upbraids men with anything in the Scripture, but with the abuse of
the good things he hath vouchsafed them, and the unmindfulness of the
obligations arising from them. This he bears with the greatest regret
and indignation. Thus he upbraids Eli with the preference of him to
the priesthood above other families (1 Sam. ii. 28): and David with his
exaltation to the crown of Israel (2 Sam. xii. 7‒9), when they abused
those honors to carelessness and licentiousness. All sins offend God,
but sins against his goodness do more disparage him; and, therefore,
his fury is the greater, by how much the more liberally his benefits
have been dispensed. It was for abuse of Divine goodness, as soon as it
was tasted, that some angels were hurled from their blessed habitation
and more happy nature: it was for this Adam lost his present enjoyments,
and future happiness, for the abuse of God’s goodness in creation. For
the abuse of God’s goodness the old world fell under the fury {b316} of
the flood; and for the contempt of the Divine goodness in redemption,
Jerusalem, once the darling city of the infinite Monarch of the
world, was made an Aceldema, a field of blood. For this cause it is,
that candlesticks have been removed, great lights put out, nations
overturned, and ignorance hath triumphed in places bright before with
the beams of heaven. God would have little care of his own goodness, if
he always prostituted the fruits of it to our contempt. Why should we
expect he should always continue that to us which he sees we will never
use to his service? When the Israelites would dedicate the gifts of God
to the service of Baal, then he would return, and take away his corn,
and his wine, and make them know by the loss, that those things were
his in dominion, which they abused, as if they had been sovereign lords
of them (Hos. ii. 8, 9). Benefits are entailed upon us no longer than
we obey (Josh. xxiv. 20): “If you forsake the Lord, he will do you hurt,
after he hath done you good.” While we obey, his bounty shall shower
upon us: and when we revolt, his justice shall consume us. Present
mercies abused, are no bulwarks against independent judgments. God hath
curses as well as blessings; and they shall light more heavy when his
blessings have been more weighty: justice is never so severe as when
it comes to right goodness, and revenge its quarrel for the injuries
received.
A convenient inquiry may be here, How God’s goodness is contemned or
abused?
1st. By a forgetfulness of his benefits. We enjoy the mercies, and
forget the Donor; we take what he gives, and pay not the tribute he
deserves; the “Israelites forgot God their Saviour, which had done
great things in Egypt” (Ps. cvi. 21). We send God’s mercies where we
would have God send our sins, into the land of forgetfulness, and write
his benefits where himself will write the names of the wicked, in the
dust, which every wind defaceth: the remembrance soon wears out of
our minds, and we are so far from remembering what we had before, that
we scarce think of that hand that gives, the very instant wherein his
benefits drop upon us. Adam basely forgot his Benefactor, presently
after he had been made capable to remember him, and reflect upon
him; the first remark we hear of him, is of his forgetfulness, not
a syllable of his thankfulness. We forget those souls he hath lodged
in us, to acknowledge his favors to our bodies; we forget that image
wherewith he beautified us, and that Christ he exposed as a criminal
to death for our rescue, which is such an act of goodness as cannot be
expressed by the eloquence of the tongue, or conceived by the acuteness
of the mind. Those things which are so common, that they cannot be
invisible to our eyes, are unregarded by our minds; our sense prompts
our understanding, and our understanding is deaf to the plain dictates
of our sense. We forget his goodness in the sun, while it warms us, and
his showers while they enrich us; in the corn, while it nourisheth us,
and the wine while it refresheth us; “She did not know that I gave her
corn, and wine, and oil” (Hos. ii. 8): she that might have read my hand
in every bit of bread, and every drop of drink, did not consider this.
It is an injustice {b317} to forget the benefits we receive from man;
it is a crime of a higher nature to forget those dispensed to us by
the hand of God, who gives us those things that all the world cannot
furnish us with, without him. The inhabitants of Troas will condemn
us, who worshipped mice, in a grateful remembrance of the victory they
had made easy for them, by gnawing their enemies’ bow‑strings. They
were mindful of the courtesy of animals, though unintended by those
creatures; and we are regardless of the fore‑meditated bounty of God.
