another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Be ye therefore followers of God as dear Children and walk in love We cannot in any thing resemble God more than in goodness and kindness and mercy and in a readiness to forgive those who have been injurious to us and to be reconciled to them Let us then often contemplate this Perfection of God and represent it to our Minds that by the frequent contemplation of it we may be transformed into the Image of the Divine Goodness Is God so good to his Creatures with how much greater reason should we be so to our fellow Creatures Is God good to us let us imitate his universal goodness by endeavouring the good of Mankind and as much as in us lies of the whole Creation of God What God is to us and what we would have him still be to us that let us be to others We are infinitely beholding to this Perfection of God for all that we are and for all that we enjoy and for all that we expect and therefore we have all the reason in the World to admire and imitate it Let this pattern of the Divine Goodness be continually before us that we may be still fashioning our selves in the temper of our Minds and in the actions of our Lives to a likeness and conformity to it Lastly The consideration of the Divine goodness should excite our praise and thankfulness This is a great Duty to the performance whereof we should summon all the Powers and Faculties of our Souls as the holy Psalmist does Psal 103. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits And we should invite all others to the same Work as the same devout Psalmist frequently does Psal 106. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever And Psal 107. O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of Men And we had need to be often call'd upon to this Duty to which we have a peculiar backwardness Necessity drives us to Prayer and sends us to God for the supply of our wants but Praise and Thanksgiving is a Duty which depends upon our gratitude and ingenuity and nothing sooner wears off than the sense of Kindness and Benefits We are very apt to forget the blessings of God not so much from a bad Memory as from a bad Nature to forget the greatest blessings the continuance whereof should continually put us in mind of them the blessings of our Beings So God complains of his People Deut. 32. Of the God that formed thee thou hast been unmindful the dignity and excellency of our Beings above all the Creatures of this visible World Job 35.10 11. None saith Where is God my Maker who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven the daily comforts and blessings of our Lives which we can continually receive without almost ever looking up to the Hand that gives them So God complains by the Prophet Hosea 2.8 9. She knew not that I gave her corn and wine and oyl and multiplied her gold and silver And is it not shameful to see how at the most plentiful Tables the giving of God Thanks is almost grown out of fashion as if Men were ashamed to own from whence these Blessings came When thanks is all God expects from us can we not afford to give him that Do ye thus requite the Lord foolish people and unwise It is just with God to take away his Blessings from us if we deny him this easie tribute of Praise and Thanksgiving It is a sign Men are unfit for Heaven when they are backward to that which is the proper Work and Imployment of the blessed Spirits above Therefore as ever we hope to come thither let us begin this Work here and inure our selves to that which will be the great business of all Eternity Let us with the four and twenty Elders in the Revelation fall down before him that sits on the throne and worship him that liveth for ever and ever and cast our crowns before the throne that is cast our selves and ascribe all glory to God Saying thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast made all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created To him therefore the infinite and inexhaustible fountain of goodness the father of mercies and the God of all consolation who gave us such excellent Beings having made made us little lower than the Angels and crowned us with glory and honour who hath been pleased to stamp upon us the image of his own goodness and thereby made us partakers of a divine nature communicating to us not only of the effects of his goodness but in some measure and degree of the perfection it self to him who gives us all things richly to enjoy which pertain to life and godliness and hath made such abundant provision not only for our comfort and convenience in this present life but for our unspeakable happiness to all eternity to him who designed this happiness to us from all eternity and whose mercy and goodness to us endures for ever who when by willful transgressions and disobedience we had plunged our selves into a state of sin and misery and had forfeited that happiness which we were designed to was pleased to restore us to a new capacity of it by sending his only Son to take our nature with the miseries and infirmities of it to live among us and to die for us in a word to him who is infinitely good to us not only contrary to our deserts but beyond our hopes who renews his mercy upon us every morning and is patient tho' we provoke him every day who preserves and provides for us and spares us continually who is always willing always watchful and never weary to do us good to him be all glory and honour adoration and praise love and obedience now and for ever SERMON V. Vol. VII The Mercy of God NUMB. XIV 18 The Lord is long suffering and of great Mercy I Have considered God's Goodness in general There are two eminent Branches of it his Patience and Mercy The Patience of God is his goodness to them that are guilty in deferring or moderating their deserved punishment the Mercy of God is his goodness to them that are or may be miserable 'T is the last of these two I design to discourse of at this time in doing which I shall inquire First What we are to understand by the Mercy of God Secondly Shew you that this Perfection belongs to God Thirdly Consider the degree of it that God is of great Mercy First What we are to understand by the Mercy of God I told you it is his goodness to them that are in
misery or liable to it that is that are in danger of it or have deserved it 'T is mercy to prevent the misery that we are liable to and which may befal us tho' it be not actually upon us 'T is mercy to defer the misery that we deserve or mitigate it and this is properly patience and forbearance 'T is mercy to relieve those that are in misery to support or comfort them 'T is mercy to remit the misery we deserve and by pardon and forgiveness to remove and take away the obligation to punishment Thus the mercy of God is usually in Scripture set forth to us by the affection of pity and compassion which is an affection that causeth a sensible commotion and disturbance in us upon the apprehension of some great Evil that lies upon another or hangs over him Hence it is that God is said in Scripture to be grieved and afflicted for the miseries of Men his bowels are said to sound and his heart to turn within him But tho' God is pleased in this manner to set forth his mercy and tenderness towards us yet we must take heed how we cloath the Divine Nature with the Infirmities of human Passions We must not measure the Perfection of God by the Expressions of his condescention and because he stoops to our weakness level him to our Infirmities When God is said to pity us we must take away the imperfection of this Passion the commotion and disturbance of it and not imagine any such thing in God but we are to conceive that the mercy and compassion of God without producing the disquiet do produce the Effects of the most sensible pity Secondly That this Perfection belongs to God All the Arguments that I used to prove the goodness of God from the acknowledgment of natural Light and from Scripture and Reason serve to prove that he is merciful because the mercy of God is an eminent Branch of his goodness I will only produce some of those many Texts of Scripture which attribute this Perfection to God Exod. 34.6 The Lord the Lord God gracious and merciful Deut. 4.31 The Lord thy God is a merciful God 2 Chron. 30.9 The Lord your God is gracious and merciful Neh. 9.17 Ready to pardon gracious and merciful Psal 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy Psal 62.12 Vnto thee O Lord belongeth mercy Psal 103.8 Merciful and gracious Psal 130.7 With the Lord there is mercy And so Jer. 3.12 Joel 2.13 Jonah 4.2 Luke 6.36 Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful The Scripture speaks of this as most natural to him 2 Cor. 1.3 he is called the Father of mercies But when he punisheth he doth as it were relinquish his Nature and do a strange work The Lord will wait that he may be gracious Isa 30.18 God passeth by opportunities of punishing but his mercy takes opportunity to display it self he waits to be gracious To afflict or punish is a Work that God is unwilling to that he takes no pleasure in Lam. 3.33 He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men But mercy is a Work that he delights in Mic. 7.18 He delighteth in mercy When God shews mercy he does it with pleasure and delight he is said to rejoyce over his people to do them good Those Attributes that declare God's goodness as when he is said to be gracious or merciful and long-suffering they shew what God is in himself and delights to be those which declare his wrath and severity shew what he is upon provocation and the occasion of sin not what he chuseth to be but what we do as it were compel and necessitate him to be Thirdly For the degree of it that God is a God of great mercy The Scripture doth delight to advance the mercy of God and does use great variety of Expression to magnifie it It speaks of the greatness of his mercy Numb 14.19 According to the greatness of his mercy 2 Sam. 24.14 Let me fall into the hands of the Lord for his mercies are great 'T is call'd an abundant mercy 1 Pet. 1.3 According to his abundant mercy Psal 103.8 he is said to be plenteous in mercy and rich in mercy Eph. 2.4 Psal 5.7 he speaks of the multitude of God's mercies and of the variety of them Neh. 9.18 In thy manifold mercies thou forsookest them not So many are they that we are said to be surrounded and campassed about on every side with them Psal 103.4 Who crowneth us with loving kindness and tender mercies And yet further to set forth the greatness of them the Scripture useth all dimensions Heighth Psal 57.10 Thy mercy is great unto the Heavens Nay higher yet Psal 108.4 Thy mercy is great above the heavens For the latitude and extent of it 't is as large as the Earth and extends to all the Creatures in it Psal 109.64 The earth is full of thy mercy Psal 145.8 His tender mercies are over all his works For the length or duration and continuance of it Exod. 34.7 Laying up mercy in store for thousands of generations one after another Nay it is of a longer continuance Psal 118. 't is several times repeated That his mercy endureth for ever And to shew the intense degree of this affection of mercy or pity the Scripture useth several emphatical Expressions to set it forth to us The Scripture speaks of the tender mercies of God Psal 25.6 Remember O Lord thy tender mercies Yea of the multitude of these Psal 51.1 According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions Jam. 5.11 The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy They are called God's Bowels which are the tenderest parts and apt to yern and stir in us when any affections of love and pity are excited Is 63.15 Where is the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies are they restrained Luke 1.78 Through the tender mercy of our God So it is in our Translation but if we render it from the Original 't is through the bowels of the mercies of our God How doth God condescend in those pathetical Expressions which he useth concerning his People Hos 11.8 How shall I give thee up Ephraim mine heart is turned within me and my repentings are kindled together Nay to express his tender sense of our miseries and sufferings he is represented as being afflicted with us and bearing a part in our sufferings Isa 63.9 In all their afflictions he was afflicted The compassions of God are compared to the tenderest affections among Men to that of a Father towards his Children Psal 103.13 As a father pitieth his Children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Nay to the compassions of a Mother towards her Infant Isa 49.15 Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb Yea she may 't is possible tho' most unlikely but tho' a Mother may turn unnatural yet God cannot be unmerciful In short
the Scripture doth every where magnifie the mercy of God and speak of it with all possible advantage as if the Divine Nature which doth in all Perfections excel all others did in this excel it self The Scripture speaks of it as if God was wholly taken up with it as if it was his constant Exercise and Employment so that in comparison of it he doth hardly display any other excellency Psal 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy as if in this World God had a design to advance his mercy above his other Attributes The mercy of God is now in the Throne this is the day of mercy and God doth display it many times with a seeming dishonour to his other Attributes his Justice and Holiness and Truth His Justice This makes Job complain of the long life and prosperity of the wicked Job 41.7 Wherefore do the wicked live yea become old c. His Holiness This makes the Prophet expostulate with God Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue c. And the Truth of God This makes Jonah complain as if God's mercies were such as did make some reflection upon his truth Jon. 4.2 But that we may have more distinct apprehensions of the greatness and number of God's mercies I will distribute them into kinds and rank them under several Heads 'T is mercy to prevent those evils and miseries that we are liable to 'T is mercy to defer those evils that we have deserved or to mitigate them 'T is mercy to support and comfort us when misery is upon us 'T is mercy to deliver us from them But the greatest mercy of all is to remit the evil and misery we have deserved by pardon and forgiveness to remove and take away the obligation to punishment so that the mercy of God may be reduced to these five Heads I. Preventing Mercy Many evils and miseries which we are liable to God prevents them at a great distance and when they are coming towards us he stops them or turns them another way The merciful Providence of God and those invisible guards which protect us do divert many evils from us which fall upon others We seldom take notice of God's preventing mercy we are not apt to be sensible how great a mercy it is to be freed from those straits and necessities those pains and diseases of Body those inward racks and horrours which others are pressed withal and labour under When any evil or misery is upon us would we not reckon it a mercy to be rescued and delivered from it And is it not a greater mercy that we never felt it Does not that Man owe more to his Physician who prevents his sickness and distemper than he who after the weakness and languishing the pains and tortures of several Months is at length cured by him II. Forbearing mercy And this is the patience of God which consists in the deferring or moderating of our deserved punishment Hence it is that slow to anger and of great mercy do so often go together But this I shall speak to hereafter in some particular Discourses III. Comforting mercy 2 Cor. 1.3 The father of mercies and the God of all Comfort The Scripture represents God as very merciful in comforting and supporting those that are afflicted and cast down hence are those expressions of putting his arms under us bearing us up speaking comfortably visiting us with his loving kindness which signifie God's merciful regard to