4. God glorifies his righteousness and justice. There is a measure of
how he should behave himself towards his son, Gen. 31:24, 29. God times his kindness, so that it may appear to be nothing else but grace, grace with a witness, that his people may be able to understand the very particularities of it: Isa. 30:18, 'Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you.' He leaves them therefore for a while to the will of their enemies: verse 17, 'At the rebuke of five shall you flee, till you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign upon a hill.' Never is salvation sweeter, and mercy better relished, than when it snatcheth us out of the teeth of danger. God would have his mercy valued, and it is fit it should. And when is a calm more grateful than after the bitterest storm, attended with the highest despair? God's mercy in sparing
Isaac after the knife was at his throat, was more welcome and more delicious both to father and son, than if God had revealed his intent to Abraham in the three days' journey to the mount Moriah. But God suspending his soul in bitterness all that time, prepared his heart for the valuation of that mercy. When human help forsaketh us, God most embraceth us: Ps. 27:10, 'When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.'
4. God glorifies his righteousness and justice. There is a measure of wickedness God stays for, which will be an object of his justice without exception. When the measure of a people's covetousness is come, 'then their end is come, and God will fill them with men as with caterpillars, and they shall lift up a shout against them,' Jer.
51:13, 14. Hereby God clears the justice of his proceedings, that he exercised patience so long, that things were come to that pass, that either his people or his enemies must be destroyed. As the case was with the Israelites, had not God marvellously appeared, every man of them had been cut off or reduced to slavery. The die was cast, either the Egyptians or Israelites must be defeated; either God must appear for his church, or none would be left in the world to profess him. In such a case the justice of God is more unexceptionable. No man has any semblance for complaining of him; for he struck not till the safety of his adversaries was inconsistent with his own honour and interest of the world. When men come to such a height, as to slight