[2.] That he hath a strong inclination to let out his fulness, and is ready to do good upon all occasions : ' Thou art good and dost good.' BoNU^f est primum, et i^otissimum nomen Dei, saith Damascene — the ohiefest name by which we conceive of God is his goodness. By that we know him, for that we love him and make our addresses to him : 'we admire him for his other titles and attributes, but this doth first insinuate with us, and invite our respects to him. The first means by which the devil sought to loosen man from God was by weakening the conceit of his goodness ; and the great ground of all our commerce with him is that God is a good God : Ps. c. 4, 5, ' Enter ye into his courts with praise ; be thankful unto him, and bless his name ; for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting.' He presently inviteth the world to come to him, because he is good. As God is all-sufficient in himself, so he is communicative of his riches unto his creatures, and most of all to his own people. Goodness is communicative, it diffuseth itself, as the sun doth light, or as the fountain poureth out waters.
[3.] He is the fountain of all that good we have or are. We have nothing but what we have from God : James i. 17, 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights ; ' and Jer. ii. 13, he is called ' the fountain of living waters.' As rivers are supplied by the sea, so the gathering together of all good- ness is in God. All candles are lighted at his torch ; there is nothing in the creature but what is derived from him : ' Who hath given to him first, and it shall be recompensed to him again ? ' Eom. xi. 35, as the sun oweth nothing to the beam, but the beam oweth all to the sun, and the sea oweth nothing to the river, but the river oweth all to the sea.
[4.] There will a time come when he will be 'all in all,' 1 Cor. xv. 28, when God will immediately and in a fuller latitude communicate himself to his creatures, and there will need nothing beside himself to xnake us happy. Here we enjoy God, but not fully or immediately. We enjoy him in his creatures, but it is at the second or third hand ; the creature interposeth between him and us : Hosea ii. 21, 22, ' And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord ; I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil ; and they shall hear Jezreel.' In ordinances it is but a little strength and comfort that we get, such
238 SERMONS UPON PSALM cxix. [Ser. LXXVIL
as is consistent with 2)ain and sorrow ; it is not full, because it is not immediate. A pipe cannot convey the whole fountain, nor the ordin- ances the full of God in Christ, only a little supply either as we need, or are able to receive ; but then God will be all in all, he will do his work by himself ; the narrowness of the means shall not straiten him, nor the weakness of the vessel hinder him to express the full of his goodness in full perfection.
Secondly, How is his goodness manifested to us ?
1. In our creation, in that he did raise us up out of nothing to be what we are, and form us after his own image. God made us, not that he might be happy, but liberal, that there might be creatures to whom to communicate himself ; our beings and faculties and powers were the fruits of his mere goodness. When God made the world, then was it verified, ' He is good, and doeth good,' Gen. i. ; for as the goodness of his nature inclined him to make it, so his work was good : after every day's work there cometh in his approbation. Behold it was good ; and when he had made man, and set him in a well-furnished world, and compared all his works together, then they were ' very good,' ver. 31. That he still fashioneth us in the womb, and raiseth us into that comely shape in which we afterwards appear, it is all the etfect of his goodness.
2. In our redemption ; therein he commendeth his love and good- ness in providing such a remedy for lost sinners. There is ^CKav- dpwirla — Titus iii. 4, ' But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared.' In creation he showed himself ^iXdyye- A,o<f ; in redemption, ^iXdvOpoTrci. God is brought nearer to us as subsisting in our nature: 1 Tim. iii. 16, 'Great is the mystery godliness, God manifested in the flesh.' And so God had greater advantages to communicate himself to us in a more glorious way by the Kedeemer, that we might for ever live in the admiration of his love.
3. In daily providence ; so the goodness of God is twofold: —