It is a mighty goodness to offer grace to a rebel; a mighty goodness
to give it him after he hath a while stood off from the terms; an
astonishing goodness to regret and lament his wilful perdition. He
seems to utter those words in a sigh, “O that my people had hearkened
unto me, and Israel had walked in my way” (Ps. lxxxi. 13)! It is true,
God hath not human passions, but his affections cannot be expressed
otherwise in a way intelligible to us; the excellency of his nature
is above the passions of men; but such expressions of himself manifest
to us the sincerity of his goodness: and that, were he capable of our
passions, he would express himself in such a manner as we do: and we
find incarnate Goodness bewailing with tears and sighs the ruin of
Jerusalem (Luke xix. 42). By the same reason that when a sinner returns
there is joy in heaven, upon his obstinacy there is sorrow in earth.
The one is, as if a prince should clothe all his court in triumphant
scarlet, upon a rebel’s repentance; and the other, as if a prince put
himself and his court in mourning for a rebel’s obstinate refusal of
a pardon, when he lies at his mercy. Are not now these affectionate
invitations, and deep bewailings of their perversity, high testimonies
of Divine goodness? Do not the unwearied repetitions of gracious
encouragements deserve a higher name than that of mere goodness? What
can be a stronger evidence of the sincerity of it, than the sound
of his saving voice in our enjoyments, the motion of his Spirit in
our hearts, and his grief {b287} for the neglect of all? These are
not testimonies of any want of goodness in his nature to answer us,
or unwillingness to express it to his creature. Hath he any mind to
deceive us, that thus intreats us? The majesty of his nature is too
great for such shifts; or, if it were not, the despicableness of our
condition would render him above the using any. Who would charge that
physician with want of kindness, that freely offers his sovereign
medicine, importunes men, by the love they have to their health,
to take it, and is dissolved into tears and sorrow when he finds it
rejected by their peevish and conceited humor?
7th. Divine goodness is eminent in the sacraments he hath affixed to
this covenant, especially the Lord’s supper. As he gave himself in his
Son, so he gives his Son in the sacrament; he doth not only give him
as a sacrifice upon the cross for the expiation of our crimes, but as
a feast upon the table for the nourishment of our souls: in the one he
was given to be offered; in this he gives him to be partaken of, with
all the fruits of his death; under the image of the sacramental signs,
every believer doth eat the flesh, and drink the blood of the great
Mediator of the covenant. The words of Christ, “This is my body, and
this is my blood,” are true to the end of the world (Matt. xxvi. 26,
28). This is the most delicious viand of heaven, the most exquisite
dainty food God can feed us with: the delight of the Deity, the
admiration of angels; a feast with God is great, but a feast on God
is greater. Under those signs that body is presented; that which was
conceived by the Spirit, inhabited by the Godhead, bruised by the
Father to be our food, as well as our propitiation, is presented to us
on the table. That blood which satisfied justice, washed away our guilt
on the cross, and pleads for our persons at the throne of grace; that
blood which silenced the curse, pacified heaven, and purged earth, is
given to us for our refreshment. This is the bread sent from heaven,
the true manna; the cup is “the cup of blessing,” and, therefore, a
cup of goodness (1 Cor. x. 15). It is true, bread doth not cease to
be bread, nor the wine cease to be wine; neither of them lose their
substance, but both acquire a sanctification, by the relation they have
to that which they represent, and give a nourishment to that faith that
receives them. In those God offers us a remedy for the sting of sin,
and troubles of conscience; he gives us not the blood of a mere man,
or the blood of an incarnate angel, but of God blessed forever; a blood
that can secure us against the wrath of heaven, and the tumults of
our consciences; a blood that can wash away our sins, and beautify
our souls; a blood that hath more strength than our filth, and more
prevalency than our accuser; a blood that secures us against the
terrors of death, and purifies us for the blessedness of heaven.
The goodness of God complies with our senses, and condescends to our
weakness; he instructs us by the eye, as well as by the ear; he lets us
see, and taste, and feel him, as well as hear him; he veils his glory
under earthly elements, and informs our understanding in the mysteries
of salvation by signs familiar to our senses; and because we cannot
with our bodily eyes behold him in his glory, he presents him to the
eyes of our minds in elements, to affect our understandings in the
{b288} representations of his death. The body of Christ crucified is
more visible to our spiritual sense, than the invisible Deity could be
visible in his flesh upon earth; and the power of his body and blood
is as well experimented in our souls, as the power of his Divinity was
seen by the Jews in his miraculous actions in his body in the world.
