Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	father_n	sin_n	sinner_n	3,110	5	7.5131	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30200	The resurrection of the dead and eternall judgement, or, The truth of the resurrection of the bodies both of good and bad at the last day asserted and proved by Gods word : also, the manner and order of their coming forth of their graves, as also, with what bodies they do arise : together with a discourse of the last judgement, and the finall conclusion of the whole world / by John Bunyan.	Bunyan, John, 1628-1688.	1665 (1665)	Wing B5590; ESTC R34391	88,686	200

here much more then when we are with our Saviour our Jesus being passed from death to life John 5. 24. 1 John 4. 18. Secondly The Saints at this day shall have their hearts and Souls so wrapped up in the pleasure of God their Saviour that it shall be their delight to see all things though once never so near and dear unto them yet now to perish if not according to his word and will Thy will be done is to be always our Language here but to delight to see it done in all things though it tend never so much to the distruction of what we love to delight I say to see it done in the height and perfection of delight it will be when we come to Heaven or when the Lord shall come to judge the World Mat. 6. 10. But thirdly The sole end of the counting of the Saints at the day of God it will be not onely for the vindication of the righteousness holiness and purity of the Word neither will it center onely in the manifestation of the knowledg and heart-discerning nature of Christ though both these will be in it Revel 2. 22 23. But their very remembrances and sight of the sin and vanity that they have done while here it shall both set off and heighten the tender affections of their God unto them and also increase their joy and sweetness of Soul and clinging of heart to their God Saints while here are swee●ly sensible that the sense of sin and the assurance of pardon will make famous work in their poor hearts Ah what meltings without guilt what humility without casting down and what a sight of the creatures nothingness yet without fear will this sense of sin work in the Soul The sweetest frame the most heart-indearing frame that possibly a Christian can get into while in this World is to have a warm sight of sin and of a Saviour upon the heart at one time Now it weeps not for fear and through torment but by vertue of constraining grace and mercy and is at this very time so far off of disquietness of heart by reason of the fight of its wickedness that it is driven into an extasie by reason of the love and mercy that is mingled with the sense of sin in the Soul The heart never sees so much of the power of mercy as now nor of the vertue value and excellency of Christ in all his Offices as now and the Tongue so sweetly inlarged to proclaim and cry up grace as now now will Christ come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in them that believe 2 Thes. 1. 10 11. Wherefore though the Saints receive by Faith the forgiveness of sins in this life and so are passed from death to life yet again Christ Jesus and God his Father will have every one of these sins reckoned up again and brought fresh upon the stage in the day of Judgment that they may see and be sensible for ever what grace and mercy hath laid hold upon them And this I take to be the Reason of that remarkable saying of the Apostle Peter Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ who before was preached unto you whom the Heaven must receive till the restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the holy Prophets since the World began Acts 3. 19 20 21. If a sense of some sin for who sees all Psa. 19. 12. and a sight of the love of God will here so work upon the spirit of the godly What will a sight of all sin do when together with it they are personally present with their Lord and Saviour Yea if a sight of some sins with a possibility of pardon will make the heart love reverence and fear with guiltless and heart-affecting fears what will a general sight of all sin and together with them an eternall acquittance from them work on the heart of the Saint for ever Yea I say again if a sight of sin and the love of God will make such work in that Soul where yet there is unbelief blindness mistrust and forgetfulness what will a sight of sin do in that Soul who is swallowed up of love who is sinless and temptationless who hath all the faculties of Soul and Body strained by love and grace to the highest pin of perfection that is possible to be in glory injoyed and possessed O the wisdom and goodness of God that he at this day should so cast about the worst of our things even those that naturally tend to sink us and damnus for our great advantage All things that shall work together for good indeed to them that love God Rom. 8. 28. Those sins that brought a curse upon the whole World that spilt the heart-blood of our dearest Saviour and that laid his tender Soul under the flaming wrath of God shall by his wisdom and love tend to the exaltation of his Grace and the inflaming of our affections to him for ever and ever Revel 5. 9 10 11 12 13 14. 'T will not be thus with Devils 't will not be thus with Reprobates the saved onely have this priviledge peculiar to themselves wherefore to vary a little from the matter in hand will God make that use of sin even in our counting for it that shall in this manner work for our advantage why then let Saints also make that advantage of their sin as to glorifie God thereby which is to be done not by saying Let us do evill that good may come or let us sin that Grace may abound but by taking occasion by the sin that is past to set the Crown upon the Head of the Christ for our justification Continually looking upon it so as to press us to cleave close to the Lord Jesus to grace and mercy through him and to the keeping of us humble for ever under all his dispensations and cariages to us Now having counted for all their evil and confessed to Gods glory how they fell short and did not the truth in this or that or other particulars and having received their eternall acquittance from the Lord and Judg in the sight of both Angels and Saints forthwith the Lord Jesus will make inquiry into all the good and holy actions and deeds they did do in the World Now there shall all things be reckoned up from the very first good thing that was done by Adam or Abel to the last that will fall out to be done in the World The good of all the holy Prophets of all Apostles Pastors Teachers and helps in the Church here also will be brought forth and to light all the good Cariages of Masters of Families of Parents of Children of Servants of Neighbours or what ever good thing any man doth but to be general and short first here will be a recompence for all that have sincerely laboured in

