religion; it is this perfection of goodness. As the goodness of God is
the lustre of all his attributes, so it is the foundation and link of
all true religious worship: the natural religion of the heathens was
introduced by the consideration of Divine goodness, in the being he had
bestowed upon them, and the provisions that were made for them. Divine
bounty was the motive to erect altars, and present sacrifices, though
they mistook the object of their worship, and offered the dues of the
Creator to the instruments whereby he conveyed his benefits to them:
and you find, that the religion instituted by him among the Jews,
was enforced upon them by the consideration of their miraculous
deliverance from Egypt, the preservation of them in the wilderness, and
the enfeoffing them in a land flowing with milk and honey. Every act
of bounty and success the heathens received, moved them to appoint new
feasts, and repeat their adorations of those deities they thought the
authors and promoters of their victories and welfare. The devil did not
mistake the common sentiment of the world in Divine service, when he
alleged to God, that “Job did not fear him for nought,” _i. e._ worship
him for nothing (Job i. 9). All acts of devotion take their rise from
God’s liberality, either from what they have or from what they hope;
praise speaks the possession, and prayer the expectation, of some
benefit from his hand: though some of the heathens made fear to be the
prime cause of the acknowledgment and worship of a deity, yet surely
something else besides and beyond this established so great a thing as
religion in the world; an ingenuous religion could never have been born
into the world without a notion of goodness, and would have gaped its
last as soon as this notion should have expired in the minds of men.
What encouragement can fear of power give, without sense of goodness?
just as much as thunder hath, to invite a man to the place where it is
like to fall, and crush him. The nature of “fear” is to drive from, and
the nature of “goodness” to allure to, the object: the Divine thunders,
prodigies, and other armies {b330} of his justice in the world, which
are the marks of his power, could conclude in nothing but a slavish
worship: fear alone would have made men blaspheme the Deity; instead
of serving him, they would have fretted against him; they might
have offered him a trembling worship; but they could never have, in
their minds, thought him worthy of an adoration; they would rather
have secretly complained of him, and cursed him in their heart, than
inwardly have admired him: the issue would have been the same, which
Job’s wife advised him to, when God withdrew his protection from his
goods and body: “Curse God, and die” (Job ii. 9). It is certainly the
common sentiment of men, that he that acts cruelly and tyrannically, is
not worthy of an integrity to be retained towards him in the hearts of
his subjects; but Job fortifies himself against this temptation from
his bosom friend, by the consideration of the good he had received from
God, which did more deserve a worship from him than the present evil
had reason to discourage it. Alas! what is only feared, is hated, not
adored. Would any seek to an irreconcileable enemy? would any person
affectionately list himself in the service of a man void of all good
disposition? would any distressed person put up a petition to that
prince, who never gave any experiment of the sweetness of his nature,
but always satiated himself with the blood of the meanest criminals?
All affection to service is rooted up when hopes of receiving good are
extinguished: there could not be a spark of that in the world, which is
properly called religion, without a notion of goodness; the existence
of God is the first pillar, and the goodness of God in rewarding the
next, upon which coming to him (which includes all acts of devotion)
is established (Heb. xi. 6); “He that comes unto God, must believe that
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him:”
if either of those pillars be not thought to stand firm, all religion
falls to the ground. It is this, as the most agreeable motive, that
the apostle James uses, to encourage men’s approach to God, because
“he gives liberally, and upbraideth not” (James i. 5). A man of a kind
heart and a bountiful hand shall have his gate thronged with suppliants,
who sometimes would be willing to lay down their lives; “for a good
man one would even dare to die:” when one of a niggardly or tyrannical
temper shall be destitute of all free and affectionate applications.
What eyes would be lifted up to heaven? what hands stretched out, if
there were not a knowledge of goodness there to enliven their hopes of
speeding in their petitions? Therefore Christ orders our prayers to be
directed to God as a Father, which is a title of tenderness, as well as
a “Father in heaven,” a mark of his greatness; the one to support our
confidence, as well as the other to preserve our distance. God could
not be ingenuously adored and acknowledged, if he were not liberal
as well as powerful; the goodness of God is the foundation of all
ingenuous religion, devotion and worship.
6. The sixth instruction: The goodness of God renders God amiable. His
goodness renders him beautiful, and his beauty renders him lovely; both
are linked together (Zech. ix. 17): “How great is his goodness! and how
great is his beauty!” This is the most powerful attractive, and masters
the affections of the soul: it {b331} is goodness only supposed, or
real, that is thought worthy to demerit our affections to anything. If
there be not a reality of this, or at least an opinion and estimation
of it in an object, it would want a force and vigor to allure our will.
