Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29033
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Some motives and incentives to the love of God pathetically discours'd of, in a letter to a friend / by the Hon[ora]ble R.B., Esq.
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing B4032; ESTC R11830
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73,891
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200
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Dignifie it And for my part Lindamor though my Subject exacted of me the Praises I have endeavoured to ascribe to God yet I should have thought it requisiite rather to decline the Laws of Method than be reduced to derogate from what I would extoll if the Necessity of Detracting from God's Perfections were not equall to that of Mentioning them and if that Necessity were not as Glorious to God as greater Praises than we are able to ascribe him could be But Lindamor having thus done right to my Method though I could not to my Theme I shall onely invite you to imitate with me those Persians that adored the Sun though the light he lent them serv'd but to make the source of it admired and not to pry into his abstruse Essence with it And though I might say much more concerning God's Perfections I must henceforth think Silence the properest Language I can now employ for 't is Silence that best expresses our wonder and sure wonder is never more seasonable then when God is the Object A prostrate Veneration being the safest Apprehension of Him that is Incomprehensible Having thus considered Lindamor how fit an Object God is § 13 of our highest Love for what he is in Himself Let us now proceed to derive further proofs of the same I ruth from what he is to Us that your Gratitude may contend with your Reason which shall more heighten your Devotion and we shall find in the Vastnesse Freenesse Dis-interestnesse Constancy and Advantagiousnesse of his Love to us that more than All the Love we can pay him were but a little Part of that we owe him But for the first Attribute we have assigned his Love the Greatnesse of it it being a Generall property diffused through all the rest and conspicuous in them it requires not to be treated of apart We shall then proceed to the Freenesse or unmeritednesse of God's love To believe which strangely vast we need but consider that we so little could at first Deserve his love that he lov'd us even before we had a beeing And our Felicity in his Decrees preceded our Existence in this world God lov'd you numerous ages before you were and his Goodnesse is so entirely its own Motive that even your Creation since when alone you can pretend to merit his love is the Effect of it This Benefit alone were sufficient to render God the Object of our Love though We were that of his Aversion For as the Persians ador'd the Sun even when it schorch'd them we esteem our selves obliged to Love and honour our Parents in spight of their being wicked and unkind though they be but God's Instruments in our Production and made us what we were born not Arbitrarily but in vertue of his Ordination But God to confer on us in the most excellent and endearing manner the blessing promised to his antient People when he vouchsafed to assure them Hos 14.4 that he would love them freely was pleased to love us not onely when we were not at all but when we were his Enemies If when we were enemies saith St. Rom. 5.10 Paul we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son c. Our inexistence indeed was a condition wherein nothing in us was capable of being a Motive of God's Love but our Enmity proceeded further and made us Worthy of his Detestation as if his Love were nothing unlesse it Vanquish'd Obstacles as well as Wanted Motives This gave the Apostle a just cause to say Rom. 5.8 that God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us That is when we wanted all Motives to invite his Love unlesse our very Want of them should passe for one And how did God expresse his Love unto us Even by the Gift of the Son of his love For God so loved the world Joh. 3.16 saies the divine Token of his Love that he gave his onely begotten Son And how did that Son love it He saies the Apostle being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equall with God but made himself of no reputation Phil. 2.6 7 8. and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likenesse of men And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse That is That he would love at no lesse Rate than Death and from the supereminent heighth of Glory stoopt and abas'd himself to the sufferance of the extreamest of Indignities and sunk himself to the bottom of Abjectednesse to exalt our condition to the contrary Extream Isa 53.5 He was wounded â—or our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed saies the Prophet For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 8.9 that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be made rich saies the Apostle Men having displeased God and consequently forfeited all right and Naturall Possibility to happinesse even whilst they compleated the Forlornnesse of their condition by the Lethargy of not being sensible of it and were as carelesse to seek means of recovery as they had been unable to devise them of themselves Even then his restlesse Love would never be at quiet till it had set his Omnipotence on work to contrive Expedients and find out a way to reconcile his Justice and his Mercy in reconciling Sinners to Himself And this mercifull Designe by the Incarnation of his Son he prosecuted in a way so Worthy of Himself so Advantagious to us that our just wonder at it may keep us from having any to find that as St. Peter informs us the very Angels prompted questionlesse by a Religious Curiosity ardently desire to look into those Divine Mysteries 1 Pet. 1.12 I find it hotly disputed amongst Divines not onely betwixt the Socinians and the Orthodox but betwixt Orthodox and Orthodox Whether or no God could without violating his Justice have devised any other Course for the Expiation of Sin than the Passion and Death of Christ But without venturing to Determine whether or no God Could to Redeem us have chosen any other way We may safely think that he Has chosen the most obliging and most endearing way displaying in this Divine Manner of rescuing us the severest Justice and the highest Mercy the greatest Hatred of Sin and the greatest Love to Sinners Since by those unequald ' unvaluable Sufferings to which he delivered up for us that Son who is so near unto him that he truly said I and the Father are one He at once manifested both how much he Hated Sin which he so heavily Punish'd in the Person he most Lov'd though that Surety but adopted it to free men from the Insupportable vengeance of it and How much he Lov'd Sinners by giving up what he