manner of the God in the land, &c, that was a judgment and a mercy too: the long forbearance of God,' who destroyed not all, led the rest' to repentance.

1. First observation: that when things come to this pass, and God is forced to the last remedies of judgment, this longsufferance will little or nothing concern particular persons, but nations and communities of men: for if any are smitten with judgment, if God takes his hands off again, and so opens a way for their repentance by prolonging their time, that comes under the second part of God's method, the ȧvoxn, or forbearance: but if he smites a single person with a final judgment, that is a long-suffering, not of him, but towards others; and God hath destroyed one to make others repent, the former's time being expired, and the date of his possibility determined: this explained.

2. And this must be observed, that we may truly estimate the acts of the divine justice and mercy. For all the world being but one intire argument of the divine mercy, we are apt to abuse it to vain confidence and presumption; first, mistaking the end, as if it would be indulgent to our sin this explained: and also mistaking the economy of it, and the manner of its ministration.

3. For if God suffers men to go on in sins, and punishes them not, it is not a mercy or a forbearance; it is a hardening of them, a consigning them to ruin and reprobation and they themselves give the best argument to prove it; for they every day multiply their iniquity, and every day grow more an enemy to God.

A prosperous iniquity is the most unprosperous condition in the world: this illustrated. What wisdom, philosophy, experience, revelation, promises and blessings cannot do, a mighty fear can; and therefore God's mercy prevails, even when nothing can be discerned but his judgments.

God's mercy is often given to us in parts, and to certain pur

TAY.

VOL. II.

Q

poses. Sometimes he only so forgives us, that he does not cut us off in the sin, but yet lays on a heavy load of judgment: instance of the Jewish captivity. Sometimes he makes a judg

instance of David (2 Sam.

ment less, and strikes more gently xii. 13.): sometimes he puts the evil off to a farther day, as in the case of Ahab and Hezekiah. And thus, when we have committed a heinous sin against God, we are not sure to be wholly forgiven on our repentance; but are happy if he so far forgive us as to spare us the pains of eternity: instance of David.

For if we sin and ask God forgiveness, and then are quiet, we feel so little inconvenience in the trade, that we are easily tempted to make a trade of it indeed: this topic enlarged on. No man that hath sinned can be restored to perfect innocence and perfect peace; so that he must watch and strive always against his sin; must mourn for it, pray for pardon, and always find cause to hate it, by knowing that he is for ever in danger on account of it, even though God may have pardoned him.

Sometimes we find a severer judgment happening on a people; and yet his mercy generally prevails over his justice. The result is, that God's mercies are not, and ought not to be instru ments of confidence to sin, because the very purpose of his mercy is to the contrary; and the very manner of his economy is such, that his mercy goes along in conjunction with his judg ments this topic enlarged on.

The use of all the premises is that which St. Paul expresses in the text, that we do not despise all this; and he only despises not, who serves the end of God in all these designs of mercy, that is, who repents of his sins. But there are many despisers : these described, and their folly pointed out.

SERMON VI.

THE MERCY OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS; OR, GOD'S METHOD IN CURING SINNERS.

ROMANS, CHAP. II.-VERSE 4.

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

PART I.

FROM the beginning of time till now, all effluxes which have come from God, have been nothing but emanations of his goodness, clothed in variety of circumstances. He made man with no other design than that man should be happy, and by receiving derivations from his fountain of mercy, might reflect glory to him. And therefore, God making man for his own glory, made also a paradise for man's use; and did him good, to invite him to do himself a greater: for God gave forth demonstrations of his power by instances of mercy; and he who might have made ten thousand worlds of wonder and prodigy, and created man with faculties able only to stare on and admire those miracles of mightiness, did choose to instance his in the effusions of mercy, that, at the same instant, he might represent himself desirable and adorable, in all the capacities of amiability; namely, as excellent in himself, and profitable to

us.

power

For as the sun sends forth a benign and gentle influence on the seed of plants, that it may invite forth the active and plastic power from its recess and secrecy, that by rising into

the tallness and dimensions of a tree, it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster-father, the prince of all the bodies of light; and in all these emanations, the sun itself receives no advantage, but the honor of doing benefits so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures; he at first sends forth his blessings on us, that we, by using them aright, should make ourselves capable of greater; while the giving glory to God, and doing homage to him, are nothing for his advantage, but only for ours; our duties towards him being like vapors ascending from the earth, not at all to refresh the region of the clouds, but to return back in a fruitful and refreshing shower; and God created us, not that we can increase his felicity, but that he might have a subject receptive of felicity from him. Thus he causes us to be born, that we may be capable of his blessings; he causes us to be baptised, that we may have a title to the glorious promises evangelical; he gives us his Son, that we may be rescued from hell. And when we constrain him to use harsh courses towards us, it is also in mercy he smites us, to cure a disease; he sends us sickness, to procure our health. And as if God were all mercy, he is merciful in his first design, in all his instruments, in the way, and in the end of the journey; and does not only show the riches of his goodness to them that do well, but to all men that they may do well: he is good, to make us good; he does us benefits, to make us happy. And if we, by despising such gracious rays of light and heat, stop their progress, and interrupt their design, the loss is not God's, but ours; we shall be the miserable and accursed people. This is the sense and paraphrase of my text: Despisest thou the riches of his goodness,' &c.? Thou dost not know,' that is, thou considerest not, that it is for farther benefit that God does thee this: the 'goodness of God' is not a design to serve his own ends on thee, but thine on him : 'the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.'

6

Here then is God's method of curing mankind, xpnotórns, ἀνοχή, μακροθυμία. ¿voxì, μaкpolvμía. First, 'goodness,' or inviting us to him by sugared words, by the placid arguments of temporal favor, and the propositions of excellent promises. Secondly, ȧroxù, at the same time. Although God is provoked every day, yet

he does ȧréxew, he "tolerates" our stubbornness, he forbears to punish; and when he does begin to strike, takes his hand off, and gives us truce and respite. For so ȧrox) signifies laxamentum, and inducias too. Thirdly, paкpolvμía, still “a long putting off" and deferring his final destroying anger, by using all means to force us to repentance; and this especially by the way of judgments; these being the last reserves of the divine mercy, and however we esteem it, is the greatest instance of the divine long-suffering that is in the world. After these instruments, we may consider the end, the strand on which these land us, the purpose of this variety, of these labors and admirable arts, with which God so studies and contrives the happiness and salvation of man: it is only that man may be brought by these means unto repentance, and by repentance may be brought to eternal life. This is "the treasure of the divine goodness," the great and admirable efflux of the eternal beneficence, the λTOS XONOTÓTYTOS, the riches of his goodness,' which whosoever despises, despises himself and the great interest of his own felicity; he shall die in his impenitence, and perish in his folly.

1. The first great instrument that God chooses to bring us to him, is xpnorárns, "profit," or benefit; and this must needs be first; for those instruments whereby we have a being, are so great mercies, that besides that they are such which give us the capacities of all other mercies, they are the advances of us in the greatest instances of promotion in the world. For from nothing to something is an infinite space; and a man must have a measure of infinite passed on him, before he can perceive himself to be either happy or miserable: he is not able to give God thanks for one blessing, until he hath received many. But then God intends we should enter on his service at the beginning of our days, because even then he is beforehand with us, and hath already given us great instances of his goodness. What a prodigy of favor is it to us, that he hath passed by so many forms of his creatures, and hath not set us down in the rank of any of them, till we came to be paulo mi- ̈ nores angelis, ‘a little lower than the angels !' and yet from the meanest of them God can perfect his own praise. The deeps and the snows, the hail and the rain, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, they can and do glorify God, and give him