Attributes of God - Charnock - XL - Chapter 12 (God's goodness) commenced

Required reading
Attributes of God by Charnock (Available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Chapter 12 (A discourse upon the goodness of God) by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'III. The third thing, that God is good.'

My summary
Today we begin to look at the goodness of God.

Firstly Charnock gives a brief exposition of Mark 10:18: 'And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.'

Then we read Charnock's first main point about what is God's 'goodness'.  It is:
(i) the perfection of his nature;
(ii) not the same as the blessedness of God;
(iii) not the same as the holiness of God;
(iv) not the same as the mercy of God;
(v) the bounty of God;
(vi) the comprehension of all God's attributes.

And lastly, today, we read Charnock's second main point which is to give some propositions to explain the nature of this goodness:
(i) God is good by his own essence;
(ii) God is the prime and chief goodness;
(iii) God's goodness is communicative;
(iv) God is necessarily good;
(v) God is freely good;
(vi) God's goodness is communicative with the greatest pleasure;
(vii) the displaying of God's goodness was the motive and end of all his works of creation and providence.

What grabbed me
I liked the way Charnock drew a distinction between God's mercy and goodness: 'Nor is this goodness of God the same with the mercy of God. Goodness extends to more objects than mercy ; goodness stretcheth itself out to all the works of his hands ; mercy extends only to a miserable object ; for it is joined with a sentiment of pity, occasioned by the calamity of another. The mercy of God is exercised about those that merit punishment ; the goodness of God is exercised upon objects that have not merited anything contrary to the acts of his bounty. Creation is an act of goodness, not of mercy ; providence in governing some part of the world, is an act of goodness, not of mercy. The heavens, saith Austin, need the goodness of God to govern them, but not the mercy of God to relieve them ; the earth is full of the misery of man, and the compassions of God ; but the heavens need not the mercy of God to pity them, because they are not miserable ; though they need the goodness and power of God to sustain them ; because, as creatures, they are impotent without him. God's goodness extends to the angels, that kept their standing, and to man in innocence, who in that state stood not in need of mercy. Goodness and mercy are distinct, though mercy be a branch of goodness; there may be a manifestation of goodness, though none of mercy. Some think Christ had been incarnate, had not man fallen : had it been so, there had been a manifestation of goodness to our nature, but not of mercy, because sin had not made our natures miserable. The devils are monuments of God's creating goodness, but not of his pardoning compassions. The grace of God respects the rational creature ; mercy the miserable creature ; goodness all his creatures, brutes, and the senseless plants, as well as reasonable man. '

Thankfully God is both merciful and good!

Next week's reading
Continue Chapter 12 (A discourse upon the goodness of God) by reading up to the paragraph commencing 'IV. The fourth thing is, the manifestation of this goodness in creation, redemption, and providence.'

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.