This perfection of God is the loadstone to draw us, and the centre for
our spirits to rest in.
1. This renders God amiable to himself. His goodness is his “Godhead”
(Rom. i. 20): by his Godhead is meant his goodness; if he loves his
Godhead for itself, he loves his goodness for itself; he would not
be good, if he did not love himself; and if there were anything more
excellent, and had a greater goodness than himself, he would not be
good if he did not love that greater goodness above himself; for not
only a hatred of goodness is evil, but an indifferent or cold affection
to goodness hath a tincture of evil in it. If God were not good, and
yet should love himself in the highest manner, he would be the greatest
evil, and do the greatest evil in that act; for he would set his love
upon that which is not the proper object of such an affection, but the
object of aversion: his own infinite excellency, and goodness of his
nature, renders him lovely and delightful to himself; without this he
could not love himself in a commendable and worthy way, and becoming
the purity of a Deity; and he cannot but love himself for this; for,
as creatures, by not loving him as the supreme good, deny him to be
the choicest good, so God would deny himself, and his own goodness,
if he did not love himself, and that for his goodness. But the apostle
tells us, that “God cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. ii. 13). Self‑love,
upon this account, is the only prerogative of God, because there is
not anything better than himself that can lay any just claim to his
affections: he only ought to love himself, and it would be an injustice
in him to himself, if he did not. He only can love himself for this:
an infinite goodness ought to be infinitely loved, but he only being
infinite, can only love himself according to the due merit of his own
goodness. He cannot be so amiable to any man, to any angel, to the
highest seraphim, as he is to himself; because he is only capable in
regard of his infinite wisdom, to know the infiniteness of his own
goodness. And no creature can love him as he ought to be loved, unless
it had the same infinite capacity of understanding to know him, and of
affection to embrace him. This first renders God amiable to himself.
2. It ought therefore to render him amiable to us. What renders him
lovely to his own eye, ought to render him so to ours; and since, by
the shortness of our understandings, we cannot love him as he merits,
yet we should be induced by the measures of his bounty, to love him
as we can. If this do not present him lovely to us, we own him rather
a devil than a God: if his goodness moved him to frame creatures, his
goodness moved him also to frame creatures for himself and his own
glory. It is a mighty wrong to him not to look with a delightful eye
upon the marks of it, and return an affection to God in some measure
suitable to his liberality to us; we are descended as low as brutes,
if we understand him not to be the perfect good; and we are descended
as low as devils, if our affections are not attracted by it.
{b332} (1.) If God were not infinitely good, he could not be the
object of supreme love. If he were finitely good, there might be other
things as good as God, and then God in justice could not challenge our
choicest affections to him above anything else: it would be a defect of
goodness in him to demand it, because he would despoil that which were
equally good with him, of its due and right to our affections, which
it might claim from us upon the account of its goodness: God would be
unjust to challenge more than was due to him; for he would claim that
chiefly to himself which another had a lawful share in. Nothing can be
supremely loved that hath not a triumphant excellency above all other
things; where is an equality of goodness, neither can justly challenge
a supremacy, but only an equality of affection.
(2.) This attribute of goodness renders him more lovely than any other
attribute. He never requires our adoration of him so much as the
strongest or wisest, but as the best of beings: he uses this chiefly
to constrain and allure us. Why would he be feared or worshipped, but
because “there is forgiveness with him” (Ps. cxxx. 4)? it is for his
goodness’ sake that he is sued to by his people in distress (Ps. xxv.
7), “For thy goodness’ sake, O Lord.” Men may be admired because of
their knowledge, but they are affected because of their goodness: the
will, in all the variety of objects it pursues, centres in this one
thing of good as the term of its appetite. All things are beloved
by men, because they have been bettered by them. Severity can never
conquer enmity, and kindle love: were there nothing but wrath in the
Deity, it would make him be feared, but render him odious, and that to
an innocent nature. As the spouse speaks of Christ (Cant. v. 10, 11),
so we may of God: though she commends him for his head, the excellency
of his wisdom; his eyes, the extent of his omniscience; his hands, the
greatness of his power; and his legs, the swiftness of his motions and
ways to and for his people; yet the “sweetness of his mouth,” in his
gracious words and promises, closes all, and is followed with nothing
but an exclamation, that “he is altogether lovely” (ver. 16). His mouth,
in pronouncing pardon of sin, and justification of the person, presents
him most lovely. His power to do good is admirable, but his will to
do good is amiable: this puts a gloss upon all his other attributes.
