Prop. 4. The universal experience of the world possesseth all men's minds with this apprehension, that God is a merciful God : ' The earth, 0 Lord, is full of thy mercy ; ' the world and everything therein sets forth his goodness to us. The same is said in other places : Ps. xxxiii. 5, ' The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.' If earth, what is heaven ? Ps. cxlv. 9, ' His tender mercy is over all his works.'
1. Let us see that every creature is a monument and witness of God's mercy and goodness. Things animate and inanimate, the heavens and earth, and all things contained therein, declare that there is a powerful, wise, and good God. There is no part of the world that we can set our eyes upon but it speaketh praise to God, and the thoughts of his bounty to the cj-eatures, especially to man ; for all things were either subjected to man's dominion, or created for his use and benefit. If we look to the heavens, all serveth for the use and benefit of mankind : Ps. viii. 3, 4, ' When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou are mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?' The lowest heaven affordeth us breath, winds, rain ; the middle or second heaven affordeth us heat, light, influence ; and the third heaven an eternal habitation, if we serve God. In earth, all the things daily in our view speak to God's praise, if we had the leisure to hear them : these creatures and works of his that are daily in our view represent him as a merciful God. This is the lesson which is most legible in them, whether we sit at home in our houses or go abroad, and consider land or water. Go to the animate creatures, the beasts of the field : Ps. xxxvi. 6, ' Thou preservest man and beast ; ' Job xii. 7, 8, ' But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; and the fowls of the air shall declare unto thee : or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee ; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this ? ' His providence reacheth to an innumerable multitude of creatures, giving them life and motion, and sustaining them, and relieving their neces- sities, and doth largely bestow his blessing upon them according to their nature and condition. And this goodness of God shineth forth in all his creatures ; not only in what he doth to them themselves, but in what he doth about them for man's sake. They were defiled with man's sin, and therefore he might in justice have abolished them, or made them useless to man, or instruments of his grief; but they are continued for our comfort, that we might live in a Avcll-furnished world. Kow, come to man himself, good, bad, wicked, godly : ' His sun shineth, his rain falleth on the evil and good, just and unjust,' Mat. V. 44. Great mercy is still continued to the fallen creature, even to the impenitent: Acts xiv. 17, ' Neverthelesss he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven,
188 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR. LXXIL
and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.' What was God's witness ? ^A'yadoiroiwv, he doth good ; much patience is used, men's lives continued wliile they sin, and means vouchsafed for their reclaiming ; food, raiment, friends, habitations, health, ease, liberty afforded to them, and all to show that we have to do with a most merciful God, who is willing to be reconciled to the sinning creature. Go to the godly, and what is all their experience but a constant course of mercy ? David's admiration declares it : Ps. cxxxix. 17, 18, 'How precious are thy thoughts to me, 0 Lord ! how great is the sum of them ! if I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.' He was in a maze when he thought of the various dispensations of God's providence ; there was no getting out. The Lord filleth up his servants' lives with great and various mercies, even in their warfare and pilgrimage here in this world ; abundance of invaluable mercies, that if we do but consider what we do receive, we must needs be confirmed in this truth by our own senses. Everything is a mercy to a vessel of mercy.
2. Wherein God expresseth his mercy to them in creation and pro- vidence.
[] .] In creating them. It was great mercy that, being infinitely perfect in himself from all eternity, and so not needijig anything, he took the creatures out of nothing, which therefore could merit nothing, and communicated his goodness to them : ' For thy pleasure they are and were created,' Eev. iv. 11.
[2.] In preserving and continuing them so long as he seeth good. The heavens continue according to his ordinance ; the beasts, and fowls, and fishes continue according to his pleasure: all the living creatures need many things for their daily sustentation which their Creator abundantly supplieth to them, and therefore the whole earth is full of his mercy. One creature the scripture taketh notice of : Luke xii. 24, ' Consider the ravens, for God feedeth them ; ' and again. Job xxxvii. 41, ' He feedeth the young ravens when they cry and wander for lack of meat;' and Ps. cxlvii. 9, 'He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.' Why is the raven made such an instance of providence above other fowls, or other living creatures ? Some say it is animal sibi rapacissimum ; others, other things, Tov<i veorrov; iiri^uXKei, casts its young out of the nest as soon as they are able to fly, and put to hard shifts for themselves. All this showeth his mercy, how ready he is to supply the miserable.