degree of being, but not better for the universe:
he could have made every pebble a living creature, and every living
creature a rational one; but that he made everything as we see, it was
a goodness to the creature itself; but that he did not make it of a
higher elevation in nature, was a part of his goodness to the rational
creature. If all were rational creatures, there would have been wanting
creatures of an inferior nature for their conveniency; there would have
wanted the manifestation of the variety and “fulness of his goodness.”
Had all things in the world been rational creatures, much of that
goodness which he hath communicated to rational creatures would not
have appeared: how could man have showed his skill in taming and
managing creatures more mighty than himself? What materials would there
have been to manifest the goodness of God, bestowed upon the reasonable
creatures for framing excellent works and inventions? Much of the
goodness of God had lain wrapt up from sense and understanding. All
other things partake not of so great a goodness as man; yet they are
so subservient to that goodness poured forth on man, that little of it
could have been seen without them. Consider man, every member in his
body hath a goodness in itself; but a greater goodness as referred to
the whole, without which the goodness of the more noble part would not
be manifested. The head is the most excellent member, and hath greater
impressions of Divine goodness upon it, in regard that it is the organ
of understanding: {b234} were every member of the body a head, what a
deformed monster would man be! If he were all head, where would be feet
for motion, and arms for action? Man would be fit only for thought, and
not for exercise. The goodness of God in giving man so noble a part as
the head, could not be known without a tongue, whereby to express the
conception of his mind; and without feet and hands whereby to act much
of what he conceives, and determines, and execute the resolves of his
will; all those have a goodness in themselves, an honor, a comeliness
from the goodness of God (1 Cor. xii. 22, 23), but not so great
a goodness as the nobler part: yet, if you consider them in their
functions, and refer them to that excellent member which they serve,
their inferior goodness is absolutely necessary to the goodness of the
other; without which, the goodness of the head and understanding would
lie in obscurity, be insignificant to the whole world, and, in a great
measure, to the person himself that wants such members.
3. “The goodness of God is more seen in this inequality.” If God
were equally good to all, it would destroy commerce, unity, the
links of human society, damp charity, and render that useless which
is one of the noblest and delightfulest duties to be exercised here;
it would cool prayer, which is excited by wants, and is a necessary
demonstration of the creature’s dependence on God. But in this
inequality every man hath enough in his enjoyments for praise, and
in his wants, matter for his prayer. Besides the inequality of the
creature is the ornament of the world; what pleasure could a garden
afford if there were but one sort of flowers, or one sort of plants?
far less than when there is variety to please the sight, and every
other sense. Again, the freedom of Divine goodness, which is the glory
of it, is evident hereby; had he been alike good to all, it would have
looked like a necessary, not a free act; but by the inequality, it
is manifest that he doth not do it by a natural necessity as the sun
shines, but by a voluntary liberty, as being the entire Lord, and free
disposer of his own goods; and that is the gift of the pleasure of his
will, as well as the efflux of his nature, that he hath not a goodness
without wisdom, but a wisdom as rich as his bounty.
4. The goodness of God could not be equally communicated to all,
after their settlement in their several beings,――because they have not
a capacity in their natures for it: he doth bestow the marks of his
goodness according to that natural capacity of fitness he perceives in
his creatures; as the water of the sea fills every creek and gulf with
different measures, according to the compass each have to contain it;
and as the sun doth disperse light to the stars above, and the places
below, to some more, to some less, according to the measures of their
reception. God doth not do good to all creatures according to the
greatness of his own power, and the extent of his own wealth, but
according to the capacity of the subject; not so much good as he can do,
but so much good as the creature can receive. The creature would sink,
if God would pour out all his goodness upon it; as Moses would have
perished, if God should have shown him all his glory (Exod. xxxiii.
18, 20). He doth {b235} manifest more good to his reasonable creatures,
because they are more capable of acknowledging, and setting forth his
goodness.