Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	good_a	sin_n	sinner_n	3,410	5	7.5691	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96272	Two sermons one against adultery, the other of the nature, art, and issue of the Christian warfare : with a discourse shewing the consistency of God's infinite goodness with His foreknowledge of the fall of man / by Nathanael Whaley ...	Whaley, Nathanael, 1637?-1709.; Whaley, Nathanael, 1637?-1709. A discourse shewing the consistency of God's infinite goodness with His foreknowledge of the fall of man.	1698 (1698)	Wing W1533A; ESTC R43579	50,933	141

from the least Defect or Error in the Creation of Man But still some Persons are troubled to think that God should intrust Man with a Liberty of Choice when he was infallibly certain beforehand that he would abuse it and this they apprehend to be inconsistent with perfect Goodness But what Reason have they to think so And what is their meaning by this Objection Is it to blemish the History of Man's Creation or to clear the Goodness of God by denying his Prescience Do they mean to prove that God did not create Men or Angels and then leave them to their own Choice to stand or fall to be happy or miserable This they may be sure he did not if it was inconsistent with his Goodness and if it was not why are they troubled to think that he did do it Or would they prove that God did not foresee the consequence of creating a free Agent Let them first answer all the Arguments Affirmations and Predictions in Scripture which plainly prove that the free Thoughts and Actions of Men lie open and naked to the Prescience of God and then let them consider what they gain by excluding his Prescience Does it at all mend the matter to say that God made innumerable Creatures that would sin and be miserable but knew it not till it was too late to prevent it or can they seriously allow themselves to think that he laid the Foundations of the Earth and created Man upon it before ever he was master of his Design or was sure whether it would turn to account or not How could he make a Covenant with Abraham and his Seed for ever Gen. 18.18 19 and distinguish them from all the Families of the Earth if he did not foresee that his Children would keep the way of the Lord or that there would always be a Generation of Men in the World of the same Stamp and Integrity that would prefer the Worship and Service of the true God before the Pleasures of Sense and signalize their Faith as Abraham did by the Freedom and Ingenuity of their Obedience to him Let them I say impartially weigh the Consequences on both sides and they will clearly see that they bear as hard upon the Wisdom of God by denying his Prescience as they fear they should do upon his Goodness by asserting it Now to ease them of this Fear that God's Foreknowledge of the Fall of Man was no blemish to his creating Goodness will I doubt not sufficiently appear if they candidly consider these three things 1. That his Prescience had not the least Influence upon their Fall or Disobedience to him Our first Parents might have lived and been eternally happy upon the Stock of their original Virtues and Endowments and the Divine Favour reflected upon them had they used them as they ought and if they had done so God had never foreseen their Sin or Misery Neither did they sin because he foresaw they would but merely because they would sin and therefore they would have sinned whether he had foreseen what they would do or not and so their Fall could not in any respect be imputed to his Knowledge of it no more than the Death of those eighteen Persons upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell Luk. 13.4 was imputable to the Eye that beheld the Falling of that fatal Tower Now if the Prescience of God had no Influence upon the Apostacy of his Creatures his Goodness in creating them in a happy State could be never the less for his Knowing that they would abuse it 2. That his Foreknowledge of their Fall did not hinder him from using the most proper and likely means to prevent it When God made Man upright he gave him power to stand and and persevere in his Innocence and to secure improve and immortalize his Glory and Happiness and when he had done this he gave him a loud and timely warning of the great danger of Failing in his Obedience to him telling him that in the day of his Transgression he should surely die Gen. 2.17 And is not this a fair Representation of the Goodness of God in the utmost degree that became a wise a holy and a faithfull Creator Does not this plainly demonstrate that the making Man a free Agent was no Contrivance of his Creators to draw him into Sin or Misery And that his Prescience was so far from serving any such end that it took the most natural and proper course to prevent it admonisht him of his imminent Danger and foretold his dying day to be the same with that of his eating the forbidden Fruit Which certainly God had never done after he had put him into a way to live for ever if either he had not foreseen his Danger or was willing to connive at his Death and Misery But more than this 