than was for a time manifested to Christ himself. To demonstrate his
goodness to man, in preventing his eternal ruin, he would for a while
withhold his goodness from his Son, by exposing his life as the price
of our ransom; not only subjecting him to the derisions of enemies,
desertions of friends, and malice of devils, but to the inexpressible
bitterness of his own wrath in his soul, as made an offering for sin.
The particle _so_ (John iii. 16), seems to intimate this supremacy of
goodness; He “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”
He so loved the world, that he seemed for a time not to love his Son in
comparison of it, or equal with it. The person to whom a gift is given
is, in that regard, accounted more valuable than the gift or present
made to him: thus God valued our redemption above the worldly happiness
of the Redeemer, and sentenceth him to an humiliation on earth, in
order to our exaltation in heaven; he was desirous to hear him groaning,
and see him bleeding, that we might not groan under his frowns, and
bleed under his wrath; he spared not him, that he might spare us;
refused not to strike him, that he might be well pleased with us;
drenched his sword in the blood of his Son, that it might not forever
be wet with ours, but that his goodness might forever triumph in our
salvation; he was willing to have his Son made man, and die, rather
than man should perish, who had delighted to ruin himself; he seemed to
degrade him for a time from what he was.[980] But since he could not be
united to any but to an intellectual creature, he could not be united
to any viler and more sordid creature than the earthly nature of
man: and when this Son, in our nature, prayed that the cup might pass
from him, Goodness would not suffer it, to show how it valued {b265}
the manifestation of itself, in the salvation of man, above the
preservation of the life of so dear a person.
In particular, wherein this goodness appears:――
1st. The first resolution to redeem, and the means appointed for
redemption, could have no other inducement but Divine goodness. We
cannot too highly value the merit of Christ; but we must not so much
extend the merit of Christ, as to draw a value to eclipse the goodness
of God; though we owe our redemption and the fruits of it to the death
of Christ, yet we owe not the first resolutions of redemption, and
assumption of our nature, the means of redemption, to the merit of
Christ. Divine goodness only, without the association of any merit, not
only of man, but of the Redeemer himself, begat the first purpose of
our recovery; he was singled out, and predestinated to be our Redeemer,
before he took our nature to merit our redemption. “God sent his Son,”
is a frequent expression in the Gospel of St. John (John iii. 34; v. 24;
xvii. 3). To what end did God send Christ, but to redeem? The purpose
of redemption, therefore, preceded the pitching upon Christ as the
means and procuring cause of it, _i. e._ of our actual redemption, but
not of the redeeming purpose; the end is always in intention before
the means.[981] “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son;” the love of God to the world was first in intention, and the
order of nature, before the will of giving his Son to the world. His
intention of saving was before the mission of a Saviour; so that this
affection rose, not from the merit of Christ, but the merit of Christ
was directed by this affection. It was the effect of it, not the
cause. Nor was the union of our nature with his merited by him; all his
meritorious acts were performed in our nature; the nature, therefore,
wherein he performed it, was not merited; that grace which was not,
could not merit what it was; he could not merit that humanity, which
must be assumed before he could merit anything for us, because all
merit for us must be offered in the nature which had offended. It is
true “Christ gave himself,” but by the order of Divine goodness; he
that begat him, pitched upon him, and called him to this great work
(Heb. v. 5); he is therefore called “the Lamb of God,” as being set
apart by God to be a propitiating and appeasing sacrifice. He is the
“Wisdom of God,” since from the Father he reveals the counsel and order
of redemption. In this regard he calls God “his God” in the prophet
(Isa. xlix. 4), and in the evangelist (John xx. 17); though he was big
with affection for the accomplishment, yet he came not to do his “own
will,” but the will of Divine goodness; his own will it was, too, but
not principally, as being the first wheel in motion, but subordinate
to the eternal will of Divine bounty. It was by the will of God that
he came, and by his will he drank the dreggy cup of bitterness. Divine
justice laid “upon him the iniquity of us all,” but Divine goodness
intended it for our rescue; Divine goodness singled him out, and set
him apart; Divine goodness invited him to it; Divine goodness commanded
him to effect it, and put a law into his heart, to bias him in the
performing of it; Divine goodness sent him, and Divine goodness moved
justice to bruise him; and, after {b266} his sacrifice, Divine goodness
accepted him, and caressed him for it. So earnest was it for our
redemption, as to give out special and irreversible orders: death
was commanded to be endured by him for us, and life commanded to be
imparted by him to us (John x. 16, 18). If God had not been the mover,
but had received the proposal from another, he might have heard it, but
was not bound to grant it; his sovereign authority, was not under any
obligation to receive another’s sponsion for the miserable criminal.
