God's Everlasting Mercy a Source of Consolation
When, amidst the sorrows of life, we look abroad in quest of consolation, we find none real and permanent till we resort to God himself; and our most complete solace is that which founds itself at once on some divine attribute. Especially is the mercy of God, in its large Old Testament acceptation, a cause of relief and hope in times of distress. Ancient Israel found it so, and hence there is no topic which more frequently awakens the praises of psalmists and prophets. It is fitted, therefore, to lead the way in a volume which seeks to furnish suffering Christians with topics of consolation.
When David had found a place for the ark, the august and fearful emblem and centre of their religion, the people accompanied with “shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries and harps.” Perhaps we have gone too far in hushing all the more festive outbreaks of popular joy. On this great occasion, the royal poet delivered into the hand of the chief musician the lyric effusion since known as the one hundred and fifth psalm; and towards the conclusion oi a sublime and glowing ascription we first meet with these words, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever.” And among the aj)pointments, we read that Heman, Jeduthun, and their companions wore designated to give thanks to the Lord, because his mercy endureth for ever. It seems to have been taken as the established formula of praise, especially within the courts of the Lord. When the ark of Jehovah no longer dwelt within the curtains, and Solomon had builded a house to the Lord, and assembled the people for its dedication, the record is remarkable. “And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister, by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”
Nor was the usage forgotten in later times; for two hundred years after, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, when the eastern nations were threatening to come down like a whirlwind on Judah, and the sovereign had called his subjects to humiliation, and the voice of a prophet had encouraged the host
2 Chron. v. 11-14, vii. 3.
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and the Levites had stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high, we are particularly informed that when the king had consulted with the j)eople, he appointed singers unto the Lord, that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say. Praise the Lord: for Ms riiercy endureth for ever. So likewise, passing over nearly three hundred years after the captivity, when the foundations of the second temple were laid, amidst the commingling shouts and weeping of the multitude, “they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel; and they sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel.” (Ezr. 3:11.) It need not then surprise us, to find this ascription filling an important place in the book of sacred song. In the one hundred and thirty-sixth psalm, it forms the closing part of every verse, and was, doubtless, the chorus which was taken up, with the glorious reverberation of voices and instruments, by the multitude of worshippers. I see no reason why it may not now resound among the heavenly arches; why it may not be rehearsed with new glorious meanings in a future world; as reasonable surely is it to admit it in glowing characters over the arch which conducts us to the New Testament Church: His mercy endureth for ever!
This brief sentence comprises three of the most giiblime of all the ideas of reason, viz., the idea of God the idea of Goodness and the idea of Eternity, Let us meditate a little on this wonderful conjunction of luminaries.
I. The idea of God. — While in regard to a multitude, God is not in all their thoughts, there are those who feel this divine idea to be the great, absorbing, ever-delightful object of their contemplation. As light irradiates all nature, so the thought of God diffuses gladness over all the moral world. The proposition which, above all others, should fill all intelligent creation with transport, is this. There IS A God. Conceive of a world without it; conceive of a planet, rolling far away in some dark aphelion, where this prime revelation has never shone, having the light of common day, but no knowledge of God; conceive of the poor, blank, cheerless dwellers on this atheistic orb, and then figure to yourself some beautiful and mighty angel, who has been thousands of years filling his lamp at the central founts of light, dispatched by infinite love, and speeding to carry these tidings to the ignorant planet; who can measure the glory of the advent? It is a change like that when God said to chaos, Let there be light I If in all human knowledge there is a truth which should transport us beyond ourselves, it is, that there is a God. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice! Without it, we are a fatherless brood, and our wcrld an orphan universe. The names of God are names of relation; and among the relations, we have found something god’s EVEELASTING IIERCY. 17
Qiore great, more tender, and more lovely, than parent, brother, or husband, when we have found a God. Whether, however, fallen reason would unaided have arrived at the idea of God, is made a question. That the idea, when once revealed, is more than all others consonant to the faculties; that it is more than all others congenia*! to the soul; that it delightfully enters, pervades, and fills capacities which were otherwise unemployed, must be acknowledged of all. “The invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” And the God thus seen is the personal, the paternal God of the Scriptures, and not the blind, ever-changing, ever-developing impersonality of modern philosophy. To rob the universe of such a guardian and indwelling glory, is a capital offence against humanity and nature. Yet false philosophy, and poetry as false, unite to rob us of the blessed solace; and an ignorant, undiscriminating appetite for whatever is new and startling in literature, makes refined cabinets and drawing-room tables admit the blasphemous atheism of Shelley, while they would reject the scurrilous impiety of Paine or Kneeland. The green and gilded snake creeps into the closet and the boudoir, and the modern Eves are tempted to deeper sin against their native persuasions than she of Eden. Almighty God! of thine infinite compassion, preserve our people from the entrance of any speculaticD which shall involve the denial of Thee!