3. God's Foreknowledge of Man's Abuse of his Goodness was no real Disparagement to it because it was in his power to turn that Abuse to an excellent end and to take occasion by our Fall to manifest the Glory of his Attributes in a far higher degree than was possible merely by his act of Creation 'T is the glorious Prerogative of God to bring good out of evil which must have been concealed for ever if he had never suffered evil to have entred into the World The Glories of the Divine Wisdom Love and Goodness in the Redemption of Mankind the Glories of God's Patience Mercy and Justice towards the different Ranks and Degrees of Sinners do all depend upon his Permission of the Sins and Follies of Men and applying suitable Remedies to them and had never appeared upon the Theatre of this World if it had not been for the tragical Miscarriages of our first Parents The fall of Man was indeed a vast Unhappiness in it self but then it opened wonderfull Scenes of happy and surprizing Providences 1 Pet. 1.12 which the Angels of Heaven desire to look into and will be the Delight and Admiration of all good Men to Eternity Above all the Incarnation of the Son of God for which there would have been no occasion in a State of Innocence was a prodigious Demonstration of his unparallelled Love and Favour to the lapsed Race of Mankind a strangely proper and most powerfull means to reconcile the World unto himself to promote Holiness in several Instances and Virtue in several Kinds which could never have grown in Paradice and to advance the humane Nature far above the State and Dignity from which the first Adam fell For the Union of the humane Nature with the Divine is not only an Argument of the sincerest Love and good Will to Men but a most efficacious and transcendent Principle of the highest Perfection and Happiness that the Nature of Man is capable of It is certain the Recovery of Mankind required another kind of Dispensation than what was suitable to a State of Innocence and surely God would never have manifested himself in the Flesh or discovered

Restraint upon the Mind while it views the Danger that lies before it and since the greatest Danger lies in provoking infinite Justice arm'd with infinite Power the Fear of God who is invested with both and has threatned the Sinner with everlasting Destruction must while he is under the lively Impressions of it deaden all the force of Temptations and infallibly restrain him from closing with them And for this reason it is that God who is infinitely tender of our immortal Souls Rom 1.18 hath revealed his Wrath from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men and kindly threatned Destruction on purpose to preserve us from it it being greatly to be feared that the Promise of Heaven and everlasting Life would very hardly have made the best Men good if they had not been also quickned with the Fears of everlasting Perdition For 't is certain that in this guilty and degenerate State we are generally much more afraid of being miserable than ambitious to be truly happy Of which I think there needs no plainer Demonstration than this viz. that the Generality of Men even when they are grown weary of this World would be well contented to stay here in a tolerable condition to Eternity or when they die to vanish into nothing only to be eased of the danger of being everlastingly miserable Nay I doubt not but some good men of the lower Size in Religion that have but a moderate share of the Sorrows and Calamities of this Life would be were it left to their choice almost willing to resign their weak Hopes of Heaven for such infallible Securities against the dreadfull and eternal Torments of Hell And since the fear of endless Misery has taken so deep a root in humane Nature were our Minds duely Impregnated and kept awake with the Fear of God who is both able to save and destroy it is morally impossible but that it must prevail over all Temptations to incurr his Displeasure and effectually curb our wildest and most unruly Inclinations to any Lust or Vanity And hence is that excellent saying of the Wife-man Prov. 28.14 Psal 36.1 Happy is the Man that feareth elways i.e. that hath the Fear of God continually before his Eyes as a faithfull Watch or Sentinel to discover all Approaches of Danger and call in the Powers of Reason and Religion to his Defence against them No Motive indeed tho' never so powerfull in it self has any force upon us any longer than we apprehend our Concernment in it for which Reason an actual Apprehension of the evil of the Crime to which we are tempted is absolutely necessary to restrain us from it by awakening the Fear of God in our Minds And therefore when any Temptation is presented to us if we look only on the glossie side of it and think of nothing but the delicious Pleasure or Profit the Sin is varnisht or gilded with and are not aware the mean while that God has revealed his Wrath against it 't is evident that what ever we are at other times we are not now afraid of offending him and then his Fear can have no present effect upon us and so it is all one in the Issue as if we never