As Christ is the head of man, so “God is the head of Christ” (1 Cor.
xi. 3); he did nothing but by his directions, as he was not a Mediator,
but by the constitution of Divine goodness. As a “liberal man deviseth
liberal things” (Isa. ii. 8), so did a bountiful God devise a bountiful
act, wherein his kindness and love as a Saviour appeared: he was
possessed with the resolutions to manifest his goodness in Christ, “in
the beginning of his way” (Prov. viii. 22, 23), before he descended
to the act of creation. This intention of goodness preceded his making
that creature man, who, he foresaw, would fall, and, by his fall,
disjoint and entangle the whole frame of the world, without such a
provision.
2d. In God’s giving Christ to be our Redeemer, he gave the highest gift
that it was possible for Divine goodness to bestow. As there is not a
greater God than himself to be conceived, so there is not a greater
gift for this great God to present to his creatures: never did God go
farther, in any of his excellent perfections, than this. It is such a
dole that cannot be transcended with a choicer; he is, as it were, come
to the last mite of his treasure; and though he could create millions
of worlds for us, he cannot give a greater Son to us. He could abound
in the expressions of his power, in new creations of worlds, which
have not yet been seen, and in the lustre of his wisdom in more stately
structures; but if he should frame as many worlds as there are mites
of dust and matter in this, and make every one of them as bright
and glorious as the sun, though his power and wisdom would be more
signalized, yet his goodness could not, since he hath not a choicer
gift to bless those brighter worlds withal, than he hath conferred upon
this: nor can immense goodness contrive a richer means to conduct those
worlds to happiness, than he hath both invented for this world, and
presented it with. It cannot be imagined, that it can extend itself
farther than to give a gift equal with himself; a gift as dear to him
as himself. His wisdom, had it studied millions of eternities (excuse
the expression, since eternity admits of no millions, it being an
interminable duration), it could have found out no more to give; this
goodness could have bestowed no more, and our necessity could not
have required a greater offering for our relief. When God intended, in
redemption, the manifestation of his highest goodness, it could not be
without the donation of the choicest gift; as, when he would insure our
comfort, he swears “by himself,” because he cannot swear “by a greater”
(Heb. vi. 13): so, when we would insure our happiness, he gives us his
Son, because he cannot give a greater, being equal with himself. Had
the Father given himself in person, he had given one first in order,
but not greater in essence and glorious perfections: it could have been
no more than the life of God, and should then have been {b267} laid
down for us; and so it was now, since the human nature did not subsist
but in his Divine person.
1. It is a greater gift than worlds, or all things purchased by him.
What was this gift but “the image of his person, and the brightness of
his glory” (Heb. i. 3)? What was this gift but one as rich as eternal
blessedness could make him? What was this gift, but one that possessed
the fulness of earth, and the more immense riches of heaven? It is a
more valuable present, than if he presented us with thousands of worlds
of angels and inferior creatures, because his person is incomparably
greater, not only than all conceivable, but inconceivable, creations;
we are more obliged to him for it, than if he had made us angels of
the highest rank in heaven, because it is a gift of more value than the
whole angelical nature, because he is an infinite person, and therefore
infinitely transcends whatsoever is finite, though of the highest
dignity. The wounds of an Almighty God for us are a greater testimony
of goodness, than if we had all the other riches of heaven and earth.
