nations that had nothing but the light of nature, thought it a great
part of the honor that was due to God, to implore his goodness, and
cast their cares upon it. To do good, is the most honorable thing in
the world, and to acknowledge a goodness in a way of confidence, is
as high an honor as we can give to it, and a great part of gratitude
for what it hath already expressed. Therefore we find often, that
an acknowledgment of one benefit received, was attended with a trust
in him for what they should in the future need (Ps. lvi. 13): “Thou
hast delivered my soul from death, wilt thou not deliver my feet from
falling?” So, 2 Cor. i. 10: and they who have been most eminent for
their trust in him, have had the greatest eulogies and commendations
from him. As a diffidence doth disparage this perfection, thinking
it meaner and shallower than it is, so confidence highly honors it.
We never please him more, than when we trust in him; “The Lord takes
pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy” (Ps.
cxlvii. 11). He takes it for an honor to have this attribute exalted by
such a carriage of his {b338} creature. He is no less offended when we
think his heart straitened, as if he were a parsimonious God; than when
we think his arm shortened, as if he were an impotent and feeble God.
Let us, therefore, make this use of his goodness, to hearten our faith.
When we are scared by the terrors of his justice, when we are dazzled
by the arts of his wisdom, and confounded by the splendor of his
majesty, we may take refuge in the sanctuary of his goodness; this will
encourage us, as well as astonish us; whereas, the consideration of
his other attributes would only amaze us, but can never refresh us, but
when they are considered marching under the conduct and banners of this.
When all the other perfections of the Divine nature are looked upon in
conjunction with this excellency, each of them send forth ravishing and
benign influences upon the applying creature. It is more advantageous
to depend upon Divine bounty, than our own cares; we may have better
assurance upon this account in his cares for us, than in ours for
ourselves. Our goodness for ourselves is finite; and besides, we are
too ignorant: his goodness is infinite, and attended with an infinite
wisdom; we have reason to distrust ourselves, not God. We have reason
to be at rest, under that kind influence we have so often experimented;
he hath so much goodness, that he can have no deceit: his goodness in
making the promise, and his goodness in working the heart to a reliance
on it, are grounds of trust in him; “Remember thy word to thy servant,
upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (Ps. cxix. 49). If his promise
did not please him, why did he make it? If reliance on the promise did
not please him, why did his goodness work it? It would be inconsistent
with his goodness to mock his creature, and it would be the highest
mockery to publish his word, and create a temper in the heart of his
supplicant, suited to his promise which he never intended to satisfy.
He can as little wrong his creature, as wrong himself; and, therefore,
can never disappoint that faith which in his own methods casts itself
into the arms of his kindness, and is his own workmanship, and calls
him Author. That goodness that imparted itself so freely in creation,
will not neglect those nobler creatures that put their trust in him.
This renders God a fit object for trust and confidence.
8. The eighth instruction: This renders God worthy to be obeyed
and honored. There is an excellency in God to allure, as well as
sovereignty to enjoin obedience: the infinite excellency of his nature
is so great, that if his goodness had promised us nothing to encourage
our obedience, we ought to prefer him before ourselves, devote
ourselves to serve him, and make his glory our greatest content;
but much more when he hath given such admirable expressions of his
liberality, and stored us with hopes of richer and fuller streams of
it. When David considered the absolute goodness of his nature, and the
relative goodness of his benefits, he presently expresseth an ardent
desire to be acquainted with the Divine statutes, that he might make
ingenious returns in a dutiful observance; “Thou art good, and thou
dost good; teach me thy statutes” (Ps. cxix. 68). As his goodness is
the original, so the acknowledgment of it is the end of all, which
cannot be without an observance {b339} of his will. His goodness
requires of us an ingenuous, not a servile obedience. And this is
established upon two foundations.
