It takes in, not only man, but the whole creation, except the fallen
angels, and gives a participation of it to insensible creatures; upon
the account of this redemption the sun, and all kind of creatures, were
preserved, which otherwise had sunk into destruction upon the sin of
man, and ceased from their being, as man had utterly ceased from his
happiness (Colos. i. 17): “By him all things consist.” The fall of man
brought, not only a misery upon himself, but a vanity upon the creature;
the earth groaned under a curse for his sake. They were all created for
the glory of God, and the support of man in the performance of his duty,
who was obliged to use them for the honor of Him that created them both.
Had man been true to his obligations, and used the creatures for that
end to which they were dedicated by the Creator; as God would have then
rejoiced in his works, so his works would have rejoiced in the honor
of answering so excellent an end: but when man lost his integrity,
the creatures lost their perfection; the honor of them was stained
when they were debased to serve the lusts of a traitor, instead
of supporting the duty of a subject, and employed in the defence
of the vices of men against the precepts and authority of their
common Sovereign. This was a vilifying the creature, as it would be
a vilifying the sword of a prince, which is, for the maintenance of
justice, to be used for the murder of an innocent; and a dishonoring a
royal mansion, to make it a storehouse for a dunghill. Had those things
the benefit of sense, they would groan under this disgrace, and rise up
in indignation against them that offered them this affront, and turned
them from their proper end. When sin entered, the heavens that were
made to shine upon man, and the earth that was made to bear and nourish
an innocent creature, were now subjected to serve a rebellious creature;
and as man turned against God, so he made those instruments against
God, to serve his enmity, luxury, sensuality. Hence the creatures
are said to groan (Rom. viii. 22); “The whole creation groans and
travails in pain together until now.” They would really groan, had
they understanding to be sensible of the outrage done them. “The whole
creation.”――It is the pang of universal nature, the agony of the whole
creation, to be alienated from the original use for which they were
intended, and be disjointed from their end to serve the disloyalty of
a rebel. The drunkard’s cup, and the glutton’s table, the adulterer’s
bed, and the proud man’s purple, would groan against the abuser of them.
But when all the fruits of redemption shall be completed, the goodness
of God shall pour itself upon the creatures, deliver them from the
“bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of
God” (Rom. viii. 21); they shall be reduced to their true end, and
returned in their original harmony. As the creation doth passionately
groan under its vanity, so it doth “earnestly expect and wait for its
deliverance {b294} at the time of the manifestation of the sons of God”
(ver. 19). The manifestation of the sons of God is the attainment of
the liberty of the creature. They shall be freed from the vanity under
which they are enslaved; as it entered by sin, it shall vanish upon the
total removal of sin. What use they were designed for in paradise they
will have afterwards, except that of the nourishment of men, who shall
be as “angels, neither eating nor drinking:” the glory of God shall be
seen and contemplated in them. It can hardly be thought that God made
the world to be little a moment after he had reared it, sullied by the
sin of man, and turned from its original end, without thoughts of a
restoration of it to its true end, as well as man to his lost happiness.
The world was made for man: man hath not yet enjoyed the creature in
the first intention of them; sin made an interruption in that fruition.
As redemption restores man to his true end, so it restores the
creatures to their true use. The restoration of the world to its beauty
and order was the design of the Divine goodness in the coming of Christ,
as it is intimated in Isa. xi. 6‒9; as he “came not to destroy the
law, but to fulfil it,” so he came not to destroy the creatures, but to
repair them: to restore to God the honor and pleasure of the creation,
and restore to the creatures their felicity in restoring their order:
the fall corrupted it, and the full redemption of men restores it.
The last time is called, not a time of destruction, but a “time of
restitution,” and that “of all things” (Acts iii. 21) of universal
nature, the main part of the creation at least. All those things which
were the effects of sin will be abolished; the removal of the cause
beats down the effect. The disorder and unruliness of the creature,
arising from the venom of man’s transgression, all the fierceness of
one creature against another shall vanish. The world shall be nothing
but an universal smile; nature shall put on triumphant vestments: there
shall be no affrighting thunders, choking mists, venomous vapors, or
poisonous plants. It would not else be a restitution of all things.