Though he had knowledge to understand the depth of our necessities, and
power to prevent them, or rescue us from them, yet his knowledge would
be fruitless, and his power useless, if he were of a rigid nature, and
not touched with any sentiments of kindness.
(3.) This goodness therefore lays a strong obligation upon us. It is
true he is lovely in regard of his absolute goodness, or the goodness
of his nature, but we should hardly be persuaded to return him an
affection without his relative goodness, his benefits to his creatures;
we are obliged by both to love him.
[1.] By his absolute goodness, or the goodness of his nature. Suppose a
creature had drawn its original from something else wherein God had no
influx, and had never received the least {b333} mite of a benefit from
him, but from some other hand, yet the infinite excellency and goodness
of his nature would merit the love of that creature, and it would act
sordidly and disingenuously if it did not discover a mighty respect
for God: for what ingenuity could there be in a rational creature,
that were possessed with no esteem for any nature filled with unbounded
goodness and excellency, though he had never been obliged to him for
any favor? That man is accounted odious, and justly despicable by man,
that reproaches and disesteems, nay, that doth not value a person of a
high virtue in himself, and an universal goodness and charity to others,
though himself never stood in need of his charity, and never had any
benefit conveyed from his hands, nor ever saw his face, or had any
commerce with him: a value of such a person is but a just due to the
natural claim of virtue. And, indeed, the first object of love is God
in the excellency of his own nature, as the first object of love in
marriage is the person; the portion is a thing consequent upon it. To
love God only for his benefits, is to love ourselves first, and him
secondarily: to love God for his own goodness and excellency, is a true
love of God; a love of him for himself. That flaming fire in his own
breast, though we have not a spark of it, hath a right to kindle one
in ours to him.
[2.] By his relative goodness, or that of his benefits. Though the
excellency of his own nature, wherein there is a combination of
goodness, must needs ravish an apprehensive mind; yet a reflection
upon his imparted kindness, both in the beings we have from him, and
the support we have by him, must enhance his estimation. When the
excellency of his nature, and the expressions of his bounty are in
conjunction, the excellency of his own nature renders him estimable
in a way of justice, and the greatness of his benefits renders him
valuable in a way of gratitude: the first ravisheth, and the other
allures and melts: he hath enough in his nature to attract, and
sufficient in his bounty to engage our affections. The excellency of
his nature is strong enough of itself to blow up our affections to
him, were there not a malignity in our hearts that represents him under
the notion of an enemy; therefore in regard of our corrupt state, the
consideration of Divine largesses comes in for a share in the elevation
of our affections. For, indeed, it is a very hard thing for a man to
love another, though never so well qualified, and of an eminent virtue,
while he believes him to be his enemy, and one that will severely
handle him, though he hath before received many good turns from him;
the virtue, valor, and courtesy of a prince, will hardly make him
affected by those against whom he is in arms, and that are daily
pilfered by his soldiers, unless they have hopes of a reparation from
him, and future security from injuries. Christ, in the repetition of
the command to “love God with all our mind, with all our heart, and
with all our soul,” _i. e._ with such an ardency above all things which
glitter in our eye, or can be created by him, considers him as “our
God” (Matt. xxii. 37). And the Psalmist considers him as one that
had kindly employed his power for him, in the eruption of his love
(Ps. xviii. 1), “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength;” and so in
Ps. cxvi. 1, “I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice {b334}
of my supplications.” An esteem of the benefactor is inseparable
from gratitude for the received benefits: and should not then the
unparalleled kindness of God advance him in our thoughts, much more
than slighter courtesies do a created benefactor in ours? It is an
obligation on every man’s nature to answer bounty with gratitude, and
goodness with love. Hence you never knew any man, nor can the records
of eternity produce any man, or devil, that ever hated any person, or
anything as good in itself: it is a thing absolutely repugnant to the
nature of any rational creature. The devils hate not God because he
is good, but because he is not so good to them as they would have him;
because he will not unlock their chains, turn them into liberty, and
restore them to happiness; _i. e._ because he will not desert the
rights of abused goodness. But how should we send up flames of love to
that God, since we are under his direct beams, and enjoy such plentiful
influences! If the sun is comely in itself, yet it is more amiable to
us, by the light we see, and the warmth we feel.
