It was his goodness to intend a reward to man; no necessity could
oblige God to reward man, had he continued obedient in his created
state: for in all rewards which are truly merited, beside {b256} some
kind of equality to be considered between the person doing service and
the person rewarding, and also between the act performed and the reward
bestowed, there must also be considered the condition of the person
doing the service, that he is not obliged to do it as a duty, but is
at his own choice whether to offer it or no. But man, being wholly
dependent on God in his being and preservation, having nothing of his
own, but what he had received from the hands of Divine bounty, his
service was due by the strongest obligation to God (1 Cor. iv. 7). But
there was no natural engagement on God to return a reward to him; for
man could return nothing of his own but that only which he had received
from his Creator. It must be pure goodness that gives a gracious reward
for a due debt, to receive his own from man, and return more than he
had received. A Divine reward doth far surmount the value of a rational
service. It was, therefore, a mighty goodness to stipulate with man,
that upon his obedience he should enjoy an immortality in that nature.
The article on man’s part was obedience, which was necessarily just,
and founded in the nature of man; he had been unjust, ungrateful, and
violated all laws of righteousness, had he committed any act unworthy
of one that had been so great a subject of Divine liberality.[977]
But the article on God’s part, of giving a perpetual blessedness
to innocent man, was not founded upon rules of strict justice and
righteousness, for that would have argued God to be a debtor to man;
but that God cannot be to the work of his hands, that had received the
materials of his being and acting from him, as the vessel doth from
the potter. But this was founded only on the goodness of the Divine
nature, whereby he cannot but be kind to an innocent and holy creature.
The nature of God inclined him to it by the rules of goodness, but
the service of man could not claim it by the rules of justice without
a stipulation; so that the covenant whereby God obliged himself to
continue the happiness of man upon the continuance of his obedience, in
the original of it, springs from pure goodness; though the performance
of it, upon the fulfilling condition required in the creature, was
founded upon the rules of righteousness and truth, after Divine
goodness had brought it forth. God did create man for a reward and
happiness; now God’s implanting in the nature of man a desire after
happiness, and some higher happiness than he had in creation invested
him in, doth evidence that God did not create man only for his own
service, but for his attaining a greater happiness. All rational
creatures are possessed with a principle of seeking after good, the
highest good, and God did not plant in man this principle in vain; it
had not been goodness to put this principle in man, if he had designed
never to bestow a happiness on man for his obedience: this had been
repugnant to the goodness and wisdom of God; and the Scripture doth
very emphatically express the felicity of man to be the design of
God in the first forming him and moulding him a creature, as well as
working him a new creature; “He that hath wrought us for the self‑same
thing is God” (2 Cor. v. 1, 5): he framed this earthly tabernacle for
a residence in an eternal habitation, {b257} and a better habitation
than an earthly paradise. What we expect in the resurrection, that very
same thing God did in creation intend us for; but since the corruption
of our natures, we must undergo a dissolution of our bodies, and may
have just reason of a despondency, since sin hath seemed to change the
course of God’s bounty, and brought us under a curse. He hath given
us the earnest of his Spirit, as an assurance that he will perform
that very self‑same thing, the conferring that happiness upon renewed
creatures for which he first formed man in creation, when he compacted
his earthly tabernacle of the dust of the ground, and reared it up
before him.
4th. It was a mighty goodness that God should give man an eternal
reward. That an eternity of reward was promised, is implied in the
death that was threatened upon transgression: whatsoever you conceive
the threatened death to be, either for nature, or duration upon
transgression; of the same nature and duration you must suppose the
life to be, which is implied upon his constancy in his integrity.
As sin would render him an eternal object of God’s hatred, so his
obedience would render him an eternally amiable object to his Creator,
as the standing angels are preserved and confirmed in an entire
felicity and glory. Though the threatening be only expressed by God
(Gen. ii. 17), yet the other is implied, and might easily be concluded
from it by Adam. And one reason why God only expressed the threatening,
and not the promise, was, because man might collect some hopes and
expectations of a perpetual happiness from that image of God which he
beheld in himself, and from the large provision he had made for him in
the world, and the commission given him to increase and multiply, and
to rule as a lord over his other works; whereas he could not so easily
have imagined himself capable of being exposed to such an extraordinary
calamity as an eternal death, without some signification of it from God.
