Chapter X
Of the mercies of God s heart and nature. That mercy and grace are true essential properties in the divine being. That there are some that deny this. This head discoursed in three branches: 1. An explication; 2. The
proofs out of the text; 3. Answers to the principal objections. 1. The ex planation: 1st, How it is to be understood that mercy, or any other
attribute, is the nature of God ; 2dly, Of the difference between those mere
similitudinary attributes borrowed from man, as sorrow, repenting, Sc., and those substantial attributes in God, the likeness whereof are communicated to man, and so attributed both to God and also to man, such as holiness, goodness, mercy. The state I put the question into, for the proofs of the assertion.
It may be greatly wondered at, that it should ever so much as have en tered into the thoughts of any of the sons of men,* sinful men, who there-
* It need not stumble any that such an opinion is vented by the same persons that speak at the same rate of the sacrifice which Christ made by offering up him-
CHAP. X.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 75
fore need an infinity of mercy from the great God, to save and pardon them, to affirm that all the mercy which God himself so magnifies in this scrip
ture, and for which other scriptures do so highly extol him, should be
ascribed to God only e similitudine effectus ;* that is, because he doth and
exerciseth loving-kindness ; and only because that his outward dispensations are such as men who are mercifully disposed use to exercise, out of a
pitiful nature. But God, say they, without any inherent disposition or
affections which should properly have the name of mercy, or which, as
such, should be the root and inward principle of such merciful acts, doth
exert them. They answerably affirm, mercy to be an attribute of that rank which are usually termed after the manner of man : as when God is said
to grieve and repent, which are merely ascribed to him, because he doth such things towards us, as we men are wont to do when we grieve and
repent ; but God cloth them without any inward principle of grief or repent ance : and it is so here in the case of mercy, say they. But their question ing this great truth is not the occasion of my speaking to this point in
this place ; but my method and subject necessarily lead me to it ; without the demonstration of which added to the former, my grand assertion, which bears the title of my subject, would be imperfect, and of less power and
force upon believers minds : and being thereby obliged to prove it out of the text, I saw some necessity first to premise that general explication that
follows, to prevent mistakes out of vulgar apprehensions.
I offer then an explication, how it is to be understood that any of God s
attributes are of the nature of God, or may be said to be
cthe nature of God. This explication of this I shall absolve by these two explanatory pro
positions : 1st, The Scriptures say, that he is God by nature, Gal. iv. 8, in difference from those that are but called gods ; and so we may affirm
that what God is, he is by nature, that is, by his being himself God ; and so the perfections of his being are himself, and termed his Godhead, Col. ii. 9.
1. These divlna nomina (as the ancients call them), that is, these names
attributed to God, such as wise, powerful, holy, good, merciful, are said to be his nature, because there is that in his divine nature or Godhead which
truly answers to what is intended to be signified by these names, and he is
by nature that which these attributes do express him to be.
2. It were absurd to think or understand that any attributes whatsoever, as they are words and outward characters or expressions, should be the nature of God ; but yet these things signified by these outward words and
characters are truly and inwardly in the nature of God, and he is such a God by nature ; and that these outward words and names do proprio et
primario significatu, as the schools speak of them, in their primary and
proper signification, convey to our minds what is really in God s nature.
3. Nor yet are those glorious inward conceptions and apprehensions that
are conveyed to, and begotten in, our minds by these significant characters,
self for the sins of us men ; denying that also to be a price or ransom properly to redeem us, and would make it to be but metaphorical. And truly, when these two grand pillars of faith are thus enervated, and made weak, by taking from them what
gives the strength and substance unto them, what remains there of solidity sufficient for the heart of a sinner, loaden with that infinite weight of his sins, to sustain and bear it up, and him to stay himself upon ?
* Quoad actus secundos ; non quoad actus primos
: quoad effectum, non affectum :
objective ; shewing mercy to us ; not subjective, as from mercy in himself : xar
70 OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [BOOK I.
begotten by the Spirit in us ; nor are these the nature of God, although they be the inward bright rays and shinings thereof. Both which is evident from that speech, 2 Cor. iv. 6, God, that commanded (by creation namely) light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ ; where,
first, it is the glory of God himself that is said to be known ; and yet, secondly, the most illustrious light that was in the minds of the apostles them
selves, whereby they knew him, was but a created resemblance of that glory of God made in and through the face and person of Jesus Christ, who is a far more glorious representation of the Godhead than what those attributed names can any way render to us.