This perfection had not appeared in such an astonishing grandeur, had
it pardoned us without so rich a satisfaction; that had been pardon
to our sin, not a God of our nature. “God so loved the world” that he
pardoned it, had not sounded so great and so good, as God so loved the
world, that he “gave his only‑begotten Son.” _Est aliquid in Christo
formosius Servatore._ There is something in Christ more excellent and
comely than the office of a Saviour; the greatness of his person is
more excellent, than the salvation procured by his death: it was a
greater gift than was bestowed upon innocent Adam, or the holy angels.
In the creation, his goodness gave us creatures for our use: in our
redemption, his goodness gives us what was dearest to him for our
service, our Sovereign in office to benefit us, as well as in a royalty
to govern us.
2. It was a greater gift, because it was his own Son, not an angel. It
had been a mighty goodness to have given one of the lofty seraphims; a
greater goodness to have given the whole corporation of those glorious
spirits for us, those children of the Most High: but he gave that Son,
whom he commands “all the angels to worship” (Heb. i. 6), and all men
to adore, and pay the “lowest homage to” (Ps. ii. 12); that Son that
is to be honored by us, as we “honor the Father” (John v. 23); that Son
which was his “delight” (Prov. viii. 30); his delights in the Hebrew,
wherein all the delights of the Father were gathered in one, as well as
of the whole creation; and not simply a Son, but an only‑begotten Son,
upon which Christ lays the stress with an emphasis (1 John iii. 16).
He had but one Son in heaven or earth, one Son from an unviewable
eternity, and that one Son he gave for a degenerate world; this son
he consecrated for “evermore a Priest” (Heb. vii. 28). “The word of
the oath makes the Son;” the peculiarity of his Sonship heightens the
goodness of the Donor. It was no meaner a person that he gave to empty
himself of his glory, to fulfil an obedience for us, that we might
be rendered happy partakers of the Divine nature. Those that know
the natural affection of a father to a son, must judge the affection
of God the Father to the Son infinitely greater, than the affection
of an earthly {b268} father to the son of his bowels. It must be an
unparalleled goodness, to give up a Son that he loved with so ardent
an affection, for the redemption of rebels: abandon a glorious Son to
a dishonorable death, for the security of those that had violated the
laws of righteousness, and endeavored to pull the sovereign crown from
his head. Besides, being an only Son, all those affections centered
in him, which in parents would have been divided among a multitude
of children: so, then, as it was a testimony of the highest faith and
obedience in “Abraham to offer up his only‑begotten son to God” (Heb.
xi. 17); so it was the triumph of Divine goodness, to give so great,
so dear a person, for so little a thing as man; and for such a piece
of nothing and vanity, as a sinful world.
3. And this Son given to rescue us by his death. It was a gift to us;
for our sakes he descended from his throne, and dwelt on earth; for our
sakes he was “made flesh,” and infirm flesh; for our sakes he was “made
a curse,” and scorched in the furnace of his Father’s wrath; for our
sakes he went naked, armed only with his own strength, into the lists
of that combat with the devils, that led us captive. Had he given
him to be a leader for the conquest of some earthly enemies, it had
been a great goodness to display his banners, and bring us under his
conduct; but he sent him to lay down his life in the bitterest and most
inglorious manner, and exposed him to a cursed death for our redemption
from that dreadful curse, which would have broken us to pieces, and
irreparably have crushed us. He gave him to us, to suffer for us as
a man, and redeem us as a God; to be a sacrifice to expiate our sin
by translating the punishment upon himself, which was merited by us.
Thus was he made low to exalt us, and debased to advance us, “made
poor to enrich us” (2 Cor. viii. 9); and eclipsed to brighten our
sullied natures, and wounded, that he might be a physician for our
languishments. He was ordered to taste the bitter cup of death, that we
might drink of the rivers of immortal life and pleasures: to submit to
the frailties of the human nature, that we might possess the glories
of the divine: he was ordered to be a sufferer, that we might be no
longer captives; and to pass through the fire of Divine wrath, that
he might purge our nature from the dross it had contracted. Thus was
the righteous given for sin, the innocent for criminals, the glory
of heaven for the dregs of earth, and the immense riches of a Deity
expended to restock man.
