Sermon 47
Psalm 119, Verse 41. Let your mercies come also to me, O Lord, even your salvation according to your word.
In this verse you have the man of God in straits, and begging for deliverance. In this prayer and address to God you may observe: 1. The cause and fountain of all — your mercies. 2. The effect or thing asked — salvation. 3. The warrant or ground of his expectation — according to your word. 4. The effectual application of the benefit asked — come also to me. The sum of the verse may be given you in this point.
Doctrine: That the salvation of God is the fruit of his mercy, and effectually dispensed and applied to his people according to his word. There is a twofold salvation: temporal and eternal.
1. Temporal salvation is deliverance from temporal dangers (Exodus 14:13): "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."
2. Eternal deliverance from hell and wrath, together with that positive blessedness which is called eternal life (Hebrews 5:9): "And being made perfect he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." The text is applicable to both, though possibly the former is principally intended.
1. I shall apply it to temporal salvation, or deliverance out of trouble. Then observe:
1. The cause of it — your mercies. God's children often fall into such straits that nothing but mercy can help them out: all deliverance is the fruit of mercy pitying our misery, but some deliverance especially is the fruit of mercy pardoning our sin. I shall give you some special cases, both as to danger and sin.
In all cases as to danger it is mercy which appears, partly because God's great argument to move him is the misery of his people (Deuteronomy 32:36): "The Lord will repent for his people; when he sees that all their power is gone, and none shut up and left, no manner of defense, but exposed as a prey to those that have a mind to wrong them." It is the only argument (Psalm 79:8): "Let your tender mercies speedily prevent us, for we are brought very low." Mercy relents towards a sinful people when they are a wasted people. Partly because when there are no other means to help, mercy unexpectedly finds out means for us. We are at an utter loss in ourselves; God finds out means of relief for us (Psalm 57:3): "He shall send from heaven and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up, Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and truth." When we want help on earth, faith seeks for help from heaven, and mercy chooses means for us when we cannot pitch upon anything that may do us good. In these cases does mercy discover itself as to danger.
2. More eminently in special cases, when their sins have evidently brought them into those straits. Many afflictions are the strokes of God's immediate hand, or the common effects of his providence permitting the malice of men for our trial and exercise, but some are the proper effects of our own sins. We run ourselves into inconveniences by our folly, and even then mercy finds a way of escape for us. Two ways may our sin be said to bring our trouble upon us: Meritoriè and Effectivè.
1. Meritoriè — when some judgment treads upon the heels of some foregoing sin and provocation: as David, when he had offended in the matter of Uriah. See Psalm 3, title: "A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son," and the two first verses: "Lord how are they increased that trouble me? many are they that rise up against me, many there be that say of my soul there is no help for him in God, Selah." David was deserted of his own subjects, chased from his palace and royal seat by his own son Absalom; he had defiled Uriah's wife secretly, and his wives were defiled in the face of all Israel, and he driven to wander up and down for safety. God will make all that behold the scandalous sins of his people see what it is to provoke him to wrath. See how he complains, verse 1: "Lord how are they increased that trouble me, many are they that rise up against me." You shall find in 2 Samuel 15:12: "The people increased continually with Absalom." A multitude against him, and the rest durst not be for him, their hearts were hovering; and in another place (2 Samuel 17:11): "All Israel gathered to him from Dan to Beersheba." In what a sorry plight was David when all was against him, and the world thought God was against him? For so it follows, verse 2: "Many there be which say of my soul there is no help for him in God, Selah." The world counted the case desperate, and insulted over him — now God has left him — but they mistook fatherly correction for vindictive justice: this was a sad condition, but David goes to God to fetch him off. Though he had drawn this judgment upon himself, yet he deals with him for relief; in such cases mercy is seen. That pit must be very deep when the line of grace does not go to the bottom of it; in the face of the temptation David maintains his confidence in God. See verse 3: "But you, O Lord, are my shield, my glory and the lifter up of my head." God is counter-comfort to all his troubles: he was in danger, God was his shield; his kingdom was at stake, God was his glory; he was under sorrow and shame, God would lift up his head — to the unarmed a shield, to the disgraced glory, to the dejected an encourager or the lifter up of his head. Thus when his case was thought desperate does mercy work for him.
