Thomas Watson · 16 of 31

15. A discourse of mercifulness · Part 1

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Matthew 5:7

These verses, like the stairs of Solomon’s temple, cause our ascent to the holy of holies. We are now mounting up a step higher. ‘Blessed are the merciful . . ’. There was never more need to preach of mercifulness than in these unmerciful times wherein we live. It is reported in the life of Chrysostom that he preached much on this subject of mercifulness, and for his much pressing Christians to mercy, he was called of many, ‘the alms-preacher, or ‘the preacher for mercy’. Our times need many Chrysostoms.

‘Blessed are the merciful’. Mercy stands both in the van and rear of the text. In the beginning of the text it stands as a duty. In the end of the text it stands as a reward. The Hebrew word for ‘godly’ signifies ‘merciful’: the more godly, the more merciful. The doctrine I shall gather out of the words, which will comprehend and bring in the whole, is this:

That the merciful man is a blessed man; as there is a curse hangs over the head of the unmerciful man. ‘Let Satan stand at his right hand; when he shall be judged let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin; let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let strangers spoil his labour; let there be none to extend mercy to him. Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out’ (Psalm 109:69). Why, what is this crime? ‘Because he remembered not to show mercy’ (verse 16). See what a long vial full of the plagues of God is poured out upon the unmerciful man! So by the rule of contraries, the blessings of the Almighty crown and encompass the merciful man. ‘The merciful man is a blessed man’ (2 Samuel 22:26; Psalm 37:26; Psalm 41:1). For the illustrating this I shall show, first, what is meant by mercifulness; second, the several kinds of mercy.

1 What is meant by mercifulness? I answer, it is a melting disposition whereby we lay to heart the miseries of others and are ready on all occasions to be instrumental for their good.

How do mercy and love differ?

In some things they agree, in some things they differ, like waters that may have two different spring-heads, but meet in the stream. Love and mercy differ thus: love is more extensive. The diocese that love walks and visits in is larger. Mercy properly respects them that are miserable. Love is of a larger consideration. Love is like a friend that visits them that are well. Mercy is like a physician that visits only them that are sick. Again, love acts more out of affection. Mercy acts out of a principle of conscience. Mercy lends its help to another. Love gives its heart to another. Thus they differ, but love and mercy agree in this, they are both ready to do good offices. Both of them have soundings of bowels, and healing under their wings.

Whence does mercy spring?

Its spring-head rises higher than nature. Mercy taken in its full latitude proceeds from a work of grace in the heart. Naturally we are far enough from mercy. The sinner is a bramble, not a fig tree yielding sweet fruit. It is the character and sign of a natural man to be ‘unmerciful’ (Romans 1:31). A wicked man, like Jehoram, has ‘his bowels fallen out’ (2 Chronicles 21:19). Therefore he is compared to an adamant (Zechariah 7:12) because his heart does not melt in mercy. Before conversion the sinner is compared to a wolf for his savageness, to a lion for his fierceness (Isaiah 11:6), to a bee for his sting (Psalm 118:12), to an adder for his poison (Psalm 140:3). By nature we do not send forth oil, but poison; not the oil of mercifulness, but the poison of maliciousness.

Besides that inbred unmercifulness which is in us, there is something infused too by Satan. ‘The prince of the air works in men’ (Ephesians 2:2). He is a fierce spirit, therefore called ‘the Red Dragon’ (Revelation 12:3). And if he possesses men no wonder if they are implacable and without mercy. What mercy can be expected from hell? So that, if the heart be tuned into mercifulness, it is from the change that grace has made (Colossians 3:12). When the sun shines the ice melts. When the Sun of righteousness once shines with beams of grace upon the soul, then it melts in mercy and tenderness. You must first be a new man before a merciful man. You cannot help a member of Christ till you yourself are a member.

2 The several kinds of mercy, or how many ways a man may be said to be merciful. Mercy is a fountain that runs in five streams. We must be merciful to the souls, names, estates, offences, wants of others.

We must be merciful to the souls of others. This is a spiritual alms. Indeed soul-mercy is the chief of mercies. The soul is the most precious thing; it is a vessel of honour; it is a bud of eternity; it is a sparkle lighted by the breath of God; it is a rich diamond set in a ring of clay. The soul has the blood of God to redeem it, the image of God to beautify it. It being therefore of so high a descent, sprung from the Ancient of days, that mercy which is shown to the soul must needs be the greatest. This soul-mercy to others stands in four things.

