Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	faith_n	grace_n	repentance_n	2,335	5	7.5639	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44666	The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 / by John Howe ...	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1668 (1668)	Wing H3015; ESTC R19303	281,960	488

days good to them Surely they can never be happy in the best times that cannot be so in any Outward prosperity is quite besides the purpose to a distempered Soul when nothing else troubles it will torment it self Besides we cannot command at pleasure the benigne aspects of the world the smiles of the times we may wait a lifes time and still find the same adverse posture of things towards us from without What dotage is it to place our blessedness in something to us impossible that lies wholly out of our power nd in order whereto we have nothing to do but sit down and wish and either faintly hope or ragingly despair We cannot change times and seasons nor alter the course of the world create new Heavens and new Earth Would we not think our selves mock't if God should command us these things in order to our being happy 'T is not our business these are not the affairs of our own Province blessed be God 't is not so large further then as our bettering our selves may conduce thereto and this is that which we may do and ought 't is our proper work in obedience and subordination to God as his instruments to govern and cultivate our own spirits to intend the affairs of that his Kingdom in us where we are his Authoriz'd Vice-Royes that consists in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost We can be benigne to our selves if the world be not so to us cherish and adorn our inward man that though the outward man be exposed daily to perish which we cannot help and therefore it concerns us not to take thought about it the inward may be renewed day by day We can take care that our souls may prosper that through our o●citant neglect they be not left to languish and pine away in their own iniquities They may be daily fed with the Heavenly hidden Manna and with the Fruits of the Paradise of God they may enjoy at home a continual feast and with an holy freedom luxuriate in Divine Pleasures the joyes wherewith the strangers intermeddles not if we be not unpropitious and unkind to our selves And would we know wherein that sound and happy complexion of Spirit lies that hath so much of Heaven in it 'T is a present gradual participation of the Divine likeness It consists in being conformed to God 't is as the Moralists tells us If one would give a short compendious Module of it Such a temper of mind as becomes God or to give an account of it in his own words who prescribes it and who is himself the highest Pattern of this blessed Frame 'T is to be transformed in the renewing of our minds so as to be able to prove what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God That is experimentally to find it in our selves imprest and wrought into our own spirits so as to have the complacential rellish and savour of its Goodness Excellency and Pleasantness diffused thorow our souls Where remember this was written to such as were supposed Saints whence it must be understood of a continued progressive transformation a renewing of the inward man day by day as is the Apostles expression elsewhere 'T is a more perfect reception of the impress of God revealing himself in the Gospel the growth and tendency of the New Creature begotten unto the eternal blessedness towards its mature and most perfect state and stature in the fruition thereof And 't is this I am now pressing in as much as some account hath been already given according as we can now imperfectly guesse at it and spell it out what the constitution of the holy soul is in its glorified state when it perfectly partakes the Divine likeness that when we find in our selves any principles and first elements of that blessed frame we would endeavour the gradual improvement thereof and be making towards that perfection This therefore being our present work let it be remembred wherein that participated likeness of God hath been said to consist and labour now the nearest approach to that pitch and state Your measures must be taken from what is most perfect come now as near it as you can and as that Pagans advice is If yet thou art not Socrates however live as one that would fain be Socrates Though yet thou art not perfect live as one that aims at it and would be so Onely it must be considered that the conformity to God of our present state is in extent larger and more comprehensive then that of our future though it be unspeakably less perfect in degree For there is no Moral Excellency that we have any present knowledge of belonging to our glorified state which is not in some degree necessarily to be found in Saints on earth But there are some things which the exigency of our present state makes necessary to us here which will not be so in the state of glory Repentance Faith as it respects the Mediatour patience of injuries pity to the distressed c. These things and whatsoever else whose objects cease must be understood to cease with them In short here is requisite all that Moral good which concerns both our end and way there what concerns our end onely Yet is the whole compass of that gracious frame of spirit requisite in this our present state all comprehended in conformity to God Partly in as much as some of these graces which will cease hereafter in their exercise as not having objects to draw them forth into act have their pattern in some communicable Attributes of God which will cease also as to their denomination and exercise their objects then ceasing too as his patience towards sinners his mercy to the miserable Partly in as much as other of those graces now required in us though they correspond to nothing in God that is capable of the same name as Faith in a Saviour Repentance of sin which can have no place in God They yet answer to something in this nature that goes under other names and is the reason wherefore he requires such things in us He hath in his nature that faithfulness and All sufficient fulness that challenges our faith and that hatred of sin which challenges our repentance for it having been guilty of it His very nature obliges him to require those things from us the state of our case being considered So that the summe even of our present duty lies in receiving this entire impression of the Divine likeness in some part invariably and eternally necessary to us in some part necessary with respect to our present state And herein is our present blessedness also involved If therefore we have any design to better our condition in point of blessedness it must be our business to endeavour after a fuller participation of all that likeness in all the particulars it comprehends You can pitch your thoughts upon no part of it which hath not an evident direct tendency to the repose and rest