It is in God’s judgment a brutishness beyond that of a stupid ox, or a
duller ass; “The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but
Israel doth not know, my people do not consider” (Isa. i. 3). The ox
knows his owner that pastures him, and the ass his master that feeds
him; but man is not so good as to be like to them, but so bad as to be
inferior to them: he forgets Him that sustains him, and spurns at him,
instead of valuing him for the benefits conferred by him. How horrible
is it, that God should lose more by his bounty, than he would do by his
parsimony! If we had blessings more sparingly, we should remember him
more gratefully. If he had sent us a bit of bread in a distress by a
miracle, as he did to Elijah by the ravens, it would have stuck longer
in our memories; but the sense of daily favors soonest wears out of our
minds, which are as great miracles as any in their own nature, and the
products of the same power; but the wonder they should beget in us, is
obscured by their frequency.
2d. The goodness of God is contemned by an impatient murmuring. Our
repinings proceed from an inconsideration of God’s free liberality,
and an ungrateful temper of spirit. Most men are guilty of this. It is
implied in the commendation of Job under his pressures (Job i. 22): “In
all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly,” as if it were a
character peculiar to him, whereby he verified the eulogy God had given
of him before (ver. 8), that there was “none like him in the earth,
a perfect and an upright man.” What is implied by the expression? but
that scarce a man is to be found without unjust complaints of God, and
charging him under their crosses with cruelty; when in the greatest
they have much more reason to bless him for his bounty in the remainder.
Good men have not been innocent. Baruch complains of God for adding
grief to his sorrow, not furnishing him with those “great things” he
expected (Jer. xlv. 3, 4); whereas, he had matter of thankfulness in
God’s gift of his life as a prey. But his master chargeth God in a
higher strain: “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: I am
in derision daily” (Jer. xx. 7). When he met with reproach instead of
success in the execution of his function, he quarrels with God, as if
he had a mind to cheat him into a mischief, when he had more reason
to bless him for the honor of being employed in his service. Because
we have not what we expect, we slight his goodness in what we enjoy.
If he cross us in one thing, he might have made us successless in
more: if he take away some things, he might as well have taken away
all. The unmerited remainder, though never so little, deserves our
acknowledgements more than the deserved loss can justify our repining.
And for that {b318} which is snatched from us, there is more cause
to be thankful, that we have enjoyed it so long, than to murmur that
we possess it no longer. Adam’s sin implies a repining: he imagined
God had been short in his goodness, in not giving him a knowledge he
foolishly conceived himself capable of, and would venture a forfeiture
of what already had been bountifully bestowed upon him. Man thought
God had envied him, and ever since man studies to be even with God, and
envies him the free disposal of his own doles: all murmuring, either in
our own cause or others, charges God with a want of goodness, because
there is a want of that which he foolishly thinks would make himself
or others happy. The language of this sin is, that man thinks himself
better than God; and if it were in his power, would express a more
plentiful goodness than his Maker. As man is apt to think himself
“more pure than God” (Job iv. 17), so of a kinder nature also than
an infinite goodness. The Israelites are a wonderful example of this
contempt of Divine goodness; they had been spectators of the greatest
miracles, and partakers of the choicest deliverance: he had solicited
their redemption from captivity; and when words would not do, he came
to blows for them, musters up his judgments against their enemies,
and, at last, as the Lord of hosts and God of battles, totally defeats
their pursuers, and drowns them and their proud hopes of victory in
the Red Sea. Little account was made of all this by the redeemed ones;
“they lightly esteemed the rock of their salvation,” and launch into
greater unworthiness, instead of being thankful for the breaking their
yoke: they are angry with him, that he had done so much for them:
they repented that ever they had complied with him, for their own
deliverance, and had a regret that they had been brought out of Egypt:
they were angry that they were freemen, and that their chains had been
knocked off: they were more desirous to return to the oppression of
their Egyptian tyrants, than have God for their governor and caterer,
and be fed with his manna. “It was well with us in Egypt: Why came
we forth out of Egypt?” which is called a “despising the Lord” (Numb.