1st. The greatness of his benefits have reason to affect us with a love
to him. The impress he made upon our souls when he extracted us from
the darkness of nothing; the comeliness he hath put upon us by his own
breath; the care he took of our recovery, when we had lost ourselves;
the expense he was at for our regaining our defaced beauty; the gift
he made of his Son; the affectionate calls we have heard to over‑master
our corrupt appetites, move us to repentance, and make us disaffect our
beloved misery; the loud sound of his word in our ears, and the more
inward knockings of his Spirit in our heart; the offering us the gift
of himself, and the everlasting happiness he courts us to, besides
those common favors we enjoy in the world, which are all the streams of
his rich bounty: the voice of all is loud enough to solicit our love,
and the merit of all ought to be strong enough to engage our love:
“there is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides upon the heaven in
thy help, and in his excellency on the sky” (Deut. xxxiii. 26).
2d. The unmeritedness of them doth enhance this. It is but reason to
love him who hath loved us first (1 John iv. 19). Hath he placed his
delight upon any when they were nothing, and after they were sinful;
and shall he set his delight upon such vile persons, and shall not we
set our love upon so excellent an object as himself? How base are we,
if his goodness doth not constrain us to affect him who hath been so
free in his favor to us, who have merited the quite contrary at his
hands? If “his tender mercies are over all his works” (Ps. cxlv. 9),
he ought for it to be esteemed by all his works that are capable of
a rational estimation.
3d. Goodness in creatures makes them estimable, much more should the
goodness of God render him lovely to us. If we love a little spark of
goodness in this or that creature, if a drop be so delicious to us,
shall not the immense Sun of goodness, the ever‑flowing Fountain of all,
be much more delightful? The original excellency always outstrips what
is derived from it; if so mean and contracted an object as a little
creature deserves estimation for a little mite communicated to it, so
great and extended a goodness as is in the Creator {b335} much more
merits it at our hands: he is good after the infinite methods of a
Deity: a weak resemblance is lovely; much more amiable, then, must be
the incomprehensible original of that beauty. We love creatures for
what we think to be good in them, though it may be hurtful; and shall
we not love God, who is a real and unblemished goodness, and from whose
hand are poured out all those blessings that are conveyed to us by
second causes? The object that delights us, the capacity we have to
delight in it, are both from him; our love, therefore, to him should
transcend the affection we bear to any instruments he moves for our
welfare. “Among the gods, there is none like thee, O Lord, neither
are there any works like unto thy works” (Ps. lxxxvi. 8): among the
pleasantest creatures there is none like the Creator, nor any goodness
like unto his goodness. Shall we love the food that nourisheth us,
and the medicine that cures us, and the silver whereby we furnish
ourselves with useful commodities? Shall we love a horse, or dog, for
the benefits we have by them? and shall not the spring of all those
draw our souls after it, and make us aspire to the honor of loving
and embracing Him who hath stored every creature with that which may
pleasure us? But, instead of endeavoring to parallel our affection with
his kindness, we endeavor to make our disingenuity as extensive and
towering as his Divine goodness.
4th. This is the true end of the manifestation of his goodness, that he
might appear amiable, and have a return of affection. Did God display
his goodness only to be thought of, or to be loved? It is the want of
such a return, that he hath usually aggravated, from the benefits he
hath bestowed upon men. Every thought of him should be attended with a
motion suitable to the excellency of his nature and works. Can we think
those nobler spirits, the angels, look upon themselves, or those frames
of things in the heavens and earth, without starting some practical
affection to him for them? Their knowledge of his excellency and
works cannot be a lazy contemplation: it is impossible their wills and
affections should be a thousand miles distant from their understandings
in their operations. It is not the least part of his condescending
goodness to court in such methods the affections of us worms, and
manifest his desire to be beloved by us. Let us give him, then, that
affection he deserves, as well as demands, and which cannot be withheld
from him without horrible sacrilege. There is nothing worthy of love
besides him; let no fire be kindled in our hearts, but what may ascend
directly to him.
7. The seventh instruction is this: This renders God a fit object of
trust and confidence. Since none is good but God, none can be a full
and satisfactory ground or object of confidence but God: as all things
derive their beings, so they derive their helpfulness to us from God;
they are not, therefore, the principal objects of trust, but that
goodness alone that renders them fit instruments of our support; they
can no more challenge from us a stable confidence, than they can a
supreme affection. It is by this the Psalmist allures men to a trust
in him; “Taste and see how good the Lord is:” what is the consequence?