Atheism deforms all it touches. “It robs the universe,” says Hall, “of all finished and consum niate excellence even of idea. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness, for which we are formed, and which kindles such unspeakable rapture in the soul, finding in the regions of skepticism nothing to which it corresponds, droops and languishes. In a world which presents a fair spectacle of order and beauty; of a vast family, nourished and supported by an almighty Parent; in a world which leads the devout mind, step by step, to the contemplation of the first fair and the first good, the skeptic is encompassed with nothing but obscurity, meanness, and disorder.”
The infant embraces the earliest suggestion of a God without repugnance, and without effort. When grown to adult strength, and trained to philosophic inquiry, he still gazes on this as the grand and only satisfying object. It should seem that our capacities crave some glorious consummation of the pyramid of truth, some crowning point, some declaration of the infinite; so that the soul without God is incomplete, — a basin of earth without its ocean.
As knowledge increases, as our capacities grow, there is no more comprehension of this vast idea than there was before: the sun seems no smaller and no less bright as we approach his central residence. Expand the faculty as we may, to the standard of the highest seraph, there is still that in God which shar. fill it all. Climb as we may, from Alp to Alp, in our resera’clies, the vaulted heaven of the Divine Idea is still above us.
Human science reaches no point where the divine? wisdom has not anticipated its march. There is not a discovery in optics, though the fruit of ages of inquiry, concerning which we do not feel authorized to assert, that the long-latent principle was known before creation, and that God has adapted the lenses of the eye to light, and light to the lenses of the eye. The remark may be generalized in its application to every law of physical and moral nature. So that a knowledge of God would really be tke knowledge of all things.
I need not go about to show by argument why the being of God is a cause of rejoicing to the universe. Other things are drops, but this is the fountain. Otker tkings are transient, insulated favours; fragments and atoms of beneficence; single flowers of mercy; single draughts of bliss; single odours, wafted from fields of fragrance: but God (let me speak reverently) is the very atmosphere, all-comprehending and all-pervading, in which we live, and move, and have our being. Therefore, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord! He that would be joyful, let him be joyful in the Lord! The book of Psalms is a chamber of holy voices, echo answering echo, deep calling unto deep, with the enthusiasm and rapture of adoring ecstasy and fearful love. We do but rehearse here what we shall utter above, when we call upon all things, silent or vocal, to praise the name of the Lord.” My meditation of him shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord, Sing unto him; sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels; praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in the fii’- mament of his power. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Zion!
These are happy exercises, and he has never begun the course of true felicity, who is still a stranger to God. These afford the ultimate basis of all consolation.