4. It remains to be proved, that yet the things themselves conceived of by us, and expressed by these names, are substantially and by nature in God ; or that there are those perfections in his nature and Godhead as do
really answer to what these outward significant characters of attributes, and those inward beams of himself in our conceptions, do represent his nature to be. And the evidence for this may be drawn from the lesser to the greater, from that lower representation of God and his Godhead, made to the heathens by the works of God s providence and creation. And
surely, look what those representations or manifestations of God made to them are termed, or what is spoken of them, we are warranted to speak the same, yea, much more, of these attributes of God s own choice to set forth himself by. Now, it is expressly said, Rom. i. 20, that the in visible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God head ; where, 1st, those invisible things of God are his properties, such as are essential to him, and particularly power and eternity are there instanced in ; which, 2dly, are invisible in themselves to us, as his Godhead
is, and but known of us, as God is pleased to make show of them unto us, as ver. 19, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them. And, thirdly, that those invisible
things or properties of God are essentially and by nature in him ; there is this evidence in that text, that what of them is manifested is said to have been in God himself before he made, yea, although he had never made the world (which is the manifestation of them there specified), or had any of these names given him ; and he gives for instance those two essential at
tributes, eternity and power. And in that he says eternal, he proclaims the reality of that attribute which we call power, to have been substantially in him from eternity, like as eternity itself also, before ever these attributed names were given him, or before any such works or effects of his were ex
tant, by which these are made manifest. The things were in him before. Yea, he riseth up higher, and expressly styles that which was signified and represented by these works, &c., to be his Godhead, in adding his eternal power and Godhead, which let critics interpret how they please, either to his divinity, as Beza, or Godhead, as our translators, yet either both do and must centre in this conclusion, that it is styled either of these, because there is that in his Godhead and divine being which in an excess of fulness doth in truth answer unto that manifestation of him. And so the argument becomes strong and prevalent for the point before me, that
if those ruder and obscurer impresses made of himself by the works of
creation, ver. 20, and those imperfect medals of himself stamped upon the souls of those heathens thereby, of which, ver. 19, he speaks ( for God hath shewed it to them ), be called his Godhead, then how much more
CHAP. X.J OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 77
do these names or attributes which God in his word, by his own institution, hath appointed, and in infinite wisdom himself invented and revealed, being accompanied and brought home by the power, supernatural light, and
blessing of his Spirit to the souls of his saints, through his word (as out of 2 Cor. iv. 6 was observed) ; how much more, I say, shall these be styled his Godhead in the sense and for the reason above said, even because they do, in their proper, direct, and absolute signification, shew what his Godhead
is ! And there is that in God that corresponds to, and to an infinity doth make good what is spoken of him by these, as we call the representation of a man s face in water the man s face which it represents, because, as Solomon says, it answers as face to face ; and so it is here. And the
representations by these are but as those of a man s face or whole person in broken pieces of a looking-glass severed one from the other, whereby it comes to pass that not the whole in any is entirely seen, but one lineament
or cast of the countenance is represented in one ; another part, as an eye, in another piece of that glass, and so of the rest. And therefore in the
plural it is here said, The invisible things of God are clearly seen, &c., in relation unto our multiplied conceptions of them in and by his works or
attributes severally. For whilst by one act we take into our conception that he is wise, we then do not so much as think of his power or goodness. We see an eye in a distinct attribute severed as it were from the rest, but
actually see not an hand at that instant, and so of the rest. God hath cast
the apprehensions of himself into lesser moulds, to fit the narrow bore of our understandings. And if any man, apprehending some one or more, as
those in the text, should say, there are no more, he should greatly derogate from the Godhead. But notwithstanding the multiplicity of the represen tations of these attributes, or of our conceptions thereby, yet still there are
all those perfections in the Godhead, which do in omnimodd et unitissimd
