Ohj. Aye, but I have abused mercy a long time ; I have lived in sin, and committed great sins. Well, notwithstanding that, see how he answers it : ' My thoughts are not your thoughts.' You are vindictive. If a man offend you, you are ready to aggravate the fault, and to take revenge, &c.
* But my thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways,' saith the Lord ; ' for as far as the heaven is above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, and my ways above your ways,' Ps. ciii. 11. We have narrow, poor thoughts of mercy, because we ourselves are given to revenge, and wo are ready, when we think of our sins, to say, Can God forgive them ? can God be merciful to such ? &c. ' My thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways.'
It is good to consider this, and it is a sweet meditation ; for the time undoubtedly will come, that unless God's mercy and God's thoughts should be, as himself is, infinite, unless his ways should be infinitely above our ways, and his thoughts infinitely above ours in mercy, certainly the soul would receive no comfort.
The soul of a Christian acquainted with the word of God knows that God's mercy is, as himself is, infinite, and his thoughts this way are, as himself is, infinite. Therefore the Scripture sets down the mercies of God by all dimensions. There is the depth of wisdom, but when he comes to speak of love and mercy, as it is in Eph. iii, 18, ' Oh, the depth, and breadth, and height of this ! '
Indeed, for height, it is higher than the heavens ; for depth, it fetcheth the soul from the nethermost deep. We have deep misery, ' Out of the deep I cried to thee,' Ps. cxxx. 1 ; yet notwithstanding, his mercy is deeper than our misery. 0 the depth of his mercy ! There is a depth of mercy deeper than any misery or rebellion of oui's, though we have sunk deep in rebellion. And for the extent of them, as I said before,
* his mercy is over all his works,' Ps. cxlv. 9. It extends to the utmost parts of the earth. The Scripture doth wonderfully enlarge his mercy be- yond all dimensions whatsoever. These things are to good purpose ; and it is a mercy to us that he sets forth himself in mercy in his word, because the soul, sometime or other when it is awakened, as every one that God de- lights in is awakened, fii'st or last, it needs all that is, it is all little enough.
God is merciful to those that are heavy laden, that feel the burden of their sins upon their souls. Such as are touched with the sense of their sins, God still meets them half-way. He is more ready to pardon than they are to ask mercy. As we see in the prodigal, when he had wasted all,, when he was as low as a man could be, when he was come to husks, and when he had despised his father's admonition, yet upon resolution to return, when he was stung with the sense of his sins, his father meets him and entertains him ; he upbraids him not with his sin, Luke xv. 20, seq.
Take sin, with all the aggravations we can, yet if we repent and resolve upon new courses, there is comfort, though we relapse into sin again and again. If we must pai-don ten times seven-times, as Christ saith, Luke xvii. 4,* certainly there cannot be more mercy in the cistern than there is
* With reference to a former note (vol. I. page 231), Sibbes's phrase should have been printed ' seventy seven-times.' The question to our Lord was, ' till seven- times ? ' ' Yes,' he replied, ' till seventy seven- times,' which is = seventy times seven. Sibbes's quotation above is a slip. — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 8. 87
in the fountain ; there cannot be more mercy in us than there is in the ' Father of mercies,' as God is.
Take sin in the aggravations, in the greatness of it, IManasseh's sin, Peter's denying of his Master, the thief on the cross, and Paul's persecu- tion ! Take sin as gi-eat as you will, he is the ' Father of mercies.' If wo consider that God is infinite in mercy, and that the Scripture reveals him as the ' Father of mercies,' there is no question but there is abundance a world of comfort to any distressed soul that is ready to cast itself on God's mercy.
Use 2. Fur those that are converted, that are in the state of ff race — Is God ' the Father of mercies ?' let this stir iis up to embrace mercy, every daii to live by mercy, to plead mercy with God in our daily breaches ; to love and fear God, because there is mercy with him that ' he might be feared,' Ps. cxxx. 4. It is a harder matter to make a daily sweet use of this than it is taken for. Those that are the fittest subjects for mercy, they think themselves furthest off from mercy. Come to a broken soul, who is catchcd in the snare ; whose conscience is on the rack, he thinks, alas ! there is no mercy for me ! I have been such a sinner, God hath shevred me mercy before, and now I have offended him again and again. Those that are the subjects of mercy, that are the nearest to mercy, when their conscience is awakened, they think themselves furthest off", and we have need to press abundance of mercy, and all little enough to set the soul in frame. There is none of us all, but we shall see a necessity of pressing this one time or other, before we die. David when he had sinned, he knew well enough that God was merciful. Oh, but it was not a slight mercy that would satisfy him, as we see, Ps. li., how he presseth upon God for mercy, and will a little serve him? No! 'according to thy abundant mercy,' ver. 1. He presseth mercy, and abundance of mercj', a multitude of mercies ; and unless he had seen infinite mercy, abundant mercy in God, when his conscience was awaked with the foulness of his sin (there being such a cry for vengeance, his sin called and cried) ; if the blood of Christ had not cried above it, ' Mercy, mercy,' and abundance of mercj', multitudes of compassion, the soul of David would not have been stilled.