God disaffected to evil, and conduce to the glory of his holiness, and
deter others from presumptuous sins (Deut. x. 3): “I will be glorified
in all that draw near unto me;”――in his judgment upon Nadab and Abihu,
the sons of Aaron, for offering strange fire. By them God preserves
the excellent footsteps of his own goodness in his creation and his
law, and curbs the licentiousness of men, and contains them within the
bounds of their duty. “Thy judgments are good,” saith the Psalmist (Ps.
cxix. xxxix.); _i. e._ thy judicial proceedings upon the wicked; for
he desires God there to turn away, by some signal act, the reproach
the wicked cast upon him. Can there be any thing more miserable than
to live in a world full of wickedness, and void of the marks of Divine
goodness and justice to repress it? Were there not judgments in the
world, men would forget God, be insensible of his government of the
world, neglect the exercises of natural and christian duties; religion
would be at its last gasp, and expire among them, and men would pretend
to break God’s precepts by God’s authority. Are they not good, then,
as they restrain the creature from further evils; affright others from
the same crimes which they were inclinable to commit? He strikes some,
to reform others that are spectators; as Apollonius tamed pigeons by
beating dogs before them. Punishments are God’s gracious warnings to
others, not to venture upon the crimes which they see attended with
such judgments. The censers of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, were to be
wrought into plates for a covering of the altar, to abide there as
a memento to others, not to approach to the exercise of the priestly
office without an authoritative call from God (Numb. xvi. 38, 40);
and those judgments exercised in the former ages of the world, were
intended by Divine goodness for warnings, even in evangelical times.
Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, to prevent men from
apostasy; that use Christ himself makes of it, in the exhortation
against “turning back” (Luke xvii. 32, 33). And (Ps. lviii. 10): “The
righteous shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” When God
shall drench his sword in the blood of the wicked, the righteous shall
take occasion from thence, to purify themselves, and reform their ways,
and look to the paths of their feet. Would not impunity be hurtful
to the world, and men receive encouragement to sin, if severities
sometimes did not bridle them from the practice of their inclinations?
Sometimes the sinner himself is reformed, and sometimes removed from
being an example to others. Though thunder be an affrightening noise,
and lightning a scaring flash, yet they have a liberal goodness in them,
in shattering and consuming those contagious vapors which burden and
infect the air, and thereby render it more clear and healthful. Again,
there are few acts of Divine justice upon a people, but are in {b243}
the very execution of them attended with demonstrations of his goodness
to others; he is a protector of his own, while he is a revenger on
his enemies; when he rides upon his horses in anger against some, his
chariots are “chariots of salvation” to others (Hab. iii. 8). Terror
makes way for salvation; the overthrow of Pharaoh and the strength of
his nation, completed the deliverance of the Israelites. Had not the
Egyptians met with their destruction, the Israelites had unavoidably
met with their ruin, against all the promises God had made to them,
and to the defamation of his former justice, in the former plagues upon
their oppressors. The death of Herod was the security of Peter, and the
rest of the maliced christians. The gracious deliverance of good men
is often occasioned by some severe stroke upon some eminent persecutor;
the destruction of the oppressor is the rescue of the innocent. Again,
where is there a judgment but leaves more criminals behind than it
sweeps away, that deserved to be involved in the same fate with the
rest? More Egyptians were left behind to possess and enjoy the goodness
of their fruitful land, than they were that were hurried into another
world by the overflowing waves; is not this a mark of goodness as
well as severity? Again, is it not a goodness in Him not to pour out
judgments according to the greatness of his power? to go gradually to
work with those whom he might in a moment blow to destruction with one
breath of his mouth? Again, he sometimes exerciseth judgments upon some,
to form a new generation for himself; he destroyed an old world, to
raise a new one more righteous, as a man pulls down his old buildings
to erect a sounder and more stately fabric. To sum up what hath been
said in this particular; how could God be a friend to goodness, if
he were not an enemy to evil? how could he shew his enmity to evil,
without revenging the abuse and contempt of his goodness? God would
rather have the repentance of a sinner than his punishment; but the
sinner would rather expose himself to the severest frowns of God, than
pursue those methods wherein he hath settled the conveyances of his
kindness; “You will not come to me that you might have life,” saith
Christ. How is eternity of punishment inconsistent with the goodness of
God? nay, how can God be good without it? If wickedness always remain
in the nature of man, is it not fit the rod should always remain on
the back of men? Is it a want of goodness that keeps an incorrigible
offender in chains in a bridewell? While sin remains, it is fit it
should be punished; would not God else be an enemy to his own goodness,
and shew favor to that which doth abuse it, and is contrary to it?
