offend God is itself one great mercy of the covenant. These mercies will melt your hearts into tears of evangelical repentance for offending God, as you may gather from Zech. xii. 10; brokenness of heart is also one of the mercies of the covenant. Sense of these mercies will make your souls love God supremely, Luke vii. 47, while love to God is itself another of the mercies of the covenant; and so for the rest of the christian graces. There is not a useful disposition requisite to qualify us for God's service, but it is contained in the covenant; hereby we shall know God's will, be willing to obey it, and delight ourselves in God's service, as David did, Psalm v. 7, "I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship towards thy holy temple :" we shall then "sing in the ways of the Lord, and in the height of Zion, and flow together for the goodness of the Lord," Jer. xxxi. 12; that is, the goodness of the Lord will engage the saints to come with cheerfulness into God's presence, and thank him for an opportunity of enjoying the manifestations of his favour. Holy hearts delight in holy works; grace fits the soul for God; covenant mercies render a soul capable of and prepared for covenant duties; and the more you partake of these mercies, the more delight will you take in duty; the more like you are to God, the more delight will you take in God, and God will delight more in you, and so there will be sweet fellowship betwixt God and your souls. On the contrary, carnal spirits cannot endure spiritual exercises; they come to duties as a bear to the stake, and when they are therein, they are upon a rack: Lord, be merciful to such a soul! 7. These covenant mercies will not leave the soul till they have brought it to heaven. God's mercies are in the heavens, that is their proper element; and they never cease moving and elevating the believer, till they they have raised him up into the highest heavens, where he shall "drink of the river of God's pleasures," Psalm xxxvi. 5, 8. Now covenanted souls do only taste that the Lord is gracious, but then they shall eat and drink abundantly, and shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness; yea, bathe their souls in "fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore," Psalm xvi. 11; these mercies will make you rich towards God, and rich with God to all eternity; if you die with covenant mercies in your hearts, you depart like old Simeon with Christ in his arms, you die in peace, and rest, with God. These sure mercies lead the van to eternal glory, which comes in the rear of a temporal life and spiritual graces; yea, eternal life is begun here, as the the Scripture testifies-how is that? why, no otherwise than by the possession of these spiritual mercies, and communion with God thereby: "this is eternal life, to know the only true God and Jesus Christ."— John xvii. 3. You lay hold on eternal life here, by laying hold on these best blessings and covenant mercies:* "he that hath the Son hath life," and by believing on the name of the Son of God, he may know that he hath eternal life, for "he hath the record in himself." See 1 John v. 10-13. What is the witness mentioned by the apostle? it is contained in some of these sure mercies of David. O, then, for a share and interest therein! On the other hand, he that hath nothing to do with these sure mercies, hath nothing to do with eternal glory; such as are strangers to the covenants of promise, have no hope of a better life; † "as the tree falls so shall it lie;" and such as are found without mercies in their hearts at death, shall be found destitute of mercy at the great day. * 1 Tim. vi. 12, 19. + Eph. i. 12. Eccl. xi. 3. There is one description of persons I would more particularly press to look after their share in these sure mercies of David, and those are the children of godly parents; and hence Solomon prays, "Remember the mercies of David thy servant."-2 Chron. vi. 42. So you that are the posterity of godly predecessors, be solicitous for and apply the mercies of your fathers; and there are two cogent arguments in the quality of these mercies which the text mentioneth, for here they are said to be sure; and you may consider, first, your parents found them sure to them; and secondly, the promise will make them sure to you. 1. Consider that your religious ancestors found these covenant mercies sure to their own souls. "Our fathers trusted in thee, cried to thee, they were delivered, they were not ashamed."-Psalm xxii. 4, 5. Heathens did pertinaciously adhere to the religion of their predecessors; and shall children of godly parents forsake their fathers' God? and such a God as never failed them. Moses in his song saith, "He is my God and I will prepare him a habitation; my father's God and I will exalt him."-Exod. xv. 2. Inquire and search, you that are the seed of his servants-had your fathers ever cause to complain of God? was he not as good as his word to them? did he not punctually keep engagements with them, and make good all his promises to them? did not your pious parents breathe their last with good speeches of God? did they not affectionately commend his service to you upon their death-bed? reflect upon their dying words; did they not proclaim to all the world, that God was a faithful covenant-keeping God to them? and did they not assure you he would be as good to you, if you embrace him and keep his ways? yea, cannot you bear witness for them, that their last words were employed in speaking well of God, as Jacob and Joseph both did upon their death-bed? did they not in the faith and sense thereof commend you into the hands of their gracious God? as Jacob, Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, "The God which fed me all my life long unto this day; the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads" 66 -did they not express particular persuasions of some future mercy, as those blessed patriarchs, *" Behold, I die, but God shall be with you, and bring you again to the land of your fathers!" Yea, cannot you that are children bear your testimony for God, that he hath been and done according to your parents' faith and hope? Solomon could say, after David's death, "Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father, great mercy," or bounty-but that is not all," and thou hast kept," saith he, " for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit upon his throne."1 Kings iii. 6. And I question not but many of you can say as much for God, that God hath had respect to you in temporal things, because you were the seed of such as were dear to him. O follow their steps, and you shall fare as they fared. 2. Yet further, you who are the children of pious parents, lie directly under the influences of these sure mercies; the promise is made to believers, and to their seed, † Gen. xvii. 7. Acts ii. 38, 39. such promises bear up the hearts of God's poor expiring servants, concerning their surviving children. Well then, let children claim their interest, and plead this grant; none of you will lose your earthly inheritance for want of looking after it. If your landlord promise you a lease of your tenement after your father's decease, on condition you sue * Gen. xlviii. 21. and 1. 24. + Isa. xliv. 3. and lix. 21. Exod. xx. 6. See 2 Sam. xxiii. 1—5. Acts iii. 25. to him for it, and pay the accustomed fine, will you be so mad as to be turned out of your farm, and the heritage left by your fathers, rather than own your just and kind landlord according to the laws of the land? No man is so fond* in temporal things, and why should you be so foolish in spiritual? Ah Christians, look after your patrimony; despise not your birth-right; is it nothing to you to be born of believing parents? remember your parents' tears and prayers, their hopes and fears. O consider, how it comforted their hearts upon their death-beds, that they left you under a good covenant, and bequeathed to you a goodly heritage; and why should your parents be deceived in their hopes, and at the great day meet you strangers to God and Christ, to be set with filthy goats upon the left hand of the Judge? why will you barter, mortgage, or sin away this fair estate? why will you not in the court of heaven claim the privileges of this blessed charter for your own souls? God is as willing to make them over to you, as ever he was to bestow them on your parents; he is loth to cut off his kindness from their seed; he looks after you in your soul-destroying practices; and saith, as once to Israel who did so wofully degenerate, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. What iniquity have your fathers found in me?"-Jer. ii. 2, 5. "I remember the kindness that in former times there was betwixt thy ancestors, and me. O their zeal in running after me, the holy services they did perform to me! Thy father, or grandfather, and some former generations, maintained intercourse with me, and I with them; there was love of espousals betwixt us, and I am sure I was not wanting Simple. * |