ALL ABOUT MERCY.
Benedict XIII. decreed that when the German: Catholics met each other, they
should always give the following salutation, the one first speaking saying,
"Praised be Jesus Christ," the other responding, "For ever, amen," a
salutation fit for Protestants whenever they come together.
The word "mercy" is used in the Bible two hundred and fourteen times; it
seems to be the favorite word of all the Scriptures. Sometimes it glances
feebly upon us like dew in the starlight; then with bolder hand it seems to
build an arched bridge from one storm-cloud of trouble to another; and then
again it trickles like a fountain upon the thirst of the traveler.
The finest roads I ever saw are in Switzerland. They are built by the
government, and at very short intervals you come across water pouring out
of the rocks. The government provides cups for men and troughs for the
animals to drink out of. And our King has so arranged it that on the
highway we are traveling toward heaven, ever and anon there shall dash upon
us the clear, sweet water that flows from the eternal Rock. I propose to
tell you some things about God's mercy.
First, think of His pardoning mercy. The gospel finds us shipwrecked; the
wave beneath ready to swallow us, the storm above pelting us, our good
works foundered, there is no such thing as getting ashore unhelped. The
gospel finds us incarcerated; of all those who have been in thick dungeon
darkness, not one soul ever escaped by his own power. If a soul is
delivered at all, it is because some one on the outside shall shove the
bolt and swing open the door, and let the prisoner come out free.
The sin of the soul is not, as some would seem to think, just a little dust
on the knee or elbow that you can strike off in a moment and without any
especial damage to you. Sin has utterly discomfited us; it has ransacked
our entire nature; it has ruined us so completely that no human power can
ever reconstruct us; but through the darkness of our prison gloom and
through the storm there comes a voice from heaven, saying, "I will
abundantly pardon."
Then think of His restraining mercy. I do not believe that it is possible
for any man to tell his capacity for crime until he has been tested. There
have been men who denounced all kinds of frauds, who scorned all mean
transactions, who would have had you believe that it was impossible for
them ever to be tempted to dishonesty, and yet they may be owning to-day
the chief part of the stock in the Credit Mobilier.
There are men who once said they never could be tempted to intemperance.
They had no mercy on the drunkard. They despised any man who became a
victim of strong drink. Time passed on, and now they are the victims of the
bottle, so far gone in their dissipation that it is almost impossible that
they ever should be rescued.
So there have been those who were very hard on all kinds of impurity, and
who scoffed at unchastity, and who said that it was impossible that they
should ever be led astray; but to-night they are in the house whose gates
are the gates of hell! It is a very dangerous thing for a man to make a
boast and say, "Such and such a sin I never could be tempted to commit."
There are ten thousand hands of mercy holding us up; there are ten thousand
hands of mercy holding us back, or we would long ago have gone over the
precipice, and instead of sitting to-night in a Christian sanctuary, amid
the respected and the good, our song would have been that of the drunkard,
or we would be "hail fellows well met" with the renegade and the
profligate. Oh, the restraining mercy of God! Have you never celebrated it?
Have you never rejoiced in it?
Think also of His guiding mercy. You have sometimes been on a journey, and
come to where there were three roads--one ahead of you, one to the right
and one to the left. It was a lonely place, and you had no one of whom to
ask advice. You took the left-hand road, thinking that was the right one,
but before night you found out your mistake, and yet your horse was too
exhausted and you were too tired to retrace your steps, and the mistake you
made was an irretrievable mistake.
You come on in life, many a time, and find there are three or four or fifty
roads, and which one of the fifty to take you do not know. Let me say that
there are forty-nine chances out of fifty that you will take the wrong one,
unless God directs you, since it is a great deal easier to do that which is
wrong than that which is right, our nature being corrupt and depraved.
Blessed be God, we have a directory! As a man lost on the mountains takes
out his map and sees the right road marked down, and makes up his mind what
to do, so the Lord, in His gospel map, has said: "This is the way, walk ye
in it." Blessed be God for His guiding mercy!
Think also of the comforting mercy of God. In the days when men lived five
or six or seven hundred years, I suppose that troubles and misfortunes came
to them at very great intervals. Life did not go so fast. There were not so
many vicissitudes; there was not so much jostling. I suppose that now a
man in forty years will have as many vexations and annoyances and hardships
and trials and temptations as those antediluvians had in four hundred
years.
No one escapes. If you are not wounded in this side, you must be wounded in
that. There are foes all around about you. There is no one who has come up
to this moment without having been cleft of misfortunes, without having
been disappointed and vexed and outraged and trampled on.
The world comes and tries to solace us, but I think the most impotent thing
on earth is human comfort when there is no gospel mixed with it. It is a
sham and an insult to a wounded spirit--all the comfort that this world can
offer a man; but in his time of darkness and perplexity and bereavement and
persecution and affliction, Christ comes to him with the solace of His
Spirit, and He says: "Oh, thou tempted one, thou shalt not be tempted above
that thou art able." He tells the invalid, "There is a land where the
inhabitants never say, 'I am sick.'" He says to the assaulted one, "You are
no better than I am; they maltreated me, and the servant ought not to
expect to have it easier than his Lord."
He comes to the bereaved one and says: "I am the resurrection and the life;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." And if
the trouble be intricate, if there be so many prongs to it, so many horns
to it, so many hoofs to it, that he cannot take any of the other promises
and comforts of God's word to his soul, he can take that other promise made
for a man in the last emergency and when everything else fails: "All things
work together for good to those that love God." Oh, have you never sung of
the comforting mercy of God?
Think also of His enthroning mercy. Notwithstanding there are so many
comforts in Christ's gospel, I do not think that we could stand the assault
and rebuff of the world for ever. We all were so weary of the last war. It
seemed as if those four years were as long as any fifteen or twenty years
of our life. But how could we endure one hundred years, or five hundred
years, or a thousand years, of earthly assault? Methinks the spirit would
wear down under the constant chafing and the assault of the world.
Blessed be God, this story of grief and trouble and perplexity will come to
an end! There are twelve gates to heaven, and they are all gates of mercy.
There are paths coming into all those gates, and they are all paths of
mercy. There are bells that ring in the eternal towers, and they are all
chimes of mercy. There are mansions prepared for us in this good land when
we have done with the toils of earth, and all those mansions are mansions
of mercy. Can you not now strike upon your soul, saying, "Bless the Lord, O
my soul, for thy pardoning mercy, for thy restraining mercy, for thy
guiding mercy, for thy comforting mercy, for thy enthroning mercy!"