1 In pitying them. If I weep, says Augustine, for that body from which the soul is departed, how should I weep for that soul from which God is departed? Had we seen that man in the gospel cutting himself with stones and fetching blood of himself it would have moved our pity (Mark 5:5). To see a sinner stabbing himself and having his hands imbrued in his own blood should cause relenting in our bowels. Our eye should affect our heart. God was angry with Edom because he ‘cast off all pity (Amos 1:11).

2 Soul-mercy is in advising and exhorting sinners. Tell them in what a sad condition they are, even ‘in the gall of bitterness’. Show them their danger. They tread upon the banks of the bottomless pit. If death gives them a jog they tumble in. And we must dip our words in honey; use all the mildness we can: ‘In meekness instructing those . . .’ (2 Timothy 2:25). Fire melts; ointment mollifies. Words of love may melt hard hearts into repentance. This is soul-mercy. God made a law that whosoever saw ‘his enemy’s ass lying under a burden, he should help him’ (Exodus 23:5). On which words, says Chrysostom, we will help a beast that is fallen under a burden; and shall we not extend relief to those who are fallen under a worse burden of sin?

3 Soul-mercy is in reproving refractory sinners. There is a cruel mercy when we see men go on in sin and we let them alone, and there is a merciful cruelty when we are sharp against men’s sins and will not let them go to hell quietly. ‘Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him’ (Leviticus 19:17). Fond pity is no better than cruelty. ‘Rebuke them sharply’, cuttingly (Titus 1:13). The surgeon cuts and lances the flesh, but it is in order to a cure. They are healing wounds. So by cutting reproof when we lance men’s consciences and let out the blood of sin, we exercise spiritual surgery. This is showing mercy. ‘Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire’ (Jude 23). If a man were in the fire, though you did hurt him a little in pulling him out, he would be thankful and take it as a kindness. Some men, when we tell them of sin say, ‘O this is bitterness’. No, it is showing mercy. If a man’s house were on fire, and another should see it and not tell him of it for fear of waking him, were not this cruelty? When we see others ’sleeping the sleep of death’ and the fire of God’s wrath ready to burn about their ears, and we are silent, is not this to be accessory to their death?

4 Soul-mercy is in praying for others. This is like physic used in a desperate case and often it recovers the sick patient. ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much’ (James 5:16). As it cures the sick body, so also the sin-sick soul. There is a story of one who gave his soul to the devil, who was saved through the prayers of Luther. When ‘Eutychus fell down from an high loft and was taken up dead, Paul fell on him’, that is, he effectually prayed over him and he prayed him alive (Acts 20:9-12). By sin the soul is fallen from an high loft, namely, a state of innocence. Now fervent prayer oftentimes fetcheth life in such a dead soul.

See what a blessed work the work of the ministry is! The preaching of the Word is nothing but showing mercy to souls. This is a mighty and glorious engine in the hand of the Lord of hosts for the beating down of the devil’s strongholds. The ministry of the Word not only brings light with it, but eye-salve, anointing the eyes to see that light. It is a sin-killing and soul-quickening ordinance. It is the ‘power of God to salvation’. What enemies are they to their own souls that oppugn the ministry! They say, the people that live ‘under the line’, curse the sun and are glad when the sun sets because of its burning heat. Foolish sinners curse the sun-rising of the ministry and are offended at the light of it because it comes near their sins and scorches their consciences, though in the end it saves their souls.

It reproves them that have no mercy to souls: evil magistrates; evil ministers.

Evil magistrates who either ‘take away the key of knowledge’ (Luke 11:52), or give a toleration to wickedness, suffering men to sin by a licence. The meaning of toleration is this, that if men will themselves to hell none shall stop them. Is not nature enough poisoned? Do not men sin fast enough, but must have such political engines as serve them up higher in wickedness? Must they have such favourable gales from the breath of great ones as serve to carry them full sail to the devil? This is far from soul-mercy. What an heavy reckoning will these ’statists’ have in the day of the Lord!

Evil ministers are such as have no bowels to the souls of their people. They do not pity them or pray for them. They seek not them but theirs. They preach not for love but lucre. Their care is more for tithes than souls. How can they be called spiritual fathers, who are without bowels? These are mercenaries, not ministers.

Such men feed not the souls of their people with solid truths. When Christ sent out his apostles, he gave them their text, and told them what they must preach, ‘Preach, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 10:7). Upon which place, says Luther, the ministers of Christ must preach ‘things that pertain to the kingdom of God’ — pardon of sin, sanctification, living by faith not otherwise, at the bidding of the church. They are unmerciful to souls who, instead of breaking the bread of life, fill their people’s heads with airy speculations and notions; who rather tickle the fancy than touch the conscience and give precious souls rather music than food.

