---- CHAPTER III: The proofs of this assertion: by Scripture, and afterwards by reasons.
revolving of them in our thoughts, they will come to have, according to the proportion of that enlargement (through the Spirit's accompanying of them), answerable effects, in an enlargement and increase of faith in us.
CHAPTER III
The proofs of this assertion: by Scripture, and afterwards by reasons.
One Scripture above all other singled forth, and that alone, Exod.
34:6, 7.—This made a new text for the subsequent discourse.—The grand assertion resolved into two heads, both of them distinctly drawn out, and proposed to be proved out of the text.—The eminency of this one Scripture is commended thereby to all our faiths.—Old
Testament faith, and New, one and the same.
I come to the confirmation of the assertion, as thus stated and explained, which proceeds, 1. By Scripture.
2. By the true and innate reasons thereof, drawn from the nature of faith, and the wonderful suitedness that the mercies in God's heart hold, by way of object, with and unto that principle of faith in our hearts, so as to attract and draw forth faith in all the acts of it.
1. By Scripture. I single out only that renowned original God himself immediately published unto Moses concerning his pardoning mercies to him and us all; for unto him it was, though on our behalf also, that they were proclaimed, Exod. 34. Two grand deeds there were, which Old Testament faith held all upon. The first, of the promised Messiah, given to Eve and Adam at first by God himself, the immediate revealer, and after renewed to Abraham, David, and so on. The second, this glorious display of pardoning mercies, which
was as immediately, but far more solemnly proclaimed, regio more, by God himself. And these two were as the two pillars, Boaz and Jachim, in the house of God, and are in Ps. 130 set out as two known
'cities of refuge' for broken hearts to fly unto. I shall make the latter of these the stage or substratum of all throughout this treatise, the grace and mercy in God being the originale originans, the womb or original even of the promise of Christ himself, and bears up an answerable pre-eminence of order and stress in the foundation of our faith. And this scripture, Exod. 34:6, 7, holds forth the amplest and largest display of mercy any other affords. And therefore I have most deservedly made choice of this one, to sustain henceforth the whole weight of all that follows, and shall accordingly found all upon it as upon a new text.
And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.—
EXOD. 34:6, 7.
I shall not yet handle it in such an orderly and continued way as is usual to complete the exposition of a text, but do reserve that when I come to the merits of it afterwards. In the mean while, I shall only make observation of such things about and out of it, as do directly tend to prove that general subject I affixed as the title to the whole discourse in the front, upon the entrance unto it; the substance of which is resolved into two propositions and heads. 1. That the mercies in God's heart and nature are a prime object and support of faith, as it hath been stated. 2. That mercy and grace in God are truly and properly properties of the divine nature and being; or, that God is of a merciful nature, and that his heart and purposes are to shew mercy, as the effects of that mercy in his nature; which two will make the demonstration complete. And my design is to allege the heads of no other proofs for either than what these words, and the coherence
of them, and circumstances about them, or citations of them elsewhere, do afford ground for; and shall call in no other scriptures, but reductive only, for aid, and but such as of themselves will come about this, to back and confirm those proofs first, so grounded on the words. The grounds for the first head are two: 1st, Some special observations made upon this proclamation itself of mercy, which contains the occasion, circumstances, end, and purpose of it, and the issue and use made of it by Moses at that instant time. All which, as they do wonderfully enhance the grace and mercy of God proclaimed in it, so do mightily also commend these words unto our faith. 2dly,
That these very words (as to before the substance of them) were ever after made use of as the common refuge and asylum (and therefore the object) of the faith of the saints of the Old Testament, as to which they ordinarily had recourse for their support in point of forgiveness, and upon other occasions in which they stood in need of mercy; the evidence of both which, when they shall be spread before us, and punctually exemplified in so many instances of the best and greatest of saints, and their practice, this rich parcel of Scripture will come concredited and recommended to our faith, with a mighty testimonial, under the hands of so many renowned witnesses that lived and died in the faith; as the apostle speaks of those saints, Heb.
11, throughout that chapter, and in chapter 12; and as the apostle there exhorts those Hebrews of the New Testament to live by faith, from the instances of such a cloud of witnesses under the Old
Testament, of whom he gives the catalogue, so may I, upon as just a ground, invite all believers heedfully to attend this scripture, as being also the spring of all other scriptures about God's mercies that after followed, which are but as lesser streams from a fountain. And I may withal invite them to study the mercies of God as they are set forth therein, and to have it much in their meditations, treaties, and pleadings with God, and in all their exercises of believing; because in this small compass of words God hath met with, and by it supported so many of his precious ones of old. And we that are believers under the New Testament, 'we having the same spirit of faith; according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore speak,' 2 Cor. 4:13, as the great apostle, citing David's