3. The greatness of these effects, the sending of his Son : 1 John iv. 9, 10, ' In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.' The gift of the Spirit himself to be everlastingly with us, John xiv. 16, and by present troubles to prepare us for future glory, 2 Cor. iv. 17, and Rom. viii. 18. Surely nothing but mercy, and great mercy, could do all this for us.
Use 1. To exhort us to consider of this, and to meditate much upon this attribute. To this end I shall lay down a few considerations : —
1. All that come to God should consider of his mercy ; it is the great motive to repentance, and beginning our acquaintance with God : Joel ii. 13, ' And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil/ Our distrustful and unbelieving thoughts draw an ill picture of God in our minds. We think him a hard and austere one, that is more ready to condemn us than to receive us to mercy. Thus we look upon him in the glass of our guilty fears. Oh no ! he is merciful, if we will but stoop to him. Besides, it is a great check to our pursuit of carnal vanities : Jonah ii. 8, ' They that seek after lying vanities forsake their own mercies.' Thus to the secure and careless, when they con- sider all this grace and tender mercy, it is the great means to over- come them with kindness. A serious consideration of what God hath done and is ready to do for us: Rom. xii. 1, 'I beseech you by the mercies of God.' Saul wept when David had spared him, 1 Sam. xxiv. 16. If we had not let all ingenuity : ' I am not worthy of all the mercy and truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant,' Gen. xxxii. 10. Then when we come to a reckoning and audit with God, how great is the sum of them ! There are more effects of his mercies, and of more diverse kinds : Ps. cxxxix. 17, ' How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, 0 God ! how great are the sum of them ! '
2. It is not enough to know that God is merciful, but we must also consider how great and tender his mercy is ; for God's children are wont to have great and large thoughts of it. We must think of it as becometh the infiniteness of his nature whose mercy it is : Isa. Iv. 8,
VER. 156.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 165
9, ' For my thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways, saith the Lord : for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts;' Hosea xi. 9, 'For I am God, and not man.'' We must not straiten God to our scantling ; our drop is soon spent. Peter, a good man : What ! forgive seven times a-day ? How tender it is ! It is so natural to God. Acts of punitive justice are exercised with some reluctancy, but he rejoiceth over them to do them good; he is strongly inclined to let out his goodness to unworthy and miserable sinners who deserve the contrary from him. The sea doth not more naturally flow, nor the sun more naturally shine, nor fire more natu- rally burn, than God doth naturally show mercy. These thoughts will answer all the doubts and fears of a penitent. Thou canst never have too large thoughts of God.
3. We shall never have such great and large thoughts of God's tender mercy as when they arise from our own experience and par- ticular observation. To know God by hearsay will not work upon you as when we have seen him ourselves ; as they said unto the woman, John iv. 42, 'Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the saviour of the world.' We do not think or speak of God with any sense and life, affection and admiration, till we have studied his nature and observed his ways ; otherwise we speak by rote when we praise him for his mercies, and it is but an empty compliment : Ps. ciii. 1-3, ' Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name : bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits : who forgiveth all thy iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases,' &c.
4. Then will our own experience inform us of the greatness and tenderness of mercy, when we are sensible of our sins and miseries. When a man seeth his sins great, his dangers great, then he will see God's mercies towards him great also : Ps. lxxxvi. 13, ' For great is thy mercy towards me, for thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.' We do not know the greatness of the pardon but by the "greatness of the debt, nor the greatness of our protection and deliver- ance but by the greatness of the danger. God continueth trouble upon his people, that they may be sensible of the sweetness of the mercy, and his help in their deliverance : Rom. v. 8, ' But herein God commendeth his love to us, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.'