The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2

by Stephen Charnock

2. The second information is this: If God be so good, it is a certain argument that man is fallen from his original state. It is the complaint of man, sometimes, that other creatures have more of earthly happiness than men have; live freer from cares and trouble, and are not racked with that solicitousness and anxiety as man is: have not such distempers to embitter their lives. It is a good ground for man to look into himself, and consider whether he hath not, some ways or other, disobliged God more than other creatures can possibly do. We often find that the creatures men have need of in this state, do not answer the expectation of man: “Cursed be the ground for thy sake” (Gen. iii. 17). A fruitful land is made barren; thorns and thistles triumph upon the face of the earth, instead of good fruit. Is it likely that that goodness, which is as infinite as his power, and knows no more limits than his Almightiness, should imprint so many scars upon the world, if he had not been heinously provoked by some miscarriage of his creature? Infinite Goodness could never move Infinite Justice to inflict punishment upon creatures, if they had not highly merited it; we cannot think that any creature was blemished with a principle of disturbance, as it came first out of the hand of God. All things were certainly settled in a due order and dependence upon one another; nothing could be ungrateful and unuseful to man by the original law of their creation; if there had, it had not been goodness, but evil and baseness, that had created the world. When we see, therefore, the course of nature overturned, the orderDivine goodness had placed, disturbed; and the creatures pronounced good and useful to man, employed as instruments of vengeance against him; we must conclude some horrible blot upon human nature, and very odious to a God of infinite goodness; and that this blot was dashed upon man by himself, and his own fault; for it is repugnant to the infinite goodness of God to put into the creature a sinning nature, to hurry him into sin, and then punish him for that which he had impressed upon him. The goodness of God inclines him to love goodness wherever he finds it; and not to punish any that have not deserved it by their own crimes. The curse we therefore see the creatures groan under, the disorders in nature, the frustrating the expectations of man in the fruits of the earth and plentiful harvests, the trouble he is continually exposed to in the world, which tedders down his spirit from more generous employments, shows that man is not what he was when Divine goodness first erected him; but hath admitted into his nature something more uncomely in the eye of God; and so heinous, that it puts his goodness sometimes to a stand, and makes him lay aside the blessings his hand was filled with, to take up the arms of vengeance, wherewith to fight against the world. Divine goodness would have secured his creatures from any such invasions, and never used those things against man, which he designed in the first frame for man’s service, were there not some detestable disorder risen in the nature of man which makes God withhold his liberality and change the dispensation of his numerous benefits into legions of judgments. The consideration of the Divine goodness, which is a notion that man naturally concludes to be inseparable from the Deity, would, to an unbiassed reason, verify the history of those punishments settled upon man in the third chapter of Genesis, and make the whole seem more probable to reason at the first relation. This instruction naturally flows from the doctrine of Divine goodness: if God be so good, it is a certain argument that man is fallen from his original state.

3. The third information is this: If God be infinitely good, there can be no just complaint against God, if men be punished for abusing his goodness. Man had nothing, nay, it was impossible he could have anything, from Infinite Goodness to disoblige him, but to engage him. God never did, nay, never could, draw his sword against man, till man had slighted him and affronted him by the strength of his own bounty. It is by this God doth justify his severest proceedings against men, and very seldom charges them with any else as the matter of their provocations (Hos. ii. 9): “Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax.” And in Ezek. xvi., after he had drawn out a bill of complaint against them, and inserted only the abuse of his benefits, as a justification of what he intended to do; he concludes (ver. 27), “Behold, therefore, I have stretched out my hand over thee, and diminished thy ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee.” When men suffer, they suffer justly; they were not constrained by any violence, or forced by any necessity, nor provoked by any ill usage, to turn head against God, but broke the bands ofthe strongest obligations and most tender allurements. What man, what devil, can justly blame God for punishing them, after they had been so intolerably bold, as to fly in the face of that goodness that had obliged them, by giving them beings of a higher elevation than to inferior creatures, and furnishing them with sufficient strength to continue in their first habitation? Man seems to have less reason to accuse God of rigor than devils; since, after his unreasonable revolt, a more express goodness than that which created him hath solicited him to repentance, courted him by melting promises and expostulations, added undeniable arguments of bounty, and drawn out the choicest treasures of heaven, in the gift of his Son, to prevail over men’s perversity. And yet man, after he might arrive to the height and happiness of an angel, will be fond of continuing in the meanness and misery of a devil; and more strongly link himself to the society of the damned spirits, wherein, by his first rebellion, he had incorporated himself. Who can blame God for vindicating his own goodness from such desperate contempts, and the extreme ingratitude of man?If God be good, it is our happiness to adhere to him; if we depart from him, we depart from goodness; and if evil happen to us, we cannot blame God, but ourselves, for our departure.[990] Why are men happy? because they cleave to God. Why are men miserable? because they recede from God. It is then our own fault that we are miserable; God cannot be charged with any injustice if we be miserable, since his goodness gave means to prevent it, and afterwards added means to recover us from it, but all despised by us. The doctrine of Divine goodness justifies every stone laid in the foundation of hell, and every spark in that burning furnace, since it is for the abuse of infinite goodness that it was kindled.

