GoJ)el-Converfation. Youwill find a great deal of trouble in Lawing and fuing, and enmity one againh another, there will come a great deal of an- xiety, and therefore be reconcil'd and live like neighbors one with another : well, but whenyou find that your hearts do not (loop to any other argument, then get alone into your clofets, fearch the Scriptures, and there lay toyour hearts all the argu- ments that you can from the Gofpel ofJefus Chrif1, there fee how God recocil'd the world to Himfelf, and how God was fet upon the workofpeace : lay them toyour hearts, and when no other arguments will move,theconfideration of that through the blelüngofGodwill do it. And that's for the fecond Point. In the third place, The Gofjielholdsforth the inftnit mercy ofGod to miferablecreatures. When man was plunged into fuch a depth ofmifery nothing but bowels of mercy did move God to help men out ofthat depth of mifery that they were plunged into ; and though man was unworthy of mercy, Gods mercy was free, yea and it was a tranfcendent mercy ofGod, The mercy of God t over alibis works. The Heathens could underhand that Godwas a merciful God, the light of Nature will tell us forne- thing of the mercy of God ; but there's nothing that Pets out the bowelsofGods mercy to as the Gofpel ofJefus Ch riff doth, there you have thevery bowels ofGods mercy (indeed) made legible to all the world, in Luke, I.78. Through the tender mercy of our God, Whereby the day-ring from on high bath vited r The tender mercies of our God, the bowels ofmercy, fo the wordsare : here's the depth of the bowels ofmercy held forth in the Gofpel ofJefus Chrifl; its imponible that we could have underílood the depth of thofe bowelsofmercy but by the Go- fpel : Adam in innocency knew little of the mercy of God, for he not being in mifery, had no need of that mercy to help out of mifery, but though he by his underflanding mull needs know that mercy was a good thing, and therefore in God the Firh- being of all, but yet he did not underhand that mercy that the Gofpel hold forth, yea the Angels in Heaven know it not but by the Gofpel, and fo they delire to pry into thofe deep mercies of God unto man-kind ; Oh here are themercies of God that (hall be the fubjecq of the praifes of Angels and of the Saints to all eternity, held forth in the Gofpel: You think'us a great 69
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