Witsius:

1)

(2) When the produce which the earth, through the divine blessing, has yielded, is bestowed on individuals, and is possessed by them in their barns, in their houses, and at their tables. Those blessings are actually bestowed by God on individuals when they enjoy them, not as the bread of slothfulness, or of covetousness, or of deceit, or of robbery,–but when his providence enables them to obtain them by a just title. Those who possess them in any other way cannot be said to have them as a gift from God, bit as the fruits of wicked robbery. “The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou gives them their meat in due season. Thou opens thine hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing.”

(3) When he bestows all those things on believers, not from the ordinary love which he bears to mankind,¹ but from a Fatherly love which he regards them in Christ. When the smallest crumb of bread, or drop of cold water, is bestowed, it becomes inconceivably preferable to all the delicacies of the rich. When those things are enjoyed as the earnest of better and heavenly blessings, “a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked.” Herman Witsius, Dissertations on the Lord’s Prayer, (Escondido, California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1994), 278. [Some spelling modernized; footnote value modernized; footnote content original; and underlining mine.]

2)

XCV. Further, we should ascend by the creatures, as be an erect ladder, to God the Creator; who exhibits himself in them, not only to be seen, but also to be felt.²–whose glory the heavens declare,³ and to whom the brute animals of the earth, and the dumb fishes of the sea, bear witness, that they proceeded from his hand.⁴

XCVI. Nor is a general acknowledgment of this sufficient. But those perfections of God which he has brightly displayed in the work of creation, ought to be particularly observed:–that the infinite Power, at whose command all things rose into existence:–that unbounded Goodness, to which alone the creatures must own themselves entirely indebted for whatever portion of good is in them:–that unsearchable Wisdom, which has arranged every thing in so beautiful and order, that it appears no less admirable in the last than in the greatest works:–that amazing Philanthropy, in fine, which he has shown towards man, not only adorning his body by so exact a proportion of all its parts, which has beyond measure astonished Hippocrates and other anatomists; but also suspending his soul, as in the hidden vault of the temple, an image of himself and a representation of his own holiness; and at the same time, granting him dominion over the rest of the creatures. Herman Witsius, Dissertations on the Apostles’ Creed, (Escondido, California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1994), 224-225. [Some spelling modernized; footnote value modernized; footnote content original; and underlining mine.]

______________________

¹Philantropia

²Acts xvii. 27.

³Ps. xix.1.

⁴Job xii.9.

Turretin:

Thus when the Anthropomorphitœ asserts that the Deity is possessed of a human form, because the scripture speaks of his face, his eyes, his ears and arms; Natural Theology’, at once convinces us of the delusion, teaching us that God is a being absolutely perfect, and therefore must of consequence be immaterial. In like manner, when we meet with some Divines whose principle it is, that God has formed the greatest part of mankind in order to consign them to eternal misery, for the display of his own glory; this opinion of such Divines (they are called Supralapsarians) is most convincingly refuted, by appealing to our natural sentiments of the perfections of God, more particularly, his goodness, justice and wisdom.

The scripture itself frequently appeals to there natural perceptions we have of the attributes of the supreme Being, and points out to us their great importance and excellence. Thus in the place quoted above from the nineteenth psalm, and ill many others of the Psalms and Prophets, the greatness, wisdom, power and goodness of the Deity are demonstrated from his works Agreeable to this, Job xii. i, 8, 9. “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; or speak to the earth, &c., who knows not that in all these, the hand of the Lord has wrought this?”

John Alphonso Turretine, Dissertations on Natural Theology, trans., William Crawford, (Belfast: Printed by James MaGee, at the Bible and Crown, in Bridge-Street, 1777), 13-14. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

[Credit to Michael Lynch for the find.]

[Note: Not exactly bullet-proof, but interesting nonetheless.]

Hibbert:

Mercy, as it referred to God, is the Divine Essence inclining itself to pity and relieve all his creatures; but more peculiarly of his elect children, without respect of merit.

God’s most glorious mercy. “Show me thy Glory” (says Moses). It follows what it was, “The Lord God, merciful and glorious,” [Exod. 34.] &c. In this he is superlative, and outstrips.

1. Helping his elect, and comforting

1. General,

2. In scattering and confounding the enemies.

Mercy is,

1. In promising.

2. More particular,

2. In performing.

And these are the flagons of win to comfort distressed souls.

Mercy is an attribute, in the manifestation of which, as all our happiness consists so God takes greatest complacency, and delights in it above all his other words. “He punishes to the third and fourth generation, but shows mercy unto thousands” [Exod. 20. 5,8.]. Therefore the Jews have a saying, “That Michael flies with one wing, and Gabriel with two”; meaning, that the pacifying angel, the Minister of Mercy, lies swift; but the exterminating angel, the Messenger of wrath, is slow.

1. Because we are thereby more indebted

The more mercy we receive, the
more humble we ought to be,      2. In danger to be more sinful; worms crawl after rain

3. We have more to account for.

But alas! Even as the glorious sun, darting out of his illustrious beams, shines upon the stinking carrion , but still it remains a carrion, when the beams are gone; so the mercy of God shines (as I may say) upon the wicked, but he remains wicked.

For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting [Psal. 100.5.]. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies aare over all his works [Psal. 145.9.]. He delights in mercy [Micah 7.18.].

Henry Hibbert, Syntagma Theologicum: Or, a Treatise Wherein is Concisely Comprehended the Body of Divinity, and the Fundamentals of Religion Orderly Discussed, ([London: Printed by E.M. for John Clark 1662]), 11. [Some reformatting; marginal Latin reference not included; marginal Scripture references cited inline; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]