Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	call_v	lord_n	sinner_n	2,337	5	7.5568	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33454	Methodus Evangelica, or, The gospel method of Gods saving sinners by Jesus Christ practically explained in XII propositions / by Abraham Clifford ; to which is prefixed a preface by Dr. Manton, and Rich. Baxter.	Clifford, Abraham.; Manton, Thomas, 1620-1677.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1676 (1676)	Wing C4701; ESTC R23890	95,942	214

the ends for which it is intended For since it hath only the place of a means as was said if you give it all that sufficiency and honour that is of right due and belonging to it when I assert it sufficient to its designed end though I deny it to be sufficent to many other purposes for which it never was appointed As he that saith ●he mortgage given for his security is well able to discharge the debt for which 't is engaged acknowledgeth all that is proper to be said of it Nor would it be thought any disparagement this being granted neither to the owner or to the security given to say that 't is not sufficient to pay such other debts and bonds for the payment of which it never was nor ever was intended that it should be obliged And so much by way of answer to the first objection But secondly 2. As the method of Gods saving sinners by Covenant in the sense before expressed it no diminution or prejudice to the all-sufficiency of Christs satisfaction and righteousness duely explained and understood so neither is it as pretended any way destructive or opposite to the doctrine of free Grace rightly stated according to the rules of the Gospel There is indeed a Free Grace which some Men vainly fancy to themselves to which I confess this doctrine is diametrically opposite but not to that which we have recommended to us in and warranted by the Scriptures But that this may be the more clearly evidenced and made good these five things must here be done 1. We must in the first place rightly state the notion of Free Grace 2. We must duely distinguish betwixt causes and conditions 3. We must take notice of that order in which the blessings of the Covenant are dispensed and in what order the Conditions of it are to be applied for the obtaining of them 4. We must inquire into and inform our selves aright concerning the nature of Salvation and happiness and see how the duties of Christianity stand related to it 5. And lastly we must not forget by whose strength and assistance all our duties are performed 1. We must here rightly state the notion and limits of Free Grace For herein lies the great errour of the World and that from which also arise those many dangerous mistakes that are concerning it They have wild and strange and unbounded conceptions and ideas of Gods Free Grace in their minds and therefore no wonder that they give us so bad a Comment of it in their lives and conversations For God to accept of their good wishes and desires as they call them though their lives are still wicked and unreformed And to pardon Sinners that have worn out all their dayes in carnal delights and pleasures and manifest rebellion against God only upon their crying out in the last moment of their lives Lord have mercy on them and receive their Souls And to be so pitiful and compassionate to his Creatures as not to damn or destroy them because he hath made them And to give them Heaven and Happiness for the sake of Christ though they never truly believed in him or seriously minded Heaven all their dayes or regarded to please God and live in obedience to his Law And bestow eternal recompenses upon them Kingdoms and Crowns of Glory though they have sate still all their time and never worked in the vineyard or fought in the battle or run in the race that was set before them This is that which generally Men call by the name of the Free Grace of God and by which they hope to be saved as well as others as well as the best as they commonly speak But is this indeed the Grace of God That which he assumes to himself as his Glory and which he hath revealed to us in the Gospel as the foundation of our Faith To pardon and save such I confess even the most impenitent and unbelieving and impure Sinners in the world the very Heirs of wrath and Sons of perdition this I grant would be Grace and free Grace too Yea but where have we any warrant or encouragement from the word to believe that there is any such Grace in God or Jesus Christ whereby such sinners shall be saved And yet might those be owned for the legitimate and true born notions of free Grace which the wild imaginations of Men may at ●leasure create to themselves it were easy to give a more large and extensive description of it To proclaim liberty to the captives now in Hell that are weeping and wailing and blaspheming God because of their torments And the opening of the prison to the Devil and his Angels that are bound in chains reserved for the blackness of darkness for ever And to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to all the inhabitants of the earth that they all might be saved Jews and Turks and Pagans that none might perish tell me would not this be Grace and free too with an emphasis Yea but all Grace you see that we may f●ncy is not saving Grace Nor all that neither the Grace of God which we fondly imagine to be in God I have said all this to shew how much the generality of the world are mistaken in their conceptions of free Grace and what necessity there is to come to some stated and limited notions concerning it which must undoubtedly be such as may be worthy of God and suitable to the nature of a reasonable Creature Such as may be consistent with the infinite wisdom of God and holiness of his nature and truth and veracity of his word Such as may uphold the credit of his Laws and Government in the world and retain the Creature in his due subjection to and d●pendance upon his Maker Such also as may be agreeable to his Sons great design in dying and suffering for M●n which was to mend and reform the world and to make Men holy and righteous and conformable to God and not to encourage them to sin and wickedness by their hopes of mercy and impunity These boundaries and limitations must necessarily be supposed to all the dispensations of Gods free Grace to the Creature since for God to act otherwise which is not to be imagined would be both dishonourable to himself and contradictory to the undertaking of his Son in redeeming the world Where by the way wee see how greatly they are mistaken who ascribe this free Grace to God under a pretence of giving the more honour to him when in truth nothing can be said more unworthy of him Suppose the Magistrate should set forth a Proclamation wherein he declares it to be his Royal pleasure that all that have been guilty of any crime whatsoever Murderers and Traytors and Rebells the worst and vilest of malefactors should without distinction be pardoned and set at liberty though they never humbled themselves to him or reformed their lives or promised allegeance to his person and Government but still persisted in their