II. The idea of goodness in that particular mode of it which is entitled mercy. In Scripture usage, the term is not always employed with the nice discrimination of the schools, but is applied to all the modifications of divine favour to creatures. Yet the word undoubtedly carries with it some tinge of compassion; it speaks of pity; it points to tears which tremble in the eye of infinite love; it is God looking upon meanness, and wretchedness, and sin. It ia a great idea, and fit to be coupled with divinity. Heathen mythology did not contain it. The Scriptures are full of it, and we see the temple praiseg were full of it. It is the essential property of God, whereby he regards the miserable. It is more specially the same perfection, viewed as flowing through its sole channel in the Mediator. The fall, which rendered mediation necessary, rendered Jesus Christ the sole depositary of infinite mercy. Not more truly is the sun the organ and centre of all the god’s everlasting mercy. 31
light of the universe, than Jesus Christ is the organ and centre of all mercy for men. He is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe. A. merciful God is moreover their God in Jesus Christ. A world of sinners can look in only one direction to see God, to wit, in the direction of the ark and mercy-seat, which gives a propriety to the repeated use of this ascription in such temple-services as are connected with the ark of the covenant. God dwelt there, between the cherubim, that is, over the propitiatory. Hence the cry, O thou that dweHest between the cherubim! It was an inhabitation of mercy. There he received incense; there he presided over the sprinkling of blood; there he shone forth in a glory which any where else would have been consuming. The other instances of mercy contained in this psalm are favours and deliverances towards a sinful but accepted people, which are all founded on the covenant of which this ark was the symbol It is part of his royal name and title, the Lord God, merciful and gracious — keeping mercy for thousands; long-suffering and of great mercy; he delighteth in mercy. Such are some of the phrases of the Old Testament, while in the New, this is the great topic, and every page seems to exhale the fragrance of the benediction, Grace, Mercy, and Peace.
The Goodness, the Love, the Grace, and the Mercy of God, are only so many phases of the same orb; all the outshining of one and the same benignant Jehovah; and all entitled to our praise.
The goodness of God is his infinite disposition to do good to the creature. The love of God is the same goodness in its more distinct j)ropension toward the person of the creature, whereby God tends to bless the creature, by the communication of himself, and this in various degrees — the lo’e of the creature the love of man and the love of his peojyle. The Grace of God is his infinite disj)osition to communicate himself to the creature, in divine gratuity, irrespective of all merit in the object. And the Mercy of God, regarding man as fallen and sinful, is God’s disposition to pardon sin and succour misery. It stands related to goodness, as kindness to pity, in the human soul; it flows from the spring-head of mere goodness; it contemplates misery, and misery which might be left unrelieved, as being justly inflicted. It is, therefore, pre-eminently a sovereign perfection. This mercy of God may be received as general and special. God’s general mercy flies to the succour of mankind in general, in their various deserved troubles; his sjDecial mercy contemplates them as united in covenant to the Lord Jesus Christ. To have any proper view of t’iio iivine mercy, we should consider who and what He is, of whom it is predicated; how high, how great, how iill-sufficient, how independent and infinite in j)er- [)etual bliss. “We should consider who and what its objects are; men, fallen men, undeserving, condemned enemies of God. The whole dealing of God ^’ith men, as revealed in the Scriptures, proceeds on this basis. We mistake fatallv, if we asgod’s eveelasting meecy. 23
sume any other. Thus viewed, the mercy of God is amazing, in its mode of action, its means and instruments, its sublime and tender events, its stupendous sacrifices, its elaborate, complicated, yet simple arrangements, and its extraordinary and immeasurable results. There was a dawn of this benignity in the Old Testament; but it is a clear shining under the JSTew. Its very nature is embodied in the name of Jesus. When, after long journeyings through a land of wilderness, abounding in convictions, fears, legal restraints, and unavailing endeavours, the weary pilgrim-soul first obtains a glimpse of this attribute, thus revealed, it is as when the remnant of the ten thousand Greeks, under Xenophon, tfter long battling and travel, caught a sight of the Euxine, and cried in a shout of rapture, the sea! tlis sea! Old Testament saints had glimpses, as v hen one sees the ocean from a favoured hill-top, in a distant view; New Testament believers are alle ed to come and stand by the side of the mighty, interminable main.
