Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A46815
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Cain's mark and murder, K. Charls the I his martyrdom delivered in a sermon on January the thirtieth / by David Jenner, B.D. ...
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Jenner, David, d. 1691.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing J659; ESTC R16585
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20,487
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39
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as in him lay the stain of his Blood-guiltiness in the Tears of Godly sorrow of unfeigned Contrition and hearty Repentance It being an unexpressible Mercy to have a Moment of time to repent in and to sue for a pardon but God be praised this was Cain's good hap whereas many like Zimri and Cozbi are cut off by the Hand of Justice in the very Instant and Act of sin Thus far we have heard how this Mark concerned Cain's own person It follows that we enquire wherein it concerns us and All men The which it does In as much as it is a Mark of Caution and Warning unto all men that they do not presume to commit the same or any other sin St. Chrysos Hom. 19. in Gen 3. least God visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Third and Fourth Generation of them that hate him and that will not keep his Commandments And although Cain found Mercy yet it is a great question whether any who shall dare presumptuously to commit the like Transgression shall find the least Mercy and that because posteriorum peccata semper sunt graviora second sins are always the worst not only in their Nature but also in their dreadful consequences and effects 2. This was a Mark of Instruction unto others that they should not without special Commission from God and lawful Authority Kill any Man no though he were a Cain a Murtherer and this is St. Chrysostomes note on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Seeing all Vengeance belongs unto God and unto his Vice-Gerents i. e. the Higher Powers upon Earth it is not lawful for any private Man what ever to take upon him the Executing of the Law nor to Kill any Man though never so criminal without a particular Warrant from lawful Authority Non licere privato cuique vel paricidam occidere c. It being (a) Grot de jure belli pacis contrary to the very Law of Nature for one person-to Kill another though he be never so Peccant And although we read of private persons Killing of others as of Ehuds stabbing of Egglon and of Phine as his running thorow Zimri and Cozbi yet they either had a special command from God or were commissioned by Lawful Authority to do the same THE PARALLEL OR K. Charles the I. HIS MARTYRDOM HAving done with the Text and it s Context It is requisite that we make Application of the Premises as far as they concern the Solemnity of the Day And to this purpose we will briefly run The Parallel between them And consider That As in the Context We have an Holy and Innocent Abel who is in Sacred Writ styled The Beloved or Accepted of God as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Just and Righteous Man Heb. 11.4 So in the Day we have a Pious and Religious CHARLES the Etymologie of whose very Name if taken from the Latin and Hebrew speaks him to be Charus-El one Dear to and Beloved of God Or if taken from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one always wishing his People joy and happiness Or else from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that ever was the Grace and Glory of his People And which is infinitely more he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Anointed of God and represented the Divine Majesty it self And further that he was like Ahel also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Just and Righteous Man is evident in that rather than he would be unjust and unfaithful to his Trust he chose to exchange a Corruptible Crown on Earth for an Immarcessible One in Glory and rather than he would wound his own Conscience or wittingly wrong and injure his People by betraying their Rights and Priviledges he chose Death before Life and resolved to part with all the endearments of this Life though attended with never so great an affluence of Worldly Honor and Pleasure then to forfeit his Interest in Heaven And as in the Context Divine Providence declared that Virtue and Goodness being Caelitùs Natae Heaven born are no proper Inhabitants of this lower sinful World But Astraea like are Commissioned only for a while to View it and then to withdraw behind the Canopy being the proper place of their Residence was the glorious and highest Heavens And therefore God in order to the Exaltation of his Devout Servant Abel unto his promised Mansion of ever lasting kest did permit wicked and envious Cain to give him an Exit hence by treacherously and forcibly dislodging his Immortal Soul out of its Terrestrial and Fleshly Tabernacle So in the Day The All-wise God who superintends all Affairs and Transactions was pleased as on this Day to loosen the Reins of Government and to give Liberty unto Licentious Wicked Men Sons of Belial to vent their Spleen and Malice in Assassinating the Sacred Person of our Dread Soveraign King CHARLES the 1. who was too good to Associate any longer with sinful Mortals that so he might the sooner be Translated from these inferiour Regions of Sin and Misery unto a perfect state of endless Bliss and Happiness In the Text You have a Notorious and Aecursed Fratricide In the Day A most Malicious and Pernicious Regicide In the Former You have the true Cause of Abels Death and Murther to wit his hearty Devotion and sincere Piety towards God 1 John c. 3. v. 12. In this Latter You have the Chief if not the only occasion of King CHARLES his being so Barbarcusly and Cruelly Murdered to be His Pious and Heroick Resolution to maintain the True Protestant Religion in which he had been Educated and brought up which highly incensed the Papists As also his unalterable Resolution to preserve inviolably the wholsome Laws of the Realm together with the just Rights and Priviledges of the Episcopal-Protestant Church which hugely enflamed the Dissenters and made them miscall his firm Perseverance in true Virtue and Honesty a Stubborness of Will and a Pertinacious Obstinacy This was the prime Cause for which Jesuitical Papists and Deluded Furious Dissenters so unanimously Conspired the Ruin of that so excellent a Prince And therefore as Abel must die because he would not like Cain dissemble with nor be false to his Maker 1 John c. 3. v. 12. as St. John informs us in the fore-mentioned Epistle So must King CHARLES die not by the hand of Justice but of Treachery and all Because he would not be perjured in violating his Coronation Oath nor become Fedisragous and false to God and his Country And as faithful Abel would not to save his Life swerve from the Rule of Righteousness nor from the Rubrick of Gods Word and Command nor would he Innovate by offering up false Fire and Incense upon the Holy Altar nor would he present God with the Sacrifices of Fools but gave him the best of his Flock and did Worship him in Spirit and in Truth and did maintain the Orthodox Religion in its Power and Purity and for so doing both His Person and
