-- BOOK I: The mercies in God's nature the object
BOOK I:
The mercies in God's nature the object, and support, and encouragement of faith.
—How we are to act faith thereon.
CHAPTER I
The words of the text opened.—That the mercies in God's heart and nature are a fundamental object and support of faith.
—Presumption thereon beaten off.
Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.—PSALM 130:7.
THE 'work of faith,' John 6:29, whereby a sinner's heart is first won, then strengthened and supported to trust and stay itself on God for its eternal salvation, is in general experience found to be a matter of greatest difficulty, exercise, and conflict. There is need therefore of all sorts of encouragements and suggests that can possibly be raised out of the holy Scriptures, with the largest dilatings on them, which may either serve to bring humbled and broken hearts and God together at first, or afterwards to hearten them to 'hold fast the beginning of their confidence firm and stedfast to the end,' Heb. 3:6,
14, and all little enough; such, and so great, and so manifold are the discouragements which unbelief within us doth foment, and which Satan doth indiscernibly cast in. Now above all other inducers and supporters unto faith, the consideration of the mercies in God's heart and nature is the strongest, the most winning and obliging. Unto thoroughly humbled and broken hearts it is I write this. As for others, who were never heavy laden with sin, look as sin sits light
upon their hearts, so they set as light by the mercies of God, and a confused slight apprehension that God is merciful (which yet is their common plea) serves their turn, and is a salve sufficient for their sore; which indeed is but proportionable unto that like confused apprehension of their sinfulness, which in like manner they use to wrap up, that we are all sinners. Ay, but take a soul that hath been unhinged from off the opinion of his being in a good estate, which is so natural to us, and our souls do turn themselves upon, and who also is made thoroughly sensible of the abounding 'sinfulness of sin,' as sin, the least; and then hath taken in the dismal prospect of the heinous guilt of his bold presumptions and crying rebellions against knowledge, and especially hath been amazed with that numberless account of the innumerable multitude and variety of sinnings which he is to give unto God the judge of all men; and together herewith hath been struck as with lightning and a thunderbolt, with the dreadfulness of that wrath of the great God that is due thereunto (all which apprehensions do yet prepare men's souls for faith justifying, and dispose them the more readily to attend to, and take in these encouragements unto faith that follow); and to work some apprehensions of these, and to set forth these, hath been the drift of those the subjects of the foregoing treatises. Unto such a soul (I say), filled with the apprehensions of these things, the most enlarged, full discovery that can any way be made of the riches of the mercies that are in the heart and nature of God, and of the fulness of merit that is in Christ's righteousness and redemption, do all prove little enough effective, either to beget a sound and saving faith, when upon this conviction it is anew to be wrought in such a soul, or when some beginnings of that faith are in some degree raised to keep it up, nourish and sustain it in a comfortable rest and confidence unto the end; which difficulty doth not arise from any want or scantiness in the objects themselves, which are so over-rich and superabundant for the pardon of sinners, but from the deep incredulity, and vast fears, jealousies, and misgivings which our souls (when the hideous apparitions of sin and wrath are raised up once in men's consciences) do create and harbour in themselves in matters of so infinite moment, as salvation and damnation appear then to be at such
times. The truth of these things, besides daily experience, we may readily perceive by the pulse of his heart that penned this psalm, and the beatings thereof therein; who being sunk into the greatest depths
—'Out of the depths have I cried,' &c.—which depths (when we fathom them) we find to be his sins, both in the multitude and heinousness of them, as the following verse, ver. 3, tells us: 'If thou,
Lord, shouldst mark iniquities' (therein lay the bottom of his distress), 'O Lord, who shall stand?' In which conflict and sad condition, what hath his faith its next and immediate recourse unto of all other things, which the word of God (for that, as the 5th verse says, he consulted) did afford, and which he commends unto all the Israel of God, ver. 7, as the mainest prop and support unto his and their faith? Even this: 'With the Lord there is mercy, and with him there is plenteous redemption,' ver. 7; and then again, 'With thee there is forgiveness,' verse 4, as the fruit both of mercy and redemption; and therefore it is that 'my soul doth wait for the Lord,' ver. 7. And therefore 'let Israel hope in the Lord.' And 'he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities,' ver. 7 and 8. This is the summary effect of this psalm. Nor yet herein do we find this poor humbled soul to pitch his hope and confidence upon any gracious works had been wrought, or were in or with himself; he is altogether silent as to any mention of such, but wholly and absolutely his affiance is upon what was with God, and in God: 'Mercy is with him,'
&c., says he. And this is it was the foundation and bottom of his hope; this was all he had now to say; and yet opposeth this alone unto all the sins and iniquities which came up before his view, whether in their greatness or multitude. There is mercy with God, enough to pardon them, yea, and more than enough: 'plenteous redemption,' overflowing redemption, and of mercies together with it. Again, whether all these mercies were as yet his own in particular or no, he speaks not that neither; not whether God were the God of his mercies (as David, when established in assurance, elsewhere speaks, Ps. 89:24), but only utters this for the present (and that he was sure of) that 'mercy was with God,' and in God: 'Forgiveness was with him;' there it was to be had for such sinners as he was, and for the Israel of God, and therefore he personally puts in for a share in
them; that was all his hope. Yea, and thereupon he quietly 'waits,' as he there professeth to do, till the Lord should give forth some farther special word of comfort to his doleful and desolate soul.