It is our unspeakable privilege, brethren, to live under this dispensation of divine mercy. And we can rehearse displays of it far more wonderful than those which are recounted in any psalm. When we praise “him who alone doeth great wonders,” we can include the wonders of redemption. When we ascribe glory “to him that made great lights,” we can rejiice in that true Light which now shineth. He that “smote Egypt in their first-born” is indeed the God of mercy; but still more, he who delivered for us ills only-begotten Son, “for it pleased the Lord to bruise him,” The overthrow of Pharaoh, of Sihon, and of Og, was but a type of our deliverance. So that we can exclaim with even higher transport than the Hebrew, “who remembered us in our low estate; for his mercy endureth for ever; and hath redeemed us from our enemies; for his mercy endureth for ever.”
If it was right for Israel to recount the memory of these national advantages, it is doubly incumbent on Christians to speak to the praise and the glory of that grace wherein we are accepted in the Beloved. Especially should we record the great transaction, the chosen display of divine goodness to mankind, in the election of Messiah — his taking human ilesh — his company ing with rejecting men, in circumstances of lowliness, and shame, and pain — his conflict with the hour of darkness — his bloody, mysterious death, and his godlike resurrection. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sentis Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The main channel and torrent of mercy flows in a majestic stream in the redemjDtion of the soul; but its flood receives and embosoms ten thousand lesser currents of temporal bounty. Divine mercy does not neglect the less while she accomplishes the greater. As she marches heavenward, with eyes fixed upon the crown and kingdom, she scatters largesses at every step. All our blessings flow from this same open hand, and are, therefore, properly denominated mercies. The covenant includes these, and the believer hopes for them, on the principle, that all is his. Each returning season exposes to view some new as|)ect of divine benignity, Thoit croivnest the year loitli thy goodness. Our persons, our landscapes, our neighbourhoods, our city, our state, our nation, our race, are recipients every moment of this boundless favour; magnified inconceivably when we consider that it descends upon the unworthy, and made most tender and impressive, when we consider that it descends upon us. And there is no view of the divine glory which so exalts him, as v>^hen he is beheld as the source of incessant and innumerable and immeasurable rivers of good; himself the Great Parent, on whom all the ranks of creatures hang and are nourished. It ia the theme of celestial worlds:
“And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream; With these that never fade the spirits elect Bind their resplendent looks inwreathed with beams: Now in loose garlands thick thrown off; the bright Pavement that like a sea of jasper shone, Impiirpled with celestial roses smiled. Then crowned again their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet, Of charming symphony they introduce Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part, such concord is in heaven.”
III. The Idea of Eternity, — The strict translartion of the text is,” Thy mercy ... to eternity X^
In its fulness of significancy, it is piedicable of God alone, “who only hath immortality.” At the grove of Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 33), Abraham invoked Jehovah under the name of The Eternal God. “He inliahitetlh eternity,” — a sublime phrase, teaching us, that as time and space are the limits of all things finite, so God overleaps both by his immensity; the one — space — by his omnipotence, the other — time — by his eternity. The tracts of space are vast, and confounding: to our imasrination. Our own dav has witnessed the fii*st exact measurement of the distance of the nearest fixed star, which is twenty-one millions of millions of miles. A learned calculator has shown, that “in the space around our solar system devoid of stars, there is room in one dimension, or one straight line, for twelve thousand solar systems; in two dimensions, or in one plane, there is room for one hundred and thirty millions of solar systems; and in actual sidereal space of three dimensions, there is room for one and a half million millions of solar systems the size of our own.” Such are the Uanhs in the scheme; how fearful the thought of such physical immensity! I call your mind to it, to say that God is there — in all concei’able space, and beyond all. So in regard to time; God is from everlasting to everlastino”. He is without beoinninir and without endino. Incomprehensible as this is, the reverse is inconceivable. Something must be wdthout beginning: else nothing could ever have been. And what can be so reasonably assumed to be without beginning, as the iji-figod’s everlasting mercy. 27
nite First Cause? There is something about the idea of eternity which oppresses the soul. Yet from under this incubus we cannot escape. There is something mysterious in the way whereby we arrive at the idea of eternity. I cannot think it is by enumeration — by adding unit to unit — even though ths process were continued for a lifetime, or a lifetime of the world; for at the last of this process we should still be as far from eternity as when we began. ‘No such summation of a series can, as I suppose, generate the conception. I rather conceive it, though not an innate, an uncompounded idea of the infinite. New and startling as the suggestion may be to some, eternity has no parts. It therefore has no succession. The Eternal One is ever the same. To his mind all the past, the present, and the future, are present at once. The life of God is enjoyed, not by a passage from the past into the present, and the present into the future, but is possessed perfectly, wholly, and interminably, all at once. No years, no centuries, no sidereal cycles, measure Him whose name is, I AM THAT I AM. Of our lives, a portion vanishes every moment: but it is not so with God. And that which most interests us now, is that his mercy is everlasting — his mercy endureth for ever. Wherever and whenever God is, he is in the plenitude of mercy. Divine benignity spreads those ample wings more widely than the universe itself There are regions beyond the most distant nebulous outskirts of matter; but no regions beyond the di-Tine goodness. We may conceive of tracts where there are no worlds, but not of any where there is no God of mercy.