2. Effectivè — when we ourselves run into the snare, and are held with the cords of our own vanity (Proverbs 5:22): "His own iniquities shall take [reconstructed: the] wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins." When we have been playing about the cockatrice's hole, and have brought mischief upon ourselves. Sometimes God's children have been guilty of this; they have been the causes of their own troubles, as David when his unbelief drove him to Gath, where he was in danger of his life, and escaped by his dissembling. Psalm 34, entitled a prayer of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed. And Josiah put himself on a war against Pharaoh Necho — and other such instances — then if they are saved it is certainly mercy.
2. Again observe: it is not mercy, but mercies — the expression is plural.
1. To note the plenty and perfection of this attribute in God. God is very merciful to poor creatures — see in how many notions God's mercy is represented to us; a distinct consideration of them yields an advantage in believing, for though they express the same thing, yet every notion begets a fresh thought, by which mercy is more taken abroad in the view of conscience. This is that pouring out of God's name spoken of (Song of Solomon 1:3): "Your name is as ointment poured forth." Ointment in the box does not yield such a fragrance as when it is poured out. God has proclaimed his name (Exodus 34:6): "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth." God has given this description of himself, and the saints often take notice of it. (Psalm 103:8) "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and of great kindness." (Joel 2:13) "Turn to the Lord your God for he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repents him of the evil." (Jonah 4:2) "I knew that you were a gracious God, slow to anger and of great kindness" — and in various other places. What does the Spirit of God aim at in this express enumeration and accumulation of names of mercy, but to give us a help in meditation, and to enlarge our apprehensions of God's mercy?
1. The first notion is mercy, which is an attribute whereby God inclines to favor them that are in misery; it is a name God has taken with respect to us. The love of God first falls upon himself — God loves himself, but he is not merciful to himself; mercy respects creatures in misery. Justice seeks a fit object; mercy a fit occasion. Justice looks to what is deserved; mercy to what is wanted and needed.
2. The next notion is grace, which notes the free bounty of God, and excludes all means on the creature's part; grace does all freely, though there be no precedent debt or obligation, or hope of recompense whereby anything can accrue to God. His external motive is our misery; his internal motive his own grace. Angels that never sinned are saved merely out of grace. Men that were once miserable are saved, not only out of grace but out of mercy.
3. The next notion is long-suffering, or slowness to anger. The Lord is not easily overcome by the wrongs or sins of the creature — he does not only pity our misery (that is mercy) and do us good for nothing (that is grace), but bears long with our infirmities; that is slowness to anger. Certainly he is easily appeased, and is hardly drawn to punish. Men are ready to anger, slow to mercy, quickly inflamed and hardly appeased, but it is quite the contrary with God. It is good to observe the difference between God and man: man cannot make anything of a sudden, but destroys it in an instant. When men are to make anything they are long about it — as building a house is a long work, but pulling it down and undermining it is done in a short time — but God is quick in making, slow in destroying. He made the world in six days; he could have done it in a moment, were it not that he would give us a pattern of labor and order in all things. Now it has continued for six thousand years and upwards, as some account — such is his long-suffering. How many of us has God borne with for ten, twenty, thirty years, from childhood to grey hairs, from the cradle to the grave. The angels were not endured in their sinful state but immediately cast into hell.
4. Kindness and bounty — he is plenteous in goodness; God is good and does good, his communications to the creature are free and full, as the sun gives out light, and the fountain water. Thus you see the reason why mercies are plurally expressed.
