or the like. These are his ways, his course, the paths wherein he spends his life, and therefore he is seldom found out of one or another of them. Now,' saith David, 'all the paths of the Lord are mercy' (Ps. XXV. 10). He is never out of them: for wherever he is, still he is coming towards his Israel in one or other of these paths, stepping steps of mercy. Hence again it is that you find that at the end of every judgment there is mercy; and that God in the midst of this remembers that (Hab. ii. 3). Yea, judgment is in mercy; and were it not for that, judgment should never overtake his people (1 Cor. xi. 32). Wherefore let Israel hope in the Lord, seeing with him is all this mercy. Ninth. Besides all this, the mercy that is with God, and that is an encouragement to Israel to hope in him, is everlasting: The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him' (Ps. ciii. 17). From everlasting to everlasting; that is more, more than I said. Well, 6 1. Then from everlasting; that is, from before the world began; so then, things that are, and are to be hereafter, are to be managed according to those measures that God in mercy took for his people then. Hence it is said, that he has blessed us according as he chose us in Christ, before the world began; that is, according to those measures and grants that were by mercy allotted to us then (Eph. i. 4). According to that other saying, 'According to his mercy he saved us;' that is, according as mercy had allotted for us before the world began (Titus iii. 5). According to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began' (2 Tim. i. 9). This is mercy from everlasting, and is the ground and bottom of all dispensations that have been, are, or are to come to his people. And now, though it would be too great a step to a side, to treat of all those mercies that of necessity will be found to stand upon that which is called mercy from everlasting, yet it will be to our purpose, and agreeable to our method to conclude that mercy to everlasting stands upon that; even as vocation, justification, preservation, and glorification standeth upon our being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Rom. viii. 29, 30). Here then is the mercy that is with God, and that should encourage Israel to hope. The mercy that has concerned itself with them, is mercy from everlasting. Nor may it be thought that a few quarrels of some brain-sick fellows will put God upon taking new measures for his people; what foundation has been laid for his, before he laid the foundation of the world, shall stand; for that it was laid in Christ by virtue of mercy: that is, from everlasting (Rom. ix. 11). The old laws, which are the Magna Charta, the sole basis of the government of a kingdom, may not be cast away for the pet that is taken by every little gentleman against them. We have indeed some professors that take a great pet against that foundation of salvation, that the mercy that is from everlasting has laid; but since the kingdom, government, and glory of Christ is wrapped up in it, and since the calling, justification, perseverance, and glorification of his elect, which are called his body and fulness, is wrapt up therein, it may not be laid aside nor despised, nor quarrelled against by any, without danger of damnation. Here then is the mercy with which Israel is concerned, and which is with God as an encouragement to them that should hope, to hope in him. It is mercy from everlasting; it is mercy of an ancient date; it is mercy in the root of the thing. For it is from this mercy, this mercy from everlasting, that all, and all those sorts of mercies, of which we have discoursed before, do flow. It is from this that Christ the Saviour flows; this is it, from which that tender mercy, that great mercy, that rich mercy, and that mercy that aboundeth towards us, doth flow; and so of all the rest. Kind brings forth its kind; know the tree by his fruit; and God by his mercy in Christ; yea, and know what God was doing before he made the world, by what he has been doing ever since. And what has God been doing for and to his church from the beginning of the world, but extending to, and exercising lovingkindness and mercy for them? therefore he laid a foundation for this in mercy from everlasting. 2. But mercy from everlasting is but the beginning, and we have discoursed of those mercies that we have found in the bowels of this already, wherefore a word of that which is to everlasting also. From everlasting to everlasting.' Nothing can go beyond to everlasting; wherefore this, to everlasting will see an end of all. The devil will tempt us, sin will assault us, men will persecute; but can they do it to everlasting? If not, then there is mercy to come to God's people at last; even when all evils have done to us what they can. After the prophet had spoken of the inconceivable blessedness that God hath prepared for them that wait for him, he drops to present wrath, and the sin of God's people in this life. This done, he mounts up again to the first, and saith, 'in those is continuance; that is, the things laid up for us are everlasting, and therefore we shall be saved' (Isa. lxiv. 4, 5). How many things since the beginning have assaulted the world to destroy it, as wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, &c., and yet to this day it abideth. But what is the reason of that? Why, God liveth, upon whose word, and by whose decree it abideth. He hath established the earth, and it abideth;' it standeth fast, and cannot be moved' (Ps. cxix. 90, xciii. 1, xcvi. 10). Why, my brethren, mercy liveth, mercy is everlasting: His mercy endureth for ever!' (Ps. cxxxvi.) And therefore the church of God liveth; and when all her enemies. have done their all, this is the song that the church shall sing over them: "They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen, and stand upright!' (Ps. xx. 8.) Everlasting mercy, with everlasting arms, is underneath (Deut. xxxiii. 