4. The fourth information: Here is a certain argument, both for God’s fitness to govern the world, and his actual government of it.

(1.) This renders him fit for the government of the world, and gives him a full title to it. This perfection doth the Psalmist celebrate throughout the 107th Psalm, where he declares God’s works of providence (ver. 8, 15, 21, 32). Power without goodness would deface, instead of preserving; ruin is the fruit of rigor without kindness; but God, because of his infinite and immutable goodness, cannot do anything unworthy of himself, and uncomely in itself, or destructive to any moral goodness in the creature. It is impossible he should do anything that is base, or act anything but for the best, because he is essentially and naturally, and, therefore, necessarily good. As a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, so a good God cannot produce evil acts, no more than a pure beam of the sun can engender so much as a mite of darkness, or infinite heat produce any particle of cold. As God is so much light, that he can be no darkness, so he is so much good, that he can have no evil; and because there is no evil in him, nothing simply evil can be produced by him. Since he is good by nature, all evil is against his nature, and God can do nothing against his nature; it would be a part of impotence in him to will that which is evil; and, therefore, the misery manfeels, as well as the sin whereby he deserves that misery, are said to be from himself (Hos. xiii. 9): “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!” And though God sends judgments upon the world, we have shown these to be intended for the support and vindication of his goodness. And Hezekiah judged no otherwise, when, after the threatening of the devastation of his house, the plundering his treasures, and captivity of his posterity, he replies, “Good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken” (Isa. xxxix. 8). God cannot act anything that is base and cruel, because his goodness is as infinite as his power, and his power acts nothing but what his wisdom directs, and his goodness moves him to. Wisdom is the head in government, omniscience the eye, power the arm, and goodness the heart and spirit in them, that animates all.

(2.) As goodness renders Him fit to govern the world, so God doth actually govern the world. Can we understand this perfection aright, and yet imagine that he is of so morose a disposition as to neglect the care of his creatures? that his excellency, which was displayed in framing the world, should withdraw and wrap up itself in his own bosom, without looking out, and darting itself out in the disposal of them? Can that which moved him first to erect a world, suffer him to be unmindful of his own work? Would he design first to display it in creation, and afterwards obscure the honor of it? That cannot be entitled an infinite permanent goodness, which should be so indifferent as to let the creatures tumble together as they please, without any order, after he had moulded them in his hand. If goodness be diffusive and communicative of itself, can it consist with the nature of it, to extend itself to the giving the creatures being, and then withdraw and contract itself, not caring what becomes of them? It is the nature of goodness, after it hath communicated itself, to enlarge its channels; that fountain that springs up in a little hollow part of the earth, doth in a short progress increase its streams, and widen the passages through which it runs; it would be a blemish to Divine goodness, if it did desert what it made, and leave things to wild confusions, which would be, if a good hand did not manage them, and a good mind preside over them. This is the lesson intended to us by all his judgments (Dan. iv. 17), “That the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men.” If he doth not actually govern the world, he must have devolved it somewhere, either to men or angels; not to men, who naturally want a goodness and wisdom to govern themselves, much more to govern others exactly. And, besides the misinterpretations of actions, they are liable to the want of patience, to bear with the provocations of the world; since some of the best at one time in the world, and, in the greatest example of meekness and sweetness, would have kindled a fire in heaven to have consumed the Samaritans, for no other affront than a non‑entertainment of their Master and themselves (Luke ix. 54). Nor hath he committed the disposal of things to angels, either good or bad; though he useth them as instruments in his government, yet they are not the principal pilots to steer the world. Bad angels certainly are not; they would make continual ravages, meditate ruin, never defeat their own counsels, which they manage by thewicked as the instruments in the world, nor fill their spirits with disquiet and restlessness when they are engaged in some ruinous design, as often is experienced: nor hath he committed it to the good angels, who, for aught we know, are not more numerous than the evil ones are; but besides, we can scarcely think their finite nature capable of so much goodness, as to bear the innumerable debaucheries, villanies, blasphemies, vented in one year, one week, one day, one hour, throughout the world; their zeal for their Creator might well be supposed to move them to testify their affection to him in a constant and speedy righting of his injured honor upon the heads of the offenders. The evil angels have too much cruelty, and would have no care of justice, but take pleasure in the blood of the most innocent, as well as the most criminal; and the good angels have too little tenderness to suffer so many crimes: since the world, therefore, continues without those floods of judgments, which it daily merits; since, notwithstanding all the provocations, the order of it is preserved; it is a testimony that an Infinite Goodness holds the helm in his hands, and spreads its warm wings over it.

