Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A25447
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Religio clerici
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T. A.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing A32; ESTC R200747
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38,573
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248
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a perfect Intelligence ranging at large in the infinite Abyss of immortal Light boundless Aboads of Angels There she will clearly discern the nature of her own Essence and Faculties by reflex Intuition on her self or else perhaps see the perfect Image of her self and of all things past present and to come to her infinite satisfaction in the glorious Mirrour of the Eternal Godhead Nor will she then owe her knowledge to the gross Communications of material objects through the weak conveyances of bodily sense I could in some fits of contemplative Melancholy fall asleep assoon in a Charnel-house as in my Bed-chamber and am often so weary of dull Life that my greatest delight is in such objects as speak most to its disadvantage The state and magnificence of a Tomb or Monument steals a secret wish from me to be Tenant to that quiet silent Pomp more than the sight of a sumptuous Palace to be Lord and Master there I know that I carry a Ghost always about me and that I my self am a walking Spirit This thought allays in me those vulgar fears of the haunts and visits of Spectres And as I am not at all afraid of my self unless when God le ts loose his terrours upon my Soul and my Conscience lashes me for my sins Job 18. 11. so I am very little apprehensive of Apparitions Nay more I could wish the Communications more frequent betwixt us and the Inhabitants of the upper world It would harden our Christian Courage familiarize to us the thoughts of Separation and create in us a passionate Love of that Country from the good report of these spiritual Spies making us say with courageous Caleb Let us go up and possess it Numb 13. 30. I could I thank God stare a reputed Witch full in the face with as little terrour as I look upon a sucking Infani and boldly retort the poysonous emissions of her malicious Eyes For in this I take Balaam at his word who without doubt had tried the Experiment that there is no Enchantment against Jacob neither is there any Divination against Israel Numb 23. 23. I pretend not by the Title of this small Treatise to any extraordinary Scheme or new draught of Religion for the Clergy much less would I be thought slily to suggest any neglect or deficiency of theirs in the practice of the Old I am very very well assured that Religio Clerici is a direct Tautologie and yet I detract no more from the Sanctimonious Worth of the Clergy by the conjunction of these two terms than I deny the Sun to be the Fountain of Light when I say Lumen Solis Only I could wish that we were all not only good and vertuous but eminently and in the last degree so too and that all the lesser Christian Luminaries might more and more derive Light from us I would have all the Wisdome and Vertue that ever appeared in the guise of true Reason in the world summ'd up and amassed in a Christian Priest especially in a daily sincere contempt of this world We should strive clearly to demonstrate the certain hope we have of Eternal Felicity after Death by being very careless if at all sensible of this Life And in this let us soar a pitch beyond the highest flights of the wisest Heathens and outdo in very fact their utmost Ideas and Hyperboles The excellent Speculations of some old Philosophers arose 't is true to a very great height and their refined Reason was exercised in most divine Contemplations But alas the better and purer their Notions were of Vertue and Sanctity they became so much the more impracticable to them and they fell short in the performance of their own Rules and Dictates The Cause of this natural inability and latent impotency of their Wills they were altogether strangers to and thô they knew in effect most Doctrines of Christian Morality yet having not the Faith of Jesus nor by consequence the assistance of God's particular Grace their knowledge was but of small import and significancy nor could it in the very best of them produce actions acceptable to God unless his secret infinite Mercy gave some gracious allowances for that natural corruption which they knew nothing of and which was cured but in a poor degree by universal Grace And this Notion I have framed to my self of the Heathens Morality enclines me to believe that our Wills derived from Adam's disobedience a depravity double to that of our Intellects for as we see by these Pagans their Understanding could excellently distinguish and were in the Serpent's words as Gods knowing good and evil yet were the Imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts always evil continually Gen. 6. 5. But we Christian Priests that have successively received all the gradual Communications of Divine Grace and Sanctifications of the blessed Spirit from the Font to the Ministry of the holy Altar are doubly obliged as we transcend the best of them in the sublime Mysteries of our Faith so to outstrip them in the most excellent practices of Evangelical Morality and not them only but all others also Non possumus perficere bonam actionem sine adjutorio Gratiae is rightly opposed to Pelagius nor is the proposition only notional for besides that our Saviour tells us without me ye can do nothing Joh. 15. 5. And St. Paul that 't is God which worketh in us both to will and do Philip. 2. 13. I have often observed in my own narrow oeconomy that the clearest Convictions of Reason and strongest Moral Resolutions have proved weak and of small force against the power of most sins especially against the violent assaults of a complexional Vice We may sin and resolve to the contrary and resolve and sin again in infinitum till with Jacob we wrastle with God Gen. 32. 26. as well as resist the Devil until by violent Prayer we take Heaven by force Matth. 11. 12. and draw down the assistance of Divine Grace all our other strongest and most vigorous Efforts will prove feeble and ineffectual The very Experience of this hath confuted Pelagianisme to me better than a thousand Syllogisms I have seldome gone to Bed in the days of loosest Vanity and before I was so happy as sincerely to espouse the Predicate much less had the honour to wear the subject of this Books title without Pythagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aur. Carm. My reason hath upon an impartial summing up that days Evidence made my own Conscience a severe Jury against me in pronouncing a perfect dislike and condemnation of such proceedings I have then made applications of as I thought strong resolves to observe its dictates for the future and this hath in some measure asswaged the smart of my minde then But alas my trial all this while being at the wrong Bar I could never obtain a true Pardon for old nor strength against new Lapses My Inclinations to sin have doubled upon me and when they felt the Curb of