xi. 18, 20). They were so far from rejoicing in the expectation of the
future benefits promised them, that they murmured that they had not
enjoyed less; they were so sottish, as to be desirous to put themselves
into the irons whence God had delivered them: they would seek a remedy
in that Egypt, which had been the prison of their nation, and under
the successors of that Pharaoh, who had been the invader of their
liberties; they would snatch Moses from the place where the Lord, by an
extraordinary providence, hath established him; they would stone those
that minded them of the goodness of God to them, and thereupon of their
crime and their duty (Numb. xvi. 3, 9‒11); they rose against their
benefactors, and “murmured against God,” that had strengthened the
hands of their deliverers; they “despised the manna” he had sent them,
and “despised the pleasant land” he intended them (Ps. cvi. 24): all
which was a high contempt of God and his unparalleled goodness and care
of them. All murmuring is an accusation of Divine goodness.
{b319} 3d. By unbelief and impenitency. What is the reason we come not
to Him when he calls us; but some secret imagination that he is of an
ill nature, means not as he speaks, but intends to mock us, instead of
welcoming us? When we neglect his call, spurn at his bowels, slight the
riches of his grace; as it is a disparagement to his wisdom to despise
his counsel, so it is to his goodness to slight his offers, as though
you could make better provision for yourselves than he is able or
willing to do. It disgraceth that which is designed to the praise of
the glory of his grace, and renders God cruel to his own Son, as being
an unnecessary shedder of his blood. As the devil by his temptation of
Adam, envied God the glory of his creating goodness, so unbelief envies
God the glory of his redeeming grace: it is a bidding defiance to him,
and challenging him to muster up the legions of his judgments, rather
than have sent his Son to suffer for us, or his Spirit to solicit us.
Since the sending his Son was the greatest act of goodness that God
could express, the refusal of him must be the highest reproach of that
liberality God designed to commend to the world in so rare a gift: the
ingratitude in this refusal must be as high in the rank of sins, as the
person slighted is in the rank of beings, or rank of gifts. Christ is
a gift (Rom. v. 16), the royalest gift, an unparalleled gift, springing
from inconceivable treasures of goodness (John iii. 16). What is our
turning our backs upon this gift but a low opinion of it? as though the
richest jewel of heaven were not so valuable as a swinish pleasure on
earth, and deserved to be treated at no other rate than if mere offals
had been presented to us. The plain language of it is, that there were
no gracious intentions for our welfare in this present; and that he
is not as good, in the mission of his Son, as he would induce us to
imagine. Impenitence is also an abuse of this goodness, either by
presumption, as if God would entertain rebels that bid defiance against
him with the same respect that he doth his prostrate and weeping
suppliants; that he will have the same regard to the swine as to
the children, and lodge them in the same habitation; or it speaks a
suspicion of God as a deceitful Master, one of a pretended, not a real
goodness, that makes promises to mock men, and invitations to delude
them: that he is an implacable tyrant, rather than a good Father;
a rigid, not a kind Being, delightful only to mark our faults, and
overlook our services.