had any true Reverence for him And this was it that made the great Difference between Joseph and David in the matter we have been treating of David had an habitual Fear of God and surely in as high a Degree as Joseph had But then there was this Disparity in his Case the Fear of God was not before his Eyes when he bath'd them in the naked Beauty of unguarded Bathsheba he did not like Joseph awaken himself into a vigorous Consideration of the great Wickedness of defiling Vriah's Bed He never argued thus to himself How can I harbour so impure a Thought and stain my Royal Purple with so foul and Action a Sin of a far deeper Dye Shall I thus offend Thus requite the good and mighty God who chang'd my homely Crook into a glorious Scepter and advanced me the youngest of Jesse's House over all the Sons of rejected Saul to the highest step of Imperial Honour next to himself in Power and Dignity and from those few sheep I kept in the Wilderness has made me Ruler over his beloved Israel Shall I thus provoke the Lord to Anger Am I stronger than he Had David thus awaken'd himself into an holy Awe of God and his Goodness he had surely beat off the Temptation that so easily foil'd him been innocent of both his presumptuous Sins and perfectly clear in the whole matter of Vriah And now having given you the true Character of Adultery and the Instructions left you by the young and pious Example in the Text I shall close all with a brief Application to two sorts of Persons 1. To such as are burden'd with the guilt of this heinous Crime who are to be admonisht that a Sin of so vast Malignity requires a very solemn piercing and unfeigned Repentance and that the conscious Eye and Impartial Justice of God are not to be deceived by any Forms or Flashes of a transient and impenitent Sorrow Consider then yours is a crying Sin To Heaven it cries for Vengeance and to you it calls aloud for the deepest Humiliation in Dust and Ashes the greatest Contrition of Mind and Spirit the utmost Satisfaction in your power to the injured Parties the freest and most abasing Confessions to Almighty God the sincerest Vows and Resolutions of a new and unspotted Life the strictest Covenant with your Eyes the strongest Guard upon all the Avenues of Lust and Wantonness and the nicest Care to avoid the very least Pollutions of the Flesh or Spirit together with a most passionate endeavour to rescue the poor Captives that are tied and bound with the Chain of your Sins and were by you betrayed into the Snare of the Devil What Rivers of Tears can wash away so deep a Stain What Piercings of Heart and Soul What Self-Condemnation and Abhorrence What lively Applications to the Merits of your Redeemer ought to accompany your fervent and constant Prayers for the Forgiveness of so great a Wickedness A Wickedness so great that the greatest Purity of Life is little enough to take off the Blemish of one single Act of it Psal 51.12 and restore the Joys of that blessed Hope of being meet at last for the glorious Inheritance of the Saints in Light And then into what a wretched Condition hath that man brought himself that has a long course of Fornications and Adulteries to answer for and is still to begin the whole Christian Race He had need I am sure to live the reverse of his Life apace I mean to spend the remainder in continual Acts of Mortification Devotion and Preparation for his dying hour in unravelling as far as he is able all the evil he has done and doing all the good which the Mercy and Patience of God his short time and unhappy Circumstances may

have left him opportunity for 'T is certain that God has pardon'd some very great and infamous Sinners but then they were great Penitents too And surely there is nothing more becoming such as have been very bad themselves than to attempt some generous and eminent thing towards the Reformation of a degenerate and adulterous Age something that may heal the Honour of Virtue that may help to appease the Anger of Heaven and to banish the Vices which they their Families and Country have dearly smarted for that the World may be once the better for them before they leave it and their good Actions may help to bury the Memory and I fection of their bad 2. Such as have not defiled themselves with carnal Lusts and particularly those that are young and tender of the Honour they owe their Bodies or are curious in their Washes and Dresses and love to appear orient and gay without the least Spot of Soil or Impurity ought to be extremely cautious of all Approaches to this notoriously shamefull and odious Vice 1 Cor. 6.18 Other Sins comparatively as the Apostle speaks are without the Body but he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own Body i.e. he deflowers the Purity of his excellent Nature he commits a Rape upon himself and so defiles his holy Profession 1 Thess 4.4 which is to preserve his Body as a sacred Vessel in Sanctification and Honour and to keep himself unspotted from the World And then what foolish and fulsome Hypocrisie were it to pretend to the minutest Decencies and profess the highest Degrees of Nuptial Sanctity and after