It is easily concludable, that eternal life was supposed to be promised,
to be conferred upon him if he stood, as well as eternal death to be
inflicted on him if he rebelled.[978] Now this eternal life was not
due to his nature, but it was a pure beam, and gift of Divine goodness;
for there was no proportion between man’s service in his innocent
estate, and a reward so great both for nature and duration: it was a
higher reward than can be imagined either due to the nature of man,
or upon any natural right claimable by his obedience. All that could
be expected by him was but a natural happiness, not a supernatural:
as there was no necessity upon the account of natural righteousness,
so there was no necessity upon the account of the goodness of God to
elevate the nature of man to a supernatural happiness, merely because
he created him: for though it be necessary for God, when he would
create, in regard of his wisdom, to create for some end, yet it was
not necessary that end should be a supernatural end and happiness,
since a natural blessedness had been sufficient for man. And though
God, in creating angels and men intellectual and rational creatures,
did make them necessary for himself and his own glory, yet it was
not necessarily for him to {b258} order either angels or men to such
a felicity as consists in a clear vision, and so high a fruition,
of himself: for all other things are made by him for himself, and
yet not for the vision of himself, God might have created man only
for a natural happiness, according to the perfection of his natural
faculties, and had dealt bountifully with him, if he had never intended
him a supernatural blessedness and an eternal recompense: but what a
largeness of goodness is here, to design man, in his creation, for so
rich a blessedness as an eternal life, with the fruition of himself! He
hath not only given to man all things which are necessary, but designed
for man that which the poor creature could not imagine: he garnished
the earth for him, and garnished him for an eternal felicity, had he
not, by slighting the goodness of God, stripped himself of the present,
and forfeited his future blessedness.
_Secondly_, The manifestation of this goodness in _Redemption_. The
whole gospel is nothing but one entire mirror of Divine goodness: the
whole of redemption is wrapped up in that one expression of the angels’
song (Luke ii. 14), “Good‑will towards men.” The angels sang but one
song before, which is upon record, but the matter of it seems to be
the wisdom of God chiefly in creation (Job xxxviii. 7; compare chap.
ix. 5, 6, 8, 9). The angels are there meant by the “morning stars;” the
visible stars of heaven were not distinctly formed when the foundations
of the earth were laid: and the title of the sons of God verifies it,
since none but creatures of understanding are dignified in Scripture
with that title. There they celebrate his wisdom in creation; here his
goodness in redemption, which is the entire matter of the song.
i. Goodness was the spring of redemption. All and every part of it owes
only to this perfection the appearance of it in the world. This only
excited wisdom to bring forth from so great an evil as the apostasy
of man, so great a good as the recovery of him. When man fell from
his created goodness, God would evidence that he could not fall from
his infinite goodness: that the greatest evil could not surmount
the ability of his wisdom to contrive, nor the riches of his bounty
to present us a remedy for it. Divine Goodness would not stand by
a spectator, without being reliever of that misery man had plunged
himself into; but by astonishing methods it would recover him to
happiness, who had wrested himself out of his hands, to fling himself
into the most deplorable calamity: and it was the greater, since it
surmounted those natural inclinations, and those strong provocations
which he had to shower down the power of his wrath. What could be the
source of such a procedure, but this excellency of Divine nature, since
no violence could force him, nor was there any merit to persuade to
such a restoration? This, under the name of his “love,” is rendered
the sole cause of the redeeming death of the Son: it was to commend his
love with the highest gloss, and in so singular a manner that had not
its parallel in nature, nor in all his other works, and reaches in the
brightness of it beyond the manifested extent of any other attribute
(Rom. v. 8). It must be only a miraculous goodness that induced him
to expose the life of his Son to those difficulties in the world, and
death upon the cross, {b259} for the freedom of sordid rebels: his
great end was to give such a demonstration of the liberality of his
nature, as might be attractive to his creature, remove its shakings and
tremblings, and encourage its approaches to him. It is in this he would
not only manifest his love, but assume the name of “Love.” By this name
the Holy Ghost calls him, in relation to this good will manifested in
his Son (1 John iv. 8, 9), “God is love.” In this is manifested the
love of God towards us, because that God sent his only‑begotten Son
into the world, that we might “live through him.” He would take the
name he never expressed himself in before. He was Jehovah, in regard of
the truth of his promise; so he would be known of old: he is Goodness,
in regard of the grandeur of his affection in the mission of his Son:
and, therefore, he would be known by the name of Love now, in the days
of the gospel.
ii. It was a pure goodness. He was under no obligation to pity our
misery, and repair our ruins: he might have stood to the terms of the
first covenant, and exacted our eternal death, since we had committed
an infinite transgression: he was under no tie to put off the robes
of a judge for the bowels of a father, and erect a mercy‑seat above
his tribunal of justice.[979] The reparation of man had no necessary
connexion with his creation; it follows not, that because Goodness
had extracted us from nothing by a mighty power, that it must lift us
out of wilful misery by a mighty grace. Certainly that God who had no
need of creating us, had far less need of redeeming us: for, since he
created one world, he could have as easily destroyed it, and reared
another. It had not been unbecoming the Divine Goodness or Wisdom, to
have let man perpetually wallow in that sink wherein he had plunged
himself, since he was criminal by his own will, and, therefore,
miserable by his own fault: nothing could necessitate this reparation.