He hath threatened eternal flames to sinners, that he might the more
strongly excite them to a reformation of their ways, and a practice of
his precepts. In those threatenings he hath manifested his goodness;
and can it be bad in him to defend what his goodness hath commanded,
and execute what his goodness hath threatened? His truth is also a part
of his goodness; for it is nothing but his goodness performing that
which it obliged him to do. That is the first thing; severe judgments
in the world are no impeachments of his goodness.
Secondly, The afflictions God inflicts upon his servants, are no
{b244} violations of his goodness. Sometimes God afflicts men for their
temporal and eternal good; for the good of their grace, in order to the
good of their glory; which is a more excellent good, than afflictions
can be an evil. The heathens reflected upon Ulysses’ hardship, as
a mark of Jupiter’s goodness and love to him, that his virtue might
be more conspicuous. By strong persecutions brought upon the church,
her lethargy is cured, her chaff purged, the glorious fruit of the
gospel brought forth in the lives of her children; the number of her
proselytes multiply, and the strength of her weak ones is increased,
by the testimonies of courage and constancy which the stronger present
to them in their sufferings. Do these good effects speak a want of
goodness in God, who brings them into this condition? By those he cures
his people of their corruptions, and promotes their glory, by giving
them the honor of suffering for the truth, and raiseth their spirits
to a divine pitch. The epistles of Paul to the Ephesians, Philippians,
and Colossians, wrote by him while he was in Nero’s chains, seem to
have a higher strain than some of those he wrote when he was at liberty.
As for afflictions, they are marks of a greater measure of fatherly
goodness than he discovers to those that live in an uninterrupted
prosperity, who are not dignified with that glorious title of sons, as
those are that “he chasteneth” (Heb. xii. 6, 7). Can any question the
goodness of the father that corrects his child to prevent his vice and
ruin, and breed him up to virtue and honor? It would be a cruelty in
a father leaving his child without chastisement, to leave him to that
misery an ill education would reduce him to: “God judges us that we
might not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. xi. 32). Is it not a
greater goodness to separate us from the world to happiness by his
scourge, than to leave us to the condemnation of the world for our
sins? Is it not a greater goodness to make us smart here, than to see
us scorched hereafter? As he is our Shepherd, it is no part of his
enmity or ill‑will to us, to make us feel sometimes the weight of his
shepherd’s crook, to reduce us from our struggling. The visiting our
transgressions with rods, and our iniquities with stripes, is one of
the articles of the covenant of grace, wherein the greatest lustre
of his goodness appears (Ps. lxxxix. 33). The advantage and gain of
our afflictions is a greater testimony of his goodness to us, than the
pain can be of his unkindness; the smart is well recompensed by the
accession of clearer graces. It is rather a high mark of goodness, than
an argument for the want of it, that he treats us as his children, and
will not suffer us to run into that destruction we are more ambitious
of, than the happiness he hath prepared for us, and by afflictions he
fits us for the partaking of, by “imparting his holiness,” together
with the inflicting his rod (Heb. xii. 10). That is the third thing,
God is good.
IV. The fourth thing is the manifestation of this goodness in
_Creation_, _Redemption_, and _Providence_.
_First_, In _Creation_. This is apparent from what hath been said
before, that no other attribute could be the motive of his creating,
but his goodness; his goodness was the cause that he made any thing,
and his wisdom was the cause that he made every thing in {b245} order
and harmony. He pronounced “every thing good,” _i. e._ such as became
his goodness to bring forth into being, and rested in them more, as
they were stamps of his goodness, than as they were marks of his power,
or beams of his wisdom. And if all creatures were able to answer to
this question, What that was which created them? the answer would be,
Almighty power, but employed by the motion of infinite goodness.[972]
All the varieties of creatures are so many apparitions of this goodness.
