An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Secondly, When he is called the Father of mercies, it implieth, The voluntariness and readiness in God to it. Psal. 103. Like as a father pitieth his children, &c. We do not entreat or hire a father to pity a miserable child, his own bowels persuade him to it. Now this is much more in God. For as the Psalmist argueth, He that made the eye, shall not he see? So he that giveth bowels and pity to parents, shall not he much rather be merciful? So that as it is for holiness; if all the holiness of men and Angels were put together, it would be but a drop to what is in God: So if all the mercy, and all the compassions of all the fathers and mothers in the world were joined together, it would be nothing to God. Oh what dishonour doth thy unbelieving fearful heart do to this merciful Father! Thou thinkest he hath but the mercy of a man; thou judgest of his bowels according to thy own; no Gods mercy is as much above thy sins and miseries, as his Essence is above thy being. O nomen (misericordia) sub quo nemini desperandum: But of that more presently. Only when he is called a Father of mercies, that denoteth the readiness in God, and willingness in him; and this is remarkable in Gods mercies, over what is in mans; our mercy is many times, because the object miserable, is of our own flesh, and nature with us. It moveth the heart to see one of the same nature with us to be thus miserable, but God he is infinitely above man, he hath no communion in nature with us, and yet he is merciful. Again, Mercy amongst men is often, because we have been under such miseries ourselves. They that have the pain of the stone, commiserate those that are in the like manner troubled, because they know what it is. Thus many eminent Ministers of the Gospel, are exercised with soul-temptations and desertions, that they may know how to mourn with bleeding bowels over those that are so tempted. Thus the mercy of Christ as Mediator, differs from the mercy of God, as absolutely considered. For he was tempted like us in all things, sin only excepted, Heb. 4. 15. and the reason of this the Apostle giveth, That he might be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Christ knoweth what the meaning is of every groan, and every sigh that comes from a child in darkness, crying out, Why hath my God forsaken me? Thus Christ as Mediator is merciful in another way, then God is;

Secondly, When he is called the Father of mercies, it implieth, The voluntariness and readiness in God to it.