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…

But you will say; Is this truth to be indifferently published to all? May we tell every one, that God is the Father of mercies to him? Will not this be to make the heart of the wicked glad, whom yet God would have made sad?

To answer it therefore first, It cannot be denied, but that God is very merciful even to wicked men, and that while they continue in their obstinacy. Doth not experience confirm this? And this mercy of God is not only seen in temporal things, he giveth them health, life and wealth, so that they can never plead against God; but also he is merciful to many ungodly wretches, and that in spiritual mercies, he giveth them the kingdom of grace, he giveth them the Ministry of the Gospel, he alloweth them the day of grace, whenas they might have been always kept up in darkness. Hence it is that the Scripture doth so often complain of the unprofitableness, of the unthankfulness and forgetfulness towards him, even worse than of the brute creatures.

To answer it therefore first, It cannot be denied, but that God is very mercifull even to wicked men, and that while they continue in their obstinacy. Doth not experience confirm this? And this mercy of God is not only seen in temporal things, he giveth them health, life and wealth, so that they can never plead against God; but also he is mercifull to many ungodly wretches, and that in spiritual mercies, he giveth them the kingdom of grace, he giveth them the Ministry of the Gospel, he alloweth them the day of grace, whenas they might have been alwayes kept up in darkness. Hence it is that the Scripture doth so often complain of the unprofitableness, of the unthankfulness and forgetfulness towards him, even worse than of the bruit creatures.

But in the next place, There are the most special mercies of his complacency and delight, and these are vouchsafed only to true believers. So that we cannot properly say, God is a Father of mercies to any but to the upright in heart. For though wicked men do taste of many mercies from God, yet he is not a reconciled Father to them; They come not from him as a Father in Christ; and therefore though in themselves they may be called mercies, yet if you consider the event of them, how the wicked abuse all mercies, and increase their sins by them, it will be at last confessed they were not mercies, but judgements to them. The mercies then which arise from Gods favour none have but those that are godly; and we may in brief take these Characters of such who are Objects of his mercy.