setting a magistracy to preserve it. Magistracy is from God in its
original; the charter was drawn up in paradise; civil subordination
must have been had man remained in innocence; but the charter was more
explicitly renewed and enlarged at the restoration of the world after
the deluge, and given out to man under the broad seal of heaven; “Whoso
sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. ix. 6). The
command of shedding the blood of a murderer was a part of his goodness,
to secure the lives of those that bore his image. Magistrates are “the
shields of the earth,” but they “belong to God” (Ps. xlvii. 9). They
are fruits of his goodness in their original, and authority; were
there no magistracy, there would be no government, no security to any
man under his own vine and fig tree; the world would be a den of wild
beasts preying upon one another; every one would do what seems good in
his eyes; the loss of government is a judgment God brings upon a nation
when men become “as the fishes of the sea,” to devour one another,
because they “have no ruler over them” (Hab. i. 14). Private
dissensions will break out into public disorders and combustions.
3. The goodness of God in the preservation of human society, is seen in
the restraints of the passions of men. He sets bounds to the passions
of men as well as to the rollings of the sea; “He stilleth the noise
of the waves, and the tumults of the people” (Ps. lxv. 7). Though God
hath erected a magistracy to stop the breaking out of those floods of
licentiousness, which swell in the hearts of men; yet, if God should
not hold stiff reins on the necks of those tumultuous and foaming
passions, the world would be a place of unruly confusion, and hell
triumph upon earth; a crazy state would be quickly broke in pieces by
boisterous nature. The tumults of a people could no more be quelled by
the force of man, than the rage of the sea by a puff of breath; without
Divine goodness, neither the wisdom nor watchfulness of the magistrates,
nor the industry of officers, could preserve a state. The laws of men
would be too slight to curb the lusts of men, if the goodness of God
did not restrain them by a secret hand, and interweave their temporal
security with observance of those laws. The sons of Belial did murmur
when Saul was chosen king; and that they did no more was the goodness
of God, for the preservation of human society. If God did not restrain
the impetuousness of men’s lusts, they would be the entire ruin of
human society; their lusts would render them as bad as beasts, and
change the world into a savage wilderness.
4. The goodness of God is seen in the preservation of human society,
in giving various inclinations to men for public advantage. If all men
had an inclination to one science or art, they would all stand idle
spectators of one another; but God hath bestowed various dispositions
and gifts upon men, for the promoting the common good, that they
may not only be useful to themselves, but to society. He {b302} will
have none idle, none unuseful, but every one acting in a due place,
according to their measures, for the good of others.
5. The goodness of God is seen in the witness he bears against those
sins that disturb human society. In those cases he is pleased to
interest himself in a more signal manner, to cool those that make it
their business to overturn the order he hath established for the good
of the earth. He doth not so often in this world punish those faults
committed immediately against his own honor, as those that put the
world into a hurry and confusion: as a good governor is more merciful
to crimes against himself, than those against his community. It is
observed that the most turbulent seditious persons in a state come to
most violent ends, as Corah, Adonijah, Zimri: Ahithopel draws Absalom’s
sword against David and Israel, and the next is, he twists a halter
for himself: Absalom heads a party against his father, and God, by
a goodness to Israel, hangs him up, and prevents not its safety by
David’s indulgence, and a future rebellion, had life been spared
by the fondness of his father. His providence is more evident in
discovering disturbers, and the causes that move them, in defeating
their enterprises, and digging the contrivers out of their caverns and
lurking holes: in such cases, God doth so act, and use such methods,
that he silenceth any creature from challenging any partnership with
him in the discovery. He doth more severely in this world correct those
actions that unlink the mutual assistance between man and man, and the
charitable and kind correspondence he would have kept up. The sins for
which the “wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience” (Col.
iii. 5, 6) in this world are of this sort; and when princes will be
oppressing the people, God will be “pouring contempt on the princes,
and set the poor on high from affliction” (Ps. cvii. 40, 41). An
evidence of God’s care and kindness in the preserving human society, is
those strange discoveries of murders, though never so clandestine and
subtilly committed, more than of any other crime among men: Divine care
never appears more than in bringing those hidden and injurious works of
darkness to light, and a due punishment.
6. His goodness is seen in ordering mutual offices to one another
against the current of men’s passions. Upon this account he ordered, in
his laws for the government of the Israelites, that a man should reduce
the wandering beast of his enemy to the hand of his rightful proprietor,
though he were a provoking enemy; and also “help the poor beast that
belonged to one that hated him, when he saw him sink under his burden”
(Exod. xxiii. 4, 5). When mutual assistance was necessary, he would not
have men considered as enemies, or considered as wicked, but as of the
same blood with ourselves, that we might be serviceable to one another
for the preservation of life and goods.