They are now subject to be wasted by judgments for the sin of their
possessor, but the perfection of man’s redemptions shall free them
from every misery. They have an advancement at the present, for they
are under a more glorious Head, as being the possession of Christ,
the heavenly Adam, much superior to the first: as it is the glory
of a person to be a servant to a prince, rather than a peasant. And
afterwards, they shall be elevated to a better state, sharing in
man’s happiness, as well as they did in his misery: as servants are
interested in the good fortune of their master, and bettered by his
advance in his prince’s favor. As man in his first creation was mutable
and liable to sin, so the creatures were liable to vanity; but as man
by grace shall be freed from the mutability, so shall the creatures be
freed from the fears of an invasion, by the vanity that sullied them
before. The condition of the servants shall be suited to that of their
Lord, for whom they were designed: hence, all creatures are called
upon to rejoice upon the perfection of salvation, and the appearance
of Christ’s royal authority in the world. If they were to be destroyed,
there would be no ground to invite them to triumph (Ps. xcvi. 11, 12;
cxviii. 7, 8). Thus doth Divine goodness spread its kind arms over the
whole creation.
{b295} _Thirdly._ The third thing is the goodness of God in his
_Government_. That goodness that despised not their creation, doth not
despise their conduct. The same goodness that was the head that framed
them, is the helm that guides them; his goodness hovers over the whole
frame, either to prevent any wild disorders unsuitable to his creating
end, or to conduct them to those ends which might illustrate his wisdom
and goodness to his creatures. His goodness doth no less incline him
to provide for them, than to frame them. It is the natural inclination
of man to love what is purely the birth of his own strength or skill.
He is fond of preserving his own inventions, as well as laborious in
inventing them. It is the glory of a man to preserve them, as well as
to produce them. God loves everything which he hath made, which love
could not be without a continued diffusiveness to them, suitable to the
end for which he made them. It would be a vain goodness, if it did not
interest itself in managing the world, as well as erecting it: without
his government everything in the world would jostle against one another:
the beauty of it would be more defaced, it would be an unruly mass, a
confused chaos rather than a Κόσμος, a comely world. If Divine goodness
respected it when it was nothing, it would much more respect it when
it was something, by the sole virtue of his power and good‑will to it,
without any motive from anything else than himself, because there was
nothing else but himself. But since he sees his own stamp in things
without himself in the creature, which is a kind of motive or moving
object to Divine goodness to preserve it, when there was nothing
without himself that could be any motive to Him to create it: as when
God hath created a creature, and it falls into misery, that misery of
the creature, though it doth not necessitate his mercy, yet meeting
with such an affection as mercy in his nature, is a moving object to
excite it; as the repentance of Nineveh drew forth the exercise of
his pity and preserving goodness. Certainly, since God is good, he is
bountiful; and if bountiful, he is provident. He would seem to envy and
malign his creatures, if he did not provide for them, while he intends
to use them: but infinite goodness cannot be effected with envy; for
all envy implies a want of that good in ourselves, which we regard with
so evil an eye in another. But God, being infinitely blessed, hath not
the want of any good that can be a rise to such an uncomely disposition.
The Jews thought that Divine goodness extended only to them in an
immediate and particular care, and left all other nations and things to
the guidance of angels. But the Psalmist (Ps. cvii. a psalm calculated
for the celebration of this perfection, in the continued course of
his providence throughout all ages of the world) ascribes to Divine
goodness immediately all the advantages men meet with. He helps them
in their actions, presides over their motions, inspects their several
conditions, labors day and night in a perpetual care of them. The whole
life of the world is linked together by Divine goodness. Everything
is ordered by him in the place where he hath set it, without which the
world would be stripped of that excellency it hath by creation.
1st. This goodness is evident in the care he hath of all creatures.
There is a peculiar goodness to his people; but this takes not away
{b296} his general goodness to the world: though a master of a family
hath a choicer affection to those that have an affinity to him in
nature, and stand in a nearer relation, as his wife, children, servants;
yet he hath a regard to his cattle, and other creatures he nourisheth
in his house. All things are not only before his eyes, but in his bosom;
he is the nurse of all creatures, supplying their wants, and sustaining
them from that nothing they tend to. The “earth is full of his riches”
(Ps. civ. 24); not a creek or cranny but partakes of it. Abundant
goodness daily hovers over it, as well as hatched it. The whole world
swims in the rich bounty of the Creator, as the fish do in the
largeness of the sea, and birds in the spaciousness of the air.[985]
The goodness of God is the river that waters the whole earth. As a
lifeless picture casts its eye upon every one in the room, so doth a
living God upon everything in the world. And as the sun illuminates all
things which are capable of partaking of its light, and diffuseth its
beams to all things which are capable of receiving them, so doth God
spread his wings over the whole creation, and neglects nothing, wherein
he sees a mark of his first creating goodness.
