concert!

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

the more devout ought to be the acknowledgment. How often doth David stir up, not only himself, but summon all creatures, even the insensible ones, to join in the He calls to the 'deeps, fire, hail, snow, mountains, and hills,' to bear a part in this work of praise (Ps. cxlviii); not that they are able to do it actively, but to shew that man is to call in the whole creation to assist him passively, and should have so much charity to all creatures, as to receive what they offer, and so much affection to God, as to present to him what he receives from him. Snow and hail cannot bless and praise God, but man ought to praise God for those things wherein there is a mixture of trouble and inconvenience, something to molest our sense, as well as something that improves the earth for fruit. This God requires of us: for this he instituted several offerings, and required a little portion of fruits to be presented to him, as an acknowledgment they held the whole from his bounty. And the end of the festival days among the Jews was to revive the memory of those signal acts wherein his power for them, and his goodness to them, had been extraordinarily evident; it is no more but our mouths to praise him, and our hand to obey him, that he exacts at our hands. He commands us not to expend what he allows us in the erecting stately temples to his honour; all the coin he requires to be paid with for his expense is the offering of thanksgiving' (Ps. 1. 14): and this we ought to do as much as we can, since we cannot do it as much as he merits, for who can shew forth all his praise? (Ps. cvi. 2.) If we have the fruit of his goodness, it is fit he should have the fruit of our lips' (Heb. xiii. 15): the least kindness should inflame our souls with a kindly resentment. Though some of his benefits have a brighter, some a darker, aspect towards us, yet they all come from this common spring; his goodness shines in all; there are the footsteps of goodness in the least, as well as the smiles of goodness in the greatest; the meanest therefore is not to pass without a regard of the Author. As the glory of God is more illustrious in some creatures than in others, yet it glitters in all, and the lowest as well as the highest administers matter of praise; but they are not only little things, but the choicer favours he hath bestowed upon us. How much doth it deserve our acknowledgment, that he should contrive our recovery, when we had plotted our ruin! that when he did from eternity behold the crimes wherewith we would incense him, he should not, according to the rights of justice, cast us into hell, but prize us at the rate of the blood and life of his only Son, in value above the blood of men and lives of angels! How should we bless that God, that we have yet a gospel among us, that we are not driven into the utmost regions, that we can attend upon him in the face of the sun, and not forced to the secret obscurities of the night! Whatsoever we enjoy, whatsoever we receive, we must own him as the Donor, and read his hand in it. Rob him not of any praise to give to an instrument. No man hath wherewithal to do us good, nor a heart to do us good, nor opportunities of benefiting us without him. When the cripple received the soundness of his limbs from Peter, he praised the hand that sent it, not the hand that brought it (Acts iii. 6): he 'praised God' (ver. 8). When we want any thing that is good, let the goodness of Divine nature move us to David's practice, to thirst after God' (Ps. xlii. 1): and when we feel the motions of his goodness to us, let us imitate the temper of the same holy man (Ps. ciii, 2): Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.' It is an unworthy carriage to deal with him as a traveller doth with a fountain, kneel down to drink of it when he is thirsty, and turn his back upon it, and perhaps never think of it more after he is satisfied.

4. And, lastly, Imitate this goodness of God. If his goodness hath such an influence upon us as to make us love him, it will also move us with an ardent zeal to imitate him in it. Christ makes this use from the doctrine of Divine goodness (Matt. v. 44, 45): 'Do good to them that hate you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.' As holiness is a resemblance of God's purity, so charity is a resemblance of God's goodness; and this our Saviour calls perfection (ver. 48): 'Be even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect.' As God would not be a perfect ye therefore perfect, God without goodness, so neither can any be a perfect Christian without kindness; charity and love being the splendour and loveliness of all christian graces, as goodness is the splendour and loveliness of all Divine attributes. This and holiness are ordered in the Scripture to be the grand patterns of our imitation. Imitate the good ness of God in two things,

