Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A23768
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A sermon preached at Hampton-court on the 29th of May, 1662 being the anniversary of His Sacred Majesty's most happy return / by Richard Allestry ...
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing A1164; ESTC R22785
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20,182
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53
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will make heaven there and although we be covered with the shadow of death if the light of his Countenance break in we are in glory and the brightness of that will soon damp and shine out the fiery trial But if the Lord depart then there is no redemption possible God hath forsaken him persecute him and take him for there is none to deliver him Psa. 71. 11. But if there were deliverance some other way yet the want of God's presence is an evil such as nothing in the whole world can make good the presence of an angel in his stead does not When the Lord said to Israel I will not go up in the midst of thee but I will send an Angel with thee and drive out the Amorite the Hittite c. yet when the people heard these evil tidings they mourned and no man did put on his Ornaments Exod. 33. 4. Nay more I shall not speak a contradiction if I shall say that the most intimate presence of the Godhead does not supply God's absence and such a small withdrawing of himself as may consist with being united hypostatically was too much for him to bear who was Immanuel when he complained God was not with him I mean our Saviour on the Cross. He who although he did beseech against his cup with fervencies that did breath out in heats of bloody sweat with agonies of prayer yet when he fell down under it did chearfully submit to it saying Not my will but thy will be done yet when God hides himself he does expostulate with him crying out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His God could no more forsake him then himself could be not himself and yet the apprehension of that which could not be was even insufferable to him to whom nothing could be insufferable He seems to feel a very contradiction while he but seems to feel the want of the Lord's presence Such is the sad importance of God's not being with us and this same instance tells us what drives him away 'T was sin that he withdrew from then Christ did but take on him our guilt and upon that the Lord forsook him God could no more endure to behold wickedness in him then the Sun could to see God suffer Iniquity eclips'd them both and sin did separate betwixt him and himself and made that person who was God cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And it will doe the same betwixt God and a people Isa. 59. 1 2. Behold the Lord's hand is not shortned that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear His face is clothed with light we know but when Wickedness over-spreads a people those deeds of darkness put out the light of his countenance His hand although it be not shortned yet it contracts and shuts it self not onely to grasp and withhold his mercies from them but to smite Iniquity builds such a wall of separation as does shut out omnipresence and makes him who is every where not be with such a people not be in hearing of their needs for when their sins do cry no prayers can be hearkned to he will not hear you saith the Prophet And that gives us the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lord's departure from a people and the manner of it He is taking away his peace and mercies from a Nation when he will hear no prayers for it and He declares that he will hear no prayers when he withdraws once from his house of prayer and makes his offices to cease The place appointed for these offices the Sanctuary he calls we know the tabernacle of meeting that is where he would meet his votaries and hear and bless them calls it his house his dwelling-place his court his presence and his throne and if so when he is not to be found in these when he no longer dwels nor meets in them we may be sure that he hath left the land The Psalmist when he does complain men had done evil in the Sanctuary the adversaries roared in the midst of the Congregations and set up their banners there for trophies they broke down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers and had defiled the dwelling places of God's name even to the ground and burnt up all the houses of God in the land he does suppose that God was then departed when they had left him no abiding place and therefore he cries out O God wherefore art thou absent from us so long Remember Sion where thou hast dwelt But 't is not only upon these Analogies I build this method of departure we shall finde exactly in Ezekiel's Vision of that case to which my Text referres it begins chap. 9. 3. And the glory of the God of Isreal i.e. the shining cloud the token of his presence in the Sanctuary went up from the Cherub whereupon he was to the threshold of the House as going out and then ver 8. he does refuse to be entreated for the land after that ch 10. 18. The glory went from off the threshold to the midst of the City and chap. 11. 23. it went from thence to the mountain without the City and so away And then nothing but desolation dwelt upon the land until the counsel of my Text was followed and they did seek the Lord their God for then the glory did return into the Sanctuary just as it went away as you may find it ch 43. And having seen when and how God forsakes a people and for what that does direct us how to seek him and it is thus When men forsake those paths in which they did not onely erre and goe astray but did walk contrary to God so that they did forsake each other and do return walk in his waies the waies of his Commandments and return also to his Church and seek him in his house fall low before his footstool begge of him to meet in his tabernacle renew his Worship and all invitations of him to return into his dwelling-place For sure as it is in vain to seek him but in his own waies nor can we hope to meet him but in his Tabernacle of meeting so also Scripture calls both these to seek the Lord and promises to both the finding him To the first Deut. 4. 29 30. If from thy tribulation thou shalt seek the Lord thy God thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient unto his voice And to the second Ier. 29. 12. speaking of this sad state to which my Text relates Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall go and pray unto me and I will hearken unto you and I will be found of you saith the Lord and