4th. The goodness of God is contemned by a distrust of his
providence. As all trust in him supposeth him good, so all distrust
of him supposeth him evil; either without goodness to exert his power,
or without power to display his goodness. Job seems to have a spice of
this in his complaint (Job xxx. 20), “I cry unto thee, and thou dost
not hear me; I stand up, and thou regardest me not.” It is a fume of
the serpent’s venom, first breathed into man, to suspect him of cruelty,
severity, regardlessness, even under the daily evidences of his good
disposition: and it is ordinary not to believe him when he speaks, nor
credit him when he acts; to question the goodness of his precepts, and
misinterpret the kindness of his providence; as if they were designed
for the supports of a tyranny, and the deceit of the miserable. Thus
the Israelites thought their miraculous deliverance {b320} from Egypt,
and the placing them in security in the wilderness, was intended only
to pound them up for a slaughter (Numb. xiv. 3): thus they defiled
the lustre of Divine goodness which they had so highly experimented,
and placed not that confidence in him which was due to so frequent
a Benefactor, and thereby crucified the rich kindness of God, as
Genebrard translates the word “limited” (Ps. lxxviii. 41). It is also
a jealousy of Divine goodness, when we seek to deliver ourselves from
our straits by unlawful ways, as though God had not kindness enough
to deliver us without committing evil. What! did God make a world, and
all creatures in it, to think of them no more, not to concern himself
in their affairs? If he be good, he is diffusive, and delights to
communicate himself; and what subjects should there be for it, but
those that seek him, and implore his assistance? It is an indignity
to Divine bounty to have such mean thoughts of it, that it should be
of a nature contrary to that of his works, which, the better they are,
the more diffusive they are. Doth a man distrust that the sun will
not shine any more, or the earth not bring forth its fruit? Doth he
distrust the goodness of an approved medicine for the expelling his
distemper? If we distrust those things, should we not render ourselves
ridiculous and sottish? and if we distrust the Creator of those things,
do we not make ourselves contemners of his goodness? If his caring for
us be a principal argument to move us to cast our care upon him, as
it is 1 Pet. v. 7, “Casting your care upon him, for he cares for you;”
then, if we cast not our care upon him, it is a denial of his gracious
care of us, as if he regarded not what becomes of us.
5th. We do contemn or abuse his goodness by omissions of duty. These
sometimes spring from injurious conceits of God, which end in desperate
resolutions. It was the crime of a good prophet in his passion (2 Kings
vi. 33): “This evil is of the Lord, why should I wait on the Lord any
longer?” God designs nothing but mischief to us, and we will seek him
no longer. And the complaint of those in Malachi (Mal. iii. 14) is
of the same nature; “Ye have said, It is vain to serve God; and what
profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?” We have all this while
served a hard Master, not a Benefactor, and have not been answered with
advantages proportionable to our services; we have met with a hand too
niggardly to dispense that reward which is due to the largeness of our
offerings. When men will not lift up their eyes to heaven, and solicit
nothing but the contrivance of their own brain, and the industry of
their own heads, they disown Divine goodness, and approve themselves
as their own gods, and the spring of their own prosperity. Those that
run not to God in their necessity, to crave his support, deny either
the arm of his power, or the disposition of his will, to sustain and
deliver them: they must have very mean sentiments, or none at all, of
this perfection, or think him either too empty to fill them, or too
churlish to relieve them; that he is of a narrow and contracted temper,
and that they may sooner expect to be made better and happier by
anything else than by him: and as we contemn his goodness by a total
omission of those duties which respect our own advantage and supply, as
prayer; so we contemn him as the chiefest good, by an omission of {b321}
the due manner of any act of worship which is designed purely for the
acknowledgment of him. As every omission of the material part of a duty
is a denial of his sovereignty as commanding it, so every omission of
the manner of it, not performing it with due esteem and valuation of
him, a surrender of all the powers of our soul to him, is a denial of
him as the most amiable object. But certainly to omit those addresses
to God which his precept enjoins, and his excellency deserves, speaks
this language, that they can be well enough, and do well enough,
without God, and stand in no need of his goodness to maintain them. The
neglect or refusal in a malefactor to supplicate for his pardon, is a
wrong to, and contempt of, the prince’s goodness: either implying that
he hath not a goodness in his nature worthy of an address, or that he
scorns to be obliged to him for any exercise of it.