7. His goodness is seen in remitting something of his own right, for
the preserving a due dependence and subjection. He declines the right
he had to the vows of a minor, or one under the power of another,
waving what he might challenge by the voluntary obligation of his
creature, to keep up the due order between parents and children,
husbands and wives, superiors and inferiors; those that {b303} were
under the power of another, as a child under his parents, or a wife
under her husband, if they had “vowed a vow unto the Lord,” which
concerned his honor and worship, it was void without the approbation of
that person under whose charge they were (Num. xxx. 3, 4, &c.). Though
God was the Lord of every man’s goods, and men but his stewards; and
though he might have taken to himself what another had offered by a vow,
since whatsoever could be offered was God’s own, though it was not the
parties’ own who offered it; yet God would not have himself adored by
his creature to the prejudice of the necessary ties of human society;
he lays aside what he might challenge by his sovereign dominion, that
there might not be any breach of that regular order which was necessary
for the preservation of the world. If Divine goodness did not thus
order things, he would not do the part of a Rector of the world; the
beauty of the world would be much defaced, it would be a confused mass
of men and women, or rather, beasts and bedlams. Order renders every
city, every nation, yea, the whole earth, beautiful: this is an effect
of Divine goodness.
3d. His goodness is evident in encouraging anything of moral goodness
in the world. Though moral goodness cannot claim an eternal reward,
yet it hath been many times rewarded with a temporal happiness; he
hath often signally rewarded acts of honesty, justice, and fidelity,
and punished the contrary by his judgments, to deter man from such an
unworthy practice, and encourage others to what was comely, and of a
general good report in the world. Ahab’s humiliation put a demurrer
to God’s judgments intended against him; and some ascribe the great
victories and success of the Romans to that justice which was observed
among themselves. Baruch was but an amanuensis to the Prophet Jeremy to
write his prophecy, and very despondent of his own welfare (Jer. xlv.
13); God upon that account provides for his safety, and rewards the
industry of his service with the security of his person; he was not a
statesman, to declare against the corrupt counsels of them that sat at
the helm, nor a prophet, to declare against their profane practices,
but the prophet’s scribe; and as he writes in God’s service the
prophecies revealed to the prophet, God writes his name in the roll of
those that were designed for preservation in that deluge of judgments
which were to come upon that nation. Epicurus complained of the
administration of God, that the virtuous moralist had not sufficient
smiles of Divine favor, nor the swinish sensualist frowns of Divine
indignation. But what if they have not always that confluence of
outward wealth and pleasures, but remain in the common level? yet they
have the happiness and satisfaction of a clear reputation, the esteem
of men, and the secret applauses of their very enemies, besides the
inward ravishments upon an exercise of virtue, and the commendatory
subscription of their own hearts, a dainty the vicious man knows not of;
they have an inward applause from God as a reward of Divine goodness,
instead of those racks of conscience upon which the profane are
sometimes stretched. He will not let the worst men do him any service
(though they never intended in the act of service him, but themselves)
without giving them their wages: he will not let {b304} them hit him
in the teeth as if he were beholden to them. If Nebuchadnezzar be the
instrument of God’s judgments against Tyrus and Israel, he will not
only give him that rich city, but a richer country, Egypt, the granary
for her neighbors, a wages above his work. In this is Divine goodness
eminent, since, in the most moral actions, as there is something
beautiful, so there is something mixed, hateful to the infinitely
exact holiness of the Divine nature; yet he will not let that which is
pleasing to him go unrewarded, and defeat the expectations of men, as
men do with those they employ, when, for one flaw in an action, they
deny them the reward due for the other part. God encouraged and kept
up morality in the cities of the Gentiles for the entertainment of
a further goodness in the doctrine of the gospel when it should be
published among them.
4th. Divine goodness is eminent in providing a Scripture as a rule to
guide us, and continuing it in the world. If man be a rational creature,
governable by a law, can it be imagined there should be no revelation
of that law to him? Man, by the light of reason, must needs confess
himself to be in another condition than he was by creation, when he
came first out of the hands of God; and can it be thought, that God
should keep up the world under so many sins against the light of nature,
and bestow so many providential influences, to invite men to return to
him, and acquaint no men in the world with the means of that return?