Though God be one, yet he cannot appear as a God but in variety. As
the greatness of power is not manifest but in variety of works, and an
acute understanding not discovered but in variety of reasonings, so an
infinite goodness is not so apparent as in variety of communications.
1. The creation proceeds from goodness. It is the goodness of God to
extract such multitudes of things from the depths of nothing. Because
God is good, things have a being; if he had not been good, nothing
could have been good; nothing could have imparted that which it
possessed not; nothing but goodness could have communicated to things
an excellency, which before they wanted. Being is much more excellent
than nothing. By this goodness, therefore, the whole creation was
brought out of the dark womb of nothing; this formed their natures,
this beautified them with their several ornaments and perfections,
whereby everything was enabled to act for the good of the common world.
God did not create things because he was a living Being, but because
he was a good Being. No creature brought forth anything in the world
merely because it is, but because it is good, and by a communicated
goodness fitted for such a production. If God had been the creating
principle of things only as he was a living Being, or as he was an
understanding Being, then all things should have partaken of life and
understanding, because all things were to bear some characters of the
Deity upon them. If by understanding, solely, God were the Creator of
all things, all things should have borne the mark of the Deity upon
them, and should have been more or less understanding; but he created
things as he was good, and by goodness he renders all things more
or less like himself: hence everything is accounted more noble, not
in regard of its being, but in regard of the beneficialness of its
nature. The being of things was not the end of God in creating, but the
goodness of their being. God did not rest from his works because they
were his works, _i. e._ because they had a being; but because they
had a good being (Gen. i.); because they were naturally useful to
the universe: nothing was more pleasing to him, than to behold those
shadows and copies of his own goodness in his works.
2. Creation was the first act of goodness without himself. When
he was alone from eternity, he contented himself with himself,
abounding in his own blessedness, delighting in that abundance; he was
incomprehensively rich in the possession of an unstained felicity.[973]
This creation was the first efflux of his goodness without himself:
for the work of creation cannot be called a work of mercy.[974] Mercy
supposeth a creature miserable, but that which hath no being is subject
{b246} to no misery; for to be miserable supposeth a nature in being,
and deprived of that good which belongs to the pleasure and felicity
of nature; but since there was no being, there could be no misery.
The creation, therefore, was not an act of mercy, but an act of sole
goodness; and, therefore, it was the speech of an heathen, that when
God first set upon the creation of the world, he transformed himself
into love and goodness, Εἰς ἔρωτα μεταβλῆθαι τὸν θεὸν μέλλοντα
δημιουργεῖν.[975] This led forth, and animated his power, the first
moment it drew the universe out of the womb of nothing. And,
3. There is not one creature but hath a character of his goodness.
The whole world is a map to represent, and a herald to proclaim this
perfection. It is as difficult not to see something of it in every
creature with the eye of our minds, as it is not to see the beams of
the shining sun with those off our bodies. “He is good to all” (Ps.
cxlv. 9); he is, therefore, good in all; not a drop of the creation,
but is a drop of his goodness. These are the colors worn upon the
heads of every creature. As in every spark the light of the fire is
manifested, so doth every grain of the creation wear the visible badges
of this perfection. In all the lights, the Father of Lights hath made
the riches of goodness apparent; no creature is silent in it; it is
legible to all nations in every work of his hands. That, as it is said
of Christ (Ps. xl. 7), “In the volume of thy book it is written of me:”
In the volume of the book of the Scripture it is written of me, and my
goodness in redemption: so it may be said of God, In the volume of the
book of the creature it is written of me, and my goodness in creation.
Every creature is a page in this book, whose “line is gone through
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps. xix. 4);
though, indeed, the less goodness in some is obscured by the more
resplendent goodness he hath imparted unto others. What an admirable
piece of goodness is it to communicate life to a fly! How should we
stand gazing upon it, till we turn our eye inwards, and view our own
frame, which is much more ravishing!
