[SECOND. THE REASON URGED TO ENFORCE THE EXHORTATION.]
I now come to the second part of the text, which is a reason urged to enforce the exhortation, ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord.’ Why? ‘For with the Lord there is mercy.’ There is the reason, let him hope, for there is mercy; let him hope in the Lord, for with him there is mercy. The reason is full and suitable. For what is the ground of despair, but a conceit that sin has shut the soul out of all interest in happiness? and what is the reason of that, but a persuasion that there is no help for him in God? Besides, could God do all but show mercy, yet the belief of that ability would not be a reason sufficient to encourage the soul to hope in God. For the block SIN, which cannot be removed but by mercy, still lies in the way. The reason therefore is full and suitable, having naturally an enforcement in it, to the exhortation. And,
First. To touch upon the reason in a way general, and then [Second] to come to it more particularly. ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy,’ mercy to be bestowed, mercy designed to be bestowed.
1. Mercy to be bestowed. This must be the meaning. What if a man has never so much gold or silver, or food, or raiment: yet if he has none to communicate, what is the distressed, or those in want, the better? What if there be mercy with God, yet if he has none to bestow, what force is there in the exhortation, or what shall Israel, if he hopeth, be the better. But God has mercy to bestow, to give. ‘He saith on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David’ (Acts 13:34). And again, ‘The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus’ (2 Tim 1:16). Now then, here lies the encouragement. The Lord has mercy to give; he has not given away ALL his mercy; his mercy is not clean gone for ever (Psa 77:8). He has mercy yet to give away, yet to bestow upon his Israel. ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.’
2. As there is with God mercy to be bestowed, so there is mercy designed to be bestowed or given to Israel. Some men lay by what they mean to give away, and put that in a bag by itself, saying, This I design to give away, this I purpose to bestow upon the poor. Thus God; he designeth mercy for his people (Dan 9:4). Hence the mercy that God’s Israel are said to be partakers of, is a mercy kept for them. And ‘thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor,’ and laid up for them (Psa 68:10). This is excellent and is true, ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord, for there is with him mercy,’ kept, prepared, and laid up for them! (Psa 61:7). When God designs the bestowing of mercy, we may well hope to be partakers (Psa 31:19). The poor will go merrily to weddings and funerals, and hope for an alms all the way they go, when they come to understand that there is so much kept, prepared, and laid up for them by the bridegroom, &c.[18] But ‘He keepeth mercy for thousands!’ (Exo 34:7).
3. As God has mercies to bestow, and as he has designed to bestow them, so those mercies are no fragments or the leavings of others: but mercies that are full and complete to do for thee, what thou wantest, wouldst have, or canst desire. As I may so say, God has his bags that were never yet untied, never yet broken up, but laid by him through a thousand generations, for those that he commands to hope in his mercy. As Samuel kept the shoulder for Saul, and as God brake up that decreed place for the sea, so hath he set apart, and will break up his mercy for his people: mercy and grace that he gave us before we had a being, is the mercy designed for Israel (2 Tim 1:9). Whole mercies are allotted to us; however, mercy sufficient (1 Sam 9:23-24; Job 38:10). But to be a little more distinct.
[Second, particularly.] I find that the goodness of God to his people is diversely expressed in his word: sometimes by the word grace; sometimes by the word love; and sometimes by the word mercy; even as our badness against him is called iniquity, transgression, and sin. When it is expressed by that word ‘grace,’ then it is to show that what he doth is of his princely will, his royal bounty, and sovereign pleasure. When it is expressed by that word ‘love,’ then it is to show us that his affection was and is in what he doth, and that he doth what he doth for us, with complacency and delight. But when it is set forth to us under the notion of ‘mercy,’ then it bespeaks us to be in a state both wretched and miserable, and that his bowels and compassions yearn over us in this our fearful plight. Now, the Holy Ghost chooseth—as it should seem—in this place, to present us with that goodness that is in God’s heart towards us, rather under the term of mercy; for that, as I said before, it so presenteth us with our misery, and his pity and compassion; and because it best pleaseth us when we apprehend God in Christ as one that has the love of compassion and pity for us. Hence we are often presented with God’s goodness to us to cause us to hope, under the name of pity and compassion. ‘In his pity he redeemed them,’ and ‘like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him’ (Isa 63:9; Psa 103:13). ‘The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy,’ he also is gracious and ‘full of compassion’ (James 5:11; Psa 78:38). ‘Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion,’ and thy ‘compassions fail not’ (Psa 86:15, 111:4; Lam 3:22).
The words being thus briefly touched upon, I shall come to treat of two things. FIRST, more distinctly, I shall show you what kind of mercy is with the Lord, as a reason to encourage Israel to hope. SECONDLY, And then shall show what is to be inferred from this reason, ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.’
[FIRST, The kind of mercy that Israel is to hope for.]
First, ‘With him there is TENDER MERCY, and therefore let Israel hope’ (Psa 25:6, 103:4, 119:156). Tender mercy is mercy in mercy, and that which Israel of old had in high estimation, cried much for, and chose that God would deal with their souls by that. ‘Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me,’ said David, and ‘according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions’ (Psa 40:11, 51:1). And again, ‘Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live’ (Psa 119:77). Now of this sort of mercies God has a great many, a multitude to bestow upon his people. And they are thus mentioned by the word, to cause us to hope in him. And is not this alluring, is not this enticing to the Israel of God to hope, when the object of their hope is a God ‘very pitiful, and of tender mercy?’ Yea, a God whose tender mercies are great and many. There are two things that this word tender mercy importeth. 1. The first is, that sin will put a believer, if he giveth way thereto, into a very miserable condition. 2. That God would have them hope, that though sin may have brought any of them into this condition, the Lord will restore them with much pity and compassion. ‘Let Israel hope in the Lord,’ for with the Lord there is mercy, tender mercy.