proved to be notoriously wicked and enormous in their Actions and Conversations they then ought to undergo the Churches Censure in order to their Amendment And therefore as soon as Cain's Murther is Revealed and proved God out of Hatred and Indignation to that his Sin turns him out of his Favor and Churches Communion and all because Virtue and Vice Light and Darkness God and Belial may not cohabit and dwell together All care then is to be used for the preserving Gods Church pure and spotless without Wrinckle or Blemish For as God Almighty at the Judgment Day will make a Separation between the Sheep and the Goats So does he Authorize his Bishops Pastors and Governors of the Church Militant here upon Earth to Separate the Notoriously Bad from the Eminently Good As for Hypocrites and such Wicked Men whose Naughtiness cannot be discovered nor proved they being Masked over with an outward Profession and Form of Religion and so lying undiscovered must be tolerated in the Church for they are the Tares which will grow up with the wheat But as for all Cain's who are openly wicked whose Villanies may be read in their Fore-heads they are not to be permitted to enjoy so transcendent a Priviledge as Church Fellowship but ought to be presented in due Course of Law Secondly From hence we may be informed of the many Dangers Ghostly and Bodily all Excommunicated Persons are exposed unto Quantis in periculis versentur illi quà m expositi sint Satanae omnibus Malis Qui extra Ecclesiam sunt constituti c. A Wicked Man Excommunicated like Cain is from under the Protection and guard of Divine Providence he is exposed to Mens Malice to the Beasts cruelty and lies open to all the fiery Darts of Satans Temptations His Sin and Guilt subjects him to the vengeance and viols of Gods wrath and he may well fear that every Creature will take up Arms against him and become the Executioner of Gods Anger and so pay unto him the Wages of his sin which is Death and that which is worst of all he being Excommunicated Gods Church and Favor is given up unto a Reprobate Mind and unto all manner of Profaness as was Cain and his whole Generation But Secondly this Mark set on Cain was not only for a punishment to him as it denoted his rejectment and Excommunication out of Gods Church and Favor but also in that it was a perpetual Brand and Mark of Infamy and Ignominy set upon him on purpose to discover unto all Persons his foul fact his horrid Murther and Guilt Yea briefly it was as the Hand-writing on the wall or as the Finger of God Pointing out and declaring to the whole world This (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Cbrys Ho 19. in Gen 3. This is the Murtherer This is that cursed Cain who so maliciously slew his pious and innocent Brother Abel As this Mark of Cain's was for his punishment so likewise was it for a special Token and Sign of Gods clemency and Mercy towards him and that first in as much as it was a Mark of Preservation St. Chryl Tom. 3. in Psal 144. p. 5.20 c. and the assurance of a Long Life God might in his rigor and Justice have cut him off in the very Act of Sin but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfathomable is the depth of Gods love unconceivable is the immensity of his Clemency unsearchable are the Riches of his Mercies towards the Sons of Apostolized Man he saves a live when he might justly have kill'd and suffers them to tread upon his Earth whose heavy load of guilt and sin might well have pressed and sunked them down to the centre of it Such is the Superlativeness of Gods Benignity such are the yearnings of his Bowels of Compassion towards Guilty-Cain as that he does not only here in the Text Reprieve him from the sudden Execution of the Sentence of a speedy Death according to the Tenor of the Law made against Murther but bestowed also Long life upon him which was a Mercy so great as that 't is beyond conception and expression And that Cain lived long as the premises speak is an universal Tradition and the Sacred Scriptures those infallible Oracles of Truth assure us that he lived to see his Childrens Children it was a general opinion among the Jews that Cain lived unto the Seventh Generation to this purpose they read the words immediatly before our Text. Whosoever Slayeth Cain Vengeance shall be taken on him Seven-fold c. The Hebrews read them thus Whosoever Slayeth Cain at the Seventh Generation Vengeance shall take hold on him And thus they make the words prophetical of Cain's living unto the Seventh Generation and of his being Kill'd in that Generation and who ever should then Kill him should be severely punished The same Tradition makes Lamech to be Author of Cain's Death For whilest he was lying solitary in the Woods upon the Ground Lamech an Hunter mistaking him for a wild Beast Shot and killed him for which Fact Lamech's two Wives Adah and Zillah v. 23. of this Chapter would no longer live with him but endeavored a Divorcement from him he being a Murtherer Wherefore Lamech makes his just defence and vindicates himself and takes off their Accusation of Wilful Murther alledging that he slew the Man Cain against his will unawares otherwise he had not done it and therefore if God did permit Cain a willful and malicious Murtherer to live so long as to the Seventh Generation he did not question but God would suffer Lamech who had at the worst committed only Man-slaughter unawares by mere casualty to live not only unto seven but also unto Seven times seven Generations that is unto a far greater number of years then did Cain St. Chrysostome is of opinion that Lamech was a very good and just man St. Chrysost in Gen. 4. Hem. 10. and that because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. a good man is always the first accuser of himself For such an one was Lamech who as soon as ever he had accidentally Kill'd a man does not conceal it as did Cain but ingenuously Confesseth it and therefore if Cain sound mercy much more Lamech But to conclude this particular we will no longer traverse the above mentioned Tradition nor dispute its verity or falsity only this we are assured of scil That Cain lived long after the Commission of his detestable Fact and the Signature on his Fore-head was a confirmation and sealing of the lease of a Long Life to him all which was an undenyable Argument of Gods Goodness and Mercy towards him 2. This Mark was a Token of great Mercy in that God thereby did declare he would not only give Cain a longer time to live in but also a longer time to repent in For by thus delaying his Execution God primarily aimed at Teshuvah his sincere Repentance and conversion expecting that now he should redeem time expiate and wash out as much