through grace to be of a clean heart as the Psalmist suppones although he win not to perfection yet he may win to that commended in Nathanael Joh. 1.7 Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Do not understand it that there is any Israelite that hath not the seeds of hypocrisie and guile But he is an Israelite indeed that hath not approved of predomining or reigning guile and hypocrisie and that may be win at which I speak for their encouragment who are true Israelites And 5. This sense of inward pollution and endeavour to purify the heart through the exercise of Faith in Christ it will appear in the outward conversation if a man be an Israelite indeed in whom there is no approven guile that must accompany him which ye have Gal. 6.16 He must be a man that walks according to the Rule of the new Creature Now these are some brief hints which I have given you of the Characters of an Israelite indeed but when I have minted thus to decipher him I have not done with this point it 's a concerning point indeed to make it sure that ye are true Israelites who may lay claim to hope in God And therefore I would press it a little further in the doing of which if I should offer to you motives from what I said before of Israels having still ground of hope in God I should run in a round and come back upon that which ye have heard and therefore to press it another way I shall press you to consider what is said of the Israel of God which may help to stir you up to make it sure that ye are of that number that have ground of hope in God I find in that fore-cited place Gal. 6.16 Mercy and peace to be to their allowance peace be on them and mercy and upon all the Israel of God mercy for their miseries and peace for their disquiets and vexations And I find it said Psal 73.1 That truly God is good to Israels It is beyond all peradventure that he is good to them which goodness is a solid ground of hope in all exigencies that it shall be well with Israel And to press this motive if the Lord may please to bless it for your quickening and up-stirring to make it sure ye are of that number and so have good ground to hope in God I shall deduce this goodness of God to Israel in three or four steps only And 1. In the general consider that the goodness of God to his people is unquestionably so great and so satisfying that were it well known it could not but rationally invite all to share in it by becoming true Israelites I may say of Gods goodness to Israel as Christ said to that woman of Samaria Joh. 4.10 If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee Give me to drink thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living water If folk knew this goodness they would need no other motive to excite them to be Israelites that they might share in it That is remarkable which we find of it Jer. 31.12 They shall come and sing in the hight of Zion and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord for wheat and wine and for oyl and for the young of the flock and of the herd and their soul shall be as a watered garden and they shall not sorrow any more at all What a refreshful satisfying thing must the goodness of God be that hath such effects And vers 14. I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness saith the Lord. It 's beyond all peradventure that the goodness of God to his Israel is so satisfying and satiating that it hath not a slighter but he that is ignorant of it were it known mens reason would tell them that they were irrational if they should not seek to share in it But 2. For your exciting to enquire after it in general ye would consider that it is a goodness whereof little account can be given but by experience there is no describing of it but by feeling of it David when he is overcome with it Psal 34.8 says O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusts in him A man must experimentally taste of before he can see this goodness of God as it is And we find 1 Pet. 2.23 the Apostle lays a great stress on this that no man as a new born babe can desire the sincere milk of the word that he may grow thereby but he that hath tasted that the Lord is gracious If one should enquire what is all this goodness of God that should invite me to make it sure that I am an Israelite that I may share in it There is no answer comparable to this Taste and see that the Lord is good Speak of it to a stranger to it in experience he cannot take it up Prov. 14.10 The heart knoweth its own bitterness and a stranger doth not intermedle with his joy The world knows not what is betwixt God and his people either in their ups or downs And if it be thought that these who have tasted of this goodness can give an account of it ye will find them profess that the hight of the account they can give of it is to sit down and wonder at it to admire it as being surcharged and overcome with it What saith David of it Psal 36.7 8. How excellent is thy loving kindness O Lord therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy plâ—asure And Psal 31.19 O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee c. He wonders at it as being overcome with it but he cannot well make language of that which he feels of Gods goodness to Israel so that experience is the only sit mean to bring folk to know and take up how good God is But yet 3. The Scripture is not wanting to give such hints of it as we are capable of and such as may tell us that it is a matchless goodness I shall not offer to enter upon this deep to speak of all the goodness and kindness of God to Israel from Election to Conversion from Conversion to Glorification To essay to find out or fathom this Ocean were to lose our selves in this Subject There are three general words which if we would ponder might give some hints of this matchless goodness of God to his people As 1. That in an appropriated and peculiar sense it is said That God is good to Israel Is he good to none else Yes Psal 145.9 The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works Psal 104.24 The earth is full of his riches Psal 33 5. The
earth is full of his goodness yet notwithstanding all that goodness to all his creatures it is said in an appropriat and peculiar sense Truly God is good to Israel It 's a goodness indeed a goodness by it self whence I infer that if the common goodness of God to all which being compared with his peculiar goodness to Israel doth scarce deserve that name be so rich and full how rich and full must that his appropriat and peculiar goodness to his chosen people be If the crumbs cast to the dogs and cast to them in wrath be so plentiful what must the covered Table of his goodness to his children be If the common out-Pasture be so rank and fat what must the Inclosure be If his common communications be such a goodness what a goodness is that and what are these special communications that are reserved for the Chambers O! When thou sees the men of this world glutting themselves with Gods common goodness and blessing themselves in it as being so rich and satisfying to them wilt thou then consider how much more rich and satisfying must his peculiar and Chamber-goodness be that kindness must be a far other thing A 2d thing that may offer some account of this goodness I take from the various names it gets in Scriptu e that one Attribute of the goodness of God which ye have in your Catechism comprehends several under it or it may undergo several notions of this goodness of God in reference to the several cases of the children of men consider it 's called goodness it 's all good and therefore all that thou an Israelite meets with in thy way homeward thou may write upon it This shall work together for my good Rom. 8.28 We know c. Thou mayest say as Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life Thou may say as Psal 119.68 Thou art good and dost good and therefore he will do good to thee Thou may say It is good for me that I was afflicted That is one blest hint of the goodness of God to Israel that what ever an Israelite meets with it is goodness or it hath goodness written upon it Again this goodness is called his love Jer 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee It is called love to make sure the former that he will do nothing to his people but that which is good for them because his love cannot endure to hurt them Who can expect any thing from love but that which is good And love because he will rest in his love Zeph. 3.17 Love that when any thing would interpose to interrupt it to Israel will not hear tell of it he will rest in his love he hath loved them and will love them still Again because an Israelite hath no price to purchase goodness when he needs it therefore goodness is called grace upon the account of his freedom that all the goodness he communicats to his Israel it shall be without money and without price That if an Israelite has no price and consequently has nothing to give for it he hath to do with one that can take no price but communicats his goodness freely And further if thou be one that art not only worthless and hast no price but thou art such an one as art lying low in misery hast none to have pity on thee or bemoan thee or to turn aside to ask how thou dost His goodness is mercy with a relation to thy misery to consider thy trouble to know thy soul in adversities Psal 31.7 To remember thee in thy low estate Psal 136.23 To sit down beside thee and to stoop to the very dust unto thee that 's his goodness And I shall add further for finding out of this goodness that if thou who art an Israelite be vexed with thy own waywardness untractablness what will then the goodness of God do unto thee in that case The goodness of God to thee in that case is patience long-suffering to wait long upon a peevish Israelite to suffer his manners in the Wilderness not to chide with thee continually nor to retain anger for ever but to see thy ways and heal thee Isai 57.17 in Further if thou be one that is not only wayward but hath provocked him to strike thee with the rod what will goodness do to thee then I shall not resume what I said before that Psal 119.71 It is good for thee that thou art afflicted but in that case the goodness of God shall be clemency and moderation to thee to punish thee less than thy iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 When thy luxuriant branches of corruption shoot forth to debate with thee in measure to stay his rough wind in the day of his east-wind Isai 27.8 He shall exercise such clemency and moderation towards thee that shall be admired and wondred at by thee when thou gets a right look of it Thus as the common goodness of God to all is one step to lift thee up to the consideration of his appropriat and peculiar goodness to his people so the many notes put upon his peculiar goodness or the many shapes if I may so term it wherein it turns it self unto thee of goodness love grace mercy patience long-suffering clemency and moderation how do these set forth how good God is to Israel and to thee who art one of them There is yet a 3d hint of this goodness which may be taken up more particularly in reference to Israels various cases And there 's a 4th general word to be said of it that it is no complement but a real goodness both which I leave till the Afternoon God bless what ye have heard for Christs sake SERMON XXXVI Psalm 130. Vers 7 8. Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption And c. HOpe in God being of constant use and a duty for which there is a constant ground and warrand it is not ill employed time that is spent in enquiring who they be that go the world as it will hope in God They are indeed the Israel of God to whom the warrand of hope is appropriated and though these may be discerned by all the marks of regeneration yet none do give a more clear encouragement to hope in God than their wrestling with God as a Prince in Prayer and their endeavour to purge their hearts of sinful pollutions that God may have a Throne and Dominion there and to exercise you to study to be Israelites indeed for though ye be of Israel that is Christians by profession yet they are not all Israel who are of Israel I was laying before you some considerations of the goodness of God to Israel ye remember it was told you in general that the goodness of God was such to his people as might rationally perswade folk to seek to share in it with his Israel 2. That this
remember though when thou hast done all thou can thou cannot rid thy self of iniquity and it will be with thee he in whom thou art called and allowed to hope can deliver thee But 5. Iniquity being a burden and bondage and abominable and hateful to the true Israelite and the wrestler to be free of it finding that he cannot get himself rid of it God interposing to redeem from it is a peculiar mercy That 's a proof that with him is plenteous redemption if he redeem him from iniquity This is the main point and a point that I cannot enough batter on you Redemption from iniquity to a right discerner will make up all redemptions Let a man be a servant a slave a bond-man a worm and not a man he is the Lords freeman if he be redeemed from iniquity Isai 33.2 Then the inhabitant shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity It 's a noble Physick for sickness to be a pardoned man it 's a noble antidot to all pressures to be redeemed from iniquity it compenses and makes more than up all other pressures to be redeemed from this pressure And as this redemption makes up all other redemptions so other redemptions without this will signifie little to a right discerner this to him is the choice of mercies let God cast him in trouble and bring him out of trouble if he bring him not from the bondage of iniquity it 's no delivery to him if when he is cast into the furnace his skum depart not from him but he brings it out with him he can see a plague in other redemptions when the bondage of sin continues In a word to the right discerner of the bondage of sin God is a matchless God to him on this very account that he pardons iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage a place which with others I had occasion to make use of in speaking on the 4. verse And whoever are complaining of pressures and seeking to be rid of them yet they continue if ye would read the language of that dispensation aright here it is God is making that pressure to ly on till redemption from sin be lookt on as the crownning mercy which if we enjoy we cannot be miserable and if we want it have what we will we cannot be happy Mind this mercy more redemption from iniquity to humble uncircumcised hearts to be groaning under the bondage of sin longing for delivery from that woful Trade of walking contrary to God and provocking him to walk contrary to you and to punish you seven times more and seven times more till ye be humbled and take with the chastisement of your iniquity Remember I have left it with you in the Name of the Lord that there be more conscience making of sin and of being exercised mainly about it and putting God to redeem you from it let this be your great task and exercise whatever be your exercise otherwise Now I have done with that which is supposed in the motives backing the Exhortation to hope in God I come then to that which is proposed to encourage to hope in God And I suppose the rest of the Doctrines in these two Verses may be distinctly enough reduced to these four 1. That relative to Israels misery There is mercy in God or with him 2. That relative to Israels bondage There is plenteous redemption with God 3. That what is with God shall be put forth as the Israel of God needeth it Redemption is with him and he shall redeem c. 4. We shall speak a little to this redemption from iniquity how God works it For the first it may thus be taken up that it is a great encouragement to Israel to hope in God in all cases and exigents that there is mercy with God This mercy of God is in effect the goodness of God that Attribute of God which ye have in your Catechism It 's the goodness of God I say exprest under a notion relative to the misery of man and so ye have it Psal 136.1 O give thanks to the Lord for he is good How is that evidenced for his mercy endureth for ever He who is good in himself and doth good to others as David hath it Psal 119.68 He is good and manifests his goodness by doing good to otheâ—s by his mercy that endures for ever Not to insist on the various notions and expressions of this goodness of God if we look to it in the fountain his goodness as it is communicate to his creatures is called his love and his goodness in the fountain is called his love because it 's an eminent proof of his goodness that he loves with an everlasting love Jer. 31.3 That he hath a love to his people wherein he will rest Zeph. 3.17 That he hath such a love to them as nothing shall separate from and partly because he doth not bestow this his goodness grudgingly or complementingly but in love Love stretcheth out the hand of bounty Jer. 32.41 He rejoyceth over them to do them good with his whole heart and with his whole soul Again is the goodness of God in its root and fountain is called the love of God to his people so in respect of its freedom and their ill-deserving to partake of it It 's called the grace of God a term that we find frequently occurring in Scripture and it 's nothing else but the goodness of God or the effects of his goodness freely communicat freely bestowed without money or price where there is no merit or deserving yea where there is much undeserving or deserving of the contrary Again this goodness of God as it is manifested in opposition to the waywardness and peevishness of his people it is called patience and long-suffering for his patience in waiting on them and his long-suffering in bearing with their manners in the Wilderness what is it but the goodness of God overcoming the waywardness and peevish disposition in his people Again the goodness of God as it is still continued even when Justice and Severity takes place it 's called Clemency and Moderation that in measure when it shutteth forth he debateth with it and stayth his rough wind in the day of his east wind Isai 27.8 And that in wrath he remembers mercy Hab. 3.2 There the goodness of God moderating deserved stroaks droping in proofs of love in the midst of deserved wrath all these are the goodness of God represented to us under various notions and here in the Text the goodness of God in reference to his peoples misery is called mercy And Exod. 34.6 When the Lord proclaims his Name in Moses hearing ye will find there are various notions of the goodness of God that I have been speaking of and in the same method The first Letter of his Name is Merciful to nominat that the first look that God takes of poor man is pity and compassion in