5. The fifth information is this: Hence we may infer the ground of all religion; it is this perfection of goodness. As the goodness of God is the lustre of all his attributes, so it is the foundation and link of all true religious worship: the natural religion of the heathens was introduced by the consideration of Divine goodness, in the being he had bestowed upon them, and the provisions that were made for them. Divine bounty was the motive to erect altars, and present sacrifices, though they mistook the object of their worship, and offered the dues of the Creator to the instruments whereby he conveyed his benefits to them: and you find, that the religion instituted by him among the Jews, was enforced upon them by the consideration of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, the preservation of them in the wilderness, and the enfeoffing them in a land flowing with milk and honey. Every act of bounty and success the heathens received, moved them to appoint new feasts, and repeat their adorations of those deities they thought the authors and promoters of their victories and welfare. The devil did not mistake the common sentiment of the world in Divine service, when he alleged to God, that “Job did not fear him for nought,” i. e. worship him for nothing (Job i. 9). All acts of devotion take their rise from God’s liberality, either from what they have or from what they hope; praise speaks the possession, and prayer the expectation, of some benefit from his hand: though some of the heathens made fear to be the prime cause of the acknowledgment and worship of a deity, yet surely something else besides and beyond this established so great a thing as religion in the world; an ingenuous religion could never have been born into the world without a notion of goodness, and would have gaped its last as soon as this notion should have expired in the minds of men. What encouragement can fear of power give, without sense of goodness? just as much as thunder hath, to invite a man to the place where it is like to fall, and crush him.The nature of “fear” is to drive from, and the nature of “goodness” to allure to, the object: the Divine thunders, prodigies, and other armiesof his justice in the world, which are the marks of his power, could conclude in nothing but a slavish worship: fear alone would have made men blaspheme the Deity; instead of serving him, they would have fretted against him; they might have offered him a trembling worship; but they could never have, in their minds, thought him worthy of an adoration; they would rather have secretly complained of him, and cursed him in their heart, than inwardly have admired him: the issue would have been the same, which Job’s wife advised him to, when God withdrew his protection from his goods and body: “Curse God, and die” (Job ii. 9). It is certainly the common sentiment of men, that he that acts cruelly and tyrannically, is not worthy of an integrity to be retained towards him in the hearts of his subjects; but Job fortifies himself against this temptation from his bosom friend, by the consideration of the good he had received from God, which did more deserve a worship from him than the present evil had reason to discourage it. Alas! what is only feared, is hated, not adored. Would any seek to an irreconcileable enemy? would any person affectionately list himself in the service of a man void of all good disposition? would any distressed person put up a petition to that prince, who never gave any experiment of the sweetness of his nature, but always satiated himself with the blood of the meanest criminals? All affection to service is rooted up when hopes of receiving good are extinguished: there could not be a spark of that in the world, which is properly called religion, without a notion of goodness; the existence of God is the first pillar, and the goodness of God in rewarding the next, upon which coming to him (which includes all acts of devotion) is established (Heb. xi. 6); “He that comes unto God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him:” if either of those pillars be not thought to stand firm, all religion falls to the ground. It is this, as the most agreeable motive, that the apostle James uses, to encourage men’s approach to God, because “he gives liberally, and upbraideth not” (James i. 5). A man of a kind heart and a bountiful hand shall have his gate thronged with suppliants, who sometimes would be willing to lay down their lives; “for a good man one would even dare to die:” when one of a niggardly or tyrannical temper shall be destitute of all free and affectionate applications. What eyes would be lifted up to heaven? what hands stretched out, if there were not a knowledge of goodness there to enliven their hopes of speeding in their petitions? Therefore Christ orders our prayers to be directed to God as a Father, which is a title of tenderness, as well as a “Father in heaven,” a mark of his greatness; the one to support our confidence, as well as the other to preserve our distance. God could not be ingenuously adored and acknowledged, if he were not liberal as well as powerful; the goodness of God is the foundation of all ingenuous religion, devotion and worship.

6. The sixth instruction: The goodness of God renders God amiable. His goodness renders him beautiful, and his beauty renders him lovely; both are linked together (Zech. ix. 17): “How great is his goodness! and how great is his beauty!” This is the most powerful attractive, and masters the affections of the soul: itis goodness only supposed, or real, that is thought worthy to demerit our affections to anything. If there be not a reality of this, or at least an opinion and estimation of it in an object, it would want a force and vigor to allure our will. This perfection of God is the loadstone to draw us, and the centre for our spirits to rest in.

1. This renders God amiable to himself. His goodness is his “Godhead” (Rom. i. 20): by his Godhead is meant his goodness; if he loves his Godhead for itself, he loves his goodness for itself; he would not be good, if he did not love himself; and if there were anything more excellent, and had a greater goodness than himself, he would not be good if he did not love that greater goodness above himself; for not only a hatred of goodness is evil, but an indifferent or cold affection to goodness hath a tincture of evil in it. If God were not good, and yet should love himself in the highest manner, he would be the greatest evil, and do the greatest evil in that act; for he would set his love upon that which is not the proper object of such an affection, but the object of aversion: his own infinite excellency, and goodness of his nature, renders him lovely and delightful to himself; without this he could not love himself in a commendable and worthy way, and becoming the purity of a Deity; and he cannot but love himself for this; for, as creatures, by not loving him as the supreme good, deny him to be the choicest good, so God would deny himself, and his own goodness, if he did not love himself, and that for his goodness. But the apostle tells us, that “God cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. ii. 13). Self‑love, upon this account, is the only prerogative of God, because there is not anything better than himself that can lay any just claim to his affections: he only ought to love himself, and it would be an injustice in him to himself, if he did not. He only can love himself for this: an infinite goodness ought to be infinitely loved, but he only being infinite, can only love himself according to the due merit of his own goodness. He cannot be so amiable to any man, to any angel, to the highest seraphim, as he is to himself; because he is only capable in regard of his infinite wisdom, to know the infiniteness of his own goodness. And no creature can love him as he ought to be loved, unless it had the same infinite capacity of understanding to know him, and of affection to embrace him. This first renders God amiable to himself.

2. It ought therefore to render him amiable to us. What renders him lovely to his own eye, ought to render him so to ours; and since, by the shortness of our understandings, we cannot love him as he merits, yet we should be induced by the measures of his bounty, to love him as we can. If this do not present him lovely to us, we own him rather a devil than a God: if his goodness moved him to frame creatures, his goodness moved him also to frame creatures for himself and his own glory. It is a mighty wrong to him not to look with a delightful eye upon the marks of it, and return an affection to God in some measure suitable to his liberality to us; we are descended as low as brutes, if we understand him not to be the perfect good; and we are descended as low as devils, if our affections are not attracted by it.

(1.) If God were not infinitely good, he could not be the object of supreme love. If he were finitely good, there might be other things as good as God, and then God in justice could not challenge our choicest affections to him above anything else: it would be a defect of goodness in him to demand it, because he would despoil that which were equally good with him, of its due and right to our affections, which it might claim from us upon the account of its goodness: God would be unjust to challenge more than was due to him; for he would claim that chiefly to himself which another had a lawful share in. Nothing can be supremely loved that hath not a triumphant excellency above all other things; where is an equality of goodness, neither can justly challenge a supremacy, but only an equality of affection.