1. His goodness is seen, in preserving all things. “O Lord, thou
preservest man and beast” (Ps. xxxvi. 6). Not only man, but beasts, and
beasts as well as men; man, as the most excellent creature, and beasts
as being serviceable to man, and instruments of his worldly happiness.
He continues the species of all things, concurs with them in their
distinct offices, and quickens the womb of nature. He visits man
every day, and makes him feel the effects of his providence, in giving
him “fruitful seasons, and filling his heart with food and gladness”
(Acts xiv. 17), as witnesses of his liberality and kindness to man.
“The earth is visited and watered by the river of God. He settles the
furrows of the earth, and makes it soft with showers,” that the corn
may be nourished in its womb, and spring up to maturity. “He crowns the
year with his goodness, and his paths drop fatness. The little hills
rejoice on every side; the pastures are clothed with flocks, and the
valleys are covered over with corn,” as the Psalmist elegantly says
(Ps. lxv. 9, 10; cvii. 35, 36). He waters the ground by his showers,
and preserves the little seed from the rapine of animals. “He draws
not out the evil arrows of famine,” as the expression is (Ezek. v. 16).
Every day shines with new beams of his Divine goodness. The vastness of
this city, and the multitudes of living souls in it, is an astonishing
argument. What streams of nourishing necessaries are daily conveyed
to it! Every mouth hath bread to sustain it; and among all the number
of poor in the bowels and skirts of it, how rare is it to hear of any
starved to death for want of it! Every day he “spreads a table” for
us, and that with varieties, and “fills our cups” (Ps. xxiii. 5). He
shortens not his hand, nor withdraws his bounty: the increase of one
year by his blessing, restores what was spent by the former. He is
the “strength of our life” (Ps. xxvii. 1), continuing the vigor of
our limbs, and the health of our bodies; secures us from “terrors by
night, and the arrows of diseases that fly by day” (Ps. xci. 5); {b297}
“sets a hedge about our estates” (Job i. 10), and defends them against
the attempts of violence; preserves our houses from flames that might
consume them, and our persons from the dangers that lie in wait for
them; watcheth over us “in our goings out, and our comings in” (Ps.
cxxi. 8), and way‑lays a thousand dangers we know not of: and employs
the most glorious creatures in heaven in the service of mean “men upon
earth” (Ps. xci. 11): not by a faint order, but a pressing charge over
them, to “keep them in all his ways.” Those that are his immediate
servants before his throne, he sends to minister to them that were
once his rebels. By an angel he conducted the affairs of Abraham (Gen.
xxiv. 7): and by an angel secured the life of Ishmael (Gen. xxi. 17):
glorious angels for mean man, holy angels for impure man, powerful
angels for weak man. How in the midst of great dangers, doth his sudden
light dissipate our great darkness, and create a deliverance out of
nothing! How often is he found a present help in time of trouble!
When all other assistance seems to stand at a distance, he flies to us
beyond our expectations, and raises us up on the sudden from the pit of
our dejectedness, as well as that of our danger, exceeding our wishes,
and shooting beyond our desires as well as our deserts. How often,
in the time of confusion, doth he preserve an indefensible place from
the attacks of enemies, like a bark in the midst of a tempestuous
sea! the rage falls upon other places round about them, and, by a
secret efficacy of Divine goodness, is not able to touch them. He hath
peculiar preservations for his Israel in Egypt, and his Lots in Sodom,
his Daniels in the lions’ dens, and his children in a fiery furnace. He
hath a tenderness for all, but a peculiar affection to those that are
in covenant with him.
2. The goodness of God is seen in taking care of the animals and
inanimate things. Divine goodness embraceth in its arms the lowest
worm as well as the loftiest cherubim: he provides food for the “crying
ravens” (Ps. cxlvii. 9), and a prey for the appetite of the “hungry
lion” (Ps. civ. 21): “He opens his hand, and fills with good those
innumerable creeping things, both small and great beasts; they are all
waiters upon him, and all are satisfied by their bountiful Master” (Ps.
civ. 25‒28). They are better provided for by the hand of heaven, than
the best favorite is by an earthly prince: for “they are filled with
good.” He hath made channels in the wildest deserts, for the watering
of beasts, and trees for the nests and “habitation of birds” (Ps. civ.
10, 12, 17). As a Law‑giver to the Jews, he took care that the poor
beast should not be abused by the cruelty of man: he provided for the
ease of the laboring beast in that command of the Sabbath, wherein
he provided for his own service: the cattle was to do “no work” on
it (Exod. xx. 10). He ordered that the mouth of the ox should not be
muzzled while it trod out the corn (Deut. xxv. 4, it being the manner
of those countries to separate the corn from the stalk by that means,
as we do in this by thrashing), regarding it as a part of cruelty to
deprive the poor beast of tasting, and satisfying itself with that
which he was so officious by his labor to prepare for the use of man.