Would he exact an obedience of men, as their consciences witness he
doth, and furnish them with no rules to guide them in the darkness they
cannot but acknowledge that they have contracted? No; Divine goodness
hath otherwise provided: this Bible we have is his word and rule. Had
it been a falsity and imposture, would that goodness, that watches over
the world, have continued it so long? That goodness that overthrew the
burdensome rites of Moses, and expelled the foolish idolatry of the
Pagans, would have discovered the imposture of this, had it not been
a transcript of his own will. Whatever mistakes he suffers to remain
in the world, what goodness had there been to suffer this anciently
amongst the Jews, and afterwards to open it to the whole world, to
abuse men in religion and worship, which so nearly concerned himself
and his own honor, that the world should be deceived by the devil
without a remedy in the morning of its appearance? It hath been honored
and admired by some heathens, when they have cast their eyes upon it,
and their natural light made them behold some footsteps of a Divinity
in it. If this, therefore, be not a Divine prescript, let any that deny
it, bring as good arguments for any book else, as can be brought for
this. Now, the publishing this is an argument of Divine goodness: it is
designed to win the affections of beggarly man, to be espoused to a God
of eternal blessedness and immense riches. It speaks words in season:
no doubts but it resolves; no spiritual distemper but it cures; no
condition but it hath a comfort to suit it. It is a garden which the
hand of Divine bounty hath planted for us; in it he condescends to
shadow himself in those expressions that render him in some manner
intelligible to us. Had God wrote in a loftiness of style suitable to
the greatness of his majesty, his writing had been as little understood
by us, as the {b305} brightness of his glory can be beheld by us.
But he draws phrases from our affairs, to express his mind to us;
he incarnates himself in his word to our minds, before his Son was
incarnate in the flesh to the eyes of men: he ascribes to himself eyes,
ears, hands, that we might have, from the consideration of ourselves,
and the whole human nature, a conception of his perfections: he assumes
to himself the members of our bodies, to direct our understandings in
the knowledge of his Deity; this is his goodness. Again, though the
Scripture was written upon several occasions, yet in the dictating of
it, the goodness of God cast his eye upon the last ages of the world
(1 Cor. x. 11): “They are written for our admonition, upon whom the
ends of the world are come.” It was given to the Israelites, but Divine
goodness intended it for the future Gentiles. The old writings of
the prophets were thus designed, much more the later writings of the
apostles. Thus did Divine goodness think of us, and prepare his records
for us, before we were in the world: these he hath written plain for
our instruction, and wrapped up in them what is necessary for our
salvation: it is clear to inform our understanding, and rich to comfort
us in our misery; it is a light to guide us, and a cordial to refresh
us; it is a lamp to our feet, and a medicine for our diseases; a
purifier of our filth, and a restorer of us in our faintings. He hath
by his goodness sealed the truth of it, by his efficacy on multitudes
of men: he hath made it the “word of regeneration” (James i. 18). Men,
wilder and more monstrous than beasts, have been tamed and changed by
the power of it: it hath raised multitudes of dead men from a grave
fuller of horror than any earthly one. Again, Goodness was in all ages
sending his letters of advice and counsel from heaven, till the canon
of the Scripture was closed; sometimes he wrote to chide a froward
people, sometimes to cheer up an oppressed and disconsolate people,
according to the state wherein they were; as we may observe by the
several seasons wherein parts of Scripture were written. It was His
goodness that he first revealed anything of his will after the fall; it
was a further degree of goodness, that he would add more cubits to its
stature; before he would lay aside his pencil, it grew up to that bulk
wherein we have it. And his goodness is further seen in the preserving
it; he hath triumphed over the powers that opposed it, and showed
himself good to the instruments that propagated it: he hath maintained
it against the blasts of hell, and spread it in all languages against
the obstructions of men and devils. The sun of his word is by his
kindness preserved in our horizon, as well as the sun in the heavens.
How admirable is Divine goodness! He hath sent his Son to die for us,
and his written word to instruct us, and his Spirit to edge it for
an entrance into our souls: he hath opened the womb of the earth to
nourish us, and sent down the records of heaven to direct us in our
pilgrimage: he hath provided the earth for our habitation, while we are
travellers, and sent his word to acquaint us with a felicity at the end
of our journey, and the way to attain in another world what we want in
this, _viz._ a happy immortality.
5th. His goodness in his government is evident, in conversions of
men. Though this work be wrought by his power, yet his power {b306}
was first solicited by his goodness. It was his rich goodness that he
would employ his power to pierce the scales of a heart as hard as those
of the “leviathan.” It was this that opened the ears of men to hear
him, and draws them from the hurry of worldly cares, and the charms
of sensual pleasures, and, which is the top of all, the impostures and
cheats of their own hearts. It is this that sends a spark of his wrath
into men’s consciences, to put them to a stand in sin, that he might
not send down a shower of brimstone eternally to consume their persons.