Kings that we might live in godliness and honesty and still they were the same who sought the Lord their God and David the King But why David their King for could his Kingdome disappear and be to seek of whom the Lord had said I have sworn once by my Holiness I will not fail David Psal. 89. And his Throne therefore was as sure as God is holy But yet the Lord had said to the people of Israel If ye doe wickedly ye shall be destroyed both you and your King There are other sins besides Rebellion and Treason that murder Kings and Governments Those that support their Ills by their dependencies and use great shadows for a shelter to rapacity oppression or licences or any crying wickedness these prove Traitors to Majesty and themselves strike at the root of that under which they took covert fell that and crush themselves National vices have all Treason in them and every combination in such sins is a Conspiracy If universal practice palliate them we do not see their stain it may be think them slight but their complexion is purple Common blood is not deep enough to colour them they die themselves in that that 's sacred Nay these do seem to spread contagion to God as if they would not let the Lord be holy nor suffer that to be which he swore by his holiness should be for the Psalmist cries out Where are thy old loving kindnesses which thou swarest unto David But sure some of God's oaths will stand if not those of his kindness those will by which he swears the ruine of such sinners and God that is holy will be sanctified in judgement upon them Yea upon more then the offenders for the guilty themselves are not a sacrifice equal to such piacular offences Innocent Majesty must bleed for them too If you doe wickedly you shall be destroy'd both you and your King Thus when God would remove Iudah out of his sight good Iosiah must fall and the same makes them be to seek David their King But how David their King when 't was Zorobabel for with Theophylact and others I conclude he must be meant in the first literal importance of the words It was the custome of most Nations from some great eminent Prince to name all the Succession so at once to suggest his Excellencies to his followers and to make his glory live Now without doubt David was Heroe enough for this and his valour alone sufficient to ground the like practice upon And though we do not find that done yet we do find his piety and his uprightness made the standard by which that of his Successors is meted Of one 't is said he walked in the waies of David his father of another he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not like unto David his father And because David went aside and was upright with an Exception once therefore it is said The Lord was with Iehoshaphat because he walkt in the first waies of his father David But besides this his very name is given to two Zorobabel and the Messiah both which were to be the restorers of their people the one from Sin and Hell to re-establish the Kingdome of heaven it self the other to deliver his people from Babel and to repair a broken Nation and demolish'd Temple And for this work God bids them seek David their King The waies from Babel to Ierusalem from the Confusion of a people to a City that is at unity in it self the City of God where he appears in perfect beauty and where the throne of the house of David is must be the first waies of David in those he walk'd to Sion and did invest his people in God's promises the whole land of Canaan In those Zorobabel brought them back to that land and Sion And in these our Messiah leads us to Mount Sion that is above to the celestial Ierusalem does build an universal Church and heaven it self And all that have the like to doe must walk in those first waies fulfill that part of David and must copy Christ. Such the repairers of great breaches must be these are the waies to settle Thrones the onely waies in which we may find the goodness of the Lord which to fear is the third direction and my last part They shall fear the Lord and his goodness 3. That Israel who came but now out of the furnace should fear the Lord whose wrath did kindle it whose justice they had found such a consuming fire as to make the Temple it self a Sacrifice and the whole Nation a burnt-offering is reasonable to expect but when his goodness had repair'd all this to require them to fear that does seem hard That that goodness which when it is once apprehended does commit a rape upon our faculties and being tasted melts the heart and causes dissolution of soul through swoons of complacency that this should be received with dread and trembling is most strange Indeed the Psalmist saies There is mercy with God that he may be feared for were there not we should grow desperate but how to fear those mercies is not easie 'T is true when God made his goodness pass before Moses shewed him the glory of it as he saies in those most comfortable attributes the sight of which is beatifick Vision Exod. 34. 6 c. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin if that which follows there be part of it forgiving sin and that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation if this be one ray of the glory of goodness if it dart out such beams alas 't is as devouring as the lake of fire his very goodness stabs whole successions at once and the guilty may tremble at it for themselves and their posterity But if those words doe mean as we translate those very words Ier. 46. 28. I will not leave thee altogether unpunish'd yet will not utterly cut off not make a full end of the guilty when I visit iniquities upon the children but will leave them a remnant still then there is nothing dreadful in it but those very visitations have kindness in them and his rod comforts and this issue of his goodness also is not terrible but lovely To fear God's goodness therefore is to revere it to entertain it with a pious astonishment acknowledging themselves unworthy of the crums of it especially not daring to provoke it by surfeting or by presuming on it or by abusing it to serve ill ends or any other then God sent it for those of piety and obedience not to comply with which is to defeat God's kindness and the designs of it If when they sought the Lord he was found of them and came to his dwelling-place onely to be