Reason pinch them they began to be resty or as if a plain discovery had more and more hardned their countenances the Sensualities which they privately stole before they began now to act with remorseless Effronterie nay more they would mutter Arguments for their Justification also This indeed alarm'd me to the quick I examin'd my self immediately by the standard of the Sanctuary fell prostrate at the Throne of Grace and obtained Balm from Gilead to cure the Wounds of my repeated weaknesses And by this new method I felt more strength in a short time from a single but hearty Prayer Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil than from all the clearest and nicest reasons and perswasions of the Peripatum or Porticus Not but that these Ethicks together with a rational and impartial survey of ourselves may produce stronger and better effects in others than they did in me but we must not rely on the guidance and conviction of these alone to amend us lest we make no better advances than mere Ethnicks by the force of Free-will and conduct of humane Reason Common Moralities belonging not perhaps to the same species with Evangelical Graces but differing from them as much in essential Beauty as these do from the perfection of Angelical Obedience For I say once more my Opinion is that our Wills received a deeper tincture of corruption and a far larger Dose of Depravity from Adam's Fall than the Intellectual Faculty forasmuch as we finde the former strongly averse to observe and practise those Doctrines which the Religion of Jesus teaches and which some Heathens had a rough draught of from Natural Reason I mean the Theorems of Morality and that in no mean measure neither for excepting such revealed Mysteries as have a peculiar relation to the incomprehensible Theanthropy What sublime Doctrine of Christian Philosophy have they not hinted Even so far as to the forgiving and loving their Enemies But yet I cannot believe that their actions were in a suitable degree correspondent to their Principles nor did their practices make advances equal to their Speculations and Theorick Knowledge Why should any man therefore vainly rely upon that pretended mighty thing the natural strength of Free-Will Let us Christians rather exclaim Non nobis Domine non nobis c. If it were possible to encline me to the Predestinarian Opinion the urging the ninth Chapter to the Romans would not work half so much upon me as our Lord and Saviour's Answer to that Question Lord are there few that are saved Strive saith he Luke 13. 24. to enter in at the strait gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able And truly when I consider the little sence and knowledge which most Christians to omit by ten times the greater part of mankinde have of the Divine Life how deeply the generality is immersed in the prejudices of Nature clouded with dull grosness of Intellect and inapprehensive Ignorance of the true state of Nature and the Methods and Conditions of their Redemption Slaves to Vices of Constitution or Habit diverted by necessary cares and worldly business intangled in almost unavoidable Injustices of Commerce and Traffique and wholly taken up with affairs of Natural or Political Life in a word led captive to sin by the Lusts of the Flesh the lusts of the Eye and Pride of Life 1 Joh. 2. 16. When too I observe the natural aversness of our Wills the many exact circumstances required to compleat a good action Bonum ex integrâ causâ malum ex quolibet defectu When I regard the way almost of all Flesh since Adam how senceless and careless of celestial business but above all when I think on the most incredible obstinacy had not God said it and prodigious perversness of the antient Jews under the palpable sense and ocular Convictions of Miracles and Judgments When I read Adam stumbled and fell amidst all the Rays of Divinity in Paradise that Peter with cowardly Perjury could deny his Master Mat. 26. 74. the known Son of God contrary to fair warning given him by his Lord and all his late bravadoes of Fidelity even to Death Mat. 26. 34 35. and more than all this contrary to his great and glorious Confession Mat. 16. 16. That wise Solomon sacrificed to the Devil althô he had seen God twice 1 King 11. 8 9. When I say I sum up all this together I wonder with deep adoration of God's Mercy that any one man is saved and snatcht from amongst the strong Entanglements of the World the Flesh and the Devil whose indefatigable temptations and sly Devices to entrap us I forgot to mention But again when I ponder the methods of God's gracious dealing with us in the infallible Revelations of his Will in his holy Word his passionate Expostulations and kinde Invitations by promises of Eternal Life and Felicity his disswasions from Sin by dreadful Threats of endless Misery all which in all other Cases are the first and most forcible Motives of humane Actions But above all when I reflect upon the stupendious Mystery of the Godhead's becoming Flesh for our Redemption the Ineffable Majesty grand import and significancy strong and comfortable Efficacy and the final End and Designe of that incomprehensible piece of Mercy together with the helps and comforts of the holy Sacraments those sure Conveiances of assisting Grace the inward workings of the Holy Spirit together with our own strong Convictions and the Panacaea of all desperate repeated Falls and Apostasies God's gracious acceptance of true though never so late Repentance considering I say all these 't is a Miracle to me how any Rational Man should finally miscarry to damnation much less that after all this the surplusage of number should still lye on the side of the castaways And I am more and more plunged and puzled in this point when I narrowly consider the Motives and Reasons of humane Actions and the true nature of Free-will The bare freedom of our Will hath certainly all reasons imaginable to ballance it on the side of Vertue and Piety it is not only cured of its natural corruption by Grace but the power of this Grace must be allowed to have the prevalency above the force of any temptation Rom. 5. 20 21. For 't is derogatory to our Saviour's Merits to imagine that we are still left to struggle with sin upon unequal oddes Their Notion of Will who suppose it a Faculty distinct from the Intellect I approve not of and to call it a blinde Power yet allow it liberty of Election is beyond my understanding to apprehend I rather understand the Will to be the last resolution of the Intellectual Faculty as it tends to action in exerting its power So that I think Intellectus practicus may include Will too well enough For what ever humane action proceeds from rational Volition is supposed more or less to have passed the deliberation of our Understanding that is the