Some there are who darken knowledge with words, and preach as if they were speaking in ‘an unknown tongue’. Some ministers love to soar aloft like the eagle and fly above their people’s capacities, endeavouring rather to be admired than understood. They are like some crabbed authors which cannot be read without a comment. Indeed God calls his ministers ‘ambassadors’ (2 Corinthians 5:20), but they must not be like those outlandish ambassadors that cannot be understood without an interpreter. It is unmercifulness to souls to preach so as not to be understood. Ministers should be stars to give light, not clouds to obscure the truth. Saint Paul was learned, yet plain. Clearness and perspicuity is the grace of speech. It is cruelty to souls when we go about to make easy things hard. This many are guilty of in our age, who go into the pulpit only to tie knots, and think it their glory to amuse the people. This savours more of pride than mercifulness.

Such there are, too, as see others going on in sin but do not tell them of it. When men declare their sin as Sodom, it is the minister’s duty to ‘lift up his voice like a trumpet and show the house of Jacob their sin’ (Isaiah 58:1). Zeal in the ministry is as proper as fire on the altar. He who lets another sin and holds his peace is a man-slayer. That sentinel deserves death who sees the enemy approaching, and gives not warning (Ezekiel 3:20).

Some ministers poison souls with error. How dangerous is the leprosy of the head! A frenzy is worse than a fever. What shall we say to such ministers as give poison to their people in a golden cup? Are not these unmerciful? Others there are (unworthy the name of ministers), itineraries, the devil’s journeymen, who ride up and down, and with Satan compass the earth to devour souls. It would pity one’s heart to see poor unstable creatures misled by rude and illiterate men, who diet the people with blasphemy and nonsense, and make them fitter for bedlam than the New Jerusalem. All these are unmerciful to souls.

Let me beseech all that fear God to show soul-mercy. Strengthen the weak; reduce the wandering; raise up them that are fallen. ‘He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death’ (James 5:20).

We must be merciful to the names of others. A good name is one of the greatest blessings upon earth. No chain of pearl so adorns as this. It being so, we ought to be very tender of names. They are to be accounted in an high degree unmerciful, who make no conscience of taking away the good names of their brethren. Their throats are open sepulchres to bury the fame and renown of men (Romans 3:13). It is a great cruelty to murder a man in his name. ‘The keepers of the walls took away my vail from me’ (Canticles 5:7). Some expositors interpret it of her honour and fame which covered her as a beautiful vail. The ground of this unmercifulness to names is

1 Pride. Pride is such a thing as cannot endure to be out-shined. It loves not to see itself exceeded in parts and eminency; therefore it will behead another in his good name that he may appear something lower. The proud man will be pulling down of others in their reputation, and so by their eclipse he thinks he shall shine the brighter. The breath of a proud man causes a blast or mildew upon fame.

2 Envy (1 Peter 2:1). An envious man maligns the dignity of another, therefore seeks to mischief him in his name. Religion teaches us to rejoice in the esteem and fame of others. ‘I thank my God for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world’; it is ‘divulged with fame’ (Romans 1:8). A good report is a credit to religion (Hebrews 11:2). If persons professing godliness do not have a good name, religion will not have a very good name, but envy consulting with the devil lays a train and fetches fire from hell to blow up the good name of another.

In how many ways may we be unmerciful to the names of others?

Divers ways. First, by mis-reporting them, a sin forbidden. ‘Thou shalt not raise a false report’ (Exodus 23:1). Eminency is commonly blasted by slander. ‘Their tongues are as arrows shot out’ (Psalm 64:3). The tongue of a slanderer shoots out words to wound the fame of another and make it bleed to death. The saints of God in all ages have met with unmerciful men who have fathered things upon them that they have not been guilty of. Surius, the Jesuit, reported of Luther that he learned his divinity of the Devil and that he died drunk; but Melanchthon, who wrote his life, affirms that he died in a most pious holy manner and made a most excellent prayer before his death. It was David’s complaint, ‘They laid to my charge things which I knew not’ (Psalm 35:11). The Greek word for ‘devil, signifies slanderer (1 Timothy 3:11). ‘Not slanderers’ — in the Greek it is ‘not devils’. Some think that it is no great maker to defame and traduce another, but know, this is to act the part of a devil. O how many unmerciful men are there, who indeed pass for Christians, but play the devil in venting their lies and calumnies! Wicked men in Scripture are called ‘dogs’ (Psalm 22:16). Slanderers are not like those dogs which licked Lazarus, sores to heal them, but like the dogs which ate Jezebel. They rend and tear the precious names of men. Valentinian the Emperor decreed that he who was openly convicted of this crime of slander should die for it. And Pope Gregory decreed that such a person should be excommunicate, and not have the communion given him. I think it was a just decree.