the Divine will and Law is that I mainly intend at present By such a necessity also they are excluded who by Gods rule according to which the supreme judgment must be managed shall be found unrighteous Those that come not up to the tearms of the Gospel Covenant never accepted the offers nor submitted to the commands of it And that hence consequently are unrelated to Christ and ununited to him no way capable of advantage by his most perfect and all-sufficient righteousness that alone fully answers all the ex●ctions and demands of the Covenant of Works and so who are at last found unrighteous by the Old Law and the New the Law both of the Creatour and Redeemer too There is the same necessity these should be excluded as that God should be just and true The word is gone forth of his mouth in righteousness and cannot return He did not d●lly with sinners when he settled those constitutions whence this necessity results He is not a man that he should lye nor the Son of m●n that he should repent An Heathen understood so much of the nature of God I have thought sometimes with much wonder of the stupid folly of unsanctified hearts they are even confounded in their own wishes and would have in order to their security they know not what Were the question faithfully put to the very heart of such a one what wouldest thou have done in order to thy eternal safety from divine wrath and vengeance would not the answer be O that God would recall those severe constitutions he hath made and not insist ●o strictly on what be hath required in the Gospel in order to the salvation on of sinners But foolish wretch dost thou know what thou sayst wouldst thou have God repeal the Gospel that thou mayest be the more secure in what a case art thou then Hast thou no hope if the Gospel stand in force what hope wilt thou have if it do not Must the hopes of all the world be ruin'd to establish thine and yet leave them involv'd in the common ruine too What but the Gospel gives the least hope to Apostate sinners There is now hope for thee in the Gospel promise if thou return to God Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon But take away the Gospel and where art thou Were it possible for thee to repent and become a new man what settles the connexion between Repentance and Salvation but the Gospel-promise Will the violated Law of works accept thy Repentance instead of Obedience Doth it not expresly preclude any such expectation Doth it give any ground to look for any thing but death after sin Thou must therefore flye to the Gospel or yield thy self lost and know it contains none but faithful and true sayings that have more stability in them than the foundations of heaven and earth Therefore expect nothing to be altered for thy sake The Gospel-constitution was settled long before thou wast born Thou com'st too late with thy Exceptions if thou hadst any against it Remember therefore this is one of the unalterable determinations of this Gospel without holiness thou shalt never see God or which amounts to the same thou canst not behold his face but in righteousness There is no word in all the Bible of more certain truth than this In this also how apt are sinners foolishly to intangle themselves The Gospel is true and to be believed till they meet with something that crosses them and goes against the hair and then they hope it is not so But vain man if once thou shake the truth of God what wilt thou stay thy self upon Is God true when he promises and is he not as true when he threatens if that be a true saying S●y to the righteous it shall be well with him is not that as much to be regarded wo to the wicked it shall be ill with him The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him Are not these of equal authority If thou hadst any reason to hope thou mayest be happy though thou never be righteous is there not as much reason to fear thou might'st be miserable though thou be since the one is as much against the slat express word of God as the other Let not thy love to sin betray thee out of all Religion and thy wits together Wherein wilt thou believe one upon the bare value of his word that will lie to thee in any thing Yea and as it is the same authority that is affronted in every command whence disobedience to one is a breach of all so is the same veracity denyed in every truth and the disbelief of one belies all and wilt thou believe him in any thing thou hast proclaimed a lier in every thing Therefore so little hast thou gained by disbelieving the divine revelation in this thing that thou hast brought thy self to this miserable Dilemma if the word of God be false thou hast no foundation of any Faith left thee if it be true it dooms thee to eternal banishment from his blessed face while thou remainest in thy unrighteousness It will not be thy advantage then to disbelieve this Gospel record but to consider it and take it to heart 't will prove never the lesse true at last for that thou wilt not believe it shall thy unbelief make the truth of God of none effect And if thou wouldest but reasonably consider the case methinks thou shouldest soon be convinc't Since thou acknowledgest as I suppose thee to do that there are two states of men in the other World a state of blessedness and a state of misery and two sorts of men in this World the righteous and the unrighteous Let thy reason and conscience now judge who shall be allotted to the one state and who to the other Sure if thou acknowledge a righteous Judge of all the world thou canst non think he will turn men promiscuously into Heaven or Hell at random without distinction Much less canst thou be so absurd and mad as to think all the unrighteous shall be saved and the righteous perish and then what is le●t thee to judge but that which I am now urging upon thee that when the righteous shall be admitted to the vision of Gods blessed face the unrighteous shall be driven forth into outer darkness It may be some here will be ready to say but to what purpose is all this they were of the same mind before and cannot think that any one would ever say the contrary Nor do I think so either but 't is one thing not to believe a conclusion to be true and another to prosess a contrary belief And one thing to believe a conclusion another to think we believe it Men often know not their own minds In practical matters 't is