thing but free grace makes the difference; and where can there be love and praises, and service found to answer this? All is to be ascribed to the mercy, gifts, and calling of Christ. And his ministers, (as doth St. Paul) ascribe it to his mercy that they faint not.

But alas! we neither enjoy the comfort of this mercy as obtained, nor are grieved for wanting it, and stirred up to seek after it, if not yet obtained. What do you think? seems it a small thing in your eyes to be shut out from the presence of God, and to bear the weight of his wrath for ever, that you thus slight this mercy, and let it pass by you unregarded? or will that imagined obtaining divert you from the real pursuit of it? Will you be willingly deceived, and be your own deceivers in a matter of so great importance? You cannot think too highly of the riches of divine mercy; it is above all your thoughts; but remember and consider this, that there is a peculiar people of his own, to whom alone all the riches of it do belong.

And therefore, how great soever it is, unless you find yourselves of that number, you cannot lay claim to the smallest share of it. And you are not ignorant what is their character, what a kind of people they are, that have such a knowledge of God as himself gives; they are all taught of God, enlightned and sanctified by his Spirit, a holy people, as he is a holy God, such as have the riches of that his grace by which they are saved, in most precious esteem, and their hearts by it enflamed with his love; and therefore their thoughts taken up with nothing so much as studying how they may obey and honour him; rather chusing to displease all the world, than offend him; and accounting nothing too dear, yea nothing good enough to do him service. If it be thus with you, then you have indeed obtained mercy.

But if you be such as can wallow in the same puddle with the profane world, and take a share of

2 Cor. iv. 1.

their ungodly ways; or if, though your outward carriage be somewhat more smooth, you regard iniquity in your hearts, have your hearts ardent in the love and pursuit of the world, but frozen to God; if you have some bosom idol that you hide and entertain, and cannot find in your heart to part with some one beloved sin, whatsoever it is, for all the love that God hath manifested to man in the son of his love Jesus Christ: In a word, if you can please and delight yourself in any way displeasing unto God, (though his people, while they are here have spots, yet these are not the spots of his people that I am now speaking of,) I can give you no assurance that as yet you have obtained mercy on the contrary, it is certain that the wrath of God is yet abiding on you, and if you continue in this state, you are in apparent danger of perishing under it. You are yet children of spiritual darkness, and in the way to utter and everlasting darkness. Know ye what it is to be destitute of this mercy? It is a woeful state, though you had all worldly enjoyments, and were in the top of outward prosperity, to be shut out from the mercy and love of God.

There is nothing doth so kindly work repentance, as the right apprehension of the mercy and love of God. The beams of that love are more powerful to melt the heart than all the flames of mount Sinai, all the threatnings and terrors of the law. Sin is the root of our misery; and therefore it is the proper work of this mercy, to rescue the soul from it; both from the guilt, and the power of it at once. Can you think there is any suitableness in it, that the peculiar people of God should despise his laws, and practise nothing but rebellions? That those in whom he hath magnified his mercy, should take pleasure in abusing it and that he hath washed any with the blood of his Son, to the end that they may still wallow again in the mire? As if we were redeemed not from sin, but to sin: as if we should say, We are delivered to do all these abominations',

Jer. vii. 10.

Oh! let us not dare thus to abuse and affront the free grace of God, if we mean to be saved by it: let as many as would be found amongst those that obtain mercy, walk as his people, whose peculiar inheritance is his mercy. And seeing this grace of God hath appeared unto us, let us embrace it, and let it effectually teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.