If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the angelical dignity to
repair that nature, he is further from any obligation by the meanness
of man to repair human nature. There was less necessity to restore man
than to restore the fallen angels. What could man do to oblige God to
a reparation of him, since he could not render him a recompense for his
goodness manifested in his creation? He must be much more impotent to
render him a debtor for the redemption of him from misery. Could it be
a salary for anything we had done? Alas! we are so far from meriting
it, that by our daily demerits, we seem ambitious to put a stop to any
further effusions of it: we could not have complained of him, if he had
left us in the misery we had courted, since he was bound by no law to
bestow upon us the recovery we wanted. When the apostle speaks of the
gospel of “redemption,” he giveth it the title of the “gospel of the
blessed God” (2 Tim. i. 11). It was the gospel of a God abounding in
his own blessedness, which received no addition by man’s redemption;
if he had been blessed by it, it had been a goodness to himself, as
well as to the creature: it was not an indigent goodness needing the
receiving anything from us; but it was a pure goodness, streaming out
of itself, without bringing anything into itself for the perfection of
it: there was no goodness in {b260} us to be the motive of his love,
but his goodness was the fountain of our benefit.
iii. It was a distinct goodness of the whole Trinity. In the creation
of man we find a general consultation (Gen. i. 26), without those
distinct labors and offices of each person, and without those raised
expressions and marks of joy and triumph as at man’s restoration. In
this there are distinct functions; the grace of the Father, the merit
of the Son, and the efficacy of the Spirit. The Father makes the
promise of redemption, the Son seals it with his blood, and the Spirit
applies it. The Father adopts us to be his children, the Son redeems us
to be his members, and the Spirit renews us to be his temples. In this
the Father testifies himself well‑pleased in a voice; the Son proclaims
his own delight to do the will of God, and the Spirit hastens, with
the wing of a dove, to fit him for his work, and afterwards, in his
apparition in the likeness of fiery tongues, manifests his zeal for
the propagation of the redeeming gospel.
iv. The effects of it proclaim His great goodness. It is by this we are
delivered from the corruption of our nature, the ruin of our happiness,
the deformity of our sins, and the punishment of our transgressions;
he frees us from the ignorance wherewith we were darkened and from the
slavery wherein we were fettered. When he came to make Adam’s process
after his crime, instead of pronouncing the sentence of death he had
merited, he utters a promise that man could not have expected; his
kindness swells above his provoked justice, and, while he chaseth
him out of paradise, he gives him hopes of regaining the same, or a
better habitation; and is, in the whole, more ready to prevent him
with the blessings of his goodness, than charge him with the horror
of his crimes (Gen. iii. 15). It is a goodness that pardons us more
transgressions than there are moments in our lives, and overlooks
as many follies as there are thoughts in our heart: he doth not only
relieve our wants, but restores us to our dignity. It is a greater
testimony of goodness to instate a person in the highest honors, than
barely to supply his present necessity: it is an admirable pity whereby
he was inclined to redeem us, and an incomparable affection whereby
he was resolved to exalt us. What can be desired more of him than his
goodness hath granted? He hath sought us out when we were lost, and
ransomed us when we were captives; he hath pardoned us when we were
condemned, and raised us when we were dead. In creation he reared
us from nothing, in redemption he delivers our understanding from
ignorance and vanity, and our wills from impotence and obstinacy, and
our whole man from a death worse than that nothing he drew us from by
creation.
v. Hence we may consider the height of this goodness in redemption to
exceed that in creation. He gave man a being in creation, but did not
draw him from inexpressible misery by that act. His liberality in the
gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the works of nature;
his goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief, than
his goodness in creation is visible to our eye. There is more of his
bounty expressed in that one verse, “So God loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son” (John iii. 16), than {b261} there is in
the whole volume of the world: it is an incomprehensible _so_; a _so_
that all the angels in heaven cannot analyse; and few comment upon,
or understand, the dimensions of this _so_. In creation he formed an
innocent creature of the dust of the ground; in redemption he restores
a rebellious creature by the blood of his Son: it is greater than that
goodness manifested in creation.