simplicitate, in an undivided unity and simplicity in the Godhead, answer unto all these. And look as we call the broken, scattered, diffused beams
of the sun upon disturbed or surging waters, the sun, although they repre sent it but by piecemeal, this beam in one wave in one part, and that beam
in another wave another piece of it, because though it be thus scatteredly and
brokenly done, yet there is that in the light and body of the sun that answereth unto all these, so it is here. And were it not thus, we could not be said
to know him that is the true God, as John xvii. 3, nor to know the truth of God as it is in God ; and so the heathen had not been without excuse, in
that when they knew God they glorified him not as God. * Only we are
to correct these our imperfect conceptions by this rule, that whilst we make
a composition of all these, to the end that thereby we might come to understand what God in the whole is (which is but a multiplicity in our
imperfect contemplations of him), that yet still in the close of all we sit down with the faith of this, that in him all these perfections are inseparably one indivisible being, and all of them himself, and withal comforting and
relieving ourselves against that present deficiency, that God hath reserved a time in the other world, in which with one intuitive act of knowledge or
* I leave it to the schools to dispute : the Scotists on the one side, other school men on the other; Quid sit fundamentum distinctionis attributorum in Deo, num in re an in ratione ratiocinante. This I am sure of, that what of the things of God are
multiplied in our conceptions, are but one in God, and one God. Sicut si quceratur an potentia sensitiva coloris et odoris sint idem, an distinguantur ? Respondendum, in sensibus externis quidem distingui, in sensu interno esse realiter idem. (Raphael Aversa de Sanseverino in Part, prima, Qusest. 3. Sect. 4).
78 OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [BOOK I.
entire view at once, we shall see all those perfections of his to be but one simple nature and fulness of the Godhead, which is a seeing God face to face. And then we shall find also that these attributes in this life did yet truly and really represent what was really and truly in himself.
And thus much for the first explaining narrative or account (as I call it, because it consists of so many branches), which though it contains but what is common to other attributes, yet was necessary to be premised both for the better understanding of the proofs, and for the preventing mistakes perhaps in some vulgar understandings, as also conducing to the bringing forth something towards the state of this question, as it particularly concerneth mercy, viz., this, That this attribute of merciful is said to be natural to God, or the nature of God, because it directly signifies what is in God s nature, truly answer able thereunto; and that God s intent in proclaiming himself merciful, &c., is to declare what properly himself is, and his Godhead is.
II. The second explanatory proposition is, that there are two ranks of these attributes, as our divines, and the attributes themselves, as in the
Scriptures they are related, speak them to be.
1. The first is of such as are utterly incommunicable unto us creatures, nor have they any respect unto the creatures ; such are God s infinity, sim
plicity, immensity.
2. There are those that are communicable to us, that is, in the shadow and likeness of them, as wisdom, holiness, truth, goodness, mercy ; and such as have a respect unto the creature, as power, which is seen in creating and governing the creatures ; and goodness likewise, which respects a com munication tof good unto the creature, whereof grace and mercy are eminent branches, and to be sure do respect the creature only, for God is not merciful to himself. The Lord is good, and his mercy endureth forever, was the solemn set song in the temple wherewith to praise the Lord. And this communicableness of some that are God s essential properties is evinced by that speech, He makes us partakers of his holiness, Heb.
xii. 10. And in like manner it holds of his wisdom, truth, goodness, mercy, kindness, long-suffering, &c., in that these are styled the image of God, that is, of what is in God, as the original pattern, Tgurorvirov. Now because the attributes of this latter rank are in a shadow communicable to the creature, and have a respect unto the creature, &c., therefore these men do confound these kind of attributes, at least some of them (as they please to except), with those that are but metaphorically attributed to God, and are apparently but borrowed from what is really in the creatures, and attributed unto God. And they do utterly deny these are first really and
essentially in God, but only the image and shadow of them communicated to us, as hath been said, whilst yet they acknowledge those of the first rank to be essentially in God. But for the confirmation that the second rank communicated, &c., are no less essentially his divine nature than the
first, I shall allege but two arguments.
