Use of direction. Wherefore let its learn to submit ourselves to the correct- ing hand of God, saying, ' It is thy mercy we arc not consumed,' Lam. iii. 22 ; considering that this light affliction is nothing to that wo deserve, or that Christ suffered for us, or that the damned suffer in hell, or to that joy wo have laid up for us in heaven ; and therefore as it is in Micah vii. 9, ' Let us bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have sinned against him.'
Secondly, Let us justify Cod. We have deserved affliction. He hath dealt justly with us: Neh. ix. 31, seq., 'Righteousness belongeth to him, but to us shame and confusion of face,' Dan. ix. 7.
Thirdly, Let us moderate our censure of those that are dejected and out of heart, through sense of sin : Prov. xviii. 19, ' A wounded spirit, who can bear ? ' Impute it not therefore to melancholy, or despair and madness, or as Eli unadvisedly did, to drunkenness, when he reprehended Hannah, 1 Sam. i. 14 ; for can we think it strange, when God sees sin in his chil- dren, that he causes them to see it, and that when they see it they should shew it in their outward gestures ? No ; it is no light burden, that a man may run away with.
Ver. 4. ' But there is forgiveness with thee.'
This verse contains a blessed appeal. God hath a court of justice, and a tribunal of mercy. If God should examine in justice what we have done, we could not stand: ' but there is mei'cy or forgiveness with the Lord,' Therefore it is an appeal from the throne of justice to the mercy-seat ; and yet this is not so properly an appeal but it admits of limitations. For, first, appeals are used in aid of those that are innocent. Now we by nature are all unclean. Again, appeals are rjronndedfor the most part upon discoverij of insufficiency, or of violent indirect courses in the managing of the cause. This can no ways be attributed to God, who is not rigorous nor insufiicient, or swayed by indirect means ; for he accepts the person of none. Again, an appeal is from an inferior court to a hiyher. But here it is not so, for we appeal from God to God ; from God armed with justice, examining by law, to God a father armed with love, looking upon us in the comfortable promises of the gospel ; from Sinai to Sion, from Moses to Christ. And in this appeal, as in others, the former sentence of the law, whereby we are ' cursed,' is utterly disannulled, so as ' no condemnation is to those that are in Christ,' Rom. viii. 1. But this belongs to such (as it is in other appeals) uho must see themselves condemned, before they can have the benefit of this appeal. There is no flying to mercy unless we find ourselves in need. But to come to some observations. In the first place, we may see by this example that the soul of a Christian apprehends God accordiny to its estate, to comfort itself, and therefore beholds him as a forgiving God. And therefore the cliildrcn of God, when they are at the lowest, they recover themselves with something they find in God's nature and promise,
AN EXPOSITION UPON PSALM CXXX. 173
and to that end have a spirit of fixitli to trust and rely upon God ; and tliose that have it not, sink lower and lower.
Doct. 1. Here we may observe, that the Christian soul, once stunrj icith sin, flics to the free mercy of God for ease. Let a sinner be in Haman's estate, tell him of all pleasures, whatever they be, he cares not ; nothing but pardon delights his soul. David, a king, a prophet, a man after God's own heart. Acts xiii. 22, beloved of his people, wonderfully graced, yet being troubled with his sin, could not stand. He respects not his outward privileges, prerogatives, majesty, and the like. No ; he is the blessed man to whom God imputes no sin, Ps. xxxii. 1. And this is the reason why so much is attributed still to tlie blood of Christ, everywhere, in the Scripture ; because the soul once pricked, finds no ease nor cure but in it principally, yet not excluding the other merits and obedience of Christ. And David, when he would raise up his soul to praise God, describes him to be a God ' forgiving sin and healing infirmities,' Ps. ciii. 3 ; and there- fore we should, when our consciences are burdened, go as Joab did and catch hold on the horns of the altar, to the mercy of God. There live and there die. And though the conflict be never so great, we shall at length find that, as Jacob, we shall be children of Israel, and such as shall prevail with God, and that for our depth of misery, he hath a depth also of mercy; and this mercy will appear either in preserving us from sin, before we are fallen into it, or rescuing us from it if once we be fallen into it.
Quest. But how comes it, may some say, that God forgives ? Doth he it without satisfactions ?