4. And a Son that was exalted for what he had done for us by the order
of Divine goodness. The exaltation of Christ was no less a signal mark
of his miraculous goodness to us, than of his affection to him: since
he was obedient by Divine goodness to die for us, his advancement was
for his obedience to those orders. The name given to him “above every
name” (Phil. ii. 8, 9), was a repeated triumph of this perfection;
since his passion was not for himself, he was wholly innocent, but
for us who were criminal. His advancement was not only for himself as
Redeemer, but for us as redeemed: Divine goodness centered in him, both
in his cross and in his crown; for it was for the “purging our sins,
he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. i. 3): and
the whole blessed society {b269} of principalities and powers in heaven
admire this goodness of God, and ascribe to him “honor, glory, and
power” for advancing the “Lamb slain” (Rev. v. 11‒13). Divine goodness
did not only give him to us, but gave him power, riches, strength, and
honor, for manifesting this goodness to us, and opening the passages
for its fuller conveyances to the sons of men. Had not God had thoughts
of a perpetual goodness, he would not have settled him so near him, to
manage our cause, and testified so much affection to him on our behalf.
This goodness gave him to be debased for us, and ordered him to be
enthroned for us: as it gave him to us bleeding, so it would give him
to us triumphing; that as we have a share by grace in the merits of his
humiliation, we might partake also of the glories of his coronation;
that, from first to last, we may behold nothing but the triumphs of
Divine goodness to fallen man.
5. In bestowing this gift on us, Divine goodness gives whole God to
us. Whatsoever is great and excellent in the Godhead, the Father gives
us, by giving us his Son: the Creator gives himself to us in his Son
Christ. In giving creatures to us, he gives the riches of earth; in
giving himself to us, he gives the riches of heaven, which surmount
all understanding: it is in this gift he becomes our God, and passeth
over the title of all that he is for our use and benefit, that every
attribute in the Divine nature may be claimed by us; not to be imparted
to us whereby we may be deified, but employed for our welfare, whereby
we may be blessed. He gave himself in creation to us in the image of
his holiness; but, in redemption, he gave himself in the image of his
person: he would not only communicate the goodness without him, but
bestow upon us the infinite goodness of his own nature; that that which
was his own end and happiness might be our end and happiness, _viz._
himself. By giving his Son, he hath given himself; and in both gifts
he hath given all things to us. The Creator of all things is eminently
all things: “He hath given all things into the hands of his Son” (John
iii. 35); and, by consequence, given all things into the hands of his
redeemed creatures, by giving them Him to whom he gave all things;
whatsoever we were invested in by creation, whatsoever we were deprived
of by corruption, and more, he hath deposited in safe hands for our
enjoyment: and what can Divine goodness do more for us? What further
can it give unto us, than what it hath given, and in that gift designed
for us?
3d. This goodness is enhanced by considering the state of man in the
first transgression, and since.
1. Man’s first transgression. If we should rip up every vein of that
first sin, should we find any want of wickedness to excite a just
indignation? What was there but ingratitude to Divine bounty, and
rebellion against Divine sovereignty? The royalty of God was attempted;
the supremacy of Divine knowledge above man’s own knowledge envied; the
riches of goodness, whereby he lived and breathed, slighted. There is a
discontent with God upon an unreasonable sentiment, that God had denied
a knowledge to him which was his right and due, when there should have
been an humble acknowledgment of that unmerited goodness, which had not
only {b270} given him a being above other creatures, but placed him the
governor and lord of those that were inferior to him. What alienation
of his understanding was there from knowing God, and of his will from
loving him! A debauch of all his faculties; a spiritual adultery, in
preferring, not only one of God’s creatures, but one of his desperate
enemies, before him; thinking him a wiser counsellor than Infinite
Wisdom, and imagining him possessed with kinder affections to him than
that God who had newly created him. Thus he joins in league with hell
against heaven, with a fallen spirit against his bountiful Benefactor,
and enters into society with rebels that just before commenced a war
against his and their common Sovereign: he did not only falter in, but
cast off, the obedience due to his Creator; endeavored to purloin his
glory, and actually murdered all those that were virtually in his loins.