passion or perturbation yet is he no less tender and careful in shewing mercy than if these passions abounded in him 2. It is to be considered that it is to be wondered that he should be merciful when none of these things are in him that prompts men to be merciful all his mercy we owe to his goodness allanerly Men are prompted to be merciful to others because they are of the same nature with them Beside that weakness and softness of spirit that is in some may make them compassionat others in misery The experience others have had of such pressures may excite compassion to others in the like case mens relations may warm and affect their hearts with compassion to their relations in misery when yet they will be less concerned how it fares with others not so related to them and men considering not so much the simple trouble as the age dignity of the persons troubled when they see such in trouble it may waken compassion But all these are far removed from the Majesty of God he is infinitly above and infinitly distinct from man's nature neither is his nature subject to Misery yet he is no less merciful but infinitly more merciful than if all these things that serve to excite mercy in men were in him Only 3. Take one word more concerning this mercy that is with God in general because it is not so easy as many think to take up this mercy in an infinit and glorious Spirit He hath been pleased to bring this mercy in him a little nearer to us and to take up his dwelling in our nature in giving the Son of his Love to be incarnat and our kinsman a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief experiencing the misery of man that his mercy may run through this channel that his infinit mercy may be communicate to us through the tender bowels of a merciful and faithful high Priest who was in all things made like to his brethren Heb. 2.17 And who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and was in all things tempted as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 To assure us that he can be touched with our miseries But I proceed in the 2d place to speak to the Object of this mercy in God and here in general all the creatures of God do in some measure partake of this mercy of God Psal 145.9 His tender mercies are over all his works or upon all his works as the word will read or to be seen in all his works Psal 33.5 The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 119.64 The earth is full of his mercy his mercy is extended to the very ravenous birds and beasts whose needy crys are lookt on as directed to a merciful God Job 38.41 He provideth for the raven his food when his young ones cry unto him Psal 104.21 The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 147.9 He giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens which cry Joel 1.20 In time of drought the beasts of the field cry unto him And Jonah 4. God respects not only the infants that were in Niniveh who knew not the right hand by the left but the very cattel and if beasts partake of the mercy of God then wicked men are not deprived of it Luk. 6.35 He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil ver 35. and the commentary put on this verse 36. Be ye therefore merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful The visible Church they yet more peculiarly are the object of Gods mercy as witness all the promises made to Israel of old for the elects sake that were among them But the most peculiar objects of his mercy are his own elect who as ye heard Rom. 9.23 are vessels of mercy which he hath afore prepared to glory His mercies towards them cannot be enumerated The mercy of their Election Exod. 33.19 and Rom. 9.15 He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy compassion on him on whom he will have compassion It is not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of him that sheweth mercy No but election may be called and is an act of Dominion and Soveraignity yet its scope is mercy Then there is the mercy of their Regeneration Tit. 3.5 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration c. And being regenerat what a heap of mercy and goodness follows them all their days Psal 23.6 The mercy of pardoning their iniquity Exod. 34.6 The mercy of hearing their prayers as he sayes in another case Exod. 22.27 When he shall cry unto me I will hear for I am gracious The mercy of moderation in the midst of wrath Hab. 3.2 And not to enumerat all the mercies conferred on the saints the consummation of their mercies lies in their everlasting happiness Jude verse 20 Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Then they will get that Prayer answered put up in the behalf of Onesiphorus 2 Tim. 1.18 The Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day Thus the Elect from Election to eternal Glorification are the objects of Gods peculiar mercy I shall only in speaking to the object of this mercy in God desire you further to take notice under what notions the godly are described when he promises to express his mercy to them and to ensure it to them he is merciful to them because they are his own elect yet ye may notice these names and notions under which mercy is holden out and ensured to them and I shall name four or five 1. They are described as penitents bemoaning their sin and turning from their evil way Jer. 31.18 When Ephraim is bemoaning himself crying Turn thou me and I shall be turned and repenting then it follows I will surely have mercy on him An impenitent posture may obstruct mercy in its effects from coming to a godly man 2. The Objects of this Mercy are described to be lovers of him keepers of his commands as in the second command Shewing mercy to thousands of them that love me c. It is not simply to keepers of the commands but to such as keep them from a principle of love neglected obedience or obedience not from a principle of love may obstruct the manifestations of mercy 3. The objects of this special mercy are described to be fearers of God Psal 103.17 The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and Luke 1.50 His mercy is upon them that fear him from generation to generation A heart standing in awe of God a man that hath all his performances and even his love seasoned with fear is the man that is under the drop of Mercy 4. The Objects of this peculiar Mercy are described to be merciful folk Mat. 5.7 Blest are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy They that have obtained mercy themselves cannot but have
merciful bowels to deal about them according to their ability and as there is cause and a cruel unmerciful disposition is a shrewd token that such an one has not obtained mercy But more of this afterward 5. And Lastly The Objects of this Mercy are described to be tender walkers according to the Rule and Pattern set before them Gal. 6.16 As many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy Their tender walk puts them not without Mercies mister The more tender they are in their walk they see the more need of mercy and this keeps them under the drop of mercy So much for the Object of this Mercy that is with God and for the characters of them to whom it is exprest which would be looked to by all of you who would be partakers of it I proceed now in the 3d place to speak to the properties of this Mercy which will help to unfold the nature of it a little more distinctly and among all the Properties that might be assigned to it a little briefly to these five 1. This would be fixed that the mercy of God is a real mercy Ye will get fair weather and complemental mercy enough in the World mercy professed where it is not and where it kythes not in any effect ye will get mercy enough like that Jam. 2.15 When a brother or sister is naked or destitute of daily food men that will say to them depart in peace be ye warmed and filled but they give them nothing needful for the body The whole world as one says are like Histrionicks counterfeit masked persons and in nothing more than in their pretences and professions of mercy but the mercy of God is a real mercy a mercy that folk may lippen to if ye enquire for it in the inward affection what can be required but it is adduced to express it Isai 23.15 It is exprest by sounding of the bowels Jer. 31.20 By bowels being troubled or moved Hos 11.8 By the turning of the heart within and repentings kindled together All these expressions are to point out how cordial and real the Lord is as to the inward affection of mercy and for the Effects of it men want rather eyes to discern them than the mercies themselves Even his own people are straitned in their own bowels how to keep the proofs of mercy when his heart is enlarged to bestow them and yet they never want a proof of his mercy while they have a room in the Hospital of his Heart and Faith to believe that they are in the Hospital of his Compassion that is an evident proof how real his mercy is 2. As his mercy is real so the Scripture tells it is that wherein he delights Mic. 7.18 He retains not his anger for ever Why Because he delights in mercy No but he delights in himself and in all his Attributes and in the manifestation of them in the World but in a peculiar manner in his mercy upon divers accounts He may be said to delight in it partly on the account of the frequency of his merciful dispensations and manifestations in acts of mercy For works of Judgment towards his people are his Work his strange Work and his Act his strange Act. Isai 28.21 But the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 35.5 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep his covenant c. Psal 25.10 Again he delights in mercy because there is nothing flows from him but that which may invite not hinder sinners from coming to him being objects of his mercy It is true he willeth the death of sinners for sin to glorifie his Justice Yet Ezek. 18.23 He hath no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth but rather that he should return from his ways and live Nothing flows from him to seclude any from his mercy that will not seclude themselves even when he strikes it is to drive to his mercy when he afflicts the language is Turn you and live why will ye die O house of Israel Again he delights in mercy because all the good he doth to his people he doth it not grudgingly Many a good turn among men is as ye speak spilt in the doing But the good that he does to his people he does it with his whole heart and soul Jer. 32.41 He acts mercy toward his people to speak so as one in his own Element and as going about a work that is kindly to him if I may so word it And lastly he delights in mercy because to speak after the manner of men he hath no pleasure that his people should ever raise any cloud betwixt his mercy and them the people of God cannot do themselves a greater wrong nor him a greater unkindness if ye understand it aright than by their provocations to incapacitat him to manifest his mercy towards them But mistake not this for he hath a Soveraignty in his grace even when they in a manner necessitat him to keep up the acts of his mercy and to afflict them hence when they go onfrowardly in the way of their own heart his tender mercy will make a stepping-stone of impediments that are put in its way Isai 57.17 Because he delights in mercy he will come over all these impediments to do them a good turn freely And that is a 3d property of this mercy it is a free mercy it is a mercy bestowed without money and without price But this as I told you the last day is comprehended under the notion of Grace that is imported in the Goodness of God in that it is freely given And therefore Exod. 33.19 cited Rom. 9.15 He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy compassion c. And it 's not in him that wills nor in him that runs but in God that shews mercy There is no place for disputing here Why he will have mercy on such and such and not on others it is an act of his royal prerogative in grace that none can hinder for who can hinder him to do with his own what he will A 4th Property of this mercy with God is That it is an eternal mercy I do not mean that any creature that gets not an Interest in the mercy of God in this life may look to be partaker of it after this life that was the Opinion of Origen that Devils and damned men and women should at length share in the mercy of God Either thou must grip mercy here or thou hast done with it eternally But to them that close with mercy here it is an everlasting mercy Hence is that over-word of the 136. Psalm His mercy endureth for ever and Psal 103.17 His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him from election to their eternal glorification so David finds that his tender mercies and loving kindnesses have been for ever of old And the Church Lam. 3.23 finds It is of the
Lords mercies that they are not consumed because his compassions fails not And David sings Psal 23.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life It is an everlasting and eternal mercy There is a 5th property I intended to have spoken to and that is the fulness and riches of this mercy but because I am to speak a little more to that I shall leave it and the Use of the whole Doctrine to the afternoon God bless his word unto you SERMON XL. Psalm 130. Verse 7. For with the Lord there is mercy c. WHen some time is spent in speaking of the Mercy of God we are very far from sowing pillows to the Armholes or from making Kercheffs to the heads of the secure although I confess many do break their necks upon this blessed refuge of God's mercy and it will be their double condemnation that the mercy and goodness of God that should have led them to repentance was an occasion of their hardning in mischief Consider but the Scriptures design in speaking of that mercy that is with God that it is partly to leave Rebels and Wanderers without excuse when mercy is in their offer and they will have none of it And partly and especially to be the great cordial of the miserable man who when he is under all pressures that are ready to sink him hath this for his refuge that with God there is mercy as in Psal 13. who when he is troubled with soul-perplexities and desertion with apprehensions of being cut off and that his enemies should insult over him hath this for his cordial vers 5. But I have trusted in thy mercy and the sweet result of that is added My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation and vers 6. I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me that will be the sweet issue of the misterful mans trusting in Gods mercy Now ye have heard somewhat of the nature of this mercy in general somewhat of the peculiar objects of it and under what names and notions mercy is holden out and ensured to the godly man I have also spoken somewhat of the properties of this mercy that it is a real mercy that wherein God delights and that it is free and eternal and before I come to the use I am to speak a little to the fifth A 5th property then of mercy with God is that it is a rich full and infinite mercy a mercy to reach all the miseries and needs of his people as to the riches and fulness of his mercy the Scripture very plenteously speaks of it it is said of God that he is rich in mercy Eph. 2.4 He is said to be plentiful in mercy and full of compassion Psal 86.5 His mercies are manifold mercies Neh. 9.19 So they are called great mercies Neh. 9.31 Psal 119.156 Isa 54 7. And Dan. 9.18 It 's great mercy that Ushers in a supplication we do not present our supplications before thee for our own righteousness but for thy great mercies It is said further that he hath not only tender mercies that are very compassionat and condescending but he hath a multitude of tender mercies Psal 51.1 Psal 69.16 He is said to have abundant mercies in that 1 Pet. 1.3 He hath mercies in such abundance that they are infinitly above the mercies of man when David had it in his choice whether he would have three years famine or three moneths fleeing before the enemy or three days pestilence 2 Sam. 24.14 Let us now fall saih he into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let us not fall into the hand of man And to add no more it is said of Gods mercies Psal 103.4 That he crowns us with his tender mercies c. That is partly he surrounds his people with proofs of love on every hand as a Crown compasseth the head that they cannot turn them about but mercy compasseth them about as with a shield as it is Psal 5.12 And partly his mercies put respect and honour on his people as if they set a Crown on every Saints head and made them Kings and Priests unto God as David says Psal 18.35 Thy gentleness hath made me great Thus I have let you see how copiously the Scripture speaks of the fulness and richness of this mercy and that I may let you see it in some particular evidences and instances consider 1. That the mercy of God toward his people is a mercy to pity them when no eye pities them when they are the object of contempt and abhorrency as Ezek. 16 when they are cast out into the open field lying polluted in their blood having no eye to pity them then it is a time of love and he saith to them Live and he spreads his skirt over them that is rich mercy to take the refuse of the earth and make them the objects of his special mercy 2. His mercy is full and rich in giving a vent to it self even when he is letting out severity his mercy manifests it self even when he lifts up his hand and is striking in inviting them whom he strikes to turn that they die not as Job 10. when he is destroying him as he apprehended after he hath enumerat some common providences about him he says vers 13. These things thou hast hid in thy heart I know that this is with thee I know there is some other thing in thy heart than what I can read in thy dealing 3. The riches and fulness of this mercy appears in pitying and passing by the peevishness and waywardness of his people especially when they take with it and be moan it in that they have been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Isai 57.17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth and he went on in the way of his heart and what follows I have seen his way and will heal him and will restore comfort unto him and to his mourners I am God and not man I am a merciful God I 'le misken my petted people and heal them I 'le not prosecute this quarrel 4. The riches and fulness of his mercy appears in his fetching an Argument from his stroaks to pity his people a stroak extorted out of his hand to pity his people a stroak inflicted in justice mercy will make it an Argument to pity the afflicted Jer. 31.20 Is Ephraim my dear son Is he a pleasant child For since I spake against him I do earnestly remember him still my chiding and contending with him hath wakened my bowels towards him I will surely have mercy on him 5. The fulness and riches of this mercy appears in this that he considers tenderly the consequences of his pleading if he quarrel with them mercy tells him he may soon get the victory but that will lose him his people therefore he will forbear Isai 57.16 I will not contend for ever nor will I be always
Now what shall be said of guilts meeting with wicked men I shall say two words to this and leave the Note One is let a wicked man live never so long without minding his guilt let him have Ordinances and keep up a form of Worship This is to be adverted to that the wicked man never comes into God's presence to worship or pray to him but his iniquity is marked as if he had made a Proclamation of his sin Ponder that Process Isa 1.15 and the foregoing Verses Bring no more vain oblations saith the Lord incense is an abomination to me the new Moons and Sabbaths and calling of assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting your new Moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood Thou that dare come before God without the sense of thy guilt God may look upon thee as proclaiming thy guilt And another word to the wicked shall be this that when ever a day of distress and trouble meets them though all of them will not be honoured with repentance and pardoning mercy they shall find that they have made a very sad bargain Take it in that word Jer. 2.19 Thy own wickedness shall correct thee and thy back-slidings shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee But I leave this Note and come to the third Observation that is that when Guilt and Conscience meets sin will be otherways looked upon than men ordinarily do or if ye will have it more distinctly take it thus That the right sense of sin will lead the sensible man to see that in sin that none even the most Godly can stand before God if God deal with them in strict Justice according to the Covenant of Works That is the very marrow of this Verse If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord who should stand No man no not a godly man nor any other can stand And although I may if the Lord will have this purpose to resume when I come to speak of pardon and the application of pardon from the next Verse following yet this being an important truth a verity of great weight ye will bear with me though I dip a little more in it than is my ordinary What I would say on it I shall from the Text deduce to you in six particulars which I hope shall give a hint of what at the first view is more material in the words And 1. Take notice of something supposed here that is God's marking of iniquity If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity where he makes a supposition of God's marking iniquity not that any Question or doubt is to be made of Gods Omniscience that he sees and knows all things and particularly mens sins he hath an exact knowledge of them all as when one marks things most narrowly Neither is there any supposition or question to be made of Gods seeing of sin in the godly so as to be displeased at it Antinomians would be at this they would have no sin seen in them but the scope of this Psalm evinces the contrary God notices the godly mans sin as well as others till he flee to pardoning mercy through a Mediator And David though a godly man acknowledges this Psal 51.4 Against thee thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight But the meaning of this the Lord 's marking of iniquity may be taken from the parallel place Psal 143.2 where it is thus expressed Enter not into Judgment with thy servant That 's the marking of iniquity spoken of or supponed in the Text and in short the importance of the Phrase is Gods marking of sin according to the Covenant of Works and in the rules of strict Justice and without looking on the sinner as in a Surety In this respect Gods marking of iniquity being accompanied with absolute holiness perfect purity and justice he cannot away with it nor with the sinner because of it as Psal 5.4 5. Thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee The foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all workers of iniquity And Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity God thus marking iniquity according to the rules of strict Justice and without looking on the sinner as in a Cautioner cannot away with it and consequently will punish it Job 11.11 He seeth wickedness also will he not consider it In order to punishment for so that Phrase is Expounded Psal 10.14 Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with thine hand And it is Jehu's remark of Ahab 2 King 9.26 Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons saith the Lord and I will requite thee in this plat saith the Lord. The marking of iniquity this way is to men dreadful and ye will find in Scripture that it is a dreadful sight of trouble that some gets when it represents God thus as marking sin to pursue and punish it as in that poor widow 1 King 17.18 O thou man of God saith she to the Prophet art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my Son That was a sad sight of trouble and of sin in trouble and Moses in that tragical business in the Wilderness when calamities are falling thick upon that people it is a sad sight of them that he gets when they speak Gods marking of sin Psal 90 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee our secret sins in the light of thy countenance Thy inflicting of calamity tells us that thou art marking iniquity So much for the first thing supposed here God's marking iniquity 2. Consider here somewhat proposed That if God mark iniquity as a severe Judge according to the strict rules of Justice to punish it and accordingly do punish it the guilty man cannot stand before him This Phrase is equivalent to that Phrase in the parallel place Psal 143.2 If God enter into judgment with men no man living can be justified in his sight And a sinners inability to stand before God is a Phrase frequently made use of to point out the dreadful desert of sin as Psal 5.5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight Ezra 9.15 We are before thee in our trespasses for we cannot stand before thee because of this Psal 1.5 The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous And Psal 76.7 Thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry Rev. 6.16 17. The great day of the Lambs wrath is come and who is able to stand And to this also
is forgivenness with God and this is it in the Text for verse 3. he sayeth If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquity Who can stand But verse 4. Forgivenness is with thee That is it ye have Mat. 9.2 Son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee Now for this Pardon the nature of it and the terms upon which it is attained it will come in in the own proper place to be spoken to Here I am upon consideration of the thing remitted and that that I shall pitch upon is That there is a remission of sin attainable by sinners in the due order It 's a blessed Article of our Creed the remission of sins When I spoke of the remission of sin I spoke of the remission of all sins great and small in their nature and number There is forgivenness with God for iniquities I confess there is an exception made Math. 12.31 32. All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Heb. 10.26 They that sin afer they have received the knowledge ef the truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin And 1 John 5.1 There is a sin unto death But the sin against the holy Ghost needs not trouble the sensible sinner that would fain have pardon It is true it should warn all to beware of malicious sinning against light and having sinned to beware of running away from God but the sensible sinner that is seeking peace and pardon needs not to be afraid of it That sin is therefore irremissible because the sinner comes not to seek pardon but if thou hast the sense of sin and if it be thy desire and endeavour to repent and to have pardon it is an evidence that thy sin is not that unpardonable sin But that I may make something of this I shall deduce it in two or three Branches The first whereof shal be 1. That small sins need Pardon 2. That gross sins are Pardonable 3. A word to the consideration of the persons whose sins are pardonable 1. The smallest of sins needs a pardon we are not as Papists would charge us Stoicks who affect a parity and equality of all sins we grant there are different degrees of sins and different degrees of punishment A beating with many stripes and a beating with few stripes Luke 12.47 48. But yet when we assert this difference we dare not with them assert venial sins that deserves not everlasting Wrath without repentance and fleeing to Christ for refuge sure the Apostle tells us Rom 6.23 The wages of sin is death What death look to the opposition and it will clear it but the gift of God is eternal life if the Gift of God be eternal life the wages of sin must be eternal death that he sayes it of sin indefinitly it 's equivalent to an universal the wages of sin is death so that they must take away the nature of sin from these sins they call Venial or grant the wages thereof is death and likewise Mat. 12.36 Christ tells that Every idle word that men speak they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgment And an idle word might seem a small sin well then if the smallest sin needs a pardon look that we do not practically make a distinction of mortal and venial sins even gross men if they fall into gross out-breakings it will affect them somewhat when they do not heed their ordinary escapes Godly persons also are culpable here a scandalous sin will affect them and so it should but how little are they affected with wanderings of mind in holy duties idle words and thoughts habitual distance from God and is not that a practical distinguishing of sin It is true none can in repentance distinctly overtake all their failings for Psal 19.12 Who can understand his errors Yet we ought to do what we can to overtake them and if we cannot overtake them be at Gods Foot-stool with them mourning over them in the bulk But 2. as the smallest of sins needs a pardon so the â—rossest of sins are pardonable in the due order There is forgivenness with him for iniquities as in the Text and Isai 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will aboundantly pardon He will pardon greatest sins in their nature and kind and hence David saith Psal 25.11 Pardon mine iniquity for it is great And Isai 1.18 The Lord sayes Come now and let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool And these great sins are pardonable in the due order whether they be done in ignorance as Paul's persecution was 1 Tim. 1.13 I was a blasphemer a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief Or whether they be committed through the power of temptation even against light as Peter's threefold denyal of his Master was yet not being malicious it 's pardoned Again as great sins for nature and kind are pardonable so great sins for the multitude and number of them when they are like a cloud and a thick cloud he will blot them out Isai 44.22 I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and sins And that word Isai 55.7 He will aboundantly pardon In the original it is he will multiply to pardon one and moe a multitude of them and Psal 40.11 12. David pleads for mercy for innumerable evils for iniquities that are moe than the hairs of his head And as God pardons great sins for kind and many for number so frequent relapsing in these sins which I may speak to afterward Jer. 3.1 She that hath played the harlot with many lovers is allowed to return And he that bade Peter Mat. 18.22 Forgive his brother not only seven but seventy times will much more do so to his penitent People renewing their repentance But when I say he will pardon great sins I would have it well applyed It is not to embolden any body to sin thou that so improves this Doctrine does turn the grace of God into wantonness and thou that ventures on sin because God is merciful to pardon great and many sins and thinks thou may take a whelps fill of sin and then go and repent and get mercy the woful shift that many follow O! remember that Repentance is not in thine own hand nay I will say more thou bears a sad evidence of one that will never get the grace to Repent but that abuse of this doctrine being laid aside ye shall while I am upon the explication of this great Article of Faith take a word or two of Inference in the by And 1. It may be great encouragement to sensible sinners thou who art sensible of thy sins thy Dyvour-bill of great and many sins if thou come
make us say with that wicked King 2 King 6.33 This evil is of the Lord why should I wait on the Lord any longer And readily the man that will not wait on God hath that which he had with it v. 31. God do so to me and more also if the head of Eâ—â—sha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day The godly man resolves to be like the infirm man at the Pool Joh. 5.57 There will he lyâ— were it never so long till the water be troubled and some put him in or till Christ by his immediat hand cure him This was the Psalmists way here after he is put to cry out of the deeps and to wrestle with guilt meeting him in the teeth and to cry for pardoning mercie and no relief appears he resolves during the delay to wait on God I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope My soul waits for the Lord more c. And Psal 62. after he hath said Truly my soul waiteth on God from him comes my salvation v. 1. he presseth it over again v. 5. O my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him he will wait and better wait and continue in waiting Now the prosecution of this would lead me to the particulars in the Text wherein these four or five things are clear 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more c. These are the particulars in the Text in the prosecution whereof we may have sundry things for laying open this exercise of waiting on God I shall now speak a few words and close I shall not touch on this that duty is ours and event is Gods a man having done his duty may if he could win up to the use of his allowance sleep very sound under cross events but it is our unhappy temper that we would still be at the Throne and have the guiding of things we are like the ill Scholar that 's busier at his neighbours Lesson than his own But to pass this consider four short words and I have done 1. Waiâ—ing on God is a blest mean appointed of God in order to an out-gate out of all difficulties Isai 30.18 Blest are all they that wait on him A man by waiting on God and brooking delays with faith patience affection and submission may find an out gate without a delivery 2. Waiting on God in the case of delays and persevering in waiting is commendable on this account that we can do no where else so well as to ly still at his door a man that wearies to wait on God would look what he will do next ere he give it over When Christ ask'd Peter Will ye also leave me He answers To whom shall we go We had need to seek a better Master ere we quite thee and that we cannot find thou hast the words of eternal life What will a man do next if he wait not on God David is fasht with waiting and dependence and he will go down to the Land of the Philistines and the History tells what befell him there he is forced to lie he is likely to be brought in a snare by fighting against the people of God and his interest and in Ziglag in hazard of being destroyed by the Amalekites a man may well get an ill Conscience by apostacy and declining he is never a step nearer delivery so that go the world as it will waiting on God is the best of it And 3. When we weary of waiting on God because of outward dispensations we bewray too much affection to the things of time thou art in a difficulty thou wearies because of the calamity that lies on and thou gets not an out-gate but it were better for thee to mourn over thy inordinat affection to the things of time that makes thee weary and that would make way for thy out-gate and lighten thy burden 4. Remember that even a delivery from any difficulty out of Gods way without waiting on God is a plague When a man comes not under a signal plague till he come under this that as the word is Mal. 3.15 he tempts God and is delivered And therefore rather abhor such an issue that is a plague than lust after it SERMON XXI Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and c. IN these words as ye heard the last day is contained the 3d Branch of the Psalmists exercise after that he hath wrestled with difficulties by crying to God out of the depths and wrestled with the conscience of guilt by taking with it and fleeing to pardoning mercy on right terms he is put now to wrestle with delays of comfort and an out-gate and this he wrestles with by confident affectionat meek and patient waiting on God I spoke to the general Doctrine of this Verse The task of perseverance and constancy in the way of God and followed it out a little in opposition to apostacy and back-sliding and more particularly to these brashy hot fits that folk have at some times which are followed with as great cools and in opposition to delays or wearying and sitting up from employing God when folks meet with delays which is in the Text which ye may remember I divided in these five 1. The Psalmists exercise I wait 2. The object of his exercise of waiting I wait for the Lord. 3. His affection in waiting My soul doth wait 4. His support in his waiting My soul doth wait and in his word do I hope 5. The great measure of his affection in waiting My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning For the first of these that he is waiting this if I should follow forth in all that might be said of it I should take in that Confidence and affection the Psalmist hath in waiting which will occur in their proper places to be spoken to when I proceed in the words of the Text here I shall pass not only a general of the Psalmists reflecting on what he hath been doing and his giving an account of it which I purpose to take in afterward but I shall handle waiting on God here only in these two 1. Somewhat Supposed That he is put to wait 2. Somewhat proposed That when he is put to wait he doth wait For the first somewhat supposed that he is put to wait which affords us this Observation that the Saints even in their serious and sincere seeking of God in difficulties may be exercised with delays of comfort and an out-gate when a godly man is here crying
on and not be hasty under delays I shall offer four considerations to perswade you to it And the 1. which relates to what I spoke before of Faith is that ye would remember that delayed success is not denyed success so long as the Word speaks good news That the needy shall not always be forgotten that the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever Psal 9.18 There is no cause why our hearts should envy sinners but that our hearts should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long For surely there is an end and our expectation shall not be cut off Prov. 23.17 So long as the Word speaks thus we are to bless our selves in it that delayed success is not denyed success and that therefore all that God hath promised were it never so long betwixt the promise and the performance will certainly come to pass as is marked in the Book of Joshua 23.14 That of all the good things which the Lord had promised to that people and many a time there seemed to be an utter impossibility of the performance of it not one thing had failed but all did come to pass A man that hath good things laid up for him in the Scripture though he be put to wait for them he needs not make a cheap Market of them they will be found forth-coming to him And Isai 60 22. The Lord will hasten it in his time which is alway the best time the Lord will afford mercy and grace to help not when we will but in the time of need Heb 4. ult He will make out his mercies in the time when they will be found double mercies for their seasonableness Psal 94.18 When I said My foot slippeth thy mercy O Lord held me up And as he will thus in due time make out all that he hath promised so in the mean time he will not deny support to them that wait on him it may be he let temptations such as are common to men ly on But 1 Cor. 10.13 He is faithful and will not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able to bear but will with the temptation make a way to escape that they may be able to bear it It may be when they are crying for a good account of a messenger of Satan sent to buffet them that he remove it not but he will make out that My grace is sufficient for you my strength is made perfect in weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 That then is one Consideration to perswade you to waâ—t on That delayed success is not denyed success 2. This may press and perswade to on-waiting that if we be doing our duty we may very safely trust the love and wisdom of God with the time of doing us good There are three things which I have had occasion sometimes to hint at to you that I shall now resume in reference to this We may and ought to wait 1. Because God never comes out of time look things never so desperat-like to make up all that was looked for men may come out of season but God never comes out of season although it were come to that that there were nothing but dry bones in a Valley he can make these dry bones to live Ezek 37. Although there were no Witnesses left And O but it 's sad to see a decay of a faithful Ministry and few laying it to heart many going off the Stage and few coming in their room though they were killed after three days and an half they shall rise again and ascend up to Heaven in a Cloud and their enemies shall behold them Rev. 11.11 When thou hast said thy strength and thy hope is perished from the Lord it is as easie for him to make all things well as when thou hast all probabilities that things shall be well 2. We may safely remit the proofs of Gods love to himself if we consider he never delays so long but we may be getting good of delays It 's true thou may be ready to tyre fag and weary and look on thy continued trial as a lot thou wilt get no good of and thereupon turn idle or ly down and die but the longest trial if improven shall yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 If we were thrifty we might be getting good of every moments delay 3. We may and ought to wait and submit to the wisdom and love of God and trust him for good under our delays on this account that he never delays so long but he is able to give a satisfactory account of his delays Thou wilt say Why doth he delay so long from comâ—ng to comfort or give an out-gate But he can convince thee with satisfying reasons that his delays were needful When as it is Hab. 2.3 sense says The vision tarries he can make thy faith say Tarry for it because it will surely come and not tarry he can make thy self say he doth not tarry even when thy sense says he doth tarry This for the second Consideration for perswading you to wait on God under delays and not to be hasty 3. A third Consideration to perswade to waiting in opposition to making haste is That they that are sweet to wait would look if they be busie at work and at the work they are called to This is a needful diversion which I would offer to such folk were they busie in making use of long and feeding storms they would make less dinn in waiting for an issue of them but they would be ready to say rather Alas let him tarry never so long he will come ere I be ready for him ere I have reaped the blessed fruit of the dispensations of his providence that I am under And therefore a wearier and a hasty person under delays doth proclaim that he is an idle person not about his work for not only as ye know work is a mean to take away langour but in particular the thrifty improvement of a hard lot would make folk wonder that God should come to them at all 4. To perswade you to wait and that ye would not be hasty if none of the former Considerations will press you to it remember the Soveraignty of God and that ye are his Creatures when thou wearies to wait consider what thou art a bit of nothing a dependent bit of beeing to be made or not made formed or marred at his pleasure if he hath given thee a back why may he not lay on a burden and continue it on so long as pleases him Wherefore serves thy beeing in the world but to be at his disposing and to be what seems good to him This Argument prevailed with Job that was put otherways to it than any of us he was stripped in an instant of all that he had and sitting down on the dust he says Chap. 1.21 Naked came I out of the womb and naked shall I return God gave and God hath taken blessed be the Name
reference to his misery The next Letter is Gracious to intimate that God having lookt on miserable man as the objeâ—â— of his compassion because it might be objected God hath great compassion but what deserves miserable man He hath nothing to commend him yea he hath much to discommend him It is answered God is not only merciful to compassionat miserable man but he is gracious to notice him and compassionat him freely without merit and contrary to demerit Then he is Long suffering c. Now in reference to this mercy of God there are three things I intend to touch on before I come to the use 1. To open up the nature of this mercy 2. To speak a little of the object of it And 3. to the properties of it In speaking to the first I shall wave all School speculations anent it as whether mercy and punitive justice be essential to God and on what account they can be called essential Attributes seing mercy presupposes man miserable which is one of the Socinian foundations to overthrow the satisfaction of Christ but that might be easily cleared by adding a word to what hath been already said That mercy in God is nothing but the goodness of God with relation to the object to which it is communicat and punitive justice is nothing else but that essential Attribute of his holiness vindicating and avenging himself on a sinner the object of his justice and if we consider the mercy and justice of God thus we will find it no difficulty to rank them among the essential Attributes of God yea that it is blasphemy to deny them to be such I thought to have cleared to you how that mercy is no passion nor perturbation in God as it is in man though it be for our encouragment to hope in him exprest in most pathetick terms as also to have cleared That the Earth â—s full of his Mercy and Goodness Psal 33.5 All creatures share in it yet there are vessels of mercy afore pre-prepared to glory Rom. 9.23 That are objects of his especial mercy and to have spoken to its properties how it is real and not complementing How he delights in mercy Mic. 7.18 How it is free eternal sure and rich for all necessities But for want of time I forbear and recommend you and what ye have heard to His blessing whose word it is SERMON XXXIX Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THough when a look is taken of God's Israel none are more low and empty in themselves none that claim greater acquaintance with the dust than they are enabled to do yet none have such ample ground of encouragement as they if they be Israel thogh they be in misery and under bondage and particularly oppressed with and under the bondage of sin yet Israel is still allowed and commanded to hope in God and that because Israel's wealth and happiness and the ground of his encouragement is without himself Though he be poor and needy yet the Lord thinks on him though he have nothing in God he possesseth all things Though his house be not so with God yet his salvation and desire lies in this That God hath made with him an everlasting covenant well ordered in all things and sure And in a word have what he will or be what he will in himself yet he may hope in God considering what is with God Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord c. I have spoken from this argument pressing hope in God to what is imported in it as to the hopers condition that he is indigent and miserable in himself needing to look for mercy in God that he is in bondage needing to look for plenteous redemption with God and particularly that he is under the bondage of iniquity which puts him to look for a particular redemption from that from him that redeems Israel from all his iniquities And the last day I came to break in on what is proposed in the words for Israel's encouragement to hope in God The first Observation of four which I could scarce break in on was That it is the great encouragement of God's people to hope in him in all exigents and cases that there is mercy with God that they have to do with a God with whom there is mercy This mercy as I then cleared is nothing else but the goodness of God and consequently an essential attribute relating to the misery of the object to which it is communicat even as his punitive Justice is an essential Attribute being nothing else but his Holiness manifesting it self against sin for as the goodness of God undergoes various notions on divers accounts as was said so it hath the name of mercy with relation to the misery of man In prosecuting of this I proponed to speak 1. more generally to the nature of this mercy 2. To the Object To the Properties And 4. Of the use of the whole For the first the nature of this Mercy 1. It must be fixed that this mercy is free of all passion or perturbation in God When we consider God as merciful we must not conceive of him as of one subject to the passions of grief or sorrow for the misery of others as mercy in man is to be considered and therefore mercy in men used to be condemned by the Stoicks as being in their opinion a debasing of the spirit of man below the hight and greatness that it ought to have and it is reported of Agesilaus King of Sparta that he said it was difficult for a man both to be merciful and wise at once because if he were merciful it would be ready to transport him to that which was not suitable to a wise man but we have nothing to do with that debate here Mercy in God is free of passion or perturbation of sorrow or grief for others misery as it is in creatures it is only the goodness of God willing to remove allay or sweeten the misery of others only though God in his mercy be free of passion or perturbation yet he sweetens allays or removes the misery of man as tenderly and carefully as if he were affected with it Therefore for our capacity and better uptaking of it the mercy of God is spoken of as very passionat affecting and transporting in him as Isai 63.9 He is spoken of as being afflicted in all the afflictions of his people Zech. 2.8 as being touched on the apple of his eye when they are touched Jud. 10.16 as having his soul grieved or shortned in his resolution to punish when he looked on his peoples misery And Hos 11.8 As being put to a very great perplexity about them How shall I give thee up Ephraim How shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim my heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together All which terms are borrowed to shew that however God in shewing mercy be free of
hopelesness in thy condition runs away from God take heed what thou dost thou looks on thy case as incurable and what will thou do with it If thou run away where will thou go next Thy case must either break thee or thou will grow stupid under it and besides if thou run away thou reproaches the mercy of God so far as thou can while thou runs from him with any condition how desperat and irrecoverable so ever and will thou bring up an ill report on his mercy as if there were no cure in it for thy case When thou should rather sing as David Psal 13.5 In opposition to every hopeless like case But I have trusted in thy mercy my heart shall rejoyce in thy salvation O then take heed that thou reproach not nor bring not up an ill report on this rich full mercy in God by running from it whatever thy condition be 3. Come here all ye that are making mercy your refuge under all your pressures miseries troubles temptations desertion or whatever ail you that know no other door to knock at but mercy in God ye have no song but that one which David had Psal 13. before cited and that I can never often enough repeat though God seem to forget him for ever and hide his face for ever from him though when he takes counsel in his soul he hath sorrow in his heart daily though his enemies had exalted themselves and said they had prevailed over him and reâ—oyced and the sleep of death seems to approach he hath nothing to all that But I have trusted in thy mercy Take a look how richly thou art made up that trusts in this mercy Remember the song that follows in that Psalm â—nd thou will not find it an heartless shift My heart says â—e shall rejoice in thy salvation I will sing to the Lord because â—e hath dealt bountifully with me And the Psalmist sings Psal 31.7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy Why For thou hast considered my trouble thou hast known my soul in adversity I got acquaintance with thee in adversity which otherwise I had not been capable of therefore I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy and consider that sweet song Psal 136.23 Who remembred us in our low estate Why for his mercy endureth for ever or as Hezekiah hath it Isai 38.27 He loved my soul from the pit of corruption That is the word in the Original His love and mercy have an Adamantine vertue to draw a soul out of the pit of corruption when he remembers us in our low estate consider thou that hast made mercy thy refuge how sweetly it can kep a deep distress Psal 69.15 Let not the water flood overflow me hear me O Lord for thy loving kindness is good turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies And Psal 86.14 O God the proud are risen up against me and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul but thou O Lord art a God full of compassion gracious long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth O turn unto me and have mercy on me Consider what a good account of very hopeless tryals mercy will give Jam. 5.11 Ye have heard of Jobs patience and have seen the end of the Lord and what was the end of the Lord even this That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy O but they are sad difficulties which tender mercy and pity in God will not afford relief unto and therefore think not your self in a poor plight who have mercy for your refuge who have no song to sing But I have trusted c. 4. When ye have closed with and are made up by this mercy look how ye improve it and do not abuse it I confess the want of the faith of mercy in a strait is an estranging thing Zech. 11.8 My soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me but when thou grips to mercy see what influence it hath on thy heart for warming it for putting it in a sweet and tender frame on thy part may I say it I defie folk to abuse mercy taken by the right handle O the alluring melting constraining perswading power that is in mercy rightly closed with and O that folk could win to this gate of making use of mercy Rom. 11.1 The Apostle in pressing holiness saith I beseech you brethren by the mercy of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice c. And I may allude to that Phil. 2.1 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfil ye my joy If folk knew what overcoming mercy means they would let it be seen in a tender walk Thou talks of mercy yet thou art not overcome with it thou art not melted nor made more tender by it what a cheater of thy self and abuser of mercy art thou Remember the abuse of outward mercies will make a sad dittay Ezra 9. If after all these we break his commands But ah what shall be said when folk pretend to special mercy and abuse it But 5. Among other Uses that ought to be made of believed and closed with mercy this is one That we learn to be merciful Luke 6.36 We must be merciful as is our heavenly Father even in loving enemies c. Ye heard in the morning from Mat. 5.7 That it is the merciful that obtain mercy And that Parable of the man that had much forgiven him and would not forgive his fellow servant but cast him in prison Mat. 18.23 It was a sad evidence that he was not pardoned himself In a word thou who art much in mercies common it will make thee of a merciful meek temper which is that pressed Tit. 3.2 That we should speak evil of no man be no brawlers c. but gentle shewing meekness to all men seeing we our selves were sometime disobedient deceived serving divers lusts But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost A boisterous malitious unmerciful temper in any is but a poor Evidence that such live under the drop of the multitude of the tender mercies that are with God But the time being ended I leave this great Point and you to the rich blessing of this merciful God To whom be glory SERMON XLI Psalm 130. Verse 7 For with the Lord there is mercy THe Songs of the people of God while they are within time are made up of very mixed Notes yet in this they are sweet that their over-word or last word is still the best of it Poor and needy are they and may they be yet they are thought upon by God Troubled they may be but not distrest perplext but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but
on stroaks from which folks will not easily come to be delivered O how oft may we write that over ill improved pressures which ye have Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkened to me and Israel had walked in my ways I would soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries And Isai 48.18 O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandment then had thy peace been as a river c. It must be otherwayes with pressed saints than it is with others It is a sin and a shame that so many ruines are under saints hands not improved but a double sin shame that they should increase under their hand and an evidence they have not been improved But a 3d word most directly from what I have spoken on this branch is this That if every delivery be a redemption and enlargement Then it calls the people of God to be comforted and enlarged under every mercy and proof of love how mean soever it be The Lord who calls men in the day of adversity to consider calls them in the day of prosperity to be comforted and joyful in any measure of redemption that they meet with Eccl. 7.14 And it 's marked by Nehemiah and others when God had brought Israel into the land of Canaan and gave them abundance of good things they delighted themselves in his great goodness Neh. 9.25 a practice very rare among God's people proofs of love particular redemption trists them which calls them to rejoyce in God and his goodness and yet they are where they were when they got them their mercies are little seen upon them by any enlargements given them and what wonder therefore that mercies be withholden from them who cannot be worse with the want of them than when they have them they droop when they have and they droop when they want the having of them is no enlargement to them and this they mourn not for as a sin they are better at picking quarrels at them than at being thankful for them which speaks a proud unsubdued selfie disposition I shall not stand to discuss the shifts and pretexts that folks make use of in their byasses in setting no value on Redemptions bestowed on them many a time their own spirit is a spirit of bondage when God allows on them a spirit of liberty It is not the want of allowances from God but the want of enlargement of heart a slavish servil disposition that makes a spirit of bondage when it is not Gods allowance Sometime they pretend the smalness of the mercy to undervalue it when they rather proclaim the want of humility in themselves The humbled Church Lam. 3.22 Under many pressures sees That it is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed if our mercies be compared with our lustings or deservings they will be great and admirable mercies And sometimes the cloud of continued pressures hides the sight of partial Redemptions but certainly every evidence of mercy remembred in wrath is a redemption and should be delighted in and our heart should be enlarged in receiving it as such in a word it is an evidence of a blest disposition when whatever be folks lots they love not to cast out with God they love not to fish faults with his Providence to miscal a mean mercy how insignificant soever it be to their sense and when they are content to pick up their mercies amongst the crouds of their crosses that these shall not tempt them not to be comforted in the meanest mercy and who knows but such a frame if it were studied might prove a door of hope to the increase and growth of favours they that delight to commend mercies shall find them grow Now I have done with the accounts on which deliveries are called Redemptions In the third place it remains that I should speak a little to the plentifulness of these redemptions With him there is plenteous redemption Ye heard the last day when I was speaking of the mercy of God That God is full of compassion and plenteous in mercy Psal 86.5 15. That he has manifold mercies Neh. 9.19 and that he is abundant in goodness Exod. 34.6 Here He is plenteous in redemption and this hath relation to these two 1. To the variety of the pressures the saints may be assaulted with for plenteous redemption speaks plentiful pressures 2. To the recurring of these pressures that when folk are brought out of them they fall in them again through their own folly There is plenteous redemption with God in relation to both For the first The variety of pressures wherewith saints may be assaulted There is somewhat 1. Supposed here That not only the Israel of God may have pressures but a variety a great many of them Hence Eliphaz Job 5.19 Supposing Job a penitent says God should deliver him in six troubles and in seven a number of perfection 2 Cor. 4.8 The Apostle says we are troubled on every side and Ch. 6.7 He tells There is need of the armour of righteousness both on the right and left hand there is no hand we can turn us to would he say but there is need of armour Chap. 7.5 Troubled on every side without are fightings and within were fears and in a word the Church tells us Lam. 2.22 That God had called as in a solemn day her terrors round about her in the day of Gods anger no pressure was wanting and there was a convention of them 1. Hence from this that variety of pressures are the lot of the people of God it doth on the one hand point out that they are ill to tame ill to hold like a wild ass snuffing up the wind it is not easie sisting them except they be hedged in on all hands hard wedges tells there are hard stone or timber to be divided and they who have many pressures may sit down and lament over their dispositions that less would not do their turn many might steal more quietly in to heaven were it not for their dispositions that are so wild and ill to be tamed Though yet I shall add the more pressures thou hast if thou could improve them well thou has the more doors open for mercy and occasions to get meat out of the eater 2. From it I would have many folks learning to silence their murmuring and complaining many have learned a gad of crying ere they be toucht there be many who though there be pressures be such as many of the people of God would count an outgate yet there is no biding of their complaining O! what would many of you do if ye were put in Job's case who in one day was stript of all that he had and the next day of his health and quietness of mind and yet he was born through it is a great evidence of mortification to be enabled to bear pressures well to make little din of grievances much din and crying under them tells there are many boyls to be let out and many
two of which I have spoken to in the Forenoon to wit that which is supponed here that God is a marker of iniquity and what it imports And secondly that which is proposed on this supposition That if God should mark iniquity as was explained men even the most godly men could not stand where somewhat was said to the importance of that Phrase Now I proceed in Explication of the Point from the Text for to that I confine my self in other four particulars The first and third in order shall be this That this assertion that men cannot stand before God marking iniquity is of infallible verity a most certain and infallible truth it is not a Bug-Bear to afright Children but the infallible truth of God This is hinted at in the Text partly in the Psalmist his proposing the matter to God If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord who shall stand He proposes it to God who knows this matter better than any other and who is Supream Judge in the matter without whose determination a Decreet in our own favours will signifie nothing at all it imports O Lord let men dream what they will of their standing thou knowest that none can stand if thou shalt mark iniquity to punish it and particularly the infallible verity of this assertion may be gathered from the way of proposing it and that is by way of Question Who shall stand Which Question is a very peremptory denyal of the thing questioned for so the like Question is resolved Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one Yea the proposing of it by way of Question Who shall stand Doth import a defyance to any to attempt it or to succeed in their attempt and indignation at the presumption of any that should dream of standing before God marking iniquity But in the fourth place as this assertion is of infallible verity so it is of universal verity This is held out in the Question for the Question is Who shall stand That is as the parallel Question is answered Job 14.4 None at all good or bad If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity none should stand for the Psalmist here a godly man is taking in himself with others as a man that could not stand himself without pardon And so the Phrase is Psal 143.2 Enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified The best of men that are come of Adam by ordinary generation shall not be justified if thou mark iniquity Hence in Scripture it is clear that Saintship consists not in sinlessness but in sincerity for for Original guilt in that Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean Not one and for a mans endeavours after he is brought in to God and is wrestling with corruptions to have these purged out says Solomon Prov. 20.9 Who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin Eccles 7.20 There is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not but as it is Jam. 3.2 In many things we offend all Thus ye see that Saintship doth not consist in sinlessness but in sincerity neither doth Saintship consist in the Saints their sins not deserving condemnation or in their being able to stand though they have sinned but in their sins being pardoned hence ye will find them sadly exercised in wrestling under the burden of guilt upon their gross out-breakings as David Psal 51. ye have them praying for the pardon of great iniquity Psal 25.11 For thy Names sake pardon mine iniquity for it is great Ye have them pleading for mercy upon the account of innumerable evils compassing them and their iniquities take hold of them and being more than the hairs of their head Psal 40.11 12. And when they are delivered from gross out-breakings ye have them with Paul Rom. 7. groaning under a body of sin and death till they attain to a song of thanksgiving thorow Jesus so that not only doth the Text hold out the infallible verity of this truth but the universal verity of it that if God mark iniquity none can stand The 5th thing I gather from the Text is that the infallible and universal verity of this assertion that if God mark iniquity none can stand might be gathered and closed with if men were eying God much this I gather from the Text where the Psalmist repeats the Name of God twice If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity And then again O Lord who c. Wherefore is this twice repeated in this assertion Certainly not by way of idle repetition condemned Mat. 7.21 in many that say Lord Lord nor meerly because the Psalmist is affected with that which he is speaking of for so the expression of affections or mens being affected with a thing is expressed by a doubled Exclamation which may come in in the own place when I speak of the pardon of sin but here it is to make this truth out that serious and frequent repeated thoughts of God is a mean to give folk a right sense of the desert of sin And to make out this consider partly that when we seriously think of God we know that he is Omniscient to find out that which is hid from the world Omniscient to find them guilty that are innocent to others Omniscient to know more of us than we know of our selves A consideration that John would have us marking 1 Joh. 3.20 If our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things If we know so much naughtiness of our selves by our selves what must God know who knoweth all things And Paul makes use of this consideration 1 Cor. 4.4 I know nothing by my self to wit in the administration of his Office yet I am not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Partly if we will consider what is imported in the Names of God here made use of by the Psalmist We will find it further clear the first Name JAH is a diminutive from JEHOVAH that imports a Supream Independent Beeing The second name ADONAI signifies his Dominion and Lordship Ponder these well and what a dreadful sight will it afford of the unspeakable desert of sin A sinner in sinning rebels against a Supream Beeing from whom he hath his beeing This is made a great aggravation of sin to Belteshazzar the greatest Monarch on earth Dan. 5.23 Thou hast lifted up thy self against the Lord of heaven the God in whose hands thy breath is thou hast renounced thy dependence on him from whom thou hast thy beeing Sin is also the casting off of the Yoke of his Dominion and Lordship it says upon the matter that which ye have asserted of wicked men Psal 12.4 They say with our tongues we will prevail our lips are our own who is Lord over us That 's the Language of every sinner in sinning and not only doth the sinner by sinning cast off the yoke of God's Dominion but he
by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and by the Prophets even the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe without difference That there should be a righteousness by the faith of Christ closing with him for pardon O! what a wonder is that and how good news should that be to sinners how should it quicken up and revive any that are ready to sink under the burden of the sense of sin That when they look upon a holy and just God that hates sin with a perfect hatred they may also look upon him as one who will pardon That when they look to the Law and Covenant of Works their expectations are to be limited thereby because there is a Righteousness without the Law manifested to be had by Faith in Christ 3. But because sensible souls may readily think how can this be And may be afraid to lean their weight on a Pardon they have so much Guilt and the Conscience iâ— alarmed with it and pardoning mercy is an Act of free Grace whereupon they know not that they may venture Therefore to enforce this that God is a pardoner of Iniquity I shall not anticipat what may come to be spoken to this afterwards but the sensible Sinner would consider 1. That the pardon of Sin is an Act of Royal Prerogative in free Grace It 's an act of Princes Royal Prerogative to pardon Criminals in many cases and shall we deny that to God which we give to Creatures Seing He is above all Law who can hinder him to have Mercy on whom he will have mercy to do with his own what he will and pardon whom he will Salvation belongs to him as his Prerogative Royal. 2. Sensible sinners would consider that satisfaction is payed to Justice for their Sins though he freely pardons which will come in afterward only here such would remember that thoughts of the Holiness and Justice of God needs not afright the sensible Sinner why Justice is fully satisfied That fire that brunt continually on the Altar and was not quenched by these Sacrifices under the Law is now quenched the burning fire of the Justice of God is now satisfied and hence God in pardoning sins is not only Merciful but Just therefore Rom. 3.26 Upon Christ the Redeemer his being set forth as the propitiation through Faith in his Blood it follows to declare his Righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus without reflection upon his Justice and hence the Apostle 1 Joh. 1.9 says If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness not only upon the account of his fidelity that he will keep his promise but upon the account of the Paction past betwixt him and the Mediator and upon the account of the Satisfaction and Price payed by the Mediator upon that account he is faithful and just to pardon sin And hence 3ly Things being thus when sensible sinners come to Christ or to God through him for pardon and yet are filled with doubts and fears they would conclude that there hesitation results not on the uncertainty of their pardon for the holy and just God will not break bargain with his Son but partly it results on our ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace we know no Righteousness by the Covenant of Works but that which is inherent and the Ignorance of that Righteousness which is by the Covenant of Grace is the groâ—â—â—d of our hesitation and of many doubts and fears partly it results on a proud competition whether thy abounding sin or his superabounding grace should carry it Rom. 5.20 Where sin abounded grace did much more super-abound and therefore thou that comes to Christ for pardon and yet will not settle upon it thou would say upon the matter that thy abounding sin should carry it not his Super-abounding Grace So much for the second head proposed to be spoken to concerning the Author of Pardon The 3d. Thing I proposed to be spoken to was anent the nature of the pardon of Sin what this pardon of Sin Imports or Is And this when I have spoken to it at this time will give the rise to several other Questions which will come in in their own place and may be useful for you I shall not detain you upon the signification and importance of these Words and Phrases that expresses pardon in Scripture that may come in afterward that word Mat. 6.12 Forgive us our Debts signifies the dismissing of one accused and a loosing of one bound for Debt both concurr here as sins are a Debt they are forgiven and they are a Bond tying the Conscience to answer at the Tribunal of God they are remitted and loosed and considering sins as accusations as they that are in a Court accused a pardon remitts assollzies them So the pardoned man may say as Rom 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect it is God that Justifies c. The word rendered pardon or forgivenness Col. 2.13 Having forgiven you all trespasses hints at the freedom of the grace of God in pardoning of Sin It 's the Publicans Word Luk. 18.13 God God be merciful to me a sinner the word in the Original expresses pardon with an eye to the propitiation Pauls word also I obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1.13 which also is a word made use of in the new Testament or Covenant Heb 8.12 Intimats the yearning of the bowels of God relative to the miserable state of the pardoned sinner expressed in pardoning That word Psal 32.2 Rom. 4.8 not imputing of sin or iniquitie is borrowed from Merchants that in casting up accompts pass some Debts And that word Psal 32.1 Of covering sin imports that as sin is a loathsome thing so the pardoning of Sin takes sin out of the sight of Gods vindictive Justice Now all these expressions put together might give some general hint what pardon of sin is when God out of his free grace out of the yearning bowels of his mercy compassion accepts of the propitiation made by Jesus Christ and upon that accompt remitts the sinners obligation to wrath by pardoning sin dismisses him from the accusation laid against him looses him of his Bonds puts his Debts out of his Books and covereth the loathsomness of his Sin But to follow out this a little more distinctly what this pardon is I shall take up both negatively what it is not and then positively what it is For an error here is an error in the first digestion or concoction that will not be gotten well helped in the second For the first of these negatively what the pardon of sin is not and for clearing of this
Holiness and Jealousie of God that he will not be affronted in the matter of his service and worship it calls for Fear and reverence it is a strong Argument used by the Apostle to press us to serve God with Reverence and with Godly Fear Heb. 12.29 For our God says he is a consuming fire and that which Moses said to Aaron when his two Sons were slain burnt up with fire which went out from the Lord for offering strange fire before him This is the thing which the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come near me and before all the people I will be glorified I will either be honoured by them or I will be honoured upon them that draw near me and take my Name in vain Well then have ye any thing of this Fear of God will ye kythe it by your serving him Mal. 1.6 A son honoureth his father and a servant his master if he be a Father where is his honour and if a Master where is his fear stand ye in awe of God that do misken him all your time do ye fear him that never take a spare hour to pay homage to him that will not bow a knee to him But I shall add the service that ye pay to God I pray you look how it is ballast with fear that it turn not in presumption and if ye have need of an intimation of Mercy to correct your fear that it degener not in despondency Ye come to God's House to Worship him but how few of you when ye come here have said How dreadful is this place would ye have your Character take it from Jude verse 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselves without fear ye come before God ye join in the publick Exercises of Gods Worship but without any impression of the fear of God more than if all we did while we are together had no relation to him O be ashamed that the fear and awe of God doth so little ballast and season your service and worship But in the 2. place we come to take a look of this purpose with an eye to the Scope There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared says the Psalmist then the fear of God more tender walking being more frequent and serious in duty to God more reverence of his service it is the kindly product of a heart that hath on right terms closed with Christ in pardoning mercy a fear to offend God a reverential fear in his Worship and service And hence I shall lay these few particulars before you and close 1. Which is the main thing in the Scope come and try by this if ye have been closing a-right with pardoning mercy see what is the consequence of it and that will tell you Are ye closing with pardoning Mercy to make your boast of it that ye may sin on and sleep more securely That is all the Dream that some have in their head of God's goodness and mercy in pardoning sin to take in a new Swack but thou that does so turns the Grace of God unto lasciviousness and offers a contempt to pardoning Mercy which the Gracious God will not brook But O! here is the blessed Fruit of pardoning Mercy to be more tender in thy walk more afraid of sin more diligent in Duty the further God is pleased to put thee in his bosom the greater distance thou keeps with what may provock him the more freely he forgive thee the more thou delights to be active in his service find many Scriptures that gives an account of the overcoming goodness of God towards ingenuous Souls not only that Psal 85.8 He will speak peace to his people and to his saints but let them noâ—â—urn again to folly but that of Hos 3.5 The goodness of God the Object of their Faith makes them fear him and his goodness and that of David 2 Sam. 7.27 Who when he gets a promise of building him a House the kindness of God sets him on fire as it were and puts wings to his Prayer Thou O Lord of hosts God of Israel hast revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee and Hezekiah Isai 38 15. When the Lord had spoken of his delivery he will not wax wanton but he will walk softly all the fifteen years added unto his dayes in the bitterness of his soul and when the Lord falls in upon Ephraim with sweet converting Grace and turns him Jer. 31.19 after he is turned he repents after he is instructed he smites on his thigh he is ashamed yea even confounded because he hath born the reproach of his youth see to it ye that grip to pardoning Mercy and lay claim to it I am so far from envying you that I say the Lord say so too But O! let it be seen in your tenderness in your reverential fear and awe of God in the constraining power that the love of Christ hath on you if ye believe that he died for you will not his love constrain you to lâ—ve to him 2 Cor. 5.14 And ye that are tender will ye not be afraid that that kindness of God ye lay claim to is either a lie in your right hand that produces not somewhat like this or that ye are in a plagued condition that the goodness and kindness of God works not upon you 2. If pardoning Mercy be let out that God may be feared it puts me in capacity to answer the Cavillations of the profane they live in the contempt of holiness they have a prejudice at it they see no form nor beauty in it wherefore they should desire it What shall they get if they turn fearers of God They see no advantage by it but loss But shall I say to thee if thou looked rightly on it thou would be ashamed to owne any such Cavillation Piety has no enemy but an ignorant there is none that ever knew Piety that would give it the Character thou gives it if pardoning Mercy work up a love to holiness in men and make them to fear him thou that has a prejudice at holiness evidences that thou art not a partaker of it and why would thou tell all the World that thou knows not what this pardoning Mercy means thy contempt of holiness proclaims that all thy iniquities are bound upon thy back If ever thou had layen at Gods Foot stool and been lift up with pardoning Mercy saying to thee Son or daughter be of good chear thy sins are forgiven thee it would put an edge upon thee to pursue after holiness and therefore let me intreat you who are profane and entertain a prejudice at holiness not to publish your own shame and by your contempt of the fear of God and his service to declare ye are yet without the pardoning Mercy of God But from this ye shall take a 3. word If closing with
people of God that they do not forget prosperity and learn to have their desires spiritual and to make up the want of all things in God if they were spiritual in their desires whatever their difficulties were it would be all a matter to them if they got more of God if all their difficulties and wants did run in this channel to pursue for more of God to have him not to be their terror but their hope in an evil day Though they should want the Ordinances he should be a sanctuary to them Though men should curse What then It is all a matter if he bless Though they should be counted the off-scourings of all things contemned reproached no matter if their names be written in Heaven O spiritual desires would not only further an issue but be a present issue in all difficulties but hardly are the children of men out of one of three snares either they are mad on their Idols while they have them or they are mad for the loss of them when they want them or when they are restored to them they surfeit on them as Israel did on flesh in the Wilderness Therefore while their desires are not spiritual carried forth on God and heavenly things to make up the want of things earthly It 's no wonder their delivery be foreslowed of these things and will be forslovved till they cleanse their desires of vvhat they are so much vvedded to and cause lamenting over their buried Idols knovving it vvill be a plague to them to have them restored SERMON XXIV Psalm 130. Verse 5. I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope AS in handling the former tvvo Verses I had a great Gospel Truth and Priviledge among my hands so in the fifth sixth Verses there is a lively description of a great and concerning Gospel-duty patient affectionat and confident waiting for God The Duty that is a great Characteristick of a godly man vvho hath a Well vvithin him that neither Summers heat nor Winters frost can dry up but as it is Zech. 14.8 In summer and winter shall it be there and vvho must prove this by his being well breathed to vvait on God vvhen his Promises and Dispensations seem to clash one vvith another vvhen his Word gives one report of him and his dispensations a quit contrair When His Word calls him The hearer of Prayer and His Dispensations say That prayer is shut out and his anger smoaks against the prayers of his people When his vvord says he that hath promised to come will come and will not tarry and his dispensations say not only that he tarrieth but that he vvill never come Here is the vvell breathed Grace of Patience affectionat and confident expectation to believe to vvait on and not to make haste and to be keeped meek in vvaiting on I have spoken to tvvo Heads here from the Psalmist's exercise he is waiting and the Object of his vvaiting he is waiting for the Lord his eyes are taken off all other things and set on God for vvhat he vvould be at and in the faith of that he vvaits on God and keeps his vvay and vvhen any thing of that kind is not accomplished to the satisfaction of sense he waits for the Lord that more enjoyment of him may make up the vvant of these things Sad Dispensations spiritualize his desires It is not any good that vvill satisfie him but it is one thing to behold the beauty of the Lord to have the communion of God and to have the light of his Countenance Novv I proceed to the third thing in the Words That is his affection in vvaiting vvaiting is his exercise the Object of it is the Lord The manner of his vvaiting is affectionat my soul doth wait I do vvait affectionatly and what the measure of his affection in vvaiting is he resumes verse 6. My soul writs for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I shall here speak to tvvo Observations and for the ground of the first Mark That the Psalmist vvhile he professes to vvait he declares that he sets himself against all haste passion and fretfulness about vvhat he vvaited in opposition to these he waits for God But now he finds it necessary to guard against another extream it might be said ye wait and are not fretted with delays and why ye are indifferent for what ye wait for it is indifferent for you whether ye get or want it and therefore ye may wait inconcernedly without wearying No says he though I do wait my affection is not asleep in waiting my soul doth wait I have affection to that which I want yet I labour to have it I have a waiting affection to it with a submissive affection in waiting for it Hence observe 1. That as patient waiting for God is opposit to passion fretfulness bitterness and carnalness on the one hand so on the other it is opposite to dulness stupidity and carelesness about what we want Here the Psalmist professeth himself both a waiter that is not wearied nor cankered and yet he is a soul-waiter with his affection aloft for what he waits for This particular may lead me to take notice of a General to be observed in the way of God's people That is that a mixed condition is their best condition for here ye have a frame made up of Patience and Affection affection running out for that it would be at and patience clogging its wings that it run not out of breath We are full of Byasses and always ready to run on extreams without this mixture if a man have affection it is ready to pick quarrels at delays if he have somewhat of patience that patience is ready to fall asleep but these two make up a sweet frame I might here take notice of these advantages or advantageous mixtures both in the frame of the Saints and in their lots in their lots take them successively we will find odd mixtures in them a rapture to Heaven and a Messenger of Satan sent to buffet them on the back of it It was needful that that eminent servant of God in his exaltation should be keeped with arms of such a messenger and beside these successive mixtures we will find few lots of the saints but a mixture may be observed in them Psal 40.17 I am poor and needy yet thought upon by God 1 Cor. 12.10 When weak yet strong Isai 40.31 When faint yet made to run and not be weary and to walk and not be faint when laid-by men yet made-up men their foot slipping yet Gods mercy holding them up Psal 94.18 Troubled on every side yet not distressed perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed 1 Cor. 4.8 9. As unknown yet well known as dying yet living as chastned and not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoycing as poor yet making many rich as having nothing yet possessing all things 1 Cor. 6.9 These are
