Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. It was a Pure Goodness. He was under no obligation to pity our Misery, and repair our Ruins: He might have stood to the terms of the first Covenant, and exacted our Eternal Death, since we had committed an infinite Transgression: He was under no tie to put off the Robes of a Judge for the Bowels of a Father, and erect a Mercy-seat above his Tribunal of Justice^*. The reparation of Man had no necessary connection with his Creation; It follows not, that because Goodness had extracted us from nothing by a mighty Power, that it must lift us out of wilful Misery by a mighty Grace. Certainly that God who had no need of Creating us, had far less need of Redeeming us: For since he Created one World, he could have as easily destroyed it and reared another. It had not been unbecoming the Divine Goodness or Wisdom, to have let Man perpetually wallow in that Sink wherein he had plunged himself, since he was Criminal by his own will, and therefore Miserable by his own fault: Nothing could necessitate this Reparation. If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the Angelical Dignity to repair that Nature, he is further from any Obligation by the meanness of Man to repair Humane Nature. There was less necessity to restore Man, than to restore the fallen Angels: What could Man do to oblige God to a Reparation of him, since he could not render him a Recompense for his Goodness manifested in his Creation? He must be much more impotent to render him a Debtor for the Redemption of him from Misery. Could it be a salary for any thing we had done: Alas! we are so far from Meriting it, that by our daily Demerits, we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further Effusions of it: We could not have complained of him, if he had left us in the Misery we had courted, since he was bound by no Law to bestow upon us the Recovery we wanted. When the Apostle speaks of the Gospel of Redemption, he giveth it the Title of the Gospel of the Blessed God^†. It was the Gospel of a God abounding in his own Blessedness, which received no addition by Mans Redemption; If he had been blessed by it, it had been a goodness to himself, as well as to the Creature: It was not an Indigent Goodness needing the receiving any thing from us; but it was a pure Goodness, streaming out of it self, without bringing any thing into it self for the Perfection of it:

2. It was a Pure Goodness. He was under no obligation to pity our Misery, and repair our Ruines: He might have stood to the terms of the first Covenant, and exacted our Eternal Death, since we had committed an infinite Transgression: He was under no tie to put off the Robes of a Judge for the Bowels of a Father, and erect a Mercy-seat above his Tribunal of Justice