[1.] Because the bounty of God hath laid upon us the strongest
obligations. The strength of an obligation depends upon the greatness
and numerousness of the benefits received. The more excellent the
favors are which are conferred upon any person, the more right hath the
benefactor to claim an observance from the person bettered by him. Much
of the rule and empire which hath been in several ages conferred by
communities upon princes, hath had its first spring from a sense of the
advantages they have received by them, either in protecting them from
their enemies, or rescuing them from an ignoble captivity; in enlarging
their territories, or increasing their wealth. Conquest hath been the
original of a constrained, but beneficence always the original of a
voluntary and free subjection.[991] Obedience to parents is founded
upon their right, because they are instrumental in bestowing upon
us being and life; and because this of life is so great a benefit,
the law of nature never dissolves this obligation of obeying and
honoring parents; it is as long‑lived as the law of nature, and hath
an universal practice, by the strength of that law, in all parts of the
world: and those rightful chains are not unlocked, but by that which
unties the knot between soul and body: much more hath God a right to be
obeyed and reverenced, who is the principal Benefactor, and moved all
those second causes to impart to us, what conduced to our advantage.
The just authority of God over us results from the superlativeness of
his blessings he hath poured down upon us, which cannot be equalled,
much less exceeded, by any other. As therefore upon this account he
hath a claim to our choicest affections, so he hath also to most exact
obedience; and neither one nor other can be denied him, without a
sordid and disingenuous ingratitude; God therefore aggravates the
rebellion of the Jews from the cares he had in the bringing them up
(Isa. ii. 2), and the miraculous deliverance from Egypt (Jer. xi.
7, 8); implying that those benefits were strong obligations to an
ingenuous observance of him.
[2.] It is established upon this, that God can enjoin the observance of
nothing but what is good. He may by the right of his sovereign dominion,
command that which is indifferent in its own nature: as in positive
laws, the not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, which had not been evil in itself, set aside the command of God
to the contrary; and likewise in those ceremonial laws he gave the Jews:
but in regard to the transcendent goodness and righteousness of his
nature, he will not, he cannot command anything that is evil in itself,
or repugnant to the true interest of his creature; and God never
obliged the creature to anything but what was so free from damaging it,
that it highly conduced to its good and welfare: and therefore it is
said, that “his commands are not grievous” (1 John v. 3): not grievous
in their own nature, nor grievous to one possessed with a true reason.
The command given to Adam in Paradise was not grievous in itself,
nor could he ever have thought it so, but upon a false supposition
instilled into him by the tempter. There is a pleasure results from the
law of God {b340} to a holy rational nature, a sweetness tasted both
by the understanding and by the will, for they both “rejoice the heart
and enlighten the eyes” of the mind (Ps. xix. 8). God being essentially
wisdom and goodness, cannot deviate from that goodness in any orders
he gives the creature; whatsoever he enacts must be agreeable to that
rule, and therefore he can will nothing but what is good and excellent,
and what is good for the creature; for since he hath put originally
into man a natural instinct to desire that which is good, he would
never enact any thing for the creature’s observance,[992] that might
control that desire imprinted by himself, but what might countenance
that impression of his own hand; for if God did otherwise, he would
contradict his own natural law, and be a deluder of his creatures, if
he impressed upon them desires one way, and ordered directions another.
The truth is, all his moral precepts are comely in themselves, and
they receive not their goodness from God’s positive command, but that
command supposeth their goodness; if everything were good because God
loves it, or because God wills it, _i. e._ that God’s loving it or
willing it made that good which was not good before, then, as Camero
well argues somewhere, God’s goodness would depend upon his loving
himself; he was good because he loved himself, and was not good till he
loved himself; whereas, indeed, God’s loving himself, doth not make him
good, but supposeth him good: he was good in the order of nature before
he loved himself; and his being good was the ground of his loving
himself, because, as was said before, if there were anything better
than God, God would love that; for it is inconsistent with the nature
of God and infinite goodness not to love that which is good, and not
to love that supremely which is the supreme good. Further to understand
it, you may consider, if the question be asked, why God loves himself?
you would think it a reasonable answer to say, because he is good.