6th. The goodness of God is contemned, or abused, in relying upon our
services to procure God’s good will to us. As, when we stand in need
either of some particular mercy, or special assistance; when pressures
are heavy, and we have little hopes of ease in an ordinary way; when
the devotions in course have not prevailed for what we want; we engage
ourselves by extraordinary vows and promises to God, hereby to open
that goodness which seems to be locked up from us.[987] Sometimes,
indeed, vows may proceed from a sole desire to engage ourselves
to God, from a sense of the levity and inconstancy of our spirits;
binding ourselves to God by something more sacred and inviolable than a
common resolution. But many times the vowing the building of a temple,
endowing a hospital, giving so much in alms if God will free them from
a fit of sickness, and spin out the thread of their lives a little
longer (as hath been frequent among the Romanists), arises from an
opinion of laziness and a selfishness in the Divine goodness; that it
must be squeezed out by some solemn promises of returns to him, before
it will exercise itself to take their parts. Popular vows are often
the effects of an ignorance of the free and bubbling nature of this
perfection of the generousness and royalty of Divine goodness: as
if God were of a mean and mechanic temper, not to part with anything
unless he were in some measure paid for it; and of so bad a nature as
not to give passage to any kindness to his creature without a bribe. It
implies also that he is of an ignorant as well as contracted goodness;
that he hath so little understanding, and so much weakness of judgment,
as to be taken with such trifles, and ceremonial courtships, and little
promises; and meditated only low designs, in imparting his bounty:
it is just as if a malefactor should speak to a prince,――Sir, if you
will but bestow a pardon upon me, and prevent the death I have merited
for this crime, I will give you this rattle. All vows made with such a
temper of spirit to God, are as injurious and abusive to his goodness,
as any man will judge such an offer to be to a majestic and gracious
prince; as if it were a trading, not a free and royal goodness.
7th. The goodness of God is abused when we give up our souls and
affections to those benefits we have from God; when we make {b322}
those things God’s rivals, which were sent to woo us for him, and offer
those affections to the presents themselves, which they were sent to
solicit for the Master. This is done, when either we place our trust in
them, or glue our choicest affections to them. This charge God brings
against Jerusalem, the trusting in her own beauty, glory, and strength,
though it was a comeliness put upon her by God (Ezek. xvi. 14, 15).
When a little sunshine of prosperity breaks out upon us, we are apt
to grasp it with so much eagerness and closeness, as if we had no
other foundation to settle ourselves upon, no other being that might
challenge from us our sole dependence. And the love of ourselves, and
of creatures above God, is very natural to us: “Lovers of themselves,
and lovers of pleasure more than of God” (2 Tim. iii. 2, 4). Self‑love
is the root, and the love of pleasures the top branch, that mounts its
head highest against heaven. It is for the love of the world that the
dangers of the sea are passed over, that men descend into the bowels
of the earth, pass nights without sleep, undertake suits without
intermission, wade through many inconveniences, venture their souls,
and contemn God; in those things men glory, and foolishly grow proud
by them, and think themselves safe and happy in them.[988] Now to love
ourselves above God, is to own ourselves better than God, and that
we transcend him in an amiable goodness; or, if we love ourselves
equal with God, it at least manifests that we think God no better than
ourselves; and think ourselves our own chief good, and deny anything
above us to outstrip us in goodness, whereby to deserve to be the
centre of our affections and actions, and to love any other creature
above him, is to conclude some defect in God; that he hath not so
much goodness in his own nature as that creature hath, to complete
our felicity; that God is a slighter thing than that creature. It is
to account God, what all the things in the world are,――an imaginary
happiness, a goodness of clay; and them what God is,――a Supreme
Goodness. It is to value the goodness of a drop above that of the
spring, and the goodness of the spark above that of the sun. As if the
bounty of God were of a less alloy than the advantages we immediately
receive from the hands of a silly worm. By how much the better we
think a creature to be, and place our affections chiefly upon it, by so
much the more deficient and indigent we conclude God; for God wants so
much in our conception, as the other thing hath goodness above him in
our thoughts. Thus is God lessened below the creature, as if he had a
mixture of evil in him, and were capable of an imperfect goodness. He
that esteems the sun that shines upon him, the clothes that warm him,
the food that nourisheth him, or any other benefit above the Donor,
regards them as more comely and useful than God himself; and behaves
himself as if he were more obliged to them than to God, who bestowed
those advantageous qualities upon them.