27). And as this shews the cause of the life of the church, notwithstanding her ghostly and bodily enemies, so it sheweth the cause of her deliverance from her repeated sins. As God said of leviathan, 'I will not conceal his parts,' &c. (Job xli. 12); so it is very unbecoming of God's people to conceal their sins and miscarriages, for it diminisheth this mercy of God. Let therefore sin be acknowledged, confessed, and not be hid nor dissembled; it is to the glory of mercy that we confess to God and one another what we are; still remembering this, but mercy is everlasting! As this shews the reason of our life, and the continuance of that, notwithstanding our repeated sins, so it shews the cause of the receiving (or renewing) of our graces, from so many decays and sickness. For this mercy will live, last, and outlast all things that are corruptible and hurtful unto Israel. Wherefore 'let Israel hope in the Lord,' for this reason, for with the Lord there is mercy.' 1. Tender mercy for us. 2. Great mercy for us. 3. Rich mercy. 4. Manifold mercy. 5. Abounding mercy towards us. 6. Compassing mercy wherewith we are surrounded. 7. Mercy to follow us wherever we go. 8. Mercy that rejoiceth against judgment. And, 9. Mercy that is from everlasting to everlasting. All these mercies are with God, to allure, to encourage, and uphold Israel in hope. EXPERIENCE.-Past experience and former manifestations of divine love should be as carefully kept in recollection as old receipts, they will afford satisfaction in review, and hope in prospect.-GURnall. A FRIENDLY EPISTLE. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I was truly glad to hear from you, and particularly as the Lord had been pleased to bless your soul with fresh tokens of his love, in again bringing you forth to the light, and enabling you sweetly to triumph in him as the God of your salvation. I really feared there was something in my last letter that offended you, which was the reason you had not written. The enemy is always ready to suggest something to the mind, and if possible to separate between chief friends, but I really believe when there has been heartfelt union all the powers of hell cannot destroy it; differences and separation there may be, but many waters cannot quench love;' and how sovereign is love! Love is of God, and it is our discovering the image of Christ that causes the union, and in our early profession there is, like Ruth of old, a cleaving to the people of God as our people, and 'choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.' 6 Little did you and I think in the days of our espousals and in the days of the gladness of our hearts that the pathway to the kingdom would be strewed with such difficulties; that darkness would follow those glorious days, and days of famine after feasting upon the fatted calf and paschal Lamb. Little did we think that those enemies we put our foot upon and blessedly triumphed over would ever rise again and cause us such grief and sorrow; that the throne of grace, to which we found such sweet access, would be covered with a cloud, and though we should cry and shout, yet our prayer would be shut out; little did we think that we should loathe the heavenly manna that was so sweet, or that we should lightly esteem that Rock which had been such a blessed Refuge to us. I remember a few weeks after the Lord blessed my soul with a sweet knowledge of his salvation these words were brought powerfully to my mind, 'Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts' (Isa. xxviii. 9), and I felt satisfied I should have a different path, which indeed I did, for soon afterwards I lost all my comforts, and, like Job, I seemed given into the hands of Satan to stir up every abomination of my heart. The hand of God seemed to go out against me in providence; prayer was restrained, hard thoughts entertained against God, and I thought it was all a delusion and a mere cheat of the devil; this in the first place distressed me for weeks, when my eye dropped upon this text, and then I really thought I should have lost my senses, 'But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear' (Isa. lix. 2). I answered, 'I know it, Lord;' but still no deliverance until it pleased the Lord, when in deep distress,—begging of him to come and shed abroad his love in my heart, if I had ever known it, these words were brought powerfully into my heart, 'For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him;' then was my soul brought again to enjoy the sweet blessing of God, with a deep humbling at his dear feet. I walked in this way about six weeks, and after that I went into deep desertion of soul for five years, permitted to awfully backslide from God (as far as man could go without openly falling to bring a reproach upon the good ways of God), and during that five years I had scarcely one sweet visit from the Lord. O how have I proved that it is easier for one to get away from the Lord than to get back again! but on that memorable day, Nov. 23rd, 1828, the Lord came again with all his love and power, and broke down my hard heart, and melted it like wax before the sun. How I did then know what it meant to look on him whom I had pierced, and mourn; and these two sweet verses came to mind, 'Sweet the moments, rich in blessing, Which before the cross I spend, May I sit for ever viewing Mercy's streams in streams of blood; Plead and claim my peace with God!' My soul was like Naphtali, a hind let loose. Here I have sometimes compared myself to Moses; he must needs go to Midian to be instructed, and there was a needs-be I should go into spiritual Babylon to be made useful to the church of God, and I do trust the Lord is making me useful here. Since I saw you we have had several very striking instances of the power of God attending his word in gradually increasing us; as a church we number only about thirty-five to forty. We live in a day of great profession, but I fear but little of the power of God; a day of great confusion |