The son fears his father's displeasure; but saith the father, 'My thoughts are not as 3'our thoughts.' Oh ! I fear he will not receive me ! Yes, yes, he is willing to embrace 3'ou. Mercy pleascth him ; ' and why will you perish, 0 house of Israel?' Jer. sxvii. 13.
Again, ' God is the Father of mercies ' This should stir us up to an imitation of this our gracious Father ; for every father begets to his own hkeness, and all the sons of this Father are like the Father. They are merciful. ' The kings of Israel are merciful kings,' 1 Ivings xx. 31, saith the heathen king Benhadad ; and the God of Israel is a merciful God, and all that are under God are merciful. His sons are ' merciful as their hea- venly Father is merciful, Luke vi. 3G. Therefore, if we would make it good to our own hearts, and the opinion and judgment of others of us, that we are children of this merciful Father, we must put on bowels of mercy ourselves as in Col. iii. 12, ' Now, therefore, as the elect of God,' as you will make it good that God hath elected you, ' put on the bowels of mercy.' Whatsoever we have from God, it comes in the respect of a mercy, and so it should do from God's children. Everything that comes from them to them that are in misery, it should be a mercy. They should not only be- stow the thing, but a sweet mercy with the thing. A child of God he pours out his bowels to his brother, as Isaiah saith, ' Pour out thy bowels,' &c., Isa. Ixiii. 15. There is some bowels, that is, there is an affection in God's children. They give not only the thing, the I'elief, but mercy with it, that hath a sweet report to the soul. There is pity, that more comforts a sanctified soul than the thing itself. We must not do works of mercy proudly (r/). It is not the thing that God stands on, but the affection in the thing. His benefits are with a fatherly pity. So should ours be with a pitiful respect, with a tender heart. ' The veiy mercies of the wicked are cruel,' Prov. xii. 10. If they be merciful, there is some pride of spirit, there is some taste of a hard heart, of an hypocritical spirit. Somewhat is not as it should be. Their mercies are not mercies. We must in our mercy imitate the Father of mercies.
Alas ! it is the fault of our time. There is little mercy to those that are in miseiy. What a cruel thing is it that so many, I would I could say Christian souls, I cannot say so, but they are a company of men that have the image of God upon them, men that live miserable poor, such as, for aught I know, God's mercy hath purchased with the blood of his Son, and may belong to God's kingdom. They have the image of God upon them, yet they live without laws, without church, without commonwealth, irregular persons, that have no order taken for them, or not executed at the least, to
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I. VER. 3. 41
repress the sturdy of tbcm, and to relieve those that are to be relieved for age or impotency (//*).
It is a pitiful thing and a foul blemish to this commonwealth, and will bring some ill upon M'ealth, and plague it from such irregular persons. He will plague the commonwealth for such enormities. How do they live ? As beasts, and worse. They submit themselves to no orders of the church. They have none, and submit to none. Here is an object of mercy to those that it concerns.
And likewise, mercy ought to be shewed to the souls of men, as well as to their miserable and wretched estates. Is popery antichristian ? What mercy is it to suficr poisoners ? What a mercy were it in a commonwealth to suffer men that are incendiaries to have liberty to do what mis(;hief they would ? or men that should poison fountains, and all that should refresh and nourish men ? Were this any policy for the body ? And is it any policy to sufter those to poison the judgments of people with heresies to God, and treason to their prince ? to draw the affections of men from religion and the state, where is mercy all the while ?
Oh ! is it a mercy to them not to restrain them ? Mercy ! Is it mercy to the sheep to let the wolves at liberty ? No. If you will be merciful, to shew mercy to the souls of these men is to use them hardly, that they may know their error. They may now impute the libei'ty they have to the ap- probation of their cause ; and so they are cruel, not only to others, but to their own souls.
I speak this the rather, [that] it may be a seasonable speech at this time, to enforce good laws this way. It is a gi'eat mercy. Mercy to the soul, it is the gi-eatest mercy ; and so cruelty to the soul is the greatest cruelty that can be.