1st. In regard of the difficulty in effecting it. In creation, mere
nothing was vanquished to bring us into being; in redemption, sullen
enmity was conquered for the enjoyment of our restoration; in creation,
he subdued a nullity to make us creatures; in redemption, his goodness
overcomes his omnipotent justice to restore us to felicity. A word from
the mouth of Goodness inspired the dust of men’s bodies with a living
soul; but the blood of his Son must be shed, and the laws of natural
affection seems to be overturned, to lay the foundation of our renewed
happiness. In the first, heaven did but speak, and the earth was formed;
in the second, heaven itself must sink to earth, and be clothed with
dusty earth, to reduce man’s dust to its original state.
2d. This goodness is greater than that manifested in creation, in
regard of its cost. This was a more expensive goodness than what was
laid out in creation. “The redemption of one soul is precious” (Ps.
xlix. 8), much more costly than the whole fabric of the world, or as
many worlds as the understandings of angels in their utmost extent can
conceive to be created. For the effecting of this, God parts with his
dearest treasure, and his Son eclipses his choicest glory. For this,
God must be made man, Eternity must suffer death, the Lord of angels
must weep in a cradle, and the Creator of the world must hang like a
slave; he must be in a manger in Bethlehem, and die upon a cross on
Calvary; unspotted righteousness must be made sin, and unblemished
blessedness be made a curse. He was at no other expense than the breath
of his mouth to form man; the fruits of the earth could have maintained
innocent man without any other cost; but his broken nature cannot be
healed without the invaluable medicine of the blood of God. View Christ
in the womb and in the manger, in his weary steps and hungry bowels,
in his prostrations in the garden, and in his clodded drops of bloody
sweat; view his head pierced with a crown of thorns, and his face
besmeared with the soldiers’ slabber; view him in his march to Calvary,
and his elevation on the painful cross, with his head hanged down,
and his side streaming blood; view him pelted with the scoffs of the
governors, and the derisions of the rabble; and see, in all this, what
cost Goodness was at for man’s redemption! In creation, his power made
the sun to shine upon us, and, in redemption, his bowels sent a Son to
die for us.
3d. This goodness of God in redemption is greater than that
manifested in creation, in regard of man’s desert of the contrary.
In the creation, as there was nothing without him to allure him to
the expressions of his bounty, so there was nothing that did damp the
inclinations of his goodness: the nothing from whence the world was
drawn, could never merit, nor demerit a being, because it was nothing;
as there was nothing to engage him, so there was nothing {b262} to
disoblige him; as his favor could not be merited, so neither could his
anger be deserved. But in this he finds ingratitude against the former
marks of his goodness, and rebellion against the sweetness of his
sovereignty,――crimes unworthy of the dews of goodness, and worthy
of the sharpest strokes of vengeance; and therefore the Scripture
advanceth the honor of it above the title of mere goodness, to that of
“grace” (Rom. i. 2; Titus ii. 11); because men were not only unworthy
of a blessing, but worthy of a curse. An innocent nothing more
deserves creation, than a culpable creature deserves an exemption from
destruction. When man fell, and gave occasion to God to repent of his
created work, his ravishing goodness surmounted the occasions he had of
repenting, and the provocations he had to the destruction of his frame.
4th. It was a greater goodness than was expressed towards the angels.
1. A greater goodness than was expressed towards the standing angels.
The Son of God did no more expose his life for the confirmation of
those that stood, than for the restoration of those that fell; the
death of Christ was not for the holy angels, but for simple man; they
needed the grace of God to confirm them, but not the death of Christ to
restore or preserve them; they had a beloved holiness to be established
by the powerful grace of God, but not any abominable sin to be blotted
out by the blood of God; they had no debt to pay but that of obedience;
but we had both a debt of obedience to the precepts, and a debt of
suffering to the penalty, after the fall. Whether the holy angels were
confirmed by Christ, or no, is a question: some think they were, from
Colos. i. 20, where “things in heaven” are said to be “reconciled;”
but some think, that place signifies no more than the reconciliation
of things in heaven, if meant of the angels, to things on earth,
with whom they were at enmity in the cause of their Sovereign; or
the reconciliation of things in heaven to God, is meant the glorified
saints, who were once in a state of sin, and whom the death of Christ
upon the cross reached, though dead long before. But if angels were
confirmed by Christ, it was by him not as a slain sacrifice, but as a
sovereign Head of the whole creation, appointed by God to gather all
things into one; which some think to be the intendment of Eph. i. 10,
where all things, as well those in heaven, as those in earth, are said
to be “gathered together in one, in Christ.” Where is a syllable in
Scripture of his being crucified for angels, but only for sinners? Not
for the confirmation of the one, but the reconciliation of the other;
so that the goodness whereby God continued those blessed spirits in
heaven, through the effusions of his grace, is a small thing to the
restoring us to our forfeited happiness, through the streams of Divine
blood. The preserving a man in life is a little thing, and a smaller
benefit than the raising a man from death. The rescuing a man from
an ignominious punishment, lays a greater obligation than barely to
prevent him from committing a capital crime. The preserving a man
standing upon the top of a steep hill, is more easy than to bring
a crippled and phthisical man, from the bottom to the top. The
continuance God gave to the angels, is not so signal a mark of {b263}
his goodness as the deliverance he gave to us; since they were not sunk
into sin, nor by any crime fallen into misery.
