Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	forgive_v	sin_n	sinner_n	4,554	5	8.1858	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29103	The nature of that salvation, which the Gospel offereth, and the method of obtaining it, by a mediator a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, March the 6th, 1698/9, being the third, for this year, of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by Samuel Bradford ...	Bradford, Samuel, 1652-1731.	1699 (1699)	Wing B4116; ESTC R19719	15,399	36

sufteining the Character of a Mediator both with respect to God and Man I proceed now to consider more particularly the way in which our Saviour hath executed this Office according as the Gospel represents the matter and to evince that upon this account also This is a faithful Saying c. According to the account I have already given of the Office of a Mediator there must be these two general Designs which our Saviour must be suppos'd to have carried on in the Execution of it To do whatsoever might satisfie Almighty God in order to his being reconcil'd to fallen Men. And To do also whatsoever should be found necessary in behalf of fallen Men in order to the reconciling them to God To do whatsoever might satisfie Almighty God in order to his being reconcil'd to fallen Men. Almighty God both as he is a Being infinitely greater than his Creatures and as he was the Person offended ought first to be consider'd in the Mediation which was to be transacted and if any thing should be found necessary or highly expedient to be done in order to the giving him just Satisfaction in the case this in all reason should be a principal part of the Mediator's care Now as to this some perhaps might be apt to think that nothing more could be requisite towards the giving Satisfaction to God than the bringing the fallen Creature to Repentance and Amendment For what can in reason be expected from a weak and fallible Creature such as Man is who was drawn into Sin in the manner I have before express'd but that he should become throughly sensible of his folly and guilt humbly make his acknowledgments to his Creator and for the future endeavour to behave himself better And how can we suppose that a God of infinite Goodness should not take this as full Satisfaction from his Creature This by a first and superficial view of the case some men may be apt to imagine but if they would look more thorowly into it and consider the matter to the bottom they might easily see reason to alter their Judgments I readily allow that this is all that can be expected from the Sinner 't is all he can do on his part and a God of infinite goodness will no doubt approve of such his behaviour but notwithstanding all this there may be something farther necessary or at least highly fit to be done for the honor of Almighty God and which he may therefore determine shall be done for his Satisfaction before he will enter upon new Terms with his Apostate Creature For instance There are two of the divine Attributes to which more especially Honor ought to be done in this case namely the Holiness of God and his Justice as Governor of the World The Holiness of God The Epithet Holy is frequently annexed to the sacred Name of God in Scripture under which are comprehended all the Moral Perfections of the divine Nature particularly his entire love of goodness and his irreconcileable hatred of all Evil or Sin Hence he is said by the Prophet to be of purer Eyes than to behold evil Habak 1.13 and that he cannot look on iniquity He is frequently represented as hating sin Psal 5.4 5. and even the workers of iniquity for their works sake as being offended troubled and to speak after the manner of men Gen. 6.6 griev'd at his heart at the folly and wickedness of Mankind All which denotes although no passion in God nor ill-will to his Creatures of both which the Perfection of his Nature renders him uncapable yet a fixed contrariety and aversion in the divine Nature to all Moral Evil and on the contrary a full approbation of and inexpressible love to all Moral Good And Reason as well as Scripture assures us this must be so For if there be so much unworthiness baseness and deformity in Sin as I have shew'd in my former discourse if it be so opposite to the nature both of God and his Creature and the occasion of so much disorder and confusion in the whole Creation as I then observ'd it cannot possibly be otherwise than the object of the divine hatred and displeasure The better any Creature is the more he abhors an unhandsome a dishonest or a wicked action and the more he approves and takes pleasure in Virtue and Goodness of all kinds all which is nothing else but a faint Image of God in his Creature From the consideration of all this it will appear very reasonable that if a Mediator should interpose between God and Men he should provide for the honour of this divine Attribute he should take effectual care that the Holiness or Purity of God should be render'd conspicuous to all the World even in the manner of receiving his offending Creatures to Mercy and that the Method in which God should declare himself reconcileable to Sinners should be such as might consist with nay fully testifie and express his abhorrence of their sins Just as when a tender Parent determines to forgive his repenting Child he will chuse to do it in such a way as at the same time to discover his real displeasure upon account of the Offence he had given and that in some proportion to the nature and quality of the offence The Justice of God as Governor of the World was also to be regarded in this Case This Attribute is necessarily joyn'd with that before mention'd The supreme Lord and Governor of the Universe must from the purity of his Nature be just and righteous in his Government And therefore Abraham in his pleading with God for Sodom takes it for granted that the Judge of the World would do right and infers from thence that he would certainly distinguish between the Righteous and the Wicked Gen. 18.25 That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be far from thee Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right And as it is the part of a righteous Governor to make a difference between the righteous and the wicked so it is another effect of the same Righteousness in shewing Mercy to repenting Offenders to make them thorowly sensible of the heinousness of their Offence Thus earthly Princes are us'd to do and 't is esteem'd an instance of Justice in their proceedings and why should it not in like manner be a proper instance of Justice in the great Governor of Heaven and Earth especially where the Offence had so much of obliquity and malignity in it and so much disorder and mischief consequent upon it as in the Apostacy of Mankind The Multitude of Offenders still adds weight to this Consideration The whole race of Mankind being corrupted there was so much the greater necessity of their being made sensible of their Maker's displeasure lest they should have been encourag'd to go on in their rebellion by an easie indemnity lest from the silence