2. The frequency of it (Lamentations 3:23): "His mercies are new every morning" — that is, renewed. Those that concern the body and soul — not only merciful in saving once or twice, but every day pardons our new sins, and gives to his repenting children new comforts. There is a throne of grace open every day, not once a year (Hebrews 4:16) as it was to the high priest under the law. The golden scepter is daily held out, the fountain is ever open, not stopped up nor drawn dry; God keeps not terms, but keeps a court of audience. Every day we may come and sue out our pardon, and take out the comforts we stand in need of.
3. The variety of our necessities, both by reason of misery and sin — so that not mercy but mercies will do us good. We have not one sin but many, not one misery but many, therefore mercies are needful for us.
1. Our miseries are many; danger way-lays us on every side, therefore the mercy of God is said to compass us about (Psalm 32:10): "He that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about." On whichever side temptation and trouble makes the assault, mercy is ready to make the defense. "Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all" (Psalm 34:19). Their troubles are many — from God's own hand, Satan's temptations, malice of the wicked world — therefore let your mercies come to me.
2. Our sins — so many provocations, transgressions from the womb (Isaiah 48:8). After grace received we have our failings; there remains much venom and evil of sin (Psalm 51:1-2): "Have mercy upon me according to the greatness of your mercy, according to the multitude of your tender mercy, blot out my transgressions" — where great sins call for great mercies, many sins for many mercies. In that one act how many ways did he sin? No great sin can be committed alone, but one evil act draws on another, as links in a [illegible]. Adultery, blood — and this by a king, whose duty it was to punish it in others — the more above the stroke of man's justice, the more liable to God's. This when he had many wives of his own — a crime committed out of want is not so heinous as that committed out of wantonness. He took the poor man's one ewe lamb, when he had many flocks and herds. This was done not suddenly and in the heat of passion, but in cool blood, plotting his opportunities, abusing Uriah's simplicity and sincerity to his own destruction. His honesty in not returning to his house should have been a check upon David; he made him drunk, drew Joab into the conspiracy and confederacy of his guilt. Many perished with Uriah in the attempt upon Rabbah.
4. The many favors to be bestowed upon us, as food, clothing, protection, liberty in our service, and after all eternal life; therefore mercies, which gives us all things necessary to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:4).
2. The effect [Your Salvation] brought about in God's way, and upon God's terms. In temporal safety we must wait for God's salvation, such as God gives, God allows; better be miserable than be saved upon other terms; many would be safe from troubles, but they would take their own way, and so turn aside to crooked paths. Those martyrs spoken of in Hebrews (Hebrews 11:35) would not accept deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection; to wince under trouble, and fling off the burden before it be taken off by God without any sin of ours; otherwise we break prison, get out by the window not by the door; we must take up our cross as long as God will please to have us bear it. David says, 'Your salvation.'
3. The warrant and ground of his expectation, according to your word: God's mercy is to be expected according to the tenor of the promise. How is that?
1. No temporal blessing is absolutely to be expected, for God has reserved the liberty of trying and chastising his children in outward things; the covenant is to be understood with the exception of the cross, and we can have no temporal benefit by it but as it is useful for us (Psalm 89:32-38). I will visit their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes: nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. God will use medicinal discipline, though not satisfy his justice upon them.
2. The qualification of the promise must be regarded by those that would have benefit by it: God's covenant is made with his people, 'tis a mutual stipulation, many would have comfort, we plead promises of safety with God, but forget promises of obedience to him; as Ephraim would tread out the corn but not break the clods (Hosea 10:11). There was food (Deuteronomy 25:4): you shall not muzzle the ox which treads out the corn. We mind our own interest more than God's honor.
3. A word of promise calls for faith and trust whatever contrariety appears in God's providence, God's word must bear up our hearts, it is as a pawn till the deliverance come: God's mercy is the same still, his word calls for trust, the more we trust and hope in his mercy, the better for us (Psalm 13:5). I have trusted in your mercy, my soul shall rejoice in your salvation. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we hope in you (Psalm 33:22). And he that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about (Psalm 32:10). The more clear is your claim when you trust yourselves with him; he is a merciful God, and his word says he will take care for them that fear him.
