the night, and will not mix with it. If we stretch out our hands towards him, we must put iniquity far away from us, Job xi. 13, 14; the fruits of all service will else drop off to nothing. "Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord:" when? when the heart is purged by Christ sitting as a purifier of silver, Mal. iii. 3, 4. Not all the 'incense of the Indies yield him so sweet a savour, as one spiritual act of worship from a heart estranged from the vileness of the world, and ravished with an affection to, and a desire of imitating the purity of his nature. [6.] Let us address for holiness to God the fountain of it. As he is the author of bodily life in the creature, so he is the author of his own life, the life of God in the soul. By his holiness he makes men holy, as the sun by his light enlightens the air. He is not only the Holy One, but our Holy One, Isa. xliii. 15; the Lord that sanctifies us, Lev. xx. 8. As he has mercy to pardon us, so he has holiness to purify us, the excellency of being a sun to comfort us, and a shield to protect us, giving grace and glory, Psal. lxxxiv. 11. Grace whereby we may have communion with him to our comfort, and strength against our spiritual enemies for our defence, grace as our preparatory to glory, and grace growing up till it ripen in glory. He only can mould us into a Divine frame. The great Original only can derive the excellency of his own nature to us. We are too low, too lame to lift up ourselves to it; too much in love with our own deformity, to admit of this beauty without a heavenly power inclining our desires for it, our affections to it, our willingness to be partakers of it. He can as soon set. the beauty of holiness in a deformed heart, as the beauty of harmony in a confused mass when he made the world. He can as soon cause the light of purity to rise out of the darkness of corruption, as frame glorious spirits out of the insufficiency of nothing. His beauty does not decay; he has as much in himself now as he had in his eternity. He is as ready to impart it as he was at the creation; only we must wait upon him for it, and be content to have it by small measures and degrees. There is no fear of our sanctification, if we come to him as a God of holiness, since he is a God of peace, and the breach made by Adam is repaired by Christ. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly," &c. 1 Thess. v. 23. He restores the sanctifying Spirit which was withdrawn by the fall, as he is a God pacified and his holiness righted by the Redeemer. The beauty of it appears in its smiles upon a man in Christ, and is as ready to impart itself to the reconciled creature, as before justice was to punish the rebellious one. He loves to send forth the streams of this perfection into created channels, more than any else. He did not design the making the crea ture so powerful as he might, because power is not such an excellency in its own nature, but as it is conducted and managed by some other excellency. Power is indifferent, and may be used well or ill according as the possessor of it is righteous or unrighteous. God makes not the creature so powerful as he might, but he delights to make the creature that waits upon him as holy as it can be, beginning it in this world, and ripening it in the other: it is from him we must expect it, and from him that we must beg it, and draw arguments from the holiness of his nature to move him to work holiness in our spirits. We cannot have a stronger plea. Purity is the favourite of his own nature, and delights itself in the resemblances of it in the creature. Let us also go to God, to preserve what he has already wrought and imparted. As we cannot attain it, so we cannot maintain it without him. God gave it Adam, and he lost it: when God gives it us, we shall lose it without his influencing and preserving grace. The channel will be without a stream, if the fountain do not bubble it forth; and the streams will vanish, if the fountain do not constantly supply them. Let us apply ourselves to him for holiness, as he is a God "glorious in holiness." By this we honour God, and advantage ourselves. MARK X. 18.-And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. 18. THE words are part of a reply of our Saviour to the young tempt him, but to be instructed by him. He seems to come with an ardent desire to be satisfied in his demand; he performed a solemn act of respect to him, he kneeled to him, YovvлεThoαs, prostrated himself upon the ground. Besides, Christ is said to love him, ver. 21, which had been inconsistent with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and thoughts of men, and the abhorrence he had of hypocrites, had he been only a counterfeit in this question. But the first reply Christ makes to him, respects the title of Good Master, which this ruler gave him in his salutation. Some think, that Christ hereby would draw him to an acknowledgment of him as God; you acknowledge me good. How come you to salute me with so great a title, since you do not afford it to your greatest doctors?" Lightfoot on this place observes, that the title of Rabbi bone is not in all the Talmud. You must own me to be God, since you own me to be good; goodness being a title only due and properly belonging to the Supreme Being. If you take me for a common man, with what conscience can you salute me in a manner proper to God? Since no man is good, no, not one, but the heart of man is evil continually. The Arians used this place to back their denying the Deity of Christ; because, say they, he did not acknowledge himself good, therefore he did not acknowledge himself God. he does not here deny his Deity, but reproves him for calling him good, when he had not yet confessed him to be more than a man.1 You behold my flesh, but you consider not the fulness of my Deity; if you account me good, account me God, and imagine me not to be a simple and a mere man. He disowns not his own Deity, but allures the young man to a confession of it. Why callest thou me good, since thou dost not discover any apprehensions of my being more than a man? Though thou comest with a greater esteem to me, than is commonly entertained of the doctors of the chair, why dost thou own me to be good, unless thou own me to be God? If Christ had denied himself in this speech to be good, he had rather entertained this person with a frown and a sharp reproof for giving him a title due to God alone, than have received him with that courtesy and complaisance as he did. Had he said, There is none good but the Father, he had excluded himself; but in saying, There is none good but God, he comprehends himself. 