“In the gospel, and work of redemption, we see a righteousness of that breadth that is able to cover the sins of millions of worlds; of that length that it reacheth to eternity, and no sin in God’s people can wear it out or nullify the virtue of it.
And those attributes which God accounts His greatest riches and greatest glory, (Rom. 9:23), even His mercy and free grace, which He intends most to exalt, never saw light till now.
The doctrine of salvation by Christ being the stage, wherein only it is represented, and elsewhere it is not to be seen, and upon it acts the greatest part, for all passages in it tend to this, to shew, as, that ‘by grace we are saved,’ (Eph. 2:5) and therefore, the whole work of salvation is called ‘mercy,’ (1 Peter 2:10) all God’s ways to His people are mercy, (Ps. 25:10), the whole plot and frame of it is made of mercy, and therefore the doctrine of the gospel is called grace, (Titus 2:10-11).
Mercy manageth the plot, gives all other attributes, as it were, their parts to act.
Mercy enters in at the beginning, acts the prologue in election.
And mercy, giving Christ, continues every part of it, sets all a-work, ends the whole in glory.”
–Thomas Goodwin, “The Glory of the Gospel,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2021), 4: 230-231.