4. All this trust must be set to work in prayer, so does David and so says the word (Psalm 50:15). Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify my name. I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11-12). Then you shall call upon me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will hearken to you. Thus says the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them (Ezekiel 36:37).
4. The effectual application: let your mercies come also to me.
1. He begs application to me also, God is every day scattering his mercies abroad in the world, and David would not be left out of God's care and blessed provision, but have his share also. Esau's words are applicable upon this occasion (Genesis 27:38): have you but one blessing, O my father? Bless me, even me also. When the earth is full of his goodness, beg your share; God is the Father of mercies, he has not the less for bestowing, as the sun has not less light for us, because others enjoy it with us, God does not waste by giving.
2. He begs an effectual application: let your mercies come to me; the way was blocked up with sins and difficulties, yet mercy could clear all, and find access to him, or make out its way. Let it come to me, that is, let it be performed or come to pass as it is rendered (Judges 13:12): now let your words come to pass to us. Here let it come home to me, for my comfort and deliverance. David elsewhere says (Psalm 23:6), mercy and goodness shall follow me all my days; go after him, find him out in his wanderings. So (Psalm 116:12), what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? They found their way to him though shut up with sins and dangers. Thus we see how to plead with God for temporal salvation, we must make grace and nothing but grace the ground of our hope, and this according to the tenor of the word.
2. As it is applicable to eternal salvation; and then,
1. The ground of all is mercy or pity of the creature's misery; the Lord is not moved to bestow grace upon sinners for any goodness that he finds in them, or could foresee in them; for he finds none, and could foresee nothing but what was the fruit of his own grace (Romans 11:35): Who has given him first, and it shall be recompensed to him again? It is the honor of God to begin all things, as the river owes all to the fountain, the fountain nothing to the river; as none can give him first, so none can be profitable to him, for he needs nothing (Acts 17:25): Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needs anything, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things. In fact we deserve the contrary, to be cast into utter darkness (Ezekiel 36:21-22): I do not this for your sakes, I had pity for my name's sake, which you have profaned among the heathen. (1 Peter 1:3) Of his abundant goodness he has begotten us to a lively hope. We have not a right notion of mercy, unless we admire the plenty of it (Ephesians 2:4): God who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, has quickened us with Christ. There need many mercies from first to last for the saving of a poor sinner; their natural misery is great (Ezekiel 16:6): When I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, live; yes, I said to you when you were in your blood, live. Their actual sins are many (Jeremiah 14:7): Our iniquities testify against us; the way of their recovery by Christ is mysterious (John 3:16): God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The course taken for satisfying wronged justice, the application involves many mercies, the renewing of their natures (Titus 3:5): According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. The preserving of inherent grace against temptations, forgiving many sins after conversion (Isaiah 55:7): Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. The righteous fall seven times a day, and rises up again (Proverbs 24:16). The great eternal good things to be bestowed on them (Jude 21): Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. So that from first to last there is nothing but a concatenation of mercies.
2. The effect, salvation: this properly deserves to be called so; we are saved but in part before, then from all evils, from the greatest evil hell; before we are saved, but we may be troubled again; now no more sorrow, when all opposition is broken, and God is all in all, and the church presented as a prey snatched out of the teeth of lions, all former things are done away.
3. This dispensed according to the Word: now what does the Word say, when a sinner repents all the iniquities which he has committed shall be forgotten; there is abuse of mercy noted (Deuteronomy 29:19): If he shall bless himself and say, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart. I may go on in sin and cry God mercy and there is an end — no, mercy issues out itself for the salvation of men, according to the Word; these are conclusions contrary to grace (Jude 4): There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. The principle is true but the conclusion is false, certainly God is merciful, there is no end nor measure, nor bank nor bottom in his mercy; but throughout the whole Scriptures mercy is only promised to the penitent, and those that come to God by Christ. Take mercy according to the Word, according to the analogy of faith, and there is not a more powerful incentive of duty (Psalms 130:5): There is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. (Jeremiah 2:11-12) The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. (Romans 12:1) I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. This is true divinity. The flesh devises another doctrine, let us sin that grace may abound — to make a carnal pillow of God's mercy, that they may sleep securely in sin, yes a dung-cart to carry away their filth. God is merciful, but to those that count sin a burden, and misery; God is slow to anger, but yet angry when provoked, abused patience kindles into fury, as water when the mouth of the fountain or course of the river is stopped, breaks out with more violence. God has his arrows of displeasure to shoot at the wicked, you must not fancy a God all honey, all sweetness; he is the Father of mercies, but so that he is also a God of vengeance (Psalms 68:19-20): Blessed be the Lord who daily leads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation, and to God the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the hairy scalp of his enemies, the mercy of God is large and free if men do not make themselves incapable by their impenitence.