But let us see the goodness of God in the creation of man,――_in the
being and nature of man_. God hath, with a liberal hand, conferred upon
every creature the best being it was capable of in that station and
order, and conducing to that end and use in the world he intended it
for. But when you have run over all the measures of goodness God hath
poured forth upon other creatures, you will find a greater fulness
of it in the nature of man, whom he hath placed in a more sublime
condition, and endued with choicer prerogatives, than other creatures:
he was made but little lower than the angels, and much more loftily
crowned with glory and honor than other creatures (Ps. viii. 5). Had it
not been for Divine goodness, that excellent creature had lain wrapt up
in the abyss of nothing; or if he had called it out of nothing, there
might have been less of skill and less of goodness displayed in the
forming of it, and a lesser kind of being imparted to it, than what he
hath conferred.
1. How much of goodness is visible in his body! God drew out some part
of the dust of the ground, and copied out this perfection, as well as
that of his power, on that mean matter, by erecting it into {b247} the
form of a man, quickening that earth by the inspiration of a “living
soul” (Gen. ii. 7): of this matter he composed an excellent body, in
regard of the majesty of the face, erectness of its stature, and grace
of every part. How neatly hath he wrought this “tabernacle of clay,
this earthly house,” as the apostle calls it (2 Cor. v. 1)! a curious
wrought piece of needle‑work, a comely artifice (Ps. cxxxix. 15), an
embroidered case for an harmonious lute. What variety of members, with
a due proportion, without confusion, beautiful to sight, excellent
for use, powerful for strength! It hath eyes to conduct its motion, to
serve in matter for the food, and delight of the understanding; ears to
let in the pleasure of sound, to convey intelligence of the affairs of
the world, and the counsels of heaven, to a more noble mind. It hath
a tongue to express and sound forth what the learned inhabitant in it
thinks; and hands to act what the inward counsellor directs; and feet
to support the fabric. It is tempered with a kindly heat, and an oily
moisture for motion, and endued with conveyances for air, to qualify
the fury of the heat, and nourishment to supply the decays of moisture.
It is a cabinet fitted by Divine goodness for the enclosing a rich
jewel; a palace made of dust, to lodge in it the viceroy of the world;
an instrument disposed for the operations of the nobler soul which
he intended to unite to that refined matter. What is there in the
situation of every part, in the proportion of every member, in the
usefulness of every limb and string to the offices of the body, and
service of the soul; what is there in the whole structure that doth
not inform us of the goodness of God?
2. But what is this to that goodness which shines in the nature of the
soul? Who can express the wonders of that comeliness that is wrapped up
in this mask of clay? A soul endued with a clearness of understanding
and freedom of will: faculties no sooner framed, but they were able
to produce the operation they were intended for; a soul that excelled
the whole world, that comprehended the whole creation; a soul that
evidenced the extent of its skill in giving names to all that variety
of creatures which had issued out of the hand of Divine Power (Gen.
ii. 19); a soul able to discover the nature of other creatures, and
manage and conduct their motions. In the ruins of a palace we may see
the curiosity displayed, and the cost expended in the building of it;
in the ruins of this fallen structure, we still find it capable of a
mighty knowledge; a reason able to regulate affairs, govern states,
order more mighty and massy creatures, find out witty inventions; there
is still an understanding to irradiate the other faculties, a mind
to contemplate its own Creator, a judgment to discern the differences
between good and evil, vice and virtue, which the goodness of God hath
not granted to any lower creature. These excellent faculties, together
with the power of self‑reflection, and the swiftness of the mind in
running over the things of the creation, are astonishing gleams of the
vast goodness of that Divine Hand which ennobled this frame. To the
other creatures of this world, God had given out some small mites from
his treasury; but in the perfections of man, he hath opened the more
secret parts {b248} of his exchequer, and liberally bestowed those
doles, which he hath not expended upon the other creatures on earth.
