Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. Goodness was the Spring of Redemption. All and every part of it owes only to this Perfection the appearance of it in the World. This only excited Wisdom to bring forth from so great an Evil as the Apostasy of Man, so great a Good as the Recovery of him. When Man fell from his Created Goodness, God would evidence that he could not fall from his Infinite Goodness: That the greatest Evil could not surmount the ability of his Wisdom to contrive, nor the Riches of his Bounty to present us a Remedy for it. Divine Goodness would not stand by a Spectator, without being Reliever of that Misery Man had plunged himself into; but by astonishing Methods it ⟨p. 616⟩would recover him to Happiness, who had wrested himself out of his hands, to fling himself into the most deplorable Calamity: And it was the greater, since it surmounted those Natural Inclinations, and those strong Provocations, which he had to shower down the Power of his Wrath. What could be the Source of such a Procedure, but this Excellency of the Divine Nature; Since no Violence could force him, nor was there any Merit to persuade to such a Restoration? This under the name of his Love, is rendered the sole cause of the Redeeming Death of the Son: It was to commend his Love with the highest Gloss, and in so singular a manner that had not its parallel in Nature, nor in all his other Works, and reaches in the brightness of it beyond the manifested extent of any other Attribute^*. It must be only a miraculous Goodness that induced him to expose the Life of his Son to those difficulties in the World, and Death upon the Cross for the freedom of sordid Rebels: His great End was to give such a demonstration of the liberality of his Nature, as might be attractive to his Creature, remove its shakings and tremblings, and encourage its approaches to him. 'Tis in this he would not only manifest his Love, but assume the name of Love. By this Name the Holy Ghost calls him in relation to this good will manifested in his Son,^† God is love. In this is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the World, that we might live through him. He would take the Name he never expressed himself in before. He was Jehovah in regard of the truth of his Promise; so he would be known of old: He is Goodness in regard of the grandeur of his Affection in the Mission of his Son: