^ ' Etsi non sic vixi ut pudeat inter vos vivere, etc., sed quia bonum dominum habeo.' — Possidius in Vita August.
VeR. 2.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 65
unbelief ; as if the Lord had said, If you will not believe all this that is said concerning my mercy, yet your want is great ; that is enough to make you earnest and frequent in your addresses to me ; come and see what I will do for your importunity ; the unjust judge was moved with the widow's clamour : be it as you imagine, that I have no bowels for creatures' miseries, nor ears for their requests, which yet is a blas- phemy confuted by every object in the world ; the young ravens will tell you otherwise, Job xxxviii. 41 ; Mat. vi. 26 ; Luke xii. 24 ; but be it so ; you are undone if I be not merciful ; see what I will do for con- stant asking. Upon all these encouragements be persuaded to make an essay : faith at first standeth but upon one weak foot. ' Who knoweth but that God will be gracious ? ' Jonah iii. 9 ; Joel ii. 14. There is encouragement enough to venture, though we do not know what will come of it. Take up a resolution to make trial ; you will find better welcome than you can expect. God desires to exercise mercy as much as you desire to feel it.
Use 3, It presseth us in all our enjoyments to acknowledge mercy. The saints are wont to do so, Eph. ii. 4 ; 1 Tim. i. 13 ; Gen. xxxii. 10 ; Phil. ii. 27. It is good to refer all things to their head and proper fountain. Everything that we enjoy is the fruit of mercy, especially saving grace. It is a sure ■ sign a man hath received no benefit by grace if his heart be not stirred up to praise it. We have cause to praise God for his mercy above the angels. I mean, not only the bad angels, with whom God entered not into a treaty ; he dealt with them in justice and not in mercy ; but even the good angels ; in some respects we have more cause to bless God than they have. Gratitude respecteth the freeness and graciousness in giving, rather than the greatness of the benefit. God was bountiful to the angels in making them such excellent creatures out of nothing ; but he is merciful to us, notwithstanding the demerit of our sins. There was no let in his doing good to the angels ; goodness floweth out freely from a holy God to righteous creatures: but wronged justice interposed, and put in a bar against us : so that his justice must be satisfied before mercy can have a free course. We are a generation of sinful men, the wretched offspring of fallen Adam : we had forsaken God, and cast him off, which the angels had not ; and therefore, though they have a large experience of God's goodness, yet they wonder at the grace showed to us, 1 Peter i. 12. But now much more is this mercy to be acknowledged if we consider the difference between us and other men, who, it may be, excelled us in moral accomplishments ; but God hath passed them by, choosing us poor things of nought, poor base creatures, that the glory might entirely redound to his own grace. But especially should this mercy afiect us, when it hath made a distinction between us and others that were involved in the same guilt ; when ' one is taken and another left ;' as the bad thief went to his own place, when the good tliief was taken to paradise ; and many of God's elect were as deep in sin as those in hell. I say, in all such cases we should still be crying out Mercy, mercy ; for certainly justice could make no such distinction ; itawardcth a like punishment to all that are found in a like crime ; but God's infinite and eternal mercy only maketh the difference.
Use 4. It is caution. Do not wrong grace and mercy, if it be the cause
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66 AN EXPOSITION, -WITH NOTES, [YeR. 2.