What should I speak of mercy to others ? Oh, that we would be merci- ful to our own souls ! God is merciful to our souls. He sent his Son to ' visit us from on high,' in bowels of compassion. He sent Christ, as Zacharias saith, Luke i. 68, and yet we are not merciful to ourselves. How many sinful, wretched persons pierce their hearts through with covetous- ness, and other wicked courses, that are more dangerous to the soul than poison is to the body ! They stab their souls with cares, and lusts, and other such kind of courses. "\Miat a mockery is this of God, to ask him mercy, when we will not be merciful to our own souls ! and to entreat others to pray for us, when we will not be merciful to ourselves ! Shall we go to God for mercy, when we will not shew mercy to ourselves ? Shall we desire him to spare us, when we will not spare ourselves ? It is a mocldng of God to come and ofier our devotions here, and come with an intent yet to live in any sin. God will not hear us, if we puqiose to hve in sin."^ ' If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear my prayer,' Ps. Ixvi. 18. As we ought to be merciful to the souls of others, and to the estates of others, so we should to our own souls.
How can they reform evils abroad, those that are governors, when they do not care to reform themselves ? Can they be merciful to the souls of others, that are cruel to their own ? They cannot. Let mercy begin at home.
This is that that th» Scripture aims at. Mercy and the right use of it, is the way to come to salvation ; and the abuse of it is that that damns ; and they are damned most that abuse mercy. Oh, the sins against the gospel will lie upon the conscience another day. The sins against the law, they help, with the gospel, to see mercy ; but sins against mercy prefer
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our sins above mercy ; and in temptations to despair, to extenuate mercy, hereafter it will be the very hell of hell, that we have sinned against mercy, that we have not embraced it with faith, that we have not repented to be capable of it.
Use 3. But to end the point with that which is the most proper use of all, which is an nso of cuwfort in all estates, to go to God in all. ' He is the Father of mercy.' And when all is taken from us in losses and crosses, to think, well, our fathers may die, and our mothers may die, and our nearest and dearest friends that have most bowels of pity, may die ; but we have a Father of mercy, that hath eternal mercy in him. His mercies are tender mercies, and everlasting mercies, as himself is. We are everlasting. Our souls are immortal. We have an everlasting Father, that is the ' Father of mercies.' When all are taken away, God takes not himself awaj'. He is the Father of mercy still.
Now that we may make ourselves still capable of mercy, still fit for mercy, let us take this daily course.
1. Let us labour every day, to have broken and deep soids. As I said before, it is the broken heart that is the vessel that contains mercy, a deeper heart that holds all the mercy. We need, therefore, to empty our- selves by confession of our sins, and search our own thoughts and ways, and afflict our souls by repentance ; and when- Ave shall be fit objects for God the Father of mercy to shed mercy into misery. It is the loadstone of mercy, misery left discerned and complained of. Let us search and see our misery, our spiritual miseiy especially ; for God begins mercy to the soul in his children, he begins mercy there especially. General mercy he shews to beasts, to all creatures ; but special mercy begins at the soul. Now, I say, misery being the loadstone of mercy, let us lay before God by confession and humiliation, the sores and sins of our souls. And then make use of this mercy eveiy day ; for God is not only merciful in pardoning mercy at the fii'st, in forgiving our sins at the first, but every day he is ready to pardon new sins, as it is Lam. iii. 23, ' He renews his mercies every day, every morning.' God renews his mercies not only for body, but for soul. There is a throne of grace and mercy evexy day open to go to, and a sceptre of mercy held out every day to lay hold on, and a ' fountain for Judah and Jerusalem to wash in every day,' Zech. xiii. 1. It is never stopped up, or drawn dry. The fountain is ever open, the sceptre is ever held forth, and the throne is ever kept.
God keeps not terms. Now the Court of Chancery is open, and now it is shut. But he keeps court every day. Therefore Christ in the gospel enjoins us to go to God every day. Every day we say the Lord's prayer, ' forgive us our trespasses,' Luke xi. 4, insinuating that the court of mercy is kept every day to take out our pardon. Every day there is a pardon of course taken out, ' at what time soever a sinner repents,' &c., 1 Kings viii. 38, seq.