SERM. nal welfare. It is all of it in its nature and design LXVIII. but as it were one entire declaration of the To χρηRom. ii. 4. σTÒV TOŨ OEoũ, (the beneficial disposition, the benignity, or bountifulness of God, as St. Paul telleth us;) it is a rare project of divine philanthropy; an illustrious affidavit of God's wonderful propensity to bless and save mankind; manifested by the highest expressions and instances of love and goodness that were possible. (For his not sparing his own Son, the express image of his substance, the dearest object of his infinite love, the partaker of his eternal nature and glory, but delivering him up a sacrifice for our offences; his most earnest wooing our baseness and unworthiness to reconciliation with him, and admission or acceptance of his favour; his tendering upon so fair and easy terms an endless life in perfect joy and bliss; his furnishing us with so plentiful means and powerful aids for attaining that happy stateRom. v. 21. how pregnant demonstrations are these, of unspeakable goodness toward us! whence) The ordinary

11. i. 3.

Jam. v. II.

8.

titles in this dispensation attributed unto him, are, 2 Cor. xiii. the God of love and peace, of hope, of patience; 1 Pet. V. 10. of all grace, of all consolation; the father of pities, Eph. ii. 4. rich in mercy, full of bowels; love and goodness 1 John iv. itself. Thus doth the scripture positively assert God's goodness; thus it directly represents and describes his gracious disposition toward us. And as for examples, (which must serve as to illustrate and explain, so also to verify and assure matters of this nature,) if we carefully attend to God's ordinary proceedings with men there recorded, we shall find this disposition very conspicuous in them. Who can is kind unto recount the number, or set out the value of those instances wherein God's goodness is expressed to

Luke vi.

35. For he

the un

thankful

and to the evil.

ward such as loved him? of his admirable conde- SERM. LXVIII. scension in drawing them to him; of the affectionate tenderness with which he constantly embraced them; of his merciful indulgence toward them, when provoked by their untowardly behaviour; of his kind acceptance, and munificent recompensing their endeavours to please him; of his deep compassionating their sufferings; of his vigilant carefulness over them, and over all their concernments? Methinks the highest expressions that language, assisted with all its helps of metaphor and resemblance, can afford, are very languid and faint in comparison of what they strain to represent, when the goodness of God toward them who love him comes to be expressed: As the heaven is high above the earth, so Psal. great is his mercy toward them that fear him : cii. 11, 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him: so David strives to utter it, but with similitudes far short of the truth. If any will come near to reach it, it is that in Moses and Zechariah, when they are compared to the apple Deut. of God's eye, that is, to the most dear and tender Zech. ii. 8. part, as it were, about him.

xxxvi. 6.

xxxii. 10.

14.

xx. 7.

We find them often styled, and ever treated, as John xv. friends and as children; and that in a sense trans-2 Chron. cending the vulgar signification of those words; for, what friendship could endure, could pass over, could forget, could admit an entire reconciliation and reestablishment in affection after such heinous indignities, such infidelities, such undutifulness, as were those of Adam, of Noah, of David, of Peter? Who would have received into favour and familiarity a Manasses, a Magdalen, a Paul? Who would so far extend his regard upon the posterity (upon such a

SERM. posterity, so untoward, so unworthy) of his friend, LXVIII. as God did upon that of Abraham, in respect unto

him? What great prince would employ his princi

pal courtiers to guard and serve a poor attendant, a Ps. xxxiv.7. mean subject of his? Yet, The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them; and many instances we have of those glorious inhabitants of heaven by God's appointment stooping down to wait upon and to perform service to the sons of men. But upon examples of this nature, being numberless, and composing indeed the main body of the sacred history, (it being chiefly designed to represent them,) I shall not insist; I shall only observe, for preventing or satisfying objections, (yea, indeed, for turning them to the advantage and confirmation of that which we assert,) that even in those cases, wherein God's highest severity hath been exercised, when God hath purposed to exhibit most dreadful instances of his justice upon the most provocative occasions; we may discern his goodness eminently shewing itself: that even in the greatest extremity of his displeasure, in Jam. ii. 13. his acts of highest vengeance, mercy doth karakav

xãobaι Tйs Kρiσews, (as St. James speaketh,) boast itself, and triumph over justice: that God, as the sun, (to use Tertullian's similitude,) when he seems most to infest and scorch us, doth even then dis

» Γίνεται φιλανθρωπία ἡ τιμωρία· οὕτω γὰρ ἐγὼ πείθομαι κολάζειν τὸν Ocóv. Naz. Orat. 38.