“Blessed is the man that trusts in thee” (Ps. xxxiv. 8). The voice of
Divine goodness sounds nothing more intelligibly, {b336} and a taste
of it produceth nothing more effectually, than this. As the vials of
his justice are to make us fear him, so the streams of his goodness
are to make us rely on him: as his patience is designed to broach our
repentance, so his goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance
in him: that goodness which surmounted so many difficulties, and
conquered so many motions that might be made against any repeated
exercise of it, after it had been abused by the first rebellion of
man; that goodness that after so much contempt of it, appeared in such
a majestic tenderness, and threw aside those impediments which men had
cast in the way of Divine inclinations: this goodness is the foundation
of all reliance upon God. Who is better than God? and, therefore, who
more to be trusted than God? As his power cannot act anything weakly,
so his goodness cannot act anything unbecomingly, and unworthy of his
infinite majesty. And here consider,
(1.) Goodness is the first motive of trust. Nothing but this could
be the encouragement to man, had he stood in a state of innocence, to
present himself before God; the majesty of God would have constrained
him to keep his due distance, but the goodness of God could only
hearten his confidence: it is nothing else now that can preserve the
same temper in us in our lapsed condition. To regard him only as the
Judge of our crimes, will drive us from him; but only the regard of
him as the Donor of our blessings, will allure us to him. The principal
foundation of faith is not the word of God, but God himself, and
God as considered in this perfection. As the goodness of God in his
invitations and providential blessings “leads us to repentance” (Rom.
ii. 4), so, by the same reason, the goodness of God by his promises
leads us to reliance. If God be not first believed to be good, he would
not be believed at all in anything that he speaks or swears: if you
were not satisfied in the goodness of a man, though he should swear
a thousand times, you would value neither his word nor oath as any
security. Many times, where we are certain of the goodness of a man,
we are willing to trust him without his promise. This Divine perfection
gives credit to the Divine promises; they of themselves would not be
a sufficient ground of trust, without an apprehension of his truth;
nor would his truth be very comfortable without a belief of his good
will, whereby we are assured that what he promises to give, he gives
liberally, free, and without regret. The truth of the promiser makes
the promise credible, but the goodness of the promiser makes it
cheerfully relied on. In Ps. lxxiii. (Asaph’s penitential psalm for
his distrust of God,) he begins the first verse with an assertion of
this attribute (ver. 1), “Truly God is good to Israel;” and ends with
this fruit of it (ver. 28), “I will put my trust in the Lord God.” It
is a mighty ill nature that receives not with assurance the dictates
of Infinite Goodness, (that cannot deceive or frustrate the hopes we
conceive of him) that is inconceivably more abundant in the breast
and inclinations of the promiser, than expressible in the words of his
promise, “All true faith works by love” (Gal. v. 6), and, therefore,
necessarily includes a particular eyeing of this excellency in the
Divine nature, which renders him amiable, and is the motive and
encouragement of {b337} a love to him. His power indeed is a foundation
of trust, but his goodness is the principal motive of it. His power
without good‑will would be dangerous, and could not allure affection;
and his good‑will without power would be useless; and though it might
merit a love, yet could not create a confidence; both in conjunction
are strong grounds of hope, especially since his goodness is of the
same infinity with his wisdom and power; and that he can be no more
wanting in the effusions of this upon them that seek him, than in his
wisdom to contrive, or his power to effect, his designs and works.
(2.) This goodness is more the foundation and motive of trust under
the gospel, than under the law. They under the law had more evidences
of Divine power, and their trust eyed that much; though there was an
eminency of goodness in the frequent deliverances they had, yet the
power of God had a more glorious dress than his goodness, because
of the extraordinary and miraculous ways whereby he brought those
deliverances about. Therefore, in the catalogue of believers in Heb.
xi. you shall find the power of God to be the centre of their rest and
trust; and their faith was built upon the extraordinary marks of Divine
power, which were frequently visible to them. But under the gospel,
goodness and love was intended by God to be the chief object of trust;
suitable to the excellency of that dispensation, he would have an
exercise of more ingenuity in the creatures: therefore, it is said
(Hos. iii. 5), a promise of gospel‑times, “They shall fear God and his
goodness in the latter days,” when they shall return to “seek the Lord,
and David their king.” It is not said, they shall fear God, and his
power, but the Lord and his goodness, or the Lord for his goodness:
fear is often in the Old Testament taken for faith, or trust. This
Divine goodness, the object of faith, is that goodness discovered in
David their king; the Messiah, our Jesus. God, in this dispensation,
recommends his goodness and love, and reveals it more clearly than
other attributes, that the soul might have more prevailing and sweeter
attractives to confide in him.