It is the goodness of God, to mind us frequently of the great things
Christ hath purchased; that as himself would not let them be out of his
mind, to communicate them to us, so he would give us means to preserve
them in our minds, to adore him for them, and request them of him;
whereby he doth evidence his own solicitousness, that we should not be
deprived by our own forgetfulness of that grace Christ hath purchased
for us; it was to remember the Redeemer, “and show his death till he
came” (1 Cor. xi. 25, 26).
1. His goodness is seen in the end of it, which is a sealing the
covenant of grace. The common nature and end of sacraments is to seal
the covenant they belong to, and the truths of the promises of it.[983]
The legal sacraments of circumcision and the passover sealed the legal
promises and the covenant in the Judicial administration of it; and
the evangelical sacraments seal the evangelical promises, as a ring
confirms a contract of marriage, and a seal the articles of a compact;
by the same reason, circumcision is called a “seal of the righteousness
of faith” (Rom. iv. 11); other sacraments may have the same title; God
doth attest, that he will remain firm in his promise, and the receiver
attests he will remain firm in his faith. In all reciprocal covenants,
there are mutual engagements, and that which serves for a seal on the
part of the one, serves for a seal also on the part of the other; God
obligeth himself to the performance of the promise, and man engageth
himself to the performance of his duty. The thing confirmed by this
sacrament is the perpetuity of this covenant in the blood of Christ,
whence it is called “the New Testament,” or covenant “in the blood of
Christ” (Luke xxii. 20). In every repetition of it, God, by presenting,
confirms his resolution to us, of sticking to this covenant for the
merit of Christ’s blood; and the receiver, by eating the body and
drinking the blood, engageth himself to keep close to the condition
of faith, expecting a full salvation and a blessed immortality upon
the merit of the same blood alone. This sacrament could not be called
the “New Testament, or Covenant,” if it had not some relation to
the covenant; and what it can be but this, I do not understand. The
covenant itself was confirmed “by the death of Christ” (Heb. ix. 15),
and thereby made unchangeable both in the benefits to us, and the
condition required of us; but he seals it to our sense in a sacrament,
to give us strong consolation; or, rather, the articles of the covenant
of redemption between the Father and the Son, agreed on from eternity,
were accomplished on Christ’s part by his death, on the Father’s part
by his resurrection; Christ performed what he promised in the one, and
God acknowledgeth the validity of it, and performs what he had promised
in the other. The covenant of grace, founded upon this covenant of
redemption, is sealed in the sacrament; God owns his standing to the
terms of it, as sealed by the blood of the Mediator, by presenting
{b289} him to us under those signs, and gives us a right upon faith to
the enjoyment of the fruits of it. As the right of a house is made over
by the delivery of the key, and the right of land translated by the
delivery of a turf; whereby he gives us assurance of his reality, and
a strong support to our confidence in him; not that there is any virtue
and power of sealing in the elements themselves, no more than there is
in a turf to give an enfeoffment in a parcel of land; but as the power
of one is derived from the order of the law, so the confirming power
of the sacrament is derived from the institution of God; as the oil
wherewith kings were anointed, did not of itself confer upon them that
royal dignity, but it was a sign of their investiture into office,
ordered by Divine institution. We can with no reason imagine, that
God intended them as naked signs or pictures, to please our eyes with
the image of them, to represent their own figures to our eyes, but to
confirm something to our understanding by the efficacy of the Spirit
accompanying them:[984] they convey to the believing receiver what
they represent, as the great seal of a prince, fixed to the parchment,
doth the pardon of a rebel as well as its own figure. Christ’s death,
and the grace of the covenant is not only signified, but the fruits
and merit of that death communicated also. Thus doth Divine goodness
evidence itself, not only in making a gracious covenant with us, but
fixing seals to it; not to strengthen his own obligation, which stood
stronger than the foundations of heaven and earth, upon the credit of
his word, but to strengthen our weakness, and support our security, by
something which might appear more formal and solemn than a bare word.
By this, the Divine goodness provides against our spiritual faintings,
and shows us by real signs as well as verbal declarations, that the
covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, is unalterable; and thereby
would fortify and mount our hopes to degrees in some measure suitable
to the kindness of the covenant, and the dignity of the Redeemer’s
blood. And it is yet a further degree of this goodness, that he hath
appointed us so often to celebrate it, whereby he shows how careful
he is to keep up our tottering faith, and preserve us constant in our
obedience; obliging himself to the performance of his promise, and
obliging us to the payment of our duty.