those who are in misery and distress IV. His relieving mercy in supplying those that are in want and delivering those that are in trouble God doth many times exercise Men with troubles and afflictions with a very gracious and merciful design to prevent greater Evils which Men would otherwise bring upon themselves Afflictions are a merciful invention of Heaven to do us that good which nothing else can they awaken us to a sense of God and of our selves to a consideration of the evil of our ways they make us to take notice of God to seek him and enquire after him God doth as it were by Afflictions throw Men upon their backs to make them look up to Heaven Hos 5.15 In their affliction they will seek me early Psal 78.34 When he slew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God But God does not delight in this he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men When afflictions have accomplished their work and obtained their end upon us God is very ready to remove them and command deliverance for us Isa 54.7 8. For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee In a little wrath I hid my face from thee but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer V. Pardoning mercy And here the greatness and fullness of God's mercy appears because our sins are great Psal 78.38 Being full of compassion he forgave their iniquity And the multitude of God's mercies because our sins are many Psal 51.1 Have mercy on me O Lord according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions Exod. 34.7 He is said to pardon iniquity transgression and sin How many fold are his mercies to forgive all our sins of what kind so ever The mercy of God to us in pardoning our sins is matter of astonishment and admiration Mic. 7.18 Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity But especially if we consider by what means our pardon is procured by transferring our guilt upon the most innocent person the Son of God and making him to bear our iniquities and to suffer the wrath of God which was due to us The admirable contrivance of God's mercy appears in this dispensation this shews the riches of his grace that he should be at so much cost to purchase our pardon Not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the precious blood of his own Son Eph. 1.6 7. To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace Having dispatch'd the three particulars I propos'd to be spoken to I shall shew what Use we ought to make of this Divine Attribute Vse 1. We ought with thankfulness to acknowledge and admire the great mercy of God to us Let us view it in all its dimensions the heighth and length and breadth of it in all the variety and kinds of it the preventing mercy of God to many of us Those miseries that lye upon others 't is mercy to us that we escaped them 'T is mercy that spares us It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed and because his compassions fail not 'T is mercy that mitigates our punishment and makes it fall below
any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And we continually stand in need of mercy both from God and Man We are lyable one to another and in the change of human Affairs we may be all subject to one another by turns and stand in need of one anothers pity and compassion and we must expect that with what measure we mete to others with the same it shall be measured to us again To restrain the Cruelties and check the Insolencies of Men God has so order'd in his Providence that very often in this World Mens Cruelties return upon their own heads and their violent dealings upon their own pates Bajazet meets with a Tamerlane But if Men were not thus liable to one another we all stand in need of mercy from God If we be merciful to others in suffering and forgiving them that have injured us God will be so to us he will pardon our sins to us Prov. 16.5 By mercy and truth iniquity is purged 2. Sam. 22.26 With the merciful thou wilt shew thy self merciful Prov. 14.21 He that hath mercy on the poor happy is he Prov. 21.21 He that followeth after mercy findeth life Matth. 6.14 If ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you But on the other hand if we be malicious and revengeful and implacable to those that have offended us and inexorable to those who desire to be received to favour and cruel to those who lye at our mercy hard hearted to them that are in necessity what can we expect but that the mercy of God will leave us that he will forget to be gracious and shut up in anger his tender mercy Mat. 6.15 If ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses That is a dreadful passage S. James 2.13 He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy How angry is the Lord with the Servant who was so inexorable to his fellow Servant after he had forgiven him so great a debt as you find in the Parable Mat. 18.24 He owed him ten thousand Talents and upon his submission and intreaty to have patience with him he was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him all but no sooner had this favour been done to him by his Lord but going forth he meets his fellow Servant who owed him a small inconsiderable debt an hundred Pence he lays Hands on him and takes him by the Throat and roundly demands payment of him he falls down at his Feet and useth the same form of supplication that he had used to his Lord but he rejects his request and puts him in Prison Now what saith the Lord to him v. 32 33 34. O thou wicked Servant I forgave thee all the debt because thou desiredst me Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant even as I had pity on thee And the Lord was wroth and deliver'd him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him Now what application doth our Saviour make of this v. 35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses God's readiness to forgive us should be a powerful motive and argument to us to forgive others The greatest Injuries that we can suffer from Men if we compare them to the sins that we commit against God they bear no proportion to them neither in weight nor number they are but as an hundred pence to ten thousand talents If we would be like God we should forgive the greatest Injuries he pardoneth our sins tho' they be exceeding great many Injuries tho' offences be renewed and provocations multiplied for so God doth to us He pardoneth iniquity transgression and sin Ex. 34.7 Is 55.7 He will have mercy he will abundantly pardon We would not have God only to forgive us seven times but seventy seven times as often as we offend him so should we forgive our Brother And we should not be backward to this Work God is ready to forgive us Neh. 9.17 And we should do it heartily not only in word when we retain malice in our hearts and while we say we forgive carry on a secret design in our hearts of revenging our selves when we have opportunity but we should from our hearts forgive every one for so God doth to us who when he forgives us casts our iniquities behind his back and throws them into the bottom of the sea and blots out our transgression so as to remember our iniquity no more If we do not do thus every time we put up the Petition to God Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us we do not pray for mercy but for judgment we invoke his wrath and do not put up a Prayer but a dreadful Imprecation against our selves we pronounce the Sentence of our own Condemnation and importune God not to forgive us Vse 4. If the mercy of God be so great this may comfort us against Despair Sinners are apt to be dejected when they consider their unworthiness the nature and number of their Sins and the many heavy aggravations of them they are apt to say with Cain That their sin is greater than can be forgiven But do not look only upon thy sins but upon the mercies of God Thou canst not be too sensible of the evil of sin and of the desert of it but whilst we aggravate our sins we must not lessen the mercies of God When we consider the multitude of our sins we must consider also the multitude of God's tender mercies we have been great sinners and God is of great mercy we have multiplied our provocations and he multiplies to pardon Do but thou put thy self in a capacity of mercy by repenting of thy sins and forsaking of them and thou hast no reason to doubt but the mercy of God will receive thee If we confess our sins he is merciful and faithful to forgive them If we had offended Man as we have done God we might despair of pardon but it is God and not Man that we have to deal with and his ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts as our thoughts but as the heavens are high above the earth so are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts We cannot be more injurious to God than by hard thoughts of him as if fury were in him and when we have provoked him he were not to be appeased and reconciled to us We disparage the Goodness and Truth of God when we distrust those gracious declarations which he has made of his mercy and goodness if we do not think that he doth heartily pity and compassionate sinners and really dedesire their happiness Doth not he condescend so low as to represent himself afflicted for the miseries of Men and to rejoyce in the conversion of a Sinner and shall not we believe that he is in
wisdom or goodness of God to make a Creature of such a frame as to be capable of having its obedience tryed in order to the reward of it which could not be unless such a Creature were made mutable and by the good or bad use of its liberty capable of obeying or disobeying the Laws of his Creator for where there is no possibility of sinning there can be no tryal of our Virtue and Obedience and nothing but Virtue and Obedience are capable of reward The goodness of God towards us is sufficiently vindicated in that he made us capable of happiness and gave us sufficient direction and power for the attaining of that end and it does in no wise contradict his goodness that he does not by his Omnipotency interpose to prevent our sin for this had been to alter the nature of things and not to let Man be the Creature he made him capable of reward or punishment according to the good or bad use of his own free choice It is sufficient that God made Man good at first tho mutable and that he had a power to have continued so tho he wilfully determined himself to evil this acquits the goodness of God that he made Man upright but he found out to himself many inventions 2. If there had not been such an order and rank of Creatures as had been in their nature mutable there had been no place for the manifestation of God's goodness in a way of mercy and patience so that tho God be not the Author of the sins of Men yet in case of their willful transgression and disobedience the goodness of God hath a fair opportunity of discovering it self in his patience and long-suffering to Sinners and in his merciful care and provision for their recovery out of that miserable state And this may suffice for answer to the first Objection if God be so good whence then comes evil The Second Objection against the Goodness of God is from the Doctrine of absolute reprobation by which I mean the decreeing the greatest part of Mankind to eternal misery and torment without any consideration or respect to their sin and fault This seems not only notoriously to contradict the Notion of infinite Goodness but to be utterly inconsistent with the least measure and degree of Goodness Indeed if by reprobation were only meant that God in his own infinite Knowledge foresees the sins and wickedness of Men and hath from all eternity determined in himself what in his Word he hath so plainly declared that he will punish impenitent Sinners with everlasting destruction or if by reprobation be meant that God hath not elected all Mankind that is absolutely decreed to bring them infallibly to Salvation neither of these Notions of reprobation is any ways inconsistent with the goodness of God for he may foresee the wickedness of Men and determine to punish it without any impeachment of his goodness He may be very good to all and yet not equally and in the same degree if God please to bring any infallibly to Salvation this is transcendent goodness but if he put all others into a capacity of it and use all necessary and fitting means to make them happy and after all this any fall short of happiness through their own wilful fault and obstinacy these Men are evil and cruel to themselves but God hath been very good and merciful to them But if by reprobation be meant either that God hath decreed without respect to the sins of Men their absolute ruin and misery or that he hath decreed that they shall inevitably sin and perish it cannot be denied but that such a reprobation as this doth clearly overthrow all possible Notion of goodness I have told you that the true and only Notion of goodness in God is this that it is a propension and disposition of the Divine Nature to communicate Being and Happiness to his Creatures But surely nothing can be more plainly contrary to a disposition to make them happy than an absolute decree and a peremptory resolution to make them miserable God is infinitely better than the best of Men and yet none can possibly think that Man a good Man who should absolutely resolve to disinherit and destroy his Children without the foresight and consideration of any fault to be committed by them We may talk of the Goodness of God But it is not an easie matter to devise to say any thing worse than this of the Devil But it is said reprobation is an act of soveraignty in God and therefore not to be measured by the common rules of goodness But it is contrary to goodness and plainly inconsistent with it and we must not attribute such a soveraignty to God as contradicts his goodness for if the soveraignty of God may break in at pleasure upon his other Attributes then it signifies nothing to say that God is good and wise and just if his soveraignty may at any time act contrary to these Perfections Now if the Doctrine of absolute reprobation and the goodness of God cannot possibly stand together the Question is Which of them ought to give way to the other What St. Paul determines in another case concerning the truth and fidelity of God will equally hold concerning his goodness Let God be good and every Man a lyar The Doctrine of absolute reprobation is no part of the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures that ever I could find and there 's the Rule of our Faith If some great Divines have held this Doctrine not in opposition to the goodness of God but hoping they might be reconciled together let them do it if they can but if they cannot rather let the Schools of the greatest Divines be call'd in question than the goodness of God which next to his Being is the greatest and clearest truth in the world Thirdly It is farther objected that the eternal punishment of Men for temporal Faults seems hard to be reconciled with that excess of Goodness which we suppose to be in God This Objection I have fully answer'd in a Discourse upon S. Matth. 25.46 and therefore shall proceed to the Fourth and last Objection against the goodness of God from sundry Instances of God's severity to Mankind in those great Calamities which by the Providence of God have in several Ages either befaln Mankind in general or particular Nations And here I shall confine my self to Scripture Instances as being most known and most certain and remarkable or at least equally remarkable with any that are to be met with in any other History such are the early and universal degeneracy of all Mankind by the sin and transgression of our first Parents the destruction of the World by a general deluge the sudden and terrible destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Cities about them by Fire and Brimstone from Heaven the cruel extirpation of the Canaanites by the express command of God and lastly the great Calamities which befel the Jewish Nation especially the final ruin
