Of course we know that God is good; first and mainly by His goodness to
us. Because He is good enough to give us life and breath and all things,
we conclude that He is a good being. Because He is good enough to have
not spared His only begotten Son, but freely given Him for us, when we
were still sinners and rebels, we conclude Him to be the best of all
beings, a being of boundless goodness. But it is because God is so
perfectly and gloriously good in Himself, and not merely because He has
done US kindnesses, yea, heaped us with undeserved benefits, that we are
to worship Him. For His kindnesses we owe Him gratitude, and gratitude
without end. But for His excellent and glorious goodness, we owe Him
worship, and worship without end.
There are some hearts, surely, among you here who know what I mean: some
here who have felt reverence and admiration for some great and good human
being, and who have felt, too, that that reverence and admiration is one
of the most elevating and unselfish of all feelings, and quite distinct
from any gratitude, however just, for favours done; who can say, in their
hearts, of some noble human being: "If he never did me a kindness, never
spoke to me, never knew of my existence, I should honour him and love him
just the same, for the noble and good personage that he is, irrespective
of little me, and my paltry wants.
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