Duty recommended and that is Hope in the Lord. 3. I shall remark somewhat on the Recommender of this duty it is the Psalmist who had been trying Hope and had found the good of it 4. I shall add somewhat by way of reflection on these to whom this Duty is recommended Let Israel hope it is the Israel of God among whom as the word is Ezra 10.2 there is hope concerning cases and lots otherwayes hopeless and desperat 1. For what is implyed and is the general scope of this Exhortation I shall the Lord willing deduce these two from it 1. That the Psalmist is here delivered and is a victor or hath goten some good account of his former wrestling waiting for God and hoping in his word 2. That the good account he hath gotten he communicats his experience of it to the People of God 1. I say it is clear here that if the Psalmist has not been actually delivered from all his pressures yet he hath gotten so comfortable an account of his hoping in God that he dare from his experience recommend it to others to hope in him he bears witness of the great good to be reaped by hoping in God The Observation then is That there will be a blest account of all the exercises of the Saints and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word The Psalmist essayed it here and is able to give a good account of it This Point imports in the first place That real needy Saints have many errands to God they are never out of his mister and holden going to him which is a very enriching Trade though it be not always pleasing and satisfying to their flesh 2. It supposes this that as they have much ado with God so they are very earnest till they get a good account of what ever it be they are waiting for from him they are not such as can cry out of the depths and be indifferent whether they get a hearing fall asleep or turn stupid but their pressures ly so sore upon them that they cannot be laid by and worn out with time but they must have access and a good account of their suits And 3. As the point supposes these two so it proposeth that there will be a good account gotten of all their exercises and particularly of their waiting for God and hoping in his Word their exercises are not lost labour The Lord bids them open their mouth wide and he will fill it Psal 81.10 When he bids his people seek him he can appeal to malice it self to instruct if ever he bade them seek him in vain Isai 45.19 If he put poor Job to exercise patience he will make the world see the end of the Lord that he is very pitiful and of tender mercy Jam. 5.11 He hath made it out in the manifold experience of all his Saints that that song Psal 5.8 ult Was and is still abiding them verily there is a reward for the righteous a God that judges in the earth I might prove it further from the whole Book of Psalms wherein what ever sad exercise the Psalmist has been put unto in the beginning or progress of these Psalms for the most part they all close comfortably with some sweet word intimating an issue and victory And whereas ye find Heman Psal 88. Closing sadly yet ye will find him 1 Kings 4.30 Put in among these great wits and understanding persons in his time But leaving all these I shall give you these three words of Confirmation of this Observation And 1. I say they are all living that died in waiting on God and hoping in his word I dare not say that they were not affrighted or that they were not humbled but they are living that died in that way of waiting on him Gather all Believers together that have been from the beginning of the world ye will not find among them all a Saint that has perished in this attempt in waiting for God by Faith and Hope 2. Though the saints have been affrighted and humbled yet many a blest disappointment have exercised saints met with and will meet with of their fears and perplexing thoughts It is no strange thing to hear the waiting man say I am cut off and yet meeting with a blest beguile Ps 31.22 I said I am cut off from before thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication c. The answer of my prayers gave sense and suggestion the lie Nay it is no wonder that flesh tempted tempt the waiting man to say all men are liars So says the Psalmist Psal 116.11 But see and hear him verse 12. What shal I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me Behold a man casting the Bible and all the Promises at the one bout and at the next nonpluss'd with a burden of benefits and mercies 3. I shall say this that though exercised saints and waiters on God have essayed and may essay many means in vain as to any present success yet that proves not their case to be hopeless The Bride Cant. 3.1 2 3. Seeks her beloved on the bed in the streets and broad-ways and at the watch-men in all the means and finds him not yet when she went a little further she found him Though the waiter for God hath assayed all the means without sensible success he is not to tine hope for all that but to essay them again we may find that in the second essay which we found not in the first For Use If it be so then that there will be a blest account of all the exercises of Saints and particularly of their waiting for God I would enquire who they are among you 1. Who have any thing of this account to bring forth to God's commendation There may be a woful generation taking up that desperat Note that ye have Mal. 3.14 15. Who say it is in vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances and that we have walked mournfully c. And like these Isai 58.3 Who say Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not and wherefore have we afflicted our soul c. But hast thou any thing to say for God to refute that Can thou say It is good for me to draw near to God to wait upon him I have not sought him in vain let the song fall on whose side it will it shall not fall on my side I will keep it up to his commendation I will sing and say that his Name endures for ever I was brought low and he helped me I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears Psal 34.4 6. Blessed are they who have so good a report to bring upon God who can bear witness for him to shew that the Lord is upright He is their Rock and there is no unrighteousness in him Psal 92.15 But 2. Thou that hast not found this thou art waiting on God in the use of the means but
to neglect it If ye speak of Faith for personal reconciliation and the influence it hath on Duty 1 Joh. 3.23 This is the commandment that we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ if ye respect Faith as it is exercised about the various lots and times that pass over Gods people it is a commanded duty at all times Psal 62.8 Trust in him at all times there is no time wherein ye are dispensed with not to trust in him yea even these times wherein ye will need God for a refuge and if I might insist I would let you see how Faith is a commanded duty in the most desperat conditions and lots Ps 46.1 2 3. God is our refuge a very present help in time of trouble Therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains he carried into the midst of the sea c. The Believer in God thinks himself in a surer posture than the course of nature The World may turn upside down but the Believer is then sure having God for a refuge and a present help Hab. 3.17 Though the fig-tree do not blossom though no fruit be in the vine c. yet he finds warrand to believe I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation a fruit of Faith Many would have been ready to say What should I do believing if the tryal had come half that length but come what will come he finds ground to believe Luke 8. A man comes to Christ with his sick daughter and she is a dead daughter ere he come to the house and they say thy daughter is dead trouble not the Master But what says Christ verse 50. Fear not believe only Faith hath a warrand when trouble goes from sickness to death not to fear but only to believe David was tryed with formidable things as Psal 56. Yet that takes not away his warrand to believe Therefore verse 3. He says what time I am afraid I will trust in thee my fear shall feed my confidence and not drive me from it Look on him again as a man whose troubles and fears had confounded and run down yet he looks not on himself as a man that might quit Faith for all that Ps 61.2 When I am at the ends of the Earth says he when my heart is overwhelmed when I have perplexity like to make me swoun when I am surcharged and laid by with them yet from the ends of the Earth I will cry unto thee an act of Faith when my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the Rock that is higher than I my heart and my flesh failing shall not warrand me to cast away my confidence and the Acts resulting thereon and Job 3.5.14 Elihu says to Job Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him yet Judgment is before him Therefore trust thou in him and that was Abraham's practice who against hope believed in hope Rom. 4.18 when he could see no probability of the thing promisedâ— it is in that case in that Paroxism the Believer is to trust in God so ye see the Point is clear that Faith is the allowance of the Saints at all times in all conditions and Faith hath still a warrand to put forth it self to exercise The rich good will of God the immutability of God and his promise bottoms Faith in all times conditions it was a good word that David had when the sycophant Doeg came and told Saul of his coming to the house of Abimelech and flew fourscore five of the Priests Why boastest thou in mischief O mighty man the goodness of God endureth continually and seing it is so Faith hath continual ground to go upon For Use I would give you these three words from it The first shall be to represent this as a mercy 2. To press upon this ground constant believing and hoping in God as a duty And 3. To speak a word to them that are troubled because they cannot get this Command constantly obeyed 1. I wold represent this as a mercy that its thy duty to believe hope in God at all times though I fear I have but few to speak to on this score few would ever venture an hair of their head on Faith or on God if they could get any other fend so long as they could have any sinful shift ouâ— of hell I had almost said in hell it is to no purpose to speak to them of Faith But are there any of you sensible of the ill of Unbelief that when ye would sit down and take a lift of your self or of your condition or of anything that is dear to you your unbelief and discouragement is like to break you the discouragement of some through the prevailing power of Unbelief is so great that they turn like dyvors they dare as soon look on hell as on all the perplexities that are in their case I would say to such does thou in this case resent it as a mercy that thou knows it is thy duty to believe and a sin to give way to discouragement and unbelief O bless God thou may venture on Faith which if thou had not it is sad to think what thou would do next I am now speaking to them that have any thing to do betwixt God and their souls though I fear there be few that have ado with what I am now upon And O that I could lament over you and that ye could lament over your selves But are there any of you pressed with your souls condition and yet ye are too fool hardy in venturing upon unbelief and discouragement One of two either ye have never tryed these deep foords of discouragement and unbelief or otherways ye are under a dreadful tentation for of all the mercies next unto Christ a soul that is crusht with discouragement and unbelief will think this the greatest mercy that it hath a warrand to believe and if ye could bless him for that who knows what it would produce if ye would bless him that ye know ye have a command to believe and that it is a sin to misbelieve and give way to discouragement But 2. If it be a constant commanded duty to believe and hope will ye constantly obey that command Trust in him at all times Whatever ye read in your cases or lots or in the times read this never to cast away your confidence but to believe and hope in God Thou will say I have few motives to it but on what account does thou forbear murther or theft or any other gross sin Is it because thou wants temptations to them or because God hath forbidden them and hast thou not a command for believing Thou must not abstain believing till thy faith be budded but because he has commanded fall about it Thou thinks thy Faith little worth it is a blind guess like the blind mans gropping for the wall But shall I say Faith in obedience to a Command believing with the judgment against the
goodness of God is better known by experience than it can be talked of even by them that have tasted of it for it is a ravishing and overcoming goodness Zech. 9.17 For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty And yet 3. I was minting to lay it before you from some hints the Scripture gives of it and in the first place was telling that if the common goodness of God to all be so rich how rich must his peculiar goodness to his people be And in Explication of this I was hinting at the various names and notions oâ— this goodness of God held out in the Word how it keeps all temptations that they hurt not the true Israelites but makes them work for their good how it is love and tenderness how it is grace and free grace to the unworthy mercy to them in misery patience and long-suffering to the way-ward clemency and moderation to them that wring stroaks out of his hand I shall now add a word or two further that will help to give an account what this goodness of God is to Israel and that is in the 3d place to take a look of it in reference to the various cases of the Saints though the considerations we had of it in the morning do look here-away yet I shall now deduce this consideration of it more distinctly And 1. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under weakness for why It 's one of the Lord's designations that he is called the strength of Israel 1 Sam. 15.29 Also the strength of Israel will not lie The word strength as it is in the Margin signifies not only strength but eternity and victory and all may very well go together here in this goodness of God to them he is strength to Israel out of weakness to make them strong when they faint to give them power 2 Cor. 12.10 Heb. 11.34 When they have no might to increase strength to them Isai 40.29 He hath strength to make the weak say I am strong Joel 3.10 And he hath strengâ—h to Israel not for a fit but to eternity Israel cannot be continued so long weak that everlasting arms will not give him strength for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength and he is strâ—ngth to Israel not simply to bear them through difficuâ—ties and to keep them from total sinking but he is so the strength of Israel as he is the victory of Israel in due time to make them Conquerours and more than Conquerours through him that hath loved them 2. That God is good to Israel it may encourage them as I was hinting in the morning against unworthiness in themselves For as ye will hear in the progress with the Lord there is mercy for Israel saith the Text Seek all Christs Court there is not a worthy person of all he hath but himself and if there be any addition any competition amongst Christ's train and followers it lies in this who shall be the greatest dyvors and debters to free Grace who shall be the most unworthy less than the least of his mercies who shall be the Mephibosheth these whom David will allow to sit at his Table but worthlesness is a noble claim in Israel a dyvor bill is a noble pasportâ—s dittay is a claim For with the Lord there is mercy 3. That God is good to Israel it may encourage all true Israelites under the multitude of their frequent recurring necessities accompanied with the sense of the ill improvement of what good things he hath done for them and to them I suppose amongst the many humbling considerations that the Israelites have of their case this is not the least that they are daily needing daily getting and dayly misguiding proofs of love they are like that man Prov. 19.19 That when he is delivered must be delivered again How often do they think with themselves What should they do looking again to God for relief they have so often needed so often gotten and as often proven dyvors misguiding all they got selling themselves without money and without price which makes them blush to look to God again for new supply and new delivery but the goodness of God may encourage them to look again For with the Lord saith the Text is plenteous redemption that is not only delivery but delivery in great plenty so oft as they need 4. That God is good to Israel it may encourage Israel under the Conscience of guilt in particular for so the Psalmist saith here in particular He will redeem Israel from all his iniquiâ—ies these things I but name now because if the Lord will I will have occasion in the progress to speak more amply 5. The goodness of God to Israel may encourage them against the contempt they meet with and the mean and low condition wherein they are put in the world many a time our hearts think it a wonder that the Blood-Royal of Heaven the excellent Ones in the Earth should be no more esteemed of in the World while we little mind that word 1 Joh. 3.1 Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not Otherwayes we would think it a wonder that the Israel of God are not made the filth and off-scourings of all things yea but the goodness of God is a cordial to Israel in this case let the world count them the filth and off-scourings of all things yet the Lord hath chosen Jacob for himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure Psal 135.4 Let their nearest relations cast them off he will not cast off any of his Israel Hence David could sing Psal 27.10 when my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up and Isai 44.21 O Israel thou shalt not be forgotten of me saith the Lord that is Israel's priviledge and verse 23. The Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel The world may leave the Israel of God to send for themselves but in that case Israel may sing as Psal 121.4 He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the Lord is his keeper the Lord is a shade upon his right hand the Sun shall not smite them by day nor the Moon by night the Lord shall preserve them from evil he shall preserve their soul he shall preserve their going out and their coming in from this time forth and even for evermore So that in all cases Israel hath ground of encouragement in the goodness of God and who would look upon these things and believe them and not think themselves engaged to make it sure that they are of the Israel of God that share in these mercies and priviledges And this leads me to the 4th word that I proposed to be spoken to for pressing you to study to be Israelites in Spirit and that is that this goodness of God to Israel that I have been minting to lay before you though I have been but spilling it in the speaking to it it is not cunningly devised fables it
