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	work_n	5,162	5	5.8565	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85440	A state of glory for spirits of just men upon dissolution, demonstrated. A sermon preached in Pauls Church Aug. 30. 1657. before the Rt. Honourable the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the City of London. / By Tho: Goodvvin, D.D. president of Magd. Coll. Oxon.	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1657 (1657)	Wing G1257; Thomason E928_2; ESTC R202319	40,336	72

the rest stands upon two strong Grounds First if we consider what is common to God in this with all other but ordinary wise Efficients or Workers that are intent upon their Ends which must be given to him the onely Wise All-powerful God who is here said as an Efficient to work us for this End When any ordinary Efficient hath brought his Work to a period and done as much to such or such an End as he means to do he delays not to accomplish his End and bring it to execution unless some over-powring impediment do lie in his way to it If you have bestowed long and great Cost upon any of your Children to fit and prepare them for any Imployment The University suppose or other Calling Do you then let these your Children lie Truants idle and asleep at home and not put them forth to that which you at first designed that their Education unto Will you suffer them in this case to lose their time Do you know how to do good to your Children and doth not God We see God doth thus in nature We say when the Matter is as fully prepared as ever it shall be that the form enters without delay Now Grace is expresly termed a preparation to Glory Also God doth observe this in working of Grace it self when the Soul is as fully humbled and emptied and thereby prepared for the Lord by John Baptists Ministry as he means to prepare it the Work of justifying Faith presently follows In all his Dispensations of Judgements or Mercies he observes the same When mens sins are at full as of the Amorites he stays not a moment to execute Judgement So in answering the Faith of his People waiting on him for Mercies And thus it is for Glory I have glorified thee on earth the onely place and condition of our glorifying God I have finished the work thou gavest me to do And now what now and presently now remained there follows glorifie me c. Thus spake Christ our Pattern Secondly there is this further falls out in this Case and Condition of such a Soul as doth indeed call for this out of a kinde of necessity and not of congruity onely For whereas by Gods Ordination there are two wayes of Communion with him and but two unto all Eternity either that of Faith which we have at present and of Sight which is for hereafter Into these two the Apostle resolves all Gods Dispensations to us ver. 7. of this Chapter We walk by faith namely in this life not by sight And again 1 Cor. 13. 12. Now we see in a glass Then face to face These two Now and Then do divide the Dispensations for Eternity of time to come The like in Peter 1 Epist. 1. 8. In whom though Now you see him not as you one day shall yet believing If therefore when the Soul goes out of the Body that way of communion with God by Faith utterly ceaseth (a) that door and passage will be quite shut up God having (b) fulfilled all the work of faith The work of God with power that ever he intendeth Then surely Sight must succeed according to Gods Ordination or otherwise this would inevitably follow That the Soul would be for that interim until the Resurrection cut off from all communion with God whatever having yet all its acquired holiness of Sanctification abiding in it and Righteousness accompanying of it all that while Look therefore as a Childe hath two and but two wayes of living and when the one ceaseth the other succeeds or Death would follow In the Womb it lives by nourishment from the Navel without so much as breathing at the mouth but it no sooner comes into the world but that former means is cut off and it liveth by breath and taking in nourishment by the mouth or it must instantly die So stands the case with the Soul here between Faith and Sight So that we must either affirm That the Soul dies to all spiritual actings and communion with God until the Resurrection which those Scriptures so much do contradict He that believeth hath eternal life c. and shall never no not for a moment die and in those Promises it is not simply a sluggish Immortality but to live and act and enjoy God which is our life must needs be meant Or we must on the other side affirm That the life of Faith ceasing and God yet having that way wrought all that ever he intendeth That then Sight of God face to face must come in its place which indeed the Apostle in that 1 Cor. 13. affirms in saying ver. 10. When that which is perfect is come then that which is but in part is done away There is not an utter ceasing of the imperfect and then an interval or long space of time to come between and then that which is perfect is to come but the imperfect is done away by the very coming of that which is thus perfect And in the 12th Verse he explains himself That the imperfect is this our seeing Now in a glass darkly that is by Faith and that perfect to be that seeing God face to face as that which presently entertains us in that other world Nay the Apostle admits not so much as a moment of cessation but sayes That the imperfect is done away v. 10. and vanisheth as v. 8. by the coming in of the perfect upon it and so the imperfect namely Faith is swallowed up of the perfect namely Sight Now if we thus grant as we must this separate Soul to have this sight or nothing now left it to enjoy God any way by Then it is no other than Glory it is admitted unto For the sight of God face to face and to know as we are known is the very essence of Glory as it differs from Faith Neither indeed is that ultimate Enjoyment or happiness in God which Souls shall have after the Resurrection any other in Name or Thing than the sight of God as it is thus distinguished from Faith and therefore the soul is now admitted to the same enjoyment it shall be Then for Kind although it shall be then raised and intended unto far higher degrees of Perfection §. And for a Conclusion of this first Point that which follows in that place lately cited out of 1 Pet. 1. v. 9. Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls may as fitly serve for the confirmation of all these latter fore-going Notions as to any other sense Interpreters have affixed I am aware how these words Receiving the end of your faith the salvation of your souls are interpreted of that joy unspeakable and full of glory which the Verse afore had spoken of In whom though Now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory so as in those joyes vouchsafed the Saints are said to receive the salvation of their souls as being the earnest of it in the same kind