upon it to make it more clear and evident This is certain that whoever receives an estate by grant or Covenant from another he can have right to nothing more than what is therein by name expressed nor upon any other terms than those therein specified Nor any longer maintain his claim to it than those Conditions are done and performed by him So that if either he did not consent to and accept of the terms or not duely perform them when accepted he is no more de jure to be deemed the lawful possessor of it The case is thus here betwixt God and Man God makes a grant of pardon and acceptance and eternal life to sinners This grant is by Covenant This Covenant is with certain terms and conditions and these conditions they must be accepted and performed or else no right to any of the priviledges of this Covenant is conferred upon us For since we have here no right as was said but what is given us and since that right is expresly affixed to the personal performance of the conditions of the Covenant therein mentioned where there is no such performance there can be no right That this right is thus affixed to the personal performance of the Conditions of the Covenant is evident for we have no right but by promise 1 Joh. 2.25 This is the promise that he hath promised us even eternal life And therefore Believers are by the Author to the Hebrews called the heirs of promise Heb. 6.17.11.9 The promise then only gives us right to life yea but the promise is only made to the personal performance of these duties Acts 3.19 Repent ye and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the days of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Prov. 28.13 Who so confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall find mercy Rom. 10.9 10. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe with thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation Rom. 8.13 If ye through the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live Joh. 13.17 If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them And Matth. 7.21 not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven From all these Scriptures it evidently appears that the promise of mercy and pardon and life and blessedness the great benefits of the Covenant they are expresly made to the actual and personal performance of repentance and faith and sincere obedience which are the main duties and conditions of the same Covenant 'T is our personal performance therefore of the conditions of the Covenant that gives us a formal and personal right to the blessings of it and our non-performance only by which our right is forfeited T is that which gives us right Rev. 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the City Blessed are they who They that have eat and drunk in his presence and wrought miracles in his name No but they that do his will but why blessed Because they have right not only the favour and priviledge but right to the tree of life But what gave them this right Their subscribing and sealing and promising obedience to Jesus Christ No but their performing Covenants their keeping of his Commandments Therefore blessed are they that they may have right And this right since 't is founded in Grace and not in merit it may be humbly pleaded by Believers when their right to the promise is called in question or any accusations from the old Law brought in against them Through Grace they have been inabled to believe and repent c. And therefore they are freed from the curse and from condemnation And therefore the promise of pardon and life is theirs But because few are so well satisfied concerning their own sincerity as to be thereby enabled to make this Plea therefore the promises that are more absolute in this case are to be pleaded by them For as some promises are made to Grace the conditions of which being performed are the foundation of our assurance So there are other promises of Grace which are the immediate foundation of our encouragement to Faith and Prayer However the doubting Souls cannot alway plead their right because they question their own performances yet the sincere performance of the condition for all that gives an undoubted right and laies a good foundation for a legal plea and by such as are satisfied concerning their own sincerity may be pleaded against accusations from the Law and Justice without either asserting merit or retrenching the free Grace of God Since this right as was said ariseth from the gracious will and favour of God and not from our own desert or the intrinsick value of the duties we perform As suppose one to found a School or Hospital and to endow it with rich revenews and priviledges but with this condition that they upon whom 't is setled shall once or twice every year pay by way of acknowledgment some few pence or half pence to one of his own name that the memory of his name might be preserved and they constantly be made to acknowledge from whom they received so liberal a donation In this case as his making this the condition upon which they hold it shall not render it to be no act of Charity or blot out his name from amongst their Benefactors So neither shall their pleading that this acknowledgment if called in question hath accordingly been made and the conditions of the grant been constantly performed the pleading this I say shall not be deemed either any detraction from the freeness of the gift or a pleading of your own desert only an humble asserting of their own right which was by grant conferred upon them But as our actual performance of the conditions of the Covenant gives us an undoubted right because founded upon the faithfulness of God to all the priviledges of the Covenant so consequently on the contrary the non-performance of them must needs null our right and cast us out of possession and actually expose us and make us liable to all that wrath and vengeance to all those woes and penalties that either this or the Old Covenant hath denounced For since it is attended with double guilt it shall also be rewarded with double punishment Heb. 10.29 Nor will it be sufficient in this case to plead that we have subscribed and sealed and promised performance to the Gospel Covenant no all this if it be not actually kept will serve for no other purpose but to witness our own unfaithfulness and to condemn us for being false to our own engagements You know what answer Christ returned to such as