Second, we are unmerciful to the names of others when we receive a slander, and then report what we hear. ‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people’ (Leviticus 19:16). A good man is one that ‘doeth not evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour’ (Psalm 15:3). We must not only not raise a false report, but not take it up. To divulge a report before we speak with the party and know the truth of it is unmercifulness and cannot acquit itself of sin. The same word in the Hebrew, ‘to raise a slander’, signifies to receive it (Exodus 23:1). The receiver is even as bad as the thief. It is well if none of us have (in this sense) received stolen goods. When others have stolen away the good names of their brethren, have not we received these stolen goods? There would not be so many to broach false rumours, but that they see this liquor pleases other men’s taste.

Third, we deal unmercifully with the names of others when we diminish from their just worth and dignity; when we make more of their infirmities and less of their virtues. ‘Speak not evil one of another’ (James 4:11). I have read a story of one, Idor, an abbot, that he was never heard to speak evil of any man. Augustine could not endure that any should eclipse and lessen the fame of others, therefore he wrote those two verses upon his table:

Whoever loves another’s name to blast,

This table’s not for him; so let him fast.

Wicked men are still paring off the credit of their neighbours, and they make thick parings. They pare off all that is good. Nothing is left but the core, something that may tend to their disparagement. Unmerciful men know how to boil a quart to a pint. They have a devilish art so to extenuate and lessen the merit of others, that it is even boiled away to nothing. Some, though they have not the power of creation, yet they have the power of annihilation. They can sooner annihilate the good which is in others than imitate it.

Fourth, we are unmerciful to the names of others when we know them to be calumniated yet do not vindicate them. A man may sometimes as well wrong another by silence as slander. He who is merciful to his brother is an advocate to plead in his behalf when he is injuriously traduced. When the apostles, who were filled with the wine of the Spirit, were charged with drunkenness, Peter vindicated them openly (Acts 2:15). A merciful man will take the dead fly out of the box of ointment.

Fifth, they are in an high degree unmerciful to the names of others who ‘bear false witness against, them (Psalm 27:12). ‘Put not thy hand with the wicked to be a false witness’ (Exodus 23:1). ‘Putting the hand, is taking an oath falsely, as when a man puts his hand upon the book and swears to a lie. So Tostatus expounds it. This ‘false-witness’ is a two-edged sword. The party forsworn wounds another’s name and his own soul. A false witness is compared to a maul or hammer (Proverbs 25:18). It is true in this sense, because he is hardened in impudence he blushes at nothing and in unmercifulness. There is no softness in a maul or hammer, nor is there any relenting or bowels to be found in a false witness. In all these ways men are unmerciful to the names of others.

Let me persuade all Christians, as they make conscience of religion, so to show mercy to the names of others. Be very chary and tender of men’s good name.

Consider what a sin it is to defame any man. ‘Laying aside all envies and evil speakings’ (Titus 3:2; 1 Peter 2:1). Envy and evil speaking are put together: ‘laying aside’, ‘putting away’, as a man would put away a thing from him with indignation; as Paul shook off the viper (Acts 28:5).

Consider also the injuriousness of it. You, who take away the good name of another, wound him in that which is most dear to him. Better take away a man’s life than his name. By eclipsing his name you bury him alive. It is an irreparable injury; something will remain. A wound in the name is like a flaw in a diamond or a stain in azure, which will never die out. No physician can heal the wounds of the tongue.

God will require it at men’s hands. If idle words must be accountable for, shall not reproachful slanders? God will make inquisition one day as well for names as for blood. Let all this persuade to caution and circumspection. You would be loath to steal the goods of others. A man’s name is of more worth, and he that takes away the good name of another sins more than if he had taken the corn out of his field or the wares out of his shop.

Especially take heed of wounding the names of the godly. God has set a crown of honour on their head, and will you take it off? ‘Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ (Numbers 12:8). To defame the saints is no less than the defaming God himself, they having his picture drawn upon them and being members of Christ. Oh think how ill Christ will take this at your hand another day! It was under the old law a sin to defame a virgin, and what is it to calumniate Christ’s spouse? Are the names of the saints written in heaven, and will you blot them out upon earth? Be merciful to the names of others.