and dispersion of them at the destruction of Jerusalem These and the like instances of God's severity seem to call in question his goodness Against these severe and dreadful Instances of God's severity it might be a sufficient vindication of his goodness to say in general that they were all upon great and high Provocations most of them after long patience and forbearance and with a great mixture of mercy and a declared readiness in in God to have prevented or removed them upon repentance all which are great Instances of the goodness of God But yet for the clearer manifestation of the Divine Goodness I shall consider them particularly and as briefly as I can 1. As for the transgression of our first Parents and the dismal consequences of it to all their Posterity This is a great depth and tho the Scripture mentions it yet it speaks but little of it and in matters of mere Revelation we must not attempt to be wise above what is written Thus much is plain that it was an act of high and wilful Disobedience to a very plain and easie Command and that in the punishment of it God mitigated the extremity of the Sentence which was present death by granting our first Parents the Reprieve of almost a thousand Years and as to the consequences of it to their Posterity God did not upon this provocation abandon his care of Mankind and tho he removed them out of that happy state and place in which Man was created yet he gave them a tolerable condition and accommodations upon Earth and which is certainly the most glorious Instance of Divine Goodness that ever was he was pleased to make the fall and misery of Man the happy occasion of sending his Son in our Nature for the recovery and advancement of it to a much happier and better condition than that from which we fell So the Apostle tells us at large Rom. 5. That the Grace of God by Jesus Christ hath redounded much more to our benefit and advantage than the sin and disobedience of our first Parents did to our prejudice 2. For the general Deluge tho it look very severe yet if we consider it well we may plainly discern much of goodness in it It was upon great provocation by the universal corruption and depravation of Mankind The earth was filled with violence and all flesh had corrupted its ways the wickedness of Man was great upon the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually which is not a description of original sin but of the actual and improved wickedness of Mankind and yet when the wickedness of Men was come to this height God gave them fair warning before he brought this Calamity upon them when the patience of God waited in the days of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty Years at last when nothing would reclaim them and almost the whole race of Mankind were become so very bad that it is said it repented the Lord that he had made Man upon the earth and it grieved him at his heart when things were thus extremely bad and like to continue so God in pity to Mankind and to put a stop to their growing wickedness and guilt swept them away all at once from the face of the Earth except one Family which he had preserved from this Contagion to be a new Seminary of Mankind and as the Heathen Poet expresseth it Mundi melioris origo the source and original of a better Race 3. For that terrible destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Fire and Brimstone from Heaven it was not brought upon them till the cry of their sin was great and gone up to Heaven till by their unnatural Lusts they had provoked supernatural Vengeance And it is very remarkable to what low terms God was pleased to condescend to Abraham for the sparing of them if in those five Cities there had been found but ten righteous persons he would not have destroyed them for those ten 's sake So that we may say with the Apostle Behold the goodness and severity of God! Here was wonderful goodness mixt with this great severity 4. For the extirpation of the Canaanites by the express command of God which hath such an appearance of severity it is to be consider'd that this Vengeance was not executed upon them till they were grown ripe for it God spared them for above four hundred Years for so long their growing Impiety is taken notice of Gen. 18.28 where it is said That the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full God did not proceed to cut them off till their case was desperate past all hopes of recovery till the land was defiled with abominations and surcharged with wickedness to that degree as to spue out its Inhabitants as is expresly said Levit. 18.28 When they were arrived to this pitch it was no mercy to them to spare them any longer to heap up more guilt and misery to themselves Fifthly and Lastly As for the great Calamities which God brought upon the Jews especially in their final ruin and dispersion at the destruction of Jerusalem not to insist upon the known History of their multiplied Rebellions and Provocations of their despiteful usage of God's Prophets whom he sent to warn them of his Judgments and to call them to Repentance of their obstinate refusal to receive Correction and to be brought to amendment by any means that God could use for all which Provocations he at last delivered them into their Enemies hands to carry them away Captive not to insist upon this I shall only consider their final destruction by the Romans which tho' it be dreadfully severe beyond any Example of History yet the Provocation was proportionable for this Vengeance did not come upon them till they had as it were extorted it by the most obstinate impenitency and unbelief in rejecting the Counsel of God against themselves and resisting such means as would have brought Tyre and Sidon Sodom and Gomorrah to repentance till they had despised the Doctrine of Life and Salvation delivered to them by the Son of God and confirmed from Heaven by the clearest and greatest Miracles and by wicked hands had crucified and slain the Son of God and the Saviour of the World Nay even after this greatest of sins that ever was committed God waited for their Repentance forty Years to see if in that time they would be brought to a sense of their sins and to know the things which belonged to their peace And no wonder if after such provocations and so much patience and so obstinate an impenitency the goodness of God at last gave way to his justice and wrath came upon them to the utmost So that all these Instances rightly considered are rather commendations of the Divine Goodness than just and reasonable objections against it and notwithstanding the severity of them it is evident that God is good from the primary inclinations of his nature and severe only
stir up in us shame and sorrow for Sin The Judgments of God may break us but the consideration of God's Mercy should rather melt and dissolve us into Tears Luke 7.47 The Woman that washed Christ's Feet with her Tears and wiped them with her Hair the account that our Saviour gives of the great Affection that she expressed to him was she Loved much because much was forgiven her and she grieved much because much was forgiven her Especially we should sorrow for those Sins which have been committed by us after God's Mercies received Mercies after Sins should touch our Hearts and make us relent It should grieve us that we should offend and provoke a God so Gracious and Merciful so slow to anger and so ready to forgive But Sin against Mercies and after we have received them is attended with one of the greatest Aggravations of Sin And as Mercy raises the guilt of our Sins so it should raise our sorrow for them No Consideration is more apt to work upon human Nature than that of kindness and the greater Mercy has been shewed to us the greater our sins and the greater cause of sorrow for them contraries do illustrate and set off one another in the great Goodness and Mercy of God to us we see the great Evil of our Sins against him Every Sin has the Nature of Rebellion and Disobedience but sins against Mercy have Ingratitude in them When ever we break the Laws of God we rebel against our Soveraign but as we sin against the Mercies of God we injure our Benefactor This makes our sin to be horrid and astonishing Isa 1.2 Hear O heavens and give ear O earth I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me All the Mercies of God are aggravations of our sins 2 Sam. 12.7 8 9. And Nathan said to David thus saith the Lord God of Israel I anointed thee king over Israel and delivered thee out of the hands of Saul and I gave thee thy masters house and thy masters wives into thy bosom and gave thee the house of Isreal and of Judah and if that had been too little I would moreover have given thee such and such things Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight God reckons up all his Mercies and from them aggravates David's sin 1 Kings 11.9 He takes notice of all the unkind returns that we make to his Mercy and 't is the worst temper in the World not to be wrought upon by kindness not to be melted by Mercy no greater evidence of a wicked Heart than that the Mercies of God have no effect upon it Esay 26.10 Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness Vse 3. Let us imitate the merciful Nature of God This branch of God's goodness is very proper for our imitation The general Exhortation of our Saviour Matt. 5.48 Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect is more particularly expressed by St. Luke Luke 6.30 Be ye therefore merciful as your Father which is in heaven is merciful Men affect to make Images and impossible Representations of God but as Seneca saith Crede Deòs cùm propitii essent fictiles fuisse We may draw this Image and likeness of God we may be gracious and merciful as he is Christ who was the express image of his Father his whole life and undertaking was a continued work of mercy he went about doing good to the Souls of Men by Preaching the Gospel to them and to the Bodies of Men in healing all manner of Diseases There is nothing that he recommends more to us in his Gospel than this Spirit and Temper Mat. 5.7 Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy How many Parables doth he use to set forth the mercy of God to us with a design to draw us to the imitation of it The Parable of the Prodigal of the good Samaritan of the Servant to whom he forgave 10000 Talents We should imitate God in this in being tender and compassionate to those that are in misery This is a piece of natural indispensable Religion to which positive and instituted Religion must give way Amos 6.6 I desired mercy and not sacrifice which is twice cited and used by our Saviour Micah 6.8 He hath shewed thee O Man what it is that the Lord thy God requires of thee to do justice and love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This is always one part of the description of a good Man that he is apt to pity the miseries and necessities of others Psal 37.26 He is ever merciful and lendeth He is far from cruelty not only to Men but even to the brute Creatures Prov. 12.10 A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast There is nothing more contrary to the nature of God than a cruel and savage disposition not to be affected with the miseries and sufferings of others how unlike is this to the father of mercies and the God of consolation When we can see Cruelty exercised and our Bowels not be stirred within us nor our hearts be pricked how unlike is this to God who is very pitiful and of tender mercies But to rejoyce at the miseries of others this is inhumane and barbarous Hear how God threatens Edom for rejoycing at the miseries of his Brother Jacob Obadiah 10 11 12 13 14. But to delight to make others miserable and to aggravate their sufferings this is devilish this is the temper of Hell and the very spirit of the Destroyer It becomes Man above all other Creatures to be merciful who hath had such ample and happy experience of God's mercy to him and doth still continually stand in need of mercy from God God hath been very merciful to us Had it not been for the tender Mercies of God to us we had all of us long since been miserable Now as we have receiv'd mercy from God we should shew it to others The Apostle useth this as an Argument why we should relieve those that are in misery and want because we have had such experience of the mercy and love of God to us 1 John 3.16 17. Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us But whoso hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother have need c. how dwelleth the love of God in him That Man hath no sense of the mercy of God abiding upon his Heart that is not merciful to his Brother And 't is an Argument why we should forgive one another Eph. 4.32 Be ye kind one to another tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Chap. 5.1 Be ye therefore followers of God as dear Children Col. 3.12 13. Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of mind meekness long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against
good earnest Doth Christ weep over impenitent Sinners because they will not know the things of their peace and canst thou think he will not pardon thee upon thy repentance Is he grieved that Men will undo themselves and will not be saved and canst thou think that he is unwilling to forgive We cannot honour and glorifie God more than by entertaining great thoughts of his Mercy As we are said to glorifie God by our repentance because thereby we acknowledge God's holiness and justice so we glorifie him by believing his mercy because we conceive a right opinion of his goodness and truth we set to our Seal that God is merciful and true Psal 147.11 't is said That God taketh pleasure in them that hope in his mercy As he delights in mercy so in our acknowledgments of it that Sinners should conceive great hopes of it and believe him to be what he is Provided thou dost submit to the terms of God's mercy thou hast no reason to despair of it and he that thinks that his sins are more or greater than the mercy of God can pardon must think that there may be more evil in the Creature than there is goodness in God Vse 5. By way of Caution against the presumptuous Sinner If there be any that trespass upon the goodness of God and presume to encourage themselves in sin upon the hopes of his mercy let such know that God is just as well as merciful A God all of mercy is an Idol such a God as Men set up in their own imaginations but not the true God whom the Scriptures describe To such persons the Scripture describes him after another manner Nah. 1.2 God is jealous the Lord revengeth and is furious the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and reserveth wrath for his enemies If any Man abuse the mercy of God to the strengthning of himself in his own wickedness and bless himself in his heart saying I shall have peace tho' I walk in the imagination of my own heart and add drunkeness to thirst The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoke against that man and all the curses that are written in this book shall lye upon him and he will blot out his name from under heaven Deut. 29.19 20. Though it be the nature of God to be merciful yet the exercise of his mercy is regulated by his Wisdom he will not be merciful to those that despise his mercy to those that abuse it to those that are resolved to go on in their sins to tempt his mercy and make bold to say Let us sin that grace may abound God designs his mercy for those that are prepared to receive it Is 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and turn unto the Lord and he will have mercy and to our God for he will abundantly pardon The mercy of God is an enemy to sin as well as his justice and 't is no where offer'd to countenance sin but to convert the sinner and is not intended to encourage our impenitency but our repentance God hath no where said that he will be merciful to those who upon the score of his mercy are bold with him and presume to offend him but the mercy of the Lord is upon them that fear him and keep his covenant and remember his commandments to do them There is forgiveness with him that he may be feared but not that he may be despised and affronted This is to contradict the very end of God's mercy which is to lead us to repentance to engage us to leave our sins not to encourage us to continue in them Take heed then of abusing the mercy of God we cannot provoke the justice of God more than by presuming upon his mercy This is the time of God's mercy use this opportunity if thou neglectest it a day of justice and vengeance is coming Rom. 2.4 5. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance And treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Now is the manifestation of God's mercy but there is a time a coming when the righteous Judgment of God will be revealed against those who abuse his mercy not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance To think that the goodness of God was intended for any other end than to take us off from sin is a gross and affected ignorance that will ruin us and they who draw any conclusion from the mercy of God which may harden them in their sins they are such as the Prophet speaks of Is 27.11 A people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not save them and he that formed them will have no mercy on them Mercy it self will rejoyce in the ruin of those that abuse it and it will aggravate their Condemnation There is no person towards whom God will be more severely just than toward such The justice of God exasperated and set on by his injured and abused mercy like a Razor set in Oyl will have the keener edge and be the sharper for its smoothness Those that have made the mercy of God their Enemy must expect the worst his justice can do unto them SERMON VI. Vol VII The Patience of God 2 PET. III. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his Promise as some Men count slackness but is long-suffering not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance IN the beginning of this Chapter the Apostle puts the Christians to whom he writes in mind of the Predictions of the ancient Prophets and of the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour concerning the general Judgment of the World which by many and perhaps by the Apostles themselves had been thought to be very near and that it would presently follow the destruction of Jerusalem but he tells them that before that there would arise a certain Sect or sort of Men that would deride the expectation of a future Judgment designing probably the Carpocratians a branch of that large Sect of the Gnosticks of whom St. Austin expressly says That they denied the Resurrection and consequently a future Judgment These St. Peter calls Scoffers v. 3 4. Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying Where is the promise of his coming The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a Declaration in general whether it be by way of Promise or Threatning What is become of that Declaration of Christ so frequently repeated in the Gospel concerning his coming to Judgment For since the Fathers fell asleep or saving that the Fathers are fallen asleep except only that Men die and one Generation succeeds another all things continue as they were from the creation of the world that is the World continues still as it was from the
There is nothing of a rash and ungoverned Passion in the wise and just God Every sin indeed kindles his anger and provokes his displeasure against us and by our repeated and continued Offences we still add Fuel to his Wrath but it doth not of necessity instantly break forth like a consuming fire and a devouring flame The holy and righteous Nature of God makes him necessarily offended and displeased with the sins of Men but as to the manifestation of his Wrath and the effects of his Anger his Wisdom and Goodness do regulate and determine the proper time and circumstances of Punishment 3. From the Patience of God and the delay of punishment Men are apt to conclude that God is not so severe in his Nature as he is commonly represented 'T is true he hath declared his displeasure against sin and threaten'd it with dreadful punishments which he may do in great wisdom to keep the World in awe and order but great things are likewise spoken of his Mercy and of the wonderful delight he takes in the exercise of his Mercy so that notwithstanding all the threatnings which are denounced against sin it is to be hoped that when Sentence comes to be past and Judgment to be executed God will remember mercy in the midst of judgment and that mercy will triumph over judgment and that as now his Patience stays his hand and turns away his wrath so at the last the milder Attributes of his Goodness and Mercy will interpose and moderate the rigor and severity of his Justice and of this his great Patience and long-suffering towards Sinners for the present seems to be some kind of pledge and earnest he that is so slow to anger and so loth to execute punishment may probably be prevail'd upon by his own Pity and Goodness to remit it at the last and this is the more credible because it is granted on all hands that no person is obliged to execute his threatnings as he is to make good his promises he that promiseth passeth a right to another but he that threatneth keeps the right and power of doing what he pleaseth in his own hands I shall speak a little more fully to this because it is almost incredible how much Men bear up themselves upon vain and groundless hopes of the boundless Mercy of God and bless themselves in their hearts saying They shall have peace tho' they walk in the imagination of their hearts to add drunkenness to thirst that is tho' they still persist in their Vices and add one degree of sin to another Now for answer to this 1. Let it be granted that a bare threatning does not necessarily infer the certainty of the event and that the thing threatned shall infallibly come to pass no person is obliged to perform his threatnings as he is his promises the threatnings of God declare what sin deserves and what the sinner may justly expect if he continue impenitent and incorrigible But then we are to take notice that repentance is the only condition that is implyed in the threatnings of God and will effectually hinder the execution of them Jer. 18.7 8 9 10. At what instant I speak says God concerning a nation and concerning a kingdome to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it If that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it if it do evil in my sight and obey not my voice then will I repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them Now if when God hath promised to do good to a People sin will hinder the blessing promised and bring down Judgments upon them much more when it is particularly threatned But as to the case of final impenitency and unbelief God that he might strengthen his threatnings hath added a sign of immutability to them having confirmed them with an Oath I have sworn saith the Lord that they shall not enter into my rest which tho' it was spoken to the unbelieving Jews the Apostle to the Hebrews applys it to final unbelief and impenitency under the Gospel of which the infidelity of the Israelites was a Type and Figure Now tho' God may remit of his threatnings yet his Oath is a plain declaration that he will not because it signifies the firm and immutable determination of his Will and thereby puts an end to all doubts and controversies concerning the fulfilling of his threatnings 2. It is certainly much the wisest and safest way to believe the threatnings of God in the strictness and rigour of them unless there be some tacite condition evidently implyed in them because if we do not believe them and the thing prove otherwise the consequence of our mistake is fatal and dreadful 'T is true indeed that God by his threatnings did intend to keep sinners in awe and to deter them from sin but if he had any where revealed that he would not be rigorous in the execution of these threatnings such a revelation would quite take off the edge and terror of them and contradict the end and design of them for threatnings signifie very little but upon this supposition that in all probability they will be executed and if this be true it is the greatest madness and folly in the World to run the hazard of it 3. As for those large declarations which the Scripture makes of the boundless Mercy of God to Sinners we are to limit them as the Scripture hath done to the time and season of mercy which is this life and while we are in the way This is the day of mercy and salvation and when this life is ended the opportunities of Grace and Mercy are past and the day of recompence and vengeance will begin Now God tries us and offers Mercy to us but if we obstinately refuse it Judgment will take hold of us And then we must limit the Mercy of God to the conditions upon which he offers it which are repentance for sins past and sincere obedience for the future but if Men continue obstinate and impenitent and encourage themselves in sin from the Mercy and Patience of God this is not a case that admits of Mercy but on the contrary his Justice will triumph in the ruin and destruction of those who instead of embracing the offers of his Mercy do despise and abuse them He will laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear comes when their fear comes as desolation and their destruction as a whirl-wind when distress and anguish cometh upon them then they may call upon him but he will not answer they may seek him early but they shall not find him If we despise the riches of God's goodness and long-suffering and forbearance he knows how to handle us and will do it to purpose with the froward he will shew himself froward and
The most Reverend D r. IOHN TILLOTSON late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury The Remaining DISCOURSES ON THE Attributes of God viz. His Goodness His Mercy His Patience His Long-suffering His Power His Spirituality His Immensity His Eternity His Incomprehensibleness God the first Cause and last End By the Most Reverend Dr. JOHN TILLOTSON Late Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Being The SEVENTH VOLUME Published from the Originals By Ralph Barker D. D. Chaplain to his Grace LONDON Printed for Ri. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard 1700. THE CONTENTS SERMON I II III IV. The Goodness of God PSAL. CXLV 9 The Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Works Page 1 25 51 81. SERMON V. The Mercy of God NUMB. XIV 18 The Lord is long-suffering and of great Mercy p. 145. SERMON VI VII The Patience of God 2 Pet. III. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his Promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance p. 143 179. SERMON VIII IX The Long-suffering of God ECCLES VIII 11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the Sons of men is fully set in them to do evil p. 193 239. SERMON X. The Power of God PSAL. LXII 11 God hath spoken once twice have I heard this that power belongeth unto God p. 265. SERMON XI The Spirituality of the Divine Nature JOHN IV. 2 God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth p. 299. SERMON XII The Immensity of the Divine Nature PSAL. CXXXIX 7 8 9 10. Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me p. 331 SERMON XIII The Eternity of God PSALM XC 2 Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God p. 355 SERMON XIV The Incomprehensibleness of God JOB XI 7 Canst thou by searching find out God Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection p. 377 SERMON XV. God the first Cause and last End ROM XI 36 For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen p. 403 SERMON I. Vol. VII The Goodness of God PSAL. CXLV 9 The Lord is Good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Works THE Subject which I have now proposed to treat of is certainly one of the Greatest and Noblest Arguments in the World the Goodness of God the Highest and most Glorious Perfection of the best and most Excellent of Beings than which nothing deserves more to be considered by us nor ought in Reason to affect us more The Goodness of God is the cause and the continuance of our Beings the Foundation of our Hopes and the Fountain of our Happiness our greatest comfort and our fairest Example the chief Object of our love and praise and admiration the joy and rejoycing of our hearts and therefore the Meditation and Discourse of it must needs be pleasant and delightful to us the great difficulty will be to confine our selves upon so copious an Argument and to set bounds to that which is of so vast an extent the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works Which words are an Argument which the divine Plalmist useth to stir up himself and others to the praise of God At the 3. v. he tells us that the Lord is great and greatly to be praised and he gives the reason of this v. 8. and 9. from those Properties and Perfections of the Divine Nature which declare his Goodness the Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works where you have the Goodness of God declared together with the amplitude and extent of it in respect of the Objects of it the Lord is good to all In the handling of this Argument I shall do these four things First Consider what is the proper Notion of Goodness as it is attributed to God Secondly Shew that this Perfection belongs to God Thirdly Consider the Effects and the Extent of it Fourthly Answer some Objections which may seem to contradict and bring in question the Goodness of God First What is the proper Notion of Goodness as it is attributed to God There is a dry Metaphysical Notion of Goodness which only signifies the Being and essential properties of a thing but this is a good word ill bestowed for in this sense every thing that hath Being even the Devil himself is good And there is a Moral Notion of Goodness and that is twofold 1. More general in opposition to all Moral evil and imperfection which we call sin and vice and so the Justice and Truth and Holiness of God are in this sense his Goodness But there is 2. Another Notion of Moral Goodness which is more particular and restrained and then it denotes a particular Virtue in opposition to a particular Vice and this is the proper and usual acceptation of the word Goodness and the best description I can give of it is this that it is a certain propension and disposition of mind whereby a person is enclined to desire and procure the happiness of others and it is best understood by its contrary which is an envious disposition a contracted and narrow Spirit which would confine happiness to it self and grudgeth that others should partake of it or share in it or a malicious and mischievous temper which delights in the harms of others and to procure trouble and mischief to them To communicate and lay out our selves for the good of others is Goodness and and so the Apostle explains doing good by communicating to others who are in misery or want Heb. 13.16 but to do good and to communicate forget not The Jews made a distinction between a righteous and a good man to which the Apostle alludes Rom. 5.7 scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man one would even dare to die The righteous man was he that did no wrong to others and the good man he who was not only not injurious to others but kind and beneficial to them So that Goodness is a readiness and disposition to communicate the good and happiness which we enjoy and to be willing others should partake of it This is the Notion of Goodness among men and 't is the same in God only with this difference that God is originally and transcendently good but the Creatures are the best of them but imperfectly good