2. His goodness is seen in the sacrament in giving us in it an
union and communion with Christ. There is not only a commemoration
of Christ dying, but a communication of Christ living. The apostle
strongly asserts it by way of interrogation (1 Cor. x. 16), “The cup
of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of
Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body
of Christ?” In the cup there is a communication of the blood of Christ,
a conveyance of a right to the merits of his death, and the blessedness
of his life: we are not less by this made one body with Christ than we
are by baptism (1 Cor. xii. 13): and “put on Christ” living in this, as
well as in baptism (Gal. iii. 27); that as his taking our infirm flesh
was a real incarnation, so the giving us his flesh to eat is a mystical
incarnation in believers, whereby they become one body with him as
crucified, and one body with {b290} him as risen; for if Christ himself
be received by faith in the word (Col. ii. 6), he is no less received
by faith in the sacrament. When the Holy Ghost is said to be received,
the graces or gifts of the Holy Ghost are received; so when Christ
is received, the fruits of his death are really partaken of. The
Israelites that ate of the sacrifices, did “partake of the altar”
(1 Cor. x. 18), _i. e._ had a communion with the God of Israel, to
whom they had been sacrificed; and those that “ate of the sacrifices”
offered to idols, had a “fellowship with devils,” to whom those
sacrifices were offered (ver. 20). Those that partake of the sacraments
in a due manner, have a communion with that God to whom it was
sacrificed, and a communion with that body which was sacrificed to
God; not that the substance of that body and blood is wrapped up in
the elements, or that the bread and wine are transformed into the body
and blood of Christ, but as they represent him, and by virtue of the
institution are, in estimation himself, his own body and blood; by the
same reason as he is called “Christ our passover,” he may be called
“Christ our supper” (1 Cor. v. 7): for as they are so reckoned to an
unworthy receiver, as if they were the real body and blood of Christ,
because by his not discerning the Lord’s body in it, or making light
of it as common bread, he is judged “guilty of the body and blood of
Christ,” guilty of treating him in as base a manner as the Jews did
when they crowned him with thorns (1 Cor. xi. 27, 29): by the same
reason they must be reckoned to a worthy receiver, as the very body
and blood of Christ: so that as the unworthy receiver “eats and drinks
damnation,” the worthy receiver “eats and drinks” salvation. It would
be an empty mystery, and unworthy of an institution by Divine goodness,
if there were not some communion with Christ in it: there would be
some kind of deceit in the precept, “Take, eat, and drink, this is
my body and blood,” if there were not a conveyance of spiritual vital
influences to our souls: for the natural end of eating and drinking is
the nourishment and increase of the body, and preservation of life, by
that which we eat and drink. The infinite wise, gracious, and true God,
would never give us empty figures without accomplishing that which is
signified by them, and suitable to them. How great is this goodness of
God! he would have his Son in us, one with us, straitly joined to us,
as if we were his proper flesh and blood: in the incarnation Divine
goodness united him to our nature; in the sacrament, it doth in a sort
unite him with his purchased privileges to our persons; we have not a
communion with a part or a member of his body, or a drop of his blood,
but with his whole body and blood, represented in every part of the
elements. The angels in the heaven enjoy not so great a privilege; they
have the honor to be under him as their Head, but not that of having
him for their food; they behold him, but they do not taste him. And,
certainly, that goodness that hath condescended so much to our weakness,
would impart it to us in a very glorious manner, were we capable of
it. But, because a man cannot behold the light of the sun in its full
splendor by reason of the infirmities of his eyes, he must behold it
by the help of a glass, and such a communication through a colored and
opaque glass, is as real from the sun itself, though not so glorious,
but more shrouded {b291} and obscure; it is the same light that shines
through that medium, as spreads itself gloriously in the open air,
though the one be masked, and the other open‑faced. To conclude this,
by the way, we may take notice of the neglect of this ordinance:
if it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of
our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it. He that values the
kindness of his friend, will accept of his invitation, if there be not
some strong impediments in the way, or so much familiarity with him
that his refusal upon a light occasion would not be unkindly taken. But
though God put on the disposition of a friend to us, yet he looseth not
the authority of a sovereign; and the humble familiarity he invites us
to, doth not diminish the condition and duty of a subject. A sovereign
prince would not take it well, if a favorite should refuse the offered
honor of his table. The viands of God are not to be slighted. Can
we live better upon our poor pittance than upon his dainties? Did
not Divine goodness condescend in it to the weakness of our faith,
and shall we conceit our faith stronger than God thinks it? If he
thought fit by those seals to make a deed of gift to us, shall we be so
unmannerly to him, and such enemies to the security he offers us over
and above his word, as not to accept it? Are we unwilling to have our
souls inflamed with love, our hearts filled with comfort, and armed
against the attempts of our enemies? It is true, there is a guilt of
the body and blood of Christ contracted by a slightness in the manner
of attending; is it not also contracted by a refusal and neglect? What
is the language of it? If it speaks not the death of Christ in vain, it
speaks the institution of this ordinance as a remembrance of his death,
to be a vanity, and no mark of Divine goodness. Let us, therefore, put
such a value upon Divine goodness in this affair, as to be willing to
receive the conveyances of his love, and fresh engagements of our duty;
the one is due from us to the kindness of our friend, and the other
belongs to our duty as his subjects.