1st. The first is out of 2 Pet. i. 4, where we are said to be partakers of the divine nature; whereby either, 1, the divine nature or Godhead itself
is intended : and so we are said to be partakers of it in this just sense, by way of communion with the Godhead in the three persons, who, becoming our God, gives up himself, and all the perfections that are in him, unto us, to be enjoyed by us ; and so either here or hereafter we are to be filled with all the fulness of God, Eph. iii. 19; not bodily (or by personal union, as Christ, Col. ii. 9), but in the objective communications thereof, for our
CHAP. X.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 79
eternal happiness. And if this be understood, as many do understand it, we have his Godhead directly and immediately termed his divine nature, which yields an additional confirmation to what was affirmed in the former
explication. Or, 2, by divine nature there is meant that Deiformitas, as
the ancients called it ; that is, the image of God, or a conformity unto God
in us, which is the more common opinion ; and so understood, it falls in
to be a proof of the assertion of this second explication ; for therein three
things are necessarily imported: 1, that there are in God such perfections, as whereof we, in the likeness of them, are participants ; and so that that whole set and sort of communicable perfections in God are intended, and
are expressly termed the divine nature, because they are first and originally in him, and then in us. Again, 2, the image of those perfections are
styled the divine nature in us, as being the imitation of his ; and that not
only in respect of the resemblance or likeness which the graces communi
cated have to his perfections, as those we have inherent in us bear the semblance of those in him. But further, 8, in respect that they become
a new and divine nature in us, in our kind, even as his perfections (thus communicated) are a nature in him, even a blessed and divine nature. And for their resemblance unto him in that very respect, they are in com mon called a divine nature in both him and us ; being first true of him, and then in us, as the apostle John, in case of love, speaks of Christ and
us, 1 John ii. And for that they are a nature in him as well as in us, therefore the conclusion is, that these communicable attributes are truly his divine nature, as well as the incommunicable. But, 4, there is this
difference betwixt these perfections in God and those communicated to us, that in us they are but inherent qualities, which are termed a nature, be
cause they become as natural in us as any inbred and innate qualities can be said to be; whereas in God, look as he himself is the most high God, Gen. xiv. 22, and elsewhere, God most high, so these perfections are
accordingly in him after a most high and transcendently supreme surpass
ing manner, incomprehensible by us ; whereof the following argument is an
invincible evidence.
Arg. 2. These communicable attributes of wisdom, holiness, truth, good
ness, power, &c., are so attributed to him, as such as are in him alone;
notwithstanding that we men do partake of these, and the angels also do
far excel us men in all these; thus, as wise as an angel of God is the
expression, 2 Sam. xiv. 17, and they are styled the holy angels, and that
excel in strength, Ps. ciii. 20, far above us men in this life. Yet God
alone retains and challenges the honour of being only wise, Eom. xvi. 27,
only holy, Rev. xv. 4, only good, Mat. xix. 17, the only true God, Rom. iii. 4. Which attributions with an only must and do necessarily
import, 1, that this wisdom, holiness, goodness, truth, and strength, are
in God as God, and that they are of his divine essence and nature, which we creatures are in no wise capable of. Our souls are one thing, namely, substances ; our graces another, namely, accidents ; but the essence of God, and his divine properties, are but one and the same ; of which more after
wards. And hence it is that although these are communicated to us, yet indeed are but equivoce attributed to the creatures, and are in them but in
a semblance, even as the picture of a man is called a man. And though because men assumed and imposed these names first, and applied them to
men, and seeing such and such qualities in them, they thereupon gave them
the names of wise and merciful, to signify those things in a man which,
according to man, is wisdom and mercy; and it was they that gave these
80 OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [BOOK I.
denominations to men like themselves, because men are next and first in our view; yet in truth and reality the sole honour and glory of these names, thus invented by men, and applied to men, are due to God alone, for the true reality and substance of these in the creature is in God, and men had the gifts and qualifications of them derived from God. And men having given such and such several names unto those excellencies that are in men and angels, calling man, for that little wisdom in him, wise ; for holiness, holy ; yet these falling out to be the likeness and resemblance of what is in God substantially, therefore God, in speaking of himself unto men, useth the same terms and style, to set out those glories in himself; and this account the schoolmen* have wisely given. Seeing, then, that these attributes that are communicated to the creatures are as they are in God his nature, as well as the incommunicable, there are these consectaries from thence.