3 Others say, that Christ had no intention to draw him to an acknowledgment of his Deity, but only asserts his Divine authority or mission from God. For which interpretation Maldonat calls Calvin an arianizer. He does not here assert the Erasm. in loc. 2 Augustin. 3 Hensius in Matth. 4 Calvin in loc. essence of his Deity, but the authority of his doctrine: as if he should have said, You do without ground give me the title of good, unless you believe I have a Divine commission for what I declare and act. Many think me an impostor, an enemy of God, and a friend to devils; you must firmly believe, that I am not so as your rulers report me, but that I am sent of God, and authorized by him; you cannot else give me the title of good, but of wicked. And the reason they give for this interpretation, is, because it is a question, whether any of the apostles understood him at this time to be God: which seems to have no great strength in it; since not only the devil had publicly owned him to be "the Holy one of God," Luke iv. 34; but John the Baptist had borne record, that he was "the Son of God," Johni. 34; and before this time Peter had confessed him openly, in the hearing of the rest of the disciples, that he was "the Christ, the Son of the living God," Matt. xvi. 16. But I think Paræus's interpretation is best, which takes in both those; Either you are serious or deceitful in this address; if you are serious, why do you call me good, and make bold to fix so great a title upon one you have no higher thoughts of than of a mere man? Christ takes occasion from hence, to assert God to be only and sovereignly good; There is none good but God.1 God only has the honour of absolute goodness, and none but God merits the name of good. A heathen could say much after the same manner. All other things are far from the nature of good; call none else good but God, for this would be a profane error: other things are only good in opinion, but have not the true substance of goodness. He is good in a more excellent way than any creature can be denominated good. God only is originally good, good of himself. All created goodness is a rivulet from this Fountain, but Divine goodness has no spring; God depends upon no other for his goodness, he has it in and of himself: man has no goodness from himself, God has no goodness from without himself; his goodness is no more derived from another than his being. If he were good by any external thing, that thing must be in being before him, or after him; if before him he was not then himself from eternity; if after him, he was not good in himself from eternity. The end of his creating things then, was not to confer a goodness upon his creatures, but to partake of a goodness from his creatures. God is good by and in himself, since all things are only good by him; and all that goodness which is in creatures, is but the breathing of his own goodness upon them. They have all their loveliness from the same hand they have their being from. Though by creation God was declared good, yet he was not made good by any, or by all the creatures. He partakes of 1 Trismegist. 2 Eugubin. de Peren. Philos. lib. 5. cap. 9. none, but all things partake of him. He is so good that he gives all and receives nothing: "Only good," because nothing is good but by him, nothing has a goodness but from him. And God only is infinitely good. A boundless goodness that knows no limits, a goodness as infinite as his essence; not only good, but best; not only good, but goodness itself, the supreme, inconceivable goodness. All things else are but little particles of God, small sparks from this immense flame, sips of goodness from this Fountain. Nothing that is good by his influence, can equal him, who is good by himself: derived goodness can never equal primitive goodness. Divine goodness communicates itself to a vast number of creatures in various degrees; to angels, glorified spirits, men on earth, to every creature; and when it has communicated all that the present world is capable of, there is still less displayed, than left to enrich another world. All possible creatures are not capable of exhausting the wealth, the treasures, that Divine bounty is filled with. And God only is perfectly good, because only infinitely good. He is good without indigence, because he has the whole nature of goodness, not only some beams that may admit of increase of degree. As in him is the whole nature of entity, so in him is the whole nature of excellency. As nothing has an absolute perfect being but God, so nothing has an absolutely perfect goodness but God; as the sun has a perfection of heat in it, but what is warmed by the sun is but imperfectly hot, and equals not the sun in that perfection of heat wherewith it is naturally endued. The goodness of God is the measure and rule of goodness in every thing else. Lastly, God only is immutably good. Other things may be perpetually good by supernatural power, but not immutably good in their own nature. Other things are not so good, but they may be bad; God is so good that he cannot be bad. It was the speech of a philosopher, that it was a hard thing to find a good man, yea, impossible; but though it were possible to find a good man, he would be good but for some moment, or a short time: for though he should be good at this instant, it was above the nature of man to continue in a habit of goodness, without going awry and warping.' But the goodness of God endureth for ever, Psal. lii. 1. God always glitters in goodness, as the sun, which the heathens called the visible image of the Divinity, does with light. There is not such a perpetual light in the sun, as there is a fulness of goodness in God; no variableness in him, as he is the Father of lights, James i. 17. Before I come to the doctrine that is the chief scope of the 1 Eugubin. Peren. Philos, lib. 5. cap. 9. p. 97. col. 1. |