all contract the indelible Stain and perfidiously embrace such a Dunghill Lust Take heed therefore of every impure and guilty Thought of all unchast Desires and Complacences lascivious Glances and Dalliances of all Immodesty in Word or Gesture with all other Incentives to gratifie the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts These besides their proper Guilt and Defilement are the common Anteludes by which the sly Tempter seeks to play you into the dreadfull Crime and then by shunning the Occasions of them you keep out of the road at least of vulgar Danger in the pure Aethereal way whither the unclean Spirit never or rarely presumes to come But suppose you were surprized by a rude and violent Temptation as Joseph or sad Lucretia was Lusts fiery Darts will not enter into a chast and undefiled Breast where there is nothing gross enough to catch or feed the Flame Prov. 4.23 Keep therefore thy Heart with all Diligence and if thine Eye chance to be struck with strange erratick Beauty call in the mighty powers of Faith and Reason arm your self with a Reverence of God's all-seeing eye Ps 139.3 which pierceth into all your Paths and is ever about your Bed call to mind your infinite Obligations to him and look on every Instigation of lustfull Appetite as a dangerous Approach to the flaming borders of Hell and Ruin where the Worm of Conscience dieth not and the Fire of Divine Wrath is not quenched Say now to thy self How can I do so false so foul an Action that have plighted my Faith and espoused my self by most solemn and religious Vows as a chast Virgin unto Christ as a Lover of the purest and holiest Jesus How can I hope to appear before him amongst those bright and spotless Souls Matth. 25.33 that have escaped the Pollutions that are in the World through Lust May he not justly set me with the Goats on his left hand in the great discriminating Day if here I should live like them in turpid and lawless Pleasures Should I stoop to this lewd Desire Whither oh whither shall I cause my shame to go How shall I behold the Face of God or Angels Is this to purifie my self as they are pure Shall I then for a moments Pleasure forfeit an immortal Crown and incur the eternal Anger of him whom at last I must obey when he bids me depart into everlasting Fire Shall I shew less reason in my Conduct be more brutish than any Man and run directly upon the Rock by whose fatal side I have lately seen the Ruins of so many tall and gallant Vessels so many brave and goodly Persons fearless and undaunted Men with desperate Numbers of the smaller Craft miserably lost and cast away for ever And for those few Adventurers that have hardly escapt with Life and Limb how have I seen them stalking about the Streets like Ghosts with Death and strange Remorse in their Faces Only more chang'd from what they were than Death usually alters a man from his living Form I will say but one thing more you have Life and Death before you consider the various Issues of a wise and foolish Choice declared by the everlasting Gospel which forbids you no innocent Pleasure Rom 8.13 If you live after the Flesh you shall die but if through the Spirit you mortifie the Deeds of the Body you shall live in ravishing and endless Joys in eternal Acts of unspotted and Seraphick Love in the Arms of him that loved you to the Death in the Beatific Vision and Fruition of God and the dearest Embraces of Virgin Spirits made perfect in Heaven To which God of his infinite Mercy guide us through the Snares and Fallacies of this evil World for the Merits of his Blessed Son Jesus Christ our Lord. A SERMON ON THE Christian Warfare S. James IV. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you 'T Is a peculiar Thought of a late conceited Philosopher who loved to quarrel with the best sense of Mankind that War is founded in Nature or a Right as he calls it in every man according to his power to seize on every Mans Possessions till he gives it away by Compact The plain and naked Meaning of which Assertion is That Power and Right are but one and the same thing in Nature That all the difference between them arises from positive Laws and Covenants That till such Laws and Covenants were made no man was bound to his good Behaviour to his Neighbour that to oppress ravish and murther were once fair and innocent Actions the harmless Effects of Power pursuant to that original Right which fond Nature gave the stronger to all the Delights and Possessions of the weaker But not to follow the Chace of this wild and impious Hypothesis we need go no farther than the Text to discover the great Incendiary of War and Contention and the first Cause and Author of all Disorder and Confusion in the World that is the Devil the common and inveterate Enemy of God and every Creature that bears his Image Him therefore S. James exhorts us to resist and least we should be daunted at the Fame of his mighty Conquests and the vast Destructions he hath every where wrought in the Earth to support us under this Discouragement the Divine Herald assures us that the Issue of our Conflicts with him will be safe and honourable