But if the question be asked, why God is good? you would think that
answer, because he loves himself, would be destitute of reason; but
the true answer would be, because his nature is so, and he could not
be God if he were not good: therefore God’s goodness is in order of
our conception before his self‑love, and not his self‑love before his
goodness; so the moral things God commands, are good in themselves
before God commands them; and such, that if God should command the
contrary, it would openly speak him evil and unrighteous. Abstract
from Scripture, and weigh things in your own reason; could you conceive
God good, if he should command a creature not to love him? could you
preserve the notion of a good nature in him, if he did command murder,
adultery, tyranny, and cutting of throats? You would wonder to what
purpose he made the world, and framed it for society, if such things
were ordered, that should deface all comeliness of society: the moral
commands given in the word, appeared of themselves very beautiful to
mere reason, that had no knowledge of the written law; they are good,
and because they are so, his goodness had moved his sovereign authority
strictly to enjoin them. Now this goodness, whereby he cannot oblige
a {b341} creature to anything that is evil, speaks him highly worthy
of our observance, and our disobedience to his law to be full of
inconceivable malignity: that is the last thing.
_Second Use_ is of comfort. He is a good without mixture, good
without weariness――none good but God, none good purely, none good
inexhaustibly, but God; because he is good, we may, upon our speaking,
expect his instruction; “Good is the Lord, therefore will he teach
sinners in his way” (Ps. xxv. 8). His goodness makes him stoop to be
the tutor to those worms that lie prostrate before him; and though
they are sinners full of filth, he drives them not from his school,
nor denies them his medicines, if they apply themselves to him as a
physician. He is good in removing the punishment due to our crimes, and
good in bestowing benefits not due to our merits; because he is good,
penitent believers may expect forgiveness; “Thou, Lord, art good, and
ready to forgive” (Ps. lxxxvi. 5). He acts not according to the rigor
of the law, but willingly grants his pardon to those that fly into the
arms of the Mediator; his goodness makes him more ready to forgive,
than our necessities make us desirous to enjoy; he charged not upon Job
his impatient expressions in cursing the day of his birth; his goodness
passed that over in silence, and extols him for speaking the thing
that is right, right in the main, when he charges his friends for
not speaking of him the thing that is right, as his servant Job had
done (Job xlii. 7). He is so good, that if we offer the least thing
sincerely, he will graciously receive it; if we have not a lamb
to offer, a pigeon or turtle shall be accepted upon his altar; he
stands not upon costly presents, but sincerely tendered services. All
conditions are sweetened by it; whatsoever any in the world enjoy, is
from a redundancy of this goodness; but whatsoever a good man enjoys,
is from a propriety in this goodness.
1. Here is comfort in our addresses to him. If he be a fountain
and sea of goodness, he cannot be weary of doing good, no more than a
fountain or sea are of flowing. All goodness delights to communicate
itself; infinite goodness hath then an infinite delight in expressing
itself; it is a part of his goodness not to be weary of showing it; he
can never, then, be weary of being solicited for the effusions of it;
if he rejoices over his people to do them good, he will rejoice in any
opportunities offered to him to honor his goodness, and gladly meet
with a fit subject for it; he therefore delights in prayer. Never can
we so delight in addressing, as he doth in imparting; he delights more
in our prayers than we can ourselves; goodness is not pleased with
shyness. To what purpose did his immense bounty bestow his Son upon us,
but that we should be “accepted” both in our persons and petitions (Eph.
i. 6)? “His eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their
cry” (Ps. xxxiv. 15); he fixes the eye of his goodness upon them, and
opens the ears of his goodness for them; he is pleased to behold them,
and pleased to listen to them, as if he had no pleasure in anything
else; he loves to be sought to, to give a vent to his bounty; “Acquaint
thyself with God, and thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job xxii. 21).