the desert of our sins 'T is mercy that comforts and supports us under any of those Evils that lye upon us and that rescues and delivers us from them Which way so ever we look we are encompassed with the mercies of God they compass us about on every side we are crowned with loving kindness and tender mercies 'T is mercy that feeds us and cloaths us and that preserves us But above all we should thankfully acknowledge and admire the pardoning mercy of God Ps 103.1 2 3. where David does as it were muster up the mercies of God and make a Catalogue of them he sets the pardoning mercy in the front Bless ye the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thy iniquities If we look into our selves and consider our own temper and disposition how void of pity and bowels we are how cruel and hard hearted and insolent and revengeful if we look abroad into the World and see how full the earth is of the habitations of cruelty we shall admire the mercy of God more and think our selves more beholden to it How many things must concur to make our hearts tender and melt our spirits and stir our bowels to make us pitiful and compassionate We seldom pity any unless they be actually in misery nor all such neither unless the misery they lye under be very great nor then neither unless the person that suffers be nearly related and we be someways concerned in his sufferings yea many times not then neither upon a generous account but as we are someways obliged by interest and self-love and a dear regard to our selves when we have suffered the like our selves and have learnt to pity others by our own Sufferings or when in danger and probability to be in the like condition our selves so many motives and obligations are necessary to awaken and stir up this affection in us But God is merciful and pitiful to us out of the mere goodness of his Nature for few of these motives and considerations can have any place in him This affection of pity and tenderness is stirred up in God by the mere presence of the Object without any other inducement The mercy of God many times doth not stay till we be actually miserable but looks forward a great way and pities us at a great distance and prevents our misery God doth not only pity us in great Calamities but considers those lesser Evils that are upon us God is merciful to us when we have deserved all the Evils that are upon us and far greater when we are less than the least of all his mercies when we deserved all the misery that is upon us and have with violent hands pulled it upon our own heads and have been the authors and procurers of it to our selves Tho' God in respect of his Nature be at an infinite distance from us yet his mercy is near to us and he cannot possibly have any self-interest in it The Divine Nature is not liable to want or injury or suffering he is secure of his own happiness and fullness and can neither wish the inlargement nor fear the impairment of his Estate he can never stand in need of pity or relief from us or any other and yet he pities us Now if we consider the vast difference of this affection in God and us how tender his mercies are and how sensible his bowels and yet we who have so many arguments to move us to pity how hard our hearts are and how unapt to relent as if we were born of the rock and were the off-spring of the nether milstone sure when we duly consider this we cannot but admire the mercy of God How cruel are we to Creatures below us with how little remorse can we kill a Flea or tread upon a Worm partly because we are secure that they cannot hurt us nor revenge themselves upon us and partly because they are so despicable in our Eyes and so far below us that they do not fall under the consideration of our Pity Look upward proud Man and take notice of him who is above thee thou didst not make the Creatures below thee as God did there 's but a finite distance between thee and the meanest Creatures but there 's an infinite distance between thee and God Man is a Name of Dignity when we compare our selves with other Creatures but compared to God we are Worms and not Men yea we are nothing yea less than nothing and vanity How great then is the Mercy of God which regards us who are so far below him which takes into Consideration such inconsiderable nothings as we are we may say with David Ps 8.4 Lord What is man that thou art so mindful of him or the Son of Man that thou visitest him And with Job 7.17 What is Man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldst set thine Heart upon him And then how hard do we find it to forgive those who have injured us if any one have offended or provoked us how hard are we to be reconciled How mindful of an Injury How do anger and revenge boyl within us How do we upbraid Men with their faults What vile and low Submission do we require of them before we will receive them into Favour and grant them Peace And if we forgive once we think that is much but if an offence and provocation be renewed often we are inexorable Even the Disciples of our Saviour after he had so emphatically taught them Forgiveness in the Petition in the Lord's Prayer yet they had very narrow Spirits as to this Matth. 18.21 Peter comes to him and asks him How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him till seven times He thought that was much And yet we have great obligations to Pardoning and Forgiving others because we are obnoxious to God and one another we shall many times stand in need of Pardon from God and Men and it may be our own case and when it is we are too apt to be very indulgent to our selves and conceive good hopes of the Mercy of others we would have our ignorance and inadvertencies and mistakes and all occasions and temptations and provocations considered and when we have done amiss upon Submission and Acknowledgment of our Fault we would be received into Favour but God who is not at all liable to us how ready is he to Forgive If we confess our Sins to him he is merciful to Forgive he Pardons freely and such are the condescentions of his Mercy tho' he be the party offended yet he offers Pardon to us and beseeches us to be reconcil'd if we do but come towards him he runs to meet us as in the Parable of the Prodigal Luke 15.20 What reason have we then thankfully to acknowledge and admire the Mercy of God to us Vse 2. The great mercy of God to us should
beginning and there is no sign of any such change and alteration as is foretold To this he answers two things 1. That these Scoffers tho' they took themselves to be Wits did betray great Ignorance both of the condition of the World and of the nature of God They talk'd very ignorantly concerning the World when they said All things continued as they were from the Creation of it when so remarkable a change had already hapned as the destruction of it by Water and therefore the Prediction concerning the destruction of it by Fire before the great and terrible day of Judgment was no ways incredible And they shewed themselves likewise very ignorant of the Perfection of the Divine Nature to which being eternally the same a thousand years and one day are all one and if God make good his word some thousand of Years hence it will make no sensible difference considering his eternal duration it being no matter when a duration begins which is never to have an end v. 8. Be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day This it seems was a common saying among the Jews to signifie that to the Eternity of God no finite duration bears any proportion and therefore with regard to Eternity it is all one whether it be a thousand Years or one Day The Psalmist hath an Expression much to the same purpose Psal 90.4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night And the Son of Sirach likewise Ecclus. 18.10 As a drop of water to the sea and as a grain of sand to the sea shore so are a thousand years to the days of eternity The like Expression we meet with in Heathen Writers To the Gods no time is long saith Pythagoras And Plutarch The whole space of a Man's life to the Gods is as nothing And in his excellent Discourse of the slowness of the Divine Vengeance the very Argument St. Peter is here upon he hath this Passage That a thousand or ten thousand years are but as an indivisible point to an infinite duration And therefore when the Judgment is to be eternal the delay of it though it were for a thousand Years is an Objection of no force against either the certainty or the terror of it for to Eternity all time is equally short and it matters not when the punishment of Sinners begins if it shall never have an end 2. But because the distance between the Declaration of a future Judgment and the coming of it tho' it be nothing to God yet it seemed long to them therefore he gives such an account of it as doth not in the least impeach the truth and faithfulness of God but is a clear argument and demonstration of his goodness Admitting what they said to be true that God delays Judgment for a great while yet this gives no ground to conclude that Judgment will never be but it shews the great goodness of God to sinners that he gives them so long a space of repentace that so they may prevent the terror of that day whenever it comes and escape that dreadful ruin which will certainly overtake sooner or later all impenitent sinners The Lord is not slack concerning his promise that is as to the Declaration which he hath made of a future Judgment as some Men account slackness That is as if the delay of Judgment were an argument it would never come This is a false inference from the delay of punishment and an ill interpretation of the goodness of God to sinners who bears long with them and delays Judgment on purpose to give men time to repent and by repentance to prevent their own eternal ruin God is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance In the handling of these words I shall do these three things First I shall consider the patience and long-suffering of God as it is an Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature God is long-suffering to us-ward Secondly I shall shew that the Patience of God and the delay of Judgment is no just ground why sinners should hope for Impunity as the Scoffers here foretold by the Apostle argued That because our Lord delayeth his coming to Judgment so long therefore he would never come God is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness Thirdly I will consider the true Reason of God's Patience and long-suffering towards Mankind which the Apostle here gives He is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance First I will consider the Patience and long-suffering of God towards Mankind as it is an Attribute and Perfection of the Divine Nature God is long-suffering to us-ward In the handling of this I shall do these three things I. I shall shew what is meant by the Patience and long-suffering of God II. That this is a Perfection of the Divine Nature III. I shall give some proof and demonstration of the great Patience and long-suffering of God to Mankind I. What is meant by the Patience and long-suffering of God The Hebrew word signifies one that keeps his anger long or that is long before he is angry In the New Testament it is sometimes exprest by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies God's forbearance and patient waiting for our repentance some times by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies God's holding in his wrath and restraining himself from punishing and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the extent of his patience his long-suffering and forbearing for a long time the punishment due to sinners So that the patience of God is his goodness to sinners in deferring or moderating the punishment due to them for their sins the deferring of deserved punishment in whole or in part which if it be extended to a long time it is properly his long-suffering and the moderating as well as the deferring of the punishment due to sin is an instance likewise of God's patience and not only the deferring and moderating of temporal punishment but the adjourning of the eternal misery of sinners is a principal instance of God's patience so that the patience of God takes in all that space of repentance which God affords to sinners in this life nay all temporal judgments and afflictions which befal sinners in this life and are short of cutting them off and turning them into Hell are comprehended in the patience of God Whenever God punisheth it is of his great mercy and patience that we are not consumed and because his compassions fail not I proceed to the II. Thing I proposed which was to shew that Patience is a Perfection of the Divine Nature It is not necessarily due to us but it is due to the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance God hath a very gracious and merciful design in his Patience to Sinners he is good that he may make us so and that his goodness may lead us to repentance he defers Punishment on purpose that he may give Men time to bethink themselves and to return to a better Mind He winks at the sins of men that they may repent says the Son of Sirach The Patience of God aims at the cure and recovery of those who are not desperately and resolutely wicked This is the primary End and Intention of God's Patience to Sinners and if he fail of this End through our hardness and impenitency he hath other Ends which he will infallibly attain He will hereby glorifie the riches of his Mercy and vindicate the righteousness of his Justice the damned in Hell shall acknowledge that the Patience of God was great Mercy and Goodness to them tho' they abused it for God does not lose the glory of his Patience tho' we lose the benefit of it and he will make it subvervient to his Justice one way or other Those great Offenders whom he spares after there are no hopes of their amendment he many times makes use of as Instruments for the punishing of others as rods of his wrath for the discipline of the world and he often reserves those who are incorrigibly bad for a more remarkable ruin But however they are reserved to the Judgment of the great Day and if after God hath exercised much Patience towards Sinners in this World he inflict Punishment on them in the next it must be acknowledg'd to be most just for what can he do less than to condemn those who would not be saved and to make them miserable who so obstinately refused to be happy Before I come to apply this Discourse concerning the Patience and long-suffering of God to Sinners I must remove an Objection or two I. The Severity of God to some Sinners in this Life and to all impenitent Sinners in the next seems to contradict what hath been said concerning God's Patience and long-suffering As for the severity of God towards impenitent Sinners in the next Life this doth not at all contradict the Patience of God because the very nature of Patience and forbearance and long-suffering does suppose a determinate time and that they will not last always this Life is the day of God's Patience and in the next World his Justice and Severity will take place And therefore the punishment of Sinners in another World after God hath tryed them in this and expected their Repentance is no ways contrary to his Patience and Goodness and very agreeable to his Wisdom and Justice for it is no part of Goodness to see it self perpetually abused it is not Patience but stupidity and insensibleness to endure to be always trampled upon and to bear to have his holy and just Laws for ever despised and contemned And as for his Severity to some Sinners in this Life as to Lot's Wife to the Israelites that gathered Sticks on the Sabbath-day to Nadab and Abihu to Vzza to Ananias and Sapphira and to Herod Agrippa in all which Instances God seems to have made quick work and to have executed Judgment speedily to these I answer That this Severity of God to some few doth rather magnify his Patience to the rest of Mankind he may be severe to some few for Example and warning to many that they may learn to make better use of his Patience and not to trespass so boldly upon it and perhaps he hath exercised much Patience already towards those to whom at last he is so severe as is plain in the case of Herod and it may well be supposed in most of the other Instances or else the Sin so suddenly and severely punisht was very heinous and