vi. By this redemption God restores us to a more excellent condition
than Adam had in innocence. Christ was sent by Divine goodness, not
only to restore the life Adam’s sin had stripped us of, but to give
it more abundantly than Adam’s standing could have conveyed it to us
(John x. 10), “I am come that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly.” More abundantly for strength, more abundantly
for duration, a life abounding with greater felicity and glory: the
substance of those better promises of the new covenant than what
attended the old. There are fuller streams of grace by Christ than
flowed to Adam, or could flow from Adam. As Christ never restored any
to health and strength while he was in the world, but he gave them
a greater measure of both than they had before; so there is the same
kindness, no question, manifested in our spiritual condition. Adam’s
life might have preserved us, but Adam’s death could not have rescued
either himself or his posterity; but, in our redemption, we have a
Redeemer, who hath “died to expiate our sins,” and so crowned with
life to save, and forever preserve our persons (Rom. v. 10), “Because
I live, ye shall live also:” so that by redeeming goodness the life
of a believer {b292} is as perpetual as the life of the Redeemer
Christ (John xiv. 19). Adam, though innocent, was under the danger
of perishing; a believer, though culpable, is above the fears of
mutability. Adam had a holiness in his nature, but capable of being
lost; by Christ believers have a holiness bestowed, not capable of
being rifled, but which will remain till it be at last fully perfected:
though they have a power to change in their nature, yet they are above
an actual final change by the indulgence of Divine grace. Adam stood
by himself; believers stand in a root, impossible to be shaken or
corrupted: by this means the “promise is sure to all the seed” (Rom.
iv. 16). Christ is a stronger person than Adam, who can never break
covenant with God, and the truth of God will never break covenant with
him. We are united to a more excellent Head than Adam: instead of a
root merely human, we have a root Divine as well as human. In him we
had the righteousness of a creature merely human; in this we have a
righteousness divine, the righteousness of God‑man; the stock is no
longer in our own hands, but in the hands of One that cannot embezzle
it, or forfeit it: Divine goodness hath deposited it strongly for our
security. The stamp we receive, by the Divine goodness, from the second
Adam, is more noble than that we should have received from the first,
had he remained in his created state: Adam was formed of the dust of
the earth, and the new man is formed by the incorruptible seed of the
word; and at the resurrection, the body of man shall be endued with
better qualities than Adam had at creation: they shall be like that
glorious Body which is in heaven, in union with the person of the “Son
of God” (Phil. iii. 21). Adam, at the best, had but an earthly body,
but the Lord from heaven hath a “heavenly body,” the image of which
shall be borne by the redeemed ones, as they have borne the image
of the earthly (1 Cor. xv. 47‒49). Adam had the society of beasts;
redeemed ones expect, by Divine goodness in redemption, a commerce
with angels; as they are reconciled to them by his death, they shall
certainly come to converse with them at the consummation of their
happiness; as they are made of one family, so they will have a peculiar
intimacy: Adam had a paradise, and redeemed ones a heaven provided for
them; a happier place with a richer furniture. It is much to give so
complete a paradise to innocent Adam; but more to give heaven to an
ungrateful Adam, and his rebellious posterity: it had been abundant
goodness to have restored us to the same condition in that paradise
from whence we were ejected; but a superabundant goodness to bestow
upon us a better habitation in heaven, which we could never have
expected. How great is that goodness, when by sin we were fallen to
be worse than nothing, that He should raise us to be more than what we
were; that restored us, not to the first step of our creation, but to
many degrees of elevation beyond it! not only restores us, but prefers
us; not only striking off our chains, to set us free, but clothing
us with a robe of righteousness, to render us honorable; not only
quenching our hell, but preparing a heaven; not re‑garnishing an
earthly, but providing a richer palace: his goodness was so great,
that, after it had rescued us, it would not content itself with the
old furniture, but makes all new for us in another {b293} world; a new
wine to drink; a new heaven to dwell in; a more magnificent structure
for our habitation: thus hath Goodness prepared for us a straiter
union, a stronger life, a purer righteousness, an unshaken standing,
and a fuller glory; all more excellent than was within the compass of
innocent Adam’s possession.