4. We must beg: 1. The application of these to me also. We have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings (1 Kings 20:31). Now we would feel it. (1 Timothy 1:15) This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Wind in ourselves within the cover of a promise, enter at the back door of a promise, there comes virtue from Christ if but touched, the woman came behind him and touched the hem of his garment, so we must seek the application of this virtue.
2. Effectual Application, Let it come to me. Mercy comes to us, or we shall never come to it (1 Peter 1:10). The grace that comes to us [illegible] the grace which is brought to you at the Revelation of Jesus Christ — God's grace is brought home to our doors, we seek not after it but it seeks after us. Salvation is gone forth, says the Prophet, to find out lost sinners: wisdom has sent forth her maidens, she cries upon the high places of the city, whoever is simple let him turn in here (Proverbs 9:3-4). God sends the Gospel up and down the world to offer his grace to men, it works out its way.
Use. Here is encouragement and direction to poor creatures, how to obtain God's mercy for their comfort.
1. Encouragement: mercy does all with God, it is the first cause that sets every thing to work.
1. Mercy is natural to God (2 Corinthians 1:3). God is not merciful by accident, but by nature, the sun does not more naturally shine, nor fire more naturally burn, nor water more naturally flow, than God does naturally show mercy.
2. It is pleasing to him (Micah 7:18). Who is a God like to you, that pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage, he retains not his anger forever because he delights in mercy. Judgment is called his strange work (Isaiah 28:21). That he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Primitive acts he is forced to, but he rejoices to do good, as life-honey drops of its own accord.
3. It is plentiful in God, he is rich in mercy, abundant in goodness and truth, your sins are like a spark of fire that falls into the ocean, it is quenched immediately, so are all your sins in the ocean of God's mercy, there is not more water in the sea than there is mercy in God.
4. It is the great wonder of the divine nature: every thing in God is wonderful, especially his pardoning mercy. It is no such great wonder in God that he stretches out the heavens like a curtain, since he is omnipotent, that he formed the earth or the waters, since he is strong, that he distinguished times, adorned the heavens with so many stars, decked the earth with such variety of plants and herbs, since he is wise, that he has set bounds to the sea, governs the waters, since he is Lord of all, that he made man a living creature, since he is the Fountain of Life, but that he can be merciful to sinners, infinitely merciful when infinitely just. There is a conflict in the attributes about us, but mercy rejoices over judgment (James 2:13). That he is so gracious and condescending, when his first covenant seemed to bind him to destroy us, that he that hates sin is so ready to forgive it, pardons it so often, and punishes it so seldom.
5. He is communicative, it is over all his works (Psalm 145:9). Not a creature but subsists by God's mercy, he loves man and beast (Psalm 36:6) and (1 Timothy 4:10). He is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe, the whole earth is full of his goodness, Lord show it to me also, he hears the cry of ravens.
2. To direct us how to sue for it in a broken-hearted manner, there are two extremes, self-confidence and desperation, self-confidence challenges a debt, and despair shuts out hopes of mercy, a proud Pharisee pleads his works (Luke 18:11). Cain says (Genesis 4:13), my punishment is greater than I can bear. The middle between both is the penitent Publican (Luke 18:13). He stood afar off, and would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, go to him, that which with men is the worst plea, with God is the best.