Let me particularize one or two meanings of the declaration.
1. God’s mercy endureth for ever, in the sense thnt he will never cease to be merciful. He must at the same time cease to be God. The burdened soul turns with expectation to an unchangeable Being. As this is one of the sublimest, so it is also one of the most consolatory truths. Every thing around us and within us is suffering mutation; but the changeful stream of creatures and events, flowing in perpetual broken waves, washes the base of that awful pyramid of being, whose summit is lost in the unapproachable clouds of divinity. Under the discouragements of our frailty and nothingness, we look away, almost by an mstinct of our nature, to discover something solid and permanent. This we can find nowhere short of the Great Supreme; and when we have reached this centre, we repose with a serene complacency of spirit. Thus the ]3rophetic bard sings, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”
Let the troubled soul consider, that in all the diffusion of his omnipresence, God is everywhere merciful. As he hath been, so he will be. His benignity is subject to no fitful waning or caprice. The day can never come when he shall be less merciful than at this instant. This mercy has no bounds, in regard to those creatures who are its proper objects. “A God all mercy were a God unjust:” thisf god’s everlastestg mercy. 29
cannot be denied or forgotten; and there are those who, rejecting the mercy of God against themselves, fall upon the sword of his eternal justice. Yet within the circle of his gracious plan, and where he has undertaken to save, we may belie ve that taking a large and comprehensive view, God’s communication of benefit is limited only by the capacity of the creature; and that this capacity will be continually increasing, in accordance with a love which endureth for ever. We look forward, therefore, to a display of this attribute, which shall never cease, but have new developments to all eternitv! For the Most High will act as God; that is, with an infinitude of glory in all his merciful acts; and the radiance of his benevolence in this world is only the preparatory twinkle of a day without cloud or sunset. If we may so express it, Jehovah takes a holy complacency and satisfaction in acting forth his divine attributes, in creating fit objects, in moulding them for this purpose, in widening their susceptibilities, and magnifying their joys. In this is displayed t*he glory of his nature, in the view of all holy and intelhgent worlds; and thus will it be, increasingly, for ever: so that thousands of ages hence, the adorable Lord, whom we now justly regard as infinitely merciful, will not only show himself clearly such towards a greater number of creatures, but will in each of these shine resplendent with a lustre becoming perpetually more bright. The contemplation of this will form in a high degree the Hiss of heaven; and the beatific vision will include a view of the divine mercy as endurins; for ever.
This aspect of the divine perfection is therefoie a never-failing source of comfort to a soul disturbed by sin and sorrow. Whatever may be the cause of disquietude, immediate peace is found, when the soul reposes itself on God. It has then gravitated to its true centre. It has no longer any thing to seek. Our attempts at consolation often fail, because we stop short of this ultimate idea. Even when meditating religiously, we are apt to rest in the creature, as in some of God’s gifts, instead of plunging at once, without reserve, into the boundless ocean of that divine mercy which can never suffer loss or termination.