(1.) In relieving and assisting others in distress. Let our heart be as large in the capacity of creatures, as God's is in the capacity of a Creator. A large heart from him to us, and a strait heart from us to others, will not suit: let us not think any so far below us as to be unworthy of our care, since God thinks none that are infinitely distant from him too mean for his. His infinite glory mounts him above the creature, but his infinite goodness stoops him to the meanest works of his hands. As he lets not the transgressions of prosperity pass without punishment, so he lets not the distress of his afflicted people pass him without support. Shall God provide for the ease of beasts, and shall not we have some tenderness towards those that are of the same blood with ourselves, and have as good blood to boast of as runs in the veins of the mightiest monarch on earth; and as mean, and as little as they are, can lay claim to as ancient a pedigree as the stateliest prince in the world, who cannot ascend to ancestors beyond Adam? Shall we glut ourselves with Divine beneficence to us, and wear his livery only on our own backs, forgetting the afflictions of some dear Joseph; when God, who hath an unblemished felicity in his own nature, looks out of himself to view and relieve the miseries of poor creatures? Why hath God increased the doles of his treasures to some more than others? Was it merely for themselves, or rather that they might have a bottom to attain the honour of imitating him? Shall we embezzle his goods to our own use, as if we were absolute proprietors, and not stewards entrusted for others? Shall we make a difficulty to part with something to others, out of that abundance he hath bestowed upon any of us? Did not his goodness strip his Son of the glory of heaven for a time to enrich us? and shall we shrug when we are to part with a little to pleasure him? It is not very becoming for any to be backward in supplying the necessities of others with a few morsels, who have had the happiness to have had their greatest necessities supplied with his Son's blood. He demands not that we should strip ourselves of all for others, but of a pittance, something of superfluity, which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably consumed on our backs and bellies. If he hath given much to any of us, it is rather to lay aside part of the income for his service; else we would monopolise Divine goodness to ourselves, and seem to distrust under our present experiments his future kindness, as though the last thing he gave us was attended with this language, Hoard up this, and expect no more from me; use it only to the glutting your avarice, and feeding your ambition: which would be against the whole scope of Divine goodness. If we do not endeavour to write after the comely copy he hath set us, we may provoke him to harden himself against us, and in wrath bestow that on the fire, or on our enemies, which his goodness hath imparted to us for his glory, and the supplying the necessities of poor creatures. And on the contrary, he is so delighted with this kind of imitation of him, that a cup of cold water, when there is no more to be done, shall not be unrewarded.

(2.) Imitate God in his goodness, in a kindness to our worst enemies. The best man is more unworthy to receive any thing from God than the worst can be to receive from us. How kind is God to those that blaspheme him, and gives them the same sun, and the same showers, that he doth to the best men in the world! Is it not more our glory to imitate God in 'doing good to those that hate us,' than to imitate the men of the world in requiting evil, by a return of a sevenfold mischief? This would be a goodness which would vanquish the hearts of men, and render us greater than Alexanders and Cæsars, who did only triumph over miserable carcases; yea, it is to triumph over ourselves in being good against the sentiments of corrupt nature. Revenge makes us slaves to our passions, as much as the offenders, and good returns render us victorious over our adversaries (Rom. xii. 21): Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.' When we took up our arms against God, his goodness contrived not our ruin, but our recovery. This is such a goodness of God as could not be discovered in an innocent state; while man had continued in his duty, he could not have been guilty of an enmity; and God could not but affect him, unless he had denied himself: so this of being good to our enemies could never have been practised in a state of rectitude; since, where was a perfect innocence, there could be no spark of enmity to one another. It can be no disparagement to any man's dignity to cast his influences on his greatest opposers, since God, who acts for his own glory, thinks not himself disparaged by sending forth the streams of his bounty on the wickedest persons, who are far meaner to him than

those of the same blood can be to us. Who hath the worse thoughts of the sun, for shining upon the earth, that sends up vapours to cloud it? it can be no digrace to resemble God; if his hand and bowels be open to us, let not ours be shut to any.

DISCOURSE XIII.

ON GOD'S DOMINION.

PSALM CIII. 19.—The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens: and his kingdom ruleth over all.

THE Psalm begins with the praise of God, wherein the penman excites his soul to a right and elevated management of so great a duty (ver. 1): 'Bless the Lord, o my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name:' and because himself and all men were insufficient to offer up a praise to God answerable to the greatness of his benefits, he summons in the end of the psalm the angels, and all creatures, to join in concert with him. Observe,

1. As man is too shallow a creature to comprehend the excellency of God, so he is too dull and scanty a creature to offer up a due praise to God, both in regard of the excellency of his nature, and the multitude and greatness of his benefits.