Ἐγὼ τοσαύτην περιουσιαν εἶναι φημὶ τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ κηδεμονίας, ὡς μὴ μόνον ἀφ ̓ ὧν ἐτίμησεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀφ ̓ ὧν ἐκόλασεν ὁμοίως ἡμᾶς δύνασθαι τὴν ἀγαθότητα αὐτοῦ δεικνύναι, καὶ τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν. Chrys. "Ανδρ. ζ'.

Ὁ Θεὸς ἀπαθὴς ὢν, καν εὐεργετῇ, κἂν κολάζῃ, ὁμοίως ἐστὶν ἀγαθός.

LXVIII.

pense useful and healthful influences upon us. SERM. Even, I say, in the most terrible and amazing examples of divine justice (such as were the ejecting and excluding mankind from Paradise; the general destruction in the deluge; the exscinding and extirpation of the Amorites, together with other inhabitants of Canaan; the delivering Israel and Judah Vide Chrys. into the Assyrian thraldom; the final destruction of 8. p. 63. Jerusalem, together with the dispersion of the Jewish optime. nation over the world, and its sad consequences) we may (not hardly) observe particulars, more than savouring of great mercy and goodness.

1. That (in most of these cases, in all according to some account) God was not moved to the displeasure productive of those effects but upon very great considerations. That he did not seek advantages, nor embrace all occasions; but was incensed by superlative degrees of iniquity and impurity, (such in their own nature, and much aggravated by their circumstances,) such as rendered common life inconvenient and insupportable to men; made the earth to stink with their filth and corruption; to groan under the burden and weight of them; to pant and labour for a riddance from them.

tom. vi. Ór.

2. That God did not upon the first glimpses of provocation proceed to the execution and discharge of his wrath, but did with wonderful patience expect a change in the offenders, waiting to be gra- Isa. xxx. cious, as the prophet speaketh; affording more than competent time, and means more than sufficient of appeasing him by repentance; vouchsafing frequent

c Tunc maxime est optimus, cum tibi non bonus; sicut sol tibi etiam quando non putas optimus et utilis, &c. Tertull. in Marc. ii. 2.

18.

SERM. admonitions, solicitations, threatenings, moderate LXVIII. corrections, and other such proper methods conducing to their amendment and to their preservation.

3. That the inflictions themselves, how grievous soever in appearance, were not really extreme in measure; not accompanied with so acute torments, nor with so lingering pains, nor with so utter a ruin, as might have been inflicted; but that (as Ezra, in Ez. ix. 13. respect to one of those cases, confesseth) they were less than their iniquities deserved. That, as it is Ps. lxxviii. in the Psalm, He did not stir up all his wrath; which would have immediately consumed them, or infinitely tormented them.

38.

23, 32.

4. That (consequently upon some of those premises) the afflictions brought upon them were in a sort rather necessary than voluntary in respect of

him; rather a natural fruit of their dispositions and Ezek. xviii. dealings, than a free result of his will; however conxxxiii. 11. trary to his primary intentions and desires. Whence Lam. iii. he no less truly than earnestly disclaims having any Hos. xiii. 9. pleasure in their death, that he afflicted willingly,

33.

or grieved the children of men; and charges their disasters upon themselves, as the sole causes of them.

5. That further, the chastisements inflicted were wholesome and profitable, both in their own nature, and according to his design; both in respect to the generality of men, (who by them were warned, and by such examples deterred from incurring the like mischiefs; were kept from the inconveniences, secured from the temptations, the violences, the allured Chrys. 'Avdp. 5.

Ὁμοῦ καὶ δικαστὴς καὶ ἰατρὸς καὶ διδάσκαλός ἐστιν ὁ Θεός. Ibid.