presumptuous of a contagious and spreading nature and of dangerous Example Lot's Wife sinned very presumptuously against an express and an easie Command and whilst God was taking care of her deliverance in a very extraordinary manner That of Nadab and Abihu and of the Man that gathered Sticks on the Sabbath-day were presently after the giving of the Law in which case great severity is necessary and that of Ananias and Sapphira at the first publishing of the Gospel that the Majesty of the Divine Spirit and the Authority of the first publishers of it might not be contemned That of Vzza was upon the return of the Ark of God from among the Philistines that the People might not lose their reverence for it after it had been taken Captive so that these necessary Severities to a few in comparison of those many that are warned by them are rather Arguments of God's Patience than Objections against it II. It is objected That if God do not desire the ruin of Sinners but their repentance whence comes it to pass that all are not brought to repentance for who hath resisted his Will To this I answer 1. That there is no doubt but God is able to do this He can if he pleaseth conquer and reclaim the most obstinate Spirits he is able out of stones to raise up children unto Abraham And sometimes he exerts his Omnipotence herein as in the Conversion of St. Paul in a kind of violent and irresistible manner but he hath no where declared that he will do this to all and we see plainly in experience that he does not do it 2. God may very well be said not to be willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance when he does on his part what is sufficient to that end and upon this ground the Scripture every where represents God as desiring the repentance of Sinners and their obedience to his Laws Deut. 5.29 O that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always that it might be well with them So Jer. 13.27 O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Is 5.3 4. we find God there solemnly appealing to the People of Israel whether there had been any thing wanting on his part that was fit to be done And now O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge I pray you betwixt me and my vineyard What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done to it wherefore when I looked it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes God may justly look for the Fruits of Repentance and Obedience from those to whom he affords a sufficiency of Means to that End And if so then 3. The true Reason why Men do not repent but perish is because they are obstinate and will not repent and this account the Scripture every where gives of the impenitency of Men and the ruin consequent upon it Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my statutes But my people would not hearken to my voice and Israel would none
of me Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Prov. 1.29 30 31. They hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counsels they despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own devices The ruin of Sinners does not proceed from the counsel of God but from their own choice And so likewise our Saviour every where chargeth the ruin and destruction of the Jews upon their own wilful obstinacy The Inferences from this Discourse concerning the Patience and long-suffering of God towards Mankind shall be these three I. To stir us up to a thankful acknowledgment of the great Patience of God towards us notwithstanding our manifold and heinous provocations We may every one of us take to our selves those words Lam. 3.22 It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not They are renewed every morning When ever we sin and we provoke God every day it is of his Patience that we are not destroyed and when we sin again this is a new and greater Instance of God's Patience The mercies of God's Patience are no more to be numbred than our sins we may say with David How great is the sum of them The goodness of God in sparing us is in some respect greater than his goodness in creating us because he had no provocation not to make us but we provoke him daily to destroy us II. Let us propound the Patience of God for a pattern to our selves Plutarch says That God sets forth himself in the midst of the World for our Imitation and propounds to us the Example of his Patience to teach us not to revenge Injuries hastily upon one another III. Let us comply with the design of God's Patience and long-suffering towards us which is to bring us to repentance Men are very apt to abuse it to a quite contrary purpose to the encouraging themselves in their evil ways So Solomon observes Eccl. 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil But this is very false reasoning for the Patience of God is an enemy to sin as well as his Justice and the design of it is not to countenance sin but to convert the Sinner Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance Patience in God should produce Repentance in us and we should look upon it as an opportunity given us by God to repent and be saved 2 Pet. 3.15 Account that the long-suffering of God is salvation They that do not improve the Patience of God to their own Salvation mistake the true meaning and intent of it But many are so far from making this use of it that they presume upon it and sin with more courage and confidence because of it but that we may be sensible of the danger of this I will offer these two or three Considerations 1. That nothing is more provoking to God than the abuse of his Patience God's Patience waits for our Repentance and all long attendance even of Inferiors upon their Superiors hath something in it that is grievous how much more grievous and provoking must it be to the great God after he hath laid out upon us all the riches of his Goodness and long-suffering to have that despised after his Patience hath waited a long time upon us not only to be thrust away with contempt but to have that which should be an argument to us to leave our sins abused into an encouragement to continue in them God takes an account of all the days of his Patience and forbearance Luke 13.7 Behold these three years I come seeking fruit and find none cut it down why cumbreth it the ground 2. Consider that the Patience of God will have an end Tho' God suffers long he will not suffer always we may provoke God so long till he can forbear no longer without injury and dishonour to his Wisdom and Justice and Holiness and God will not suffer one Attribute to wrong the rest his Wisdom will determine the length of his Patience when his Patience is to no purpose when there is no hopes of our amendment his Wisdom will then put a period to it then the Patience of his Mercy will determine How often would I have gathered you and you would not therefore your house is left unto you desolate And the Patience of God's Judgments will then determine Why should they be smitten any more they will revolt more and more Yea Patience it self after a long and fruitless expectation will expire A Sinner may continue so long impenitent till the Patience of God as I may say grows impatient and then our ruin will make haste and destruction will come upon us in a moment If Men will not come to repentance the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night as it follows in the next Verse after the Text the Judgment of God will suddenly surprize those who will not be gained by his Patience 3. Consider that nothing will more hasten and aggravate our ruin than the abuse of God's Patience All this time of God's Patience his Wrath is coming towards us and the more we presume upon it the sooner it will overtake us Luke 12.45 46. The wicked servant who said his Lord delayed his coming and fell to rioting and drunkenness our Saviour tells us That the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looks not for him And it will aggravate our ruin the longer punishment is a coming the heavier it will be those things which are long in preparation are terrible in execution the weight of God's wrath will make amends for the slowness of it and the delay of Judgment will be fully recompensed in the dreadfulness of it when it comes Let all those consider this who go on in their sin and are deaf to the voice of God's Patience which calls upon them every moment of their lives There is a day of Vengeance a coming upon those who trifle away this day of God's Patience nothing will sooner and more inflame the wrath and displeasure of God against us than his abused Patience and the despised riches of his Goodness As Oyl tho' it be soft and smooth yet when it is once inflamed burns most fiercely so the Patience of God when it is abused turns into Fury and his mildest Attributes into the greatest Severities And if the Patience of God do not bring us to Repentance it will but prepare us for a more intolerable ruin After God hath kept a long indignation in his Breast it will at length break forth with the greater violence The Patience of God increaseth his Judgments by an incredible kind of proportion Levit 26.18 And if you will still says God to
in especially if these hopes be given them by a grave Man of whose Piety and Judgment they have a venerable opinion When Men have the Sentence of death in themselves as all wicked livers must have they are naturally apt to be overjoy'd at the unexpected news of a Pardon To speak my mind freely in this matter I have no great opinion of that extraordinary comfort and confidence which some have upon a sudden repentance for great and flagrant crimes because I cannot discern any sufficient ground for it I think great humility and dejection of mind and a doubtful apprehension of their condition next almost to despair of it would much better become them because their case is really so very doubtful in it self There is great reason for the repentance of such persons and it becomes them well but I see very little reason for their great comfort and confidence nor does it become their circumstances and condition Let them excercise as deep a repentance as is possible and bring forth all the fruits meet for it that are possible in so short a time let them humble themselves before God and pray incessantly to him day and night for mercy make all the reparation they can for the injuries they have done by confession and acknowledgment and by making satisfaction to the parties injured if it be in their power by giving Alms to the Poor by warning others and endeavouring to reclaim them to a better mind and course of life and for the rest humbly commit themselves to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ let them imitate as near as they can the behaviour of the penitent Thief the only Example the Scripture hath left us of a late repentance that proved effectual who gave the greatest testimony that could be of a penitent sorrow for his sins and of his Faith in the Saviour of the World by a generous and couragious owning of him in the midst of his disgrace and suffering when even his own Disciples had denyed and forsaken him but we do not find in him any signs of extraordinary comfort much less of confidence but he humbly commended himself to the mercy and goodness of his Saviour saying Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom SERMON IX Vol. VII The Long-suffering of God ECCLES VIII 11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil I Have considered how apt Men are to abuse the long-suffering of God to the hardening and encouraging of themselves in sin and whence this comes to pass where I considered the several false conclusions which Sinners draw from the delay of Punishment as if there were no God or Providence or difference of good and evil or else as is more commonly pretended that Sin is not so great an Evil and that God is not so highly offended at it or that God is not so severe as he is represented that the punishment of sin is not so certain or however it is at a distance and may be prevented by a future repentance all which I have spoken fully to and endeavoured to shew the fallacy and unreasonableness of them I shall now proceed to the Third and last thing I propounded which was to answer an Objection to which this Discourse may seem liable and that is this If the long-suffering of God be the occasion of Men's hardness and impenitency then why is God so patient to Sinners when they are so prone to abuse his Goodness and Patience And how is it goodness in God to forbear Sinners so long when this forbearance of his is so apt to minister to them an occasion of their further mischief and greater ruine It should seem according to this that it would be much greater Mercy to the greatest part of Sinners not to be patient toward them at all but instantly upon the first occasion and provocation to cut them off and so to put a stop to their wickedness and to hinder them from making themselves more miserable by increasing their guilt and treasuring up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath This is the Objection and because it seems to be of some weight I shall endeavour to return a satisfactory answer to it in these following particulars And I. I ask the Sinner if he will stand to this Art thou serious and wouldest thou in good earnest have God to deal thus with thee to take the very first advantage to destroy thee or turn thee into Hell and to make thee miserable beyond all hopes of recovery Consider of it again Dost thou think it desirable that God should deal thus with thee and let fly his Judgments upon thee so soon as ever thou hast sinned If not why do Men trifle and make an Objection against the long-suffering of God which they would be very loth should be made good upon them II. It is likewise to be considered that the long-suffering of God toward Sinners is not a total forbearance it is usually so mixt with Afflictions and Judgments of one kind or other upon our selves or others as to be a sufficient warning to us if we would consider and lay it to heart to sin no more lest a worse thing come upon us lest that Judgment which we saw inflicted upon others come home to us And is not this great goodness to warn us when he might destroy us to leave room for a retreat when he might put our case past remedy All this time of God's Patience he threatens Sinners to awaken them out of their security he punisheth them gently that we may have no ground to hope for impunity he makes Examples of some in a more severe and remarkable manner that others may hear and fear and be afraid to commit the like sins lest the like punishment overtake them he whips some Offenders before our Eyes to shew us what sin deserves and what we also may justly expect if we do the same things and will nothing be a warning to us but our own sufferings Nay God doth usually send some Judgment or other upon every Sinner in this life he lets him feel the Rod that he may know that it is an evil and bitter thing to sin against him He exerciseth Men with many afflictions and crosses and disappointments which their own consciences tell them are the just recompences of their deeds and by these lighter strokes he gives us a merciful warning to avoid his heavier blows when Mercy alone will not work upon us and win us but being fed to the full we grow wanton and foolish he administers Physick to us by affliction and by adversity endeavours to bring us to consideration and a sober mind and many have been cured this way and the Judgments of God have done them that good which his Mercies and Blessings could not for God would save us any way by his Mercy or by his Judgment by Sickness or by Health