2. God’s mercy endureth for ever, in the sense that he will never cease to be merciful to his church. This is consolation indeed to those who belong to this favoured community. From the beginning to the end, as lono as there shall be a church, God will be its covenant and merciful Father, through Christ Jesus. For the church may be regarded as a special organ for the exercise, transmission and display of this very benevolence. After the introduction of sin, God has no channel so remarkable for the flow of his mercy as the church of Christ. It was for the manifestation of his glorious attributes, that he chose it in Christ Jesus, before the world began; and among these attributes, for manifesting those of Goodness, Grace, and Mercy. For this purpose, the calling and gathering of individuals have been conducted through different dispensations. The mercy of the Lord is perpetually and gloriously displaying itself by means of the redeemed; and it is God’s
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onchangeable purpose to bring this whole plan to a consummation, when the number of the elect shall be made up, and the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, shall be shown to the universe in the last days. ‘Now as these are God’s purposes towards his church, ail J as his mercy in regard to it is everlasting, every member of this spiritual body has a source of consolation, altogether withheld from the world without. It is not a small thing to belong to that community for which Christ died, for which he prays, and unto which he purposes to give dominion. Temporary afflictions may break over the heads of Christ’s people, but the nature of the covenant is such that they cannot be unsafe. The very hairs of their heads are all numbered. To destroy them, would be to frustrate the divine plan. They are the objects of an everlasting love. This comfort, therefore, may be taken by the humblest believer, from his connection with a covenant which is well ordered in all things and sure.
When days are dark, let the soul turn itself to Mm who dwelleth in Zion, and who can never forget her. Christian supports are the more sure and abiding when they are taken in common with ail the chosen seed, and on the gi’ounds of covenant faithfulness. When we can place ourselves in such a position that the promises of God towards his church become promises to us individually, we are drinking waters which flow out of the sanctuary itself.
B. God’s mercy endureth for ever, in the sraise
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that in future eternity, otherwise called the world to come there will be glorious developments of this very attribute, as known to us. In that coming age, that expanse of blissful knowledge and possession, which we hope and pray for, and to which pvery returning day brings us so much nearer — uhat is it, think you, that shall make our heaven? An everlasting drowsiness and dream of listless inaction? mountains of odours, fragrant meads, crystal rivers, Elysian fruits, melody and harmony? — simple rest? simple exemption from pain? simple lamblike innocence? Is this heaven? — learning nothing, doing nothing? This is not heaven. I will tell you what it is: it is seeing God — it is seeing him more and more — it is going from star to star, and from system to system, in this voyage of divine discovery. There is enough in God for all eternity; for all that there is in creatures, is in him by way of eminence. There are attributes of God, we may reasonably suppose, of which we have not even a conception, and in relation to which we are now in the condition of a man born blind, in relation to colours, or a man born deaf in relation to sounds. An animal with one sense (there are such) can know but little of nature; less, far less, in comparison, do we know of God. I suppose there are faculties absolutely latent in the human mind which are to reveal themselves in that new state, in the presence of objects now beyond their reach. It will not be a lesson of a day to expatiate on the divine nature. Duration nnist expand. Astronomy has
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revealed certain piiiary star?, as GG Oeti one of which revolves around the other in a period of several thousands of years. Conceive the uniting line, the radius of these two suns, as the hand that moves upon the celestial dial-plate. It has proceeded a revolution. Worlds may have perished during this hour of heaven; but the soul is still learning to know more of that infinite benignity which shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Some have rendered the text, “His mercy is for the coming age:” it is true. Then shall we see face to face, and know, even as also we are known; and this in regard to the mercy which has ransomed man. We shall better comprehend all the transaction of Gethsemane and (tIuIgotha, and look more nearly into the heart of God when the Man Christ Jesus, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, shall be the daysman and the interpreter. Then shall we know the privilege conferred on us, in that we are made immortal beings. Then shall we discover that this world has revealed but the beginning of his kindnesses unto mankind. Then shall the overflowing goodness of the Divinity display the true bliss of Him whose power is exerted in every direction to make his people happy. With no stinted hand will he cast abroad the greatness of his benign endowments on the family of redeemed ones, while each one of the palm-bearing multitude, pointing out to its sister spirit the now exalted cause of all this favour, shall ciy, “This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend.”