The first is to shew the apparent and yet infinitely vast difference that
is between those attributes which are said to be ascribed to God after the manner of man, which have been specified again and again, and those we
call communicable to men, and are in common ascribed to us and to God. The difierence is manifest ; that those after the manner of man (as when God is said to grieve, Gen. vi., be troubled, Jer. xxxi. 20, his repentings, Hos. xi. 8, &c., of which sort those men would persuade us the mercies in God to be, and would reduce and bring mercy in God thereto) are such as are truly, and properly, and originally in the creature first, and then borrowed from the creature by way of similitude only, God condescending in that language to speak of himself after our manner, and weaknesses, and
passions, so to make a smart and sensible impression upon our dull souls.
But, on the clean contrary, these communicable attributes, whereof mercy is one, are first and originally in God, and derived from his fulness, which God vouchsafes to express to us by those names which we men give to the semblance of them in us men, as hath been explained.
Hence, 2, we may likewise discern how easily men may err from the
right in this matter ; because mercy in us men, in the sound of it, speaks weakness and an affectionate passion as the conjunct of it; and when
spoken of God, is expressed by the sounding of bowels, &c., and by God s
being troubled for us, which is acknowledged to be indeed spoken of him ; but it is to be understood after the manner of men, because he doth that which merciful men are wont to do when their bowels yearn within them. But yet still mercy itself, that is the root of all as it is in God, is another
thing. We must cut off all such imperfections, whilst yet we are helped by them, as we are men, to conceive how tender his mercies are towards us. We poor creatures are apt to drench our conceptions in what mercy in the creature is, and through the tincture and apprehension we have
thereof, taken from the creature, do we look upon the mercies in God, and so conceive of them as if God had borrowed the denomination of them from us, to express himself to us by ; and so we are apt to think mercy to be a mere metaphorical [attribute in God. We grant mercy in us to be
analogous to what is in God, but that mercy in God to be the original idea, and not metaphorical or similitudinary.
Hence, 3, let us, in our thoughts about these mercies in God, form and cast our conceptions in the mould of this rule, that though they be in God,
* Ista nomina per prius dicuntur de Deo, quam de creaturis: sed quantum ad impositionem per prius a natis imponuntur creaturis (quas prius cognoscimus). Aquinas, 1 parte, Qusest. 13, articulo 6, in fine.
CHAP. XI.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 81
yet after an unconceivable manner to us ; and that they are in God for the kind and being of them, with an infinite difference, as being in God as God, and in the creature but as a creature ; and therefore, that as far as God s essence and being transcends ours for kind of being, so far doth
holiness and mercy in him exceed the mercies that are in us, even for kind
* So shall
also, as Christ in the very point of mercy informs us, in saying,
you be the children of the Most High, Luke vi. 85, 36. And so much
higher in mercy is God than we, for our comfort, as the heavens are
higher than the earth ; as God himself speaks of himself, Isaiah Iv. 9. These things forelaid, the true measure of the decision of this question
(if any will dare to make a question of it) is, Whether that these attributes, merciful and gracious, &c., although in common attributed unto man, do not yet serve, and be not intended by God, as really and fully to express and set out to our faith what a God he
is in himself, and what his very nature and inward disposition, and inclina
tions of soul are, and affections of heart, a root and principle of merciful
effects ; as when he is said to be holy, good, wise, true, strong, powerful, or the like; which are all communicated to man, and yet not ascribed to God after the manner of men only ; as when he is said to be grieved, and
pricked at the heart.
And if any will deny these, and such-like, to be essential attributes, or
expressive of the true nature of God, they must affirm that no attributes, whereof men partake the name, are at all such, and that all do serve to
express but outward effects merely, and no way inward dispositions, as the
principle of those effects in him. And thus proposed, I shall make this one main argument of the assertion, viz., that mercy is a parallel attribute with those other. None dare say that he is holy in his works, or in respect he doth holy works, but that he is holy in his being, as he is God. The
like is to be understood of his being good, wise, merciful, &c.