as were most requisite for the People of Israel and the succeeding Generations to be acquainted with Besides 't is impossible that the particularities of all transactions for so many hundreds of years should all be recounted and summed up in so short an History as that of Genesis Yet this we find that the Sons of Adam immediately upon the giving out of this gracious promise offer Sacrifice to the Lord which is a sufficient testimony 1. Of their own guilt that they had sinned and deserved to dye acknowledged in the death of the Sacrifice 2. Of their Faith in a Messiah and expectation of salvation by his death and sufferings typified in those of the Beasts they offered For as the Apostle argues in his Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 10.4 'T is impossible that the Blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin And yet without shedding of blood he also tells us there is no remission chap. 9.22 and therefore by necessary consequence only by the blood of Jesus Christ which he also infers chap. 9. v. 10.14 3. Of their obedience and entire resignation of themselves to the Divine Will And in these three you have the substance of all that the Covenant requires on the Creatures part to be performed But what ever were the methods not particularly made known to us in which God treated the first Ages of the World yet so soon as ever he began to frame a peculiar People to himself and to make any inclosures wherein to plant an holy Seed he then more expresly engageth them to himself and makes them his by way of Covenant Thus he treats with Abraham Gen. 15.18 And afterwards with the Israelites the multiplyed Seed of Abraham Exod. 24. And because there were certain Shadows and temporal Appendices annext to this Covenant which were only suited to the infancy of the Church the present State of the Jews and therefore to be abolished at the appearance of the promised Messiah he further declares by his Prophets that when this should be done away he would yet make another Covenant with them and all his Saints comprehended under the name of Israel Jer. 31 32 33 c. Ezek. 34.25 and 37.26 which the Author to the Hebrews applies expresly to the Gospel times Heb. 10.16.8.9 10 11 12 13. As all our Mercies are purchased for us by the blood of Christ so they are given and conveighed to us only by the Covenant founded in his blood From first to last all 's by Covenant Doth he give Adam an earthly Paradise Abraham a blessed Seed Israel the Land of Canaan and the Saints in all ages a Crown and Kingdom of Life and Glory 't is still by Covenant Yea our very temporal Blessings become ours not by virtue of any absolute grant and donation but by a federal right 1 Tim. 4.8 And therefore 't is no good plea to argue thus Jesus Christ hath given full satisfaction to the Father and fulfilled all righteousness and purchased eternal life and glory and therefore there 's no doubt but our sins will be pardoned and our Souls saved No Whatever Jesus Christ hath done and suffered or purchased by either we for our parts can expect no more advantage by it than what the new Covenant makes over to us nor upon any other terms than what are therein propounded nor yet without presumption lay claim to any right or propriety in any of the benefits resulting from it unless we can first prove our selves to be within the Bond of the Covenant For though the satisfaction that Jesus Christ hath made be the foundation of our general hopes in God and incouragement in our addresses to him for mercy yet 't is the Covenant only that gives us interest and propriety PROPOS VIII Of the Nature of the New Covenant THIS New Covenant or Gospel Conveyance by which pardon of sin and eternal life the fruits of Christ's Purchase are dispensed to sinners 't is not a meer Will and Testament as some have imagined but in the true and proper sense of the word a formal Covenant By Covenant I mean a mutual agreement and stipulation betwixt God and the Creature whereby as he freely engageth himself to us to be our God i. e. to do us good and bless us and give us an everlasting happiness so we also on the other hand oblige our selves to God to be his People i. e. his Subjects to pay him as far as in us lyes that homage and observance which he requires of us that we may be partakers of the mercies promised This is properly a Covenant which will yet further appear when we come to speak of the terms of it But a Will or Testament is the act or instrument of some one single person whereby he gives according to the pleasure of his own will certain Boons and Legacies to some particular persons to be enjoyed after his decease without any stipulation made or required on their part in order to their having a right to or their receiving of them By this you see there 's a vast difference betwixt a Covenant and a Testament both in regard of the subject and terms and formal notion of both That 's the joint act of two or more This only of some one single person That stands upon certain terms and conditions to be performed This is at least may be absolute without any terms at all That is by mutual consent and stipulation This requires neither at least they are not necessary and essential to its Being No Goods or Lands we know are given at will and therefore called a Will without the consent of the Legatee thereto required nay many times without his knowledge And the Donations of the Testator however makes them his and gives him an undoubted right to them nay though he should despise them and ever after hate and revile the name of him that gave them But who will say that the great blessings of the Gospel pardon of sin and the favour of God and eternal happiness are thus dispensed to sinners That the Grant which God hath made of them is so wholly absolute as that it admits of no terms but that they may become ours without our knowledge or consent or professed willingness to accept them nay though we should hate and blaspheme that God that bequeathed them to us It 's true the Covenant it self was first framed by Divine Wisdom and Goodness before we had any intimations of it God did not ask the Creature whether he were willing that he should make a Covenant with him or how it should be made or what the terms should be No but being thus made and propounded to us we are now bound to give our own personal consents to the terms of it or else the blessings of this Covenant can never actually become ours I know no such Grant in Scripture made to any that whether they are willing or not to accept it and to promise obedience to their Maker he will yet remit their