“Sin entered into the world” by him, “and death by sin, and passed
upon all men” (Rom. v. 12), taking them off from their subjection to
God, to be slaves to the damned spirits, and heirs of their misery:
and, after all this, he adds a foul imputation on God, taxing him as
the author of his sin, and thereby stains the beauty of his holiness.
But, notwithstanding all this, God stops not up the flood‑gates of
his goodness, nor doth he entertain fiery resolutions against man, but
brings forth a healing promise; and sends not an angel upon commission
to reveal it to him, but preaches it himself to this forlorn and
rebellious creature (Gen. iii. 15).
2. Could there be anything in this fallen creature to allure God
to the expression of his goodness? Was there any good action in all
his carriage that could plead for a re‑admission of him to his former
state? Was there one good quality left, that could be an orator to
persuade Divine goodness to such a gracious procedure? Was there any
moral goodness in man, after this debauch, that might be an object of
Divine love? What was there in him, that was not rather a provocation
than an allurement? Could you expect that any perfection in God should
find a motive in this ungrateful apostate to open a mouth for him, and
be an advocate to support him, and bring him off from a just tribunal?
or, after Divine goodness had begun to pity and plead for man, is
it not wonderful that it should not discontinue the plea, after it
found man’s excuse to be as black as his crime (Gen. iii. 12), and
his carriage, upon his examination, to be as disobliging as his first
revolt? It might well be expected, that all the perfections in the
Divine nature would have entered into an association eternally to
treat this rebel according to his deserts. What attractives were there
in a silly worm, much less in such complete wickedness, inexcusable
enmity, infamous rebellion, to design a Redeemer for him, and such a
person as the Son of God to a fleshy body, an eclipse of glory, and an
ignominious cross? The meanness of man was further from alluring God to
it, than the dignity of angels.
3. Was there not a world of demerit in man, to animate grace as well
as wrath against him? We were so far from deserving the opening any
streams of goodness, that we had merited floods of devouring wrath.
What were all men but enemies to God in a high {b271} manner? Every
offence was infinite, as being committed against a being of infinite
dignity; it was a stroke at the very being of God, a resistance of all
his attributes; it would degrade him from the height and perfection of
his nature; it would not, by its good will, suffer God to be God. If he
that hates his brother is a murderer of his brother (1 John iii. 15),
he that hates his Creator is a murderer of the Deity, and every
“carnal mind is enmity to God” (Rom. viii. 7): every sin envies him
his authority, by breaking his precept; and envies him his goodness, by
defacing the marks of it: every sin comprehends in it more than men or
angels can conceive: that God who only hath the clear apprehensions of
his own dignity, hath the sole clear apprehensions of sin’s malignity.
All men were thus by nature: those that sinned before the coming of the
Redeemer had been in a state of sin; those that were to come after him
would be in a state of sin by their birth, and be criminals as soon as
ever they were creatures. All men, as well the glorified, as those in
the flesh at the coming of the Redeemer, and those that were to be born
after, were considered in a state of sin by God, when he bruised the
Redeemer for them; all were filthy and unworthy of the eye of God; all
had employed the faculties of their souls, and the members of their
bodies, which they enjoyed by his goodness, against the interest of
his glory. Every rational creature had made himself a slave to those
creatures over whom he had been appointed a lord, subjected himself
as a servant to his inferior, and strutted as a superior against his
liberal Sovereign, and by every sin rendered himself more a child of
Satan, and enemy of God, and more worthy of the curses of the law, and
the torments of hell. Was it not, now, a mighty goodness that would
surmount those high mountains of demerit, and elevate such creatures
by the depression of his Son? Had we been possessed of the highest
holiness, a reward had been the natural effect of goodness. It was not
possible that God should be unkind to a righteous and innocent creature;
his grace would have crowned that which had been so agreeable to him.
He had been a denier of himself, had he numbered innocent creatures in
the rank of the miserable; but to be kind to an enemy, to run counter
to the vastness of demerit in man, was a superlative goodness, a
goodness triumphing above all the provocations of men, and pleas of
justice: it was an abounding goodness of grace; “where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound” (Rom. v. 20), ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν; it swelled
above the heights of sin, and triumphed more than all his other
attributes.