is not to trapane you in a course wherein your expectations will be defeat but all that is said of it are the true and faithful sayings of God I shall only offer to illustrat this in three words and I have done with the Point 1. What is the language of all the common goodness of God to your selves to you who are profane to you who are rebels to you who are mockers at all Religion that think it an evidence of a silly Spirit to fall in love with holiness What means all this common goodness of God to you I say that he makes not the Earth open and swallow you up quick into the pit as he did Core Dathan and Abiram that he puts not forth his hand to sweep you off the Earth or makes you not monuments of his Justice and Judgment upon it Know ye I say again What all this means I shall give it you in that word Rom. 2.4 The riches of his goodness and forbearance leads or should lead you to repentance that so ye may come in to know what his special and singular goodness to Israel means he is laying invitations at thy door who art traversing thy wayes whom the wind has bound up in its wings and who art as light as the wind in following thy follies inviting thee to come in and be an Israelite indeed that thou may share in his peculiar goodness and put him to it as he bids you Hag. 2. See if he will prove a wilderness or a land of drought to you He gives you a bill of defyance if ye will turn in to him and be his Israel indeed that ye shall turn your back upon him and say he disappointed you 2. The Scripture intimats the reality of his goodness to all his Creatures his kindness is palpable to all creatures beside man Job 36.41 He provideth for the ravens their food when their young ones cry unto him the young lyons roar after their prey and seek their meat from God Psal 104.21 He feeds the fouls of the air he cloaths the lillies and the grasse in the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven Mat. 6.20 And from all this our blessed Lord gathers verse 30. If God provide for fowls and so clothe the grass will he not much more clothe you O ye of little faith If God be good to all his creatures and will he not be good to his own children And a 3. word to illustrat it Christ gives you Mat. 7.9 from Parents goodness to their Children who if they ask bread will not give them a stone or if they ask a fish will not give them a serpent and then infers if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him So God's common goodness to your selves his common goodness to all the creatures and the natural affection of parents to their children all of these concur to demonstrat that the goodness of God towards his people is real and no complement and therefore to shut up this purpose with this word of Exhortation that ye would seek to be Israelites indeed and to leave it at every ones door that do not study to be Israelites indeed that they forsake their own mercy in slighting this peculiar goodness of God and such as do so let them stand to their own hazard so I have done with the Exhortation Let Israel hope in the Lord. I proceed now to consider the encouragements arguments or grounds on which the Psalmist presses that Israel should hope in God For with the Lord is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem Israel from all his troubles and iniquities ye see the Arguments are taken partly from what is with God or in God and his power for the good of his people mercy and Redemption and that in great plenty that is authority and power to give a proof of his mercy to Israel and to rid them from all servitude and bondage and partly the Arguments are taken from that which God will let out for the good of Israel if mercy and plenteous redemption be with him then he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities I shall not here fall in upon a general Remark That folks hopes would be well and distinctly grounded for the Psalmist doth not satisfie himself to exhort Israel to hope in God but he layes down grounds of hope on which they are to go in the exercise of that Grace This Point if I were to stand upon it would give a check both to the blind guesses of the wicked who have hope enough alway and all that men can say cannot drive them from their carnal confidence when they cannot tell what their confident hope is or wherein it is grounded only they have a blind guess which they take for hope and partly it would give a check to the children of God for their â—ndistinctness in their hope and the grounds of it while they are hanging on God I do not deny but when they are opprest they must look unto God to undertake for them and when they are blind and cannot see through the cloud in the dark day they must grip unto him who must hold them by the right hand and when they are in a mist of confusion they must grip after God But confusion and undistinctness in ordinary makes much uncomfortable work whereas if folk studied to be distinct and clear in the grounds of their hope they would not lean so little weight on hope as tentation often perswades them to do But to leave this what I would say from these Arguments I shall draw it to these two general Heads I Ye see there is somewhat supponed here anent them that are put to hope and who are warranted to hope in God they are in such a condition that they are put to need mercy and plenteous redemption and that from many iniquities 2. There is somewhat proposed anent such persons that there is hope of mercy and plenteous redemption for them with and in God and there is Gods power and willingness to redeem them from all iniquities and this they are to look to and hope for For the first That which is supposed I shall take it up in three Notes 1. That the man called to hope in God is miserable in himself and put out of himself to see what is in God that makes for him 2. That he is not only simply miserable but under a bondage that needs redemption and plenteous redemption 3. That he is a man that above all pressures he is lying under finds the pressure of sin and guilt to be the greatest for he must have a peculiar Redemption for all his iniquities 1. The man put to hope and warranted to hope in God is a man miserable in himself and put to look for mercy he is not a man that is conceity
wroth Why The spirit should fail before me and the souls that I have made I could soon destroy them but that I may not do and therefore will not contend for ever c. And 6. The riches and fulness of his mercy may be read in this that when he lets out bowels of mercy there will be no mercy which the Creature needs will be withheld from them When Ishmael hath slain Gedaliah whom the King of Babylon had made the Jews Governour and they are afraid of the Chaldeans Be not afraid of the King of Babylon saith he for I am with you to save and deliver you and I will shew mercy to you that he may have mercy on you Jer. 42.11 12. Fear not if ye partake of my mercy I will make the Chaldeans compassionat you So Psal 106 44. He regarded their affliction when he heard their cry and he remembred his Covenant and repented according to the multitude of his mercies What follows he made them also to be pitied of all that carried them captives He needs no other instruments of compassion to his people nor bitter enemies when he will have compassion on them So Solomon prays Give them compassion before them that carry them captive 1 King 8.50 And Hezekiah when he is to keep the Passover tells the people If they turn again to the Lord their brethren and children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive 2 Chron. 30.9 Gods compassion can soon bring the compassion of men in so far as he sees it needful Thus ye see in a few hints how rich and full the mercy of God is In a word it 's a mercy for all the needs and pressures of his people a Plaister broad enough to cover and effectual enough to cure all their griefs and sores For the use of this great truth That with the Lord there is mercy I shall briefly touch on five inferences from it and leave it And 1. If this mercy of God be relative to mans misery if it be good news manifested to the Creature on the account of its misery then those who are partakers of this mercy would have much sense of their misery mercy will not relish to any but to the man sensible of his misery a pardon will signify nothing but to a Rebel that is sensible of his Rebellion And here all that I have spoken of the riches freeness fulness c. of this mercy if ye read it right will be the first Lesson ye will learn from it all this is not proclaimed for a complement but because it 's needed by the miserable And consequently thou must infer If I have a right to you mercy it must not be ordinary thoughts of my misery that I must have there must be deeps of misery in me to call for deeps of mercy in God If we thus fence the point we need not fear that it be a sleeping Pillow to the secure look what misery is in thee to close with every thing in mercy If mercy be free look what ill-deserving is in thee if pardoning-mercy be in God look what sense of unpardoned guilt is in thee if multitudes of mercies be in God what sense of multitude of miseries is in thee They that have a right to mercy must tryst it in the dust in the very pit of misery 2. From this that there is mercy with God there is ground of assurance offered and afforded to the miserable that their irrecoverable case by the Covenant of Works is not now desperat O! the blessed intimation of that Attribute to fallen man that with God there is mercy How good news was it and should it be What had been the case of Adam and all his posterity after the Covenant of Works was broken had it not been for this blest Attribute that interposed But now because there is mercy with God irrecoverable distresses are not desperate Somewhat ye heard of this from vers 2 and 4. What a deplorable case had all been in if there had been no more to be lookt for but that vers 3. If thou Lord mark iniquities O Lord who should stand But a gracious answer is added vers 4. But there is forgivenness or mercy with thee and how this is prest upon the account of Gods mercy ye have an account given Jer. 55.67 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him return to the Lord Why For he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon That there is mercy in God abundantly to pardon is an intimation to the man that is in an irrecoverable condition to look again to God And in that 2d of Joel after that the Lord hath uttered a sore and terrible Judgment and hath told verse â—1 That he will utter his voice before his Army for his Camp is very great and strong is he that executes his word and in the by if the Lord hath a Nation to punish he needs not raise and bring in an uncouth Nation to punish them he can cause Grashoppers or Locusts do his turn after all that Verse 12 13. He bids them turn to him with all their heart with fasting weeping and mourning for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth him of the evil When the Lord is setting forth and inflicting an apparent and remediless stroak this yet invites to repentance That he is gracious and merciful and therefore as on the one hand thou that slights this offered mercy and makes it a pillow to security who when thou hears tell there is mercy with God makes no use of it but rather abuses it to go on in sin O the Justice of God in the day of thy accompts will be a sad sight in comparison of mercy or justice execute on slighters of mercy will be dreadful Justice then it will be Hills and mountains fall on us and bide us from the face of the Lamb What There is little terror in a Lambs Face yea but the fight of the Lambs face in the day of compt and reckoning that he that offered mercy was a Lamb that mercy was with him will be most dreadful think on it slighters of the Gospel sit-fasts never-do-wells abusers of mercy or ye that would take mercy in the accomplishment but never give mercy employment who follow your abominations if not openly yet secretly better for you that ye had sitten all your time at the foot of Sinai than at the foot of mercy in Zion This is often told you but little laid to heart and the ofter it be told many the less it is laid to heart but the day will come when many will get Hell affrighting memories wherein ye will remember that which drops at your feet and is not noticed or is stept over and not regarded So on the other hand thou who on the account of
godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come Many never mind this that godliness and making sure an interest in Christ is the only thriving gate as for such as find prosperity in another method I shall speak to them just now But for you that are godly or pretend to godliness to be taken up in seeking things in time ye forget your main work when ye are too eager and keen in your pursuit of these things wherein if God love you he will not let you thrive I wot not what of this is among you but if there be a nearness a nippedness and eagerness after the things of the world in that you may read your poverty if ye be seeking God and making an Idol of the world or any things in it he loves you better than to let you prosper in that pursuit and if ye would thrive indeed put godliness in the first place begin at it as the work of all your thrift But 2. Because many may laugh at this Exhortation founded on this that other mercies come as the result of Redemption through Christ and therefore that folk ought in the first place to sicker an interest in him and think that they speed best in things of time that neglect Piety I might bid them laugh at leasure Many profane folks that have had more prosperity than heart could wish and have thought they should never be in adversity and that they had no need of God to hold to their head they have win through it all and have been put to imbrace dunghills and in their straitned condition have been contemptible when the godly have shined in their greatest poverty But that which I press here is that every lot that folk have they would see how they hold it by what Title and Right thou that gets the mercy of prosperity or a delivery out of trouble if thou be not interested in Christ and a Student of holiness it 's but as a Bone cast at a Dog for thy portion as it is Psal 17.4 And I shall tell you the Testament of such men from that parable Luk. 16.25 Son saith Abraham to the rich glutton remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Thou hast prosperity while thou neglects piety but it may be thou art getting what thou gets in wrath and while thou art running to Satan and perdition thou gets outward mercies as a Post-horse to further thee in that deplorable Journey yea thou who art a child of God may be getting outward mercies when God is not pleased with thee There is a sad word 1 Cor. 10.5 after the Apostle has spoken of great mercies conferred on Gods people he subjoyns But with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness And therefore thou that would put a right value on mercies read them at that rate Isai 42.16 where when he hath spoken of bringing the blind by the way they knew not making darkness light before them and crooked things straight he subjoyns These things will I do unto them and not forsake them look if thou has God with what thou hast Have a man what he will till he have interest in him and stand in his favour he has little cause to insult or boast If thy mercies be not the result of redemption through Christ they will turn a snare But a 3d word of Inference from this is that it is an invitation to the fearers of God who have an interest in his love and are studying to walk tenderly to look sweetly on their portion and lot in time what-ever it be it may be thy share in the things in time is little thy troubles many thy breathing times betwixt troubles short thy comfort mixt with what is bitter and sad but that which will make all relish is that the same love that has given Christ for thee and to thee and will give thee everlasting happiness hath afforded these mercies as the result and appendices of that great redemption and that same love will sanctify all thy crosses and make them work for thy good And O! How sweet might sorry accommodations mean food and raiment be to have this written over them That love that hath given Christ for me and to me and will give me a Crown one day hath given me these This might be rich and sweet Sauce to a sober Diet excellent Furniture to a poor House to learn to look on these as the result of the great Bargain Seek to have your interest in Christ your Union and Communion with him more near and warm and to be more tender That thus ye may look on your mercies and be comforted the Lord bless what ye have heard SERMON XLII Psalm 130. Vers 7. And with him is plenteous redemption MAny are the exceptions and grounds of fears which the people of God entertain for fostering their discouragement and no fewer are the Cordials that are allowed in God to make out that to them that when they are afraid they are called to trust in God when Israel is invited to hope in God if misery and ill-deserving retard their obedience to that command they are told here that with the Lord there is mercy If they look on themselves as lawful Captives and none have a right to offer to rescue or ransome them they are told here that with the Lord there is redemption a Soveraign Authority Right and Power to step in when he will and vindicate them into freedom If they look upon it as hard and impossible ever to get out of the bonds they are under with him is plenteous redemption as the Psalmist sings Psal 146.7 To loose the Prisoners and open the prison doors and set them at liberty This is that I was speaking to in the morning That with God there is redemption I cleared that this Redemption imported Authority and Right to redeem and power to reedeem and vindicate And I came in the second place to clear in what respects this Redemption is so called or in what respects his delivery of his people is called a Redemption of them And the first to which I have spoken it 's because all their deliverances are founded upon and are the result of their eternal Redemption through Christ the Uses whereof I mentioned and shall not repeat I proceed now in the 2d place to clear that their Redemption is so called or their delivery is called Redemption in relation to their trouble and the instruments of their trouble from whom God will redeem them not by paying a price for them for that is already payed to Justice for doing away the controversie that God the principal Creditor had with them who therefore put them in Bonds and under Arrest but by the strong hand he redeems them from the instruments of their trouble to their