2. We are apt to forget Divine benefits: our souls must therefore be often jogged, and roused up. All that is within me,' every power of my rational, and every affection of my sensitive part: all his faculties, all his thoughts. Our souls will hang back from God in every duty, much more in this, if we lay not a strict charge upon them. We are so void of a pure and entire love to God, that we have no mind to those duties. Wants will spur us on to prayer, but a pure love to God can only spirit us to praise. We are more ready to reach out a hand to receive his mercies, than to lift up our heart to recognize them after the receipt. After the Psalmist had summoned his own soul to this task, he enumerates the Divine blessings received by him, to awaken his soul by a sense of them to so noble a work, He begins at the first and foundation mercy to himself, the pardon of his sin and justification of his person, the renewing of his sickly and languishing nature (ver. 3): Who forgives all thy iniquities, and heals all thy diseases." His redemption from death or eternal destruction; his expected glorification thereupon, which he speaks of with that certainty, as if it were present (ver. 4): 'Who redeems thy life from destruction, who crowns thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies.' He makes his progress to the mercy manifested to the church in the protection of it against, or delivery of it from, oppressions (ver. 6): The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.' In the discovery of his will and law, and the glory of his merciful name to it (ver. 7, 8): He made known his ways unto Moses, and his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy:' which latter words may refer also to the free and unmerited spring of the benefits he had reckoned up; viz. the mercy of God, which he mentions also, (ver. 10): 'He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities;' and then extols the perfection of Divine mercy, in the pardoning of sin, (ver. 11, 12); the paternal tenderness of God, (ver. 13); the eternity of his mercy, (ver. 17); but restrains it to the proper object, (ver. 11, 17), 'tothem that fear him;' i. e. to them that believe in him. Fear, being the word commonly used for faith, in the Old Testament under the legal dispensation, wherein the spirit of bondage was more eminent than the spirit of adoption, and their fear more than their confidence. Observe,

1. All true blessings grow up from the pardon of sin (ver. 3): Who forgives all thine iniquities.' That is the first blessing, the top and crown of all other favours, which draws all other blessings after it, and sweetens all other blessings with it. The principal intent of Christ was expiation of sin, redemption from iniquity; the purchase of other blessings was consequent upon it. Pardon of sin is every blessing virtually, and in the root and spring it flows from the favour of God, and is such a gift as cannot be tainted with a curse, as outward things may.

2. Where sin is pardoned, the soul is renewed (ver. 3): Who heals all thy diseases.' Where guilt is remitted, the deformity and sickness of the soul is cured. Forgiveness is a teeming mercy; it never goes single; when we have an interest in Christ, as bearing the chastisement of our peace, we receive also a balsam from his blood, to heal the wounds we feel in our nature. (Isa. liii. 5): The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.' As there is a guilt in sin, which binds us over to punishment, so there is a contagion in sin, which fills us with pestilent diseases; when the one is removed, the other is cured. We should not know how to love the one without the other. The renewing the soul is necessary for a delightful relish of the other blessings of God. A condemned malefactor, infected with a leprosy, or any other loathsome distemper, if pardoned, could take little comfort in his freedom from the gibbet without a cure of his plague.

3. God is the sole and sovereign Author of all spiritual blessings: Who forgives all thy iniquities, and heals all thy diseases.' He refers all to God, nothing to himself in his own merit and strength. All, not the pardon of one sin merited by me, not the cure of one disease can I owe to my own power, and the strength of my freewill, and the operations of nature. He, and he alone is the Prince of pardon, the Physician that restores me, the Redeemer that delivers me; it is a sacrilege to divide the praise between God and ourselves. God only can knock off our fetters, expel our distempers, and restore a deformed soul to its decayed beauty.

4. Gracious souls will bless God as much for sanctification as for justification. The initials of sanctification (and there are no more in this life) are worthy of solemn acknowledgment. It is a sign of growth in grace when our hymns are made up of acknowledgments of God's sanctifying, as well as pardoning grace. In blessing God for the one, we rather show a love to ourselves; in blessing God for the other, we cast out a pure beam of love to God: because, by purifying grace, we are fitted to the service of our Maker, prepared to every good work which is delightful to him; by the other, we are eased in ourselves. Pardon fills us with inward peace, but sanctification fills us with an activity for God. Nothing is so capable of setting the soul in a heavenly tune, as the consideration of God as a pardoner and as a healer.

5. Where sin is pardoned, the punishment is remitted (ver. 3, 4): Who forgives all thy iniquities, and redeems thy life from destruction.' A malefactor's pardon puts an end to his chains, frees him from the stench of the dungeon, and fear of the gibbet. Pardon is nothing else but the remitting of guilt, and guilt is nothing else but an obligation to punishment as a penal debt for sin. A creditor's tearing a bond frees the debtor from payment and rigour.

6. Growth in grace is always annexed to true sanctification. So that 'thy youth is renewed like the eagle's (ver. 5). Interpreters trouble themselves much about the manner of the eagle's renewing its youth, and regaining its vigour: he speaks best that saith, the Psalmist speaks only according to the opinion of the vulgar, and his design was not to write a natural history.9 Growth always accompanies grace, as well as it doth nature in the body; not that it is without its qualms and languishing fits, as children are not, but still their distempers make them grow. Grace is not an idle, but an active principle. It is not like the Psalmist means it of the strength of the body, or the prosperity and stability of his government, but the vigour of his grace and comfort, since they are spiritual blessings here that are the matter of his song. The healing the disease conduceth to the sprouting up and flourishing of the body. It is the nature of grace to go from strength to strength.