by Plenty or by Want by what we desire or by what we dread so desirous is he of our repentance and happiness that he leaves no method unattempted that may probably do us good he strikes upon every Passion in the Heart of Man he works upon our Love by his Goodness upon our Hopes by his Promises and upon our Fears first by his Threatnings and if they be not effectual then by his Judgments he tries every Affection and takes hold of it if by any means he may draw us to himself and will nothing warn us but what will ruine us and render our case desperate and past hope And if any Sinner be free from outward Afflictions and Sufferings yet sin never fails to carry its own Punishment along with it there is a secret Sting and Worm a divine Nemesis and Revenge that is bred in the Bowels of every Sin and makes it a heavy Punishment to it self the Conscience of a Sinner doth frequently torment him and his Guilt haunts and dogs him where-ever he goes for when ever a Man commits a known and willful sin he drinks down Poison which tho' it may work slowly yet it will give him many a Gripe and if no means be used to expel it will destroy him at last So that the long-suffering of God is wisely ordered and there is such a mixture of Judgment in it as is sufficient to awaken Sinners and much more apt to deter them from sin than to encourage them to go on and continue in it III. Nothing is farther from the intention of God than to harden Men by his long-suffering This the Scripture most expresly declares 2 Pet. 3.9 He is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance He hath a very gracious and merciful design in his Patience towards Sinners and is therefore good that he may make us so and that we may cease to do evil The event of God's long-suffering may by our own fault and abuse of it prove our ruin but the design and intention of it is our repentance He winks at the sins of men saith the Son of Syrach that they may repent He passeth them by and does not take speedy Vengeance upon Sinners for them that they may have time to repent of them and to make their peace with him while they are yet in the way Nay his long-suffering doth not only give space for Repentance but is a great argument and encouragement to it That he is so loth to surprize Sinners that he gives them the liberty of second thoughts time to reflect upon themselves to consider what they have done and to retract it by repentance is a sufficient intimation that he hath no mind to ruin us that he desires not the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live And should not this goodness of his make us sorry that we have offended him Doth it not naturally lead and invite us to repentance What other interpretation can we make of his Patience what other use in reason should we make of it but to repent and return that we may be saved IV. There is nothing in the long-suffering of God that is in truth any ground of encouragement to Men in any evil course the proper and natural tendency of God's goodness is to lead men to repentance and by repentance to bring them to happiness Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance This St. Peter with relation to these very words of St. Paul interprets leading to salvation 2 Pet. 3.15 And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation as our beloved brother Paul also hath written unto you Now where did St. Paul write so unless in this Text Not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance 'T is not only great ignorance and a very gross mistake to think that it is the design and intention of God's Patience and long-suffering to encourage Men in sin but likewise to think that in the nature of the thing goodness can have any tendency to make Men evil not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance V. That through the long-suffering of God Sinners are hardned in their evil ways is wholly to be ascribed to their abuse of God's goodness 't is neither the End and Intention nor the proper and natural Effect of the thing but the accidental Event of it through our own fault And is this any real Objection against the long-suffering of God May not God be patient tho' Sinners be impenitent May not he be good tho' we be so foolish as to make an ill use of his goodness Because Men are apt to abuse the Mercies and Favours of God is it therefore a fault in him to bestow them upon us Is it not enough for us to abuse them but will we challenge God also of unkindness in giving them May not God use wise and fitting means for our recovery because we are so foolish as not to make a wise use of them And must he be charged with our ruin because he seeks by all means to prevent it Is it not enough to be injurious to our selves but will we be unthankful to God also When God hath laid out the riches of his goodness and patience upon Sinners will they challenge him as accessory to their ruin As if a foolish Heir that hath prodigally wasted the fair Estate that was left him should be so far from blaming himself as to charge his Father with undoing him Are these the best returns which the infinite Mercy and Patience of God hath deserved from us Do we thus requite the Lord foolish people and unwise God's Patience would save Sinners but they ruin themselves by their abuse of it let the blame then lie where it is due and let God have the glory of his Goodness tho' Men refuse the benefit and advantage of it VI. And Lastly But because this Objection pincheth hardest in one point viz. That God certainly fore-sees that a great many will abuse his long-suffering to the increasing of their Guilt and the aggravating of their Condemnation and how is his long-suffering any Mercy and Goodness to those who he certainly fore-knows will in the event be so much the more miserable for having had so much Patience extended to them Therefore for a full answer I desire these six things may be considered 1. That God designs this life for the tryal of our Obedience that according as we behave our selves he might reward or punish us in another World 2. That there could be no tryal of our Obedience nor any capacity of Rewards and Punishments but upon the supposition of freedom and liberty that is that we do not do what we do upon force and necessity but upon free choice 3. That God by virtue of the infinite Perfection of his Knowledge does
upon themselves so that well might the Psalmist ask that Question Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge But their folly and unreasonableness is not so great but their perverseness and disingenuity is greater To sin because God is long-suffering is to be evil because he is good and to provoke him because he spares us it is to strive with God and to contend with his goodness as if we were resolved to try the utmost length of his Patience and because God is loth to punish therefore to urge and importune him to that which is so contrary to his Inclination II. This may serve to convince Men of the great evil and danger of thus abusing the long-suffering of God It is a provocation of the highest nature because it is to trample upon his dearest Attributes those which he most delights and glories in his Goodness and Mercy for the long-suffering of God is his Goodness to the guilty and his Mercy to those who deserve to be miserable Nothing makes our ruin more certain more speedy and more intollerable than the abuse of God's Goodness and Patience After God had born long with that rebellious People the Children of Israel and notwithstanding all their murmurings all their infidelity and impenitency had spared them ten times at last he sets his Seal to their ruin Heb. 3.8 9. Harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness When your Fathers proved me and saw my works forty years This was a high provocation indeed to harden their hearts under the Patience and long-suffering of God after forty Years tryal and experience of it v. 10. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said They are a people that do err in their hearts for they have not known my ways And what was the issue of all this Upon this God takes up a fixt resolution to bear no longer with them but to cut them off from the Blessings he had promised to bestow upon them He sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest To whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest but to them that believed not or as the word may be rendred to them that were disobedient that is to them who went on in their rebellion against him after he had suffered their manners forty years And as the abuse of God's Patience renders our destruction more certain so more speedy and more intollerable We think that because God suffers long he will suffer always and because punishment is delayed therefore it will never come but it will come the sooner for this So our Lord tells us Luke 12. When the servant said His Lord delayed his coming the Lord of that servant shall come in a day that he looks not for him and at an hour when he is not aware and shall cut him in sunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites None so like to be surprised by the Judgment of God as those who trespass so boldly upon his Patience III. To perswade us to make a right use of the Patience and long-suffering of God and to comply with the merciful end and design of God therein 1. It is the design of God's long-suffering to give us a space of repentance Were it not that God had this design and reasonable expectation from us he would not reprieve a sinner for one moment but would execute Judgment upon him so soon as ever he had offended This our Saviour declares to us by the Parable of the Fig-tree Luke 13.6 Were it not that God expects from us the fruit of repentance he would cut us down and not suffer us to cumber the ground after he had waited three years seeking fruit and finding none he spares it one year more to see if it would bear fruit 2. The long-suffering of God is a great encouragement to repentance We see by his Patience that he is not ready to take advantage against us that he spares us when we offend is a very good sign that he will forgive us if we repent Thus natural Light would reason and so the King of Nineveh a Heathen reasons Who can tell if God will turn and repent But we are fully assured of this by the gracious declarations of the Gospel and the way of pardon and forgiveness which is therein establisht through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ who was made a propitiation for the sins of the whole world Therefore the long-suffering of God should be a powerful argument to us to break off our sins by repentance For this is the End of God's Patience He is long-suffering to us ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance He hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked should turn from his way and live God every where expresseth a vehement desire and earnest expectation of our repentance and conversion Jer. 4.14 O Jerusalem wash thy heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved And Chap. 13.27 Woe unto thee Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be He who is so patient as to the punishment of our sins is almost impatient of our repentance for them Wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be And can we stand out against his earnest desire of our happiness whom we have so often and so long provoked to make us miserable Let us then return into our selves and think seriously what our case and condition is how we have lived and how long the Patience of God hath suffered our manners and waited for our repentance and how inevitable and intollerable the misery of those must be who live and dye in the contempt and abuse of it let us heartily repent of our wicked lives and say What have we done How careless have we been of our own happiness and what pains have we taken to undo our selves Let us speedily set about this Work because we do not know how long the Patience of God may last and the opportunities of our Salvation be continued to us This day of God's Grace and Patience will have an end therefore as the Prophet exhorts Isa 55.6 Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Now God graciously invites Sinners to come to him and is ready to receive them nay if they do but move towards him he is ready to go forth and meet them half way but the time will come when he will bid them depart from him when they shall cry Lord Lord open unto us and the door of mercy shall be shut against them All the while thou delayest this necessary work thou venturest thy immortal Soul and puttest thy eternal Salvation upon a desperate hazard and should God snatch thee suddenly away in an impenitent state what would become of thee Thou art yet in the way and God is yet reconcileable but Death is not far off and perhaps
are above the understanding of any of his Creatures it is only his own infinite understanding that can frame a perfect Idea of his own Perfection God knows himself his own understanding commprehends his own Perfections But he is Incomprehensible to his Creatures Indeed there is nothing more obvious than God for he is not far from every one of us in him we live and move and have our Being there need no great search to find out that there is a God An eternal power and Deity are clearly seen in the things which are made as the Apostle tells us but the manner of the Being and Proproperties and Perfections of this God these cannot be comprehended by a finite understanding I shall prove the Doctrine and then apply it First For the proof of it I will attempt it these three ways I. By way of instance or induction of particulars II. By way of conviction III. By giving the clear reason of it I. By way of instance And I shall give you instances both on the part of the Object and of the Subject or the persons who are capable of knowing God in any degree 1. On the part of the Object The Nature of God the Excellency and Perfection of God the Works and Ways of God are above our thoughts and apprehensions The Nature of God it is vast and infinite Job 36.26 God is great and we know him not Job 37. 23. Touching the Almighty we cannot find him out Psal 145.3 His greatness is unsearchable The Excellencies and Perfections of God his Immensity 2 Chron. 