Be merciful to the estates of others. If a man be your debtor and providence has frowned upon him that he has not wherewithal to pay, do not crush him when he is sinking, but remit something of the rigour of the law. ‘Blessed are the merciful’. The wicked are compared to beasts of prey that live upon rapine and spoil. They do not care what mischief they do. ‘He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den; he doth catch the poor when he draweth him into his net’ (Psalm 10:9). Chrysostom says the drawing into the net is when the rich draw the poor into bonds, and in case of non-payment at the day, the bond being forfeited, seize upon all they have. It is not justice but cruelty, when others lie at our mercy, to be like that hardhearted creditor in the gospel who took his debtor by the throat saying, ‘Pay me what thou owest’ (Matthew 18:28). God made a law, ‘No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge, for he taketh a man’s life to pledge’ (Deuteronomy 24:6). If a man had lent another money, he must not take both his millstones for a pawn. He must show mercy and leave the man something to get a livelihood with. We should in this imitate God who in the midst of anger remembers mercy. God does not take the extremity of the law upon us, but when we have not to pay, if we confess the debt, he freely forgives (Proverbs 28:13; Matthew 18:27).

Not but that we may justly seek what is our own, but if others be brought low and submit, we ought in conscience to remit something of the debt. ‘Blessed are the merciful.’

We must be merciful to the offences of others. Be ready to show mercy to them which have injured you. Thus Stephen the proto-martyr, ‘He kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge’ (Acts 7:60). When he prayed for himself he stood, but when he came to pray for his enemies, he kneeled down, to show, says Bernard, his earnestness in prayer and how greatly he desired that God would forgive them. This is a rare kind of mercy. ‘It is a man’s glory to pass over a transgression’ (Proverbs 19:11). Mercy in forgiving injuries, as it is the touchstone, so the crown of Christianity. Bishop Cranmer was of a merciful disposition. If any who had wronged him came to desire a courtesy from him, he would do all that lay in his power for him, insomuch that it grew to a proverb: Do Cranmer an injury and he will be your friend as long as he lives. To ‘overcome evil with good’, and answer malice with mercy is truly heroic and renders religion glorious in the eyes of all. But I leave this and proceed.

We must be merciful to the wants of others. This the text chiefly intends. A good man does not, like the snake, twist within himself. His motion is direct, not circular. He is ever merciful and lendeth (Psalm 37:26). This merciful charity to the wants of others stands in three things.

1 A judicious consideration. ‘Blessed is he that considereth the poor’ (Psalm 41:1); and you must consider four things.

(i) It might have been your own case. You yourselves might have stood in need of another’s charity and then how welcome and refreshing would those streams have been to you!

(ii) Consider how sad a condition poverty is. Though Chrysostom calls poverty the highway to heaven, yet he that keeps this road will go weeping thither. Consider the poor; behold their tears, their sighs, their dying groans. Look upon the deep furrows made in their faces, and consider if there be not reason why you should scatter your seed of mercy in these furrows. ‘For a cloak he has a tattered vesture, for a couch a stone.’ The poor man feeds upon sorrow; he drinks tears’ (Psalm 80:5). Like Jacob, in a windy night he has the clouds for his canopy and a stone for his pillow.

Nay further, consider that oftentimes poverty becomes not only a cross but a snare. It exposes to much evil, which made Agur pray, ‘Give me not poverty’ (Proverbs 30:8). Want puts men upon indirect courses. The poor will venture their souls for money, which is like throwing diamonds at pear-trees. If the rich would wisely consider this, their alms might prevent much sin.

Consider why the wise God has suffered an inequality in the world. It is for this very reason, because he would have mercy exercised. If all were rich, there were no need of alms, nor could the merciful man have been so well known. If he that travelled to Jericho had not been wounded and left half dead, the good Samaritan who poured oil and wine into his wounds had not been known.

‘Had ilium stood, who’d known of Hector’s name’?

Consider how quickly the balance of providence may turn. We ourselves may be brought to poverty and then it will be no small comfort to us that we relieved others while we were in a capacity to do it. ‘Give a portion to seven and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth’ (Ecclesiastes 11:2). We cannot promise ourselves always halcyon days. God knows how soon many of us may change our pasture. The cup which now runs over with wine may be filled with the waters of Marah. ‘I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty’ (Ruth 1:21). How many have we seen like Bajazet and Belisarius invested with great lordships and possessions who have on a sudden brought their manor to a morsel?

‘Suddenly he becomes Irus, he who was formerly a Croesus for wealth.’