of God in this case they should have been so vain as to have thought him altogether such an one as themselves Halm 50.21 and because sentence against their evil works was not speedily or thorowly executed Eccles 8.11 their hearts should have been fully set in them to do evil And if we might be allow'd to add what we Christians take for granted as being assur'd of it by the Word of God Gen. 2.16 17. that God had given our first Parents a strict charge together with a special admonition and warning as to the instance in which they transgress'd adding a positive and severe threatning that in the day in which they transgress'd they should surely dye this still makes it more requisite that the Justice of God should be publickly vindicated before he should offer terms of Reconciliation and that if he should in Mercy forbear to execute the threatning in its utmost severity yet he should however make the Sinner thorowly sensible of his desert I might have added here that it was very fit that the Wisdom of God as well as his Justice in governing the World should be regarded by our Mediator it being evidently an instance of Wisdom in a Governor to render his Authority awful and venerable to his Subjects and never to appear so soft and easie as to pass by notorious disobedience without making some severe remarks upon it I might farther have observ'd that there was no way so likely to recover the Sinner to repentance as by thus manifesting the divine Purity Justice and Wisdom in order to the awakening in him a sense of his fault and his danger and the engaging him to take greater care for the time to come But this may come into consideration more properly in another place It may suffice here to have observ'd that it was very agreeable to the conceptions we have both of the divine Nature and our own that something should be done by our Mediator by way of satisfaction to Almighty God for the dishonor which had been done to his Attributes by the Apostacy of Men. What remains upon this Head is to shew that the particular Method which our Media or hath taken did eminently tend to these purposes 'T is true that all the Evils which have befallen the children of Men since their Apostacy from God have been so many expressions and testimonies of God's hatred of Sin and his love of Holiness as also of the Justice and Wisdom of his Government but upon serious and impartial consideration of our blessed Saviour's undertaking we shall be forc'd to confess that greater honor hath been given thereby to God than by all the Sufferings which any of the rest of the children of Men have undergone and that if we do but thorowly lay to heart what he so great and excellent a Person hath voluntarily done and suffer'd upon our account it will tend more effectually than any other Method we can think of to the making us sensible of the evil and danger of offending so holy and righteous a Being as God is For Our Mediator gave honor to these Attributes of God by asserting and publishing and explaining the Law of God which had been violated by Men I mean the great Law of Nature divided into two Tables requiring the Love of God and Man which as they were the two constitutive parts of the natural or moral so they are also of the Christian Law What our Lord declar'd over and above the meer Law of Nature namely concerning the Mercy of God in forgiving Sinners upon their Repentance and Faith in him was become necessary by reason of transgression and even in making Repentance and Faith the conditions of acceptance he hath in an eminent manner done right to God and his Law For Repentance implys an acknowledgment of our unworthiness in offending God by violating the Law he had given us and Faith in God through a Mediator implys our sense of guilt and need of Mercy But besides this our Lord did openly declare the Righteousness of the divine Law as first given to Man by explaining it fully and inculcating it afresh upon us and insisting upon the absolute necessity of a sincere Obedience to it even in this imperfect State in which we are not capable of yielding that which is absolutely perfect This appears by the Answer our Saviour gave to the Lawyer Matth. 22.37 38 39 40. telling him that the Love of God and our Neighbour were the two great Commandments of the Law and that these were indeed the Sum of the Law and the Prophets but especially by his admirable Discourse upon the Mount Mat. 5.17 c. wherein he vindicates the Natural or Moral Law of God from all the false Glosses which the Jewish Doctors had put upon it declaring the necessity of regarding even the least of its Precepts by those who hoped to partake of the Kingdom of Heaven expresly assuring them that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one way of doing which was by interpreting it in its fullest latitude and extent and finally that till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfill'd as much as to say that the reason of it is immutable and consequently the obligation everlasting But of this I may have occasion to discourse more at large when I come to consider what our Mediator hath done towards the relieving our necessities 't is enough in this place to have mention'd it as one instance whereby the righteousness of the divine Law was vindicated and consequently honor given to the Purity and Justice and Wisdom of God Our Mediator gave honor to these Attributes in complying strictly and fully with the Law of God in his own Person and thereby giving a complete instance of Obedience in that Nature which had transgress'd This was to vindicate the Law of God in a remarkable manner by shewing the agreeableness and fitness of it to humane Nature when the Son of God appearing in this Nature made it the Rule of his Life and thereby not only testified his approbation of it but also shew'd the capacity of humane Nature whilst innocent and untainted and attended with the Grace of God to comply perfectly with it This was in truth a glorious Triumph over Sin and Satan when our Nature assum'd by the Son of God appear'd in that instance like it self as it came out of God's hands perfectly pure and obedient and our Saviour might well say as he did John 17.4 when he was leaving the World Father I have glorified thee on Earth I have finish'd the work which thou gavest me to do He had done so both as Man and as our Mediator But of this also viz. the life of our blessed Saviour as it was an example for our imitation I shall have occasion to discourse hereafter and therefore do but just mention it here as