The word signifies, to accustom ourselves to God; the more we accustom
ourselves in speaking, the more he will accustom himself in giving; he
loves not {b342} to keep his goodness close under lock and key, as men
do their treasures. If we knock, he opens his exchequer (Matt. vii. 7);
his goodness is as flexible to our importunities, as his power is
invincible by the arm of a silly worm; he thinks his liberality honored
by being applied to, and your address to be a recompense for his
expense. There is no reason to fear, since he hath so kindly invited
us, but he will as heartily welcome us; the nature of goodness is to
compassionate and communicate, to pity and relieve, and that with a
heartiness and cheerfulness; man is weary of being often solicited,
because he hath a finite, not a bottomless, goodness: he gives
sometimes to be rid of his suppliant, not to encourage him to a second
approach. But every experience God gives us of his bounty, is a motive
to solicit him afresh, and a kind of obligation he hath laid upon
himself to “renew it” (1 Sam. xvii. 37): it is one part of his goodness
that it is boundless and bottomless; we need not fear the wasting of
it, nor any weariness in him to bestow it. The stock cannot be spent,
and infinite kindness can never become niggardly; when we have enjoyed
it, there is still an infinite ocean in Him to refresh us, and as full
streams as ever to supply us. What an encouragement have we to draw
near to God! We run in our straits to those that we think have most
good will, as well as power to relieve and protect us. The oftener
we come to him, and the nearer we approach to him, the more of his
influences we shall feel: as the nearer the sun, the more of its
heat insinuates itself into us. The greatness of God, joined with his
goodness, hath more reason to encourage our approach to him, than our
flight from him, because his greatness never goes unattended with his
goodness; and if we were not so good, he would not be so great in the
apprehensions of any creature. How may his goodness, in the great gift
of his Son, encourage us to apply to him: since he hath set him as
a day’s‑man between himself and us, and appointed him an Advocate to
present our requests for us, and speed them at the throne of grace;
and he never leaves till Divine goodness subscribes a _fiat_ to our
believing and just petitions!
2. Here is comfort in afflictions. What can we fear from the conduct
of Infinite Goodness? Can his hand be heavy upon those that are humble
before him? They are the hands of Infinite Power indeed, but there is
not any motion of it upon his people, but is ordered by a goodness as
infinite as his power, which will not suffer any affliction to be too
sharp or too long. By what ways soever he conveys grace to us here, and
prepares us for glory hereafter, they are good, and those are the good
things he hath chiefly obliged himself to give (Ps. lxxxiv. 11): “Grace
and glory” will he “give, and no good thing will he withhold from them
that walk uprightly.” This David comforted himself with, in that which
his devout soul accounted the greatest calamity, his absence from
the courts and house of God (ver. 2). Not an ill will, but a good
will, directs his scourges; he is not an idle spectator of our combats;
his thoughts are fuller of kindness than ours, in any case, can be of
trouble: and because he is good, he wills the best good in everything
he acts; in exercising virtue, or correcting vice. There is no
affliction without some apparent mixtures of goodness; when he speaks
how he had smitten {b343} Israel (Jer. ii. 30), he presently adds (ver.
31), “Have I been a wilderness to Israel, a land of darkness?” Though
he led them through a desert, yet he was not a desert to them; he
was no land of darkness to them; while they marched through a land of
barrenness, he was a caterer to provide them “manna,” and a place of
“broad rivers” and streams. How often hath Divine goodness made our
afflictions our consolations; our diseases, our medicines, and his
gentle strokes, reviving cordials! How doth he provide for us above
our deserts, even while he doth punish us beneath our merits! Divine
goodness can no more mean ill, than Divine wisdom can be mistaken in
its end, or Divine power overruled in its actions. “Charity thinks
no evil” (1 Cor. xiii. 5); charity in the stream doth not, much less
doth charity in the fountain. To be afflicted by a hand of goodness
hath something comfortable in it, when to be afflicted by an evil
hand is very odious. Elijah, who was loth to die by the hand of a
whorish idolatrous Jezebel, was very desirous to die by the hand of God
(1 Kings, xix. 2‒4). He accounted it a misery to have died by her hand,
who hated him, and had nothing but cruelty; and, therefore, fled from
her, when he wished for death, as a desirable thing by the hand of that
God who had been good to him, and could not but be good in whatsoever
he acted.
3. The third comfort flowing from this doctrine of the goodness of
God, is, it is a ground of assurance of happiness. If God be so good,
that nothing is better, and loves himself, as he is good, he cannot
be wanting in love to those that resemble his nature, and imitate his
goodness: he cannot but love his own image of goodness; wherever he
finds it, he cannot but be bountiful to it; for it is impossible there
can be any love to any object, without wishing well to it, and doing
well for it. If the soul loves God as its chiefest good, God will love
the soul as his pious servant: as he hath offered to them the highest
allurements, so he will not withhold the choicest communications.
