28 OOMMENTAKY ON
all generations must needs do this duty to call God blessed, because he is the Father of Christ. So God the Father is to bo blessed as the spring of favours ; for ho gave Christ. All generations call the Virgin I\Iary blessed, because she was the mother of Christ : but that was in a lower degi'ce than God was his Father. This point ought to take up our meditations, to' think wo have all in Christ first. To think of ourselves in Christ, it is comfort- able^ ; and Chi-ist shall have more glory by it. God the Father and the Son shall have gloiy by it, and we shall have comfort.
The second consideration of God is, not only as he is the Father of Christ, but as he is
2. ' The Father of mercies.'' God is the Father of Christ, and our Father, * and the Father of mercies.' But as I said before in this method, he is first the Father of Christ, and then our Father, and then ' the Father of mer- cies.' For he could never be the Father of mercies to us, except he were the Father of Christ. For mercy must see justice contented.- One attri- bute in God must not devour another. All must have satisfaction. His justice must have no wrong. Nor it hath not now. It is fully satisfied by Christ.
Therefore God is the Father of Christ, that Christ in our nature might die for us, and so he might be our Father notwithstanding our sins, having punished our sins in our surety, Christ. So being the Father of Christ, and our Father, he is the Father of mercies ; his justice hath no loss by it.
If God had not found out a way, out of the bowels of his mercy, how he might shew good to us, by reconciling mercy and justice in the mediator Christ, in punishing him for our sins, to set us free, he had never been a Father of mercy ; if he had not been the Father of Christ first. For we being in such contrary terms as God and we were, he being holiness, and we nothing but a mass of sin and corruption ; without sufficient satisfaction of an infinite person there could be no reconciliation. Therefore he is the Father of Christ, who died for us. He took our natm'o upon him to satisfy God's justice, and then Father of us, and so Father of mercy to us.
He may well be the Father of mercies now, being the Father of Christ, of our nature in Christ : for, as I said, he is the Father of Christ as man, as well as he is God. Being the Father of our nature, being taken into the unity with his own Son's nattire, for both make one Christ, he becomes ' the Father of mercies.' He is a Father to him by nature, to us by gi-ace and adoption. ' The Father of Christ, and Father of mercies.' It is a necessary method, for God out of Christ is a fountain indeed, but he is a ' fountain sealed up.' He is a God merciful and gracious in his own nature, but there is sin that stops the fountain, that stops the current of the mercy. There must be therefore satisfaction to his justice and wrath, before there can be reconciliation, before there can any mercy flow from him. He is first the Father of Christ, and then the ' Father of mercies.' We have all from Christ. If he were not the Father of Christ, he should be the Father of nobody ; for immediatelyf no man is able to appear before God without a mediator.
' Father of mercies.' By Father, which is a kind of hebraism (/), is meant he is the original, the spring of mercies, he is the ' Father of mercies.' He doth not say the Father of one mercy, but the ' Father of mercies.' His mercy is one ; it is his nature, it is himself. As he is one, so mercy in him is one. It is one in the fountain, but many in the streams. It is one * That is, ' satisfied.' — G. t That is, «= ' in himself.' — G.
2 COEINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 3. 29
in him, one nature, and one mercy. But because wo have not one sin, but many sins, we have not one misery, but many, that lies upon this frail nature of ours. Therefore according to the exigencies of us wretched creatures, according to our sins and miseries, his mercies stream out. They are derived* and run out to all kind of siu and misery whatsoever.
' The Father of mercies.' If all mercies were lost, they must be found in him. He is ' the Father of mercies.' They are his bowels, as it were, and mercy pleaseth him as a man is pleased with his own natural child. f ' The Father of mercies.' He doth not say the Author of mercies, but the Father of them. He gives them the sweetest name that can be. He doth not say the Father of revenge, or of judgment, though he be the Father of them too ; but to his children the Father of mercies. A sweet name under which none should despair !