I. Three things are here said to be with God, which phrase, with God, he again and again chooseth to express the grounds of his hope in God by. He applies it: 1. To mercy, the original and womb of all:
'Mercy is with him.' When a quality is in one as a disposition, or his nature, we find it said, that it is with him: of Nabal, 'Folly is with him; as is his name, so is he,' 1 Sam. 25:25. 2. To redemption, which I understand to be the mediation and satisfaction of the Messiah
(which was in those times in the psalmist and other believers' eyes) the procuring cause of all. 3. To forgiveness, as the fruit and effect of both: 'Forgiveness also is with thee.'
Yet, II., these three are said to be with him in a differing sense or respect.
1. Mercy is with God; that is, it is in him as his nature, and is all one as if he had said, He is of himself, and of his own inclination, a most gracious and merciful God, mercifully disposed to forgive; 'ready to forgive,' as the 86th Psalm expresseth it. It is his name, it is his nature; and in this sense it is said to be with him. It is also in his purposes and resolutions of his will; yea, it is the 'delight' of his soul.
2. Redemption is in that sense said to be with God, as his treasures are elsewhere said to be with him, that is, laid up with him or by him,
Deut. 32:34. And thus Christ's redemption or righteousness was then with him, in the virtue of Christ's bond and covenant given to God to perform it; and as truly with God then as since that Christ hath actually paid it, Christ being 'the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world.' And God did accordingly then under the Old Testament pardon sinners upon the intuition and security thereof, as Rom. 3:25,
26 shews; which place plainly speaks forth this truth, as also Acts 15:11 the same. In Job, you have a term equivalent unto the
psalmist's word 'redemption:' Job 33:24, 'Deliver him' (saith God of an humbled sinner); 'I have found a ransom,' or atonement.
III. In the virtue and intuition of these two it is that David says, 'Forgiveness is also with him;' that is, it is laid up ready by him on purpose to be had from him; as money coined lies ready by a rich man, as a rich man lays up ready money designed for such a special use, so is forgiveness laid up as on purpose. He is 'ready to forgive,'
Ps. 86:5. And God hath minted his mercies forth from out of his purposes into promises, where they lie exposed, and to be given forth to every one that will come in for grace, and take them from mercy's hands, even 'redemption from all iniquity,' whereof there is this undoubted evidence given in the psalm, that God would have the sons of men thereupon, and for that cause to 'fear' him; that is, to worship him and come to him, which if forgiveness were not with him, and to be had from him, for him, they would never do. You find moreover a special encomium of plenteous given to one of those three, in saying 'plenteous redemption,' which is placed in the midst of the three, on purpose to shew that the glory of this epithet is to be transfused to both those other; and so what is given to that one is in like manner to be attributed to the other two, but especially unto the first, viz., mercy, which hath in other scriptures eminently the glory of riches or plenteousness ascribed unto it, that being the original both of redemption and forgiveness, and they but derivatives from it.
And so it is all one as if he had plainly said, that 'plenteous mercy' also is with him. And indeed elsewhere David gives the very same attribute unto mercy: Ps. 103:8, 'The Lord is plenteous in mercy.'
And for that other of forgiveness (the effect of both), it is impliedly all one as if he had said of that also, that 'plenteous forgiveness is with him,' which very style God himself doth in terms equivalent elsewhere use of it: Isa. 55:7, 'I will abundantly pardon.' So then plenteousness and riches were intended, and are to be attributed to them all, but above all unto mercy, of which you so often read the same to be spoken of; as 'abundant mercy,' 1 Peter 1:3; 'the exceeding riches of his grace,' Eph. 2:7.
The heart and drift of the psalmist being thus laid open, I begin with the MERCIES of God, these being the original, the matrix, the primo primum, the first causes of our salvation, and that other of Christ's righteousness (or redemption) but a primo ortum, or that which sprang or rose up from thence. This therefore of the mercies in God's heart ought to have the priority, as having deservedly the preeminence in the thing itself, and as being most fundamental, and accordingly procreative of faith.
Obs. The observation for our practice which comes forth and meets us out of the whole is, that it is a most behoveful and advantageous way for humbled sinners, in their treaties with God for forgiveness, to take the most ample view of the infinite mercies that are in the heart and nature of God, together with promises of forgiveness indefinitely delivered, and so to plead them unto God; which to do will prove the greatest support and strength to their souls for believing. This I confess to be in view so plain a point, and so obvious in the very proposal of it unto every common understanding in Christianity, that it will perhaps be wondered at that I should so largely insist upon it; yet this I will aforehand say, that the true and real spiritual exercise and practice of it, as it is not commonly enough and experimentally understood, but very greatly disused, so the use and benefit that follows thereupon is exceeding great, and not sufficiently known. And unto souls humbled and broken as aforesaid, that this course should be taken by, them, is so remote from strengthening presumption in them, that on the contrary, through the efficacy of the same mercy, it proves most operative to make the soul holy and obedient unto God, according unto that true, ancient, and frequent character given of saints under the Old Testament, where we find these two joined, as impossible to be ever separated
(when they are in truth either of them), 'one that feareth God'
(whereby his obedience is expressed), and 'that hopes in his mercy'
(whereby his faith is expressed); as Ps. 33:18, 'Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;' and Ps. 147:11, 'The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.' And as you find these two distinctly