And when any met with a nest of young birds, though {b298} they might
take the young to their use, they were forbidden to seize upon the
dam, that she might not lose the objects of her affection and her own
liberty in one day (Deut. xxii. 6).
And see how God enforceth this precept with a threatening of a
shortness of life, if they transgressed it (Deut. xxii. 7)! “Thou shalt
let the dam go, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest
prolong thy days.” He would revenge the cruelty to dumb creatures with
the shortness of the oppressor’s life: nor would he have cruelty used
to creatures that were separated for his worship: he therefore provides
that a cow, or an ewe, and their young ones, should “not be killed for
sacrifice in one day” (Lev. xxii. 28). All which precepts, say the Jews,
are to teach men mercifulness to their beasts; so much doth Divine
goodness bow down itself, to take notice of those mean creatures, which
men have so little regard to, but for their own advantage; yea, he is
so good, that he would have worship declined for a time in favor of
a distressed beast; the “helping a sheep, or an ox, or an ass, out
of a pit,” was indulged them even “on the Sabbath‑day,” a day God had
peculiarly sanctified and ordered for his service (Matt. xii. 11; Luke
xiv. 5): in this case he seems to remit for a time the rights of the
Deity for the rescue of a mere animal. His goodness extends not only to
those kind of creatures that have life, but to the insensible ones; he
clothes the grass, and “arrays the lilies of the field” with a greater
glory than Solomon had upon his throne (Matt. vi. 28, 29); and such
care he had of those trees which bore fruit for the maintenance of man
or beast, that he forbids any injury to be offered to them, and bars
the rapine and violence, which by soldiers used to be practised (Deut.
xx. 19), though it were to promote the conquest of their enemy. How
much goodness is it, that he should think of so small a thing as man!
How much more that he should concern himself in things that seem so
petty as beasts and trees! Persons seated in a sovereign throne, think
it a debasing of their dignity to regard little things: but God, who
is infinitely greater in majesty above the mightiest potentate, and
the highest angel, yet is so infinitely good, as to employ his divine
thoughts about the meanest things. He who possesses the praises of
angels, leaves not off the care of the meanest creatures: and that
majesty that dwells in a pure heaven, and an inconceivable light,
stoops to provide for the ease of those creatures that lie and lodge
in the dirt and dung of the earth. How should we be careful not to use
those unmercifully, which God takes such care of in his law, and not to
distrust that goodness, that opens his hand so liberally to creatures
of another rank!
3. The goodness of God is seen in taking care of the meanest
rational creatures; as servants and criminals. He provided for the
liberty of slaves, and would not have their chains continue longer
than the seventh year, unless they would voluntarily continue under
the power of their masters; and that upon pain of his displeasure, and
the withdrawing his blessing (Deut. xv. 18). And though, by the laws
of many nations, masters had an absolute power of life and death over
their servants, yet God provided that no member should be lamed, not an
eye, no, nor a tooth, struck out, but the master was {b299} to pay for
his folly and fury the price of the “liberty of his servant” (Exod. xxi.
26, 27): he would not suffer the abused servant to be any longer under
the power of that man that had not humanity to use him as one of the
same kindred and blood with himself. And though those servants might
be never so wicked, yet, when unjustly afflicted, God would interest
himself as their guardian in their protection and delivery. And when a
poor slave had been provoked, by the severity of his master’s fury, to
turn fugitive from him, he was, by Divine order, not to be delivered
up again to his master’s fury, but dwell in that city, and with that
person, to whom he had “fled for refuge” (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16). And
when public justice was to be administered upon the lesser sort of
criminals, the goodness of God ordered the “number of blows” not
to exceed forty, and left not the fury of man to measure out the
punishment to excess (Deut. xxv. 3). And in any just quarrel against
a provoking and injuring enemy, he ordered them not to ravage with the
sword till they had summoned a rendition of the place (Deut. xx. 10).
And as great a care he took of the poor, that they should have the
gleanings both of the vineyard and field (Lev. xix. 10; xxiii. 22), and
not be forced to pay “usury for the money lent them” (Exod. xxii. 25).