2.6 The heaven of heavens cannot contain him The Eternity of his duration from everlasting to everlasting he is God We cannot imagine any limits of his presence nor bounds of his duration The infiniteness of his knowledge Psal 147.5 his understanding is infinite When we think of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God our best way is to fall into admiration Rom. 11.33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Where the Scripture speaks of those Perfections of God which the Creatures do in some measure and degree partake of as his Goodness and Power and Wisdom and Holiness and Immortality it attributes them in such a peculiar and Divine manner to God as doth exclude and shut out the Creature from any claim or share or title to them Matt. 19.16 17. Why Call'st thou me good there 's none good but one that is God 1 Tim. 6.15 16. Who is the blessed and only potentate who only hath immortality 1 Tim. 1.17 The only wise God Rev. 15.4 For thou only art holy In so inconceivable a manner doth God possess these Perfections which he Communicates and we can only understand them as he Communicates them and not as he possesses them so that when we consider any of these Divine Perfections we must not frame Notions of them contrary to what they are in the Creature nor must we limit them by what they are in the Creature but say the Goodness and the Wisdom of God are all this which is in the Creature and much more which I am not able to comprehend the transcendent degree and the singularity of these Divine Perfections which are communicable is beyond what we are able to conceive The Works of God they are likewise unsearchable the Works of Creation and of Redemption Job 5.9 Which doth great things and unsearchable marvelous things past finding out And then he instanceth in the Works of God Job 26.14 Lo these are part of his ways But how little a portion is heard of him and the thunder of his voice who can understand So that he tells us expresly we cannot find out the Works of God we do but know part of them The question which he puts Job 37.16 Dost thou know the wondrous works of him that is perfect in knowledge can only be answered by the words of the Psalmist Psal 104.24 O Lord how wonderful are thy works in wisdom hast thou made them all The work of Redemption In this there shines forth such Wisdom Mercy and Love as our understandings cannot reach this work is called the Wisdom of God in a mystery hidden Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 2.7 The Mercy and Grace and Love of it is called the riches of Gods mercy the exceeding riches of his grace Eph. 2.4 7. Now Riches is when you cannot tell the utmost of them pauperis est numerare Eph. 3.18 19. That ye may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge When we have the largest apprehensions of this love so that we think we comprehend it and know it it passeth knowledge yea the Effects of God's Power and Love which he manifests in believers are unspeakable for he is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or think according to the power which worketh in us Eph. 3.20 The Peace which guards their souls passeth all understanding Phil. 4.7 Those Joys which fill their hearts are not to be expressed 1 Pet. 1.8 We read of Joy unspeakable and full of glory The Happiness which they hope for is inconceivable 't is that which eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath entred into the heart of man which God hath laid up for us The Ways of God's Providence they are not to be traced Psal 77.19 Thy way is in the sea and thy paths in the great waters and thy footsteps are not known Eccles 3.11 No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end We are but of yesterday and know nothing When we look upon Gods Providence we take a part from the whole and consider it by it self without relation to the whole series of his Dispensation we cannot see the whole of God's Providence at one view and never see from the beginning of the Works of God to the end therefore our knowledge of them must needs be very imperfect and full of mistakes and false judgments of things we cannot by our petty and short-sighted designs judge of the Works of God and the Designs of Providence for our ways are not as his ways nor our thoughts as his thoughts but as the heavens are high above the earth so are his ways above our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts Isa 55.8 9. The ways of God's Mercy Psal 103. As the heavens are high above the earth so great is God's mercy Psal 139.17 18. How precious are thy thoughts unto me how great is the sum of them If I should count them they are more in number than the sand And the ways of God's Judgments the severity and greatness of his Judgment is not known Psal 90. Who knoweth the power of thy anger And who may stand before thee when thou art angry And the Reasons of his Judgments are unsearchable Psal 36.6 Thy Judgments are a great deep Rom. 11.35 How
and by derivation from God who is the fountain and original of goodness which is the meaning of our Saviour Luke 18.19 when he says there is none good save one that is God But tho' the degrees of Goodness in God and the Creatures be infinitely unequal and that Goodness which is in us be so small and inconsiderable that compared with the Goodness of God it does not deserve that name yet the essential Notion of Goodness in both must be the same else when the Scripture speaks of the Goodness of God we could not know the meaning of it and if we do not at all understand what it is for God to be good it is all one to us for ought we know whether he be good or not for he may be so and we never the better for it if we do not know what Goodness in God is and consequently when he is so and when not Besides that the Goodness of God is very frequently in Scripture propounded to our imitation but it is impossible for us to imitate that which we do not understand what it is from whence it is certain that the goodness which we are to endeavour after is the same that is in God because in this we are commanded to imitate the Perfection of God that is to be good and merciful as he is according to the rate and condition of Creatures and so far as we whose Natures are imperfect are capable of resembling the Divine Goodness Thus much for the Notion of goodness in God it is a propension and disposition in the Divine Nature to communicate being and happiness to his Creatures Secondly I shall endeavour to shew in the next place that this Perfection of Goodness belongs to God and that from these three heads I. From the Acknowledgments of Natural Light II. From the Testimony of Scripture and Divine Revelation And III. From the Perfection of the Divine Nature I. From the Acknowledgments of Natural Light The generality of the Heathen agree in it and there is hardly any Perfection of God more universally acknowledged by them I always except the Sect of the Epicureans who attribute nothing but Eternity and Happiness to the Divine Nature and yet if they would have considered it Happiness without Goodness is impossible I do not find that they do expresly deny this Perfection to God or that they ascribe to him the contrary but they clearly take away all the Evidence and Arguments of the Divine Goodness for they supposed God to be an immortal and happy Being that enjoyed himself and had no regard to any thing without himself that neither gave Being to other things nor concerned himself in the happiness or misery of any of them so that their Notion of a Deity was in truth the proper Notion of an idle Being that is called God and neither does good nor evil But setting aside this atheistical Sect the rest of the Heathen did unanimously affirm and believe the Goodness of God and this was the great foundation of their Religion and all their Prayers to God and Praises of him did necessarily suppose a perswasion of the Divine Goodness Whosoever prays to God must have a perswasion or good hopes of his readiness to do him good and to praise God is to acknowledge that he hath received good from him Seneca hath an excellent passage to this purpose He says he that denies the Goodness of God does not surely consider the infinite number of Prayers that with hands lifted up to Heaven are put up to God both in private and publick which certainly would not be nor is it credible that all Mankind should conspire in this madness of putting up their Supplications to deaf and impotent Deities if they did not believe that the Gods were so good as to confer benefits upon those who prayed to them But we need not to infer their belief of God's Goodness from the acts of their devotion nothing being more common among them than expresly to attribute this Perfection of Goodness to him and among the Divine Titles this always had the preeminence both among the Greeks and Romans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deus optimus maximus was their constant stile and in our Language the name of God seems to have been given him from his Goodness I might produce innumerable passages out of the Heathen Authers to this purpose but I shall only mention that remarkable one out of Seneca primus deorum cultus est deos credere deinde reddere illis majestatem suam reddere bonitatem sine quâ nulla majestas The first act of Worship is to believe the Being of God and the next to ascribe Majesty or greatness to him and to ascribe Goodness without which there can be no Greatness II. From the testimony of Scripture and Divine Revelation I shall mention but a few of those many Texts of Scripture which declare to us the Goodness of God Exod. 34.6 where God makes his Name known to Moses the Lord the Lord God gracious and merciful long suffering abundant in goodness and truth Psal 86.5 Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive Psal 119.68 Thou art good and dost good And that which is so often repeated in the Book of Psalms O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good and his mercy endureth for ever Our blessed Saviour attributes this Perfection to God in so peculiar and transcendent a manner as if it were incommunicable Luke 18.19 There is none good save one that is God The meaning is that no Creature is capable of it in that excellent and transcendent degree in which the Divine Nature is possest of it To the same purpose are those innumerable Testimonies of Scripture which declare God to be gracious and merciful and long suffering for these are but several Branches of his Goodness his Grace is the freeness of his Goodness to those who have not deserved it his Mercy is his Goodness to those who are in misery his Patience is his Goodness to those who are guilty in deferring the Punishment due to them III. The Goodness of God may likewise be argued from the Perfection of the Divine Nature these two ways 1. Goodness is the chief of all Perfections and therefore it belongs to God 2. There are some Footsteps of it in the Creatures and therefore it is much more eminently in God 1. Goodness is the highest Perfection and therefore it must needs belong to God who is the most perfect of Beings Knowledge and Power are great Perfections but separated from Goodness they would be great Imperfections nothing but craft and violence An Angel may have Knowledge and Power in a great degree but yet for all that be a Devil Goodness is so great and necessary a Perfection that without it there can be no other it gives Perfection to all other excellencies take away this and the greatest excellencies in any other kind would be but the greatest imperfections And therefore our Saviour speaks of the
goodness and mercy of God as the sum of his Perfections what one Evangelist hath be ye merciful as your Father which is in Heaven is merciful is rendred in another be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Goodness is so essential to a perfect Being that if we once strip God of this property we rob him of the Glory of all his other Perfections and therefore when Moses desired to see God's Glory he said he would make all his goodness to pass before him Exod. 33.19 This is the most amiable Perfection and as it were the Beauty of the Divine Nature Zach. 9.17 how great is thy goodness how great is thy beauty sine bonitate nulla majestas without goodness there can be no majesty Other excellencies may cause fear and amazement in us but nothing but Goodness can command sincere love and veneration 2. there are some footsteps of this Perfection in the Creatures and therefore it must be much more eminently in God There is in every Creature some representation of some divine Perfection or other but God doth not own any Creature to be after his image that is destitute of Goodness The Creatures that want Reason and Understanding are incapable of this Moral Goodness we are speaking of Man is the first in the rank of Creatures that is endowed with it and he is said to be made after the image of God and to have dominion given him over the Creatures below him to signifie to us that if man had not been made after God's image in respect of Goodness he had been unfit to rule over other Creatures because without Goodness dominion would be Tyranny and Oppression And the more any Creature partakers of this Perfection of Goodness the more it resembles God as the Blessed Angels who behold the face of God continually and are thereby transformed into his image from glory to glory their whole business and imployment is to do good and the Devil tho' he resemble God in other Perfections of Knowledge and Power yet because he is evil and envious and mischievous and so contrary to God in this Perfection he is the most opposite and and hateful to him of all Creatures whatsoever And if this Perfection be in some degree in the Creature it is much more in God if it be derived from him he is much more eminently possest of it himself All that Goodness which is in the best natured of the Sons of Men or in the most glorious Angels of Heaven is but an imperfect and weak representation of the Divine Goodness The Third thing I proposed to consider was the Effects of the Divine Goodness together with the large extent of it in respect of the Objects of it the Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Works thou art good and dost good says David Psal 119.68 The great evidence and demonstration of God's Goodness is from the Effects of it To the same purpose St. Paul speaks Acts 14.17 He hath not left himself without Witness in that he doth good and sends us Rain from Heaven and fruitful Seasons I shall consider the Effects of the Divine Goodness under these Two Heads I. The universal extent of God's Goodness to all his Creatures II. I shall consider more particularly the Goodness of God to Men which we are more especially concern'd to take notice of I. The universal extent of his Goodness to the whole Creation the Lord is Good to all The whole Creation furnisheth us with clear evidences and demonstrations of the Divine Goodness which way soever we cast our Eyes we are encountered with undeniable Instances of the Goodness of God and every thing that we behold is a sensible demonstration of it the Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work says the Psalmist Psal 19.1 And again Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the Goodness of the Lord. The whole Frame of this World and every Creature in it and all the several degrees of Being and Perfection which are in the Creatures and the Providence of God towards them all in the preservation of them and providing for the happiness of all of them in such degrees as they are capable of it are a plentiful demonstration of the Divine Goodness which I shall endeavour to illustrate in these Four Particulars 1. The universal Goodness of God appears in giving Being to so many Creatures 2. In making them all so very good considering the variety and order and end of them 3. In his continual preservation of them 4. In providing so abundantly for the welfare and happiness of all of them so far as they are capable and sensible of it 1. The extent of God's Goodness appears in giving Being to so many Creatures And this is a pure effect of Goodness to impart and communicate Being to any thing Had not God been good but of an envious and narrow and contracted nature he would have confined all Being to himself and been unwilling that any thing besides himself should have been but his Goodness prompted him to spread and diffuse himself and set his Power and Wisdom on work to give Being to all that variety of Creatures which we see and know to be in the World and probably to infinite more than we have the knowledge of Now it is not imaginable that God could have any other motive to do this but purely the Goodness of his Nature All the motives imaginable besides this must either be indigency and want or constraint and necessity but neither of these can have any place in God and therefore it was meer Goodness that moved him to give Being to other things and therefore all Creatures have reason with the four and twenty Elders in the Revelations to cast their crowns before the throne of God saying thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure that is of thy meer goodness they are and were created 1. Indigency and Want can have no place in God because he that hath all possible Perfection hath all plenty in himself from whence results All-sufficiency and compleat Happiness So that the Divine Nature need not look out of it self for Happiness being incapable of any addition to the Happiness and Perfection it is already possest of ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil indiga nostri We make things for our use Houses to shelter us and Cloaths to keep us warm and we propagate our Kind to perpetuate our selves in our posterity But all this supposeth imperfection and want and mortality to none of which the Divine Nature is liable and obnoxious Nay it was not want of glory which made God to make the World 'T is true indeed the glory of God's Goodness doth herein appear and Creatures endowed with understanding have reason to take notice of it with thankfulness praise and admiration but there is no happiness redounds to God