And if you be persuaded to be earnest suitors for this mercy, and to fly into Jesus, who is the true mercy-seat, then be assured it is yours. Let not the greatest guiltiness scar you and drive you from it, but rather drive you the more to it; for the greater the weight of that misery is under which you lie, the more need you have of this mercy, and the more will be the glory of it in you. It is a strange kind of argument used by the Psalmist, and yet a sure one, it concludes well and strongly", Lord pardon my iniquity, for it is great. The soul pressed with the greatness of its sin lying heavy upon it, may make that very pressure an argument to press the forgiveness of it at the hands of free mercy; it is for thy name sake, that makes it strong, the force of the inference lies in that. Thou art nothing, and worse than nothing; true! but all that ever obtained this mercy were once so: they were nothing of all that which it hath made them to be; they were not a people, had no interest in God, were strangers to mercy, yea, heirs of wrath: yea, they had not so much as a desire after God, until this mercy prevented them, and showed itself to them, and them to themselves, and so moved them to desire it, and caused them to find it, caught hold on them and plucked them out of the dungeon. And it is unquestionably still the same, and fails not; ever expending, and yet never all spent, yea, not so much as at all diminished; flowing as the rivers from one age to another, serving each age in the present, and yet no whit the less to those that come after. He who exercises it is The LORD for

giving iniquity, transgression and sin to all that come unto him, and yet still keeping mercy for thousands that come after*.

You that have obtained this mercy, and have the seal of it within you, it will certainly conform your hearts to its own nature, it will work you to a merciful compassionate temper of mind to the souls of others that have not yet obtained it. You will indeed, as the Lord doth, hate sin; but (as he doth likewise) you will pity the sinner. You will be so far from misconstruing and grumbling at the long suffering of God, as if you would have the bridge cut because you are over, (as St. Augustin speaks) that on the contrary, your great desire will be to draw others to partake of the same mercy with you, knowing it to be rich enough: and you will in your station use your best diligence to bring in many to it, both in love to the souls of men, and to the glory of God.

And withal, you will be still admiring and extolling this mercy as it is manifested unto you, considering what it is, and what you were before it visited you. The Israelites confessed, (at the offering of the first fruits,) to set off the bounty of God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father; they confessed their captivity in Egypt: but far poorer and baser is our natural condition, and far more precious is that land, to the possession of which this free mercy bringeth us.

Do but call back your thoughts, (you that have indeed escaped it) and look but into that pit of misery whence the hand of the Lord hath drawn you out, and you cannot miss to love him highly, and still kiss that gracious hand, even while it is scourging you with any affliction whatsoever; because it hath once done this for you, namely, plucked you out of everlasting destruction. As the thoughts of this change will teach us to praise, He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit; then follows, He -hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto

* Exod. xxxiv. 7. y Deut. xxv. 5. z Psal. xl. 23.

our God; not only redeemed me from destruction, but withal crowned me with glory and honoura. He not only doth forgive all our debts, and let us out of prison, but enriches us with an estate that cannot be spent, and dignifies us with a crown that cannot wither, made up of nothing of ours. These two will stretch and tune the heart very high, to consider from what a low estate grace brings a man, and how high it doth exalt him; in what a beggarly vile condition the Lord finds us, and yet doth not only free us thence, but puts such dignities on us; Raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. Or as Joshua the priest, puts off the polluted garments, and sets on a fair mitre. So those of this priesthood are dealt withal.

Now that we may be the deeper in the sense and admiration of this mercy, it is indeed our duty to seek earnestly after the evidence and strong assurance of it; for things work on us according to our notice and apprehensions of them, and therefore the more right assurance of mercy, the more love, and thankfulness, and obedience springs from it: therefore it is that the Apostle here represents this great and happy change of estate to christians, as a thing that they may know concerning themselves, and ought to seek the knowledge of, that so they may be duly affected with it. And it is indeed å happy thing to have in the soul an extract of that great archive and act of grace towards it, that hath stood in heaven from eternity. It is sure both a very comfortable and profitable thing to find and read clearly the seal of mercy upon the soul, which is holiness, that by which a man is marked by God, as a part of his peculiar possession that he hath chosen out of the world: and when we perceive any thing of this let us look back, as here the Apostle would have us to do, and reflect how God has called us from darkness to his marvellous light.

(a Psal, ciii. 4. b Psal. cxiii. 7, S. Zech. iii. 3, 4, 5.