7. When sin is pardoned, it is perfectly pardoned. 'As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us' (ver. 11, 12). The east and west are the greatest distance in the world; the terms can never meet together. When sin is pardoned, it is never charged again; the guilt of it can no more return, than east can become west, or west become east.

8. Obedience is necessary to an interest in the mercy of God. 'The mercy of the Lord is to them that fear him, to them that remember his commandments, to do them' (ver. 17). Commands are to be remembered in order to practice; a vain speculation is not the intent of the publication of them.

After the Psalmist had enumerated the benefits of God, he reflects upon the greatness of God, and considers him on his throne encompassed with the angels, the ministers of his providence. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens

(g) Amyrald. in loc.

He brings in this of his dominion just
Either,

and his kingdom rules over all' (ver. 19). after he had largely treated of his mercy. 1. To signify, That God is not only to be praised for his mercy, but for his majesty, both for the heighth and extent of his authority.

2. To extol the greatness of his mercy and pity. What I have said now, O my soul, of the mercy of God, and his paternal pity, is commended by his majesty; his grandeur hinders not his clemency: though his throne be high, his bowels are tender. He looks down upon his meanest servants from the height of his glory. Since his majesty is infinite, his mercy must be as great as his majesty. It must be a greater pity lodging in his breast, than what is in any creature, since it is not damped by the greatness of his sovereignty.

3. To render his mercy more comfortable. The mercy I have spoken of, O my soul, is not the mercy of a subject, but of a sovereign. An executioner may torture a criminal, and strip him of his life, and a vulgar pity cannot relieve him, but the clemency of the prince can perfectly pardon him. It is that God who hath none above him to control him, none below him to resist him, that hath performed all the acts of grace to thee. If God by his supreme authority pardons us, who can reverse it? If all the subjects of God in the world should pardon us, and God withhold his grant, what will it profit us? Take comfort, O my soul, since God from his throne in the highest, and that God who rules over every particular of the creation, hath granted and sealed thy pardon to thee. What would his grace signify, if he were not a monarch, extending his royal empire over every thing, and swaying all by his sceptre?

4. To render the Psalmist's confidence more firm in any pressures. Ver. 15, 16, He had considered the misery of man in the shortness of his life; his place should know him no more; he should never return to his authority, employments, opportunities, that death would take from him; but howsoever the mercy and majesty of God were the ground of his confidence. He draws himself from poring upon any calamities which may assault him, to heaven, the place where God orders all things that are done on the earth. He is able to protect us from our dangers, and to deliver us from our distresses; whatsoever miseries thou mayest lie under, O my soul, cast thy eye up to heaven, and see a pitying God in a majestic authority: a God who can perform what he hath promised to them that fear him, since he hath a throne above the heavens, and bears sway over all that envy thy happiness, and would stain thy felicity: a God whose authority cannot be curtailed and dismembered by any. When the prophet solicits the sounding of the Divine bowels, he urgeth him by his dwelling in heaven, the habitation of his holiness (Isa. lxiii. 15). His kingdom ruleth over all there is none therefore hath any authority to make him break his covenant, or violate his promise.

5. As an incentive to obedience. The Lord is merciful, saith he, to them 'that remember his commandments to do them' (ver. 17, 18): and then brings in the text as an encouragement to observe his precepts. He hath a majesty that deserves it from us, and an authority to protect us in it. If a king in a small spot of earth is to be obeyed by his subjects, how much more is God, who is more majestic than all the angels in heaven, and monarchs on earth; who hath a majesty to exact our obedience, and a mercy to allure it! We should not set upon the performance of any duty, without an eye lifted up to God as a great king. It would make us willing to serve him; the more noble the person, the more honourable and powerful the prince, the more glorious is his service. A view of God upon his throne will make us think his service our privilege, his precepts our ornaments, and obedience to him the greatest honour and nobility. It will make us weighty and serious in our performances: it would stake us down to any duty. The reason we are so loose and unmannerly in the carriage of our souls before God, is because we consider him not as a 'great King' (Mal. i. 14). Our Father, which art in heaven,' in regard

of his majesty, is the preface to prayer. Let us now consider the words in themselves. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.' The Lord hath prepared.-The word signifies and might so be rendered. Due preparation is a of a thing: hasty resolves break and moulder. his authority. He prepares it, none else for him. It is a dominion that originally

'established,' as well as 'prepared,' natural way to the establishment This notes, 1. The infiniteness of