2. His goodness in redemption is greater than any goodness expressed to
the fallen angels. It is the wonder of his goodness to us, that he was
mindful of fallen man, and careless of fallen angels; that he should
visit man, wallowing in death and blood, with the dayspring from on
high, and never turn the Egyptian darkness of devils into cheerful day;
when they sinned, Divine thunder dashed them into hell; when man sinned,
Divine blood wafts the fallen creature from his misery: the angels
wallow in their own blood forever, while Christ is made partaker of
our blood, and wallows in his blood, that we might not forever corrupt
in ours; they tumbled down from heaven, and Divine goodness would not
vouchsafe to catch them; man tumbles down, and Divine goodness holds
out a hand drenched in the blood of Him, that was from the foundations
of the world, to lift us up (Heb. ii. 16). He spared not those
dignified spirits, when they revolted; and spared not punishing his
Son for dusty man, when he offended; when he might as well forever have
let man lie in the chains wherein he had entangled himself, as them.
We were as fit objects of justice as they, and they as fit objects of
goodness as we; they were not more wretched by their fall than we; and
the poverty of our nature rendered us more unable to recover ourselves,
than the dignity of theirs did them; they were his Reuben, his
first‑born; they were his might, and the beginning of his strength;
yet those elder sons he neglected, to prefer the younger; they were the
prime and golden pieces of creation, not laden with gross matter, yet
they lie under the ruins of their fall, while man, lead in comparison
of them, is refined for another world. They seemed to be fitter objects
of Divine goodness, in regard of the eminency of their nature above the
human; one angel excelled in endowments of mind and spirit, vastness of
understanding, greatness of power, all the sons of men; they were more
capable to praise him, more capable to serve him; and because of the
acuteness of their comprehension, more able to have a due estimate of
such a redemption, had it been afforded them; yet that goodness which
had created them so comely, would not lay itself out in restoring the
beauty they had defaced. The promise was of bruising the serpent’s
head for us, not of lifting up the serpent’s head with us; their nature
was not assumed, nor any command given them to believe or repent; not
one devil spared, not one apostate spirit recovered, not one of those
eminent creatures restored; every one of them hath only a prospect of
misery, without any glimpse of recovery; they were ruined under one sin,
and we repaired under many. All His redeeming goodness was laid out
upon man (Ps. cxliv. 3); “What is man that thou takest knowledge of him;
and the Son of man, that thou makest account of him?” Making account of
him above angels; as they fell without any tempting them, so God would
leave them to rise, without any assisting them. I know the schools
trouble themselves to find out the reasons of this peculiarity of grace
to man, and not to them; because the whole human nature fell, but only
a part of the angelical; the one sinned by a seduction, and the other
{b264} by a sullenness, without any tempter; every angel sinned by his
own proper will, whereas Adam’s posterity sinned by the will of the
first man, the common root of all. God would deprive the devil of any
glory in the satisfaction of his envious desire to hinder man from
attainment and possession of that happiness which himself had lost.
The weakness of man below the angelical nature might excite the Divine
mercy; and since all the things of the lower world were created for man,
God would not lose the honor of his works, by losing the immediate end
for which he framed them. And finally, because in the restoration of
angels, there would have been only a restoration of one nature, that
was not comprehensive of the nature of inferior things; but after all
such conjectures, man must sit down, and acknowledge Divine goodness
to be the only spring, without any other motive. Since Infinite Wisdom
could have contrived a way for redemption for fallen angels, as well as
for fallen man, and restored both the one and the other; why might not
Christ have assumed their nature as well as ours, into the unity of the
Divine person, and suffered the wrath of God in their nature for them,
as well as in his human soul for us? It is as conceivable that two
natures might have been assumed by the Son of God, as well as three
souls be in man distinct, as some think there are.