also will those severall thoughts that have passed through mans heart be a witness also against him As he said before their Conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to the Gospel Rom. 2. 14 15. The thoughts come in as a witness for God against the sinner upon the account of that unsteddiness and variety that was in them both touching God and their own selves Sometimes the man thinks there is no God but that every thing hath its rise of it self or by chance or fortune The fool hath said in his heart there is no God Psal. 14. 1. Sometimes again they think there is a God but yet they think and imagine of him falsly Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self saith God but I will reprove thee Psal. 50. 21. Men think that because they can sin with delight that therefore God can let them esscape without punishment Nay oftentimes they think that God doth either quite forget their wickedness or else that he will be pleased with such satisfaction as they are pleased to give him even a few howling prayers fained and hypocritical tears and weepings which passe from them Hos. 7. 14. Mal. 2. 13. More for fear of the punishment of Hell-fire then because they have offended so holy so just and so glorious a God and so loving and so condescending a Jesus Sometimes again they have had right thoughts of something of God but not of him together either thinking so of his Justice as to drive them from him and also cause them to put him out of their mind Job 21. 14. or else so thinking of his mercy as that they quite forget his Holiness and Justice Now both these are but base thoughts of God and so erronious and sinful thoughts Sometimes also they have prety right thoughts of God both as to Justice and Mercy but then through the wretchedness of their unsatisfied nature they against this light and knowledge do with shut eyes and hardened hearts rush fiercely knowingly and willingly again into their sins and wickedness Heb. 6. 2 3 4. Heb. 10. 26. 2. Pet. 2. 20. Secondly As men have these various thoughts of God so also their thoughts are not steddy about themselves 1. Sometimes they think they are sinners and therefore they have need of mercy 2. Sometimes again they think they are righteous and so have not so much need mark and yet both alike rotten and base because as the last is altogether senseless so the first is not at all savingly senseable Mark 10. 17 18 19 20 21 22. Luk. 18. 11 12. 3. Sometime again they think they are Gods that they shall never die or that if they do die yet they shall never rise again or if they do rise again yet they shall be saved though they have lived vilely and in their sins all the dayes of their life Ezek. 28. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 Cor. 15. 12. Deut. 29. 18. 12. 20. Now I say every one of these thoughts with ten thousand more of the like nature will God bring in against the Rebels in the Judgment-day Which thoughts shall every one of them be brought forth in their distinct order He sheweth to man what is his thought And again I know that thou canst do every thing and that no thought can be hid from thee Amos 4. 13. Job 42. 2. We read that when the strangers at Jerusalem did but hear the Apostle speak to every one of them in their own Language how it amazed and confounded them Acts 2. 6 7 8. But I say how will they look and be amazed when God shall evidently clearly and fully speak out all their hearts and every thought they have had before them Now the reason and strength of this witness will lie here that God will by the variety and crossness that their thoughts had one to another and by the contradiction that was in them prove them sinners and ungodly because that I say sometimes they thought there was a God sometimes again they thought there was none Sometimes they thought that he was such a God and sometimes again they thought of him quite contrary Sometimes they thought he was worth regarding and sometimes they thought he was not As also sometimes they thought he would be faithful both to mercy and Justice and sinners and sometimes again they thought he would not What greater Argument now can there be to prove men vanity froth a lie sinners deluded by the Devil and such as had false apprehensions of God his waye● his Word his Justice his Holiness of themselves their sins and every action Now they will indeed appear a very lump of confusion a mass of sin a bundle of ignorance of Atheism of unbelief and of all things that should lay them obnoxious to the Judgments of God This will God I say by mustering up the thoughts of man and by shewing of them that every imagination and thought of their heart was onely evill and that continually by shewing of them what staggering drunken wild and uncomely thoughts they have had both of him and of themselves convince them cast them and condemn them for sinners and transgressors against the Book of Creatures the Book of his Remembrance and the Book of the Law By the variety of their thoughts they shall be proved unstable ignorant wandring Stars Clouds carryed with a Tempest without order or guidance and taken Captive of the Devil at his will Now while the wicked are thus standing upon their tryal and lives before the Judgement-Seat and that in the view of Heaven and Hell they I say hearing and seeing such dreadful things both written and witnessed against every one of them and that by such Books and such Witnesses as do not onely talk but testifie and that with the whole strength of truth against them they will then begin though poorly and without any advantage to plead for themselves which plea will be to this effect Lord we did find in the Scriptures that thou didst send a Saviour into the World to deliver us from these sins and miseries We heard this Saviour also published and openly profered to such poor sinners as we are Lord Lord we also made profession of this Saviour and were many of us frequenters of his holy Ordinances We have eat and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets Lord we have also some of us bin Preachers our selves we have prophecied in thy Name and in thy Name have we cast out Devils and done many wonderous works Nay Lord we did herd among thy People we forsook the profain and wicked World and carryed our shining Lamps before us in the face of all men Lord Lord open to us Mat. 7. 21 22 23. Luk. 13. 24 25 26 27. Mat. 25. 1 2. 10 11. And all the while they are thus pleading and