3. Besides this, he did not only make man so noble a creature in his
frame, but “he made him after his own image in holiness.” He imparted
to him a spark of his own comeliness, in order to a communion with
himself in happiness, had man stood his ground in his trial, and used
those faculties well, which had been the gift of his Bountiful Creator:
he “made man after his image,” after his own image (Gen. i. 26, 27);
that as a coin bears the image of the prince, so did the soul of man
the “image of God:” not the image of angels, though the speech be in
the plural number: “Let us make man.” It is not to a creature, but to
a Creator; let “us,” that are his makers, make him in the image of his
makers. God created man, angels did not create him; God created man
in his “own” image, not, therefore, in the image of angels: the nature
of God, and the nature of angels, are not the same. Where, in the
whole Scripture, is man said to be made after the image of angels? God
made man not in the image of angels, to be conformed to them as his
prototype, but in the image of the blessed God, to be conformed to the
Divine nature: that as he was conformed to the image of his holiness,
he might also partake of the image of his blessedness, which, without
it, could not be attained: for as the felicity of God could not be
clear without an unspotted holiness, so neither can there be a glorious
happiness without purity in the creature; this God provided for in his
creation of man, giving him such accomplishments in those two excellent
pieces of soul and body, that nothing was wanting to him but his own
will, to instate him in an invariable felicity. He was possessed with
such a nature by the hand of Divine Goodness, such a loftiness of
understanding, and purity of faculties, that he might have been for
ever happy as well as the standing angels: and he was placed in such a
condition, that moved the envy of fallen spirits; he had as much grace
bestowed upon him, as was proportionable to that covenant God then made
with him: the tenor of which was, that his life should continue so long
as his obedience, and his happiness endure so long as his integrity:
and as God, by creation, had given him an integrity of nature, so he
had given him a power to persist in it, if he would. Herein is the
goodness of God displayed, that he made man after his own image.
4. As to the life of man in this world, God, by an immense goodness,
copied out in him the whole creation, and made him an abridgment of
the higher and lower world,――a little world in a greater one. The link
of the two worlds, of heaven and earth, as the spiritual and corporeal
natures are united in him, the earth in the dust of his body, and the
heavens in the crystal of his soul: he hath the upper springs of the
life of angels in his reason, and the nether springs of the life of
animals in his sense. God displayed those virtues in man, which he
had discovered in the rest of the lower creation; but, besides the
communication which he had with earth in his nature, God gave him a
participation with heaven in his spirit. A mere bodily being he hath
given to the heavens, earth, elements; a vegetative life, or a life of
growth, he hath vouchsafed to the plants of the ground: he {b249} hath
stretched out his liberality more to animals and beasts, by giving
them sense. All these hath his goodness linked in man, being, life,
sense, with a richer dole than any of those creatures have received in
a rational, intellectual life, whereby he approacheth to the nature of
angels. This some of the Jews understood (Gen. ii. 7): “God breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,”
חיים, breath of lives, in the Hebrew; not one sort of life, but that
variety of lives which he had imparted to other creatures: all the
perfections scattered in other creatures do unitedly meet in man: so
that Philo might well call him “every creature, the model of the whole
creation:” his soul is heaven, and his body is earth.[976] So that the
immensity of his goodness to man, is as great as all that goodness you
behold in sensitive and intelligible things.
5. All this was free goodness. God eternally possessed his own
felicity in himself, and had no need of the existence of anything
without himself for his satisfaction. Man, before his being, could
have no good qualities to invite God to make him so excellent a fabric:
for, being nothing, he was as unable to allure and merit, as to bring
himself into being; nay, he created a multitude of men, who, he foresaw
would behave themselves in as ungrateful a manner, as if they had not
been his creatures, but had bestowed that rich variety upon themselves
without the hand of a superior Benefactor. How great is this goodness,
that hath made us models of the whole creation, tied together heaven
and earth in our nature, when he might have ranked us among the lower
creatures of the earth, made us mere bodies as the stones, or mere
animals as the brutes, and denied us those capacious souls, whereby
we might both know him and enjoy him! What could man have been more,
unless he had been the original, which was impossible? He could not
be greater than to be an image of the Deity, an epitome of the whole.
Well may we cry out with the Psalmist (Ps. viii. 1, 4), “O Lord, our
Lord, how excellent is thy name,” the name of thy goodness, “in all
the earth!” How, more particularly in man! “What is man that thou art
mindful of him?” What is a little clod of earth and dust, that thou
shouldst ennoble him with so rich a nature, and engrave upon him such
characters of thy immense Being?
6. The goodness of God appears in the conveniences he provided for,
and gave to man. As God gave him a being morally perfect in regard of
righteousness, so he gave him a being naturally perfect in regard of
delightful conveniences, which was the fruit of excellent goodness;
since there was no quality in man, to invite God to provide him so
rich a world, nor to bestow upon him so comely a being.