MEDITATIONS AND DISCOURSES CHAPTER XI. THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN THE ReCAPITULATION OF ALL THINGS IN IIIV. IN the last place, the Lord Christ is peculiarly and that he can be unto eternity. For where there is infi- nite being and infinite goodness, there is infinite bles- sedness and happiness, whereunto nothing can be add- ed. God is always the same. That is his name, Ps. cii. 27. Thou art he, always the same. All things that are, make no addition unto God, no change in his state. His blessedness, happiness, selfsatisfaction, as well rs all other his infinite perfections, were abso- lutely the same before the creation of any thing, whilst there was nothing but himself, as they are since he halt made all things: for the blessedness of God Consists in the ineffable mutual inbeing of the three holy persons in the same nature, with theeminent reciprocal actings of the Father and the Son in the eternal love and com- placency of the Spirit. Hereunto nothingcan be ad- ded, herein no change can be made by any external work or effect of power. Herein cloth God act in the perfect knowledge, and perfect love of his own perfec- tions unto an infinite aeguieseency therein, which is the divine blessedness. This gives us the true notion of the divine nature antecedent unto the manifestation of it made by any outward effects. Infinite beingandgood- ness eternally blessed in the knowledge and enjoyment of itself by inconceivable, ineffable, internal actings answeringthe manner ofits subsistence, which is in three distinct persons. 3. This being and goodness of God by his own will and pleasure, acting in themselves in infinite wisdom and power, produced the creation of all things. Here- in he communicated a finite, limited, dependent being and goodness unto other things without himself. For all being and goodness being, as wassaid, in him alone, it was necessary that the first outward work and effect ofthe divine nature, most be the communication of be- ing and goodness into other things. Wherefore as when he had given unto every thing its being out of nothing by the word of his power, saying, Let them le, and they were; so it is said, that he looked on all that he had made, and, behold, they mere exceedinggood, Gen. i. last. Being and goodness must be the first eminently glorious in the recapitulation of all things in him, after they had been scattered and disordered by sin. This the apostle proposeth as the most signal ef- fect of divine wisdom, and the sovereign pleasure of God. I-le bath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, havingmade known unto us themystery of ., his will, according unto his good pleasure, which he w bath proposed in himself: that in the dispensation of o the fulness of times he might gather together in one .a all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and a which are on earth, even in him." Ephes. i. 8, 9, 10. For the discovery of the mind of the Holy Ghost in these words, so far as I am at present concerned, namely as unto the representation of the glory of Christ in them, sundry brief observations must be premised; and in them it will be necessary, that we briefly de- clare the original of all these things in heaven and earth, their primitive order, the confusion that ensued there- on, with their restitution in Christ, and his glory thereby. L God alone bath all being in him. Hence hegives himself that name, I AM, Exod. iii. 14. He was e- ternally All; when all things else that ever were, or now are, or shall be, were nothing. And when they are, they are no otherwise, but as they are of him, and from him, and to him. Rom. xi. 36. Moreover his be- ing and goodness are the same. The goodness of God is the meetness of the divine Being to be communicative of itself in its effects. Hence this is the first notion of the divine nature, infinite being and goodness in a na- ture intelligent and self subsistent. So the apostle de- clares it, He that cornea unto Godmust believe thathe is, and that he is a rewarder, Heb. xi. 6. 2. In this state of infinite, eternal being and good- ness, antecedent unto any act of wisdom or power with- out himself, to give existence unto other things, God was, and is eternally in himself all that he will be, all 5
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