Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

3. How meltingly doth he bewail Mans wilful refusal of his Goodness? 'Tis a mighty Goddness to offer Grace to a Rebel, a mighty Goodness to give it him after he hath a while stood off from the terms: An astonishing Goodness to regret and lament his wilful perdition. He seems to utter those words in a sigh,^† Oh that my People had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my way! 'Tis true, God hath not Humane Passions, but his Affections can not be expressed otherwise in a way intelligible to us: The Excellency of his Nature is above the Passions of Men, but such Expressions of himself manifest to us the sincerity of his Goodness; and that were he capable of our Passions, he would express himself in such a manner as we do. And we find incarnate Goodness bewailing with tears and sighs the ruin of Jerusalem: ^*By the same reason that when a Sinner returns, there is joy in Heaven, upon his obstinacy there is sorrow in Earth. The one is as if a Prince should Cloth all his Court in Triumphant Scarlet upon a Rebels Repentance: And the other, as if a Prince should put himself, and his Court in Mourning for a Rebels obstinate refusal of a Pardon, when he lies at his Mercy. Are not now these affectionate invitations, and deep bewailings of their perversity high Testimonies of Divine Goodness? Do not the unwearied repetitions of Gracious Encouragements deserve a higher name than that of mere Goodness? What can be a stronger Evidence of the sincerity of it, than the sound of his saving voice in our enjoyments, the motion of his Spirit in our hearts, and his grief for the neglect of all? These are not Testimonies of any want of Goodness in his Nature to answer us, or willingness to express it to his ⟨p. 639⟩Creature. Hath he any mind to deceive us, that thus entreats us? The Majesty of his Nature is too great for such shifts; or if it were not, the despicableness of our condition would render him above the using any. Who would charge that Physician with want of kindness, that freely offers his Sovereign Medicine, importunes Men by the love they have to their health to take it, and is dissolved into tears and sorrow, when he finds it rejected by their peevish and conceited humour?

3. How meltingly doth he bewail Mans wilful refusal of his Goodness? 'Tis a mighty Goddness to offer Grace to a Rebel, a mighty Goodness to give it him after he hath a while stood off from the terms: An astonishing Goodness to regret and lament his wilful perdition. He seems to utter those words in a sigh,