VeR. 18.] SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. 427
satisfaction must make them white ; they could not appear before God in their own holiness. Therefore Paul desireth, Phil. iii. 9, ' To be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.' They were cleansed from the guilt of their sins, not by their own sufferings, but by the blood of Christ.
Use 2. This should ever keep us humble in ourselves, for all the good in us is of God ; and it should keep us in a self-loathing frame and posture of spirit, for there is none of us perfect, especially when we come to God.
1. It should ever keep us humble, for all the good that is in us, natural and spiritual, is not of ourselves, but of God : 1 Cor. iv. 7, ' Who made thee to differ from another ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received ? ' If we be proud of anything, it is that we are more in debt than others ; for all is from God, for of ourselves we cannot so much as think a good thought : 2 Cor. iii. 5, ' Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.' A thought is less than a desire, and a desire less than an action ; now we are so far from perfecting a good action, that we cannot frame a good desire, and so far from lifting up a good desire, that we cannot think a good thought of ourselves ; and John xv. 5, ' Without me you can do nothing.' He doth not say. Nihil magnum, no great thing, not work miracles, but nihil, nothing. All the glory is due to him.
2. It should keep us in a self-loathing frame and posture of heart, because the good that is in us is so imperfect and mingled with so much evil of sin. Time was when we were altogether evil, and made a trade and profession of sin : Gen. vi. 5, ' God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.' And now God hath infused a little good into us, it is like a flower in the midst of many weeds that are ready to choke it, or like fair water running through a sink, that doth always taint and defile it; and therefore this should make us 'loathe ourselves for our ways and doings, that are not good,' Ezek. xxxvi. 31. And especially when we come to God in our addresses to him, this should stir up self-loathing and holy shame in us ; for then the third consideration comes in, that none is good in comparison with God. When we repair to God, we have actual thoughts of his purity and holiness, and therefore should be more deeply possessed with a sense of our own vileness and baseness : Job xl. 4, ' Behold I am vile ; what shall I answer thee, I will lay mine hand upon my mouth ; ' Gen. xviii. 27, ' Behold now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes.' If the seraphim clap their wings on their faces, as abashed at God's holiness, Isa. vi. 2, oh ! how much more should the saints, when they set themselves in God's special presence, and behold God, as it were, looking with a full eye U}ion them, and looking him full in the face, how should they loathe themselves in a sense of their own vileness !
Use 3. It instructeth us, since none is good, where our happiness lieth, not in the plea of innocency, but in the pardon of sin : Ps. xxxii. 1, 2, ' Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
428 SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27, [SeR. II.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord impiiteth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.' Which must be humljly sought out in the name of Christ ; not blessed is the man who hath no sin, but blessed is the man whose sin is pardoned ; so it necessarily brings us to submit to the righteousness of Christ : Kom, x. 3, ' For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.' The proud heart of man is loath to stoop, or be beholden to another ; we prize a patched coat of our own rather than a velvet coat of another's. Nothing driveth us to a necessity of this submission so much as this consideration —
Doct. 2. That God only is good.
The goodness of God cometh under a twofold consideration — there is his goodness in himself, and his goodness to us. The one implies the perfection and excellency of his nature, the other his will and self- propension to diffuse his benefits ; the one his perfection, the other his bounty. To speak of these distinctly.
First, The absolute perfection of his nature and being, which is such as nothing is wanting to it or defective in it, and nothing can be added to it to make it better. In the creature there is a more general and natui-al goodness, and a more special and moral goodness. The natural goodness is the due proportion of a thing to the law and nature of its being, when it is good in its kind ; so this iirst goodness in God is the perfection of his nature. As Philo saith, 6 ovtw^ mv to irpoirov ayaOov, the first being must needs be the first good. As soon as we conceive there is a God, we presently conceive that he is good, as being the fountain and pattern of all the good that is in the creature. As the sun hath light in itself, and giveth light to all other things, so God, that is the principle of all good, must needs be apprehended to be good and perfect. In short, God is good, and only good, four ways — origi- nally, essentially, infinitely, and immutably.