Goodness cannot be a deluding thing; it cannot consist with the
nobleness and largeness of this perfection to invite the creature
to him, and leave the creature empty of him when it comes. It is
inconsistent with this perfection to give the creature a knowledge of
himself, and a desire of enjoyment larger than that knowledge; a desire
to know, and enjoy him perpetually, yet never intend to bestow an
eternal communication of himself upon it. The nature of man was erected
by the goodness of God, but with an enlarged desire for the highest
good, and a capacity of enjoying it. Can goodness be thought to be
deceitful, to frustrate its own work, be tired with its own effusions,
to let a gracious soul groan under its burden, and never resolve to
ease him of it; to see delightfully the aspirings of the creature to
another state, and resolve never to admit him to a happy issue of those
desires? It is not agreeable to this inconceivable perfection to be
unconcerned in the longings of his creature, since their first longings
were placed in them by that goodness which is so free from mocking the
creature, or falling short of its well‑grounded expectations or desires,
that it infinitely exceeds them. If man had continued in innocence,
the goodness of God, without question, would have continued him in
happiness: and, {b344} since he hath had so much goodness to restore
man, would it not be dishonorable to that goodness to break his own
conditions, and defeat the believing creature of happiness, after it
hath complied with his terms? He is a believer’s God in covenant, and
is a God in the utmost extent of this attribute, as well as of any
other; and, therefore, will not communicate mean and shallow benefits,
but according to the grandeur of it, sovereign and divine, such as the
gift of a happy immortality. Since he had no obligation upon him, to
make any promise, but the sweetness of his own nature, the same is as
strong upon him to make all the words of his grace good; they cannot
be invalid in any one tittle of them as long as his nature remains the
same; and his goodness cannot be diminished without the impairing of
his Godhead, since it is inseparable from it. Divine goodness will not
let any man serve God for nought; he hath promised our weak obedience
more than any man in his right wits can say it merits (Matt. x. 42):
“A cup of cold water shall not lose its reward.” He will manifest our
good actions as he gave so high a testimony to Job, in the face of the
devil, his accuser: it will not only be the happiness of the soul, but
of the body, the whole man, since soul and body were in conjunction
in the acts of righteousness; it consists not with the goodness of God
to reward the one, and to let the other lie in the ruins of its first
nothing: to bestow joy upon the one for its being principal, and leave
the other without any sentiments of joy, that was instrumental in
those good works, both commanded and approved by God: he that had the
goodness to pity our original dust, will not want a goodness to advance
it: and if we put off our bodies, it is but afterwards to put them on
repaired and fresher. From this goodness, the upright may expect all
the happiness their nature is capable of.
4. It is a ground of comfort in the midst of public dangers. This hath
more sweetness in it to support us, than the malice of enemies hath
to deject us; because he is “good,” he is “a stronghold in the day of
trouble” (Nah. i. 7). If his goodness extends to all his creatures, it
will much more extend to those that honor him: if the earth be full of
his goodness, that part of heaven which he hath upon earth shall not be
empty of it. He hath a goodness often to deliver the righteous, and a
justice to put the wicked in his stead (Prov. xi. 8). When his people
have been under the power of their enemies, he hath changed the scene,
and put the enemies under the power of his people: he hath clapped upon
them the same bolts which they did upon his servants. How comfortable
is this goodness that hath yet maintained us in the midst of dangers,
preserved us in the mouth of lions, quenched kindled fire; hitherto
rescued us from designed ruin subtilly hatched, and supported us in
the midst of men very passionate for our destruction; how hath this
watchful goodness been a sanctuary to us in the midst of an upper hell!
_Third Use_ is of exhortation.
1. How should we endeavor after the enjoyment of God as good! How
earnestly should we desire him! As there is no other goodness worthy of
our supreme love, so there is no other goodness worthy our most ardent
thirst. Nothing deserves the name of a desirable {b345} good, but as it
tends to the attainment of this: here we must pitch our desires, which
otherwise will terminate in nullities or inconceivable disturbances.