2. It is your only way to have mercy for the church, and for ourselves.
have not only the same promises, but the performances of them too.
They had providences, we have the same and more, all upon record in Scripture, all since the canon of Scripture was closed, whatsoever
God hath remarkably done for his people in all ages. Adam had but one promise, and but little experience of God's providence, yet no doubt trusted in him. We have a multitude of promises, not only pronounced, but sealed, confirmed by many repetitions, which are fresh obligations laid by God upon himself, the experience of all the providences of God towards his church for above five thousand years, and shall our faith stagger when upon us are come the ends of the world? Doth it become us to have our obligations to faith so strong, and our exercise of it so weak? The promise of Christ, Isa.
7:14, that a virgin should bring forth a Son, was thought by God a sufficient security to support their confidence in him against the fury of their enemies; it being a greater wonder that a virgin without loss of her virginity should bring forth a son, than the routing of an host of enemies. Is not then the performance of this, God's actual sending his Son to us through the womb of a virgin, a higher ground of confidence for the church's success in every thing else, than barely the promise could be? All creatures in danger have a natural confidence in God: 'He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth;' but the church's confidence may be more firmly placed in him, because he is particularly the God of their salvation: Ps. 65:5, 'By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth.'
2. It is your only way to have mercy for the church, and for ourselves.
If he 'take pleasure in them that hope in his mercy,' as it is in Ps.
147:11, he will take pleasure to relieve them, he will 'strengthen the bars of their gates,' ver. 13. If he take pleasure in them that hope in his mercy, then the stronger and more lively their hope is, the more intense is God's pleasure in them. If they do not hope in his mercy, he hath no pleasure in them, and no delight to them. He hath a goodness laid up for them that fear him, and he will lay it out too for them that trust in him: Ps. 31:19, 'Oh how great is thy goodness