4. His goodness is seen in taking care of the wickedest persons. “The
earth is full of his goodness” (Ps. xxxvii. 5). The wicked as well as
the good enjoy it; they that dare lift up their hands against heaven
in the posture of rebels, as well as those that lift up their eyes in
the condition of suppliants. To do good to a criminal, far surmounts
that goodness that flows down upon an innocent object: now God is
not only good to those that have some degrees of goodness, but to
those that have the greatest degrees of wickedness, to men that turn
his liberality into affronts of him, and have scarce an appetite to
anything but the violation of his authority and goodness. Though, upon
the fall of Adam, we have lost the pleasant habitation of paradise,
and the creatures made for our use are fallen from their original
excellency and sweetness; yet he hath not left the world utterly
incommodious for us, but yet stores it with things not only for
the preservation, but delight of those that make their whole lives
invectives against this good God. Manna fell from heaven for the
rebellious as well as for the obedient Israelites. Cain as well as
Abel, and Esau as well as Jacob, had the influences of his sun, and
the benefits of his showers. The world is yet a kind of paradise to the
veriest beasts among mankind; the earth affords its riches, the heavens
its showers, and the sun its light, to those that injure and blaspheme
him: “He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends
rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. v. 45). The wickedest
breathe in his air, walk upon his earth, and drink of his water, as
well as the best. The sun looks with as pleasant and bright an eye
upon a rebellious Absalom, as a righteous David; the earth yields its
plants and medicines to one as well as to the other; it is seldom that
He deprives any of the faculties of their souls, or any members of
their bodies. God distributes his blessings where he might shoot his
thunders; and darts his light on those who deserve an eternal darkness;
and presents the good things of the earth to those {b300} that merit
the miseries of hell; for “the earth, and the fulness thereof, is the
Lord’s” (Ps. xxiv. 1); everything in it is his in propriety, ours in
trust; it is his corn, his wine (Hos. ii. 8); he never divested himself
of the propriety, though he grants us the use; and by those good things
he supports multitudes of wicked men, not one or two, but the whole
shoal of them in the world; for he is “the Saviour of all men,” _i. e._
is the preserver of all men (1 Tim. iv. 10). And as he created them,
when he foresaw they would be wicked; so he provides for them, when
he beholds them in their ungodliness. The ingratitude of men stops
not the current of his bounty, nor tires his liberal hand; howsoever
unprofitable and injurious men are to him, he is liberal to them;
and his goodness is the more admirable, by how much the more the
unthankfulness of men is provoking: he sometimes affords to the worst a
greater portion of these earthly goods; they often swim in wealth, when
others pine away their lives in poverty. And the silk‑worm yields its
bowels to make purple for tyrants, while the oppressed scarce have from
the sheep wool enough to cover their nakedness; and though he furnish
men with those good things, upon no other account than what princes
do, when they nourish criminals in a prison till the time of their
execution, it is a mark of his goodness. Is it not the kindness of a
prince to treat his rebels deliciously? to give them the liberty of the
prison, and the enjoyments of the delights of the place, rather than
to load their legs with fetters, and lodge them in a dark and loathsome
dungeon, till he orders them, for their crime, to be conducted to the
scaffold or gibbet? Since God is thus kind to the vilest men, whose
meanness, by reason of sin, is beyond that of any other creature, as
to shoot such rays of goodness upon them; how inexpressible would be
the expressions of his goodness, if the Divine image were as pure and
bright upon them as it was upon innocent Adam!
2d. His goodness is evident in the preservation of human society. It
belongs to his power that he is able to do it, but to his goodness that
he is willing to do it.
1. This goodness appears in prescribing rules for it. The moral law
consists but of ten precepts, and there are more of them ordered for
the support of human society, than for the adoration and honor of
himself (Exod. xx. 1, 2); four for the rights of God, and six for
the rights of man, and his security in his authority, relations, life,
goods, and reputation; superiors not to be dishonored, life not to
be invaded, chastity not to be stained, goods not to be filched, good
name not to be cracked by false witness, nor anything belonging to our
neighbor to be coveted; and in the whole Scripture, not only that which
was calculated for the Jews, but compiled for the whole world; he hath
fixed rules for the ordering all relations, magistrates, and subjects;
parents and children; husbands and wives; masters and servants; rich
and poor, find their distinct qualifications and duties. There would
be a paradisiacal state, if men had a goodness to observe what God
hath had a goodness to order for the strengthening the sinews of
human society; the world would not groan under oppressing tyrants,
nor princes tremble under discontented subjects, or mighty rebels;
children would not be provoked to anger by the unreasonableness {b301}
of their parents, nor parents sink under grief by the rebellion of
their children; masters would not tyrannize over the meanest of their
servants, nor servants invade the authority of their masters.