This it was that first showed you the excellency of the Redeemer, and
brought you to taste the sweetness of his blood, and find your security
in the agonies of his death. It is his goodness to call one man and not
another, to turn Paul in his course, and lay hold of no other of his
companions. It is his goodness to call any, when he is not bound to
call one.
1. It is his goodness to pitch upon mean and despicable men in the
eye of the world; to call this poor publican, and overlook that proud
Pharisee, this man that sits upon a dunghill, and neglect him that
glisters in his purple. His majesty is not enticed by the lofty titles
of men, nor, which is more worth, by the learning and knowledge of men.
“Not many wise, not many mighty,” not many doctors, not many lords,
though some of them; but his goodness condescends to the “base things”
of the world, and things which are “despised” (1 Cor. i. 26‒28). “The
poor receive the gospel” (Matt. xi. 5), when those that are more acute,
and furnished with a more apprehensive reason, are not touched by it.
2. The worst men. He seizeth sometimes upon men most soiled, and
neglects others that seem more clean and less polluted. He turns
men in their course in sin, that, by their infernal practices, have
seemed to have gone to school to hell, and to have sucked in the sole
instructions of the devil. He lays hold upon some when they are most
under actual demerit, and snatches them as fire‑brands out of the fire,
as upon Paul when fullest of rage against him; and shoots a beam of
grace, where nothing could be justly expected but a thunderbolt of
wrath. It is his goodness to visit any, when they lie putrefying in
their loathsome lusts; to draw near to them who have been guilty of
the greatest contempt of God, and the light of nature; the murdering
Manassehs, the persecuting Sauls, the Christ‑crucifying Jews,――persons
in whom lusts had had a peaceable possession and empire for many years.
3. His goodness appears in converting men possessed with the greatest
enmity against him, while he was dealing with them. All were in such
a state, and framing contrivances against him, when Divine goodness
knocked at the door (Col. i. 21). He looked after us when our backs
were turned upon him, and sought us when we slighted him, and were
a “gainsaying people” (Rom. x. 21); when we had shaken off his
convictions, and contended with our Maker, and mustered up the powers
of nature against the alarms of conscience; struggled like wild bulls
in a net, and blunted those darts that stuck in our souls. Not a man
that is turned to him, but had lifted up the heel against his gospel
grace, as well as made light of his creating goodness. Yet it hath
employed itself about such ungrateful {b307} wretches, to polish those
knotty and rugged pieces for heaven; and so invincibly, that he would
not have his goodness defeated by the fierceness and rebellion of the
flesh. Though the thing was more difficult in itself (if anything may
be said to have a difficulty to omnipotency) than to make a stone live,
or to turn a straw into a marble pillar. The malice of the flesh makes
a man more unfit for the one, than the nature of the straw unfits it
for the other.
4. His goodness appears in turning men, when they were pleased with
their own misery, and unable to deliver themselves; when they preferred
a hell before him, and were in love with their own vileness; when his
call was our torment, and his neglect of us had been accounted our
felicity. Was it not a mighty goodness to keep the light close to our
eyes, when we endeavored to blow it out; and the corrosive near to
our hearts, when we endeavored to tear it off, being more fond of our
disease than the remedy? We should have been scalded to death with the
Sodomite, had not God laid his good hand upon us, and drawn us from
the approaching ruin we affected, and were loath to be freed from.
And had we been displeased with our state, yet we had been as unable
spiritually to raise ourselves from sin to grace, as to raise ourselves
naturally from nothing to being. In this state we were when his
goodness triumphed over us; when he put a hook into our nostrils, to
turn us in order to our salvation; and drew us out of the pit which we
had digged, when he might have left us to sink under the rigors of his
justice we had merited. Now this goodness in conversion is greater than
that in creation; as in creation there is nothing to oppose him, so
there was nothing to disoblige him; creation was terminated to the
good of a mutable nature, and conversion tends to a supernatural good.
God pronounced all creatures good at first, and man among the rest,
but did not pronounce any of them, or man himself, his “portion,” his
“inheritance,” his “_segullah_,” his “house,” his “diadem.” He speaks
slightly of all those things which he made, the noblest heavens, as
well as the lowest earth, in comparison of a true convert: “All those
things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been: but to this
man will I look, to him that is of a contrite spirit” (Isa. lxvi. 1, 2).
It is more goodness to give the espousing grace of the covenant, than
the completing glory of heaven; as it is more for a prince to marry a
beggar, than only to bring her to live deliciously in his courts. All
other benefits are of a meaner strain, if compared with this; there is
little less of goodness in imparting the holiness of his nature, than
imputing the righteousness of his Son.