[It may be, your sins have been very great ; and you are ready to account yourselves so unworthy, that it is scarcely to be hoped that God should ever have mercy upon you. But bear in mind the sovereignty he exercised in the call of Abraham. Was he not an idolater, in the midst of an idolatrous people1? Yet did God choose him, and enter into covenant with him, and bless, in him and in his seed, all the nations of the earth. Why, then, may he not display his sovereignty in the exercise of love to you ? Perhaps your sins have been, beyond measure, deep and multiplied. Still, did not Manasseh obtain mercy, after having set up idols in the very House of God, and " made the streets of Jerusalem to run down with the blood of innocents111?" But your hearts, you will say, have raged with enmity against God and his Christ. So it was with Paul, who yet obtained mercy, whilst in the very act of persecuting the Lord's people; and "therefore obtained mercy, that in him Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them that should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting11." Perhaps you will say, that your state is the more hopeless, because you have backslidden from God, and so fallen as to make " the very name of God to be blasphemed in the world." Well ; supposing even this to be the case, you still may go unto God, and say, " Art thou not He that shewed mercy to an adulterous, a murderous, a hardened and obdurate David0?" Be your state as desperate as it may, yet see whe- ther you cannot find in the divine records some interpositions of the Deity fully adequate to your wants, and commensurate with your necessities ? Take these ; spread them before God in prayer : plead them before him ; and implore at his hands a similar effort in your own behalf. Mistake me not, however : imagine not, for a moment, that I say these things to encou- rage you in sin : God forbid ! No : but I say them to keep you from despair: and what the Jewish Church are repre- sented as doing under their extremities, that I recommend every sinner in the universe to do : Call to mind God's won- ders of old time ; and let them be the ground of your hopes, and the measure of your expectations.]
2. Those who are bowed down under affliction —
[In your case, more especially, may the Jewish Church be proposed for an example. You well remember how the whole nation cried out at the sight of Pharaoh and his hosts, and how utterly they despaired of help. But their extremity was the very season when God interposed for their effectual deliverance,
1 Josh. xxiv. 2, 3.
m 2 Kings xxi. 1—7, 16. with 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11—13. n 1 Tim. i. 16. ° 2 Sam. xii. 13.