before he obtained
solid comfort." ORME: Life of Owen, Chap. I.]

[Footnote 3: WORDSWORTH: Laodamia.]

THE EXERCISE OF MERCY OPTIONAL WITH GOD.

ROMANS ix. 15.--"For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

This is a part of the description which God himself gave to Moses, of His
own nature and attributes. The Hebrew legislator had said to Jehovah: "I
beseech thee show me thy glory." He desired a clear understanding of the
character of that Great Being, under whose guidance he was commissioned
to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. God said to him in
reply: "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will
be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy."[1]

By this, God revealed to Moses, and through him to all mankind, the fact
that He is a merciful being, and directs attention to one particular
characteristic of mercy. While informing His servant, that He
is gracious and clement towards a penitent transgressor, He at the same
time teaches him that He is under no obligation, or necessity, to shew
mercy. Grace is not a debt. "I will have mercy on whom I _will_ have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I _will_ have compassion."

The apostle Paul quotes this declaration, to shut the mouth of him who
would set up a claim to salvation; who is too proud to beg for it,
and accept it as a free and unmerited favor from God. In so doing, he
endorses the sentiment. The inspiration of his Epistle corroborates that
of the Pentateuch, so that we have assurance made doubly sure, that this
is the correct enunciation of the nature of mercy. Let us look into this
hope-inspiring attribute of God, under the guidance of this text.

The great question that presses upon the human mind, from age to age, is
the inquiry: Is God a merciful Being, and will He show mercy? Living
as we do under the light of Revelation, we know little of the doubts and
fears that spontaneously rise in the guilty human soul, when it is left
solely to the light of nature to answer it. With the Bible in our hands,
and hearing the good news of Redemption from our earliest years, it seems
to be a matter of course that the Deity should pardon sin. Nay, a certain
class of men in Christendom seem to have come to the opinion that it is
more difficult to prove